A Cowboy Under Her Tree

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“Is that often?”

A muscle flexed in his hard jaw. “Not anymore.”

And after that, he said no more. His silence didn’t bother her, though. She had no particular desire to share her life story, either.

After that, it seemed an alarmingly short time before Melanie found herself strapped into the rear seat of the smallest plane she’d ever seen, much less been flown in. Only four seats in the horribly small cabin, with Russ in one of the front two, alongside the pilot, whom he briefly introduced as “Mac.”

The middle-aged pilot with a toothpick clenched between his teeth seemed about as taciturn as Russ, and as the tiny plane took flight, she could only pray that Mac was as capable a pilot as Russ was reportedly a rancher.

But every time the small plane bumped and jolted, she had to swallow a gasp.

She didn’t know how long they’d been in the air when Russ pulled off the headphones that matched the pair Mac wore and looked back at her, undoubtedly taking in her clenched hands on the armrests.

“Thought you’d be used to flying.” He had to raise his voice to be heard above the plane’s engine. The plane’s one engine.

What happened if that engine failed?

“Enormous flying buses, yes.” Ones with multiple engines. She uncurled her fingers that were beginning to cramp. “And when it’s not a commercial flight, the McFarlane company planes are…somewhat larger than this.” They were jets. Outfitted with every conceivable comfort.

The morning sunlight was slanting across his face through the plane’s windows, turning his brown eyes a lighter, amber shade. “You want to live in Thunder Canyon, you’d better get used to roughing it a little.”

Melanie thought she heard Mac cover up a laugh.

Her cheeks warmed. She could only imagine how spoiled both men seemed to think she was. “I wouldn’t term riding in any sort of plane as roughing it.” She didn’t need to lean forward to be heard, because the space between her row of seats and his was about the size of a postage stamp. “And this four-seater experience isn’t going to scare me into running back home, if that’s what you were hoping.”

His lips twisted. “You’ve stuck it out six months already. I gave up hoping after five.” He turned back around in his seat and pulled his headphones back into place.

Her imagination was really working overtime, because she could have sworn that there had been a hint of admiration in his voice.

Chapter Five

The first thing they did upon arriving in Las Vegas was ditch their coats, for the temperature was a good twenty degrees higher than it was in Montana.

They took a cab from the airport to the Marriage Bureau, and all the while Russ watched Melanie’s face pale a degree with each step. Filling out the forms. When he handed over cash for the fee. When they left the building a short while later, marriage license in hand.

“How’d you get to be thirty without ever marrying?” He’d looked at the application form she’d filled out when they’d handed them over. He was relieved now to see a flash of ire show in her face at his impolitic question. Ire was better than that tense, nervous look that was so much at odds with the uppity woman he’d come to know.

“It’s not a crime,” she said in her snippiest back-east voice.

“Nobody ever asked you, huh?”

Her jaw dropped slightly. “It’s a wonder you’re not still married,” she returned. “What woman in her right mind would possibly give up such a sensitive spouse?” She stepped to the curb and waved down a cab with the ease of someone who’d been doing it most of their life.

He hitched the strap of her overnighter and his duffel higher over one shoulder. Damned if his own duffel wasn’t heavier. “Who says she’s the one who gave me the boot? Maybe it was the other way around.”

She slanted him a look as a cab slid to a stop at the curb in front of her, as obediently as a well-trained poodle. “Of course it was,” she said as kindly as if she were speaking to someone mentally deficient. She pulled open the rear door and slid inside.

Russ tossed the luggage in the front seat before following her into the back. “Closest, cheapest wedding chapel,” he told the driver.

Melanie huffed slightly and crossed her arms over her chest. She turned her head away, looking out the side window, and didn’t speak again until the cab deposited them outside a small, white chapel with a tall steeple.

There were two couples ahead of them, both of whom couldn’t seem to keep their hands off their intendeds. Which was a good thing, or Russ figured the way Melanie stood as far from him as possible at one side of the waiting area, seemingly transfixed by the wall of photographs, would have drawn some curious looks. The ceremonies ahead of them weren’t exactly long affairs, and when it came time for him and Melanie, he saw the way she swallowed and seemed to pull up her shoulders in preparation.

Less like a fighter getting ready to enter the ring than a prisoner facing sentencing.

On that, he could relate.

He eyed her. She wore ivory jeans and an ivory turtleneck that clung faithfully to her curves. The only color about her was her vibrant hair. “You want flowers?”

She gave a sharp shake of her head.

The gray-haired clerk who’d been trying to up-sell their basic wedding package looked disapproving. “Here.” She handed over a bouquet of pink plastic roses. “They’re included.”

Melanie looked reluctant.

“Go ahead, dear,” Russ urged. “They’ll look so pretty on our complimentary photograph.”

She took the small bouquet. “Thank you,” she told the woman without a hint of the annoyance that was in the look she gave Russ.

“Good luck to you, honey,” the clerk whispered to her, casting a skeptical eye over Russ as she took their fee and waved them toward the front of the excruciatingly cheerful chapel.

Russ couldn’t tell if the man standing in front of the plastic flower-bedecked altar was a minister or not, and didn’t much care. “Keep it brief,” he told the man.

“In a hurry for the honeymoon,” the man said easily. “Well, you came to the right place. Brief is what we specialize in here.”

“Goody,” he heard Melanie whisper under her breath.

“All right now. I’m Pastor Frank.” He waved at the young couple standing to one side of the altar. “My son and daughter will be your witnesses. If you would join hands?”

Russ nodded at the witnesses and grabbed Melanie’s hand. It was as cold as ice, but at least she didn’t pull it away from him.

A few “I do’s” and several snapshots from the digital camera that Pastor Frank had whipped out of his pocket, and two minutes later, they were walking back out into the sun, duly wedded.

Melanie yanked her hand away from his and slid on her sunglasses. The digital film disk they’d been given was dumped unceremoniously into the trash can outside the door.

“You hungry?”

“No.” She fiddled with the plain gold band that had also been included in the price of their wedding ticket, sliding it back and forth over her knuckle. “But you probably are.”

“I’m touched. Already showing wifely concern.”

The ring came off her finger and was stowed inside that ivory purse of hers.

“You’re gonna have to put that back on when we get back to Thunder Canyon.”

“I’ll wear it when I need to.” Her voice was even. “Maybe cheap gold doesn’t bother you, but it makes my skin itch.”

The gold band on Russ’s finger seemed to burn into his flesh, but it had nothing to do with the inexpensive metal. “We packed for overnight, but we could try to catch a flight back to Bozeman. Or we can still get a room and do it in the morning.”

Her chin jerked a little at that.

“Get a flight in the morning,” he clarified, swallowing a bite of laughter. “Trust me, Red. Only way you and I would be doing what you’re naughty little imagination is conjuring is if you pleaded.”

“In your dreams,” she replied loftily.

Unfortunately, that was already a problem. Not that she needed to know that. And he sure in hell didn’t intend to do anything about it. Sex with his paper-only wife would only lead to trouble. “We’ll fly back in the morning, then.” He took her arm as they entered a crosswalk and joined the throng of people crossing the street. “When’s the last time you were in Vegas?”

She gestured vaguely toward one of the newest hotels towering over the skyline. “At the opening.”

“You don’t have any McFarlane hotels here.”

“No.” She looked out over the strip. “Not McFarlane’s style.”

“Wouldn’t think a guest ranch in Thunder Canyon would be McFarlane’s style, either.”

“It will be.” That determination she never seemed to turn off rang through her words. “Not all of our hotels are monoliths of traditional style and elegance, you know. The first hotel my brother, Connor, opened was in an unused railway station in Seattle. It’s won awards, even.”

“But I’ll bet they still put a McFarlane Mint on the bed pillows with the turndown service.”

She lifted her shoulder. “So? Those mints are good. We have exclusive rights to them. Have you had one?”

He and Nola had spent their wedding night in McFarlane House Boston, and she’d bought a box of the expensive things in the gift shop to bring back to Thunder Canyon. It hadn’t satisfied her yen for luxury for very long, though. “A long time ago.”

They could have chosen any one of the mile-long hotels looming around them to stay at. But he spotted a small diner tucked between two fenced-off construction zones and headed toward it instead, pulling her along with him.

The inside was crowded, the hum of voices and Christmas music just shy of a din. Yet there were two stools available at the counter and he made his way toward them. He dropped their suitcases on the floor between them and handed her one of the laminated menus that were tucked between a jar of mustard and a bottle of ketchup.