The Marriage Pact

Chapter Thirteen


TWO THINGS HAPPENED the following Saturday morning—Tripp bought 150 head of Hereford cattle from a neighbor and old friend, and Jim showed up, riding shotgun in his lady-love Pauline’s long, shiny RV. Pauline had flaming red hair and a smile Tripp could see even through the windshield.

When the RV horn bleated cheerfully, Ridley low-bellied it under Tripp’s truck, and every horse in the pasture spooked, kicking and sidestepping and whinnying like crazy. There was a comical, circuslike aspect to the scene.

Tripp, working with the still unnamed chestnut gelding in the corral—the animal was a mite skittish around a saddle and bridle—paused to take this all in. He’d known about Pauline, known about the RV, too, of course, as well as the couple’s plans to get married and then hit the road for an indeterminate length of time. What he hadn’t known was exactly when he’d run smack into the reality of his stepdad’s new life.

He wasn’t too sure, since he hadn’t kept track, but it seemed to Tripp that they must have abandoned the cruise ship early. Perhaps, in their eagerness, he thought whimsically, they’d just jumped overboard and swum back to Seattle.

With a grin and a shake of his head, Tripp gave up trying to saddle the gelding and left the critter to its own devices there in the corral. With the bridle draped over one shoulder, he hauled the saddle and blanket over to the fence, rested them on the top rail, along with the bridle, and climbed over. The RV, well kept but certainly not new, shut down with an audible cough and a few rattles.

The doors on either side swung open simultaneously, and Jim bounded out on the passenger side, looking twenty years younger than when he’d left for the cruise, while Pauline stepped down from the driver’s side, making use of the running board along the way.

Probably in her fifties, the lady had, as Tripp had already noticed, the kind of smile that makes a man take notice. And her body wasn’t bad, either, come to think of it.

Clad in jeans, fancy sandals and an oversize white shirt with the tails tied into a knot at her waist, Pauline beamed at Tripp, clearly expecting a welcome.

Jim came around the front of the RV and slid an arm around Pauline’s middle. His grin was wider than the Bliss River at flood tide, and his eyes shone with merriment and well-being.

“This is Pauline,” he told Tripp proudly.

Tripp nodded. “So I figured,” he said. If Jim was happy, he was happy; he’d decided that a few days back, after the background check he’d hired his air force buddy-turned-investigator to run. He’d vacillated on doing it, but in the end had gone ahead and done it. As he’d expected, Pauline’s reputation was squeaky-clean.

As he approached, Tripp wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans, well aware that he was worse than grubby, since he hadn’t bothered to shave and had been working with horses most of the day. He put out a hand to Pauline in greeting. Instead of taking it, she stepped up, rose onto her tiptoes and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek.

“You must be Tripp,” she said, stepping back into the curve of Jim’s arm.

“Even if I wasn’t,” he responded with a twinkle, “I’d have said I was, just to get that kiss.”


Jim looked pleased and more than a little relieved, too. He gestured with his free hand, taking in all the construction rigs, the crews still swarming over both the house and the barn, and pretended to frown. “This place is like a beehive,” he mock complained. “And what’s up with all those cattle I spotted out there on the range?”

“The construction is almost finished,” Tripp replied affably. “As for the cattle—well, I bought those from old Pete Helgeson, next door. Made for a pretty simple delivery, since all we had to do was take down some of his fence line and drive them through.”

“What’s wrong with Pete?” Jim immediately wanted to know, and this time, the frown was real.

“Nothing,” Tripp replied easily. “He says he’s too old to go ‘chasing after a bunch of knot-headed cows,’ that’s all. I made him an offer, and he took me up on it.”

Pauline gave Jim a subtle jab with one elbow.

Jim seemed baffled for a moment, then regrouped. He took Pauline’s left hand and held it up to display the wide gold band she was wearing.

“I hope you won’t think we jumped the gun, or feel slighted because we got hitched without you at the ceremony, but we just couldn’t wait,” Jim almost crowed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tripp saw Ridley crawl out from under the truck and move cautiously in their direction.

Tripp’s grin broadened. “I’ve only got one thing to say about this, Dad,” he told the old man. “And that’s congratulations.”

Jim’s chest swelled, and he let go of Pauline long enough to haul Tripp into a brief and manly bear hug. “I’m one lucky man,” Jim said, grinning from ear to ear as his eyes misted over. He cleared his throat and said, “Now, if the two of you wouldn’t mind my neglecting you for a few minutes, I think I’ll have myself a look around, see what you’ve done to the old place while my back was turned.”

Pauline slipped her arm through Tripp’s and ushered him away from her bridegroom. “Jim’s told me how much he loved your mother,” she confided in a warm whisper. “She must have been a wonderful woman.”

“She was,” Tripp agreed, his voice going husky. “But she’s been gone a long time, and Jim’s been real lonely, going it alone. Mom would be glad he’s finally found somebody to love, Pauline.”

Pauline stopped, her arm still linked with Tripp’s, and looked up at him, her green eyes shining behind unshed tears, her lower lip wobbling slightly. “Ellie meant the world to him,” she said, “just like my Herb meant the world to me. And so do you, Tripp. No man ever loved a son more than Jim Galloway loves you.”

Tripp’s throat tightened, and he had to glance away briefly, get a grip on his emotions. “Well,” he said huskily, watching as his dad stood a dozen yards away, with his back to them, checking out the barn with its new roof and paint job in progress, “it’s mutual.”

Ridley inched closer and shyly sniffled at Pauline’s right knee, not just wagging his tail, but his whole back end.

She laughed and leaned down to muss the dog’s ears, saying gently, “Hello, there, you handsome little critter. Does this mean we can be friends?”

As far as Tripp was concerned, Pauline’s response to Ridley’s tentative overture was far more telling than any background check. While he definitely believed good folks came in all varieties, including some who preferred not to keep pets for one reason or another, he didn’t have much in common with that sort. They were usually a shade too worried about getting dirty to make for easy company, in his opinion.

Jim, apparently okay with the changes being made to the barn, turned and headed toward them, gesturing at the corral. “I don’t recognize that gelding,” he said, in his plainspoken way.

“Just bought him,” Tripp explained. “Along with a paint called Apache and a little mare named Sunset.”

“You’ve been busy,” Jim remarked drily.

“Winter’s not far off,” Tripp reminded him. “Makes sense to be ready.”

Jim chuckled. “That’s my boy,” he said. Taking Pauline’s hand again, he led her toward the house. “I believe I’ll show my bride through the house—that is, if I can still find my way around the place, given all the changes you’ve probably made.”

Tripp nodded, slapped his dad lightly on the back. “I think you’ll do fine.”

“The man bought two dishwashing machines,” Jim told Pauline. “Can you believe that?”

She laughed. “Sure, I can, you old fool,” she teased with obvious affection. “This is the twenty-first century, you know. Two dishwashers would come in mighty handy when there’s been a party, and at Thanksgiving and Christmas, too.”

“We don’t do much entertaining around here,” Jim mused, looking in Tripp’s direction, holding back a grin and yet obviously a little puzzled. “Leastways, not recently.”

Tripp hung back, thinking he might be intruding if he joined his dad and Pauline in the house. “If you’re still going on about the twin dishwashers,” he called after Jim, “you’re in for a hell of a shock when you see the main bathroom.”

Pauline turned without pulling away from Jim’s side and gestured to both Tripp and, ostensibly, the dog. “Come on inside,” she urged cheerfully. “It’s too early in the day for us to be doing any honeymooning.”

“That’s what you say,” Jim joked, poking his nose into all that dark red hair for a moment.

Pauline laughed again and swatted at him. “You behave,” she said in an undertone that carried.

Tripp was supposed to pick Hadleigh up for Bex’s party in a few hours, and he still had chores to do before he could shower and shave and put on clean clothes, so he waved them off. “I’ll be in after a while,” he said.

Ridley, that turncoat of a dog, left him behind without a backward glance, trotting alongside Pauline as if he’d known her forever.

Tripp shook his head, smiling, and went back to the corral to put the chestnut gelding away for the day. After that, he saddled Apache and took a quick ride out onto the range to check on the new cattle.

They were making themselves right at home, it turned out, grazing on the last of the summer grass, drinking noisily from the creek. He and old Pete had already put the fence line back in place, though, like so many things, it would need replacing.

After that, Tripp rode back, put Apache away and brought the other horses in from the nearby pasture, leading them one by one into their stalls. He made sure the newly installed electric waterers were clear of debris and working properly, then added hay to the feeders.

All the while, Tripp had been thinking about Hadleigh. He hadn’t seen her, except from a distance, since the morning after they made love, and her absence surrounded him, like some kind of void, a silence that pounded at him. Maybe she’d benefited from the separation, but it hadn’t worked that way for Tripp. Sure, he missed the sex—more than missed it—thought he’d go crazy, sometimes, if he couldn’t hold her, breathe in the scent of her hair and her skin, please her so thoroughly that she cried out his name, clutched at his back and shoulders, raised her body to meet his, seeking more and still more.

The sun was lowering by the time he started for the house, and it lifted his spirits to see lights glowing in the windows and to know he’d have somebody besides Ridley to talk to—for a while, at least. The construction guys had long since called it a day, taking their tools and their rigs with them, and the lumber stacked around the yard was almost gone, along with the paint cans that had crowded the side porch. At least now he could walk between the house and the barn without feeling as though he’d run an obstacle course.


Inside, he found Jim sitting in his customary chair at the kitchen table, going through the mail that had accumulated while he was away. Probably because he didn’t shop online, or even own a computer in the first place, he still got a few regular letters, along with plenty of magazines and catalogs and, of course, junk.

Ridley lay contentedly at his feet, greeting Tripp with a roll of his eyes before shutting them again, but there was no sign of Pauline.

“Where’s the wife?” Tripp asked, rolling up his sleeves and flipping on the water at the sink with a motion of one elbow, reaching for the familiar bar of yellow soap and scrubbing his hands and forearms, prior to the planned hot shower and careful shave.

Jim smiled and removed his reading glasses, the rimless kind sold in drugstores and supermarkets. “She’s plumb worn-out from driving all day,” he replied. “She had a sandwich, took a bath and went to bed.” Jim paused, looking solemnly at Tripp. “Something’s different about you, son,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Tripp sighed contentedly, dried his hands on a wad of paper towels and faced his dad. “It would take me half the night to tell you,” he replied, “and I’m due in town in a little more than an hour. Suppose we talk tomorrow?”

A sly grin broke over Jim’s face. “Fine by me,” he said. “But don’t be surprised if I jump to a few conclusions in the meantime.”

Tripp tossed away the used paper towels and laughed. “Such as?”

“Such as, you’re in such an all-fired hurry to get to town because Hadleigh will be waiting for you,” Jim answered, looking a mite smug. “Do I dare hope the two of you have finally woken up to the fact that you were meant for each other?”

Tripp cleared his throat diplomatically. “Hope away,” he teased. Mentally, he was already rehearsing the evening to come. He’d make a quick stop at the supermarket for another bouquet of flowers, along with a new box of condoms, which, considering that everybody in Mustang Creek knew everybody else—and way too well at that—would require some subtlety.

In her one communiqué, a text Tripp had received the night before, Hadleigh had asked him to pick her up at the shop, claiming she’d been neglecting her business and had some catching up to do.

“You have yourself a fine time tonight,” Jim interjected, putting on his reading glasses again, pushing them up his nose and focusing on the letter he’d just opened. “I’ll expect to hear about it over breakfast—provided you’re back here by then.”

Tripp gave a wry laugh and headed for his room.

* * *

HADLEIGH HAD PUT in a busy day—several busy days, in fact—filming parts of the new how-to video she planned to offer, for a small fee, on her website. She’d helped customers, taught a beginner’s class and done a sort of mock-up of her next project—a quilt so special, so personal, that even thinking about it made her heart beat a little faster.

When she glanced at the old-fashioned regulator clock on the wall behind the sales counter, a little gasp escaped her. Tripp would probably walk through the door in a few minutes, and she wasn’t ready—not appearance-wise anyway. She hadn’t seen Tripp in several days, although they’d spoken on the phone a couple of times, and she was definitely ready for an encounter of the face-to-face kind.

She hurried into the shop’s tiny bathroom, stripped off her day-job clothes—a flannel shirt, the tank top beneath it, her sneakers, socks and jeans. That done, she stood at the sink in her bra and panties, splashing water onto her face. Her hair, caught on top of her head in a squeeze-comb, didn’t qualify as a disaster, but it wasn’t party-ready, either.

Hastily, Hadleigh dried her face on one of the rough brown paper towels from the wall dispenser, smoothed on a layer of tinted moisturizer from her makeup bag and swiped some mascara onto her lashes. She decided to hold off on the lip gloss until she’d put on the outfit she’d brought from home that morning.

Any other night, Muggles would have been a concern, but a neighbor, who also volunteered at the animal shelter, was taking her over to Shady Pines Nursing Home for a visit with Earl. It was all part of an outreach program, designed to cheer up the residents of both the shelter and the nursing home, and Hadleigh thought it was a wonderful idea. Once visiting hours were over at Shady Pines, that same neighbor would bring Muggles back to Hadleigh’s place and let her inside, using the key from under the doormat.

When Bex’s party was over, Hadleigh would go straight home, where Muggles would be waiting for her.

She reddened slightly, realizing she might not be alone at that point, and shimmied into her new getup, a pair of sleek black palazzo pants and a long, slinky red shirt with a sexy slanted hem. The garments emphasized her curves without hugging them too tightly, and Hadleigh loved the way they felt against her skin, all gossamer and soft. She sat on the closed lid of the toilet to pull on some knee-high nylons before poking her feet into a pair of black velvet flats.

A distant knock distracted her, quickening her heartbeat and turning her breath shallow.

Tripp. He was here, and she wasn’t ready. Her hair was still a mess, and she hadn’t put on any lip gloss.

Hadleigh debated briefly, concluded that she couldn’t have the man thinking she’d changed her mind about going to the party with him, or even that she was hiding out somewhere in the shop, hoping he’d go away.

After a moment of muttering, she called out, “Just a second! Be right there!” and dashed for the shop door.

There was a man on the other side, for sure, peering in through the glass, his hands cupped on either side of his face, a foolish grin wreathing his mouth—but it wasn’t Tripp.

Of all nights, of all times, Oakley Smyth had decided to pay her a visit.

Hadleigh probably wouldn’t have let him in, but he’d seen her, of course, and small-town etiquette demanded a more polite reception. She didn’t hate Oakley, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of him, but they didn’t pal around, either. In fact, she’d seen him no more than half a dozen times since their almost-wedding.

Oakley was still handsome, if somewhat dissipated, in the way of the privileged and not particularly responsible—a rare commodity in Mustang Creek, where people were accustomed to taking life as it came, whether good or bad, pretty much without comment. Now the near-miss bridegroom let his eyes drift over her before stepping over the threshold, though Hadleigh hadn’t actually invited him.

“Still beautiful,” he said, putting almost no breath behind the words.

“This isn’t a good time,” Hadleigh blurted. “I’m going out and—”

Just then, headlights swept across the shop windows.

Tripp.

Although he didn’t turn his head to look back, Oakley seemed to know who was about to walk in.

“Are you afraid of him, Hadleigh?” he asked. “The pilot cowboy, I mean?”

“Afraid of him?” Hadleigh echoed, indignant. “Of course not.” Impatience overcame her effort at good manners. “What do you want, Oakley?”

“Why are you so nervous if you’re not scared of Galloway?” Oakley asked, causing Hadleigh to wonder if he was on pills or something; he didn’t smell of alcohol but that didn’t mean he was sober.

She was nervous because any encounter—or even the anticipation of an encounter—with Tripp made her nerves dance under her skin. And she was damned if she’d explain that or anything else to Oakley Smyth, her personal life being none of his business.


Tripp came in, slanted a quizzical glance at Hadleigh, as if to make sure she was okay and finally turned to face Oakley.

In that instant, Hadleigh understood what was at stake. Everything—everything—depended on what happened next. If Tripp got violent with Oakley, or if he showed any sign that he didn’t trust her, their relationship would be over before it had really gotten started.

Hadleigh held her breath, wide-eyed with alarm.

For a long moment, the two men watched each other, reminding Hadleigh of two rams fixing to lock horns any second.

Then Tripp’s attention swung back to Hadleigh. He smiled one of his tilted smiles and asked, “Are you ready to go, or do you need a few minutes?”

Hadleigh gulped, so relieved she thought she might actually faint from the rush in her head. “I’m almost ready,” she said.

“Good.” Tripp’s blue eyes were as peaceful as a cloudless sky. Then he handed her the bouquet of bright yellow, orange and white zinnias he’d been holding behind his back. “It was these or more roses,” he told her. “And that seemed redundant.”

Hadleigh’s hands shook as she reached for the flowers, and a smile trembled on her mouth. Oakley might as well have vanished into thin air, like the proverbial puff of smoke. “Thank you,” she said shakily. And then she raced for the bathroom.

When she came out, perhaps ten minutes later, Oakley was gone and Tripp wasn’t immediately visible, either.

“Tripp?” Hadleigh called. She might have wondered if her Saturday-night date had ditched her, but his truck was parked in front of the shop and the faint soap-and-sunshine scent of his skin lingered in the still air.

“In here,” Tripp replied from the back room where she taught classes, worked out designs and recorded the videos for her website.

She stepped over the threshold, carrying the bouquet, which she’d dutifully trimmed and put into a canning jar full of sink water. She set the whole thing aside, feeling strangely, sweetly stricken.

Tripp stood with his back to her, studying the mock-up pinned to her huge design board—the sketch of the special quilt she hadn’t shown anyone, not even Melody and Bex, because it might as well have been a map of her heart, it revealed so much.

Carefully, he raised one hand, traced the face of one of the figures she’d sketched on the oversize sheet of paper, torn from the roll she kept above her cutting table. The face he touched so gently was her own—in the sketch she was smiling, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and holding a blonde toddler, a little girl, on one hip. The other figure was clearly Tripp, and he, too, was holding a child, a boy, slightly older than the plump-cheeked girl. In the background, green rangeland unfurled, meeting a pale blue and cloudless sky at the distant horizon.

Although he had to know she was there, frozen in the doorway, Tripp didn’t say anything. Instead he went on looking at the design.

When he finally turned around, Hadleigh’s heart had wedged itself in her throat and her cheeks burned.

“Is this how you see us?” Tripp asked, so quietly she had to strain to hear him over the pounding in her ears.

Hadleigh bit her lower lip, found herself unable to speak and simply nodded.

That was when he smiled, and she knew she hadn’t scared him off by putting her deepest dreams on paper in such an obvious way.

Tripp glanced back at the happy-family sketch, then crossed to Hadleigh and placed his hands tenderly on either side of her face. He gazed into her eyes for a long time before he spoke. “I love you,” he told her solemnly. The grin flashed again, practically dazzling her with its summer-sun brightness. “But you might as well know right up front that I’m going to want more than two kids.”

Hadleigh didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both, and then Tripp kissed her, and kissed her again.

And they almost missed the party entirely.

* * *

THE PARKING LOT at the Moose Jaw Tavern had been cordoned off with red-and-blue crepe paper streamers, and the portable reader board, which usually listed the lunch special and the date of the next pool tournament, stood close to the unpaved street. Haphazard stick-on letters proclaimed Private Party.

There was even an attendant on duty, clipboard in hand, evidently checking names off a list.

The Moose Jaw was jumping, jukebox music pouring into the night at top volume, and cars, trucks and motorcycles were parked close together, like sardines in a tin. In Mustang Creek, the term private party meant everybody in the county was welcome. Furthermore, if some hapless soul crashed the shindig, he’d be handed a plate and told to get in line for the buffet.

Hadleigh glanced over at Tripp. A moment later, he knew she’d read his mind. “Bex gets a little carried away sometimes,” she said.

Tripp drew up alongside the lot attendant, a local kid sporting an orange reflector vest and a self-important attitude. “Name, sir?” he asked.

The whippersnapper’s father owned the local feed store, having inherited the business from his father, who had, of course, inherited it from his father, and so on. Everybody who worked there was a blood relative to everybody else, and the two families, Tripp’s and the boy’s, went way back. “I was Tripp Galloway yesterday afternoon, when you loaded all those bags of horse feed in the back of this same truck, Darrell, and according to my driver’s license, I’m still Tripp Galloway.”

Darrell looked up from his clipboard and then over at Hadleigh, who greeted him with a smile and a slight motion of one hand. He blushed, but his eyes narrowed slightly when he turned his attention back to Tripp. “Jeez,” he muttered. “I’m just trying to do a good job.”

Tripp grinned. “If you’re grilling people you’ve known since you could walk, boy, you must be mighty tough on strangers.”

Darrell made a resolute check mark on his paperwork and, finally, grinned back. “So far,” he admitted, “there haven’t been any.” With that, he got serious again, stepped away from Tripp’s truck and waved him into the parking lot, impatient to deal with the next vehicle in line.

Tripp parked behind the tavern, not in the lot but in the alley. That way, he figured, there was a fighting chance that he and Hadleigh wouldn’t find themselves blocked in if they decided to leave the party early.

“It’s dark back here,” Hadleigh observed, without apparent concern.

Tripp smiled. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But I’ll protect you.”

He shut off the engine, got out of the truck, came around to Hadleigh’s side and opened the door for her. For a few seconds, as she stood there on the running board looking down at him, her face aglow with moonlight, Tripp flashed back to the day he’d hoisted her over one shoulder and carried her out of the redbrick church.

“What did you say to Oakley after I left the two of you alone tonight?” she asked.

Tripp had expected the question; he’d just thought a little more time would pass first. Hadleigh waited calmly for his reply, still on the running board, a cowgirl goddess with stars catching in her hair.

Tripp sighed. “I asked him if he’d decided to take up quilting,” he said.

Hadleigh made a soft sound that might have been a stifled laugh—or not. “And?” she prompted.

“He said he’d come by to say hello to you, that was all, but if it seemed there was a glimmer of hope you’d give him a second chance, he’d jump at it.”


Remembering the brief conversation now, Tripp found himself respecting Oakley’s honest answer, if not Oakley himself. “I said he’d have to ask you about second chances, because it wasn’t my call.” He paused, cleared his throat, went on. “I also told him I plan on marrying you, when and if you’ll have me, that is. He said in that case, he might just show up right before we said our I dos, because that would settle a score.”

It was hard to tell how all of this was going over with Hadleigh, because she didn’t speak or move, and he couldn’t make out her expression since the light from the moon and the stars and the back windows of the Moose Jaw Tavern was behind her. If he hadn’t seen that sketch on the wall at her shop, he might have panicked.

Tripp sighed. Might as well bring this on home and be done with it. “I answered that if he did a damn fool thing like that, he’d better be ready for a fight, because I’d give him one then and there, church or no church.”

Hadleigh rested her hands on Tripp’s shoulders and he took hold of her waist, lifted her down. His heartbeat felt like blows from a sledgehammer, hard enough to bust right through his rib cage.

Looking up at him, she asked, “You want to marry me?”

He could only nod. His throat was dry as sawdust and all his innards felt as if they were trying to shinny up into it at once.

“And you’d fight for me?”

Tripp forced himself to speak. “Lady,” he ground out, “I’d do anything for you.”

Her arms slid around his neck, and he could feel her luscious breasts pressing against his chest. “So did you just propose?” she asked in a sultry purr.

Tripp considered the matter, then gave a gruff burst of laughter. “Yeah,” he answered. “I think I did. Since I don’t have a ring handy, and I’m standing up instead of down on one knee, I guess it was a pretty back-asswards way of asking you to be my wife, so I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted a do-over.” A pause. “Just say yes,” he added, and he wasn’t laughing now; he wasn’t even grinning.

Hadleigh tipped her head to one side, and he saw her lush lips curve into a little smile. Her fingers slid into his hair.

“All right, Tripp Galloway,” she said. “Yes. Yes now, yes tomorrow, yes forever.”