have a proposition for you.”
She began walking, and he fell into step beside her.
“What sort of proposition?”
“I want you to marry me.”
Her feet simply stopped working, and she halted, frozen to the sidewalk. He what? What sort of cruel joke was this? Poor, pregnant Alex. Surely he didn’t think she was that desperate! He could take his pity and—
Her head lifted until she looked down her nose at him. “I couldn’t have just heard you correctly.”
He grabbed her forearms, turning her to face him, his hand catching on the umbrella dangling from her wrist. “I want you to marry me.” He huffed out a laugh of surprise. “That wasn’t how I planned to say it, but there you go.”
He wanted her to marry him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. What on earth? She realized he was completely in earnest. He was proposing to her in the middle of the street at one-twenty-two in the morning.
“I met you less than twelve hours ago. You’re insane. Goodnight, Connor.”
She turned to walk away, and made it a few steps.
“Wait.”
The desperation in his voice caught at her and she stopped. “Wait for what? You can’t be serious about this.”
“I am. And I’ll explain it if you’ll only listen.”
His suit was rather rumpled, and his hair looked as if he’d spent the better part of the evening running his hands through it. Against her better judgment she capitulated. He’d helped her this afternoon, and she felt obligated to him. “You have five minutes.”
“Let’s keep walking.”
Shoulder to shoulder they headed down the street. It was considerably cool after the violence of the earlier shower, and Alex shivered in the damp air. Gallantly he removed his suit coat and draped it over her shoulders. If nothing else, all his actions said he was a gentleman.
“I went to see my grandmother today. I have a trust fund, but I can’t access it until I’m thirty.”
“So old? I thought most of those were age of consent, or twenty-one or whatever?”
“My parents set it up that way. Anyway, I’m twenty-nine. But I need the cash now.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with me.” She kept walking, her eyes straight ahead. If she looked into his, all dark and earnest, she knew she’d be taken in. She’d been in danger of it earlier today.
She knew what it was to be fooled by a pair of beautiful peepers. And now she knew better than to do it again.
“This’ll make sense, if you actually let me explain,” he answered. “There is a provision. I can have the money if I’m married.”
“I see.” She didn’t, really, but it was getting slightly less muddled.
“I think Mom and Dad set it up that way so I’d be old enough not to squander it, but that if I got married it would help me and my bride.”
“Good logic.”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
She felt his eyes on her but refused to meet his gaze. “I don’t know you, Connor. But I agreed to listen, so I will.”
“Look,” he said, with a hand on her arm, stopping her. “If I don’t get some cash soon I’m going to lose our ranch. That ranch has been in our family for over a hundred years.”
“Why are you in such trouble?” The last thing she needed was a man who didn’t know how to manage his own affairs. Lord knew she’d screwed up enough on her own. But at least they’d been her mistakes to make and fix. What surprised her most was that she was already intrigued, instead of flatly telling him to take a hike. She couldn’t escape the gentle way he’d helped her this afternoon. How he’d bought her peppermint tea and actually seemed to care about what happened to her.
“There’s been an outbreak of cattle disease. It took everything I had to get us through the last crisis. But now…another case, up north. It’s going to cripple the whole industry. Yet I’ve got a herd to sustain. A lot of farms will go under because of this. I refuse to let Windover be one of them.”
She’d read the news, and knew the situation was as serious as he said. This wasn’t mismanagement. This was a situation completely out of his control.
“You need some way to support yourself and the baby. What I’m talking about here is a mutually beneficial arrangement. You marry me, I get my trust fund, and Windover survives the crisis. After the baby is born, and you’re back on your feet, you can do what you choose, and I’ll make sure there’s money in your bank account every month.”
“A paper marriage, then?”
He sighed and looked down into her eyes. Yep, she’d been right. A woman could lose herself in those chocolate eyes and find herself agreeing to all kinds of madness.
“Yes. It won’t be a traditional marriage. Look, it’s not like this is what I wanted for myself. Believe me, I’ve exhausted every possible angle trying to find a way to keep things going. I’m looking at this practically. I get what I need and you get some help. We are both in predicaments here and are in the position of being able to help each other. Nothing more.”
“Marriage isn’t supposed to be a business arrangement.”
That took him by surprise, she could tell. It probably did seem strange, coming from a woman who was practically homeless, single and pregnant. He might be shocked to discover how she truly felt about love and marriage. Not that she’d ever breathe a word of that to him. No way.
“I know. It’s supposed to be love and commitment forever. And I do want that someday.” His cheekbones softened as he looked away. “A wife who loves me as I love her, and children of our own. A partner to share the ups and downs with. Honor and strength, and knowing you’re stronger together than apart.”
A devastatingly sexy man with traditional values. Could he possibly know how rare that was?
“I’d be a means to an end,” she confirmed, the words coming out strangled. She shook off his hand and started walking again.
“That sounds cold,” he said gently. “We would be helping each other. I want that happy ending…and I’m assuming you do too. Someday in the future. We’d be doing what we need to do now to survive. I’m hoping we would become friends.”
Friends. Now, that sounded dangerous. Her footsteps made squishing noises in the film of water on the concrete. What he was suggesting was outrageous. Preposterous. Humili-ating.
“I think you’re crazy.” She stopped outside a pale yellow house. “Thanks for the walk home.”
“Alex, please. Don’t say no yet, OK? Just think about it. I know it’s not romantic. But leave all that behind and look at the facts, OK? You’d have
