Marked for Marriage (27 page)

Thinking of Noah as wealthy made Maddie very nervous. And now there was another factor—money—in the already convoluted equation of their relationship. If she could never compete again, either because of Fanny's injury or her own, and she and Noah actually made a go of…of…what? Their affair? Their lusty sexual appetite for each other? Dear God, she had actually decided that she could not leave Noah behind, even if both she and Fanny were fine and she
could
compete! But no one would ever get the story right, and people would think she had quit rodeo and married Noah for the financial security she could no longer provide for herself!

“No-o-o-o,” she moaned, and lowered her head to cover her eyes with her hand.

Noah was afraid to ask what was wrong now, so he hurriedly got out and rushed around his car to open Maddie's door.

“Come on, darlin',” he said while offering her his hand. “I'm going to pour you a nice glass of wine, turn on the gas fireplace to warm your toes and then order the best pizza in town. How does that sound?”

It sounded wonderful and…dangerous! But she simply didn't have the heart or the strength for another rebellion, so she gave him her hand and got out of the vehicle. He kept hold of her hand until they'd reached the front door, at which time he kissed her full on the lips—startling her again—then backed off, smiled and unlocked the door.

Inside, Noah pushed what was obviously some sort of main switch, because lights came on all over the place. Maddie tried very hard to not look girlishly impressed, but she was. From the foyer she could see into the living room. This was definitely a bachelor's home, decorated with leather couches and chairs, heavy wood and glass tables, brass lamps and wildlife paintings and statuary, but it was still absolutely beautiful.

Noah took her coat, hung it along with his own in the foyer closet, then brought her to the living room, where he immediately turned on the gas and ignited the masonry logs in the fireplace.

“Sit anywhere,” he told her. “I'm going to phone for the pizza and open a bottle of wine. Oh, you're not taking any pain medication, are you?”

“Hardly,” she said drily. “Have you forgotten that you destroyed my only supply?”

“Well, I gave you a few pills.”

“Very few. They're long gone, believe me.”

“Fine. Mixing alcohol and pills is bad business. I'll be back in a flash. Sit where you want.” He walked out.

Sighing, Maddie sat on a chair that was near the fireplace. The dancing flames and the bit of warmth they threw were soothing to her troubled mind, but not so soothing as to eradicate her many worries. For one thing, it couldn't be more obvious that she hadn't yet reached the end of her run of bad luck. Oh, sure, she could toss her head and say to hell with gossip, but what if sometime in the future Noah got angry for whatever reason—everyone did once in a while, after all—and he accused her of only marrying him because she couldn't compete anymore? She would defend herself with the truth, of course, but angry people didn't always recognize and accept the truth.

Sighing heavily, Maddie put her head back and asked herself why she kept thinking about marriage. Had Noah ever said the word? No, he had not.

Had
she
held out for marriage? You couldn't have been easier!

Life was the pits, and it had been since she'd taken that fall in the arena. Self-pitying or not, she'd gone through hell after that.

Noah returned with an uncorked bottle of red wine and two glasses. Pouring the wine, he said, “You're looking very pensive. Penny for your thoughts.”

“That's about what they're worth. I was remembering that miserable, long drive from Texas, for one thing,” Maddie replied.

Noah brought her a glass of wine, which she took, then touched it with his glass. It made a pleasant little
clink,
and he said, “Shall we drink to more enjoyable drives?”

The toast dug a smile out of Maddie. “Sounds good to me.” She took a swallow and found the wine delicious.

Noah sat on the carpet in front of the fireplace. “The
pizza should be here in about thirty minutes. Do you like this wine?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about that miserable, long drive from Texas.”

“There's really nothing to tell. It was miserable because
I
felt miserable, and no one could disagree that fifteen hundred miles isn't a long drive.”

“I can't figure out how you managed to drive at all when you were so drugged.”

“I wasn't drugged during the day, for heaven's sake. I know better than that. The only time I took a prescription pain pill was after I had stopped driving for the day
and
after I had fed, watered and cared for Fanny. If I felt really horrible while I was driving, I used over-the-counter pain medication. It helped.”

“You've got guts, kiddo.”

“Always have had, kiddo,” she retorted. It was the unmitigated truth, and hadn't she been forgetting the hard times—her parents' fatal accident, for one earthshaking example—that she'd gotten through by the grace of God and her own courage? She would get through whatever fate had in store for her now, too, and if that included never competing again and
didn't
include marriage with the man she'd come to love in so short a time, she would survive.

The wine was relaxing the tension she'd arrived with, and it felt so very good to just let go and stop worrying, even if it was only a temporary respite from the emotional gridlock she would again be facing when this evening was over.

“I like your house,” she said. “But if I may be honest, I'm not fond of its location. When I buy a house someday, it's going to be situated on at least a hundred acres.” She knew she sounded as though she had the means to buy that dream home tonight if she wished, and in a way she did. Certainly her savings account would more than cover a down payment
and closing costs. But what on earth would she do to earn enough money to make monthly payments for twenty or thirty years?

“I made a real deal on this house,” Noah said. “The owner had it built because he and his wife had fallen in love with Montana during a summer vacation, and they had the money to construct the kind of home they were accustomed to living in in California. Well, as I've seen happen more than once around here, one winter was all it took for the missus to say uncle. Her other complaint was that Whitehorn had no shopping malls, which, of course, it doesn't. Anyhow, I was at the gym one day and overheard the man telling a friend that if he didn't sell fast and get his wife back to California, she was going to leave him. I was living in an apartment complex at the time and I hated it. People coming and going at all hours, noise of some kind going on
all
the time and very little privacy.

“Anyway, I butted into the conversation and asked the fellow if I could see his place. He was visibly overjoyed to just show the house, and after I saw it and he named a price so low I could hardly believe my ears, I became a homeowner.”

“Lucky you.”

“It
was
luck, very good luck, because, guess what— One of my patients is an elderly man who happens to own a six-hundred-acre ranch about fifteen miles from town. He and his wife have reached the age where maintaining and operating even a small ranch is simply too much work, and they have no children who might want the place. Anyway, they would like to move to Whitehorn and he told me that they would trade for this house, straight across.”

Maddie nearly hyperventilated from a momentous burst of instantaneous excitement. “Are…are you going to do it?”

“I might.” Noah got up for the bottle of wine and poured some into Maddie's empty glass. Standing before her, he
topped off his own, then stood there sipping from his glass and looking at her. “Do you think I should?”

“Uh…I would…but why, uh, would you want a ranch?”

Grinning rather slyly, Noah turned and resumed his seat on the carpet by the fire. He startled Maddie with a complete change of subject.

“You heard about the chest of gold and jewels, I'm sure.”

She wanted to talk about that ranch so much she hurt, and besides why on earth was he rambling on about gold and jewels?

“I'm surprised the Braddocks didn't buy your patient's six hundred acres. Didn't you tell me that the Braddock family was buying land all over the area?”

“My patient hasn't advertised his intentions, so the Braddocks probably haven't heard about the availability of that ranch. Besides it's small potatoes for them, according to rumor. About that chest of gold and valuable jewelry…”

Maddie sighed impatiently. “What about it?”

“You did hear about it, didn't you?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“It was found in the old foundation of the Hip Hop Café during the arson investigation.”

“Oh, maybe Mark did mention something about it.”

“Well, no one knew where it had come from or who had buried it there, so it was sent to a lab for investigation. I heard today that the investigators did a darned good job and put the gold together with some old memoirs left by…you'll never guess…one of your very own ancestors. A Kincaid.”

“Now why doesn't that surprise me?” Maddie drawled drily before taking another swallow of wine. “I swear that nothing happens in this entire county that doesn't involve at least one Kincaid. Are you aware of Kincaid history? Some of them were terrible people…dishonest, greedy, you name it, they did it.”

“And some of them were and
are
terrific people,” Noah said softly. “You're a Kincaid and so is Mark.”

Maddie arched her eyebrow. “Oh? Are you saying I'm a terrific person?”

“Terrific, exciting, beautiful, funny, intelligent and dare I add mouthwateringly sexy?”

“I think you'd dare anything, Dr. Smooth-Talker.”

Noah's laughter made Maddie smile. “I amuse you very easily, don't I?”

The doorbell rang and Noah got to his feet. “That's our pizza.” He went to Maddie's chair, bent over and kissed her lips. “No one
ever
amused me the way you do, Miss Cutie-Pants.”

Maddie could hardly believe that he'd made up a name for her the way she'd been doing for him ever since they'd met. “Times, they are achangin', and so are you, Doc,” she said under her breath as happiness—and good wine—warmed her through and through. He'd told her about that ranch for a reason, and maybe they wouldn't get to the rest of it tonight—such as a discussion about marriage and their commingled futures—but eventually they would.

No, she couldn't leave Whitehorn ever again, not to compete, not for any excuse or reason.

Noah came in with the pizza box, two plates and a stack of paper napkins. “I consider pizza to be finger food, but would you like a fork?” He set everything on the coffee table.

“Nope. I eat it the same way you do, but I had the impression that you only ate fruits and vegetables.”

“That impression was mostly right, sweetheart.” Noah sent her a broad grin. “This is vegetarian pizza.”

“You scoundrel,” she scolded. “
Your
name should be Kincaid.”

Laughing, Maddie moved to sit on the sofa with him, and
they began eating, and, of course, they washed down the delicious vegetarian pizza with delicious wine.

“So,” Maddie said after a few bites. “What's going to happen to the gold and jewels? Or didn't Whitehorn's thriving grapevine carry that message yet?”

“It belongs to Jennifer McCallum, of course. What is she, about eight or nine now? An adorable child that everyone seems to love. She's known as the darling of Whitehorn, you know. Anyhow, since she inherited the original Kincaid empire, the chest is hers, but the biggest news of all is that when she was told about it, she said that
every
Kincaid should have a piece of the pie. Apparently she plans to divide it up among all of you Kincaids.”

Maddie lowered her piece of pizza. “You're not serious.”

“It's what I heard.”

“From whom?”

“My nurse.”

“Well, if Nurse Norma is that deeply involved in Whitehorn's mainstream, imagine what she'll say about my coming to your office today.”

Noah nodded with a tongue-in-cheek expression on his face. “Oh, she'll say a lot.”

“You think you're teasing, but it's not funny, Noah.”

“Sure it is. Do you really give a damn what anyone says about you?”

“Well…no, actually.”

“Good, that makes two of us.” Noah took a big swallow of his wine and looked at Maddie with his eyes twinkling. “So, maybe you're going to be a rich woman.”

“Yeah, right. I'll believe that when it happens. There are so many Kincaids, that chest would have to be the size of Texas to make any one of us really rich.”

“A bit of an exaggeration, but I get your point.” Noah added softly after a moment, “Will you stay with me tonight?”

Maddie's pulse went wild. “You really don't care what people might say, do you?”

“Told you I don't. Maddie, listen. It's starting to rain again. Stay here tonight. We'll open another bottle of wine and lie together in front of the fire. We'll cuddle and talk and cuddle and…”

Laughing, Maddie slapped him on the arm. “You can stop with the ‘cuddles,' Dr. Sweetie-Honey, I got the message loud and clear.”

“‘Sweetie-Honey'?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Tonight you feel like my sweetie-honey.”

Noah was so moved he could barely speak. After clearing his throat he managed one simple question. “And tomorrow?”

Tomorrow she was going to talk to Dr. Herrera and to Dr. Pierce. Tomorrow could be a bright and wonderful day—even
with
rain—or it could be dreadful beyond imagination.