Marked For Marriage

Mark glared at her. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

Darcy intervened. “Mark, please. Maddie, what can we do? Are you hungry? Do you want to get undressed?”

“Fanny’s in the trailer,” she said in a shaky little voice. “It’s terribly cold here, and she needs shelter, food and water.”

“You’re more worried about a horse than yourself,” Mark said disgustedly. “Do you know what you look like? Darcy, I think we should take her to the emergency room at the hospital.”

“No…please…I’m just done in. Darcy, if I could have a bowl of hot soup and a few crackers, then I could take a pain pill.”

“You’ve got it,” Darcy said, and took her husband’s arm to lead him from the bedroom to the hall. “Take care of her horse, darling, and I’ll make her comfortable. She’s totally exhausted, poor little thing.”

“She should be turned over my knee,” Mark said.

“You know you don’t mean that.”

“I know. Darcy, she’s all beat to hell. She didn’t tell me how bad that fall really was.”

“Because she loves you and didn’t want you worrying.” Darcy kissed her husband’s cheek. “I’m going to heat her some soup, then I’ll do whatever she wants done after that.”

“You’re an angel.”

Maddie had heard nearly every word said by Mark and Darcy; he was angry, which Maddie had expected, and Darcy truly was an angel, which was a wonderful thing to have discovered about her still very new sister-in-law. Mark was a lucky man to have fallen in love with the right woman, Maddie thought, recalling Aunt June’s sincerely well-meant words about the wonders of true love.

Darcy came in with a tray bearing a large cup of soup, some soda crackers and a small pot of herbal tea. She helped Maddie sit up to eat, and when she was finished Darcy brought a glass of water so Maddie could take a pain pill from the bottle in the pocket of her jacket.

“If I take one of these without eating something first, my stomach rebels,” Maddie told her.

“I understand. Maddie, your pants and jacket are huge. You don’t want to sleep in them, do you?”

Maddie lay back and explained everything, including her reasons for driving instead of flying and her oversize clothing. After a while she managed a genuine if small smile. “The pill is starting to work. Darcy, I packed a little overnight bag with things like my toothbrush and nightgown, because I was pretty sure that I’d be staying in the house. The bag is on the bed in my trailer. I should have asked Mark to bring it in before he went out in the cold, but I simply didn’t think of it.”

“He’ll get it, Maddie.”

“It’s so great finally being here,” Maddie murmured drowsily. “I really needed to come home, Darcy. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You’re Mark’s only sister, and you will always be welcome, Maddie, under any circumstances. You’re going to fall asleep. Let’s get you undressed and into one of my flannel nightgowns. You can brush your teeth in the morning.”

“Yes…okay,” Maddie mumbled thickly.

It was later, after Darcy had helped her into a warm nightgown and then tucked her back into bed, and Maddie lay with her eyes closed, soaking up warmth and comfort that was really twofold, both physical and emotional, that she heard Mark ask, “How is she, honey?”

“Sleeping. Oh, Mark, you should see her undressed. Well, you saw her face, and that’s enough for you to imagine the rest. But nearly every inch of her right side is discolored from being scraped and bruised. How in heaven’s name did she drive all the way from Texas and take care of her horse and even herself with her right hand in a cast and the inevitable distress from such extensive bruises?”

“Darcy, when Maddie makes up her mind to something, she gets it done. She’s always been that way. You know, I think this is the first time she’s had to admit to needing someone’s help since Aunt June died.”

“Mark, we can’t leave her here alone while we honeymoon. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“I know,” Mark agreed, sounding deeply concerned. After a minute he added, “We won’t get a refund from the travel agent, you know. And all our plans are set, the flight and hotel reservations, everything.”

“I realize that,” Darcy agreed softly. “But we just can’t go off as though Maddie wasn’t here, darling.”

In the dreamlike twilight zone in which Maddie was floating, the voices seemed like soft warm breezes passing through the semidarkness of her room, sounding harmonious, lyrical and totally unattached to anything of substance. Nothing being said made much sense to her, and she finally fell into a benumbed sleep without pain, worry or discomfort of any kind.

In the morning, however, she remembered it all, every word, and whispered, “They haven’t taken their honeymoon yet. They have plans, wonderful plans, and my coming here in this condition ruined everything.”

Maddie pursed her lips. She was not going to be the cause of something so awful. She didn’t care if she herself ever had a honeymoon, but it was obviously very important to Mark and Darcy.

Well, she’d done it once before—in the hospital—and she could pretend to be much better off than she really was one more time. Her good acting had convinced Dr. Upton to release her a day early, and it was going to convince Mark and Darcy that she could get along just fine on her own. They were going on their honeymoon, as planned, whatever she had to do to prove that she did not need a caretaker!

Throwing back the blankets, Maddie got out of bed, pasted a bright, cheery smile on her face and left the bedroom to begin her charade.

Chapter Three

And thus, ten days after her accident Maddie found herself on her brother’s sofa in Whitehorn, Montana, hugging a comforter to herself and staring up at a man who didn’t look like a babysitter any more than he did a burglar. She tried to sensibly assimilate the situation. Had Mark really asked this…this weird stranger to keep an eye on her? And if so, had Mark told her that he’d arranged for someone to drop in on her from time to time and the information had slipped through the cracks of her less-than-alert brain?

She narrowed her eyes on Noah. “How did you get in?”

“Through a door. Isn’t that how you enter someone’s home?”

“An unlocked door?” she asked, concerned that Mark might have inadvertently missed locking one of the doors and she hadn’t been safe from intruders at all, which she, within the foggy reaches of her mind, had been counting on.

“Nope.” Noah produced the key. “With this.”

The sight of that key panicked her. “You have a key? You mean you can just walk into this house anytime you take the notion?”

Noah stood there looking down at her. She was probably cute as a cuddly little doll when she wasn’t black-and-blue, but it was hard for him—with his medical training and experience—to get past the blotchy bruises on her face. Even so, he still felt remnants of that incredible fit of laughter he’d enjoyed—yes, enjoyed—only minutes ago. He couldn’t remember when he’d let go and laughed so uninhibitedly, and it certainly was the last thing he might have expected from today’s begrudged duty. In a way he couldn’t quite define but still knew to be true, those moments of uncontrollable laughter had created a bond between him and Maddie Kincaid; she might not feel it, but he did, and some rusty, rather tarnished part of him cherished the sensation.

“I rang the front doorbell and knocked on the side door before using the key,” he said. “I promised Mark that I’d take care of you while he’s away, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In his own mind Noah realized how he had just expanded his promise to keep an eye on Maddie into taking care of Maddie, which gave him a start.

But someone should be caring for her. She certainly didn’t appear strong enough to be doing everything for herself. Her weakened condition explained the messy kitchen, of course. What Noah could not comprehend was how Mark could have gone off and left his frail little sister alone in the house. Didn’t he realize how badly off Maddie really was?

Noah shed his winter scarf and jacket and laid them on the back of a chair, aware that Maddie Kincaid’s eyes had grown wary and suspicious.

“Don’t get paranoid just because I took off my jacket,” he told her. “It happens to be hot as Hades in here. What temperature do you have the furnace set on?” He looked around. “Where’s the thermostat?”

“It’s in the kitchen, but don’t you dare lower that dial!”

“Maddie, you can’t be cold. You’re dressed in thermal underwear…” He couldn’t help coughing out another laugh over the image that comment conjured up but he managed to stifle it before it got out of hand. After clearing his throat, he continued, “And you’re wrapped in a goose down comforter.”

“So?”

Noah frowned as the physician in him took over. “You really are cold? Are you having chills?”

“If I am it’s none of your affair,” Maddie retorted, hoping she sounded in keen command of her senses and authoritative. After all, what could she really do to defend herself against anything this guy might do? Regardless of her physical ineptitude, though, her mouth and don’t-tread-on-my-space attitude were working just fine, and she demanded haughtily, “What do you think you are, a doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” He approached the sofa and sat on the sturdy wood coffee table, which had been in the way when he’d carried Maddie back to her bed but was handy as all get-out now. “Let me take your pulse.”

Maddie was gawking at him with her mouth open. He was a doctor? Yeah, right. “Oh, like I should believe you?”