Duncan's Bride Read online

  Pursing her lips, Madelyn considered it, then said, “No, I think it would come more under ‘falling on deaf ears’ than ‘wasting your breath.’ I’m getting married. I’d like you to be there.”

  “Of course I’ll be there! Nothing could keep me away. I have to see this paragon of manly virtues.”

  “I never said he was virtuous.”

  In complete understanding, they looked at each other and smiled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY WERE MARRIED in Billings twelve days later. Madelyn was exhausted by the time of the wedding, which was performed in the judge’s chambers. She had gotten only a few hours of sleep each night since Reese’s phone call, because it had taken so much time to pack up a lifetime of belongings, sorting through and discarding what she wasn’t taking, and packing what she couldn’t bear to do without. She had also gotten the required physical and expressed the results to Reese, and hadn’t been surprised when she had received his results by express mail the same day.

  She had shipped numerous boxes containing books, albums, tapes, CDs, stereo equipment and winter clothes to the ranch, wondering what Reese would have to say about having his home taken over by the paraphernalia of a stranger. But when she’d spoken to him during two brief telephone calls he hadn’t mentioned it. Before she knew it she was flying to Billings again, but this time she wasn’t coming back.

  Reese didn’t kiss her when he met her at the airport, and she was glad. She was tired and on edge, and the first self-doubts were creeping in. From the look on his face, when he started kissing her again he didn’t intend to stop, and she wasn’t ready for that. But her heart leaped at the sight of him, reassuring her that she was doing the right thing.

  She planned to stay at a motel in Billings for the five days until their marriage; Reese scowled at her when she told him her plan.

  “There’s no point in paying for a motel when you can stay at the ranch.”

  “Yes, there is. For one thing, most of my New York clothes are useless and will just stay packed up. I have to have Montana clothing—jeans, boots and the like. There’s no point in making an extra trip later on to buy it when I’m here already. Moreover, I’m not staying alone with you right now, and you know why.”

  He put his hands on her waist and pulled her up against him. His narrowed eyes were dark green. “Because I’d have you under me as soon as we got in the house.”

  She swallowed, her slender hands resting on his chest. She could feel the heavy beat of his heart under her palms, a powerful pumping that revealed the sexual tension he was holding under control. “Yes. I’m not ready to start that part of our relationship. I’m tired, and nervous, and we really don’t know each other that well—”

  “We’re getting married in five days. We won’t know each other much better by then, baby, but I don’t plan on spending my wedding night alone.”

  “You won’t,” she whispered.

  “So one of the conditions for getting you in bed is to put a ring on your finger first?” His voice was getting harsher.

  He was angry, and she didn’t want him to be; she just wanted him to understand. She said steadily, “That isn’t it at all. If the wedding were two months away, or even just a month, I’m certain we’d…we’d make love before the ceremony, but it isn’t. I’m just asking you for a little time to rest and recuperate first.”

  He studied her upturned face, seeing the translucent shadows under her eyes and the slight pale cast to her skin. She was resting against him, letting his body support hers, and despite his surging lust he realized that she really was tired. She had uprooted her entire life in just one week, and the emotional strain had to be as exhausting as the physical work.

  “Then sleep,” he said in a slow, deep voice. “Get a lot of sleep, baby, and rest up. You’ll need it. I can wait five days—just barely.”

  She did get some sleep, but the emotional strain was still telling on her. She was getting married; it was natural to be nervous, she told herself.

  The day they signed the prenuptial agreement at the lawyer’s office was another day of stress. Reese was in a bad mood when he picked her up at the motel, growling and snapping at everything she said, so she lapsed into silence. She didn’t think it was a very good omen for their marriage.

  The prenuptial agreement was brief and easily understood. In case of divorce, they both kept the property and assets they had possessed prior to their marriage, and Madelyn gave up all rights to alimony in any form. She balked, however, at the condition that he retain custody of any children that should result from their union.

  “No,” she said flatly. “I’m not giving up my children.”

  Reese leaned back in the chair and gave her a look that would have seared metal. “You’re not taking my children away from me.”

  “Calm down,” the lawyer soothed. “This is all hypothetical. Both of you are talking as if a divorce is inevitable, and if that’s the case, I would suggest that you not get married. Statistics say that half of new marriages end in divorce, but that means that half don’t. You may well be married to each other for the rest of your lives, and there may not be any children anyway.”

  Madelyn ignored him. She looked only at Reese. “I don’t intend to take our children away from you, but neither do I intend to give them up. I think we should share custody, because children need both parents. Don’t try to make me pay for what April did,” she warned.

  “But you’d want them to live with you.”

  “Yes, I would, just as you’d want them to live with you. We aren’t going to change that by negotation. If we did divorce, I’d never try to turn our children against you, nor would I take them out of the area, but that’s something you’ll just have to take on trust, because I’m not signing any paper that says I’ll give up my children.”

  There were times, he noted, when those sleepy gray eyes could become sharp and clear. She was all but baring her teeth at him. It seemed there were some things that mattered enough to rouse her from her habitual lazy amusement, and it was oddly reassuring that the subject of their children, hypothetical though they were, was one of them. If he and April had had a child, she would have wanted custody of it only as a way to get back at him, not because she really wanted the child itself. April hadn’t wanted to have children at all, a fact for which he was now deeply grateful. Madelyn not only appeared to want children, she was ready to fight for them even before they existed.

  “All right,” he finally said, and nodded to the lawyer. “Strike that clause from the agreement. If there’s ever a divorce, we’ll hash that out then.”

  Madelyn felt drained when they left the lawyer’s office. Until then, she hadn’t realized the depth of Reese’s bitterness. He was so determined not to let another woman get the upper hand on him that it might not be possible for her to reach him at all. The realization that she could be fighting a losing battle settled on her shoulders like a heavy weight.

  “When do your stepbrother and best friend get here?” he asked curtly. He hadn’t liked the idea of Robert and Christine being at their wedding, and now Madelyn knew why. Having friends and relatives there made it seem more like a real wedding than just a business agreement, and a business agreement, with bed privileges, was all Reese wanted, all he could accept.

  “The day before the wedding. They won’t be able to stay afterward, so we’re going out to a restaurant the night before. You can be here, can’t you?”

  “No. There’s no one at the ranch to put the animals up for the night and do the chores for me. Even if I left immediately afterward, it’s almost a three-hour drive, so there’s no point in it.”

  She flushed. She should have thought of the long drive and how hard he had to work. It was a sign of how much she had to learn about ranching. “I’m sorry, I should have thought. I’ll call Robert—”

  He interrupted her. “There’s no reason why you should cancel just because I can’t be here. Go out with them and enjoy it. We won’t have much cha