watched in fascination as the corners of his firm mouth lifted in what was either a pained smile or a grimace.
“I’m your intended, Nick St. Hilarion.”
Ann’s hazel eyes widened incredulously as his unexpected words echoed through her disbelieving mind. This was Maggie’s cousin! He couldn’t be. This had to be some kind of weird joke. Men who looked like this man didn’t have to resort to having their cousins find them wives. They’d be beating prospective candidates off with a stick.
But…Maggie had gone into great detail about his disastrous first marriage. Maybe Nick didn’t trust his own judgment anymore, either. It was possible. She noticed the rigid cast of his features for the first time. Maybe he felt as embarrassed and uncertain as she did.
She glanced down at her hand, which she was still holding out. Nick followed her gaze and muttered something that she didn’t quite catch before he grabbed it.
Ann’s breath caught in her lungs as she felt his warm fingers close around hers. Heat seemed to pour off him, seeping into her chilled flesh, making it tingle. She swallowed uneasily at her reaction. It was the weirdness of the situation, she assured herself. After all, it wasn’t every day that she flew across the country to marry a stranger. She was certainly allowed a few aberrations from her normal behavior.
“I…” Ann winced at the uncertain note in her voice. Firming it, she forged ahead, trying desperately to sound more assured than she felt. “I’m glad to meet you,” she muttered, feeling like a gauche fool. “Very glad,” she amended, and her words were sucked up into the oppressive silence that seemed to enclose them in their own little world.
Now what? Ann scrambled for something to say. Should she suggest that they leave for the ranch or would that sound pushy? Could his silence mean that he was having second thoughts about marrying her now that he’d met her? The devastating thought shook her fragile self-confidence. Maybe his taste in women ran along the lines of her exhusband. And Bill had most definitely found her lacking in feminine charms.
But Nick wasn’t marrying her for love, she told herself to stem her escalating fears. Nick was marrying her to obtain a mother for his daughter and to keep house for him.
Ann turned to pick up her brown leather purse from the seat beside her. Unfortunately, she forgot she’d set her suitcase at her feet. She tripped over it and pitched forward.
Straight into Nick’s arms. It was like landing against a warm rock wall, she thought in confusion. There was no give to him anywhere. Ann shivered as the faint tang of his cologne drifted into her nostrils, further muddling her thoughts. Instinctively, she jerked back, hit the backs of her legs on the hard edge of the chair and plopped into the seat.
What a time for her to turn klutzy, she thought in despair. If he had been harboring doubts about her as a wife, her behavior certainly wasn’t going to reassure him.
To her relief, Nick ignored her clumsiness. Reaching down, he picked up her heavy suitcase with an ease that she could only envy.
“Do you have any other luggage?”
Ann shook her head. “I expressed the rest of it out last week.”
“I know. It arrived yesterday. We’ve got a two-hour drive to the ranch. We’d better get started.”
Ann trotted along beside him, telling herself that the relief she felt at not being sent home was because she was too tired to face another plane trip so soon. Furtively, she studied him out of the corner of her eye as they made their way out of the terminal and into the icy spring air, wondering what he was thinking.
She hadn’t really thought of him as a distinct personality before. Not really. She’d been so busy trying to pick up the pieces of her own shattered life after her acrimonious divorce that she’d only seen Nick St. Hilarion as a means to an end. As a solution to her problem of how to parlay her love of homemaking into a viable career that could support her in her near-penniless state.
But now that she’d actually met him, the fact was suddenly driven home to her that Nick had thoughts and hopes and fears just like she did. But what were they? Her eyes lingered on the bunched muscles of his jaw. And did she have the right to try to find out? A sudden doubt shook her. They had a deal, she and this totally unexpected man. And it didn’t include delving into each other’s secrets.
She shivered as a particularly nasty gust of wind slithered down her neck as if in warning. She most assuredly didn’t want Nick poking into the ruins of her first marriage.
But there was a lot of ground between prying into his past and getting to know him in the here and now, she rationalized, feeling the first real spark of anticipation she’d felt in almost six months. The future that had seemed so dreary just hours before suddenly held a glimmer of hope. Who knew what might come of this unorthodox marriage of theirs? Mail-order brides were a part of Western tradition and most of the marriages had turned out just fine. There was no reason to assume that hers wouldn’t fare as well.
Holding on to that encouraging thought, Ann climbed into the cab of the pickup Nick unlocked and looked around curiously. Utilitarian, she categorized its barren interior. Nick certainly didn’t believe in pampering himself with luxury. Or couldn’t afford to, it occurred to her as she pulled her seat belt out of the crack in the seat.
Ann absently fastened it as Nick backed the truck out of the parking space. Maggie had said that his first wife had married him for his money and then proceeded to spend it like water. Could her extravagances have left him broke? Or at best, land rich but cash poor? It was certainly possible. She of all people knew what could happen when an unscrupulous spouse was given uncontrolled access to funds.
The familiar sense of defeat pressed down on her, but she made a valiant effort to shake it. It didn’t matter what kind of fool she’d been in the past, she told herself. She’d learned her lesson. She was no longer a young, impressionable woman who was expecting hearts, flowers and wild flights of passion from marriage. Now she was a mature thirty-three-year-old who had learned that it took a whole lot more to make a success of marriage than being in love. In fact, from what she’d seen, being in love was a distinct disadvantage. She’d been madly in love with Bill, and what had happened? She’d viewed him through rose-colored glasses, seeing him as she wanted him to be and not as he was. While she’d been dreaming about the future, he’d been busily running through her inheritance.
Ann shifted restlessly. In retrospect, she couldn’t believe that she had been so stupidly trusting. But never again. She’d paid a high price, but at least she’d learned. This time she was using her head. This time she intended to build a comfortable relationship with Nick based on mutual need and shared interests. And if there were no soaring heights of passion in this marriage, at least there wouldn’t be any depths of despair, either.
She glanced at Nick, who was little more than a shadow in the dim light reflected off the dashboard. Far more than the distance of a few feet seemed to separate them. Nervously, Ann chewed on her lip. He seemed so remote. So unreachable. But she didn’t need to reach him, she reminded herself. Nick was marrying her to get a mother for his daughter and a housekeeper for himself. Nothing had been said about his wanting a sexual partner. Surely if that aspect of marriage had been important to him, he would have at least alluded to it before this. But he hadn’t. Sex obviously wasn’t that important to Nick. So it wouldn’t matter to him that she was a total flop in that area.
“Is your daughter at the ranch?” Ann asked, using words to try to bridge the gulf between them.
“No,
