Carol Ericson - The McClintock Proposal

She couldn’t believe her good fortune when this hunk of cowboy strode out of his truck to rescue her. At least one bit of luck had scrabbled through the misery of her wedding day and the past six months of her life.

“Okay, start from the beginning. Come clean, so I know what I’m dealing with when I drive you into Albuquerque and see you on that train to L.A.”

“Bus.”

“Train. Circumstances have changed.”

She crossed her legs at the ankles and tapped her feet together. How could she start from the beginning? They’d be here until mass the next morning.

It all started with her lunatic grandfather and his draconian conditions of inheritance. But she had to start somewhere.

“I agreed to marry a loan shark, Bobby Jingo, to pay off my father’s debts.”

Rod twitched, his thigh banging against hers. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. But at the time, I didn’t realize Bobby was a loan shark.” Or a wannabe drug dealer, the worst of the worst, but she kept that deal breaker to herself. “My father told me he had promised some money to Bobby in a business deal, and thanks to my father’s mismanagement, the deal fell through and Bobby lost a lot of money because of it.”

“That shows an amazing degree of familial loyalty.” His rough hand cupped her face, and he turned it toward him so he could look into her eyes. She blinked, but met his gaze steadily. “Why would you do something like that?”

“I wanted to help out my father and maybe help myself a little, too. A few months before my father’s phone call, a fire damaged my studio in L.A. I lost all my art in that fire, and my home.”

Callie bit her lip. She also lost her opportunity to adopt Jesse, a foster child she’d met while giving art lessons.

He squeezed her shoulder. “Isn’t there another way you can raise the money? Get a loan from a bank? Sell a car? Take equity out of a property?”

She shook her head, drawing her knees to her chest. “Neither of us has any collateral or property…yet. I just couldn’t think of another way to help him.”

Rod grunted. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve your help. What kind of father allows his daughter to marry a scumbag to save his hide?”

“A bad one.” She lifted her shoulders. Even though she’d given up on a father-knows-best type of dad, it didn’t mean she could stand by and watch someone break his kneecaps—or worse. “Dad’s not all bad. It was my idea. He did try to talk me out of it.”

“Bull. He misrepresented the situation to you to rope you in. How much money are we talking about?”

“One hundred and thirty thousand, give or take a few grand.”

Rod whistled. “That’s some gambling habit. No wonder you can’t sell a car to pay back the money, unless you have a Ferrari.”

“Dad bets on the ponies, sports, loves Vegas. You name it, he’ll take odds. I should’ve known his debt involved gambling and not business.”

“Ah, I don’t mean to be insulting.” Rod cleared his throat. “But is this thug really willing to accept a reluctant bride in exchange for a hundred and thirty grand?”

“This is where it gets good.” She wrapped her arms around her legs and balanced her chin on her knees.

“It hasn’t been good yet?”

“Once I marry, I will have the money.”

Rod buried his fingers in his thick, sandy-blond hair. “Now I’m confused. Why will you have money when you marry Bobby Jingo?”

“I didn’t say I had to marry Bobby Jingo, just marry. My grandfather had some crazy ideas. He always wanted a big family, and he built a sprawling house on his ranch in Wyoming to accommodate it. Unfortunately, he and my grandmother had only one child, my father. Then my father turned out to be irresponsible and immature. He married several times, but he had only one child with his second wife—me. At least, I think Mom held the honored position of wife number two.”

“How many times has your father been married?”

Rod’s eyes looked a little glazed over, but he was obviously following the story without too much difficulty.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She waved her arms breezily. “Four or five times.”

“So this lack of familial dedication to the old homestead gave your grandfather his crazy ideas?”

“You could say that. Before he died, he drew up a will stating that his sole grandchild, me, would inherit the ranch only when I married.”

“And Bobby Jingo obviously knew about this will.”

“My father told him.”

“Great guy, your father.”

“We’ve already covered that aspect of this story, but Dad didn’t believe I’d actually offer myself to Bobby. When he first called me, he was kind of hoping I already had someone in mind.”

“At the last minute you couldn’t go through with it, even to save your father?”

“I wanted to. I really did. I figured, once I married Bobby and sold the ranch, I could go back to L.A. But then I overheard him talking to someone and discovered he wasn’t the injured party in the business deal, or not exactly.” A tremble snaked its way up her spine, a sob escaping her lips.

Wrapping an arm around her, Rod drew her close. Her head dropped to his solid shoulder, and he smoothed her hair from her cheek. The warmth from his body soaked through the satin of her dress, and her fears evaporated.

She didn’t want the moment to end. She didn’t want to tell Rod everything she overheard that convinced her she couldn’t marry Bobby. She wanted to push the ugly truth into the background.

If she’d gone ahead with the marriage, she would’ve jeopardized her adoption of Jesse. She’d figured a marriage would improve her chances at adoption, but not a marriage to someone like Bobby Jingo.

The curve of Rod’s arm represented a safety and contentment she hadn’t experienced since her grandparents were alive. She hadn’t seen much of them growing up, because her mother didn’t like her in-laws, but they always hovered in the background of her life. They never forgot her birthdays, they paid for her braces and health insurance, and they socked away money in a college account for her. She didn’t get to thank them, since they were both dead by the time she started college.

Sighing, she burrowed deeper into the crook of Rod’s arm.

“You seriously considered giving up your grandfather’s ranch to a lowlife like Bobby Jingo?”

“It’s not mine to give up.” But Rod had a point. Grandfather Ennis had hated scum like Bobby, and Dad seemed to surround himself with those kinds of people.

“If you got married to someone decent, it would be yours. You’d be fulfilling your grandfather’s wishes, keeping the ranch in the family.”

Decent… She lifted her head from his shoulder and rubbed her eyes, an idea niggling at the edges of her brain.

“What happens to the ranch if you don’t get married?”

She pushed up from the church steps. “What?”

His brow furrowed. “What happens to the ranch if you don’t get married?”

“I—I don’t know.” She began pacing on the wooden porch, avoiding stepping on the nails with her bare feet. “It goes to an associate or something.”

She glanced at Rod, his long legs stretched in front of him, his arms folded across his chest. It just might work. She could make it work. An arrangement with an honorable man would save her father, save her grandfather’s ranch and save Jesse. She had to get that ranch.

Time to take action.

Standing up, Rod asked, “What’s wrong with you?” He wedged his shoulder against a wood post and regarded her with his head tilted to one side, a lock of russet-gold hair falling over his eye.

He looked so damned sexy, it sealed the deal. Callie straightened her spine and stood on tiptoes in front of him. “I have an idea. It might sound crazy, but I think it’ll work.”