Marriage On Demand

“Figure I owe you that much, since you can’t seem to get a man’s interest on your own.”

Old fury burst up and burned wildly for several hot moments, but she rigidly held it back, though the very pressure of it made her feel strangled. Rena didn’t care that the faint curve of her lips revealed the depth of her own bitterness and disillusionment.

Without a word, she turned away to cross the porch and let herself into the house. Her throat pounded so hard that she wondered dazedly if she might faint.

Like a robot, she walked up the back stairs, the sound of her boots as subdued as she felt. Once in her room, she methodically set about the task of packing her things.

She should have left this place the day she’d turned eighteen. She should have left this hell. What kind of female could have lived so long with this? How many men would have?

Men don’t want a woman who’s better at being a man than she is at being female.

Her father was wrong. She wasn’t truly better at being a man. Most men wouldn’t have put up with such treatment, much less borne up under the weight and agony of it. Most men had more self-respect. All men had more pride.

Her own stubborn refusal to relinquish hope suddenly seemed pitiful. How many times did you let someone smash your fingers with a hammer before you had sense enough to move your hand?

Though she’d realized the truth long ago, she’d not let herself acknowledge it. Her days—years of them—had amounted to little more than waking up in the morning and pushing herself through each day, weathering the blistering desert of rejection and frustrated hope until exhaustion drove her to bed at night to dream foolish dreams of better times.

How many men who were worth a damn to anyone or to themselves would have been reduced to that?

The sudden need to put an end to that insanity—to at last show some spine and pride—sent a fierce new fire through her as she got boxes from the attic and put stack after stack of clothing from her dresser into them.

Ford Harlow was surely under the impression that he was shackling himself to a female no one else would want so he could get access to a piece of land he’d coveted for years. Just the idea that her father had gone to him to propose such a bizarre notion sent a fresh surge of humiliation scorching over her from scalp to toe.

What kind of man was Ford Harlow? She’d thought better of him than to fall in with the twisted plans of a hateful old man out to buy a husband for his “mannish” daughter. How had he taken her father’s proposal? Had he laughed?

In the end, he’d evidently accepted it. But to get a piece of land, not a wife. She wondered if he’d truly agreed to the part about fathering a son.

The delicate shame she recognized as purely female was the next agony she had to endure. For years, she’d taken vigilant care to never reveal that she had a crush on Ford Harlow. Her father would have verbally savaged her for showing interest in any man, particularly a man of Ford Harlow’s caliber.

And it would have mortified her if Ford himself had ever detected it. The few times he’d had occasion to speak to her, he’d been kind, almost gentle, though his rugged looks and terse manner intimidated her. She’d responded coolly to him and kept herself aloof, but her wounded ego had been soothed by his attention, and profoundly flattered. That her heart would respond to him had been as natural as it had been impossible to prevent.

She couldn’t bear for a man like him to think she’d been a willing—no, an eager—party to her father’s scheme. She knew worldly, compelling men like Ford Harlow barely noticed that sexless females like her existed. It was shocking to think he might have taken her father’s scheme to marry her off to him seriously. At least seriously enough to accept the deal and set a time to speak to her about it.

She had to see him now, she had to put a stop to this. But, oh God, how could she face him?

Not giving herself time to shrink from the task of countering the excruciating shame of what her father had done, Rena abandoned the growing collection of belongings and walked shakily out of her room to do just that before she lost her nerve.

The new stallion Ford Harlow had spent a fortune on was fractious and volatile, with a host of surly habits that had been tolerated and indulged by his last owner.

The shout that went up at the stud barn had drawn his attention and he left the colt he was about to work to head down the alley that bisected that section of corrals. He’d nearly reached the stud barn, when the blood-red stallion burst from the open doors into the sunshine, defying the efforts of the two men who were trying to get a hand on his lead rope. Two more men rushed from their work to block the animal’s path, but the wily stallion dodged them and shot away.

Obviously the qualities that made him a standout—brains, ability and speed—had facilitated his escape. Ford rushed to intercept the powerful horse, but the red devil charged on, boldly knocking him out of the way. The lead rope he’d managed to snag burned through his palm and fingers before it snapped free.

Ford swore, but as he started after the stallion, he caught sight of the slender female who’d apparently just walked through the stable from the driveway on the other side.

Rena Lambert was a striking presence against the shade-darkened interior of the stable behind her. Tall and slender, her body had the sort of feminized athletic fitness beneath her plaid shirt and jeans that spoke volumes about how hard she worked.

She was also all female, though she acted anything but. She probably never suspected the prurient thoughts men had about her lushly rounded attributes and her long, leanly muscled legs.

Her move to intercept the runaway was as graceful as the woman herself, but Ford felt a jolt of alarm as she stepped calmly into the stallion’s path.

The animal reacted instantly, as if he’d been startled by something in her movement, though Ford had detected nothing. The red animal skidded wildly to a stop and shifted direction only to nearly run through the board fence on one side of the alley, before he feinted back to catch Rena off guard or to bully her into letting him pass.

Ford was running now to intervene, but the big horse suddenly reared, practically on top of the slim woman who didn’t so much as flinch.

It was over in those next tense seconds. Rena Lambert never showed even a flicker of fear or hesitation as the stallion’s front hooves started down only a few inches from her right shoulder. She merely shifted to the side to catch the flipping end of the lead rope.

The stallion squealed as his hooves hit the dirt, but before he could bunch his powerful hindquarters to bolt, Rena used her grip on the lead rope to haul his big head around and force him to circle.

Caught off guard, the stallion whipped around her as if eager to participate. Ford halted within a few feet of the pair, watching tensely as Rena used nothing but her grip on the heavy lead and her hand on the stallion’s flank to urge him to keep moving in the small, tight circle. The low-level cloud of dust they kicked up quickly obscured Ford’s ability to keep track of the fast-paced dance.

Seconds later, the horse dramatically slowed then abruptly came to a halt. The stallion lowered his head and let out the kind of long snort that signaled surrender and calm. Rena gave him a firm pat on his damp neck and murmured a few quiet words.

Not once had she shouted, not once had she done anything to cause the big animal pain. In essence, she’d merely taken over and redirected the animal’s energy while neatly demonstrating her own authority over him until he’d let her know he’d had enough.

The pleasure of seeing her do that sharpened Ford’s interest. He’d not expected to see her before tonight, but he knew right away why she’d shown up early. The high, hot color that surged up her cheeks as he approached confirmed it.

“Much obliged.” He took the lead rope she passed him. Her incredible blue gaze with its thick fringe of black lashes shifted from his and the color in her face deepened.

For another woman, that would have been coy and flirtatious. But Rena Lambert was neither of those. She was aloof—painfully aloof—and quiet in a way that fairly shouted proof that her father frequently berated her.

It was no secret that the old man was an SOB, and that he treated his only child like dirt. Ford wondered why she took it. Did she think she deserved it or had Abner undermined her so much that she was afraid to go out into the world on her own?

Ford had only tolerated Abner’s visit yesterday because Rena intrigued him. He’d learned nothing that truly satisfied his curiosity, but he’d been shocked by what Abner Lambert meant to do to his daughter. The injustice of that was far sharper for Ford than the personal insult of having a crazy old man use a piece of land to buy a husband for his daughter.

And why the hell would he need to? Rena was beautiful. Her dark, glossy hair came down just past her collar, but it was thick and lustrous and straight. Her face was an intriguing mix of high cheekboned beauty and common symmetry. Her nose was fine and straight and her mouth had a vulnerability to it that asked a man to go slow.

Combined with a close-up view of the rest of her, Rena Lambert was a pleasure to look at. The lustful feelings he’d felt toward her in the past impacted him more deeply and forcefully than ever now. The notion that he might have to marry her wasn’t exactly distasteful.

But instinct warned him to conceal that. She was already here to put a stop to her father’s scheme. Any hint of personal interest from him would scare her away, and he wasn’t yet certain what he truly wanted, other than a parcel of land.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you until tonight,” he said, unable to take his eyes from her.

Her blue gaze shifted to his when he spoke, but dropped away almost instantly.

“I can’t…have supper with you. I—” She cut herself off as the two ranch hands from the stud barn arrived to collect the stallion.

Rena’s nerves were jumping painfully high now that the moment had come to speak to Ford Harlow. She was tall for a woman, but Ford made her feel petite and feminine. He wasn’t peacock handsome, but he was rugged and compelling. So compelling that she felt the power of his dark gaze on her every second.

The long-repressed femininity she rarely acknowledged was clamoring at his nearness. Men didn’t normally affect her, but something about Ford’s masculinity pulled at her.

A peculiar feeling that was half excitement, half fear sparkled sweetly through her and she tried desperately to suppress it. She was terrified her reaction to him would show, because something in his nearly black gaze hinted at unerring perception. She wasn’t used to men like him. The men she worked with every day accepted her presence, but nothing in their manner or in the way they spoke to her had ever seemed personal.

Every look Ford gave her, every word he spoke, somehow seemed intensely personal, as if he meant to catch her notice, as if he was either probing for something or trying to coax it out of her. It was terrifying, it was flattering, it was profoundly confusing.

It dawned on her then that she’d let several moments go by without finishing the sentence she’d cut off when Ford’s men had led the stallion away. Her gaze shot back to see the calmness in his. He was waiting for her, watching her steadily and the peculiar feeling of excitement and fear soared higher.

“Pardon me,” she said hastily to apologize for the brief wait, then struggled to keep from fidgeting as she went on, determined to get it out. “My father just told me about…”