Barbara Dunlop - Thunderbolt over Texas

Cole nodded, trying not to feel like a heel.

“You know your brother’s come up with a plan to fix this, right?” she asked.

Every muscle in Cole’s body contracted. His brother had brought Sydney into the loop? Why, that low-down, sneaky…

He bought a few seconds by taking a swallow of his coffee. “What kind of a plan?”

“He said he’d explained it all to you last night.”

Of course he did. “What did he tell you?”

“That my timing couldn’t have been better. That you and I should get married and let Katie think we’re expanding the Erickson dynasty.”

It was a conspiracy. It was a bloody conspiracy. “You actually think Katie will fall for it?”

Sydney gazed knowingly at him from under her thick lashes. “You don’t think she’ll believe you’re interested in me?”

“Fishing?”

Her smile turned self-conscious and she gave a shrug. “Maybe.”

“Or cornering me, perhaps?”

Her smiled widened then. “Maybe that, too.”

Cole sighed. “I meant no disrespect to you.” He simply didn’t want to marry a stranger. Was that such a horrible thing?

Sydney was assessing him with those gorgeous green eyes. “Okay, I’ll go first. You’re a good-looking, sexy guy. It’s not a big stretch for Katie to think I might go for you.”

Cole’s chest tightened on the word sexy.

It was Sydney who wrote the book on sexy. The way she moved with such fluid grace. The way her husky voice caught on that trembling laugh.

He could still feel her touch on his arm, on his thigh. Okay, so the thigh one wasn’t the most pleasant memory in the world. But it was still sexy. Which was pretty pathetic.

“Cole?”

“Hmm?”

“I think it’s a good plan.”

“Of course you do.”

“If we’re lucky, it’ll help Katie. It’ll definitely help the Laurent-a respected public institution, I might point out. So where’s the harm?”

“Don’t you have places to go? Things to dig up?”

“That’s archeologists. There’s nothing higher on my priority list than the Thunderbolt.”

Cole pushed aside his pancakes.

She wanted to take this seriously? Okay. They’d take it seriously for a minute. “What about your family? You’d lie to them about getting married?”

She waved a hand. “Not an issue.”

“You’re not close to them?” That surprised Cole. She was such a smart, perky, good-natured woman. What kind of a family wouldn’t want to stay close to her?

A shadow crossed her face. “My foster parents died five years ago.”

Cole’s stomach clenched in sympathy. He knew what it was like to lose parents. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“What about brothers and sisters?”

“None.”

His sympathy rush escalated. Now he had a sexy, vulnerable little orphan Annie challenging him to do right by his sister-in-law.

He stood up and took his dishes to the sink.

She followed. “Cole?”

“Yeah.” And there was that elusive scent again. He didn’t dare turn around.

“Why are you hesitating? We can draft whatever legal documents you want to protect the Thunderbolt.”

“It’s not that.” Well, actually, it was that. At least, that was part of it. He didn’t know Sydney, and he’d be a fool to trust her.

But there was more to it than the legal risks. It was a marriage, a marriage to a woman he didn’t love, didn’t even know. Maybe he was an old-fashioned guy, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“The Laurent is a very reputable institution,” she said.

“I believe you.”

“Is it lying to Katie, then?”

Cole turned. And there was Sydney, mere inches away. A slight movement of his hand and he’d be touching her. A tip of his head and he’d be kissing her.

“It’s lying to Katie,” he said. “Lying to Grandma. Lying to God.”

“We could have a civil service.”

“Not a possibility.”

She tipped her head, looking perplexed.

He moved in, just a little, pressing his point, hoping he could make her understand and give up on this ridiculous idea. “We’re talking about my family here, and they know me very well. They know that if I loved someone-if I truly loved someone-I sure wouldn’t say so in a civic office in front of a clerk and two impartial witnesses.”

Sydney bit down on her bottom lip. Her cat-green eyes narrowed in concentration, but she didn’t respond.

“You ready to walk down the aisle in a white dress, promise to love me and honor me, then kiss me and throw a bouquet?”

As he outlined the scenario, an unexpected vision bloomed in Cole’s mind. Sydney in a white dress. Sydney in a veil. Sydney with a spray of delicate roses trembling in her hands. He could feel her skin, smell her perfume, taste the sweetness of her lush lips.

“We’d both know it was fake,” she said.

Cole startled out of the vision and gave a short nod. “Yeah. Right. We’d both know it was fake.”

“And that’s what would matter. That’s what would count.” She squared her shoulders. “Knowing the benefits, I could do it.”

Cole clenched his jaw. He’d hand the Thunderbolt over to her tomorrow if he could. But Olav the Third was specific, and Cole’s grandfather’s will was ironclad.

He examined the idea from every angle. From his, from Kyle’s, from Katie’s, from Sydney’s.

She could do it? Of course she could. It wasn’t as if it would be physically painful. And nobody would die. And nobody would ever be the wiser. Marriages failed all the time. After a decent interval, he and Sydney could simply divorce.

“Then so can I,” said Cole, just as he’d known he would from the second his brother conceived the plan. His family needed him, and that was an unconditional trump card.

A brilliant smile lit Sydney’s face. “Where do we start?”

“First thing we have to do,” said Cole two hours later while Sydney watched him saddle a horse outside his cabin, “is convince Katie I’m falling for you.”

Sydney eyed up the big animal from the safety of his porch, having second and third and fourth thoughts. Oh, not about marrying Cole; she was completely convinced that was the right thing to do. She was having second thoughts about getting on the back of an animal that could crush her with one stomp of its foot.

“Tell me again why that has to involve horses?” she said.

“Don’t you watch the movies?” Cole pressed his knee into the horse’s ribs and pulled snug on a leather strap. His strong, calloused hands worked with practiced ease, and she had a sudden vision of them against her pale skin.

He released a stirrup and secured a buckle. “People who are falling in love gallop their horses along the beach all the time.”

Maybe so. But there was no way in this world Sydney was galloping any horse anywhere anytime soon. “Couldn’t we just go to a movie?”

He rocked the saddle back and forth on the horse’s back. “Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a long way to Wichita Falls.”

“What about a picnic? You, me, some ants, maybe a bottle of wine?”

“We want Katie to see us.”

Good point. Cole and Sydney alone in a meadow didn’t do anybody any good. Well, except maybe for the cowboy Viking fantasy she was working on. The one where Cole dragged her into his strong arms and kissed her until she swooned.

“Maybe you could double me on your horse?” That ought to give Katie something to think about.

“I wouldn’t do that to my horse.”

“Hey!”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so sensitive. I’m the heavy one, not you.”

She scrambled for an alternative, any alternative. “I know. We could mess up our clothes and our hair and let Katie think we had sex.”