The Wilde Bunch

“I’m a statistician with the Department of Commerce.” Kara didn’t bother to add that she had less than thirty days left before her position there was terminated, that she was taking her vacation this week rather than lose it.

She hadn’t told Uncle Will about her pending unemployment, either, not wanting to spoil their time together with her job woes. Now she was inordinately relieved she hadn’t said anything. Let them believe she was too dedicated to her career to be a proper mail-order bride.

“A statistician?” Mac mulled that one over. “Then you must be good with numbers.”

“I—uh—always did well in math,” she confessed rather reluctantly. She well remembered that females with a prowess for mathematics were hardly the romantic ideal, at least not among the young men she’d known through her school years.

“Great!” exclaimed Mac. Was he unaware of the stigma against numerically gifted women? “You can do our taxes. That’s my annual nightmare. And then there’s the matter of the children’s trust funds, set up for them by their parents’ insurance policy...another numbers headache I’ll gladly cede to you. And you can do the books for the ranch and handle the budget.”

“I—”

“Oh-oh, there I go again. Making presumptions.” Mac tried to look penitent. “I mean, of course, if you decide to stay, you’ll be taking over those chores.” He tried to sound as if he wasn’t sure she would be staying on as his wife.

Kara eyed him. That smarmy tone of his reminded her of the fairy tale where the Big Bad Wolf tried to convince the hapless Little Pigs on the other side of the door that he was harmless and innocent.

“I’m going to take Tai out of his carrier,” she announced. The cat’s vocal protests over his confinement were a welcome diversion to her, a note of reality in this astonishingly unreal scenario she seemed to have landed in.

“Good idea,” Mac agreed amiably. He was smiling, lost in his own thoughts. For the price of a one-way plane ticket, he was getting a sexually desirable wife, a caretaker for the kids and a math whiz! A very good return on his initial investment, despite the presence of the noisy spoiled cat as part of the package.

“Nice kitty,” he murmured, reaching over to pet the cat who’d settled himself on Kara’s lap with a disgruntled meow.

Tai tried to bite his hand.

“He’s nervous around strangers,” Kara half explained, half apologized.

“Not to worry. He’ll have plenty of time to get to know me.” Mac would’ve liked to rest his hand on her leg, perhaps even link his fingers with hers. It seemed a romantic gesture that she would like, and it would set the possessive aura he wished to convey.

But Tai’s less-than-amiable disposition and sharp white teeth precluded that.

“Did I mention that Reverend Will’s oldest daughter, Tricia, is severely allergic to cats?” Mac asked casually. “The reason I know is because the Rev and Ginny bought her a cat for her birthday several years ago, and poor Tricia ended up in the hospital emergency room with a serious allergy attack. The Rev pleaded from the pulpit the next Sunday for somebody in the congregation to please give the cat a home because the Franklins couldn’t keep it. There were several offers and a happy ending to the story. The cat got a new family and Tricia got a pet bird.”

“You’re making that up!” Kara accused.

“Now why would I do that? I was just providing you with some essential information.”

“You’re implying that Tai won’t be able to stay at the Franklins’ house with me!” Kara’s hazel eyes widened with apprehension, despite her doubts about his credibility.

“Oh, he won’t be. That’s a given,” Mac assured her.

What if it were true? It occurred to Kara that she hadn’t asked Uncle Will if she could bring Tai. She’d assumed he would know the cat would be coming along with her. After all, her former stepfather was well aware of Tai’s existence; she mentioned him several times in every letter she wrote. There were times when Tai and his feline antics were more interesting than anything going on in her own life!

“But I want you to know that Tai is welcome to stay at the ranch, even if you decide to stay in town with the Rev,” Mac offered, sounding for all the world like a Boy Scout bent on doing a good deed. “Of course, leaving him by himself in a strange place with a household of strangers could definitely be traumatic for such a sensitive cat. He might suffer long-lasting emotional scars.”

“As if you care!” Kara flared. “You just want to make me—”

“Yeah,” Mac cut in, a devilish grin lighting his face. “That’s right, I do.”

It took Kara a moment to catch on, her experience with suggestive banter being practically nonexistent. She flushed scarlet and fell silent.

For the remainder of the drive, conversation was desultory and always initiated by Mac. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness, but Mac commented on the terrain, the mountain peaks towering to the sky and promised a view of breathtaking fall scenery during the daylight hours. He told her a little about the history of the area and some Wilde family history, as well.

The Double R Ranch, whose brand was two R’s back-to-back, had been owned by the Wildes for four generations, passing from father to son.

“It was an easy tradition for the first three generations because each family had only one son, along with some daughters who were not eligible to inherit the ranch,” Mac explained. “Then my dad and mother had three sons, Reid, James and me. Crisis! Who’d get the ranch? It ended up being me because I loved the place and wanted to stay here. Reid headed for Southern California, and James to the world of academia. My dad signed over the ranch to me ten years ago, not long after Mother died. Dad lives in Scottsdale, Arizona now and is the sought-after bachelor in senior citizen circles.”

Kara listened attentively. “So you got the ranch and your brothers got nothing?” She had no siblings of her own but could imagine the hard feelings such partiality must engender.

Mac nodded. “Reid didn’t care, he’d married into money. James was resentful. He thought Dad should give him some sort of cash equivalent, but Dad refused to even consider it. He told James that he’d paid for his education, that James was earning a comfortable living as a college professor and the ranch was for the Wilde son who’d live and work there. End of story.”

“Does James still feel cheated?”

“Of course. James thrives on collecting injustices done to him. Reid’s kids made a major contribution to his collection. Don’t count on him or Eve coming out for our wedding,” he added dryly.

Kara was not about to touch that bait. “Well, I think it’s terribly unfair that all the Wilde daughters were automatically cut out and not even given a choice if they wanted to live and work on the ranch,” she said instead, in defense of her own sex. “It’s downright medieval.”

Mac nodded. “Yeah, my aunts weren’t too pleased. Neither were their aunts. But that’s tradition for you.”

“No, that’s stupid, sexist tradition for you,” Kara retorted. “If I had a daughter—”

“Hopefully, we will,” Mac interjected. “Along with the requisite Wilde male heir, of course.”

Kara ignored him. “If I had a daughter, she would split any inheritance evenly with her brother. There would never be a single doubt about that.”

Talking about her and Mac’s hypothetical children was entirely too provocative a subject. She felt edgy and belligerent, needful to keep him at bay.

“We’re jumping the gun here, honey,” Mac drawled. “After you meet Reid’s kids, you may opt for immediate sterilization.”

“They can’t be as bad as you say,” Kara insisted, feeling the need to disagree with anything he said.

“You’re right—they’re even worse.” Mac turned off the main highway, onto a dirt road. “The house is a few miles ahead. Prepare yourself for the onslaught.”

Three

The headlights of the Jeep lighted the gravelly road leading to the ranch house. Kara saw clusters of tall, thick evergreens horseshoed on three sides of the house—to protect it from the sweep of blustery winter winds, according to Mac. The house itself was a sprawling stone-and-wood one-story structure with a wide porch spanning the front.

Lights blazed from every window, illuminating the landscaped bushes, shrubs and small ornamental trees surrounding the paved stone walk leading from the circular drive to the front door.

“Home, sweet home,” Mac said drolly. “I can hear the welcoming cacophony already.”

He was exaggerating, of course. From the confines of the car, Kara could hear nothing at all. The apprehension that had been gnawing at her for miles erupted into a surging force. She was in the middle of nowhere, miles from the only person she knew in the state of Montana! And she was about to face a tribe of brats, so monstrous that their own blood relative was willing to marry a perfect stranger in an attempt to cope with them.

She turned to Mac, feeling as desperate as he must have felt when he’d shelled out the money for her plane ticket. She couldn’t spend the night in his home! The idea of such intimacy sparked a nerve-tingling anxiety that was one part fear and three parts excitement. Oddly, the excitement was more disturbing than the fear.

“Mac, please, I—I can’t do this. Please, please take me to Uncle Will’s tonight.”

Mac studied her face, which was a picture of distress. Her enormous hazel eyes were filled with tears, her lips were quivering. “You make me feel like a rat,” he murmured. “Scaring a pretty young woman, making her cry. Damn, I am a rat!”

He reached out to trace the sensual curve of her warm full lips. Remembering the feel of that sweet mouth under his and remembering her immediate and passionate responses to him caused a tightening ache in his loins.