He reached for her hand on his shoulder and folded her fingers into his. She was soft and warm, and another jolt of lust zinged him. “I promise I’ll always be straight with you.”
He ran his thumb over her smooth warm hand, making lazy circles. She had pretty hands, small boned and surprisingly soft.
She didn’t pull her hand away. “Being married doesn’t mean I’d go to bed with you,” she said.
If she was asking him to gamble on whether she’d succumb in six months, those were odds he’d gladly take. He was marrying to have a woman he’d wanted for ten years. A woman who had been forbidden fruit by virtue of her being JM’s granddaughter. Now JM had, in effect, given his blessing. And for just six months. And with an added bonus of stock. Hell, why wouldn’t he take that gamble? Because there was no way Mandy was going to be able to hold out for 180 days—and nights. He’d make sure of that.
“I’ll take my chances. Consider if you have more to win or lose if we married. I think the answer will be obvious.”
The song ended. The dancers were leaving the floor, but Ty stood holding Mandy.
She looked up at him as if she was searching his face for an answer to her dilemma.
“I doubt it,” she finally said.
But he heard a distinct quiver of uncertainty in her voice. He’d take that as progress.
*
Mandy slid onto the red faux-leather seats of the booth at the local café, where her two girlfriends sat across from her, eyeing her as if she had some strange disease. Maybe she did.
She’d texted them Monday morning on the way home from the rodeo and asked them to meet her at their regular spot. She needed a reality check, and she couldn’t think of any better people to give it.
“Thanks, both of you, for coming on such short notice.”
“You got our curiosity up for sure,” Libby Cochran said, her blue eyes sparkling with impending motherhood, an event she’d announced at their last dinner.
Mandy had met Libby when Libby had interviewed for a public relations job for the Western Stock Show in Denver, where Mandy had represented Prescott Rodeo on the event committee. It turned out Mandy knew Libby’s dad, since Prescott Rodeo had bought several pickups from his dealership. As they had gotten to know one another, they found they had a lot more in common than either might have guessed, particularly in the family dynamics department. Even though Libby had eventually turned down the position, they’d become friends.
If Libby was Mandy’s newest friend, Cat McKenna was her oldest. Cat’s family had been ranchers for generations, and the two girls had grown up together at county 4-H events, showing off their heifers. Mandy had seen Cat through some difficult times, what with a relationship gone bad, a father who disowned her, and a little boy to care for. But Cat had eventually come home and, with her father’s passing, was running Pleasant Valley Ranch, or at least trying to.
Mandy had introduced Libby to Cat, and they hit it off. The three friends had been meeting periodically for a “girls’ night out” at the local café ever since. Tonight, all three dressed in jeans. Mandy had thrown on a balloon-sleeved turquoise shirt that matched the dyed leather turquoise insert in her squared-toe Tony Llama boots. Libby’s top was a blousy pink number, while Cat’s sleek designer logo shirt was in keeping with her high-end taste.
“Does this have something to do with your grandfather’s will? Did you find out the business is insolvent or something?” Cat bit her lip and squinted her brown eyes as if trying to puzzle out the why and wherefore of the evening.
There would be no way either of them would guess what Mandy had to discuss. And they had to be wondering about the emergency that placed them all here on a Monday night with only a few hours’ notice.
“It has everything to do with my grandfather’s will, unfortunately. And no, the business isn’t insolvent.”
At that moment, a perky young waitress appeared at the table, pad and pen in hand.
They each gave their order, familiar with the menu, seeing as this had become a regular meeting spot to reconnect over a burger and a glass of beer—or in Libby’s case now, a soda. Libby was the only one who was married, having tied the knot in late winter with a handsome bronc rider she had been married to briefly five years earlier and divorced forty-eight hours later—but that was another story.
As the waitress strode away, Cat leaned in, flipping her long brown hair over her shoulder. “So tell us.”
“First, I want to know how you’re feeling, Libby.”
“Fine, just fine. The morning sickness has finally left—although it should have been billed as all-day sickness. But tell us your news.”
“And your father? How’s he doing?”
Libby huffed and blew a strand of her pageboy length blond hair from her face. “He’s coming along. Chance is doing well on the circuit. We’re all good, Mandy—now dish.”