Marrying Molly

He couldn’t read Molly’s expression. Struck dumb with shock? Moved beyond words? No way to tell. He crossed to the pinero wood mantel that his great-great-grandfather had ordered from Mexico and rested an elbow on it. Above the mantel hung one of his mother’s paintings. Penelope Tate Bravo had studied art—to little effect that Tate could see—for a year at UCLA. It was there, in L.A., that she met Tate’s father, the mysterious Blake Bravo. Tate pretended to admire the painting—of a poorly proportioned chestnut gelding and a stunted looking vaquero in a huge sombrero—as he gathered his thoughts to go on.

“Molly, there are many who will be shocked when they hear of our plans. And to that I say, so be it. I don’t care in the least. They’ll get used to it soon enough. The important thing is that you and I give our baby the right kind of start in life, that we put aside our differences and work together to ensure—”

“Tate…” Molly said his name hoarsely and then swallowed. With obvious difficulty.

He felt a tad irked with her for interrupting. “Can’t you let a man say what he’s trying to say?” In a minute would come the part where he got down on his knees in front of her. He was a little nervous about that. After all, he wasn’t the kind of man who spent a lot of time on his knees.

“But, Tate…” She swallowed again. “I…I have to know. Are you, well, I mean, is it possible you are sneaking up on suggesting we get married?”

He smiled. How could he help it? She looked so damned adorable in her bewilderment. Also, it was occurring to him that he could skip the part where he got down on his knees. She’d pretty much blown right on by that, anyway.

Yeah. This was fine. It would work out just great. And with everything settled, she would be spending the night—and all the nights to come. “Yeah, Molly.” Pride made him stand away from the mantel and draw himself up straight and tall. “I am. I’m asking you to be my wife. I figure, at this point, there’s nothing else we can do.” He reached into his pocket to get the ring.

Before he could slide it out, she said, “No.”

Tate was certain he hadn’t heard right. “Molly, did I just hear you say—?”

“No. I said no.”

He pulled his hand from his pocket—without the ring—and took a careful step back. She’d got him on this one. Got him good. This was as unexpected as a rattler in his bedroll.

And damned if he wasn’t as hurt as if he’d really been snake bit. Why, she hadn’t even let him get to the part where he could flash that diamond at her. To cover his hurt, he gave her a curled lip and a cold eye.

She backed away a step herself and did some more gulping. “Look, Tate, it would never work. You have to see that. And why would you want to even try? Think of your granddaddy. Of what he’d say.”

“My grandfather is dead. It doesn’t matter what he’d say. Like I already told you, it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn what anybody says. It’s the right thing to do. And we are going to do it.”

“No.” She put up both hands, palms out, kind of warding him off. “No, Tate. We’re not.”

It took all the considerable will and self-restraint he possessed not to grab her and turn her over his knee. She could use a good paddling, oh, yes, she could. “Molly, darlin’.” He kept his voice low—and deadly. “You have said a lot of stupid things since I have had the pleasure of knowing you. But saying no to me right now, that’s a new high in stupidity. Even for you.”

She fell back another step—but her eyes had that look in them—the look that said he’d better watch out. “Don’t you call me stupid, you big macho butt-head.”

Macho butt-head? He felt his blood pressure go up a notch and ordered it back down. “Molly, you have got to see—”

“I don’t have to see squat. We are not getting married, Tate Bravo. What do either of us know about marriage? Not a damn thing. Well, except this. I do know this. When people get married, they ought to at least know how to get along with each other first. You and me? We never get along. We’re either fighting or ripping each other’s clothes off and racing for the bed. What kind of marriage would the likes of us have? I shudder to imagine, I truly do.”

By then, Tate’s urge to yank her over his knee and paddle her good was so powerful it caused a pounding behind his eyes. With great effort, he clung to reasonable discourse—or at least, to a low, controlled tone. “You are the future mother of my child, Molly. And by God, you are going to marry me.”

She marched over and snatched her purse off the chair. “No, I am not.” She was already headed for the front hall.

“Molly,” he commanded. “Molly, get back here.” She didn’t so much as break her stride. “Molly. Damn you.” He took off after her.

In the hallway, she turned on him. “Stop, Tate. Stop right there.”

“Molly—”

“I’m going home now. Do you hear me? Home. Alone.”

“The hell you are. Why can’t you be reasonable?”

“Reasonable?” she scoffed. “Now, that’s one of those words, isn’t it, Tate?”

“One of those words? What are you babbling about?”

“You know what words I’m talking about. The kind of words that mean do things Tate’s way. There are a lot of words like that, in case you haven’t noticed. Words like right and good and logical and fair. Around you, Tate, those words always mean one thing. They mean your way. Because your way is the right, good, logical and fair way. Isn’t it?”

How, he wondered, could he want her so much when she was such a complete bitch? It was, and probably always would be, a mystery to Tate. “Don’t you walk out that door on me, Molly.”

“Oh. Oh, of course. Give me orders. Dream that I’m going to obey them.”

“I mean it. Don’t leave.”

Molly gave him a long, hot look. And then she whirled, marched to the door and flung it open. She went through and slammed it behind her. It was a heavy, carved door. It had come up from Mexico with the mantel in the living room. It made a loud, echoing, final sort of sound when slammed.

Tate stood in the entry hall with his blood pounding in his ears and listened to her pickup rev high outside. Peeling rubber, she took off.

This is not the end of it, Molly, he silently promised her.

Whether she wanted to or not, it was reasonable, right, good, logical and fair that she marry him. And one way or another, Tate Bravo always did what was reasonable, right, good, logical and fair.

Chapter Four

L ena Lou Billingsworth stuck her hand out from under the red cutting cape and fluttered her thick eyelashes at Molly. “Molly, you didn’t even ask to see it.”

Molly took Lena’s soft little hand. “Gorgeous,” she declared. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

Lena preened. “Four carats.” Back in high school, Lena and Tate’s wandering younger brother, Tucker, had been an item. But that was a decade ago. “Dirk is so generous.” Lena’s fiancé owned a couple of car dealerships on the outskirts of nearby Abilene. “You know, Molly, some say every girl is only lookin’ for a man like her daddy. I believe that now, I truly do.” Lena Lou’s daddy, Heck Billingsworth, was a car dealer, too—a big, bluff fellow who never met a man he didn’t like, let alone a vehicle he couldn’t sell.

A man just like her daddy, huh? Finding such a man would be a big challenge for Molly, as she’d never met her daddy and wouldn’t have recognized him if she bumped into him on the street.

At fifteen, Molly’s mom, Dixie, had lost her virginity to a traveling salesman who discovered the next morning that the pretty young thing he’d seduced the night before was underage. On hearing the news, the salesman promptly threw his samples in the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker and burned rubber getting the heck outta town.

Dixie never heard from the guy again—and nine months later, Molly arrived. So, truly, Molly never knew her father. In fact, she didn’t even know his name. When Dixie asked for it that fateful night, the salesman replied in a lazy Southern drawl, “You just call me Daddy, sugar-buns.”

Funny, Molly was thinking. She’d never known her dad—and her mom seemed more like a sweet and wild and often absent big sister to her than any real kind of mom. Mostly, in Molly’s growing-up years, Dixie was busy with her active social life. Dixie would climb out the window as soon as Granny Dusty went to bed and wiggle back in around dawn, half-drunk, with her mascara running down her cheeks and her clothes looking like she’d torn them off and rolled around on them—which, more than likely, she had. She would sleep until noon, then get up and eat cold cereal or maybe cream cheese on a cracker and wander around the double-wide trailer in a kind of good-natured daze until dark—at which time she would lock herself in the bathroom to shower, fix her hair and do her makeup. As soon as Granny went to bed, she would climb out the window all over again.

Dixie O’Dare had always been a woman on a mission to find the man who would love her forever and treat her right. She never had a lot of luck in her quest. And since it consumed most of her time and energy, Granny Dusty had ended up taking care of Molly.

Molly wanted things to be different for her baby. She was going into this all grown up with her eyes wide open. She wouldn’t be wasting her energy chasing after men. She would take her child-rearing seriously. And her baby girl—Molly just knew her baby had to be a girl—would at least know who her father was, even if Molly did not intend to marry the man.

Tate, Molly thought, shaking her head. She’d imagined him saying a lot of ugly things. But a marriage proposal? Not on your life.

And okay, maybe she’d been a little hard on him last night. Especially considering he’d put up with Granny shooting at him and he hadn’t called Molly one single rude name. But she was not going to marry him, and he had to accept that.

Sadly, Tate was one of those men who never heard what a woman said unless she shouted it out good and loud. And even then, the chance was never better than fifty/fifty the words would get through that thick skull of his.

Lena was still talking. “The wedding will be next June—I know, I know. It’s a whole year away. But a wedding is something a girl plans for her whole life. I want everything to be perfect. And it’s always been my dream to be a June bride.”