The Marriage Command

Which would defeat the purpose of marrying her to solve his problems with his nephew and to have a wife to get heirs. And, Claire wasn’t quite the shy submissive flower he’d taken her for. The woman had managed to say a couple of things that had made his conscience squirm.

But then, he’d blindsided her with this, and she was upset. He’d allow her to blow off a little steam because her temper didn’t trouble him. He’d braced himself for tears, so it was a distinct relief that she’d merely shown anger. At least he knew she had enough pride not to automatically resort to tears to get her way.

Logan finished with the paperwork he’d been doing when Claire and the boy had arrived, then went in search of his bride-to-be. He remembered she’d left her things beside the chair, so he went back to the den for them.

He found her in Cody’s room, where she was sitting on the floor cross-legged with the boy in her lap as they looked through one of the oversized picture books he’d had the decorator supply.

Claire was dressed conservatively in a long-sleeved white blouse that was tucked into her belted and neatly creased khaki slacks. She’d worn simple sandals and had painted her toenails a tasteful pink. Her hair was a rich, dark brown, but her skin was city pale.

She had fine, even facial features, fairly straight teeth, but she wore almost no makeup. With a little effort and a more stylish haircut than the simple straight hair that fell to the top of her shoulder blades, she’d be striking. He noted again that she was petite and well-proportioned, but it was her long legs and her tantalizingly full breasts that he appreciated most.

He hadn’t needed an investigator to tell him that she was nothing like her promiscuous stepsister. Though he was far from handsome, he knew the look women got when they had certain thoughts. Claire hadn’t shown even an inkling of those. She was either not attracted to him at all or she didn’t have enough experience to automatically consider him in terms of a potential affair.

And that was another reason he’d chosen her. The moment a woman found out he was rich and single, she zeroed in. Claire didn’t seem at all interested in either him or his money, apart from how it affected the boy, and her chaste lifestyle was one he automatically respected.

He figured because of her reaction to him so far that she’d never fall wildly in love with him, which was fine. He wouldn’t feel as if he’d cheated her when he didn’t love her wildly back.

Claire looked up to see him in the doorway, and he noted the subtle way she stiffened. The boy must have felt it because he looked up to peer over the top of the oversized book. The moment he saw Logan, Cody turned in Claire’s lap to bury his face shyly in her shirtfront. She calmly closed the book and set it on the bookshelf behind her.

Leery of startling the boy, Logan kept his voice low. “Is he in better humor?”

Claire offered a faint smile. “Much better. Perhaps if you’d come over and sit down, he wouldn’t be so intimidated by your s-i-z-e.”

The fact that she’d spelled out the word tickled him. He brought her things and put them beside her. But instead of sitting on the floor like a woman or a kid might, Logan hunkered down and gave Claire a prompting look. After all, she was the expert and she’d just been generous enough to give advice. Though she might be doing it solely to help the boy, Logan would benefit.

“An s-m-i-l-e might help, Mr. Pierce. They look like this,” she added and widened her own stiff smile.

Logan felt the sting to his pride. Was she poking fun at him? He studied her face and it seemed a little too guileless to be believed. He wasn’t sure how to take this. If she was teasing him, he automatically took a dim view of it, though he did manage what he was sure was a more pleasant expression.

“Hey there, Cody.” His greeting to the boy felt awkward and that was a surprising frustration. He’d expected something more man-to-man, an instinctive understanding because the boy was blood kin and they were both male.

He’d have to remember that the child had had mostly female influence in his life, so it might take a little longer for them to hit it off.

Cody turned his head and sneaked a look at him before he shyly hid his face again. Claire eased the boy a little away from herself.

“Say hello to your uncle Logan, sweetheart,” she coaxed. “He’s the one who got you the beautiful book.”

As if being bought a book was a big deal to the kid, the boy looked over at him, a little less mistrustfully. But there was no hello, so Logan took a chance.

“Have you tried out the rocking horse?”

Cody merely blinked at that, but Claire shook her head.

“Ever seen a real pony?” he tried next, and felt a flush creep along his cheekbones. It felt odd and somehow unmanly to talk to the boy this way. And he was stumbling around at it in front of Claire, who handled the kid easily and with a familiarity that he suddenly doubted he’d ever have.

It was a reminder not only of her power over his nephew, but that however dense the judge had been, Claire Ryan was the one person qualified to continue raising this boy. Logan might have won the legal right, but morally, Claire was the one who’d earned it. The hard way.

Knowing that did nothing to ease his sense of guilt for pushing to get the boy, and it annoyed him that the guilt he’d tried to ignore about blackmailing Claire suddenly spiked. He had good motives, and he meant to cause only good to come out of this, but he’d charged into something private and special to lay claim to a child whom he was using to coerce a woman into marriage.

He’d taken away Claire’s choices with both things, and once she married him, he’d be after even more things that she might not have chosen to give him otherwise. It was all he could do now to tamp down his conscience to a more bearable level.

“We’ll go see a real pony when we get back from town,” he said gruffly, then lifted his gaze to Claire, compelled to keep pushing despite his feelings of guilt. “Are you done thinkin’ about this? It’d be best to get to town before the courthouse closes.”

Claire had been privately enjoying the big man’s effort to somehow connect with the boy, and she’d been unwillingly touched by it. It was clear Logan was trying, and it was also clear that he probably had no experience with two-year-olds. She’d seen the flush that had darkened his tanned skin and again felt as if she was glimpsing something—embarrassment this time—that humanized the man and made him less objectionable. Until he’d mentioned the courthouse.