I Do! I Do!

How could she consider leaving Austin? Gina wondered. She’d never lived outside a city, and, since her early teen years, had rarely traveled far from this one. It had so much to offer.

Including loneliness, when Mason wasn’t there.

“The scary part is that I keep thinking of reasons why I ought to do it,” she admitted. “For the girls’ sake. And because it might be my only chance to experience marriage and motherhood.”

“Experience marriage?” Katie asked. “As in experience Europe on your summer vacation?”

“I didn’t mean it that way!” she protested.

“Is this supposed to be a real marriage or a platonic relationship?” her friend demanded.

Mason hadn’t specified, Gina conceded. “I assume it’s a marriage in name only. I mean, he’s never…well, tried to get physical.”

“He’s a man, isn’t he? He can’t spend that much time with you and not eventually want more!” Katie halted, then made a clucking sound. “Would you listen to me? Ford Carrington’s a man, too, but no matter how long I’ve worked with him, he considers me a robot in a nurse’s uniform. It’s a lost cause.”

Gina hoped her friend was wrong. To her, the doctor and the nurse seemed ideally suited. “He might wake up one of these days….”

A couple of passing men broke stride to speak to them. Judging by their brand-new jeans, fake-looking buckles and stiff cowboy hats, the pair were tourists pretending to be Texans. The impression was confirmed when one of them said, “Howdy, ladies. Could y’all use some company?” It sounded like a line from a movie.

“Get real,” said Katie, and the two of them hurried on. They waited at least half a block before indulging in giggles.

“There are worse things than being alone!” Gina teased.

“Name three,” Katie said. “And you can’t count getting ‘lassoed’ by a couple of fake ‘cowpokes.’”

“Getting married, falling in love with your husband and then having to say goodbye,” she replied, sobering. “That’s three things in one.”

“A lot can happen in a few months, though,” her friend pointed out. “Isolated on a ranch, with nothing to do on those long, summer nights…”

“I don’t know what Mason has in mind,” Gina admitted. “But he didn’t make it sound like he’s in love with me. He wasn’t the least bit romantic.”

Katie’s expression grew thoughtful as the twilight lowered around them. “You’d have the satisfaction of knowing you tried. That you got off the bench and into the game at least once.”

It wasn’t the first time the two women had discussed their similar problems. Both were twenty-nine-year-old virgins, and they both longed for marriage and children.

Until now, the main difference had been that Katie knew who she wanted, while Gina didn’t. Now Gina knew, too, but she wasn’t sure she dared accept his offer.

“It’s such a risk,” she told her friend. “I wish I were braver.”

“You’re plenty brave,” said the other nurse. “I’ve seen you give your heart to babies that you knew weren’t likely to survive. That takes courage.”

“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I don’t deserve any credit for that.”

“And remember that tough-talking young couple who wouldn’t take their son’s medication schedule seriously? When he was released, you stood up to them and laid out every terrible thing that could happen if they got careless. The father—he had a snake tattooed on his neck, remember?—at first I thought he was going to rough you up. Then he started blubbering. I’ll never forget the way he hugged that baby and said he couldn’t bear it if anything went wrong.”

“They came to see me on their son’s first birthday,” Gina recalled. “He’s doing well. I guess my horror stories worked.”

“So don’t tell me you’re a coward,” Katie finished. “Hey, look at the time! I promised to meet some friends at a club in ten minutes. Want to come along? There’s a bluegrass band tonight.”

“No, thanks. I’ve got some heavy thinking to do.” She gave her friend a pat on the arm. “Thanks for your support.”

“Any time.”

Operating on automatic pilot, Gina strolled back to her boardinghouse and went upstairs. Entering her room was like returning to the home where she’d lived with her parents until four years ago. Her mother’s china figurines filled a display case. Dainty lace curtains hung at the window, and Victorian-style furniture gave a sense of stepping into the past. It was a refuge from disappointments, from stress, from the modern era.

Gina got a chill when she tried to picture how she would feel, returning to this room or one like it after months as Mason’s temporary wife. How could she expect to fit back into her old life?

If she didn’t care so much, perhaps she might regard the temporary marriage as an extended vacation. But she did care. She cared too much.

She wasn’t willing to chance a heartbreak that would cut so deeply. Better to live with might-have-beens than to lie here aching, night after night, for something she’d briefly possessed and could never have again.

For her own self-preservation, her answer had to be no.

Chapter Three

Was he being selfish? Mason had never asked himself that question before. He asked it a lot that night at the ranch, and the next morning on the two-hour drive to Austin.

All his life, until now, the future and his place in it had spread before him as neatly as the procession of the seasons. He and Rance would grow up to take over the ranch. They would run it together, expand their operations and leave a rich heritage for the next generation.

For years, they’d kept on course. After their father’s death, when Mason was twenty-three and Rance eighteen, the younger brother had taken over the horse-training operation while the elder focused on cattle and oil. Although both preferred working with animals, their finances depended on the pumps that worked with steady efficiency around the range.

Mason didn’t have to question why he did what he did. It was simply there, a force of nature. He was a rancher, he was his father’s son and he was Rance’s brother.

Two months ago, when he received the phone call telling him Rance was dead, he’d desperately turned his attention to saving Amy. Then she, too, had slipped away.

Now he had Daisy and Lily. He needed them more than anything. A man could only rebuild his future if there was a purpose to it.

Was he being fair in asking Gina to come to the ranch with him? For all her skill in the nursery, she looked as delicate as an orchid. How would she cope with a hardened man like him, one who might be gone all day and return exhausted and covered with dirt?

Nevertheless, Gina attracted him more than any woman he’d ever met. He hoped she would say yes, and he didn’t care if he was being selfish.

If she agreed even to a short-term union, there was hope she’d want to stay. Maybe he could win her, despite logic and everything he knew about himself.

Mason wasn’t a man to give up easily. Not with his daughters, and not with the woman he wanted.

At Maitland Maternity, he parked in the visitors’ lot and went inside. The place seemed different—something about the light. Or the dimensions. Or the fact that, after today, he would no longer be a part of its daily goings-on.

“Darn.” He stopped in the lobby. “I forgot to get going-home clothes.” When a grandmotherly woman smiled at him, he realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Try the gift shop,” she said.

“Much obliged.”

He checked inside. There was a refrigerated case full of flowers, along with shelves of paperback books, magazines and stuffed animals, almost as many as he’d already bought for the girls’ room at home. In one corner, he found baby rattles, booties, diapers and some clothing, but if the store carried little dresses, they must be sold out.

He was willing to bet Margaret would arrive with an armload of gowns and bonnets. No doubt she would count it as evidence of her superior parental fitness.

Had she and Stuart already landed in town? Mason hoped not. He wanted to complete the paperwork and whisk the girls back to the ranch before his sister could complicate the situation.