The Marriage Charm

Remembering all that in mere moments, Melody smiled to herself, there at the grubby table in the Moose Jaw Tavern, despite her aching feet and admittedly bad attitude.

The whole experience was ancient history now, she reflected, still watching Spence, still unable to stop watching him, as he made his way across the sawdust floor, pausing here and there to exchange a friendly word or a handshake with somebody or to laugh at some joke.

He approached the bar, spoke to the man behind it, but came away without a drink. Spence rarely indulged in alcohol; he’d told her once that it smoothed away the rough edges a little too well, whatever that meant.

At last, and with enormous effort, Melody finally managed to tear her eyes away from him, her face burning at the difficulty, and when she shifted her gaze in the opposite direction, it was to catch Bex grinning in that knowing way best friends have.

Melody grimaced at her.

Bex, unruffled as usual, laughed and shook her head, rising when yet another cowboy asked her to dance.

“Don’t be surprised if I’m not here when you get back,” Melody yelled over the music.

“Suit yourself,” Bex yelled back, good-natured to the end.

Melody was beginning to feel like a real wallflower, which was a stretch, considering how often she’d been invited to dance since she and Bex had arrived an hour or so before. After a few polite refusals, the invitations had stopped coming, and that had been okay with her and with her screaming feet.

She’d had, as her grandfather liked to say, all the fun she could stand.

Time to vamoose.

The waitress had been running a tab, and Melody wanted to pay her share, so she elbowed her way through to the cash register at the far end of the bar, searching her little yellow purse—part of the bridesmaids’ outfit—for her credit card.

She settled up and then limped toward the door, propped open to admit the summer breezes, and scanned the demolition derby in the parking lot for her car.

It was blocked in on all sides.

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, faced with two equally unappealing choices—go back inside the Moose Jaw, hunt down the bar owner and convince him to find the patrons responsible for the dilemma and get them to move their vehicles—or she could walk home.

“Is there a problem?” The voice, all too familiar, took her off guard.

She turned her head and, sure enough, Spence was standing there, watching her, his face in shadow and his expression, therefore, unreadable. Well, not completely. Was that a grin just barely tugging at one corner of his mouth?

“Yes,” Melody said stiffly. “There is a problem.” She sucked in a breath and continued in a rush of words. “In fact, there are several problems. First of all, I want to go home, and I can’t because my car is literally surrounded. Furthermore, my feet are killing me—”

Melody put on the brakes, stopped talking.

Spence, frowning as he listened, surveyed the lot full of rigs that might have been parked by half-trained baboons, and sighed. She was unprepared for the impact of his blue eyes when he looked back at her face then slid a leisurely glance down the length of her body to her shoes, which weren’t suitable for walking through gravel, let alone making the long hike home. The grin he’d probably been trying to suppress broke loose at last.

“I don’t know how you can walk in those things,” he remarked. “And, no offense, but that dress makes you look like an inverted daffodil. A wilted one. I’ll bet it’s stylish or something, but I’m not positive yellow is your color. The only good point is that it shows off one leg. I like that. You have nice legs.”

Melody rolled her eyes then snapped, “Well, thanks a whole heap for nothing.”

“Just my opinion,” Spence said. “I wasn’t kidding about the leg part.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion of my dress or my shoes or my legs,” she said, more than cranky now. When would this damnable night be over?

Spence’s response was a low chuckle, and the sound was so thoroughly masculine it made her heart pound. “Come to think of it,” he drawled, “you didn’t.” He paused, and in an instant, his expression changed. He seemed tired, no longer amused. “I’m headed for home myself, and I’d be glad to drop you off at your place.” A beat of silence. “Your car will be all right here till morning, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

By then, Melody’s heart had shinnied up into the back of her throat, but she managed to croak out a reply, anyway. “I don’t think—I wouldn’t—I mean—”

Spence’s mouth twitched again, and his eyes twinkled as he watched her.

Melody wanted to punch him.

She also wanted, perversely, to kiss him.

She wanted to...

Damn it all to hell, she didn’t know what she wanted.

Typically, Spence didn’t ask. Instead, without any warning at all, he swept Melody up into his arms and proceeded to carry her across the parking lot, his strides purposeful.

“What,” Melody gasped, after a considerable delay and with significant effort, “are you doing?”

“That ought to be obvious,” Spence replied reasonably. “I’m hauling you to my truck so I can drive you home. It’s not as if you could cover much ground under your own power—not in those ridiculous shoes, anyhow.”

“Hauling me?”

He nodded matter-of-factly. “You look thin enough, but I’d say you’re on the hefty side. I’ve lugged around calves that weighed less.”

Melody seethed, stung, even as something primitive and hungry unfurled inside her. “That was a terriblething to say!” she protested. “Hefty?”

They’d reached Spence’s truck, and he set her on the passenger-side running board, holding her in place with one hand while he extracted his keys from the pocket of his jeans. After easing her to one side, he opened the door and gestured for her to get in.

“Sorry,” he finally said, without conviction. When she didn’t move, he just put her in the truck’s cab.

Melody’s backside landed hard on the seat, and she was too stunned by his audacity to say another word. Or to climb right out of the truck.

Spence paused to consider some passing thought, rubbing his chin as he apparently pondered. His beard was already coming in, Melody noticed, oddly distracted.

“I guess I can be fairly tactless,” he conceded. “Hefty might have been the wrong word. But I did apologize, didn’t I?”

Melody found some remnant of her voice, enough to call him a name.

Spence shook his head in apparent amazement, but Melody knew that lethal grin of his was lurking just out of sight and might reappear at any moment, a dazzling flash that would leave her temporarily blinded.

“I should’ve known better than to try and do you a favor,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. Before Melody could react, he added a brusque, “Fasten your seat belt.” With that, he slammed the door, came around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

If she hadn’t been fresh out of steam and in no mood to cripple herself for life by trying to walk home in the heels from hell, she would’ve told Spence Hogan what he could do with his favor. After that, she would have pushed the door open again and left him sitting there in his gas-guzzling phallic symbol of a truck to think what he liked.

It was a nice fantasy.

Melody folded her arms and fumed until they were out of the parking lot and on the highway. Then—she just couldn’t help it—she muttered, “You started it.”

Spence threw back his head and gave a shout of laughter.

“Well, you did,” Melody insisted. Why couldn’t she shut up, leave well enough alone? After all, her house was less than five minutes away. Surely she could have held her tongue that long.