The Marriage Pact

Chapter Fourteen


The following June

HADLEIGH, MELODY AND Bex sat side by side on Bex’s old-fashioned side porch on chairs they’d dragged out from the kitchen. They all wore shorts and tank tops of varying colors, and their feet, propped comfortably on the whitewashed railing, were bare. Their toenails were all painted the same naughty shade of pink—a throwback to the slumber parties of yesteryear.

The sun had just gone down, and the first stars were popping out, like the lights of some distant celestial city, winking on a few at a time. The summer air was cool, a blessing after an unusually hot day, and smelled of freshly cut grass, Bex’s English roses and concrete sidewalks slowly drying now that most of the neighbors had shut off their sprinklers for the night. Kids played in nearby yards, their voices breathless and high-pitched as they rushed, in happy desperation, to have all the fun they possibly could before mothers or fathers called them inside for supper.

Muggles, lying on a time-tattered hooked rug next to Hadleigh’s chair, lifted her head, perked up her ears and made a soft, whining sound, as though she longed to join in the end-of-the-day games.

Hadleigh smiled and reached down to pat the dog’s gleaming golden head. “No worries, my friend,” she told the animal. “One day soon, you’ll have all the playmates you could want.”

Simultaneously, Melody and Bex both took their feet from the railing and plunked them down hard on the painted floor of the porch.

“Is there something you aren’t telling us?” Melody demanded good-naturedly.

“Like, for instance, that you’re pregnant?” Bex clarified, as if Melody’s meaning hadn’t been perfectly obvious in the first place.

Hadleigh laughed, kept her feet propped up—she’d been on them for days, it seemed, tying up loose ends at the shop so she could take a few months off, having hired a temporary manager—and wriggled her toes. “Not yet,” she said mischievously.

“You know all the old biddies will be checking off the months on their calendars,” Melody said, “starting tomorrow. The truth will come out.”

Hadleigh allowed herself a dreamy sigh. Tomorrow. The day she and Tripp were getting married. “So you two want to beat the ‘old biddies’ to the punch?” she teased. “Get the inside scoop?”

“Of course we do,” Bex said, in all seriousness. She did have a sense of humor, but lately she’d been so busy traveling all over the country on franchise business that she practically met herself coming and going.

Melody elbowed Bex, but gently, though her entire focus was on Hadleigh. “You’d tell us if you were having a baby, wouldn’t you? Your very best friends? The only two women in the world who love you enough to wear daffodil-yellow bridesmaids’ dresses?”

“Organdy,” Bex added darkly. “With ruffles.”

“Silk organdy,” Hadleigh pointed out cheerfully.

The aforementioned gowns, though bright yellow with, yes, the merest hint of a ruffle slanting across the skirt, were not the horrors Bex and Melody had scoffed at after seeing them online and in just about every bridal shop within five hundred miles of Mustang Creek. In fact, they were elegant, floor-length sheaths, with a sexy slit on one side, starting at the hem and ending at the knee, affording the occasional glimpse of leg.

When, months ago, after an exhaustive search, Hadleigh had finally settled on the graceful garments now hanging on the doors of both Bex and Melody’s closets, carefully shrouded in cellophane, they’d given the choice a rousing thumbs-up.

And, being Bex and Melody, they hadn’t missed a chance to razz Hadleigh about the dresses ever since.

“After Tripp,” she said, “you’d be the first to know.”

It was clear that Hadleigh’s friends believed her. It was also clear that they were disappointed.

Melody sighed, then leaned over to rummage through her oversize handbag. She brought out three small red velvet boxes, letting one rest in her lap and holding out the other two to Hadleigh and Bex.

“I was going to wait until just before the wedding to give you these,” Melody told them both before focusing on Hadleigh again, “but, much as I believe in girlfriend power, tomorrow should be about you and Tripp and your future together.”

Hadleigh held the box, unopened, in one palm. Suddenly, she was choked up, and her vision blurred slightly.

Melody laughed, though she was tearful, too, then wrapped one arm around Bex and the other around Hadleigh and pulled them close for a moment.

“Remember the marriage pact?” she asked.

Hadleigh looked down at the empty charm bracelet Melody had given her months before. It was the one piece of jewelry, besides her engagement ring, that she never took off.

Bex, as bewildered as Hadleigh, nodded slowly and held up one arm to show that she was wearing her bracelet, too.

“Open the boxes,” Melody urged in a quiet voice. Her eyes, though dry now, remained luminous. Then she sniffled and added, “We have something to celebrate, and this is it. One of us is finally getting married.”

Hadleigh lifted the hinged lid, peered into the box, and caught her breath, pressing the splayed fingers of her free hand against her heart. The charm, a tiny golden horse, running free, its exquisitely detailed mane and tail flying in an invisible wind, was perfect right down to its eyes, ears, nostrils and hooves.


“Oh, Melody,” Hadleigh whispered. “It’s so beautiful...”

Bex had the same charm in her box, as did Melody.

Melody sucked in a breath, expelled it and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “Since you’re the first of us to get married,” she told Hadleigh, “you get the first charm. The horse is supposed to look like Sunset, but it also represents the freedom you found when you opened your heart and let all that dammed-up love loose, once and for all. That was a very brave thing to do, my friend.”

“It was,” Bex agreed, beaming. At the same time, tears trickled down her cheeks. “Is there anything scarier than being in love?”

Knowing the question was rhetorical, neither Melody nor Hadleigh offered a reply. In fact, Hadleigh was fumbling with the charm, eager to put it on her bracelet, but her fingers weren’t working properly.

Melody finally did it for her.

A few minutes later, they were all wearing them.

“One for all,” Melody said, “and all for one. I’ll make matching charms for the three of us—unique ones, of course, representing each individual in some way. Then, wherever we wind up, together or apart, we’ll have something to remind us that dreams come true.”

“Just promise mine won’t be a workout shoe,” Bex said with a grin. “Or, worse, a teeny-tiny dumbbell—I might take that personally.”

Both Hadleigh and Melody laughed.

“Seriously, Bex?” Hadleigh chided. “You actually think anyone in their right mind could ever consider you stupid?”

“Yeah, Ms. Not-even-thirty-and-set-for-life,” Melody added. “You’re brilliant, Bex. All the time we were growing up, you said you were going to be rich someday, and here you are. You did it, girl. And we are so proud of you.”

Hadleigh nodded in sincere agreement.

But Bex looked wistful as she gazed down at her bracelet, fondled the dangling charm and asked softly, “Did you ever get something you thought you wanted more than anything else in the world, only to find out that it didn’t really change anything? Not inside, where it counts.”

“Group hug!” Melody cried, and the three women stood up, flung their arms around each other and clung. In a way, this evening was the end of an era.

And while Hadleigh knew they would always be best friends, she and Bex and Melody, there was no denying that, after tomorrow, things would be different, too.

Presently, they broke the huddle and retreated into the house, hauling the chairs as they went, because it was getting chilly and the mosquitoes were out.

Muggles dutifully followed.

* * *

TRIPP OPENED HIS eyes to a bedroom full of blinding light and Jim standing over him, grinning like a damn fool and already dressed for the wedding.

In a nanosecond, panic replaced irritation.

“What time is it?” Tripp flung back the covers.

Jim chuckled. He’d filled out since he’d married Pauline and they’d taken to roaming the country like a pair of gypsies, sending a postcard from every national or state park west of the Mississippi, along with intermittent camera-phone pictures showing the two of them in front of geysers and on roller coasters or admiring the world’s largest ball of string—and, once, memorably, standing next to a colorful sign that read, “See the Amazing Eighteen-Foot Reptile!”

“Relax,” Jim said. “It’s not even eight o’clock, and the wedding isn’t until two this afternoon.”

Tripp let out his breath, partly in relief, partly in frustration, and shoved his fingers through his hair. He worked as hard as anybody else, but since he’d hired a crew of reliable ranch hands, he didn’t get up at the crack of dawn anymore.

He reached for yesterday’s jeans, hauled them on and stood, letting his gaze run over Jim’s spiffy three-piece suit. “Aren’t you jumping the gun just a little?” he asked, but his mood was already improving now that he knew he hadn’t overslept, missed the biggest event of his life and permanently pissed off the only woman he’d ever love.

Jim fiddled with his clip-on tie. “I thought I’d try this getup on, that’s all,” he replied affably. “Get your opinion.”

“My opinion,” Tripp said, unable to hold back the grin twitching at one side of his mouth, “is that you’re a crazy man. The suit looked fine when Pauline picked it out for you, and it looks fine now.”

Jim frowned, but his eyes sparkled with mischief. “I don’t know,” he said, musing. “Pauline’s been baking a lot of cakes and pies since we got back here. The oven in the RV is about the size of a cereal box, so we don’t eat near as many sweets when we’re on the road, but I’ve been chowing down like there’s no tomorrow, and that’s a fact.”

Tripp finally laughed, tugging a T-shirt over his head. “Did you wake me up to tell me you’re worried about your weight, old man?”

“I woke you up because this is a special day,” Jim said, and the humor in his eyes was gone, replaced by a solemn expression. “I thought maybe we should—well, have ourselves a talk, man to man.”

“You’re not planning to tell me about the birds and the bees, are you?” Tripp joked.

Jim shook his head, but the serious look in his eyes didn’t change. “That horse got out of the barn a long time ago,” he replied. Then he slapped Tripp on the shoulder and asked, “What do you say I swap out these stylish duds for some regular clothes and we saddle up a couple of horses and ride for a while, just you and me?”

Tripp was moved by the invitation—and a little worried. “Answer one question,” he said. “Are you sick again?”

Jim’s eyes widened. “No,” he said, clearly surprised at the inquiry. “I’m healthy as—well, a horse.”

Relief swept over Tripp like a tidal wave. “That’s good,” he said, thick-voiced and gruff. “I’ll meet you by the corral in fifteen minutes.”

Jim smiled, nodded once, as though he’d asked a question and gotten an answer he liked.

A quarter of an hour later, Tripp left the house, with Ridley beside him, and saw the Jim he knew, the one he remembered from as far back as his recollection went—the tough, able rancher with quiet ways and a soul generous enough to take in not only a spirited, stubborn woman, used to fighting her own battles, but her little boy, too. There had always been plenty of room in Jim Galloway’s heart for the both of them, and even in Tripp’s teens, difficult years when he’d been rebellious, moody and apt to run off at the mouth more often than not, when he’d needed to test the borders of his stepfather’s acceptance, Jim’s commitment to another man’s child had never wavered.

He’d just gone right on loving Tripp, quietly, insistently.

In that moment, Tripp knew that if he could be as good a husband as Jim had been to his mom, and was now, to Pauline, if he could be the kind of father to his and Hadleigh’s children as this man had been to him, he’d be getting the important stuff right.

He rustled up a grin as he walked toward Jim, who’d saddled both Apache and Skit, the chestnut gelding. What he liked best about the name was that Hadleigh smiled every time she said it.

“This Skit yahoo here,” Jim said, “could use some work. I’m not even in the saddle yet, and he’s already dancing around like a tenderfoot on a gravel road.”


“Feel free,” Tripp replied, swinging up onto Apache’s back. “I’ve tried, but he’s a hard case, old Skit. So far, he hasn’t taken a liking to anybody except Hadleigh.”

Jim mounted with the ease of a much younger man and adjusted his beat-up old hat. “Well, then,” he boomed out, “there’s hope for him yet. If he’s cottoned to our Hadleigh, he’s got excellent taste.”

Tripp laughed, and they rode, passing through a couple of gates before they reached the range. The cattle had wintered well, and there’d been a healthy crop of calves in the spring.

“You’ve done a lot with this place,” Jim said, when they’d covered some ground and the herd came into view. “Does my heart good to see it.”

Tripp didn’t answer, didn’t figure he’d done anything more than he should have. After all, he’d had plenty of capital from the start, the means to buy cattle and horses and make necessary improvements to the place. Jim, on the other hand, had held on to that ranch through good times and bad, year after year, often with nothing much to depend on besides his own grit, gumption and common sense.

They’d stopped to water Apache and Skit at the creek when Jim finally got around to speaking his mind.

“Pauline and me,” he said, watching Tripp from beneath the brim of his hat, “we’re fixing to sell the RV and settle down.”

As far as Tripp was concerned, this was good news. He worried about the two of them, out there on the road, although he had too much respect for Jim’s pride to say so. “Okay,” he said, in a tone that encouraged elaboration.

Jim shifted in the saddle, stood up briefly in the stirrups as if to stretch his legs. “Thing is, we figure we’d rather be in town. ’Specially when winter comes on. Pauline’s the sociable type, and she likes going to church and belonging to book clubs and the like. She’s real taken with Mustang Creek, so I reckon we’ll get ourselves a little house on a quiet street and live like city folks.”

“What about you?” Tripp asked carefully. At least they hadn’t decided to set up housekeeping in some faraway place. “You’ve lived on this ranch your whole life, Jim. It’s your home—”

Jim interrupted with a sigh and a shake of the head. “Son, I’ve got a new life now, with Pauline. And I meant it, a while back, when I told you I’ve had my fill of bad winters and sick cattle and all the rest of it. If you don’t want this place, that’s one thing, but I think you do, hard as you’ve worked. And if I’m right, well, the best thing I can imagine would be to see you and Hadleigh turning this old spread into the kind of home it once was and ought to be again.” The old man paused, brooded for a while and then grinned. “You’ll see to that? Make sure I get some grandchildren out of the deal?”

Tripp did love the ranch; it was home, pure and simple. Still, he couldn’t see letting Jim just hand it over, especially when he could well afford to pay a fair price. He was about to say that, or something like it, when Jim frowned for real and held up a hand in a familiar bid for silence.

“I may not be rich,” he said, his tone as stern and unyieldingly earnest as his manner, “but I’ve got all I need and then some. Damn it, Tripp, a man wants to pass something on to his son—you’ll understand that one day. And I would’ve done the same for a daughter. I’m just hoping you’ll respect my decision, because it isn’t going to change.”

Tripp was silent for a long time, absorbing what his dad had said. He’d heard a version of the speech before, soon after his return to Mustang Creek, but now realized he must not have registered how important this whole living legacy thing really was to Jim.

Sure, there was probably some cussed male pride in the equation, but there was a much deeper meaning beneath that, solid as bedrock. Handing down a ranch that had been in the family for generations, a place he’d worked and prayed and fought to keep, was a declaration on Jim’s part: You are my son.

He’d said that often, right from the first. And he’d walked his talk, with never a misstep.

Tripp knew in that moment—in fact, he was downright thunderstruck by the insight—that he’d always held something back from Jim, that he’d been afraid to trust so profound a gift, believing it was what it seemed, too good to be true. Just beneath the surface of awareness, he’d considered himself an outsider, well treated but an outsider all the same, somebody who wouldn’t have been there if he wasn’t part of a package deal. He’d been a kid and he’d reasoned like one, concluding that if Jim loved Ellie and wanted to make her his wife, then, like it or not, that meant taking in her boy, too.

Well, damn it, Tripp thought, he wasn’t a kid anymore, so there went that excuse. He was a man now, and he loved a woman, Hadleigh, with his whole being, every breath, every heartbeat. And he knew for sure that if she’d already had a child when they decided to get married—hell, if she’d had a dozen—he’d have made room in his heart, just as Jim had done for him.

Because that was what a good man did when he loved a woman. He loved who she was now, and who she would become as the years passed—and he loved the person she’d been before he entered the picture in the first place, if only because being there had inevitably led to being here. If he’d found himself with a ready-made family, so much the better.

Jim spoke up, interrupting Tripp’s ruminations. “You gonna give me an answer, son, or you gonna sit there staring at the creek for the rest of the day?”

Tripp had to look away for a moment, though he did manage a hoarse laugh that barely made it past his throat. When he met Jim’s gaze, he was grinning. “All right, old man,” he said. “You win. I’ll take this ranch, and see that it thrives and be damn grateful to you for the rest of my days.” He paused, swallowed. “And not just because you’re handing the place over, either. I’ll make you proud, Dad. I promise.”

Jim pointed an index finger at him and said, poker-faced, “It so happens that I’m already proud—have been since the first time I laid eyes on you—but you see that it stays that way. You know I think mighty highly of Hadleigh. She’s the daughter I never had, till now. You’d better be good to her, because you’ll have me to deal with if you aren’t.”

Tripp turned his horse and rode alongside Jim, so they were facing each other, though pointed in different directions. He put out a hand. “I love that woman way too much to be anything but good to her,” he said, his voice catching. “You have my word.”

Jim took the offered hand, and they shook on it. Then Jim reached out, put his arm around Tripp’s neck, and hauled him close enough that their heads knocked together. They both laughed and drew apart, but the old bond between them, formed long ago, still held, stronger than ever.

* * *

DIFFERENT DRESS.

Different man.

Same church and, for the most part, same guests packing the pews, lining the walls and filling the choir loft. Same preacher, too.

Peeking out of the little room just off the sanctuary, Hadleigh wondered if Mr. Deever was wearing overalls under his ministerial robes, in anticipation of the chores awaiting him on his farm. But a second later, her attention was riveted on the man she was about to marry, standing straight and tall next to the altar, with Spence Hogan as his best man.


For the merest fraction of a moment, Hadleigh thought she saw Will, alive and whole and handsome in his dress uniform, in Spence’s place, and she had to swallow back tears. Though she hadn’t seen her, she knew Gram was there, too, sharing in the celebration.

Bex, looking seriously good in her much-maligned bridesmaid’s dress, as Melody did in hers, tugged at the lacy sleeve of Hadleigh’s bridal gown and whispered, “For Pete’s sake, somebody will see you if you aren’t careful!”

“Horrors,” Melody said, with a smile and a roll of the eyes.

“It’s bad luck,” Bex insisted. “Nobody is supposed to see the bride before the ceremony—what if Tripp had glanced over here?”

“We see the bride,” Melody reasoned. She slipped one arm around Bex’s shoulders and the other around Hadleigh’s. “And she’s beautiful.”

“Don’t,” Hadleigh pleaded, blinking furiously. “If I cry, my mascara will run.”

“Now that,” Melody teased, “would qualify as bad luck.”

They stepped apart, and Hadleigh lifted her right hand into a shaft of sunlight. The horse charm dangled, glowing, from her bracelet.

“The marriage pact forever,” she said.

Bex and Melody both reached up, bracelets shining, and they all clasped each other’s hands.

“Forever,” Melody confirmed.

“Or until we’re all married,” Bex said. “Whichever comes first and, sometimes, I think it’ll be ‘forever.’”

Hadleigh leaned in, letting her forehead rest against Bex’s. “Have faith,” she whispered with a smile.

“Yeah,” Melody agreed. “What good is a sacred pact if you don’t believe in it?”

Before Bex could answer, there was a light rap at the door, beyond which was a short corridor that led to the church’s small entryway. At Hadleigh’s “come in,” Jim Galloway stuck his still-handsome head into the room and winked at his future daughter-in-law.

“You ready, beautiful lady?” he asked.

Hadleigh smiled back at him. “I’m ready,” she replied, as Melody and Bex moved in to fuss with her veil and fluff out her copious skirts.

Bex took the bouquets out of their boxes and handed Hadleigh the spill of yellow roses and ribbon and Queen Anne’s lace, assembled by a local woman. She and Melody would carry white carnations, accented with ribbons that matched their dresses.

Jim crooked an arm for Hadleigh, and she took it, feeling a swell of warmth for this man who already regarded her as a daughter. They followed Melody and Bex through the hall, Hadleigh’s dress barely fitting between the walls and making a lovely rustling sound as she moved.

Once they’d gathered in the entry, alongside racks of pamphlets, carefully folded newsletters and collection envelopes, Melody stepped into the wide doorway and, that being the organist’s cue, the music started.

For Hadleigh, everything and everyone seemed surrounded by a warm, golden haze. If this was a dream, she thought, she definitely did not want to wake up—ever.

Melody proceeded up the aisle, with Bex a few paces behind.

Then the first notes of the wedding march sounded, and, leaning on Jim’s arm, Hadleigh stepped onto the threshold of forever.

When the congregation stood, Hadleigh wasn’t looking at them, but beyond them, to the place where Tripp stood, waiting for her, that slight grin curving his lips.

Most brides probably remember their weddings in great detail, but that day, Hadleigh was the exception. All she could see was Tripp; even Mr. Deever had become a blur of robe and man and Bible.

Still, she managed to respond when it was her turn.

Did she take this man to be her lawful wedded husband?

She did. Oh, yes, she definitely did!

“Hadleigh?” Mr. Deever prompted, in a whisper.

“I do!” she cried exuberantly, causing a ripple of affectionate laughter to move through the congregation. They’d been a tense group, though Hadleigh wouldn’t realize that until much later, when she watched the recording. They’d relaxed with a collective sigh and a slackening of shoulders only after Mr. Deever got past the does-anyone-object part of the ceremony.

No one did, of course, because everybody in Bliss County believed Tripp and Hadleigh were meant for each other, with the possible exception of Oakley Smyth, who was gracious enough to stay away. Or, in any case, smarter than most people would have given him credit for.

After the minister pronounced the happy couple husband and wife, and Tripp had raised Hadleigh’s veils and kissed her with a thoroughness that would stir up gossip for months to come, the organist struck a triumphant chord.

Tripp, never a slave to tradition, swept his bride right off her feet and carried her down the aisle for the second time in a decade, a man in a hurry.

This time, though, she was in his arms, not slung over his shoulder.

And she was smiling, eyes brimming with joyous tears, mascara be darned, instead of kicking and yelling in protest.

* * *

THE RECEPTION, HELD in the meeting room of the public library, directly across the street from the church, seemed endless to Tripp. He wanted to be alone with his wife, and that was pretty much all he could think about, which made him wary of standing anywhere but behind a table or any other waist-high object he could find.

He smiled for the pictures.

He and Hadleigh fed each other cake, and they were both feeling so rambunctious that the ritual nearly turned into a food fight.

The first dance was a combination of ecstasy and torment. At least, Tripp was holding Hadleigh in his arms. There was all that dress between them, but he still felt her soft, warm curves as surely as if they’d both been naked.

Finally, it was time to leave, and Tripp didn’t waste a second. He grabbed Hadleigh’s hand and headed straight for the nearest exit, much to the amusement of the guests, who probably planned on dancing till dawn.

Let them eat, drink and be merry.

Tripp had other plans, and they didn’t involve a crowd.

* * *

HADLEIGH LAUGHED WHEN her new husband bundled her, billowing dress and all, into the passenger seat of his truck, groped around until he’d located both ends of her seat belt and fastened it.

“This all seems strangely familiar,” she teased. “Are we going to Bad Billy’s?”

Tripp bent his head and nipped playfully at Hadleigh’s lace-covered breast. “Not unless you want to stir up the mother of all scandals,” he drawled, his eyes blazing blue as he looked into her face.

Hadleigh’s decorum, none too sturdy in the first place, completely deserted her. She groaned softly. “I’m all for the stirring up part,” she murmured, flushed, “but let’s keep the scandal to ourselves.”

“Good idea,” Tripp said.

A moment later, he was behind the wheel and they were moving.

They hadn’t planned a honeymoon trip, for the simple reason that they both wanted to spend their wedding night in their bedroom at the ranch house, not in some hotel. Home, after all, was where their story would begin.

Tripp drove like a crazy man, but they didn’t quite make it to the ranch.

Instead, he pulled off onto a side road, parked the truck in a copse of trees and looked over at Hadleigh. “Well, Mrs. Galloway, if you’re willing, I’m about to have you.”

Heat surged through Hadleigh. “I’m ready, Mr. Galloway,” she said.

Tripp got out of the truck, came around to her side, found the snap on her seat belt with some difficulty and lifted her down. They stood facing each other, in cool shadows and pine needles and sweet silence.


Hadleigh turned so her back was to Tripp, and he unfastened what seemed like nine million buttons, which took forever. Finally, though, Hadleigh stepped out of the magnificent dress and faced Tripp again, wearing only her silk petticoat, a delicate camisole with a built-in bra, stockings and garters. She’d slipped out of her shoes the moment she’d gotten into the truck.

Tripp made a strangled sound that thrilled Hadleigh, and, finally, he kissed her.

“My dress,” she reminded him when she could breathe again. She wanted their daughters to wear that gown at their weddings, and maybe their daughters’ daughters, too.

He bent, gathered up the mound of lace and silk and netting and seed pearls in both arms and shoved the whole works into the front seat of the truck. If Hadleigh hadn’t already been half out of her mind with wanting him, she might have been puzzled by that. Instead, she watched, amused, as Tripp battled yards of fabric, which seemed bent on escape.

At last, though, he managed to get every scrap of skirt and bodice and sleeve into the truck and close the door.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to put it in the backseat?” Hadleigh asked, as Tripp returned to her.

“I have other plans for the backseat,” he replied. With that, he opened the rear door, hoisted Hadleigh onto the seat, sideways, and slowly relieved her of both stockings and her garter.

By the time he’d bared her legs, she knew what he was going to do, and she lay down on her back, moaning as he slid the petticoat down over her hips and thighs, which were already parting for him. She’d delighted in teasing Tripp over the past couple of weeks, telling him she wasn’t planning to wear panties under her wedding finery, and she hadn’t.

It was payback time.

Tripp eased her legs apart, trailing whispering kisses along the tender flesh on the insides of her thighs, first one, then the other.

Frantically, Hadleigh undid the hook that fastened her camisole together, between her breasts, and shimmied out of it. She needed to be naked for Tripp now, and for herself, too.

She wriggled free of the last shred of clothing, and then she felt his breath on the most intimate, most sensitive part of her body. When he caressed her with his mouth, she arched her back and cried out with all the lust of the wild creature she became whenever Tripp made love to her.

She buried her hands in his hair, feverish as the pleasure mounted, already begging, wanting him inside her, deep inside her.

Instead, Tripp went right on savoring her, teasing her, driving her to a shattering climax, and then another. By the time he’d finished, Hadleigh was spent, so thoroughly satisfied that she could hardly move or speak. Soon enough, though, he would arouse her again, have her writhing and moaning beneath him or straddling him, or both. That was how it went on the rare nights when they hadn’t already exhausted each other.

Right now, it was the latter.

Tripp got into the truck, arranged a crooning Hadleigh on his lap, alternately suckling and fondling her bare breasts until she bucked with need. Only then did he enter her, in a smooth, powerful thrust that brought her to instant orgasm.

She collapsed against Tripp when the climax subsided, resting her forehead against his shoulder while, gently gripping her hips, he raised and lowered her, murmuring soothing words, letting the tension build for both of them.

Soon enough, Hadleigh was rocking and groaning again, and Tripp drove deeper, moving faster and faster. When he came, it was with a throaty cry—her name—and that was when she reached the final orgasm, the most powerful one of all.

For a long time afterward, neither of them moved.

Tripp’s hands moved idly up and down Hadleigh’s back. “Somehow,” he said, on a ragged breath, “it never crossed my mind that we’d end up consummating our marriage in the backseat of a pickup.”

Hadleigh grinned impishly. He was still inside her and, if she had her way, there would be at least one more go-round before they went home. “Good thing you made an honest woman out of me today,” she said, making slow revolutions with her hips, delighting in Tripp’s groan. “Otherwise, I would definitely be compromised.”

He moaned.

The revolutions continued.

“Damn it, woman,” Tripp gasped, surging inside her. “Have a little mercy on a man.”

Hadleigh bent to nibble at his neck, then his earlobe. “Not a chance, Cowboy,” she replied, as he began to move beneath her. “This is going to be one long, long rodeo.”

* * * * *