and occupation warned most people away. Most people, but not Hanna Malloy. She’d marry him on the spot if there were a clergyman or justice of the peace present.
“All right, Miz N’Awlins,” he drawled, mocking her Southern accent. “What’s this business about a proposition? I’ve had a long three weeks and I’m ready for a bath, a nap and a hearty meal. You’re keeping me from them. What the hell do you want with me?”
Hanna lifted her chin and met his piercing stare. Fleetingly she wondered if the devil himself had eyes this deep and black and penetrating.
“Well? Spit it out,” he snapped impatiently. “Your time’s almost up. I don’t like conversations that last more than a minute.”
Hanna flinched at his razor-sharp tone. She had to get up her nerve all over again. Since Cale Elliot apparently preferred straightforward and right-to-the-point dialogue, she’d accommodate him.
“I want to marry you,” she told him flat out. “I have five thousand dollars in cash as incentive to convince you to accept.”
Cale reared back so abruptly that he very nearly launched himself off his chair. His obsidian eyes shot open in stunned surprise and his bewhiskered jaw dropped to his broad chest. “Wha’d you say?” he choked out.
His shocked expression provoked her amused smile. If nothing else, she had Cale’s undivided attention. “You heard me, Mr. Elliot. I want a husband and I want one now. I want that husband to be you.”
He just stared at her as if she had Spanish moss dangling from her earlobes. Well, she mused, she supposed they were even now. He looked as stunned as she’d felt when he’d rammed a pistol beneath her chin and clamped her against his brick wall of a chest.
When Cale finally recovered from his shock, his gaze narrowed dubiously. This had to be a setup, he decided. Unfortunately, he was too rattled to figure out what the hell was going on. Why would this enchanting, sophisticated female propose to him? To distract and confuse him? Someone had obviously put her up to it. No decent woman in her right mind would want to attach herself to the stigma that followed him like a looming shadow.
He had a dozen strikes against him, and she looked to be all that was gentle and refined in this world. She could have her pick of beaus, and she claimed she wanted to marry him? There was definitely a catch, he decided. Was she a ruined woman who desperately needed a name for her unborn babe? Was she intent on punishing an unfaithful suitor by taking a husband far below her social status?
Another thought, of a dark and violent nature, bombarded Cale. If this lovely creature had been set upon by some lusting, abusive bastard, who’d left her with child the same way—
Cale jerked upright, refusing to let bitter memories of the past intrude and distract him. It was true that he was rough around the edges, had very little formal education and no sophistication whatsoever, but if there was one thing his Cherokee mother had taught him it was never to misuse a woman to satisfy his own needs. He had never forced himself on a woman and he didn’t hold with men who did.
“Well, Mr. Elliot?” she prompted when he lingered so long in thought. “I’ll pay you half the money now and half after the ceremony. Do we have a bargain?”
“First off,” he said, settling his forearms on the back of the chair, “don’t call me Mistah Elliot or suh,” he ordered, mimicking her drawl. “The name’s Cale, pure and simple. Secondly, why do you want to marry me? It’s obviously not because of my refined manners, my dashing good looks and endearing charm.”
He watched her astutely as she folded her hands in her lap, squared her shoulders and lifted her amethyst gaze. Cale steeled himself against the hypnotic lure of her eyes, her elegantly formed features. He felt as if reality had somehow been suspended, leaving him drifting in a world so remote from the daily rigors of staying alive that he could scarcely conceive of it.
He was sharing conversation with this astoundingly beautiful woman? In his room? That in itself was scandalous. Her reputation would be in shambles if anyone saw her arrive or exit.
He watched her draw a deep breath that caused her full breasts to strain against the dainty bodice of her gown. Her delicate brows drew together, as if she were carefully choosing her words.
“I’m offering no illusions, Mr.—Cale,” she quickly corrected. “I wish to take your name in a marriage of convenience. The union will not be consummated, of course. There will simply be an exchange of cash for possession of the marriage certificate. I’ve no intention of restricting or altering your life, nor mine. After the ceremony you are free to go your way and I will go mine.”
Well, he thought, so much for that titillating fantasy of having this lovely vision naked in his bed. He should’ve known she wouldn’t be the slightest bit inclined to cuddle up with the likes of him.
“If there comes a time when you meet a woman you wish to marry, you need only to contact me and I’ll tend to the divorce proceedings quickly. In essence, I’m simply asking you to put your signature beside mine on the dotted line. You’ll be well paid for your assistance.”
Cale studied her for a long, pensive moment, trying to figure her angle. He wondered which scenario fit her situation. The jilted Southern belle out for revenge? The ruined lover trying to save face? The abused woman who’d come to fear intimacy because of a nightmarish assault, and who sought protection with his name and reputation?
“What do you get out of this marriage of convenience?” he asked curiously.
He watched her squirm beneath his piercing scrutiny, but eventually she composed herself and flashed him a smile that did funny things to his pulse. He tried not to become distracted, but damn, she was so pretty that her beauty kept sidetracking him. Forcefully, he concentrated on her reply.
“I want the freedom to go where I please, do as I please,” she declared with noticeable determination. “I want the freedom to answer to no one but myself for the first time in my life. I am sick to death of being stifled and controlled and maneuvered by men who see me as nothing but a pawn. I want to discover who I can be in the West.”
He cocked a brow at that. Little Miss I-Wanna-Be-Independent didn’t have a clue what dangers she’d face while traveling across Indian Territory to reach the land of milk and honey she envisioned. Well, the fact was that the milk was curdled and the honey came with dozens of bee stings. She’d have to wise up and toughen up considerably before she could handle herself in places where law and order didn’t prevail the way they did in N’Awlins. It went without saying that she was naive and obliviously unaware of the difficulties she’d encounter on the road to her much-sought-after freedom.
Life beyond Indian Territory was brutal. Life anywhere was a bitch, and you just had to learn to deal with it.
Because of his background and line of work, he’d become jaded and cynical. He dealt with liars, cheats, thieves and killers on a day-to-day basis. He’d brought in dozens of criminals who would drop a man in his tracks, just to seize possession of his fancy boots, his fast horse or his pocket change.
The prospect of turning this unsuspecting female loose in dangerous territory made Cale cringe.
His thoughts scattered like buckshot when she doubled at the waist to lift the hem of her skirt. Curiously, he watched her wrestle with her cream-colored petticoats. She straightened in her chair and laid a roll of money—that had been inconspicuously hidden inside the hem of her petticoats—on the table between them.
“Here’s
