Page 16 of The Cowboy Takes A Bride

She covered her face with the off-white linen and shook her head.

“If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be. This’ll be hard enough, I imagine, if you’d rather be somewhere else. I won’t keep you against your will.” Disappointment was present, not that he hadn't expected it, and Jace was ready to move on. Get back to the ranch.

She shook her head. “That’s not why I’m crying. I mean, yes, I'm scared to be here.” When she pulled in a deep, ragged breath, her delicate little shoulders shook.

“Are you willing to share why you’re crying?” He kept his voice low and easy, not urgent, but the truth was he wanted to snap at her, at Sabrina, or anyone.

“There’s too much. I feel….” She covered her chest with her hands. “I can’t even figure it out.”

“Let’s try it a different way. If you were to get married today, what would make you happy?”

She looked up at him, then brought the hankie to her nose, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d stopped breathing.

“I always pictured my mother being with me when I married. She would hand me my bouquet and give me last-minute advice,and maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone,” she whispered. One hand played with the hem of her skirt, folding it over her knee repeatedly.

Jace took that hand between his. “I’m very sorry. Rina told me she passed. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.” His gaze met hers, and Jace knew she needed their first common thread. “Pops, my father, is sick. ALS. You know what that is?” His voice cracked, emotion changing his normal baritone into a hoarse whisper.

She nodded. “I did a fundraiser for it once.”

“Watching him deteriorate eats me alive.” It was something he hadn’t dared speak of since he knew there would be no way to keep his voice from showing the depths of his sorrow, and he’d been right.

She snaked her fingers between his and squeezed. “I'm sorry.”

“He wants me settled before he dies.” He let the words hang between them. "Threatened to cut me out of my inheritance over this.”

“That’s why I’m here?” It was part question and part realization. “I wondered what could be so wrong with a man that he’d need to marry a stranger.”

Jace didn’t know whether to be insulted or not.

“I have a proposal.” Jace laughed. “No pun intended.”

Meredith's wobbly smile encouraged him to continue.

“I need a wife and you need what? To get on your feet? To hide?”

“An opportunity to start over.”

Jace wasn't precisely sure what that meant, but he could work with it. “How about we help each other out. You help me make a dying man happy, and I help you with that opportunity.”

She bit her lip before saying, “Continue.”

“Let's go through with this. At my place, you'll have the time and freedom to figure out whatever it is you need to figure out."

Something he'd said stirred a change in her. She sat up straighter, became more self-possessed.

“You would marry me to make your dad happy and then let me go when...?”

“Yeah, I would.” He didn't like fooling Pops, or Mom for that matter, but he wanted these last days with Pops to count. Hell, he'd marry a bear if it was what Pops wanted.

“Listen, I’ve known Rina for years. We went to college together, and she’s one of my closest friends. I don’t want to disappoint her, and I know she talks about forever and all that, but I want you to know if you aren’t happy here, you can leave. My only request is if you decide to stay, it’s for as long as my father is alive.”

“I have nowhere else I can go,” she said and started up again with the hiccups and sobs.

“No family?”

Following a slight shake of the head, she said, “None to speak of.”

Her response filled him with a thousand questions. Maybe it was because he was a man, and protection was an inherent trait, or maybe because he was a big brother. Not that he was thinking of Meredith as a little sister. He was ashamed to admit that even as she sat before him, he had to continue to avert his eyes from her legs. Her long slender calves begged to be stroked. Shoot, everything about her seemed to cry out for touch. But more than anything, he wanted to put his arm around her, tell her everything was going to be okay, and then make it so.

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