A Marriage By Chance

For a week she steered clear of him. Keeping the books was a daily task, one she found more to her liking when being in the black seemed more of a possibility. But discovering a bill of sale tucked inside the cavern of her ledger brought her out of the desk chair with all flags flying.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered beneath her breath, setting off for the barn.

“What happened to being partners?” Chloe asked. Her anger held on a short leash, she faced J.T. down in the central aisle of the big barn. Lowery was in and out of the tack room, and if she knew anything about it, he was listening for all he was worth. Apparently J.T. shared the thought, for he only glared at her for a moment, then gripped her elbow and shuffled her toward the double doors.

“We’re not going to argue in front of the men,” he muttered between gritted teeth. “If you’ve got something to say, I’ll listen to it out here, without an audience.”

“If?” The single word was all she could manage for a moment, and she inhaled deeply. “You know damn well I’ve got something to say.” Her hand was fisted around a yellow slip of paper, and she released it, allowing it to flutter to the ground at his feet. “Would you like to explain just how you figured we could afford a new stallion right now? And what we needed one for, anyway?”

“I didn’t ask you to put out one red cent,” J.T. said calmly. “I bought him.”

“And I’m supposed to write that amount on your side of the ledger book, I suppose,” she hissed. “Which gives you the edge, having invested your own money.”

“Chloe, you’ve got mares dropping foals out there that aren’t going to amount to a hill of beans. They’re only good for pulling a buggy or carrying kids back and forth to school. Wait till you see this stud. You need new blood, or your herd is never going to be worth anything.”

“What’s wrong with using the stallion you rode in here with?” That his words were true wasn’t the issue. Her father’s stud was old, and he’d been interbreeding over the past several years. But buying a new stallion was a major investment, and now J.T. viewed the news of the horse’s imminent arrival as if Christmas were coming at the end of a lead line.

“I told you already. His bloodlines aren’t what we need. We’ll use him, too, but this new stallion is almost guaranteed to give us a herd of horses that will make some real money a couple of years down the road.”

“You planning on being here that long?” she asked tartly.

His jaw clenched, as did his hands, and she wondered for a moment if she might not have pushed him a bit too far. “Are you bein’ obnoxious on purpose?” he asked, “or is it just your natural disposition?” His hands were hard, callused and strong, and when he used one of them to propel her toward the house, she had no choice but to march beside him. He turned her around when they reached the back porch and deposited her on the top step.

“I don’t like being manhandled,” she told him, snatching her arm from his grasp and sitting down. “There’s not a man big enough to push me around and get away with it.” And yet it seemed he had. For the moment at least.

J.T.’s mouth thinned and twisted, his eyes sending sparks that should have warned her off. He stood tall before her, anger oozing from every square inch of his being. “I’m not pushing you around, and I didn’t leave a mark on you, Miss High-and-Mighty.” Bending a bit, he peered into her face. “But I’ll tell you one thing right now. You won’t give me orders when it comes to spending my own hard-earned money.”

“You had no right to—”

“I had every right,” he boomed. “The damn horse was on the auction block. If I hadn’t bid on him and bought him outright, I’d have missed the chance to get a stud like that. And like it or not, he’s exactly what your herd needs.”

“And what’s he going to do for my mares? Put thoroughbred fillies and colts in their bellies?”

J.T. shook his head. “Better than that, lady. We’ll have a pasture full of paints within five years, horses that’ll be known throughout the state once we get them trained. Do you know that any cowhand worth his salt will pay fifty dollars more for a paint than a solid-colored horse?”

A glimmer of interest nudged her as his words made inroads on her aggravation. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Because a well-trained paint is the best cow pony you can buy. The Comanches have been hunting buffalo with them for years. We’ll have buyers waiting in line.” He turned to sit beside her, enthusiasm vanquishing his anger, and she listened intently, excitement growing as he spoke.

“We’ll use the best of your mares for breeding, and concentrate on selling off the stock we don’t need. There’s always a buyer around for everyday mounts, and by the time we weed out the bottom of your herd, we’ll have a crop of foals dropping next spring that’ll really put a shine in those blue eyes of yours.”

“And when do we get to begin this breeding program you’ve come up with?” she asked. “I assume the horse is being delivered?”

“Hogan is bringing him home later today.”

“Hogan went along with it?”

J.T. had the grace to look chagrined, and long fingers raked through his hair. It fell in place, dark and wavy, touching his collar, catching her attention so that his words took moments to penetrate. “He told me you’d have a fit, and I’d better come home and get you softened up before he arrived.”

She stiffened at his words, her cheeks warming with a flush of anger. “And do I look properly softened?” Dark, assessing eyes measured her as his gaze swept her form, finally focusing on her face, and the silence was long, as though he contemplated several words before choosing to speak.

“You look soft in all the right places, Chloe, but I think you’re still madder than a wet hen.” His head tilted to one side and he allowed a grin to play about the corners of his mouth. “I can’t say as I blame you. I suspect I knew you’d have a hissy. I just didn’t think you’d cause a fuss in front of your hired hands.”

“I didn’t,” she protested, raking her mind. They’d been alone in the barn, all but for Lowery, coming in and out.

Apparently J.T. had the same thought. “Lowery was in the tack room, and Willie was right outside the back door,” he said quietly. “It won’t do to air our differences in front of them, and I couldn’t let you raise Cain with me that way. Not without having a knockdown battle right there in the barn.”

“They listen to you,” she said harshly, looking aside, unwilling to allow her hurt to show.

“I’m a man,” he said simply. “Men always respond better to another man. Except in some things,” he added softly.

She turned quickly, her mind snagging on his words. “Like what?”

“Like…” He hesitated, and she wondered at his loss for words. J.T. never thought twice before he spoke, as if the phrases he wanted were ready and available at the tip of his tongue. Now, he watched her warily, and she felt the rosy flush of anger recede, only to be replaced with a warmth generated by his slow appraisal.

“Like the way I react to you,” he said finally, and his mouth twisted wryly, as if he rued the words he spoke. “There’s something about you that brings me to attention.” He shook his head. “And isn’t that a fine thing to be telling my partner.”

“I bring you to attention? Well, whatever that means, I’d say there’s nothing about me that suits you,” she told him tartly. “And you aggravate me beyond belief. No matter what I do, you’ve got to have the last word. You’d think I didn’t know how this place operates.” Again she felt the threat of angry tears behind her eyelids and blinked them away, unwilling to waver before him as she defended herself. “What do you suppose I did before you got here?”

“Got along the best way you could,” he answered amiably. “And did a decent job of it. Hogan’s a good man, and you’re lucky to have him.”

He took the wind out of her sails. Just when she was working up to a good mad, he managed to be agreeable and she was left to bluster.

“By the way, I gave him a raise in pay,” J.T. said, eyeing her for a response.

“Well, twice what he’s getting this month is just about zero,” she said with an angry laugh. “I told you there’s no money for wages, or anything else, till we get some income. I barely paid the new men their wages the past three months. And I’m at rock bottom right now.”

J.T. watched her, invigorated by the quick-witted responses she gave, the sharp working of her mind. She’d only get mad again, but he might as well have it over with, he decided. “I put money in your account.”

She was pale beneath the freckles, and her jaw flexed as though she gritted her teeth against angry words. And then she spoke, and her voice held more than a trace of the frustration she battled. “You’re putting me in a hole, J.T. What if I can’t get out? What’ll you do next? Just take over the whole place?”

He reached for her hand, enclosing it within his palm, reaching out for her understanding in the small intimacy of flesh against flesh. “I knew you’d take it that way, Chloe. And that’s not what I intend. I figured we can’t expect these men to stay on here much longer if we don’t pay them. It’s not fair, and you don’t want to take a chance on losing Hogan, or Lowery or Shorty, either, for that matter. The others you could replace if you had to, but not those three.”

She nodded, accepting the warmth of his fingers enclosing hers. There seemed little to say. No doubt he was right, but her independence was threatened more each day, simply because he was there, with his influence reaching to every area of her life.

Including her awareness of herself as a woman. And at that thought she felt a nudge of apprehension. He’d kissed her once, a week ago, and then as if it had never taken place, ignored the episode, not in any way referring to it again.

Until now. She retrieved her hand from his, clenching it in her lap as her mind replayed the words he’d spoken in that dark, rasping tone. You look soft in all the right places, Chloe…. There’s something about you that brings me to attention. He’d bewitched her with his flattery. That was all there was to it, she decided. Pure and simple flattery, designed to throw her off guard. She clenched her jaw as he spoke again.

“Chloe? Are you going to give me a hassle over this? Can we just agree to let things ride for a while, at least until we sort through the herd and decide which animals you want to sell off?”

“What?” His query caught her unaware. Her mind had traveled far from the discussion over wages and hired hands, and for a moment she faltered, willing herself to concentrate on his words. He was making plans, while she was still dithering over his foolish talk.

“I’m not trying to push you,” he said quietly. And perhaps he wasn’t, she thought. Yet, to her discerning eye, he was poised for action, impatiently absorbed in his plans, and she knew a sense of disquiet. For one thing, she was ignorant when it came to a breeding program such as the one he spoke of.

One hand lifted, as if to assure him of her compliance, and she gathered her wits. “I’d rather talk about this later. Maybe after supper tonight.” To give in so readily was against her nature, but he’d boxed her into a corner and the need to regroup was foremost in her mind.

A look of pure relief erased the frown lines he wore, and his mouth curved slowly. “Whatever you want,” he said agreeably. “Hogan should be here right soon, and I’ve got to get a stall fitted up for the stud. We’ll keep him in the corral for a day or so, till we decide which mares we want him to cover, and then go on from there.”