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She tried not to think about how many nights in her youth she had dreamed about Chance Reilly, how many hours of those youthful days she’d wasted fantasizing about the handsome brown-haired young man whose green eyes had burned with the fierce intensity of tumultuous emotions.
Silly dreams and ridiculous fantasies, she now thought. She’d long ago outgrown the crush she’d once had on Chance Reilly. Chance was every teenage girl’s heartthrob but he was not the material for everlasting love.
She stood, knowing she needed to get back inside. Before she’d left the house to seek out Chance, she’d been serving as an unofficial hostess. And if she knew her mother, Inez Ramirez would be in the kitchen, washing up after everyone and replenishing the food on the dining room table.
Shoving aside her conversation with Chance, she went back inside the house. Chance stood near the dining room table, talking with several of the other ranchers in the area who had shown up to pay their respects.
There was no denying that time had only increased the man’s attractiveness. His brown hair was now sun-streaked with gleaming blond strands, the variegated color only appearing to deepen the hazel green of his eyes. Time had only seemed to better define the lines of his square face, his strong nose and full lips. The shoulders that had seemed broad before now seemed impossibly so.
She consciously tore her gaze from him and headed for the kitchen. Sure enough, her mother was there, standing at the sink with her arms half-buried in soap suds.
“Mama, you don’t have to do this,” Lana protested.
Inez flashed her daughter a warm smile. “I don’t mind. Chance has nobody else to help out.”
Lana picked up a dish towel and took a plate from her mother to dry. For a moment, the two women worked in a companionable silence.
Lana fought the impulse to tell her mother what she’d just offered Chance. She knew instinctively that her mother would never understand. Lana’s parents had married for love, and that love had not weakened through the years, but had rather strengthened. Inez would never understand her daughter settling for less than true love.
“And so your work here is done,” Inez said as she finished the last of the dishes.
Lana nodded. “I’ll pack up my things and move back to my apartment this evening.” The sooner the better, she thought to herself. She wasn’t particularly eager to face Chance again. Funny, but she wasn’t particularly eager to move back to her silent, empty apartment, either.
Within thirty minutes her parents had left and Lana excused herself from the remaining crowd to go to the room she had called home for the past six months.
It was a small room right next door to the master bedroom. It had been Jim Hastings, one of the local doctors, who had set up the arrangement for a home nurse for Tom Reilly.
Despite the fact that a series of strokes had left him partially paralyzed, Tom refused to be hospitalized, and also refused to call his only son home to take care of him.
She lost track of time as she folded clothes and carefully placed them in her suitcase. No matter how difficult the patient, there was always an edge of sadness inside her when one finally succumbed to death.
When she had all her clothes packed, she remembered she’d left a book she’d been reading in Tom’s bedroom where she’d spent long hours sitting by his bedside.
As she walked down the short hallway between the small bedroom and the master, she realized the house had grown silent and night had fallen completely.
A small lamp burned on the table next to the bed. No ghost of Tom Reilly haunted the room. Tom had been hospitalized the day before his death. Lana had remained here, hoping he would rally and be returned to his home, but it had not been so.
She grabbed the book from the stand and stood for a moment, staring at the bed as she said a silent prayer for Tom Reilly’s soul. He had not been a pleasant man and she had a feeling he could use all the prayers that were offered on his behalf.
“I’ll bet he’s barking orders in hell right about now.”
Lana jumped in surprise and whirled toward the window, where she spied Chance sitting in the shadows of the room. “You scared me half to death,” she exclaimed and clapped the paperback book over her breast to still her thudding heart.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I just came in for my book,” she explained. “I’m all packed, so I guess I’ll just say goodbye.” She turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway as he softly called her name.
“Have a cup of coffee with me.” He stood and approached her, stopping just before he got close enough to invade her personal space.
In the dimness of the room, his features looked stark, taut with tension. “Everyone else has gone home and now the house seems so quiet…” His voice trailed off.
“I’d like a cup of coffee before I leave,” she said softly. Although Chance had always professed to hate his father, Lana remembered a time when all Chance had wanted was a kind touch, a word of encouragement and a simple acknowledgment of affection from the man.
There must be a small part of him that was grieving, and Lana couldn’t walk away despite the fact that she still was embarrassed by her earlier outburst.
She turned and left the room, conscious of him just behind her as they walked down the hall toward the living room and kitchen.
When she’d first moved in here, she’d been struck by how plain, how austere the place was. Each room held the utilitarian furniture necessary, but little else. There were no floral arrangements, no little knickknacks, no pictures or personal items to make the house feel like a home.
In the kitchen, she sat at the table and watched as Chance made coffee. At some point during the evening, he’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, exposing tanned, muscled forearms.
She searched for something to say to break the silence, but her usual shyness rose up to hinder any efforts she might make toward conversation.
He didn’t speak until he placed a cup of coffee before her. “Cream or sugar?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, this is fine.”
He poured himself a cup, then joined her at the table. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for all you did for Sarge,” he said.
She shrugged. “I was just doing my job.” She cleared her throat, desperately wanting to fill the silence that once again fell between them. “I understand you travel a lot with your job.”
He nodded, the overhead kitchen light gleaming on the sun-kissed strands of his hair. “I’m usually on the road six days of the week.”
He leaned back in his chair, for the first time since arriving home he looked relaxed. “I love it. No ties, no binds, new places and new faces all the time. I spent the first twenty years of my life trying to please Sarge, now I please nobody but myself.”
Although he appeared to be relaxed, Lana felt the tension that rolled from him, saw the sparks of anger that still torched the depths of his eyes.
“Then I guess you don’t care that this place will all go to charity,” she said.
He sat back up, his gaze burning into hers. “Yes, I care.” He pushed away from the table and stood, then drew a deep breath and raked a hand through his collar-length hair as if to steady himself.
“Even though the last thing I ever want to do is ranch, and despite the fact that this place holds only terrible memories, I wanted it.” His voice was low, deep with barely suppressed emotion. “I wanted to sell this place and take the money and start my own business. He owed me this, Lana. Damn him, he owed me this.”
She heard the pain beneath the anger, and her heart ached for him. “Then take it,” she said with the bravado that was uncharacteristic. “Marry me and claim the ranch. Fix it up and sell it. Give me a baby, then ride off into the sunset with everyone happy.”
He sat down once again and eyed her incredulously. “You’re serious about this.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” she said truthfully. From the instant she’d heard about Chance’s dilemma with his father’s will, she’d felt as if a bargain between them was predestined.
“But you understand if you want a baby, that means we’d have to—we would be…” He allowed his voice to trail off.
“Chance, I know how babies are made,” she said as a surge of heat suffused her cheeks.
“And that doesn’t bother you—the idea of, uh, sleeping with me?”
“Of course not,” she replied briskly, not quite meeting his gaze.
“Lana, I respect your parents. It wouldn’t be right to them.”
She offered him a small smile. “I’m not asking you to sleep with them.” Her smile fell away, and she eyed him levelly. “My parents will respect my choice, my decision.”
He sighed and frowned thoughtfully. “I could pay you. If we decide to do this, I could give you some of the money from the sale of this place.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want your money.” She forced herself to look at him once again. “That wouldn’t feel right. Besides, I don’t need your money. All I want is a child. You give me a baby and I’ll consider us even.”
His forehead wrinkled with thought. “It would take a lot of work to get this place ready to put on the market.” His frown deepened. “I’d want to fix it up to get top market value. According to Walt Bishop, I’ve got five days to fulfill the terms of the will. That means we’d have to get married within the next five days.”
A shiver of apprehension swept through Lana as she realized he was actually considering her proposal. “All we need is a license and a justice of the peace,” she replied.
“Okay,” he said. “You need a baby and I need a temporary wife. How about we tie the knot in two days?”
Again a tinge of anxiety whispered through her. Was this what she wanted? She thought of baby Marissa cooing to her, tiny fingers grasping around hers, and her heart constricted with deep yearning.
If she waited for nature to take its course, waited for love to find her and a traditional wedding to occur, she might wait forever.
“Two days sound fine,” she said, shoving any lingering doubts to the farthest reaches of her mind.
They agreed to meet for the marriage license first thing in the morning, and moments later Lana was on her way back to her apartment.
As she drove through the September night from the Reilly ranch to her place, her head spun with what she’d just agreed to do. In two days’ time she was going to become Mrs. Chance Reilly.
“And that doesn’t bother you—the idea of sleeping with me?”
Chance’s words played again in her head. She tightened her hands on the steering wheel.
Bother her? Yes, it bothered her. The idea of sleeping with Chance quickened her heartbeat, weakened her knees and filled her with a fiery heat. How many women got the opportunity, as adults, to fulfill what had been a forbidden adolescent fantasy?
But it wasn’t quite her fantasy, she thought. In her youthful fantasy she and Chance had been desperately in love. They had tied the knot of love that would make them a forever kind of couple. That had been her fantasy at one time in her life. But what they had just discussed had nothing to do with fantasy. What they had just agreed to had absolutely nothing to do with forever.
Two
Her wedding day.
Lana stood next to Chance and tightly clasped the small bouquet Chance had surprised her with when he’d arrived at her apartment. She felt both hot and cold at the same time, and knew it was nerves that made her feel vaguely ill.
Was she doing the right thing? She was agreeing to a loveless marriage for the sake of making a baby. Yet, as she thought of her baby niece and imagined a baby of her own, she shoved all doubts from her mind.
She swallowed hard as the justice of the peace cleared his throat and began the ceremony that would make Chance and Lana man and wife.
No traditional wedding gown and tux for this couple. Lana wore a pale pink dress and Chance wore a brown suit that emphasized the golden streaks in his hair and the deep green of his eyes.
They had invited no family members to see their exchange of vows. Both of them understood their wedding was not a cause for celebration, but rather a bargain made between two consenting adults. A business deal of sorts.
“Are you sure about this?” Chance asked beneath his breath as the justice of the peace spoke of commitment and the bonds of matrimony. She hesitated only a moment, then nodded.
One corner of Chance’s mouth turned up and for just a moment his eyes sparkled with amusement. “And you promise me your daddy is not going to come after me with a shotgun when this is all over?”
Grateful for his smile, she quickly returned it and felt an easing of the tension between them. “I promise,” she replied.
She had spent the most difficult hour of her life the day before with her mother and father, telling them she was marrying Chance in order to help him gain his inheritance. She didn’t tell them what she intended to get out of the arrangement. She felt a little guilty in that she suspected her parents assumed this would be a marriage in name only for the sole purpose of helping Chance.
Even knowing this marriage was hardly a marriage at all, Lana couldn’t help the way her heart thundered as the justice of the peace spoke the words that bound her, at least temporarily, to Chance.
Practically in the blink of an eye, the brief ceremony was over and Chance was instructed to kiss his bride. Again Lana’s heart bumped against her ribs as it beat too fast, too hard.
He bent his head and she closed her eyes. His lips barely brushed against hers, a brief dance of warmth there only a second, then gone.
“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured.
Lana chided herself for her momentary disappointment. What had she expected? That he’d wrap his arms around her, gaze deeply into her eyes, then kiss her with a passion that would steal her breath away? Not in this lifetime, she chided herself, and certainly not in this marriage.
“We need to get over to Walter Bishop’s office and give him a copy of the marriage certificate,” Chance said the moment they left.
They got into Chance’s sports car and headed for the lawyer’s office. Lana tried to think of something, anything, to say, but Chance’s silence and his stony expression deterred her.
She hadn’t asked him about girlfriends. Was it possible he had a special somebody back in Wichita? He’d said he never intended to get married, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a significant other.
She frowned. If he did have somebody special in his life, why wasn’t she sitting in this car with him now? She suddenly realized she knew little about the man she had just married.
She’d known him as an angry, troubled sixteen-year-old who had been sent to the Coltons for a year of foster care in an effort to cool down the heat between him and his father. But Lana didn’t really know what kind of man Chance had become in the intervening years.
“This will just take a minute,” Chance said as he pulled up to the curb before Bishop’s law office. “You want to come in or wait here?”
“I’ll wait here,” she said, then hurriedly added, “unless you’d like me to come in.”
He frowned. “I’ll be right back.” He got out of the car and disappeared into the building without a backward glance.
Lana stared down at the bouquet in her lap and tried to still the nerves that still jangled inside her. She’d performed her end of the bargain and she assumed that later tonight Chance would do his part to fulfill his end of their pact.
Tonight she was going to make love with Chance. Tonight she was going to make love for the very first time in her life. Again a cold wave swept through her at the same time a flush of heat rose inside. She had never been so nervous in her entire life.
Think about the end result, she told herself. Don’t be nervous, just concentrate on the fact that nine months from tonight you might be holding a beautiful baby of your own. Her heart swelled at the thought.
Lana had always wanted children, but since her niece’s birth her want had grown into something much bigger. She was a nurturer at heart, and longed to nurture her own child.
She jumped as Chance opened his car door and slid back behind the wheel. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“Fine. Walter says it will take several weeks for everything to be signed, sealed and delivered. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me at the ranch.”
It was just after two in the afternoon when they pulled into the Reilly ranch. Immediately Chance disappeared down the hall and into the bedroom, and Lana stood uncertainly in the kitchen, wondering what would happen next.
Would he want to make love right away? With the midday sun shining through the windows? Her cheeks burned at the very thought. She’d certainly prefer the darkness of night for her first foray into the act of lovemaking.
She whirled around as he came back into the kitchen, surprised to see that he had changed out of his suit and into a pair of worn jeans and a black T-shirt.
“I’m going to do a little work out in the barn,” he said, his gaze not quite meeting hers. “I’ll be back in later.” Before the words had completely left his mouth he was gone, disappearing out the back door.
Lana remained standing in the center of the kitchen for a long moment. She knew it was ridiculous to feel neglected, to feel cast aside and unloved.
