Excerpt Letter to Reader About the Author Title Page Acknowledgments Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

“I Want This Marriage To Continue Past The Six-Month Arrangement”.

The very air seemed to still Matt’s words. Perri froze, staring hard into his eyes.

“I don’t have much to give you. But I want a chance,” Matt continued. “Can you forgive me for the past?”

“Yes, I can forgive you, Matt,” Perri said simply and without hesitation. “You’re the father of my child. And I love you. And most importantly, I want the past behind us so I don’t have it hanging over me and this baby.”

Cradling her in his arms, Matt buried his face in her throat. “Then we’ll call it done,” he said, moved by her declaration of love.

“Matt,” she asked, “why did you move my things into your room?” She could feel his body go tense.

“Because you’re the mother of my child. And because”—he paused, looking straight into her eyes “—you’re where you’ve always belonged, Perri,” Matt continued. “And where I need you to be....”

Dear Reader,

Spring is in the air—and all thoughts turn toward love. With six provocative romances from Silhouette Desire, you too can enjoy a season of new beginnings...and happy endings!

Our March MAN OF THE MONTH is Lass Small’s The Best Husband in Texas.This sexy rancher is determined to win over the beautiful widow he’s loved for years! Next, Joan Elliott Pickart returns with a wonderful love story—Just My Joe. Watch sparks fly between handsome, wealthy Joe Dillon and the woman he loves.

Don’t miss Beverly Barton’s new miniseries, 3 BABIES FOR 3 BROTHERS, which begins with His Secret Child. The town golden boy is reunited with a former flame—and their child. Popular Anne Marie Winston offers the third title in her BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES series, as a sexy heroine forms a partnership with her lost love in The Bride Means Business. Then an expectant mom matches wits with a brooding rancher in Carol Grace’s Expecting.... And Virginia Dove debuts explosively with The Bridal Promise, when star-crossed lovers marry for convenience.

This spring, please write and tell us why you read Silhouette Desire books. As part of our 20th anniversary celebration in the year 2000, we’d like to publish some of this fan mail in the books—so drop us a line, tell us how long you’ve been reading Desire books and what you love about the series. And enjoy our March titles!

Regards,

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

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The Bridal Promise

Virginia Dove

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

VIRGINIA DOVE grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, where Route 66 and the Chisholm Trail intersect. After graduating from Southern Methodist University, she came to New York City, where she began a successful career as a dancer under her stage name and performed on Broadway in such musicals as My Fair Lady, Best Little Whorehouse In Texas and Chicago. Currently she lives in New York City with her husband, and she still twirls a mean baton.

Many thanks to Melissa Senate.

And as always, all my love to Lexie.

Prologue

Seventeen-year-old Perri Stone stood before a louvered window at Gledhill and carefully opened the gold locket that hung around her neck. The diamond hidden inside the oval sparkled as it caught the light of the setting sun. She tilted the locket back and forth, mesmerized by the way the rays bounced off the faceted stone.

Soon, she would be able to put Matt’s picture inside. Soon, it would be all right for everyone to know they were getting married. Soon, they wouldn’t have to sneak around and hide the truth. Just as soon as Matt explained things to his parents, everything would be all right.

Perri closed the locket on a kiss and whirled around Gannie Gledhill’s formal living room. Gannie was the closest thing to a grandmother Perri had in Spirit Valley, Oklahoma. She had taken a special interest in Perri and in Matt, long before they had even fallen in love. Even as children, Matt and Perri had never doubted that Gannie loved them both as if they were her own.

Dancing over to the fireplace, Perri studied each object on the mantel and reasoned out how to proceed. Maybe this evening they would tell Gannie of their plans. It wouldn’t be any surprise to her. Gannie knew that they were very much in love. They had been meeting here at Gledhill for nearly a year.

Soon, she thought, I’ll be eighteen and everything will be all right. Her fingers closed over an arrowhead that had lived on the mantel ever since Matt had found it out by the horse barn. Its edges were still razor sharp; but the meticulous, hand-chipped surface had been worn smooth by time. She gripped the stone hard enough to hurt. Please, she prayed, let the old scandal and the bad blood between our families no longer matter.

Perri closed her eyes and tried to imagine how her mother was going to react to the news. Janie Stone had her own reasons for wanting her girl to stay away from the Ransoms. But Gannie would bring her around. Perri was sure of it. Perri Ransom. She considered how it sounded for maybe the millionth time. Mrs. Matthew Ransom.

The sound of a car pulling up the drive drew her back to the window, expecting to see Gannie on her way to the garage. Instead, Perri’s blood froze as Leila Ransom, Matt’s mother, got out of her car. For a time, Mrs. Ransom simply studied the old Gledhill farmhouse. Then she stalked onto the porch and through the front door. Leila Ransom moved into the living room like a predator closing in for a quick, clean kill.

“Are you pregnant?” Leila asked calmly, her lovely green eyes resembling ice crystals.

Speechless, Perri shook her head.

“If you find out that you are, I’ll pay for an abortion. You’ll need one because Matt isn’t going to many you, no matter what he’s told you. He has more pride than that and more concern for his position in this community.” Leila glanced at the clock on the mantel. Her expression suggested she might find it amusing to time their exchange. “He’s done with you, dear,” she said, “believe me.”

Perri couldn’t hide her sense of shock or her helpless anger. Never had she imagined herself in a showdown with Matt’s mother. She was in over her head and she knew it.

“I do hope you will listen to me,” Leila cautioned, “because I don’t plan to give you a second chance. If you continue to see my son, I’ll make certain you regret it.” Pale blond curls rebounded as Leila turned toward the front windows.

“Certain well-placed rumors, about how your precious little mother has been having an affair with my husband for years, won’t be too difficult to arrange. Everyone will know that’s the real reason behind her divorce. And everyone in town will believe it. Don’t think they won’t.” Amused now, she nailed Perri with those inhuman eyes.

“Never doubt that I can do it or that I will, Perri. The fact that it’s a lie will mean nothing when I’ve finished with her. I’d enjoy the opportunity,” Leila added as an afterthought. “That goody-goody act of hers won’t be of much help by the time I’m done.

“No,” Leila smiled coldly, “I think it would be best for you to take your daddy up on the chance to go to that special high school, the one I heard your mother bragging about. Leave for Raleigh and spend your senior year living with your father and his new family. And stay away from my son.” Leila thoughtfully adjusted her wristwatch, pausing to tap a perfectly manicured nail against the crystal.

The sound struck Perri as inordinately loud, empty and hollow. She flinched away as if from a blow.

“Maybe they’ve got some summer courses. Now that’s an idea,” Leila brightened. “You could leave immediately after school is out.

“And,” she shrugged delicately, “if you don’t, when I’m done with her, your precious momma will have to leave town. Do I make myself crystal clear?”

Perri began to tremble as Leila closed in for the kill. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered. It was over. Every hope and dream had been shattered.

“Never mention any of this conversation to Matt, ever,” Leila ordered. “Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tight-lipped and terrified, Perri didn’t even realize she was in shock. All she knew was an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and loss.

“Good.” Leila sighed with satisfaction, glancing at the mantelpiece. She walked out and drove away without another word.

Unable to move, Perri found herself staring blindly at the ticking clock. Cruelty had worked wonders. And so quickly.

Perri never cried.

One

Twelve years later

Matt Ransom was not in the mood for a tornado. Although with his luck, it probably wouldn’t be a twister. It would probably be something he couldn’t out-dodge, like more baseball-sized hail.

It was hard to complain about tornadoes in Tornado Alley without feeling just a little silly; but he had a mind to anyway. He knew his brother, Whit, was watching helplessly as almost two thousand acres blew away in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Just two inches of rain since November had left many with no choice but to sell their cattle. And these hadn’t been even a hope of a wheat crop for Whit. Irrigation did little good when forty-five-to-fifty-mile-an-hour winds raged day after day.

At least around Spirit Valley, Oklahoma, there would be a harvest, of sorts. Blessed by the river and many deep wells, in addition to a man-made lake, Spirit was outside of the burn ban. Every field was full of short oats.

“By now, the wheat should be dropping its heads, dammit,” he muttered as in frustration he automatically checked the land and the sky.

Understanding that others were having it worse didn’t make his own situation any less aggravating. When racing against a storm, it was usually the storm that won the race. Today wasn’t going to be an exception. Something was in the air and he could smell it. So far, it was only black clouds, some serious wind and approaching dense rain. Born for and of the land, Matt held no hope it would stay as it was now.

The stop signs and stoplights he now had to navigate were giving him the blues. His father still couldn’t reconcile himself to the fact that the town had grown to need them. Too many people. Matt had grown up seeing those stop signs removed at the start of every harvest. The wheat-laden combines coming in from the farms had made their way into Spirit Valley without a hitch. There was a time when every kid in town knew not to cross Elm Street without being very careful during June.

Matt swore silently as he stopped at yet another light. Harvest was vital to the whole community. The combines would roll on through, from the farms to the grain elevators over by the railroad tracks, as fast as the weather would allow. “Stopping every couple of blocks is just uncivilized,” he grumbled as he floated the last four lights.

At the moment, Matt had a fractious yearling that he wanted ready for the sale coming up at Shawnee. Salem didn’t appreciate the hole in the roof over his stall and didn’t care who knew it. A paint with an attitude; just what I need. Matt shook his head at his own lame joke. He had to get out of town. It was affecting his brains.

He had a dozen things to do today without having to repair the damage from yesterday’s hail. “All right, I was lucky,” he acknowledged as he slapped the steering wheel with the heel of one broad hand. It was only one building. At least his father’s roof was undamaged.

Not that Sam Ransom would let his oldest son know if he needed any help. The two of them hadn’t had a true conversation about anything other than horses or hard work since before Matt’s mother, Leila, had passed away. And that had been years ago. Matt knew he was responsible for the distance between them and he accepted that. Yet of all the things that had hardened him since he’d become a man, the breach with his father still brought a daily ache. He made a mental note to check the old place himself before too many more days went by.

“Here it comes,” he muttered. Big fat drops of rain began to break from the black clouds overhead.

Annoyed at the delay in repairing the roof, and fit to be tied over having to make a repair to anything this early in the season, he almost missed the fact that Gannie Gledhill’s front door was open. It never occurred to him to let such a transgression slide by. As the pickup behind him honked in protest, he abruptly turned in and barreled up the drive.

Just driving toward Gledhill brought an ache to his heart. Lord, how he missed Gannie. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready for her to be gone. The funeral had only been two days ago, and he couldn’t seem to adjust to the loss of the only woman he’d never once doubted he could trust. But it was more than that. Gannie’s death brought too many painful changes.

Gannie. Her family went back almost as far as Matt’s own. Her grandfather had been sent by the Rock Island Railroad when the line had brought its rails to this part of Oklahoma. Old Man Gledhill had married a local girl, buying a farm and building a house in town. He’d had everything brought in from back East, including silk wallpaper for the dining rooms. “Got a good deal on the shipping rate,” Sam Ransom used to say.

Much to her family’s regret, Olivia—her given name—had refused to go back East to school. Instead she had stayed, graduated from the Oklahoma College for Women and become the town librarian. She had never married. Yet so many children over the years had found a “safe harbor” with her. Sam Ransom had given her the name of Gannie, “the town’s Grannie,” when he was still in grade school.

Keeper of the town’s books, its heritage, and its children: to many, she was Spirit Valley. To Matt she was even more. How had he made it through the last twelve years? With Gannie’s love, faith and guidance, he acknowledged. It had taken Gannie’s bracing approach to keep him sane.

And staying steady and well-respected in Spirit Valley was the Ransom family’s heritage. Ransom: The price of redemption; an atonement. Now with Gannie gone, the old house was linked in Matt’s mind to only one other woman.

He could picture her laughing in the dining room; or watering the backyard. Luminous eyes had watched him as sunlight had played through the windows of an upstairs bedroom. Matt hadn’t often noticed the Indian heritage in her, unless he’d looked past the light hair and eyes. But it was there. Light in that little room had branded her keen-edged cheekbones as Perri Stone had stood slim, motionless, his.

Perri’s eyes, he thought. Time had frozen a memory of Perri Stone in just about every corner of that house. Perri’s eyes had always intrigued him. The center of each iris was a warm, brandy-colored brown surrounded by emerald green. Matt had never considered, until now, how they were a lighter variation of his own mix of onyx and forest green. Well, that shocked him, teasing back to life some of his fury.

Driving too fast to absorb the implications of the slightly opened gate to the little graveyard and the red rose on one simple stone marker, he slammed the longbed under the carport. Matt barely felt the sudden whipping of wind and chilly rain as he took the steps of Gledhill’s wraparound porch two at a time.

Whoever it was, would want to have a good reason for being on the property, because he was in no mood for any more delays. He had a full day of business to attend to, some of it sonny indeed.

Among other things, he had some horses running at Remington Park tomorrow, if the weather didn’t cancel the races. And some owners had threatened to drop by in anticipation of the running. The social necessities of a well-respected horse farm were never something he could easily oblige. The screen door slammed out his frustration as his boots hit the old wooden floor.

Whoever it was had walked right on in as if he owned the place. And whoever it was, she was really in no mood for the Spirit Valley grapevine to find out so quickly that she was moving in. Perri Stone shook loose the raindrops on her way in from garaging the car. She moved fast, hoping to head off the visitor and graciously sweep him right back out the front door.

The cowboy reached the back doorway of the living room at almost the same moment she entered. They both stuttered to a halt as recognition over small matters, like a red rose on an old grave and the identity of who always walked into that house like he owned it, returned to haunt her.

Jeans, boots, work shirt and cheekbones. In the low, stormy light it could have been anybody. But those cheekbones, combined with the piercing eyes and the sharp brows and nose of a hawk, meant it wasn’t just anybody. Stifling the small cry wasn’t an option. Her heart wished that it could be.

He uttered a low oath as she smacked into his chest, more through his refusal to give an inch than due to speed. Matt’s hands reached out to hold her in a response both instantaneous and automatic. It didn’t improve his mood one bit.

Perri knew to expect a storm. So far they had managed a cold, civilized distance. But until six weeks ago, when they had begun keeping vigil over Gannie’s hospital bed, they hadn’t shared a roof in twelve years. And the last time they had been in this room together, he’d been closer to violence than she’d ever seen him in her life.

Perri would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her go weak in the knees as he grabbed her and the sweet memories came flooding back. Her momentary relief that it was Matt in the house was rooted in the distant past, and promptly overshadowed by the reality of the present.

“Dammit, Ransom, you scared me to death!” she declared, recklessly pushing away from him.

“My pleasure, Stone,” he answered coldly. Matt stared at her as he quickly let her go.

She stared right back. Then without another word, Perri moved to the television and found a weather bulletin. A tornado was passing twelve miles to the southwest of where they were standing. The open front door brought in air cold enough to tell her to expect the sound of hail. Although she wasn’t soaked from her run back into the house, she shivered. At the moment she had a more immediate threat to face than the approaching violence out the front door.

He moved slowly, silently behind her as she kept her eyes glued on the weather map and tried to focus on what the weatherman had to say. It felt as if a brick wall, warmed by the sun, had suddenly materialized at her back.

She was a tall woman. But he was a tall man, broad-shouldered and with a long reach. Waves of heat were rolling off of him, anger waves most likely. It couldn’t be any other kind between them. She resisted the urge to rest against him when the meteorologist announced that Spirit Valley was out of danger. There would be no comfort there.

Perri fought back the urge to yawn as she felt him shamelessly look her over. Nerves had always caused her to yawn, and yawn big, at the most inopportune moments. This time, she reasoned, it might be more than her life was worth to succumb to the response. She started as the erratic beat of an arriving hailstorm further destroyed her peace of mind.

Matt eyed her critically. “You seem taller. Did you grow or something?”

“An inch, when I turned nineteen.” Perri’s eyes never left the screen.

“That must be it, then. Something seems off.” He circled to her side. “Something more personal than the fact that you’re all grown up now,” he continued. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. You filled out in all the right places, looks like.” Matt smiled with satisfaction when she stiffened at that remark.

She turned to face him, forcing herself to look at him as if he were someone she could easily dismiss. “What are you doing here, Matt?” Perri asked with just the right note of polite weariness. But it was a mistake to look him in the eye.

Matt’s eyes. At first one didn’t notice the variance in color. They looked almost black, his Indian heritage plainly spelled out in bone structure, hair and eyes. A closer look revealed the presence of dark-green shards. The result yielded eyes that seemed to absorb the light. Eyes more aged than the man. Matt looked like he hadn’t truly smiled from the heart in a long time.

“I saw the front door open and stopped to check,” he said, as if such a thing was obvious. It was. “You didn’t waste any time running back to collect what’s yours, did you?” Matt paused before saying softly, “Of course, it’s only a matter of time before you run somewhere else, isn’t it?”

Well, there was no answer for that, under the circumstances.

“Where’s the car?” he inquired. “The garage?”

She nodded.

“Did you get everything in before the rain started?”

“You needn’t concern yourself.” Her answer was immediate and brisk.

“Did you get everything in?” It was a demand, not a request for information.

She shook her head, no Her eyes dropped to his hand, as she realized he had just undone the top two buttons of her jacket. Perri wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to slap his hand away. If she lost her temper with him, she lost. It was that simple.

“Very funny, Matt.” It simply amazed her that she could sound so damn bored while her pulse was scrambling like mad at his touch.

“Just testing a theory I have about those buttons.” He looked so deceptively friendly as the nail of his index finger scraped lightly down from her collarbone to the third button, revealing skin the color of honey above the top of her lace camisole.

Perri breathed in the scent of wind and sun, horses, hay and Matt: an all-too-familiar combination she had worked very hard to forget. It was, at this moment, impossible to forget anything about him, not when he touched her.

Abruptly, he moved toward the back door. She felt the same sick, hollow sensation come over her that she bad felt the day she had learned he was marrying someone else.

“You can button back up, for now. I’ll get the rest of your stuff.” He paused in the doorway. “And you can quit glaring at me, Stone. I’m just being neighborly. After all, we have to work together. I’m looking forward to it.”

She missed him the second he walked out the door. Dear God, how was she ever going to work with this man? She rebuttoned her jacket and finally released the breath she’d been holding. Perri moved through the front door, to the comfort of the covered porch.

The hail was beginning to play out, the small pellets clattering harmlessly off the roof. The brief storm that had passed in Gannie’s living room had caused far more damage than the current weather pattern.

Perri stood there staring blindly at the honeysuckle as it took a beating from the storm. She reminded herself that she was twenty-nine years old now, not seventeen and helplessly in love with a twenty-four-year-old Matt Ransom. Those two individuals no longer existed and the ones who stood on the property today had a job to do.

Surely. they were mature enough to get it done. They would work together because they had to, for something important to both of them. He was just playing with her, she reasoned, nothing more. Just testing her for a reaction. He had made it crystal clear he didn’t want her.

She had seen him change overnight into a man who would enjoy toying with her if she challenged him. Standing toe-to-toe and balding it out might be satisfying; but a calm, dignified approach was the only safe road.

Perri reminded herself that life had surely hardened Matt Ransom, that he had changed in ways she didn’t understand. But no matter what she had heard in the last twelve years, he couldn’t have changed that much. She wouldn’t believe it of him. Intuitively she knew he would never treat a lady with anything less than respect. And, after all, this was just business. Perri Stone excelled at “just business.”

She shivered as chilling rain blew onto the porch. Still mentally reassuring herself, Perri moved back into the hall. The pressure had lessened enough with the storm’s passing for her to shut the door before she started up the stairs.

As she reached the second floor, Matt caught up with her. She wordlessly turned toward the back bedrooms as he automatically moved with her suitcases to the front

He halted in the doorway of “her” room; the room where he had taken her virginity, where he’d taken her heart. “I have a choice of rooms this time and I’ve decided I’d rather sleep in the back.” She spoke quietly, head high, back straight, as she moved down the hall toward the back bedroom overlooking the pecan trees.

Matt stood immobile, just looking into the familiar bedroom. Finally he turned and followed her, his features a complete blank. “Don’t blame you,” he said shortly. “You’ve outgrown the little room.” Bringing in the suitcases, he set them down as she indicated. “You have an awful lot of stuff for somebody just passing through, haven’t you?” It was a challenge.

“What makes you think I’m just passing through?” If she could find a way to slow down and stop answering him like she was a repeating rifle, she might get through this. “It will take some time to honor Gannie’s request, whatever the details turn out to be,” Perri said. “I’m here for a year at least, or something like that, right? That is, unless you’ve already heard the fine points of the will and have got it all figured out.”

She turned and gazed out the window overlooking the backyard. “Have you, Matt?” she asked. “What are we supposed to do?” She didn’t like the way that last question softened her.

“Do you care, Perri?” he countered. “Or do you just plan on going through the motions to fulfill the terms of the will? Gannie is gone. You’re free to run for good now,” he added savagely. Perri’s neck arched slightly as if someone had struck her between her shoulder blades.

Matt crossed to the opposite set of windows, checking the storm’s progress from the east. “Whatever we do will affect the town for some time to come. That was Gannie’s plan, some sort of long-term project for improvement. Not something that can be neglected after a ‘respectable’ period of time.” He turned to face her. The air seemed highly charged around them and suddenly the back bedroom felt very crowded.

“If you think you can get away with just going through the motions before you start looking to sell out and leave, you may as well know now that I’ll buy you out with pleasure,” he declared. “That would suit you, wouldn’t it, Per?” She felt him move up behind her. “Then you could go back to New York or move on to someplace new.”

The small insult didn’t escape her. Apparently Matt figured that no home could ever mean enough to her to keep her from moving on.

“I heard you didn’t even have a permanent job to give up in order to come down here,” he added. “You just ‘consult’ here and there for a bunch of different banks, right?”

The green in Perri’s eyes blazed as she turned away from the window. “Let’s get this much out of the way, right now, Matt,” she said angrily. “I care deeply about Spirit Valley. It was my home. And Gannie was just about the most important person in my world.” The tears in her throat almost caused her voice to fail. But not quite. Perri stubbornly willed herself to go on.

“I owe her more than I can ever express. So don’t think you’ve got any right to chastise me for having left,” she went on. “I don’t feel I owe you any explanations for my way of life. But please, know this: I would have given anything to have stayed home.”

Time seemed to stretch to the snapping point before he gave her a rueful half smile. Her heart broke as she saw she had been right. It never really reached his eyes.

“You’re not the little girl you were the last time we stood in this house,” he said, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Mistakes were made. I should never have touched you. I knew that, and I take full responsibility,” Matt declared. “I was robbing the cradle but I just couldn’t help myself.” He looked away from the woman she had become.

“However, all that doesn’t change the fact that you left. You are no longer a part of this world,” Matt said coldly. “There are no bright lights here. There is nothing left for you but some stone markers in the cemetery.” The very idea served to make him angrier. He turned back to face her. “What is here in Spirit Valley that could possibly make you want to stay?”

The look of pure longing she couldn’t completely disguise caused them both to blush. The unguarded moment increased his fury. Wanly, she started to move toward the door. Then Perri stopped, turning in frustration and maybe even some fear. Like that night twelve years ago, there was nowhere to run.

“Let’s just find out right now, shall we,” Matt whispered as he moved across the room and reached for her. He held her jaw firmly in his hands, those long fingers biting lightly into the back of her neck. His palms burned her as they slowly moved down her shoulders to her arms, just before his fingers gently circled her wrists.

“Do you taste the same now that you’re all grown up, darlin’?” he asked lightly. “I’ve been meaning to find out ever since you got back into town.” In seconds he had the answer for himself as he ruthlessly pulled her to him and his mouth took hers.

Perri’s shocked intake of breath opened her mouth under his and Matt took full advantage of her surprise. His tongue probed decisively as he cuffed her wrists to the small of her back with one hand.

The electrically charged air seemed to light a spark within her Perri had long assumed to have died. She tried desperately to breathe into her burning lungs. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had had a moment to think about it, or even if he hadn’t molded her firmly to him. She would have opened for him anyway. She hoped that realization could remain her secret, and not a part of the battering her pride was about to take.

For Perri couldn’t completely stop herself from responding as his tongue suggestively moved in and out of her welcoming month. Matt couldn’t have made his intent more clear. She couldn’t have made her assent more apparent. She melted against him and tried not to moan as he played with her mouth, delicately nipping at her lower lip.

Matt was the one who abruptly ended the kiss. He picked up the conversation right where he’d left off.

“You do taste the same,” he said gruffly. “I like that. So that’s what we have here,” he declared as he caged her face in his hands. “Heat. That’s all it can be between us, Perri. Just heat.” He allowed himself one more brief, hard kiss before he released her, none too carefully. She struggled to regain her composure as he nonchalantly turned back to the window to check the sky.

“That’s all I have left for any woman. So, if you’re as agreeable as you seem, we could have a good time before you leave.” He turned back to face her, his smile more than just a little arrogant. “But don’t expect love from me, hon. Certainly not for you,” he added. “It’s all been burned away.”

Perri’s embarrassment grew as he blatantly considered her before starting for the door. It was as if nothing of any importance had happened between them. “Matt,” she called, frozen to the spot where he bad left her.

He paused without turning around.

“I never got to tell you how sorry I was to hear about Cadie and the babies.”

He walked out without a word.

Matt was down the stairs and out the front door, his pickup making a fast retreat before she even came close to getting her breath back. “Well, that went really well,” she muttered. Perri sank to the bed and rapidly worked the window open. She needed air. Immediately.

So much for the calm. ladylike approach. She couldn’t have made a bigger fool of herself, if she had thought it out with both hands for two weeks. Perri rested her head against the cold metal of the window screen, inhaling the mingled smells of metal, rain and wet grass. For the longest time she couldn’t move. She just stared at the yard.

It was ridiculous. He’d just kissed her senseless and walked out. Perri wondered if he’d even paused long enough to shut the front door. “I’m good at strategy and logic,” she muttered. “I’ve got tougher clients back in Manhattan to deal with on a daily basis. I’m known for never falling apart.”

Perri stopped. It had come to this—she was justifying herself to a pecan tree. This from a woman who always kept it together. A woman who had never permitted herself to test the endurance of another love.

“This is getting me nowhere,” she whispered. Perri had to move. She couldn’t continue to sit there as daylight burned away.

Out the door of the bedroom and halfway down the stairs. she paused and looked around at the beloved old place. Gannie’s windows needed cleaning. She made a mental note to take care of that first thing. The dusty windows, more than the laying of flowers by a gravestone, caused her to feel the punch of knowing the old woman was truly gone.

Her gaze drifted into the living room as she sank down onto one of the steps. Through the rungs of the staircase she could see the memory box she had made as a gift her sophomore year in high school.

Inside the memory box, the gold railroad spike needed polishing; but the silver-plated engineer’s watch didn’t look quite as tarnished. It gleamed softly in the stormy light, as if just waiting for its owner to descend the stairs and retrieve it, along with his favorite pipe. It was almost as if the Rock Island Line still had some muscle in the old Indian Territory. She had chosen each of Gannie’s treasures for the display with great care, the year before her world had fallen apart.

A picture of Miss Vienna Whitaker and her son, Matthew Lawrence Ransom, hung on the wall by the entrance to the living room. It had been taken in front of the tiny graveyard just outside and down the rise from the front door. Perri had stopped there on her way to the house, placing a single rose on a worn, white marker that said Stone Baby 1889.

Devoid of trees or bushes, with a gate that still stuck at the last, the skeletal, white iron fence and small arch sheltered thirty-one graves. It had served as a final resting place only until the town had been incorporated. Now, it was part of Perri’s inheritance and therefore, her responsibility.

The porch, the pictures, the miniature graveyard, the memory box: so many things that softened the heart. So many symbols of everything she had ever hoped and dreamed of maintaining. Everything she had, at one time, thought she would miraculously have a chance to treasure now was hers by right. Now that the heart had gone out of the dream.

Perri slowly dropped her forehead onto the arm covering her knees and did what she’d been too proud to do that night twelve years before. She cried her eyes out. “Oh, Gannie,” she sobbed as she sat on the stairs.

Iced cucumber slices helped soothe her swollen eyes. The task of repairing her makeup served to pull her back together. Perri armored herself in one of the few business suits she had brought with her. Most everything she had to choose from made her look like she was on her way to a funeral. She didn’t kid herself. She was about to go into battle. As she locked up, she noticed the sun was on its way back. It lifted her spirits to see that for now, the storm had passed. Knowing a drive would clear her head, she headed east past the grain elevators.

On impulse, she stopped into the local florist for a half-dozen roses. Perri watched the owner’s daughter take great care to arrange them in leaves and baby’s breath, tissue and ribbon.

Shyly, the girl eyed Perri’s business suit, with its fitted waist and mandarin collar. The severe style of dress might have gone unnoticed, but for how effortlessly it displayed her sleek, trim shape. And the fact that it was black. Nobody wore black at high noon unless they were on their way to a funeral.

Or a gunfight, Perri mused. How appropriate.

“Anything else?” the florist inquired.

“Thank you, no.” Perri smiled. The teenager before her was so fresh and pretty, with the dramatic looks of the Plains Indians.

“Here’s your change then,” the girl chirped, making the purchase. “Y’all come back.”

“I already have,” Perri whispered to herself, halfway to the door.

Back inside the car, Perri placed the beautifully wrapped roses on the seat and headed for the back roads. The sky had cleared to a bright, shiny blue, and it was wonderful to get off the highway. It felt right to wind through little towns, past pastures and railroad tracks, past small ponds and under the gentle arch of the windbreaks. She stopped in the middle of the road until an egret could make up its mind which way to fly.

As she drove on, a red pickup turned onto the road in front of her. A big black rottweiler riding in back seemed to smile as they drove past old Bohemian Hall. Some of her ancestors had settled right here after the Land Run of 1889.

She followed behind as the dog and his pickup led her onto Route 66. Her eyes automatically checked a field of wheat on the driver’s side of the road as she made the turn. “Short oats. That’s not right,” Perri muttered, frowning slightly. The wheat should be solid gold and ready to drop by now. Even she knew that.

The bridge over the railroad tracks into town looked a little shabby, and somehow smaller than Perri remembered. A World War II fighter plane, permanently parked in front of the American Legion Hall, seemed to let the traveler know he had entered another time. Spirit Valley, Oklahoma, announcing right up front that its ideals were as much a part of the past as the old plane, the tracks and the weathered bridge. Perri stopped at a light and tried to make sense of it all.

Elms lining Elm Street beyond the underpass had been planted over fifty years ago and now stood tall as she drove into the cemetery. She unwrapped the roses with her window down, listening intently. The sound of the wind filled the silence. No birds sang. At one time, hundreds of scissortails had inhabited this area.

Perri got out of the car with the separated roses. As she placed single white roses on different graves throughout the section, she asked herself what would they think? What would they do differently?

She approached a marble bench and bent to touch the new marker surrounded by funeral wreaths. Perri stared hard at the stone, before reverently covering it with the last rose. What have you gotten me into, Gannie? Rage, grief and a sort of deep, deep hurt she bad always associated with the loss of innocence, warred within her.

No one but Gannie had known exactly how she had felt. No one but Gannie had ever learned all of the truth about the most important event in Perri’s life: when she had lost him. “Why make it so I have to work with Matt?” she pleaded softly. “You know I’ll always love him. Why put me through this kind of pain?” What plan or project could be that important?

Dry-eyed and thoroughly bewildered at the part she now had been assigned to play, Perri stared at the fluttering rose for a long time. She had wanted a tribute that wasn’t staked in, fighting with the wind in order to stay.

Knowing the roses would most likely be blown apart and away before she made it out of the cemetery, she got back in the car and drove on. The sight of a martin frantically tailgating a hawk kept her from dwelling upon what lay ahead. Perri didn’t look back.

Perri parked in the lot adjoining the courthouse and the professional buildings. She made her appointment dead on time. The lawyer’s secretary eyed her outfit and smiled in understanding. “Go on in, Ms. Stone, please.”

Perri took a deep breath, knocked once and opened the door. Help me through this, Gannie, please, she prayed as she entered the room.

“Hello, John,” Perri smiled at her old friend and Gannie’s champion.

The room’s other occupant had obviously arrived early for their appointment and now stood with his back to the door. She noted that his stance was relaxed, as if this were his turf, not hers. He didn’t turn around upon her arrival, but instead stood staring out the window at the now-defunct railroad depot which housed the Spirit Valley Historical Museum.

Over his shoulder, Perri could clearly see the bronze plaque declaring that this spot had been the western boundary for the Run of the Unassigned Lands. At noon on April 22, 1889, the starting gun had sounded and two million acres of Indian Territory had been opened up for the Run.

By nightfall, a tent city had sprung up on the spot where they now stood. What their ancestors had seen that day, and shortly thereafter, bore no resemblance to the view through the window over which Matt Ransom now brooded.

She crossed to the upholstered chair the attorney indicated for her use. So. It would be a war of silence rather than reproach. Very well, Perri thought grimly.

John Deepwater retrieved the folders from his desk and handed one to Perri. With the dignity and grace that was so much a part of him, he turned to Ransom and said: “Shall we begin, Matt?”

Without a word, Matt took the file and his seat.

“I can read this word for word or just use plain English. You tell me,” John announced.

“English,” Matt said impatiently, not sparing a glance in her direction, “I’ve got a lot to do before sundown.”

Perri calmly nodded her assent. He was going to have to work harder than that to provoke her this time.

“Okay,” John began, “you both inherit the bulk of Gannie’s estate and share the duties of co-executors. The acreage behind the house that borders the Ransoms’ is left to Matt, up to but not including the horse barn. You split the oil royalties.” He paused on a wry smile. “I figure that will keep you two tied up in paperwork with the oil companies for at least a year and a half.

“Perri gets the house and the surrounding acres, from the horse barn to the highway, including the graveyard.” The attorney raised his eyes, as if to check and see how they were taking the fifty-fifty split. “And you both inherit this project of hers—the ‘Donated Land’ out on the lake. The money, accounts, etc., are divided equally, aside from some bequests listed on page two.” Pages rustled as the inheritors followed along.

“If you would like extra copies, just let me know,” he added. John’s gaze lingered on Perri. “And, of course, I will be glad to send a copy on to your attorney in New York, Perri, if you like.”

She returned the look calmly, certain he still couldn’t reconcile in his mind the sophisticated businesswoman she had become with little Perri Stone. Something was going on. She could feel it. Only her abiding trust in John Deepwater and the certainty that Matt didn’t know any more than she did, kept her from tensing up. It was arduous enough to hear John speak about the division of Gledhill. It just about broke her heart to think of it.

“It sounds pretty straightforward, for a piece of legal work,” Matt remarked as he rapidly flipped pages. “But you don’t seem too enthused, John. What is it?”

“Well, there’s one hitch,” John said calmly.

“Then let’s hear it,” Matt demanded.

That did it. “Oh, surely, Matt and I can work it out reasonably, John.” Perri cast a reproachful glance at this stranger she had once known so well. “If there’s something Gannie wanted us to do, I’m willing to make every effort.”

“Yes, well, darlin’,” John began easily, “what she wanted you to do was to marry Matt Ransom. If you decline, the land will be sold for condominiums.”

Two

Ransom wasn’t fooled. John Deepwater, Esq. was making a supreme effort not to smile as they absorbed the news. And allowing as how Deepwater’s poker face was a legend in the county, he almost pulled it off.

It was a successful effort by Matt’s estimation. But Matt had known John too long and too well. And what he knew of the man had him practically hovering over his chair, like a hawk just waiting for the field mouse to blink.

“Did she say why, in the blazes, she made our getting married a part of the deal?” Matt demanded in none too gentle tones. He felt Perri flinch at the word “married.” Well, he could hardly blame the woman for that.

Deepwater took a deep breath. “She said she wanted to get your attention,” he replied calmly. One would have thought little old ladies routinely made getting married a condition for inheriting their estates.

Well, Deepwater wasn’t the only poker player in the room. No one would have known from his stoic, emotionless expression just how deeply the memory of Perri in that back bedroom at Gledhill was weighing down Matt’s heart. Even though he was rocked by this latest development, he couldn’t pull his mind back from the way she had felt in his arms just a few hours ago.

It was all he could do to sit there and ignore her. He couldn’t get beyond the sight of Perri standing again in Gledhill. As if she had grown into a woman right here in Spirit, instead of a world away. He swore silently at the realization that he had sorely underestimated this woman. Just as he had obviously underestimated Gannie; and once, only once, his own late mother.

Yet again, he reminded himself of how wrong he had been to love Perri. He had shown such poor judgment in trusting her twelve years ago. For that, he no longer blamed Perri Stone. She had been too young; and Matt had repeated the same mistake after she’d gone. These days, he didn’t have much time for women and he accepted that. It was in some ways a pity, because he genuinely did enjoy them. He just had nothing to give a woman but himself, the land and a lot of hard work.

He hadn’t managed to do the one thing he had felt was his duty: To take care of those he loved. The fact that he still, after everything, wanted a family was something never examined. It felt almost shameful to want anything. The disastrous results of his own youthful pride had left him ashamed he still cared. And now, just about the only thing he had left was his own damn pride.

The silence stretched before Matt said quietly, “My attention or our attention?”

“She wanted both of you to pay attention,” John clarified. “She figured the condition of you two either getting married or losing the land would make an impression.”

Matt snorted and spared a glance for the woman seated at his side. Perri looked like she would run if she could just figure out how to go about it. It struck him solidly that if she did run this time, he would go after her.

It was a shock to discover how rapidly Perri Stone could sink back into his system. He didn’t care for it Matt clamped down hard on the urge to get mean twice in one day.

He had fully intended that kiss earlier to be antagonistic, maybe a little punishing. Matt had figured if he offended her just enough, she would keep her distance. That would be easier for all concerned. He really hadn’t planned to make love to her mouth. He still wasn’t entirely certain how that had happened.

A small portion of his brain puzzled over the fact that the taste of the woman could be so much more powerful than that of the girl she had been twelve years ago. He had loved that Perri with all his young heart.

Now the woman she had become summoned him on some deep level. That would never do. Matt would have sworn he could no longer feel anything that deeply and he had no intention of starting now. So it was back to business.

Deepwater went on talking. “The Ransoms and the Stones, and the Marlowes, through Perri here,” he said nodding in her direction, “would be announcing that they were united in an attempt to bring some sort of new business into the area. The town would see a strong commitment, a strong front.

“As you know,” John continued, “our parents and grandparents tried a couple of decades ago to position Spirit Valley for the future. But they made their efforts based upon Spirit as a continuing center of commerce.” He paused briefly. “Nobody dreamed it would ever get like this. So nobody planned for the worst.” John sighed. “They complacently expected things to continue as they had always been.”

Perri finally spoke. “I think accusing them of complacency is a little harsh, John. Nobody could have predicted drought, the oil bust and the railroad’s demise,” she pointed out.

“Thank you, Miss Oklahoma Girl Stater,” Matt interjected dryly, “but we’re getting off the subject here.” Didn’t she realize her calm appeal for reason was killing him?

Perri remained unruffled and coolly crossed her legs. He realized he was staring. He realized she knew it. How she could remain that placid was just beyond him. He made a mental note to set about breaking down that composed demeanor at the first opportunity.

Matt grimly turned his attention back to the man he was beginning to think of as “that lawyer.” “I want to know what Gannie said,” Matt demanded. “Why did she want me to many Stone here? And, Johnnie, don’t you give me that attorney/client confidentiality crap.”

John Deepwater looked his best friend in the eye. “She said it was time you did something you should have done over ten years ago.”

Perri inhaled sharply. John continued. “She said it was time that the Stone-Ransom animosity was put to rest for the good of all concerned. Now that you’re both older. Now that . . . you’re both single, Gannie felt it was high time you two got married.” He didn’t have to add, “now that Leila Ransom is dead.” The words John left unspoken were a silent outcry heard by everyone in the room.

“But why?” Perri spoke so low she might have been alone. “Why barter me and buy him? I have no interest in holding Matt to anything he said twelve years ago. As a matter of fact,” she continued, “I’m grateful to him for ending it. I was way too young to get married. Please tell me why she would do this, Johnnie.”

Matt was saved from responding to that bit about her being “grateful” when he saw Deepwater’s face gentle into a faint smile. As always, it softened the fierceness of his features to a surprising degree.

“Gannie said she promised your grandmother Anne to always look out for you and your mother.” Matt and Perri both displayed a momentary lack of composure at the mention of Peni’s grandmother, Anne. “She said it was time for the Stone/Marlowe women to stop running—mat you, in particular, needed to come home. That even later,” he added, “and divorced from Matt, you’d be accepted as a member of the community and not as an outsider. She said: ‘Perri needs to have her home restored. The Ransoms took it from her and they can damn well give it back.”

Matt sat silently, his mind racing around all the angles as John continued. “So folks, here’s the bottom line. Number one, you two have ninety days to accept or decline the terms of the will. If you marry, you stay married for at least six months before entertaining the possibility of a divorce—all the while, you must live together in the Gledhill place.”

Matt stirred indignantly at that. “I don’t have the time to be driving back and forth to the farm,” he said. “I’ve got horses to see to. I’ve—”

“Oh, please. It’s down the road, not even a mile,” Perri interjected. “I live 2,000-something miles away and you have the nerve to whine about how—”

“Number two,” Deepwater’s rich, courtroom voice filled the little office. “You come up with a plan to use the land she’s donated to Spirit in a way that will benefit the area. From the way she described it to me, what she wanted from y’all . . .”

John’s eyes were drawn to a photograph on the wall behind his clients’ chairs. His voice trailed off. Matt could almost feel him looking back to a time before the sound of the starting gun for the Run of ’89. The day the town of Spirit Valley sprung up overnight.

“Well,” John continued, “it was as if she wanted you two to homestead and make the improvements necessary to maintain a claim. I think that’s how she saw it, as a claim. I think it was important to her that the two of you were the ones to find some way to bring people and commerce into the area.” John looked from Perri to Matt, letting his words sink in.

“But I don’t want to bring people into the area,” Matt pointed out politely. “I want them to stay out.”

“Well, then you’re going to have them in your lap, Matt,” his friend replied just as politely as you please. “The house and the land will be sold to the developers and you’ll have a condominium resting up by your east pasture.” The thought of that left all three of them breathless.

“Gary Kell is the attorney for the developers and he is just about beside himself, he wants that deal so bad,” John stated grimly. “So unless you put your back into this project, not only will you lose the inheritance of that land, you’re going to have people just about up your nose.

“Perri.” John continued, “I’ve seen the plans. They are trying to be sensitive and tasteful about it, but the condo will surround the old graveyard. Some of your family is buried there.”

Perri looked away.

“Of course, maybe that’s your preference,” he added with studied carelessness.

Well, that brought her head back around to stare him down. The tears in her eyes had dried in an instant and the green glints flashed with a renewed show of spirit.

Good, Matt thought. Whatever else had happened, the woman had acquired some grit along the way.

“Take the money,” John continued in the same indifferent vein, “and let us become even more of a bedroom community for Oklahoma City than we already are.”

“So, is that all?” The simmer and sizzle of Ransom’s slow burn could probably be detected all the way to Oklahoma City.

“No.” Deepwater replied soberly. “No.”

“Well?” Matt was in no mood to be strung along. And he still wasn’t fooled John had been looking forward to this. “What else did she say?”

Deepwater’s gaze fell upon Perri. “She said “Tell Perri I said it was time she stopped running and came home.’” Perri looked deeply into John’s eyes, as if she were trying to see Gannie’s face emerge from their onyxlike surface. “Tell her I said for her to just trust me.’”

“Don’t make me drag it out of you, John. What else?” Matt demanded.

A surprisingly boyish grin lit Deepwater’s face as he looked at Ransom. “She said: ‘And Johnnie, when Matthew starts to squawk, you just tell him he should have paid more attention. Back when I was trying to teach him how to play chess.’”

Just trust me.

Out in the parking lot, Perri fumbled with the car keys and the copies of Gannie’s will. She had excused herself and gotten out quick. From the look of the sky, Spirit was caught between two opposing weather patterns, one to the norh, the other to the east. The light had turned that clear, lovely shade of pale, apple green that Perri associated with soon-to-follow destructive weather.

The weather had been as good an excuse as any to make a graceful exit The ex-Mrs. Gary Kell, the lovely Lida, had been lying in wait in the outer office when the three of them had emerged. She had immediately draped herself all over Matt like a cheap suit, the better to pump him for details. It took a stronger stomach than Perri had possessed at the moment to witness that.

Strong wind blew her hair into her eyes as she tried to get it straight which key on the unfamiliar ring fit the car door. A large, bronzed hand took the ring from her, inserting the proper key and holding open the door. “Thank you, Matt,” she said formally.

He was wearing a suit, his hair just curling around the collar of his shirt. And cologne. She could sort of halfway deal with him when he was in boots and jeans, but not in a suit. Perri fought the urge to hang her head and not look at the man. He looked too good, too solid, his presence too comforting.

“I’ve asked John to dig out whatever boilerplate he’s got on hand for prenuptial agreements,” Matt said. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., right after mine,” he added rapidly upon her glare, “for a medical checkup.”

Jolted out of the notion of a “comforting” Matt Ransom, Perri stared at him. “What?” she cried.

“Doc Berkka is leaving for Tenkiller,” Matt said as if that settled it.

It did. “Of course. Silly me,” she said dryly. “Whatever was I thinking?”

Trips to the lake were sacred to the Berkkas. Back when the current Dr. Berkka’s grandfather was in practice, every cesarean birth in June had been scheduled to accommodate the fish.

“So, do we sign a prenup?” Matt demanded. “Book the church? Get a jump on the next thing that lawyer is going to tell us to do?”

She had to ask. “Just when did Johnnie Deepwater become ‘that lawyer’?”

“When he told me I had to marry you, that’s when,” Matt roared.

Perri’s face tilted up toward his as they squared off. “Thank you so very much for announcing that at the top of your lungs,” she answered. “We can finish the job if you go on over to Blue’s Tavern. I’ll head for Marjorie’s Beauty Shop and then the whole damn county will be up to date on our personal affairs by sundown.”

“Now who’s shouting?”

“Go to hell, Ransom,” she said sweetly.

For a moment he simply looked at her as the wind brutally lashed at them both. “Hell is where I’ve lived for the last twelve years.”

Perri marched back through Gannie’s front door, past her cousin LaDonna Marlowe, and headed right for the wine.

“The storm’s moved on to Apache, now that you’ve got your stuff out of my place during the worst of it. I brought beer,” Donnie called absently from the couch as she removed the cotton separating each newly painted pink toenail.

“I knew better than to bring food, what with all the casseroles. Want one? A beer, I mean,” she clarified, looking up from her toes. “No, I guess you don’t.” Donnie watched with cautious fascination as Perri dumped her purse, slapped her copies of the will down on the sideboard, filled a goblet with wine and threw back a big swallow. Huge, blue eyes got even bigger. “What?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

“I have ninety days to decide to marry Matt Ransom and keep this place intact,” Perri announced. “Or, I can decline marriage to that particular prince of darkness and see Gledhill sold out from under me for condominiums.”

The silence lengthened as Donnie took in her cousin’s words. “Oh, I am nowhere near drunk enough for you to be telling me this.” Donnie replied. “I just started on this beer. Now slowly, and from the top.”

Perri repeated the full exchange in Deepwater’s office. “Eek,” Donnie said weakly.

“Maybe I won’t have to make this decision,” Perri continued. “Maybe Matt will refuse and I won’t have to make any kind of a choice about the land.”

Her voice trailed off at the sound of a vehicle moving hard up the drive. On a sigh, they both braced themselves and, taking a sip, set goblet and beer bottle aside. There was no choice when it came to Matt or to the land. It didn’t need saying.

“Donnie,” Matt nodded at the little brunette upon entering the living room. He paused to consider her screaming pink toenails. “Does the county sheriff’s office know what its ‘star’ deputy is wearing underneath her uniform?” he demanded.

“Matt.” Donnie gave him a luminous smile that said: ‘I ain’t movin.’

He looks dangerous; ready to blow, Perri thought as she glanced toward the woman she loved like a sister. The tension in the room made it difficult to maintain the appearance of nonchalance. Donnie would manage it somehow, Perri was certain. This was too good not to watch them play it out.

A train whistled softly past the crossing and into the distance as Perri’s stance widened to mirror Matt’s own. Both of them had their weight transferred to the balls of their feet. They were poised like two gunslingers facing off.

The only sounds were the ever-present wind, and the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Tread lightly, Matt, Perri silently cautioned. No matter what, he was going to have to work a bit harder to wear her down than he’d done twelve years ago.

“We didn’t finish our conversation before you ran off,” he said. “Again.”

“On the contrary,” she answered, “there’s nothing more to say for the moment, Matt.”

“You still haven’t said yes or no, Stone,” he challenged.

“No, I haven’t,” she shot back, “and I don’t intend to. Yet. I have ninety days before the decision is due.”

Did he have to look that great? Why couldn’t he be an out-of-shape, doughy accountant, for heaven’s sake? And why had those adorable dimples of his sharpened into such a dangerous face? It really wasn’t fair, damn him.

“Ninety days?” Matt echoed as he slowly covered the distance between them. “If you plan to string me along for three months, think again.”

“I don’t plan to ‘string you along’ at all,” she countered. “But I won’t be pressured into a snap decision either.” She stood her ground and took a deep breath. “I want to at least sleep on it, Matt. So should you.” Perri tilted her head to look up with steady eyes as he reached the end of his walk. He didn’t have to know how much it cost her. “Am I to conclude from this unexpected visit that you want us to get married?” she asked dryly.

Matt looked again at Donnie as if she’d missed her cue. “Forget it,” she said flatly.

“Donnie.” Perri smiled, never taking her eyes off Matt.

“Oh, all right.” Donnie stood up carefully, like a woman unconvinced that her polish was completely dry. “But if you hurt her, Matt, I’ll have to shoot you,” she muttered, turning toward the hall. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she stated unnecessarily and did the only sane thing a woman could do under the circumstances. She walked out on her heels.

“Okay, bottom line,” Matt declared as they heard Donnie slap through the kitchen’s swinging doors. “Gannie must have felt strongly about it if she wanted us to get married this badly. And she was right. The Ransoms, or at least this Ransom, should make the effort to restore your place in the community. And to restore your home.”

Well, that answered that. Perri knew she might regret it, but she let him take her hand. His callused fingers rasped gently against the center of her palm. She couldn’t help being drawn to him. It was all too well-known.

“Perri, I’m asking you to marry me.” His smile was so sad and awkward, it affected her like a blow.

“I know this is a different marriage proposal than the last one you got from me.” Restless, he turned away and moved to the mantel. His fingers automatically searched out the arrowhead he’d found one day, a lifetime ago. “It certainly will be a different marriage then the one I wanted with you,” he acknowledged. “But I’m serious about it.” His gaze remained on her face as he gripped the thin, lethal piece of tapered stone. “So if there is another man in your life, tell me now,” he demanded.

There was a long pause while she tried to get her breath. “But, we don’t know each other anymore. I’m not sure I even like you,” Perri continued with a calm totally at odds with how she felt. “And more to the point—is there a woman here in Spirit with certain expectations regarding her relationship with you?” she asked.

He gave her a blank look. She tried again. “Is there someone who would be hurt by our getting married, Matt?” Besides myself, she wondered.

Matt studied her, his eyes searching her face and body like he’d never seen her before. Suddenly he relaxed as if he’d reached a decision. Obviously, he wasn’t listening to a word she’d said. And here she was, knocking herself out to be calm, reasonable and mature.

“I’m not involved with anyone myself, at the moment, but that is not the issue.” She was going to maintain her dignity if it killed her. “If we go through with this—”

“No, there’s no one,” he said absently as he strolled back toward her. “And you’re wrong about one thing. Who you’re ‘involved’ with is most decidedly my business, as of now.”

“But you’ve made it clear that you don’t think much of me,” she looked at him in bewilderment and quickly stifled another nervous urge to yawn. Could he be any more annoying? she wondered. Knowing him, she was soon to find out.

“That’s not exactly true,” he muttered gracelessly.

Where was this leading? It was best to keep it just business if she wanted to live through it. “All right. Let’s just leave it,” she said briskly, getting a grip on her heart. She shook off the hopes and dreams of a past that was bygone.

“If this is your idea of down-home charm, it’s not working.” She paused and coolly looked him over. “And I can’t help but wonder if you knew about the conditions of the will in advance. You didn’t seem all that shocked over the idea of a marriage. Were you just getting a charge out of toying with me earlier today?” she demanded.

The skin around those cheekbones seemed to tighten at her words. “You used to be such a sweet little girl,” he said in furious tones.

“But that doesn’t mean I was stupid.” She couldn’t quite keep the smile out of her voice. Apparently Mr. Ransom was not best pleased by the question.

“I may have been a little girl, but I was at least smart enough to be in love with a decent young man. One, I might add, who was honorable enough to propose marriage and mean it.” Perri stared out the window at the nearby tree as a breeze played lightly through the leaves. Just as it had always done. It helped her get hold of herself.

“Yeah, I suppose I was a sweet little girl,” she sighed, the threat of tears receding. How could he make her want to cry and then smile in the spin of a dime? How could he make her want something that no longer existed with such reckless intensity? A recklessness that fully acknowledged how much it would hurt six months down the road. “I will think about the idea of marrying you and see if I can live with it,” she said formally. “I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”

He chucked as if he was actually beginning to enjoy that snippy tone. “Come here,” he said softly, holding out his arms. She hesitated before walking into his light embrace. “I’m sorry I worked so hard to get your goat earlier. And no, I didn’t know she had marriage in mind for us. I would have promised, at least to look out for you,” he admitted grudgingly, “if she’d asked. Truce?” His lips lightly played along her temple.

Perri relaxed slightly and smiled. “Truce,” she said.

“Good,” Matt murmured as he smoothed her hair from her shoulders. Without warning he skillfully covered her mouth with his. There was a moment when she all but tasted his frustration. Then she felt him let it go as he deepened the kiss. The tender quality changed everything.

He overwhelmed her common sense and left her totally unprepared for the sudden transfer into sweetness. His kiss became a gentle appeal rather than an angry demand and the effect was shattering. She gave more of herself than ever before.

Never had she wanted a man the way she wanted Matt at this moment. The tenderness contained such a quality of honesty between them, it almost brought tears to her eyes. She clung to his jacket and found a depth of feeling she could never have envisioned with him. Even young Matt hadn’t stirred her so acutely.

The kiss intensified and changed. His hands began to move over her, molding her to him, keeping her close. They roamed down to her hips, his thumbs playing over her protruding hipbones before he tilted her pelvis into him. She rose up to cradle his aroused flesh.

His hand traveled up to her breast. She arched into him as his thumb found her nipple already erect. “I’m going to have you, Perri,” he said softly as he lay openmouthed kisses against her throat and jaw. “We’re going to have each other and at least some kind of a marriage,” he vowed, “unless you can look me in the eye and tell me ‘no’ like you mean it.”

He kissed her deeply, as if they had all the time in the would Perri’s bones were melting as she clung to him. The mood shifted again and became more demanding. She felt herself straining toward Matt when he abruptly pulled back from the kiss.

“Now that we’ve got a truce,” he said, breathing hard, “let me state my plans.” His grip moved from her shoulders to her nape, his thumbs supporting her jaw, as he kissed her hard and fast. “You may not have heard, darlin’,” he said, “but I’ve been slap out of tact for some time, so I’ll be direct.

“We’ve got ninety days,” he reminded her. “I plan to see to it that each one is an exercise in sheer torment until you say ‘Yes, Matt, I’ll be pleased to be your wife.’ We are going to honor Gannie’s wishes, Per,” he went on. “Even though the word ‘honor’ just about sticks in my throat...”

That did it Fury lashed apart the sexy haze he’d led her toward. Perri was well and truly riled. His words and the fact that he had kissed her right out of all reason and into a stupor were too much. She started to haul off and hit him, but he had always been too quick.

Matt grabbed her and pulled her up off her feet, so that they were eye-to-eye. “I asked you nicely first.” he reminded her. His tone hardened. “Now, I’m telling you. Get ready for a wetding, ‘cause you are getting married. I’m not going to let anything or anybody build a damn condo on this property,” he vowed. “And if, by some screwup, you are responsible for such a thing ever rising out of Gledhill, I will personally take some long and very painful strips right out of your pretty hide.

“And understand this,” he added with grim determination. “I plan to see to it, Ms. Stone, that you’re my wife in every sense of the word.” He set her down sharply.

“You can say ‘yes’ now or spend the next three months looking over your shoulder,” Matt called loudly after her as she pushed past him and headed for the kitchen. “It’s up to you.”

“Miss Marlowe,” he called out with a little too much glee. The look on Perri’s face as she stalked into the kitchen had Donnie moving through the swinging doors looking for a fight. “Try to explain to your cousin from New York that it’s a done deal.

“And,” he added as he walked to the door, “please tell Ms. Stone, I’ll see her in church.” He graciously closed the front door behind him on a grim little smile.

Donnie returned to the kitchen to find her cousin leaning up against the counter. Navy blue eyes narrowed, wincing as Perri gently banged her forehead, just once, against the kitchen cabinet.

“Well, nobody can accuse that man of a lack of intensity,” Donnie announced.

“Nobody can accuse him of having a soul either,” Perri muttered. She slowly pushed back from the counter and tried to get a rein on her temper.

Only now did she notice she was holding the arrowhead in a viselike grip, with no notion of when he had put it into her hand. She looked down at her palm. Perri had squeezed the implement of war hard enough for the sharp edges to leave marks.

Donnie stood patiently for a time, waiting for the storm to pass. “Shall I heat up one of the casseroles the church ladies landed on us, while you get out of that suit?”

Perri sighed and turned to the little brunette. “Why stop at one?” she asked.

Matt passed his own place and kept going. He needed a minute or two to calm down. The lake, he thought as he tore at his tie. I’ll just stop off for a minute at the lake. It wasn’t far and the sight of all that water never failed to soothe him.

He veered off the road to the main picnic area and away from the skiers, making for a secluded section where he had a better chance for a moment of peace, It was a mistake.

He had taken Perri here. He had told her he loved her and wanted to marry her right about where he was now parked. He slammed out of the car and looked around rather wildly at where be had just driven himself, in his own vehicle, by his own hand. “Just shoot me,” he muttered.

She had tasted lightly of wine, he thought. It had only served to enhance the well-remembered taste of her. Matt wanted her. After all this time, and to the point of violence. The feelings of tenderness, laced with shots of fury had him off balance. If she had been appealing to him before, she was devastating now. His hands fisted as he could almost feel her hair brush through his fingers. Matt swore to himself.

How could he explain to Perri that she was no longer the true source of his anger, but instead a painful reminder of his own dreadful mistakes? Pride made it all but impossible to acknowledge the need he now felt for the woman Perri had become without him. A woman he just knew was going to leave.

Ransoms didn’t leave. They stayed. They remained anchored to the land; ever since 1891, when a spinster schoolteacher had taken in a half-breed foundling and raised him for her own.

Miss Vienna Whitaker, obviously Southern and a lady to her fingertips, had named the baby Matthew Lawrence, after her beloved father. But for reasons unknown. Miss Vienna had given the child the last name of Ransom.

The citizens of Spirit Valley could only speculate as to why she had chosen the name. Some thought it a good name. With no one in Indian Territory named Ransom, no one could be blamed for having fathered a half-Indian baby.

Those citizens with a dictionary alongside the family Bible, had puzzled over what the ransom was for. If raising the child was the price of atonement, then what was the sin? And whose, exactly? Miss Vienna hadn’t seen fit to share her reasoning. She had quietly raised a fine son, who later became a much-respected member of the community.

Like his father, Sam, Matt didn’t give much thought to the source of their need to take care of what his great-greatgrandfather had been given. Nor did he give any thought to his automatic mistrust for those who moved on. Its origins were as deeply engrained as the desire to maintain a well-respected position in the community. His folks had always stayed, spit in the dust and stuck it out.

No, Ransoms didn’t leave, they were too busy. None had shirked the responsibility of family and land. None, that is, except for one. Matt’s grandfather, Lawrence Ransom, had done just that when he had run off with Anne Marlowe, the grandmother of Pern Stone.

Since that time everything had changed. It certainly had stained Matt’s love for Perri. As soon as Matt had declared his intention to make Perri his wife, everything he had subsequently put his heart into had turned to dust. Even later on when his brother had drifted off, the unspoken assumption had been that somehow the wounds of the past had caused Whit to leave town as soon as he was able. But the violence and scandal their grandparents had launched was not Perri’s fault. It shamed him to think he couldn’t rise above that one fact. Matt noticed that it evoked interest to realize that he still could feel a sense of shame about anything.

He wished he could muster up some feelings for the way he had treated Perri twelve years ago. But they were locked in ice. Matt had wanted to destroy her that night. He speculated now on just how close he had come to achieving his goaL

Once Sam had stormed out of the house that night, Leila had laid it on thick about the old scandal. Then as if his grandparents hadn’t been reason enough, she had told him his father was keeping Janie Stone—Perri’s mother—as his mistress. Matt’s attempts to reason with her had only served to make his mother more lethal.

Today, his own youthful arrogance and naiveté astounded him. He had foolishly assumed his parents’ objections would be due to Perri’s age; and he had been preparing his argument for some time along that line. He knew now that he had underestimated his mother as a fighter. But then, he had never gone up against anyone like her.

The force of her rage had been terrifying. And underneath the emotions, what she had said had made some sense. His mother had made it plain that Perri Stone couldn’t possibly love a Ransom. After all, since Perri was aware of Sam’s involvement with Janie, then her eagerness to marry Matt had to be founded on a desire to exact some small degree of revenge on the Ransoms. If Perri had truly loved him, Leila had made it clear that Marlowe honor would have demanded Perri let Matt go.

Looking back on it, his actions later that night had been due as much to the way Leila had aroused his emotions as to what she had actually said to him. He had left a sobbing Leila and gone for a much-needed drive to cool off. He hadn’t wanted to go directly to Gledhill and have it out with a seventeen-year-old girl who loved him. But by the time Matt did show up, he hadn’t been able to calm his fury over his mother’s accusations.

He could still see Perri in the darkened living room, looking paralyzed with shame and fear. It only now occurred to him that he had never asked her what that was about. He’d never taken a moment to find out if something was wrong. He had just started in and said some appalling things to her.

When she had denied his mother’s accusations about his dad and Janie, he had nearly lost it. He quite simply hadn’t believed her. After all, she had seemed to expect his indictment.

“He hasn’t been seeing my mother,” Perri had all but screamed. “She’s not seeing anybody.”

“Of course,” Matt had whispered, gently touching her cheek. She had such smooth skin. He had scared her with that gentle stroke. But still Perri had hung on to her lies. Just as his mother had predicted she would. “You’ve got good reason to think I’m stupid enough to believe you. Don’t you, baby?” he had asked softly. “You’ve gone all the way to convince me, haven’t you?”

Matt winced when he thought of how he had roped the chain of the gold locket around one hand and grabbed her shoulder with the other. His fingers had dug in as he had pulled her to him. Perri’s eyes had dilated in shock at his savage behavior.

He had given her the necklace as a symbol of their secret engagement, until the time was right for a ring and a formal announcement. That night, he had struggled not to rip it from her throat. The heavy snake chain had held, but he knew the contempt in his eyes had destroyed her where she stood. Still, Perri had said nothing. She hadn’t tried to defend herself, only her mother.

“I’m real impressed,” he’d said. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.” He had roughly pushed her away and headed out the door. Matt’s last memory of Perri was a glimpse of her through the window, trying to rub away the red marks already forming on her throat.

From that night on, his pride had focused on his role in maintaining a respected position in the community. He had set himself apart from his father and younger brother to see that scandal didn’t touch another generation of Ransoms.

And it was more than his relationship with Perri that hadn’t survived that night. To this day, his relationship with his father was forever altered as well. They worked together and lived on the same property, but boundary lines had been drawn by Matt’s resulting sense of betrayal.

Matt idly watched a very fat blue jay repeatedly dive-bomb a squirrel. That brought him back to the present. It dawned on him, as he looked around, that he’d never brought Cadie out here during their brief marriage. He’d never brought his wife to a place he considered so important, so much his. Never shared it with her. He couldn’t. This spot was forever associated with memories of Perri.

He felt the fury drain away as he accepted that he wanted her. He wanted Perri with a single-mindedness of purpose that sooner or later would leave his heart on the line. He’d just have to find a way around the fact that Perri Stone was settling back into his blood and soul with an ease he wouldn’t have thought possible.

Matt couldn’t trust himself to take the best road for either of them. Hurting her again would most likely hurt him down to the ground. But for the life of him he couldn’t stop himself from behavior that was bound to cause them both sorrow.

How many more times was he going to hurt Perri Stone? The same woman he had once wanted to protect for a lifetime? How many times now had he attempted deliverance, some sort of atonement? Hadn’t that been the real reason he had married Cadie?

After Perri left, he had married a sweet, fragile girl who had needed him to take care of her. Matt laughed ruefully. Leila had secretly despised Cadie as much as she had Perri, maybe more. It had really killed Leila not to be able to call upon Cadie’s honor as a tool for manipulation. Cadie hadn’t understood honor. All she had understood was competing.

What he hadn’t understood at the time was that he had been the prize. His own willful pride hadn’t let him see that simple fact. He had been so sure life was never going to break Matt Ransom. So convinced that life would have to bend, not himself. He got back in his car and started for home.

All Cadie had wanted was to get married to someone “better” than either of her sisters and have a baby. She had had no plan, no thought about what would happen after that. She had not been prepared for a reality beyond the point where she would reach her goal. So when she had miscarried the second time, to her it was as if she’d lost everything.

Cadie had gotten in the car one day, shortly after being released from the hospital, and headed west. She hadn’t given herself time to heaL If Matt could have done something for her, she hadn’t let him know what it was.

Funny about that. She had zeroed in early and locked onto his need to take care of his family, to have children to carry on for the land. Well, he had failed at all of mat and now he’d had a bellyful of women who needed someone to take care of them.

Near Tucumcari, New Mexico, she had been killed by a drunk driver during a sudden, violent storm. Cadie had pulled over, seeking the protection of an overpass and had been plowed right into the concrete wall. Bad luck. Sorry for your loss, Ransom.

It had left him wild, mean with grief. But Ganme had turned Matt around. She had never been afraid of his rage. Gannie was someone who could love him and would stay during the hard times. He hadn’t managed to drive her away. God, he missed her more than he did his dead wife and his mother combined. He steered the car away from the lake.

Good thing for Perri that she bugged out when she did, he thought. No, it hadn’t been Perri’s fault. Bad luck. Sorry for your loss, you sorry fool.

And so he had grieved, finally. Thanks to Gannie, he hadn’t had to do it alone. Matt reckoned that maybe being the one left behind at home to deal with broken dreams hadn’t changed him too much for the worse.

If not, it was thanks to Gannie. He grinned in spite of everything. Matt didn’t think Gannie would be too proud of his behavior today. He knew he wasn’t. I’m not much impressed with your attitude, Matthew. He could just hear her now.

He’d gone out of his way today to needle Perri. He had meant to keep it up until he had gotten a response from her other than that cool-handed, white-gloved crap. He had had to make her lose her composure, just to prove to himself she was not as immune to him as she had seemed.

And he had been so sure he could bully her into bending to his will; into doing what had to be done. He hadn’t even thought through how she might stand and take it instead. And how that might hurt her. His reasoning had centered on how she had faded away without a fight twelve years before. Well, obviously, that was twelve years gone.

He shouldn’t have taken it as far as he had today. He had to work with the woman. He had to cooperate with her in order to get a job done and it wasn’t going to be easy now that he had kissed her.

She had every right to be furious with him, and hurt. He had been out of line to call her honor into question like that. Gledhill meant as much to Perri as it did to him and he knew it. And on top of that, Matt’s own fury, fueled by an ever-present despair, had caused him to screw up even that, what had been the first moment of real tenderness he had felt in a long, lonely time.

He turned into the drive toward his home. As he drove under the wrought-iron arch, announcing to anyone passing by that this was Ransom Horse Farm, a Cadillac and a Lincoln pulled in behind him. Matt steeled himself to be cordial to the arriving owners and mentally rehearsed what he had to say about their horses.

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