A Wedding in the Family

He didn’t wait longer than that fleeting instant of realization for her to act. He didn’t give her so much as a heartbeat of time to contemplate the meaning of it all. Instead, he shoved the cases toward her a second time.

She almost lost her grip on the handle of her handbag as she grappled to take the cases without touching his long, powerful fingers. He took the other two suitcases and turned.

Just that quickly, he was striding away from her in the direction of an exit. Lillian started after him, then remembered the baggage handler. She stopped and hastily set down the cases to open her handbag for a tip. She passed the bill to the handler with a shaky smile and a soft, “Thank you,” that won her an enthusiastic thanks when he saw the denomination of the bill.

By the time she’d picked up her suitcases and turned toward the exit, she saw through the glass doors that the cowboy was a distant figure halfway across the parking lot. Getting a better grip on the cases, Lillian hurried through the exit.

Once she was past the automatic doors, the heat of the blazing Texas sun struck her slight body like a speeding freight truck. The sun was so bright that she had to squint her eyes to see before they could adjust.

The wall of heat that had slammed into her now beat down oppressively. Her nervous breath began to go shallow, but she made herself step forward and walk in the direction she’d last glimpsed the cowboy.

He was no longer in sight, but she had little choice but to keep going. By the time she reached the far end of the parking lot, she was panting with frustration. She turned to scan the assortment of cars and pickups. She saw a few men with hats, but none with the battered black Stetson the cowboy had been wearing.

She ended up walking all the way back to the doors of the terminal before her arms gave out and she had to set down the heavy suitcases. Her fingers were shaking so much from the worry that she’d been abandoned in the hot sun, that she nearly dropped the cases. She did drop her handbag, scattering its contents on the hot concrete. Her eyes were blurry with perspiration as she bent to gather her things from the ground.

A wave of dizziness and nausea made her straighten and press trembling fingers to her forehead. She was an abysmal traveler, never more so than on this trying mission for her grandmother. The enormity of the task was impacting her in the awful heat, and this shameful bout of bad nerves was mortifying.

She didn’t pay attention to the big pickup that had rumbled to a stop along the curb a few feet away as she struggled to relax.

“What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

That low, gravelly drawl coming from so close beside her made her jump. Resisting the urge to glance up at the cowboy to see if the reluctant concern she’d heard in his voice was in evidence on his rugged face, she turned away and crouched down to gather her things from the concrete.

“No—I—dropped my bag,” she said hastily as she picked up her wallet and cosmetics and shoved them into her handbag. The dusty toes of the cowboy’s enormous boots intruded into the perimeter of her downcast vision. Appalled at his nearness, she stood up.

She was about to step back to reassert the huge distance she intended to maintain between herself and this rude man, when he caught her small chin with calloused, blunt-nailed fingers that were too strong to fight. The unexpected touch sent a cascade of pleasurable tingles over her skin that made her forget her queasiness. Then, despite the inherent power he could have used to manhandle her, he gently forced her face up and her wide eyes made unwilling contact with the harsh blue intensity of his.

“Your face is as white as new cotton panties.”

The deliberately crude comparison he made between her face and new lingerie insulted her. Profoundly. She reached up and tried to push his big hand away, but it didn’t budge. She grabbed his thick wrist, but the carefully manicured ends of her fingers barely touched nail tips with her thumb as she wrenched his hand away and took an angry step back.

“I thought the Parrish family raised cattle, Mr. Whomever-you-are,” she declared with stiff dignity. “I had no idea they raised swine.”

Once she’d delivered an insult to him which she considered every bit as obnoxious as the one he’d delivered her, she regained her composure. She glanced down, brushing and smoothing at her blouse and slacks, as much for something to do with her shaking hands as to recover her neat appearance.

To Rye, she gave every impression of a small exotic bird smoothing down her ruffled feathers. She already looked as neat and elegant as any other self-obsessed socialite. But to see those fine, delicate little hands fluttering around to tug and smooth over her pricey blouse and pants was almost as amusing as her priggish attempt to insult him. The sight was also powerfully arousing.

“Rye Parrish.”

The sudden offer of a name identified the uncouth cowboy as the owner of the monstrous Parrish Ranch. Lillian’s head snapped up and she gave an involuntary gasp.

“You are Rye Parrish?”

A humorless smile flitted over his hard mouth. “None other,” was his terse response.

Lillian arched a brow, but said nothing. Instead, she turned from him to reach for her luggage. He got to it first, so she followed to the dusty pickup parked at the curb. She winced when he swung her cases over the side of the truck box, but he managed to set them down gently enough next to the rest of her things. The casual strength of his fit, muscled body impressed her despite her reluctance to admire anything about him. The hostility he’d shown earlier reasserted itself when he opened the passenger door of the big pickup and motioned her in with a mocking flourish of his wide hand.

She hesitated a moment, then stepped onto the running board and climbed into the tall vehicle. The door closed smartly beside her the moment she sat on the seat. She got her safety belt on by the time he rounded the pickup and got behind the wheel.

“Ever been to Texas?” His question sounded mild enough as he twisted the key and the truck engine roared to life.

Lillian couldn’t help that her soft, “No, I haven’t,” was wary. Particularly when his expression relaxed and those blue eyes gave her an all-encompassing glance that took in her neatly combed and pressed appearance. She got the impression that her careful grooming was somehow a mark against her.

He glanced away as if he’d suddenly lost interest, starting the pickup off to drive toward the paved road that led to the highway. Lillian eventually made herself relax, grateful for the truck’s air-conditioning as Rye turned onto the highway and accelerated.

She managed to feel a bit more at ease and found a surprising amount of enjoyment in the vast expanse of range land they passed through. Widespread herds of cattle could be seen from time to time, but the oil pumping stations that were visible from the highway seemed to pepper the land with amazing regularity. The novelty of speeding down the long ribbon of highway and rarely meeting another vehicle was astonishing to someone accustomed to the heavy traffic snarls of New York. The huge panorama that surrounded them was breathtaking. The sky was as vividly blue as it was endless, and Lillian realized with some surprise that something about the sheer size of it all was as soothing to her as it was overwhelming.

Rye watched Ms. Lillian Renard’s wide-eyed attention shift to take in every cow, oil well and change in the landscape. Twice they’d sped over the top of a shallow hill. He’d heard her soft intake of breath as they’d reached the crest. The first time, he’d thought she was alarmed by something. The second time she’d done it, he’d realized that her little gasp meant she was favorably impressed by the panoramic view of the countryside they saw briefly from their higher vantage point. He hadn’t expected her to be interested in anything Texas or the Parrish Ranch had to offer.

He still didn’t want to take her to Parrish. Because she was here to look down that perfectly formed aristocratic nose at his baby brother and object to his honorable intentions toward her spoiled, hotheaded sister, he didn’t want her anywhere near his home.

It wasn’t as if he thought her sister was good enough to marry his brother. She sure as hell wasn’t. Rachel—or Rocky, as she insisted everyone call her—was very nearly the last female on the planet he could stand having around, much less wanted to see marry into his family. It had about killed him to keep his objections to himself, but he had. For his brother’s sake, he’d smiled, laughed at Rocky’s off-color jokes and ignored her none-too-subtle come-ons to him. He was deathly afraid that any hint of an objection from him would make his headstrong brother more determined than ever to marry her.

But now Rocky’s high-toned sister was about to stick her nose into the mess. Her interference had the small possibility of spoiling everything, and Rye couldn’t allow that. He didn’t want anyone to put the lovers on the defensive and prompt them to an act of defiance that might end in the elopement he dreaded.

The hell of it was that his careful patience these past interminably long weeks was beginning to bear a few promising bits of fruit. As he’d hoped, Rocky and Chad were starting to appear less than enchanted with one another. Rocky, when she got worked up, had a mouth on her that could blister the hide off a hog. And she’d got worked up at Chad over a couple of little nothings the last few days. The first time, she’d pitched a fit that had sent Chad to the far end of Parrish range until the next day. The second time, his little brother had stood his ground. Rocky had taken one of the cars and gone to a honky-tonk in town, coming back in the wee hours of the morning so dangerously drunk that they’d all been amazed she hadn’t wrecked the car or killed someone.

From there, Rye realized it was only a matter of time—maybe days, hopefully hours—before Chad woke up to the idea that Rocky was incapable of making him any kind of decent wife. It took every bit of self-control he’d had to allow his brother time to see it.

But now, just as he sensed Chad was on the verge of figuring it all out and calling off the engagement, here came the useless bit of fluff whose interference might coax the mismatched lovers more solidly together.

The call Rocky’s grandmother had made to the ranch the day before had been their only warning of Lillian’s arrival. Chad had taken the call and, believing that a visit from Lillian might soften the old lady’s objections, he’d promised that she’d be met at the airport.

Chad had wanted to meet her plane, but Rye had guessed right off what the sister’s sudden visit was about and insisted on doing the honors. Particularly since her grandmother had got him on the phone two days prior and expressed her violent objection to a marriage between their families. The female curmudgeon hadn’t minced words, so there was no reason to think Lillian Renard’s arrival would be anything more than a face-to-face repeat.

But the fragile-looking socialite perched beside him on the seat didn’t appear capable of repeating the old witch’s exact words. Now that he’d met her, he also found it difficult to believe she could come up with any demands of her hedonistic sister that would press Rocky’s loud-mouthed temper toward anything more serious than laughter.

He’d felt a little like laughing himself at her stiff little swine comment. His worries over her arrival at the ranch were probably groundless. After weeks of enduring Rocky’s overbearing personality and short temper, he couldn’t imagine how the two females were remotely related, much less that this little pansy had the ability to bully her sister into a rash act.

Why the grandmother would send such a colorless little ninny to carry out her dirty work might have made for amusing speculation if he hadn’t found her so personally annoying. Particularly when he reckoned it was up to him to derail whatever it was that she and her grandmother had cooked up. And since his only chance of doing that was to level with her and try to gain her cooperation, Rye reckoned he’d have to make a better attempt at concealing his natural aversion to her kind.

But not until he took the little snob down a notch or two. He leaned back a bit more comfortably on the seat and draped a wrist over the wheel.

“A city girl, huh?”

Rye’s lazy drawl was ripe with cynical humor. Lillian glanced at his strong profile, finding his tanned handsomeness more exciting than she wanted to. The raw masculinity of the man was staggering to a young woman who’d had so little experience with men. Every instinct warned her to keep a safe distance.

“I’m certain you already know that, Mr. Parrish,” she answered stiffly. The man clearly disliked her and meant to rub it in.

“And a gen-u-ine New York socialite,” he drawled on.

Lillian bristled at the scorn in his tone and dared a comeback. “Is there a point to your rudeness, Mr. Parrish, or are you too boorish to realize your lack of manners? I believe it’s clear enough now that the invitation for me to visit your ranch was your brother’s idea. If you had such strong objections, perhaps you should have taken them up with him before my travel plans were this far along.”

“What invitation are we talking about, Miz Renard?” The blue gaze that swung toward her was tinged with mockery. “I’d hardly call your grandma’s demand to meet you at the airport and escort you to the ranch an invitation.”

Lillian stared over at him, startled by his blunt statement. Her face flushed. It was just like her grandmother to do such a thing. The grim duty of delivering her message was odious enough to Lillian. To compound it by barging in on everyone uninvited was unthinkable.

Grandmama’s low regard for all things rural and all things Texan had apparently disqualified the Parrish brothers from any pretense of proper manners. Rye’s hostility toward her and his crudeness, though bad behavior, suddenly made sense. And because Lillian had labored all her life to be as proper and inoffensive as possible, her grandmother’s actions embarrassed her.