The Virgin Bride Said, 'Wow!'

“Good.” Brady released a short sigh of relief. He lifted his hat and ran his hand through the inky-black layers of his hair, straightening the tousled layers as best he could. “’Cause, uh…”

“I understand perfectly,” Kelsey said, cutting him off and letting him know with a quick, decisive look that it wasn’t necessary to say more, as he slammed his hat back on his head and circled around the truck to join her. She knew he didn’t want to have to fib to people about the nature of their relationship any more than she did. “And I quite agree.” She linked hands with him—as much for moral support as show—and drew a deep breath, still holding her bouquet of Texas wildflowers and their certificate of marriage close to her chest. “There’s only so much pretending a body can take in one day.” Drawing strength from both his touch and the look in his eyes, she said, “Ready to go in and face the music?”

“Sure.” Brady grinned, abruptly looking as determined and devil-may-care as Kelsey had felt earlier. He shrugged and tightened his hand on hers. “Why not?”

Chapter Two

“I can’t believe you did this,” Meg Lockhart said the moment Kelsey and Brady walked in the door.

“So much for any hopes of a wedding reception,” Kelsey said lightly, as she looked at the faces gathered around her. Her oldest sister, Meg, was there with her doctor-husband Luke Carrigan. Second-oldest Jenna stood next to her, looking fashionably pretty in one of her own designs, with her rancher-businessman husband, Jake. Dani, who was closest in age to Kelsey and could usually be counted on to understand her little sister, was seated on the sofa, with her movie-star husband, Beau Chamberlain. Lilah and John McCabe rounded out the party. All looked grim, worried and very, very concerned about the nuptials that had just taken place, sans festivities of any kind. “This feels like an intervention,” Kelsey continued joking, hoping to bring a little levity to the situation.

“It is,” Jenna said. “And I called it.”

“Thanks, heaps.” Kelsey took off her hat and hung it on the rack next to the front door. She strode across the polished wood floor. “Just what Brady and I needed on our wedding night, a lecture times eight.”

“Believe it or not,” Dani said as she stood and put her right hand on her rounded tummy, “we just have your best interests at heart.”

“We’re all worried about you,” Meg agreed gently but firmly.

“Well, you needn’t be,” Kelsey shot right back. She linked her arm through Brady’s and put her head on his shoulder. “Because Brady and I are happy as can be.”

Everyone in the room sighed and frowned at that.

“You know we promised your parents we’d watch over you girls,” Lilah McCabe said.

“I’m not sure a business arrangement called a marriage is what they would want for you, Kelsey,” John McCabe added.

Kelsey’s conscience ignited like a match to a flame. Stubbornly, she pushed any doubts she had about what she was doing aside. In this case, she told herself firmly, the end did justify the means. “On the contrary, Dr. McCabe, I think they’d be very happy to see the ranch back in the family, and looking so good again.”

“I don’t think that’s what John and Lilah mean,” Jenna said a little testily.

Kelsey glared at her sister.

“We want you to have love, Kelsey,” Meg added.

“Passion,” Dani agreed.

“Not to mention a relationship that will stand the test of time,” John elaborated bluntly. He looked at Brady.

“Well, thank you all for your vote of confidence,” Kelsey said, more irritated than ever at the depth of familial interference going on. “But Brady and I want to be alone now, so…if you don’t mind…”

“Kelsey—” Meg started.

Knowing there was only one way to end it as quickly as she wanted to end it, Kelsey turned to her new husband, grabbed him by the shirtfront and tugged him toward her. She barely had time to register the surprise in his eyes before she planted a big kiss right on his lips.

BRADY HEARD THE GASPS around him as Kelsey’s soft, luscious lips pressed against his. He had two choices. He could push her away, which would humiliate her even more than she already had been that day by her own actions and the words of others. Or he could play along. Given how good, how right her lips felt molded to his, Brady decided to play along. Not content to be a passive participant at anything he did, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up on tiptoe, so she was pressed even closer to him. And then the world faded away, as it became just the two of them. Locked together.

Only the sound of a collective “ahem” brought them back to reality. Reluctantly, Brady lifted his lips from hers and looked down at Kelsey. Her lips were dewy and pink, her eyes dazed with the same kind of wonder he felt. Heck of a first kiss, he thought. Heck of a first kiss.

“You know, maybe there’s a little more going on here than we realized.” Lilah McCabe was the first to speak.

“I think we should go and leave the newlyweds alone,” John McCabe concurred. He and Lilah led the way out the door, followed by the Lockhart sisters and their husbands.

“You hurt her,” Jake said to Brady, “you deal with us.” Beau and Luke nodded their confirmation of that threat. “You call if you need anything,” Beau told Kelsey sympathetically, before he exited with the group.

Jenna came back in. She put a key on the table beside the door. “My apartment above the shop is empty right now. Should either of you need it, for any reason, you feel free to use it.” She left again, too.

Motors started up. One by one, the vehicles headed down the lane to the highway. Kelsey looked at Brady. Brady looked at Kelsey. She had never looked more beautiful or desirable to him than she did at that very moment. He sighed. This was going to be a lot harder than he’d thought. A lot harder. Given the way she had just felt in his arms, he didn’t know how in the heck he was going to keep their relationship platonic. “I hate to say it, Kelse,” he drawled, “but I think we’ve just gotten ourselves into one heck of a mess.”

KELSEY COULDN’T HELP BUT notice the mixture of derision and regret in Brady’s low tone. Suddenly, it seemed the Lockharts and the McCabes weren’t the only ones worried about what she and Brady had done. Determined not to let herself fall prey to the same pessimism, Kelsey propped her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Why in the world would you say that?”

Brady rolled his eyes and continued to pace. “Besides the fact I’ve got the whole Lockhart-McCabe ‘army’ breathing down my neck?”

“They’re a little excited.” Kelsey plopped down on the sofa as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She shrugged, and continued, “They’ll get over it.”

Brady’s lips curved up on either side. “Before or after they pulverize me?” he asked. His probing glance made a leisurely tour of her body before returning to her eyes. “And speaking of pulverizing me, what was that kiss about just now?”

Kelsey had hoped he would be too nice a partner to bring that up. Guess not. Again, she pretended a lot more self-confidence and courage than she really felt. “I know we promised no sex.”

Brady’s midnight-blue eyes narrowed. “That was part of the deal, all right.”

“But we had to make it look good,” Kelsey persisted as she leapt to her feet once again. Unfortunately, Kelsey thought, it had felt good, too. Much more so than she had expected or ever experienced. But Brady didn’t need to know that.

Brady clamped a hand on her shoulder and spun her around to face him. His fingers were as warm and strong as the rest of him, his manner every bit as stubborn and headstrong as hers. “Are we going to have to keep on making it look good?”

Kelsey flushed and stepped back, out of reach. “What do you mean?” she demanded, still able to feel the impression of his touch, even though he was no longer holding on to her.

Brady’s eyes narrowed as he reminded her seriously, “Wade McCabe said if our marriage is nothing but a ruse to get his money—which, by the way, we’ve already taken—then he’s going to take the ranch from us.”

“I remember,” Kelsey said irritably.

“So how are we going to get around that?” Brady adapted a no-nonsense stance, legs braced apart, arms folded in front of him, that would have been very intimidating had Kelsey allowed it.

She didn’t. Kelsey ran a hand through her tousled hair, pushing it off her face. “The way I see it, there are all kinds of marriages that are real as can be and yet…well, you know how it is after a while,” Kelsey continued as if she knew what she was talking about when she damn well didn’t have a clue. “The husband and wife don’t seem at all romantic anymore, or even much involved with each other physically, and yet they stay together.”

“There’s a difference between being together and being happy,” Brady pointed out sagely.

“That’s true,” Kelsey said, “but we could be together and be happy without having sex.”

Brady lifted a brow and looked straight into her eyes. “Speak for yourself,” he said.

KELSEY STARED AT HIM in silence. Brady wasn’t sure why he had started this. He just knew someone had to shake up Kelsey’s cock-eyed view of the world. It looked like it was going to be him. He edged closer. “I don’t know any man who is living under the same roof with a woman he lusts after, who is happy when the two of them aren’t sleeping together at least every once in a while,” Brady continued, and watched the way Kelsey’s freckled cheeks turned an even pinker hue.

Kelsey studied him suspiciously as she slightly tilted her pretty head to the side. “Are you saying you lust after me?”

Brady shrugged, seeing no reason to lie about it. Not that he could. Surely, she’d felt his arousal, pressed up against him the way she had been. “After that kiss, I sure do.” He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops on either side of his fly and rocked back on his heels. “And now we’re going to be living under the same roof.”

Kelsey’s green eyes shot sparks. “Says who?” she demanded.

“Says me.” Brady strode closer. No way was he going to be her puppet on a string and it was high time she realized that. He lifted a hand and brushed an errant strand of cinnamon-colored hair from her cheek, then cupped her face with his palm. The silky heat of her skin warmed him through and through. “We can’t make this look like a real marriage if I’m still sleeping in the stable and you’re sleeping in the house.”

“Oh. Well.” Kelsey jerked in a breath and stepped back, away from him. “You can have one of the other bedrooms, then. There are three to choose from.”

Brady knew that would only make things worse. After that kiss, he was going to keep wanting her. And not just as a platonic partner, either. And unless he missed his guess, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself, Kelsey was probably going to keep wanting him, too. “That doesn’t solve the problem of lust,” he told her frankly, meaning it.

KELSEY KNEW WHAT HE expected here. Like Wade McCabe and everyone else who knew her, Brady expected her to cry uncle, and declare this impetuous marriage of theirs a mistake. Sooner, rather than later. He may have even figured that she would beg Wade McCabe’s forgiveness for trying to pull one over on him, and possibly even get it. Well, she wasn’t going to do that. People thought she was fickle enough as it was, without adding fuel to the fire. Which left her only one option. Which, under the circumstances, wasn’t nearly as untenable an idea as she would have expected it to be.

Kelsey shot Brady a glance, letting him know she was as reckless and impulsive as ever, and proud of it. “Fine then, we’ll sleep together once, and then that will be it. At least until we decide it’s necessary to do so again. It’ll be a good thing,” Kelsey continued, picking up steam as she went along. “I’m no good at lying. Everything I feel or think is right on my face, anyway.”

Brady rolled his eyes. “No kidding about that,” he said dryly.

Kelsey lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug and kept her eyes on Brady’s. “Now that we’re married, everybody is going to be trying to figure out if we’ve slept together or not, anyway,” she told him with as much outrageous brazenness as ever. “So we might as well do it, get it over with, and out of the way, so to speak.”

Brady narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. To Kelsey’s disappointment, he didn’t back down one bit, either. “That’s a very typically male view of things,” Brady said, mocking her too-casual tone to a T.

“What?” Kelsey propped her hands on her hips. The way he was challenging her was making her mad. Worse, it was exciting her, too, in a way unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Stubbornly, she kept her eyes locked with his, even as her heart began to race like a wild thing in her chest. “You don’t believe I’m serious?” she asked very softly and coolly.

Brady clamped his lips together. A new, worried light came into his eyes. “I’m not sure what to believe right now,” he said seriously, after a moment, suddenly seeming all of his twenty-nine years. “I mean, I know you’re a tomboy—”

“Thank you.” Kelsey flashed him a tight, mocking smile.

“But this…” Brady continued, clearly at a loss as to what to do next.

Kelsey shot him a sultry smile, already toying with the top button of her shirt. “Don’t you want to satisfy your curiosity?” she goaded playfully.

Brady’s chest and shoulders suddenly looked hard as rock. “Well, sure…”

Telling herself she didn’t need or want to look below his waist, lest she lose her nerve, Kelsey challenged, “Then let’s go. Upstairs. Now. You and me.”

Brady laughed. Kelsey could see he didn’t take her any more seriously than her sisters or the McCabes had. She slowly unbuttoned her shirt and started up the stairs. When she reached the top, she shrugged it off, whirled it lariat-style over her head, and then rocketed it Brady’s way.

BRADY STARED AT THE SHIRT fluttering past the stairwell to the floor. The next thing he knew Kelsey had turned the corner into the upstairs hall and a very lacy, surprisingly transparent black bra had followed.

Feeling as if he were in the middle of the wildest, most erotic dream he’d ever had, he moved to pick up the bra. It was still warm from her skin and scented with orange-blossom perfume.

Brady swallowed around the sudden dryness in his throat. Lower still, there was an insistent ache he sure as heck didn’t want to be feeling. His fingers closing on the fabric, Brady stared in the direction Kelsey had gone. Damn it all if this new wife of his wasn’t serious.

He couldn’t believe it.

Not once in the entire time they’d been partners had Kelsey so much as offered him even a handshake. In the space of a few short hours she had proposed marriage, rushed him to city hall, held his hand and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Now she was taking off her clothes. He swore again as a boot clattered to the first floor. Then another. Then her belt and jeans sailed down from the upstairs hall. A pair of socks followed. Brady swallowed. The only thing she had left was her panties. Before he could even make a move, those followed, too, and they were just as lacy, just as transparent as her bra.

He heard her laughing, then the sound of her footsteps moving toward her bedroom. His lower half surging to life, Brady headed for the stairs.

KELSEY WAS ALREADY BENEATH the covers in her bedroom. Her cheeks were flushed but there was a telltale devilry in her eyes, and a challenging tilt to her chin. “Are we going to get this over with or not?” she said.

Brady looked at the elegant line of her bare shoulders, and her satiny smooth skin. She had the covers tugged well above her breasts, but what little he could see, coupled with the kiss they had exchanged not too long ago, had him already hard as a rock. “I’m not the kind of guy who plays around,” he warned, wanting there to be no mistake about his intentions. “If we do this, if we begin a sexual relationship with each other, there’s no going back. I expect exclusive rights to your bedroom and I’ll give you the same to mine.”

“Fine,” Kelsey said as she watched him methodically take off his shirt, boots and jeans. Her pretty green eyes widened as he stripped off his socks and low-slung red briefs, too. “But I reserve the right to say when and where it’ll happen.”

Brady had no problem with that. Once she was his woman, he figured he could convince her to make love with him anywhere, anytime the need struck. And if not, he thought as a smile curved his mouth, he’d sure have fun trying.

Naked, he climbed beneath the sheets.

To his frustration, although she was naked, too, Kelsey kept her arms on top of the blankets, the covers pressed tightly against her. She had a funny look in her eyes, too. Sort of excited and scared and nervous and yet ridiculously brazen and full of bravado, too. “If I didn’t know better,” he teased, “I’d think you’d never done this before.”

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Kelsey gave him a withering look. “Can we just get on with it, please?”

Irritated at the way she kept calling all the shots and ordering him around, Brady frowned. “Sorry for the delay, ma’am.” And with that, he lifted the barrier of sheets still between them, shifted over top of her and lowered his head to hers.

THE FEEL OF HIS LIPS against hers was even more tantalizing and electric than before. Kelsey gasped as Brady’s mouth brushed against hers. She quivered all over as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and rubbed it against hers with lazy, sensual strokes. His hands moved to her breasts, and still kissing her, he shifted his weight, so he was lying beside her, one arm beneath her neck, one leg thrown over hers. When he’d brought her nipples to hot, aching peaks, he let his hand trail lower still, across the flat of her abdomen, and that was when panic, unlike Kelsey had ever felt, set in. Kelsey broke off the kiss and, hands splayed against his chest, pushed him away with all her might. “Stop!” she said. “I can’t do this!”

Chapter Three

“What the…?” Brady said, looking every bit as shocked and upset as Kelsey would have expected him to be, given her abrupt change of mind.

“I’m a virgin.” Kelsey tugged the covers to her chin and scooted as far away from him as she could without leaving the bed. She hated to disappoint him, but she knew she couldn’t go through with it, not feeling the way she did. “I thought I could,” she continued, trembling from head to toe. “But I can’t. I—” She swallowed hard around the growing ache in her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“A virgin,” Brady repeated, still looking as stunned as if she’d hit him over the head with a board.

“Yes.” Keeping the sheet wrapped around her like a shield, Kelsey eased from the bed. “So now you know.” She took a breath, and kept her eyes from Brady’s naked, gloriously sexy body. Doing her best to build on what little dignity she had left, she said, “I trust you won’t tell anyone else.”

Brady shook his head. “Then what…what was that striptease about?”

“I thought it might be nice to go to bed with you.” Kelsey tried her hardest but could not keep her eyes from straying to his long, sturdy limbs and glowing golden skin and the wealth of curly black hair. He was solid muscle from head to toe. And lower still, below his waist… Oh, my. My!

Aware he was still glaring at her, waiting for her to continue, she moved her eyes from his arousal, back to his face. She gulped in great amounts of air. “After all, we’re married,” she said hastily, wishing he would do something besides lounge there, so expectantly, on her bed. “And it would solve some problems. And…and I’ve never done it before and all my sisters obviously have, so…”

“So you thought you’d use me to get some experience,” Brady said grimly. “And in a roundabout way keep up with all of them.” Lips set, he bounded from her bed and snatched up his jeans.

Not about to let him make her into some villainess, when all she had done was make a simple error in judgment, Kelsey stomped closer and shot right back, “Listen, cowboy, it’s not like you weren’t using me, too. To…to…”

“Experience some pleasure?” Brady filled in the blanks.

“Right.” Kelsey tore her eyes from his rigid lower half.

“Only we didn’t get anywhere near that, Kelse.” Brady stomped closer yet, his strong, tall body exuding so much heat he could practically have started a prairie fire all on his own. “All we did was frustrate ourselves.”

Like she didn’t know that? She was still tingling all over, still wanting something indescribable, still scared. But she would be damned if she would show Brady Anderson, her new husband, any of that, especially when he was being so sanctimonious. So Kelsey merely went over to her vanity and sat down on the bench. Aware he was watching her every move even as he tugged on his jeans, she crossed her legs at the knee beneath the toga-wrapped sheet, and offered him a sassy smile, pretending an ease she couldn’t begin to feel. “Better luck next time?”

“There’s not going to be a next time,” Brady vowed, grabbing his shirt.

Panic filled Kelsey’s soul. She’d gotten used to having Brady around. “What do you mean?” Despite what had just happened between them, she still wanted him in her life.

But, oblivious to her feelings on the matter, Brady jerked on his boots, one after another. “I mean I don’t enjoy being played for a fool,” he stormed.

“I didn’t do that!”

Finished, Brady stood and advanced on her so deliberately and methodically he took her breath away. He didn’t stop until he towered over her. “Then what do you call it?” he asked very softly, looking down at her.

Kelsey swallowed but didn’t back down. “A mistake.”

His lips compressed thinly. “I agree with you there.”

Remorse filled her, followed quickly by the need to behave responsibly and make amends. “Brady…”

He put up both hands before she could touch him. “Just don’t, Kelse. Just don’t.”

Without another word, Brady stormed from the room. Kelsey had just started to run after him when the phone rang. Frowning, she went to get it. Rafe Marshall was on the other end of the line. An old school chum of Kelsey’s, and former boyfriend, he was now principal at the elementary school and father of eight-year-old twins. “I really need to talk to you,” he said. “I’ve got a big favor to ask. Do you think you could come over to the school and meet me?”

“Now?” She couldn’t imagine what Rafe would need to see her about.

“Well, yes,” Rafe said, “if it’s convenient.”

Why not? Kelsey thought, her curiosity piqued. All she was going to do here was sit around and feel bad about what had not happened with Brady. “Be right there,” Kelsey said.

She went to her closet, put on a fresh set of clothes, retrieved her boots from the bottom of the stairs and headed out the door. She saw Brady come out of the barn just as she was climbing into her pickup truck. Ignoring the way he was looking at her—as if he’d had second thoughts and wanted to talk to her after all—she gunned the truck and sped off.

Rafe was waiting for her when she entered the empty halls. He led her into his office and gestured for her to have a seat. “Shouldn’t you be home having dinner with your twins?” Kelsey asked. Since his wife had died a couple of years ago, Rafe had tried to give his kids as much stability as possible. Most nights that meant he was with his kids.

“My mom is visiting and with them. I told her I’d be late.” Rafe sank down behind his desk. He was a handsome man, given to wearing his shirts and ties in the exact same color, but the stress of the past few years had left him with wings of gray just above his ears, and at his temples, and a hint of sadness around his eyes. Lately, Kelsey had noted happily, that sadness had been disappearing, bit by bit.

“Kelse, I need your help.” As usual, Rafe got straight to the point. “You know Patricia Weatherby?”

Kelsey nodded. “She works at the chamber of commerce, has a little five-year-old girl named Molly.” As she recalled, they had stopped in Laramie en route to California when Molly had to have an appendectomy, and liked the town and the people so much they decided to settle here permanently.