Leona leaned forward and Shea saw her eyes narrow as she searched for any sign of a joke.
Shea took a steadying sip of tea. “If I don’t get married by the last day of this month, I’ll lose the ranch.”
“Says who?” Leona’s tone was guarded.
Shea recounted the highlights of the meeting in Ben Rucker’s office three days earlier. She still had a hard time believing it herself.
“I have no intention of just walking away from everything I love and everything Dad worked so hard to accomplish.” Her finger made circles in the condensation forming on the frosted glass. “I’ve spent the last three days on the phone trying to track down some of my friends from college. The ones I did manage to locate are married or involved with someone. Between the years I was away at school and then Dad’s illness, I’ve lost touch with most of the people I knew in high school.”
There had been two loves in her life. The first had been a high school crush who was now married with two kids. She’d met the other, David Rollins, her second year in college. For a while, they had been inseparable and even had talked about marriage. But eventually they both had realized they wanted different things in life. David’s plans hadn’t included living on a ranch in north Texas. Shea hadn’t been able to see herself living anywhere else. She’d tried desperately to reach David, but without any luck. A few of her friends had heard he was living back East, but no one knew exactly where. Some had offered to make calls to try to reach him, but so far he hadn’t called.
She pulled a legal pad from under some Western Horsemen magazines that lay on the table. “I’ve made a list of a few possibilities, but—” she shook her head in frustration as she passed the pad to Leona “—it’s been a long time.”
Leona took the list and set it aside, her eyes locked on Shea’s face. “You’re not seriously thinking about asking some man to marry you.” It was more a statement than a question.
She shrugged. “What else can I do?”
“Do you have even the slightest idea what you’d be letting yourself in for?”
“It will be a business agreement, strictly platonic.”
“Yeah, sure it will,” Leona muttered, rubbing her hand over her face. “God Almighty. This is the damnedest situation I’ve ever heard of.”
Leona picked up the list, gave her a weary look and began to scan the names. “Tommy Hall. Are his parents John and Grace?”
“Yeah.” Shea nodded.
“He got married two weeks ago. One of our hands was his best man.” Leona picked up a pen and crossed off his name.
“Duncan Adams. Drinks,” she recalled. “A lot. You don’t need that grief. Cecil Taylor? I hear he loses more than he makes on the horses over in Bossier City. Unless you’re willing to bankroll his gambling, you can scratch him off the list.”
One by one, Leona crossed off each man until, of the fourteen names, only one remained.
“What about Tim Schultz?” Shea asked, trying not to sound desperate.
Leona looked at the last name on the list. “Maybe. Isn’t his father the preacher over at that little church east of town?” She frowned in contemplation. “I’ve never heard nothing bad about him. Kinda quiet. ’Bout your age, right?”
“Yeah,” Shea confirmed. “His family only moved to this area a few years ago, but I had some classes with him in college. He’s nice enough, I guess.”
“So, how do you plan to approach him with this little plan of yours?” Leona laid the pen and pad on the table. “You gonna just walk up to him and say, ‘Howdy. Will you marry me for a year? Oh, and by the way, it’s strictly business.’ I’d sure like to be a fly on the wall when you throw that little tidbit in his direction.”
“I’ll explain the circumstances, of course.” She hadn’t rationalized this part of the plan, but obviously it would be necessary. “I’ll have to.”
“Girl, use your head. Maybe if you talked to that Morreston fellow again—”
“No.” Sitting back in her chair, Shea crossed her arms in front of her. Alec Morreston. The mere mention of his name caused a hot blush to spread over her neck and face. The look of male want in his eyes was still vivid in her mind. She’d never experienced anything like it, but even after three days, she knew she hadn’t imagined it. And neither had she imagined his cold insensitivity to the havoc he’d caused in her life. She resolutely shook her head. “I can promise you, it would do no good. He’s a developer. He lives in New York, probably in some posh penthouse. He doesn’t care about the land. He doesn’t care about anything but making more money. Probably never got his hands dirty in his life.”
“What if you turned the tables on him?” Leona asked, taking another long drink of her tea.
Shea frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, Ben told you, according to that contract, if you weren’t married by the end of the month, Morreston had to marry you or agree to renew the lease. Right?”
Shea nodded, suddenly afraid of where this was going.
“So tell him you want to marry him.”
Shea could only gape in horror.
“Put the problem back on his plate,” Leona reasoned. “Think about it. He’s a city fellow. He’s not going to agree to marry you and live on this ranch. He thinks he’s got you bluffed into doing just exactly what you’re doing—refusing to use him as a way out.”
Shea stubbornly shook her head. “No way, Leona.” The idea was beyond bizarre. “Absolutely no way.” She still had forty-eight hours.
“I sure wish your father was still alive,” Leona muttered.
“So do I, Leona,” Shea whispered as she stood and walked to the phone to call Tim Schultz. “So do I.”
* * *
Shea sipped from the glass of ice water and tried to remain calm. Tonight, before midnight, she had to be married. Tim had finally returned her call this morning. No doubt sensing the urgency in her tone, he’d agreed to meet her at Barstall’s City Diner at one o’clock. He was late.
What was she going to say? All the rehearsing in the world couldn’t prepare her for what she had to discuss with him. How would he respond? Would he laugh? Would he just walk out? Or, most important, would he agree to do it?
Before leaving yesterday, Leona once more had encouraged her to call Morreston’s bluff. But Shea had held firm in her conviction that nothing on earth would make her so desperate to even contemplate such a thing. Heaven help the poor female coerced into marriage with that man.
Instinctively she knew Alec Morreston would be demanding, in bed as well as out. Even if the situation were different, a brief affair with a man like Morreston would take more from her than she could give. She suspected such a liaison would turn into an emotional roller coaster, and that was the last thing she needed in her life.
But it was a moot point. Morreston was long
