“So why would I marry you? It’s like you’re asking me to prostitute myself to save the ranch house.” Although at the moment, staring into the eyes of tall, dark, and handsome, the prospect wasn’t as insulting as it should have been.
“How about the fact you’d still hold the majority of shares and, with the family votes, you’d have de facto controlling interest? And marriage has its benefits.” His gaze traveled from her eyes, down her throat, past her neck, to the top button of her shirt…and back up again with an intensity that made the beats of her pulse reverberate clear to her heart. “Just to be clear, I’m not asking anything of you. I didn’t write this will. I’m only exploring options. But I can guarantee you a pleasurable time if you’re open to it.”
He sat back in his saddle. “Think about it, Mandy. Six months, you’d be head of Prescott Rodeo Company. I could accept marriage as long as it’s understood we divorce at the end of six months. And you agree to a prenup, of course. I just think it’s something you should consider.”
The man was an arrogant, egotistical sidewinder who brought out the worst in her. Except for that long-ago summer.
She looked past the creek, over the plain, and toward the point where the land sloped gently up to the foothills. This was her land. PRC was her company. And this was her life.
“It will be a cold day in hell, Martin, before I’d marry you, much less sleep with you.”
He arched an eyebrow as if he doubted her.
There was only one thing to do to preserve her sanity. Reining Willow to the right, she gave a light kick. Her horse lurched into a gallop, heading north up the stream and away from Ty, away from the creek, away from bad memories, and overpowering lust. Mandy gave the horse its head, leaving, she hoped, Ty in the proverbial dust.
Chapter 4
“Well, I can think of worse things,” Sheila said as she poured Mandy another cup of coffee from the glass pot.
Dawn was just breaking over the eastern sky, streaming dusky light into the oversized kitchen of Mandy’s mother’s house. Granite counters gleamed, stainless steel appliances shined, and the travertine-tiled floor glistened in the light. Though Mandy lived in her mother’s house, somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of it as her home. More like a way station on the road to her real life. Yet she hadn’t taken any steps to find her own place since getting her master’s degree in business. Maybe because it would mean leaving the ranch—the one spot where she belonged.
Dumping two teaspoons of sugar and at least a quarter cup of cream into the strong brew, Mandy took a huge gulp hoping the caffeine would jump-start her body—and her mood. Given her sleepless night, she’d barely been conscious enough to shimmy into her jeans and the white shirt with the embroidered PRC logo of a riderless bronc in midkick.
Sitting at the kitchen-table with the list of the rodeo livestock and entrants spread before her, Mandy inhaled the coffee’s nutty aroma, one of her favorite scents. “Worse things than marrying a man I don’t even like?”
She hadn’t expected Ty to follow her last evening—and he hadn’t. She’d ridden far upstream and then crossed over and rode toward the foothills, trying to distance herself from their conversation, but she hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts. His arrogance had unsettled her like the sight of a fox unsettled a hen. When she’d returned in the half-light of dusk, the mare was safely in her stall and Ty, gratefully, nowhere in sight.
Her mother laughed, more like a giggle. “Honey, have you looked at him? He’s a hunk. Twenty years younger and I’d throw my hat in that arena, for sure.”
Mandy pushed away her plate with the remains of a half-eaten scrambled egg and tried to hide her shock. Even though her slim mother looked full of youthful vigor, it was downright weird to think of her having those thoughts about any man. Sheila had never even dated, at least to Mandy’s knowledge, since her father died, though surely there had to have been men who’d been interested in such a vibrant, still-beautiful woman. Her mother seemed content with her female friends and volunteer activities. The only man she’d ever seen her mother with on a routine basis was Harold, and that was because Harold was always around.
This morning, her ever-perfect mother was decked out in designer jeans and a western shirt, as if she was going somewhere. Given it was six o’clock in the morning, Mandy chalked it up to Sheila always looking pulled together. No one would ever catch her mother in a robe and nightgown outside of the bedroom.