Page 11 of The Rancher's Cinderella Bride

When had Gabe changed to a “sexy hunk” from the friendly kid she grew up knowing? She hadn’t been around him in the past few years because they moved in different circles after school. She knew a lot of local ladies loved going out with him. She paid little attention when one of her friends talked about wanting to date him. Such conversations left her slightly amused at most. But his kiss wasn’t amusing. It was sexy enough to wrap around her heart and carry it away.

She punched her pillow behind her, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. “You may be my knight to the rescue, Gabe Callahan, but you’re going to be trouble,” she said in the dark, empty room. Moonlight spilled in the window. All she could see was Gabe’s blue eyes and his cocky smile. “About six feet, three inches of sexy male and you’ve already rocked my life. We’ll kiss, but I will not go to bed with you. I mean that,” she whispered, and sighed. She knew she’d better stick to that conviction if she wanted to get through this pretend engagement with her heart intact.

She sighed again, getting up and opening a bottom drawer to rummage through sweaters. She pulled out a raggedy brown bear and shook it. Gabe had given it to her on her ninth birthday. “Why didn’t he stay the way he was when he gave you to me?” she asked the bear. “A nice kid I had fun with instead of this sexy man who makes me want to keep kissing him all night.”

She hugged the bear that she had loved ever since receiving it, even taking it to college with her.

She went back to bed and sat cross-legged, putting the bear in front of her. “I will get through this engagement and Gabe and I will have fun like we always have. I will not go to bed with him and when the month is over—or hopefully, sooner—I will thank him, give him a big present and we’ll go our separate ways. I am not going to fall in love with him like one of his women he’s had an affair with.” She poked the brown bear with her finger. “I promise and you’re my witness.”

She’d bet anything that Gabe hadn’t even thought about their date or their kiss or anything else about her. He was probably wishing this month would zip on past. Either that or peacefully sleeping.

She’d asked him to take her somewhere fancy next time and told him she would look more like the women he usually dated. Right now, she was a million miles from that look, but wonders could be achieved with the right makeup, a new hairstyle and some knockout clothes.

She told herself that if she changed her look, more people would notice her, would see her with Gabe and believe their engagement.

Who was she kidding? She knew the real reason for wanting to change.

She was already annoyed with him for treating her as if she were a kid while she was having to fight an attraction to him. She’d make him see her as the grown woman she’d become.

After all, wouldn’t it serve him right if he had a little fight of his own to deal with?

Three

Late Saturday night after he was home, Gabe sent a brief text asking Meg to go to a dinner dance at the Downly Country Club in honor of its renovation. She sent a return text immediately, accepting his invitation.

He thought about their deal—a month-long fake engagement. Her request had surprised him. But it was her kiss that had stunned him, and from the wide-eyed look he had received, she had been as shocked as he had. He had never expected kissing Meg to be anything except sweet and he had been amused when he’d teased her about it beforehand. He’d expected his request to throw her into a quandary, that they’d have a sweet kiss and that would be all there was to it. He had never envisioned what had actually happened. Maybe he should have guessed because he’d had a sexual reaction to her at the ranch, but he’d never dreamed kissing her would be akin to a nuclear meltdown.

Her searing kiss had shifted their relationship forever. He would never again view her the same way he had before. With that kiss he wanted her in his bed.

His common sense rejected that possibility completely. She was still Meg, still his best friend, still Hank’s big sister. She was earnest, sweet, trustworthy, intelligent, and if she had a real relationship he was sure she would be into commitment and marriage. He suspected that had never really happened. They had lost touch through her college years and he didn’t know if she’d had boyfriends, but he would bet the ranch there was no guy in her bed on a regular basis at any point in time.

Meg was the type to equate love, kisses and bed with vows, marriage and home.

Regardless, the woman had caused him a sleepless night. She had him all wound up and wanting to hold and kiss her. That reaction still stunned him. He’d never thought about kissing her and never for one second expected any kind of positive reaction on his part. Now Meg’s steamy kiss was something he had to deal with in the coming month.

Just remembering her kiss could put him in a sweat. He wanted to pick up the phone and ask her out tomorrow night and seduce her. But that would make him a sneaking, dirty rat who could no longer be called her best friend, and he would feel like the jerk of the year if he didn’t propose to her. Neither outcome looked good.

He hadn’t imagined what he’d felt and it wasn’t because he hadn’t been out with a woman in a long time. And it wasn’t faulty memory. As impossible as it seemed, Meg was hot and sexy.

He had thought, as sweet as Meg was, this fake engagement might get tedious before a month was over. Now his worries had swung the other way. Now this fake engagement might be too tempting to resist seduction.

He didn’t like Justin and was happy to see that she wanted to break off seeing him. But now he could understand why Justin was all for this marriage of convenience.

Gabe groaned. “Damn, how will I get through a month with her?”

He thought he would plan to be out of town on business a lot of the time. A month wasn’t long. At least it wasn’t long until he thought it would mean thirty nights when he might be with her, kissing her, having to resist temptation. He put his head in his hands.

When he told her he would go along with the fake engagement, he hadn’t given a thought to kissing her. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Saturday night he needed to keep a clear head and not do anything he would regret later. He had to keep one thought paramount in his mind: Meg was the marrying kind, and if he ever took her into his bed, he’d have to marry her for real.

And that was the one thing that could never happen.

* * *

After a restless night, the last thing Meg needed was a day with her family. But the next day, after joining her family at church, she took a homemade peach cobbler to her parents’ house for Sunday dinner.

As they sat around the dining room table, eating slices of tender roast beef and mashed potatoes with brown gravy, the topic she was loath to hear came up.

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