Duncan's Bride Read online

  “I’ll call Robert,” he said gently. “But don’t hope too much.”

  She put her shoulders back and took a deep breath. “Call Robert if you want, after I tell you what I have to tell you. You’ll be in a different situation then and—” She stopped, looking at him helplessly, and began again. “I paid off the mortgage with my trust fund.”

  For a moment he didn’t react at all, just watched her silently, and she started to hope. Then his eyes began to chill, and she braced herself.

  “What?” he asked very softly.

  “I paid off the mortgage. The papers are in my underwear drawer.”

  Without a word he turned and went upstairs. Madelyn followed, her heart pounding. She had faced his anger before without turning a hair, but this was different. This was striking at the very basis of his feelings.

  He jerked her underwear drawer open just as she entered the bedroom. She hadn’t stuffed the papers in the bottom; they were lying right there in plain sight. He picked them up and flipped through them, noting the amount and date on the documents.

  He didn’t look up. “How did you arrange it?”

  “I went to Billings last week, the day you told me about the mortgage. Banks don’t care who pays off loans so long as they get their money, and since I’m your wife they didn’t question it.”

  “Did you think presenting me with a fait accompli would change my mind?”

  She wished that he would stop using that soft voice. When Reese was angry he roared, and she could handle that, but this was something new.

  His head came up, and she flinched. His eyes were like green ice. “Answer me.”

  She stood very still. “No, I didn’t think anything would change your mind, and that’s why I did it behind your back.”

  “You were right. Nothing would change my mind. I’ll see you in hell before you get any part of this ranch.”

  “I don’t want to take the ranch away from you. I’ve never wanted that.”

  “You’ve played your part well, Maddie, I’ll give you that. You haven’t complained, you’ve acted like a perfect wife. You even carried it so far as to pretend you love me.”

  “I do love you.” She took a step toward him, her hands outstretched. “Listen—”

  Suddenly the rage in him erupted, and he threw the sheaf of papers at her. They separated and swirled around her, then drifted to the floor. “That’s what I think of your so-called ‘love,’” he said with gritted teeth. “If you think doing something you knew I couldn’t bear is an expression of ‘love,’ then you don’t have any idea what the real thing is.”

  “I didn’t want you to lose the ranch—”

  “So you just took care of the mortgage. Any divorce court now would consider you a co-owner, wouldn’t they? They’d figure I talked you into investing your inheritance and the prenuptial agreement wouldn’t mean a damn. Hell, why should you get less than April? This isn’t the operation it once was, but the land is worth a hell of a lot.”

  “I don’t want a divorce, I haven’t even thought of divorce,” she said desperately. “I wanted to keep the ranch for you. At least this way you have a chance to rebuild it, if you’ll just take it!”

  He said sarcastically, “Yeah, if it’s worth more, you’ll get more.”

  “For the last time, I don’t want a divorce!”

  He reached out and pinched her chin, the gesture savagely playful. “You just might get one anyway, dollface, because I sure as hell don’t want a wife who’d knife me in the back like that. You weren’t my first choice, and I should have listened to my instincts, but you had me as hot as a sixteen-year-old after my first piece in the backseat. April was a bitch, but you’re worse, Maddie, because you played along and pretended this was just what you wanted. Then you slipped the blade between my ribs so slick I never even saw it coming.”

  “This is what I want.” She was pale, her eyes darkening.

  “Well, you’re not what I want. You’re hot between the sheets, but you don’t have what it takes to be a ranch wife,” he said cruelly.

  “Reese Duncan, if you’re trying to run me off, you’re doing a good job of it,” she warned shakily.

  He raised his eyebrows. His tone was icily polite. “Where would you like to go? I’ll give you a ride.”

  “If you’ll climb down off that mountain of pride you’ll see how wrong you are! I don’t want to take the ranch away. I want to live here and raise our children here. You and I aren’t the only ones involved in this. I’m carrying your baby, and it’s his heritage, too!”

  His eyes went black as he remembered the baby, and his gaze swept down her slender figure. “On second thought, you aren’t going anywhere. You’re staying right here until that baby’s born. Then I don’t care what the hell you do, but my kid is staying with me.”

  Coldness settled inside her, pushing away the hurt and anger that had been building with every word he said. Understanding could go only so far. Sympathy held out only so long. He didn’t love her, and he didn’t believe in her love for him, so exactly how much of a marriage did they have? One made of mirrors and moonshine, and held together by sex. She stared at him, her eyes going blank. Later there would be pain, but not now.

  She said very carefully, “When you calm down you’ll regret saying this.”

  “The only thing I regret is marrying you.” He took her purse from the top of the dresser and opened it.

  “What are you looking for?” She made no effort to grab it from him. In any test of strength against him she would be humiliated.

  He held up the car keys. “These.” He dropped her purse and shoved the keys into his pocket. “Like I said, you’re not going anywhere with my kid inside you. The only moving you’re doing is out of my bed. There are three other bedrooms. Pick one, and keep your butt in it.”

  He stalked from the room, being very careful not to touch her. Madelyn sank down on the bed, her legs folding under her like spaghetti. She could barely breathe, and dark spots swam in front of her eyes. Cold chills made her shake.

  She didn’t know how long it was before her mind began to function again, but finally it did, slowly at first, then with gathering speed. She began to get angry, a calm, deep, slow-burning anger that grew until it had destroyed all the numbness.

  She got up and began methodically moving her things out of Reese’s bedroom and into the room where she had slept the night she had visited him. She didn’t move a few token things in the hope that he would get over his temper, reconsider and tell her to stay put; she purged the bedroom of all signs of her presence. She left the mortgage papers lying where they were in the middle of the room. Let him walk over them if he didn’t want to pick them up.

  If he wanted war, she’d give him war.

  Pride prompted her to stay in her bedroom and not speak to him; pregnancy insisted that she eat. She went downstairs and cooked a full meal in an effort to rub a little salt in his wounds. If he didn’t want to eat what she had prepared, then he could either do it himself or do without.

  But he came to the table when she called him and ate his usual hearty meal. As she was clearing the dishes away she said, “Don’t forget the doctor’s appointment in the morning.”

  He didn’t look at her. “I’ll drive you. You aren’t getting the keys back.”

  “Fine.”

  Then she went upstairs, showered and went to bed.

  The next morning they didn’t speak a word all the way to Billings. When her name was called in the doctor’s office, which was filled with women in various stages of pregnancy, she got up and walked past him to follow the nurse. He turned his head, watching the graceful sway of her retreating figure. In a few months she would lose her grace and the sway would become a waddle. His hand tightened into a fist, and it was all he could do to keep from swearing aloud. How could she have done that to him?

  Madelyn was questioned, stuck, checked, probed and measured. When she had dressed she was directed into the doctor’s office, and in