A Deal at the Altar: Hired by the Cowboy / SOS: Convenient Husband Required

“I’ll come back and walk you home. I really do need to talk to you.”

She sighed. “Fine. But for now you’re costing me my tips, in case you didn’t notice. I need to get back to work. I won’t make much money with you standing glowering over me.”

She shouldered past him, pasting a smile on her face as she apologized to the patrons at table ten for the delay. When she turned back, he was gone.

At one a.m. they ushered out the last customer and Alex locked the door. Pete eyed her over the bar as he started counting out the float for morning. “Go home,” he said, “and I’ll finish this. That’s the second double you’ve pulled this week. You look like hell.”

“Gee, thanks, Pete.” She didn’t know whether to be relieved or nervous. If she left now, Connor might be outside waiting. If she didn’t, he’d probably get tired of waiting around. On one hand she wanted to see him, see what was so important. On the other she knew it probably wasn’t best. She didn’t need any extra complications right now—her life was already full of too many.

She grabbed her umbrella from behind the bar and saluted him. “Tomorrow at four?”

“G’night, darlin’,” he answered. “I’ll lock up behind you.”

When she stepped out into the darkness Connor was waiting, standing next to a bench beneath a streetlight. His tie from earlier was gone, and he looked sexily rumpled in the dim light. She swallowed, thankful that she’d spent enough time alone to have some street smarts. And to follow her instincts. Right now her instincts were telling her she wasn’t in mortal danger. But the way her body was reacting to seeing him again told her loud and clear that she was in danger of another kind.

She should turn around and go back inside. She reached for the handle, only to hear the lock click into place.

She could handle this. She could.

“My mother used to warn me about strange men and dark streets late at night.”

He turned, and in his arms was a bouquet of lemon-colored roses. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we have a streetlight and we’ve already met. I can’t do anything about the hour, though.”

He held out the roses and she was too stupefied to do anything besides take them, the clear cellophane wrapping crackling in her hands. Where had he found roses after nine p.m.?

And, a better question, why? What was so important he needed to butter her up with flowers first?

Warning bells screamed through her head. Whatever he wanted was something big. She’d only received flowers once before in her life. It had been roses then, too, pink ones. And the gist of the card had been Thanks for the memories.

“Thank you,” she said clearly. “But I don’t quite understand what is so important you think you need to impress me with roses. Even if they are quite stunning,” she admitted, sniffing the yellow blossoms.

She laughed a little to herself, remembered reading somewhere that yellow roses signified unrequited love. She needed that like she needed a hole in her head.

“You’d better get to the point,” she suggested. “The novelty of these will probably wear off pretty fast.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

She began walking, and he fell into step beside her.

“What sort of proposition?”

“I want you to marry me.”

Her feet simply stopped working, and she halted, frozen to the sidewalk. He what? What sort of cruel joke was this? Poor, pregnant Alex. Surely he didn’t think she was that desperate! He could take his pity and—

Her head lifted until she looked down her nose at him. “I couldn’t have just heard you correctly.”

He grabbed her forearms, turning her to face him, his hand catching on the umbrella dangling from her wrist. “I want you to marry me.” He huffed out a laugh of surprise. “That wasn’t how I planned to say it, but there you go.”

He wanted her to marry him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. What on earth? She realized he was completely in earnest. He was proposing to her in the middle of the street at one-twenty-two in the morning.

“I met you less than twelve hours ago. You’re insane. Good night, Connor.”

She turned to walk away, and made it a few steps.

“Wait.”

The desperation in his voice caught at her and she stopped. “Wait for what? You can’t be serious about this.”

“I am. And I’ll explain it if you’ll only listen.”

His suit was rather rumpled, and his hair looked as if he’d spent the better part of the evening running his hands through it. Against her better judgment she capitulated. He’d helped her this afternoon, and she felt obligated to him. “You have five minutes.”

“Let’s keep walking.”

Shoulder to shoulder they headed down the street. It was considerably cool after the violence of the earlier shower, and Alex shivered in the damp air. Gallantly he removed his suit coat and draped it over her shoulders. If nothing else, all his actions said he was a gentleman.

“I went to see my grandmother today. I have a trust fund, but I can’t access it until I’m thirty.”

“So old? I thought most of those were age of consent, or twenty-one or whatever?”

“My parents set it up that way. Anyway, I’m twenty-nine. But I need the cash now.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with me.” She kept walking, her eyes straight ahead. If she looked into his, all dark and earnest, she knew she’d be taken in. She’d been in danger of it earlier today.

She knew what it was to be fooled by a pair of beautiful peepers. And now she knew better than to do it again.

“This’ll make sense, if you actually let me explain,” he answered. “There is a provision. I can have the money if I’m married.”

“I see.” She didn’t, really, but it was getting slightly less muddled.

“I think Mom and Dad set it up that way so I’d be old enough not to squander it, but that if I got married it would help me and my bride.”

“Good logic.”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

She felt his eyes on her but refused to meet his gaze. “I don’t know you, Connor. But I agreed to listen, so I will.”

“Look,” he said, with a hand on her arm, stopping her. “If I don’t get some cash soon I’m going to lose our ranch. That ranch has been in our family for over a hundred years.”

“Why are you in such trouble?” The last thing she needed was a man who didn’t know how to manage his own affairs. Lord knew she’d screwed up enough on her own. But at least they’d been her mistakes to make and fix. What surprised her most was that she was already intrigued, instead of flatly telling him to take a hike. She couldn’t escape the gentle way he’d helped her this afternoon. How he’d bought her peppermint tea and actually seemed to care about what happened to her.

“There’s been an outbreak of cattle disease. It took everything I had to get us through the last crisis. But now…another case, up north. It’s going to cripple the whole industry. Yet, I’ve got a herd to sustain. A lot of farms will go under because of this. I refuse to let Windover be one of them.”

She’d read the news, and knew the situation was as serious as he said. This wasn’t mismanagement. This was a situation completely out of his control.

“You need some way to support yourself and the baby. What I’m talking about here is a mutually beneficial arrangement. You marry me, I get my trust fund, and Windover survives the crisis. After the baby is born, and you’re back on your feet, you can do what you choose, and I’ll make sure there’s money in your bank account every month.”