A Cowboy Under Her Tree

Only Russ was stretched out on the couch, his ankles propped on one arm, his head on the other. He’d dragged one of the soft blankets halfway up his chest. One hand hung off the couch, propped on the ottoman. His other was thrown over his head.

Sound asleep.

She pressed her lips together, thoroughly disconcerted.

“Go before I change my mind,” he muttered softly.

Not sound asleep, she quickly revised.

She turned on her bare heel and fled back into the bedroom, softly closing the door behind her.

His ivory sweater was still in a heap on the foot of the bed. Feeling very odd about it, she picked it up, laying it out over the bare pine dresser top.

His T-shirt was on the floor and she gave it a wide berth as she pulled back the thick red comforter that topped the bed. The linens were crisp and fresh when she climbed between them and sighing, she sank into the downy pillows.

By all rights, exhaustion and alcohol should have assured her of immediate sleep.

So, naturally, the moment she turned off the lamp next to the bed, all she did was stare, wide-eyed, into the darkness.

Dawn had barely broken when Russ gave up trying to sleep.

He tossed back the blanket and sat up on the couch, shoving his hands through his hair, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets.

He ought to be following his own advice of getting some sleep.

Too bad every time he’d closed his eyes, his imagination had gone into torture mode.

Probably what he got for trading six months of so-called marriage for a hunk of land that he’d been wanting ever since he’d assumed control of the Flying J after his dad died. Jasper Chilton had been more than happy to keep the Flying J just as it had been when he’d taken it over from his father.

But not Russ.

Hell, no. He had to want more, and look where it had landed him.

Promising to marry a woman no more suitable for him than Nola had been.

At least this time his eyes were wide-open. He was more than a decade older than the twenty-one-year-old kid he’d been back then, and no ridiculous notions of love were clouding his brain these days. Who knew what would happen? Maybe the next six months would be far less torturous than the two years of wedded “bliss” that he and Nola had shared before she’d permanently hared off back to the bosom of her Bostonian family.

Most importantly, this time he’d be able to keep what he wanted out of the deal.

Half of the Hopping H was a poor comparison for the loss of the son he never saw anymore, but it was the only positive note on the horizon as far as Russ could see.

So he’d take what he could get.

Even if it meant playing house for a while with Melanie McFarlane.

He pushed off the couch and found coffee makings in the kitchen, probably taking too much pleasure in the noise he was making while he was about it. But if she wanted to know more what ranching life was supposed to be about, she’d damn sure better get used to rising with the chickens.

He’d built himself up a fine head of steam about the matter by the time the coffeepot was half full. He yanked out the pot, stuck his mug beneath the steaming stream from the coffeemaker until it was full, then stuck the pot back in place. Feeling stifled inside the cozy cabin, he shoved open the wide door that led out onto the wraparound-style porch and went outside, mug in hand.

The cold doused him from bare feet to bare head, and he let out a long sigh.

As far as his eye could see were signs that Thunder Canyon would never again be the hometown where he’d grown up. There were more schools. More shopping centers. More this. More that.

Even now, despite the early hour, he could see the dots of people working their way along the ski slopes even though the lift wasn’t yet running. From one of the resort’s restaurants—probably the Grubstake—he could already smell the scent of frying bacon.

His stomach rumbled.

Too many beers last night and not enough food.

Another thing that would be easy to blame on her.

Only his parents hadn’t raised him to shuck off his own responsibilities. Melanie hadn’t held a gun to his head.

He’d jumped without a parachute after the carrot she’d dangled all on his own.

“Good Lord. Have you lost your mind? It’s freezing out there.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Well, well. If it isn’t the future Mrs. Chilton.”

Her lips turned down at the corners. “I don’t recall agreeing to change my name.”

He actually hadn’t expected otherwise, but why let her know that? “There ain’t no staff people hanging around here to serve you coffee.”

Her eyes with those thick dark lashes narrowed. Her hair was slightly rumpled and she was bundled to her chin in the massive red blanket from the bed. It ought to have clashed with her auburn hair—he’d learned such things thanks to Nola’s clotheshorse ways—but it didn’t. If anything, Melanie looked…too damned tasty.

Soft. Sleepy. Female.

And everything inside him stirred annoyingly to life.

He looked away at the snowy mountainside. Cold was definitely a good thing. “You want some, get it yourself. It’s hot in the kitchen,” he finished.

“I don’t drink coffee.” Her voice was snooty again. “And you’re letting in all the cold air.”

He didn’t look back at the rustle of bedding that preceded the not-so-soft slam of the door. He pulled out the napkin from his back pocket and squinted at the splotchy lines of writing they’d made on it the night before. In the cold sober morning light, his signature was even more of a scrawl than usual, and her neat penmanship showed some decided unevenness.

No hanky-panky.

She’d even underlined it. Twice.

Muttering an oath not only at himself but at the universe in general, he tucked the napkin back in his pocket, then leaned his forearms on the rail of the deck and glared at the million-dollar view.

“Happy wedding day, Russ,” he muttered under his breath. “Welcome back to hell.”

Chapter Four

Melanie would have liked to have locked that door between her and Russ J. Chilton, leaving him stewing out there in the frigid air.

But a frozen stick of ice wasn’t going to be able to teach her what she needed to know to keep the Hopping H from falling apart before she could even open its first guest cabin. So she kept her itchy fingers from flipping the lock and returned to the bedroom where she did lock the door.

Not that he’d be likely to break it down anytime soon. The man couldn’t be clearer where his distaste for her was concerned. She hoped he would manage to get that under some control, at least when they were around other people.

She washed up, touching her lips with some gloss from her small purse and dashing her comb through her hair, then pulled on her dress from the night before, wrinkling her nose a little at the smell of cigarette smoke that clung to the fabric. Unfortunately, her bra and panties were still damp and since Russ was still out on the porch when she left the bedroom, she quickly shoved them into the deep side pocket of her mink. Then she pulled on the coat, pushed her bare feet into her shoes, and yanked open the door again.

He was leaning over, elbows bent atop the rail, displaying those ridiculously wide, bare shoulders again, and—drat it all—a very fine denim-covered rear.

She wished she’d worn her panties and bra after all, damp or not. Because even if he didn’t know she didn’t have a stitch on beneath her dress, she did. “Are you going to lollygag there all day, or what?”

He sent her a slow look over his bare shoulder that had an annoying jolt curling low through her abdomen. “Anxious to find a justice of the peace, are you?”

She flipped up the collar of her coat, holding it closely together beneath her chin. “I’d like to go home and change first. But, yes, the sooner we start, the sooner you’ll be the proud owner of more land.”

“And we’ll be free of each other.”

“Exactly.”

He straightened and walked past her, leaning his head close to hers as he went. “We’re just a match made in heaven,” he murmured.

She managed to hold her ground. “At least we both know what we want out of the deal,” she returned as he came inside.

She was waiting by the door, purse in hand, when he came back out of the bedroom a short time later, his hair damp and slicked back from his face, and his naked chest once more hidden beneath that thick ivory wool. “I cleaned out the coffeemaker,” she told him before he went into the kitchen, presumably to take care of the matter himself.

“Without breaking a fingernail?” He grabbed his coat but didn’t bother to pull it on. “Someone should give you an award.”

“This will be considerably easier if you could stow your foul humor for a while.”

“Afraid I can’t act the lovesick fool who’d toss aside all rhyme and reason to get married again?” He nudged her through the door and closed it behind him, checking that it was locked.

“Considering how you talk about it, one might think you’re still in love with your former wife.”

He snorted and headed down the steps to the snow-plowed sidewalk that led back toward the main lodge. “Right. Watch the path there. Looks like some ice.”

She avoided the spot he pointed at, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “How long ago was it?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“We’re supposed to be getting married,” she reminded. “Presumably these are things that we would want to know about one another. If, you know, if the situation were real.”

“Well, it isn’t.” He continued striding ahead of her.

She strongly considered sticking her tongue out at the back of his head, but curtailed the childish impulse. She was a thirty-year-old hotelier, not a spoiled heiress the way he seemed to want to think.

By the time she caught up to him inside the resort, he was turning in the cabin key. She went out the front where she’d left her car parked the night before and pulled her car keys from her purse as she waited for him.

“I’ll take those.” He went to pluck the keys from her fingertips, and she jerked them away.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a husband’s job to drive.”

She let out a disbelieving laugh. “Oh, please.” But when Russ held out his palm, clearly in demand, she shoved the keys in her coat pocket. “You’re not driving my car. You won’t even fit in my car. We can just meet back at the Hopping H.”

“Don’t think so.” Before she knew it, he’d reached into her coat pocket and extracted the keys.

Along with her panties.

She wanted the ground to swallow her whole.

“Well, well.” He let the panties hang from his index finger. “Unless you’re carrying a spare—”

She snatched them off his finger and shoved them back into her pocket. “You’re making a scene.”

“Hey, babe, I’m just trying to drive us to the chapel.”

“Fine. You want to drive? Drive.” She ignored his goading smile.

“That’s yours over by the tree, right?”

She knew good and well that he recognized her sports car, because he’d made a point several months earlier of telling her that such a vehicle was useless on a ranch. “Are you going to play caveman from here on out, or act like a civilized human being?”

“Don’t know.” He crossed the parking lot and managed to press the correct buttons on her remote to unlock the car without setting off the alarm. “If I feel a yen to throw you over my shoulder and start brandishing a big wooden club, I’ll let you know. But at least I keep my drawers on,” he added. “Seems the mark of a civilized man.”

Humiliated, she yanked open the passenger door when it became embarrassingly apparent that he wasn’t going to open her door for her and slid inside. She knew he’d have to adjust the driver’s seat to his height, and she resolutely remained silent. He could figure it out for himself. When he knocked his knee into the steering column in the process, she smiled innocently. “What about your vehicle?” She didn’t see the ramshackle truck she’d seen him driving around town parked in the lot.

“What about it?”

She exhaled slowly. Undoubtedly, his orneriness was another attempt to get under her skin. “Just so you know,” she told him evenly, “you can do all the driving you want, but I am not doing your laundry.”

He gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Do you even know what the washing machine looks like?”

She lifted her nose into the air and looked out the side window. What was it to him if she’d had to read the directions in the owner’s manual…twice? It wasn’t her fault that she’d been raised in a setting that ensured such matters had always been taken care of by someone else.

Being a McFarlane hadn’t been about how well she could play at household chores. It was about how well she could manage a luxury hotel.

And she’d thought she’d been doing an admirable job of it, until she’d learned otherwise.

She pressed her palms together. Now that the decision had been made to actually get married, she wasn’t certain how to proceed. “Do you, um, know what the marriage license requirements are in Montana? Blood tests? Waiting period? Anything?”

“Don’t know.”

“So you didn’t get married here, before?”

His gaze slid her way for a moment before he zoomed out of the parking lot with more finesse than she’d have expected for a man who didn’t seem to drive anything but ancient, rattling pickup trucks. “Nope.”

She refused to indulge her curiosity. “I guess we can wait until Monday to find out.”

“We’ll fly to Vegas this afternoon.”

“So soon?”

“Cold feet already?” His voice was mocking.

“Of course not.” But her stomach muscles were clenching. Which was ridiculous. The only difference between the proposition she’d made to him and the final agreement they’d come to was a license. A piece of paper. What did it matter if that paper was signed now or five days from now?

They made the rest of the drive to the Hopping H in silence. He parked in front of the wide stone steps that led up to the main house. “Pack light,” he ordered. “I’m gonna check the barn and the stock.”

She hadn’t needed the reminder of where his priorities were but it was probably just as well.

She went up the steps that had already undergone significant repair and restoration and unlocked the door. She looked back, watching him continue driving along the gravel road that eventually would lead him to the Hopping H’s outbuildings. Lord only knew what sort of comments she’d earn once he’d assessed the situation there.

Her gaze skipped over the tall snow-heavy pines that surrounded the house. With a fresh coat of white on the ground, it was almost postcard-perfect.

On the outside, at least.

She sighed again and went inside where the signs of construction and refurbishment were all around her in the form of scaffolding against the two-story fireplace and lumber stacked in the dining room that would eventually be a state-of-the-art media room. The two-man construction crew’s progress was coming along more slowly than she’d have liked, but she’d had to hire them in from Bozeman and she was lucky to get them on site for more than three days of the week.

Nevertheless, though the going was slow, she couldn’t fault the quality of their work. Plus, they’d come in with the most reasonable bid.

When it was her own money on the line, she couldn’t afford to call in the same companies her family usually used. Nor did she want to chance any of her vendors reporting back to them about her business here. She’d dealt with that situation far too often, too.

She worked her way around enormous paint buckets and went upstairs, heading straight for the aspirin bottle first.

Pack light, Russ had decreed. At least that was something she did know how to do. When he stomped through the front door a while later to find her already sitting in one of the oversize suede wing chairs that had come with the Hopping H, she allowed herself the indulgence of enjoying the surprise on his face.

Of course, he masked that surprise quickly. “The water troughs for the stock were frozen over, but I broke it up. And the horses are low on feed.”

She crossed her high-heeled boots at the ankle. “Shall I run to the supermarket?” she asked sweetly. She knew she was low on feed. She was low on everything. Unfortunately, she’d thought she could trust Harlan, who’d assured her that he’d put in the appropriate orders long before he and his brother walked off the job.

Russ ignored her sarcasm. His gaze swept the interior of the house, undoubtedly judging the renovation mess with his usual criticism. “That thing hooked up?” He nodded toward the ancient black phone that sat on the table she’d pushed against one wall to use as a temporary desk.

“Yes.”

He reached for it and didn’t seem at all slowed by the old-fashioned rotary dial. For all she knew, he hadn’t moved into the current century with push-button phones, either.

His phone call was brief, though, and he hung up, looking at her over her shoulder. “You’ll have a delivery by early next week. In the meantime, I’ll have one of my guys stock you up.”

How simple he made it sound. She’d been calling the feed supply manager every day for the past week.

Being angry that he’d accomplished what she could not seem to, though, was not going to get her anywhere. Russ had helped. That was the bottom line. And she was working hard on the whole okay-to-accept-help concept.

It did not come naturally to her.

“Thank you.” She dashed her hands down the sleeves of her ivory leather jacket. “Will the animals be all right while we’re gone?”

He looked vaguely amused. “You want pet-sitters or something?”

She felt her cheeks flush. “I want you to tell me what I need to know. Remember?”

“The stock’ll be fine. I’ll assign Joey to work over here. Why’d you take down the wall that used to be by the staircase?”

“The rooms down here are too small. Who is Joey?”

“One of my hands. He’s young, but he’s reliable. If you’re planning to change everything inside the house here, why buy it in the first place?”

She pushed to her feet, looping the strap of her overnight bag over her shoulder. “I’m not changing everything.”

He lifted his brows, looking at the evidence. “Could’ve fooled me. So how long’s it going to take before you’re ready?”

“I am ready.”

He looked up the staircase. The old iron balusters and rail had been removed, leaving the treads out in the open. “Up there, I suppose.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your suitcases.”

She jiggled her overnighter. “You did recommend packing light, didn’t you?” He’d ordered it, actually. Like some royal decree. It would have served him right if she’d loaded up every piece of luggage she possessed.

Of course, she’d come to Montana with only a few pieces. The rest was back in Atlanta. Useless and left behind along with everything else from her life.

Her former life, she reminded herself.

Things were different now, because she was making them different.

“Are you going to stand here all morning critiquing my renovations or shall we get going?”

He looked her over, head to toe, and she twisted the wide leather strap harder around her hand. “What?”

He shook his head and grabbed the overnight case from her. “Let’s get moving.”

She refrained from pointing out that she hadn’t been the one standing around. She followed him back out to the car that he’d once again parked in front of the house and this time didn’t bother fruitlessly waiting for him to open her door.

She kept her focus out the side window as they made the drive from her house to his. It wasn’t that great a distance. Less than ten miles, she figured. Yet the silent drive seemed almost interminable.

“Wait here.” He finally stopped behind a modest two-story house and got out before she could even summon an argument.

He left the car running, and she crossed her arms, watching him take the back porch steps in one long stride.

She could hear the squeak of the storm door despite the distance, and then he disappeared into the house.

In comparison to the Hopping H, Russ’s house looked about a quarter of the size. The siding was painted white. The shutters around the windows both up and down were black. From what she could see, craning her head around inside her car, the roof looked sound.

Other than that, the house was decidedly plain.

She nibbled at her thumb, wondering if Russ had wanted the Hopping H’s ranch house, as well as the land. Maybe that was why he’d seemed to look at her renovations with such criticism.

She sat back quickly when she saw the storm door move again, and was sliding her sunglasses onto her nose when he got back in the car after tossing his own small duffel atop her overnighter in the minuscule space behind the seats. As she’d done, he’d changed clothes, as well.

This time, his boots weren’t spit-shined.

“We’ll grab a charter at the airstrip and catch a commercial route outta Bozeman.”

She tucked her tongue between her teeth as she mentally calculated the cost of a private charter. The McFarlanes owned more than one corporate jet, but her finances these days didn’t necessarily run to such extravagances. Not when she had nearly every dime she possessed tied up in the Hopping H.

But a lifetime of pride kept her from uttering a single peep.

The airfield was located near the Thunder Canyon Resort and they left her car parked in the lot there. Melanie pulled out her credit card and passed it over before they could even bring up the subject of paying for the charter. Russ, however, gave a grimace and pulled out his wallet.

She was used to always paying the bills. With her family’s wealth, it always seemed expected. Even by men. And though she had to be careful, she still felt odd about putting her card back in her purse. “Purchasing plane tickets another thing that’s a husband’s job?”

“Be useful,” he suggested, heaping on more outrageousness. “Go find me a cup of coffee.” His lips quirked up, definitely waiting for a reaction.

Standing there at the small counter while he took care of the finances was nothing she felt comfortable doing, so she merely arched her eyebrow at him and strolled, instead, over to one of the seats lined up below a window that overlooked the airstrip.

He didn’t exactly look surprised by her failure to jump to his demand, and she ended up feeling thoroughly uncharitable when he returned with not only his own insulated cup of coffee, but a second cup for her, as well.

“It’s the only kind of tea they had,” he said, flipping her a paper-wrapped teabag.

“Thank you.”

“Pilot’ll be ready soon.” He sipped the hot brew. “You probably fly private all the time.”

“Not lately.” She studiously dipped the teabag in the steaming water. “You?”

“When I have to.” His gaze passed her for the windows overlooking the airstrip.

“Is that often?”

A muscle flexed in his hard jaw. “Not anymore.”

And after that, he said no more. His silence didn’t bother her, though. She had no particular desire to share her life story, either.

After that, it seemed an alarmingly short time before Melanie found herself strapped into the rear seat of the smallest plane she’d ever seen, much less been flown in. Only four seats in the horribly small cabin, with Russ in one of the front two, alongside the pilot, whom he briefly introduced as “Mac.”

The middle-aged pilot with a toothpick clenched between his teeth seemed about as taciturn as Russ, and as the tiny plane took flight, she could only pray that Mac was as capable a pilot as Russ was reportedly a rancher.