The Rancher's One-Week Wife (12 page)

“You won’t understand,” she said quietly. She shook her head. “I’m not even sure it makes sense.”

“Why don’t you tell me and maybe we can make sense of it together?” he suggested, loving that she was in his arms again and wasn’t pushing away from him.

She remained silent for a minute before she finally spoke. “From the moment we moved to the Midwest my mother hated it and before it was over with, she despised my father as well.” She turned her head to give him a pointed look. “After she and I moved back to New York she blamed him for everything that went wrong in her life—the loss of her career, her unhappiness. Sometimes I even think she didn’t like me because I was part of him.”

When she fell silent, Blake kissed her cheek and hugged her close. “I’m sure she loved you, sweetheart.”

She shrugged one slender shoulder. “Whether she did or not, I was afraid that if I discovered I didn’t like living outside of a city the same thing would happen to us.” Tears filled her blue eyes when she looked at him. “I care too much for you to let that happen, Blake. You deserved better than to be resented and blamed for something you had no control over.”

Giving her a kiss that left them both breathless, he raised his head to smile at her. “I love you, too, sweetheart. I always have and I always will.”

That was all it took for the floodgates to open and when she lay her head on his shoulder, Blake held her while her tears ran their course. He hated seeing a woman cry, but Karly’s tears were especially gut-wrenching. She was crying for the child who had doubted her mother’s love, as well as what her parents’ mistakes had almost cost the two of them.

When she raised her head he handed her a tissue from the box on the table. “Feel better now?” he asked, smiling at the only woman he had ever loved.

Her cheeks turned a rosy pink. “I’m sorry. I hate being so emotional.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Karly,” he said, kissing her forehead. “It’s my job to be here for you during the bad times, as well as the good.”

“I love you so much, Blake,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck.

“And I love you, Karly,” he said, hugging her tightly against him.

They sat that way for some time, content just to be in each other’s arms.

“So where are we going to live?” he finally asked.

She sat back to give him a strange look. “I...assume we’ll live in Wyoming at your ranch.”

“Only if that’s where you want to live,” he assured her. “As long as I have you, I’ll live anywhere and make a trip back to the ranch periodically.”

“Blake, I was wrong,” she said, placing her soft palms on his cheeks to gaze into his eyes. “I love your ranch.”

“Our ranch,” he amended. “It’s yours now, as much as it is mine.”

She shook her head. “All I want is you.”

“Do you really want to argue about this now?” he asked, laughing.

Smiling, she shook her head. “I want to live with you on the Wolf Creek Ranch. That’s where I want to ride Suede and help you feed bucket babies and raise our own babies.” Her smile faded. “I know we haven’t talked about it, but you do want a family, don’t you?”

“There are a lot of things we haven’t talked about,” he said, nodding. “But now that you’re coming home with me, we have plenty of time to share our hopes and dreams.” When she continued to look at him, he grinned. “Yes, Karly. I want a family and I’ll be more than happy to give you all the babies you want.”

“I love you so much,” she said, snuggling against him. “I can’t wait to go back home.”

His chest tightened with emotion at her reference to the ranch as home. “There’s something else I intended to do for you after we got married in Vegas.”

“What’s that?” she asked, kissing his neck.

Her lips sent a flash fire blazing through his veins and he had to take a deep breath in order to answer her. “The ceremony we had in Vegas wasn’t very fancy and I want to see that you have the wedding of your dreams.”

“Oh, Blake, I would love that,” she said, tears filling her eyes once again. “But we’ll have to wait until spring.”

He frowned. “Why would we have to do that?”

“I’d really like to renew our vows out on the patio by the waterfall,” she said, looking hopeful. “I think it would be beautiful if we could have a sunset wedding.”

“We can make that happen,” he said, nodding. “It’s warm enough right now. How about this coming weekend?”

“We don’t have time to arrange everything,” she said, looking doubtful.

“Sweetheart, you’d be surprised how quickly things can be arranged when you have the money to do it,” he said, laughing.

“How about the following weekend?” she asked. “I really need time to think about what I want.”

“That sounds good to me,” he said, standing up with her in his arms.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he carried her across the living room.

“I’m going to take my wife into her bedroom and make love to her,” he said, kissing her soundly. “Then while you go to work, I’m going to try to get some sleep. Do you know how uncomfortable that damned couch is?”

Her laughter was one of the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard. “After we make love, I’m going to call and tell my boss that I won’t be coming back. Then I’m going to stay in bed and take a nap because I didn’t get much sleep last night, either.”

As he placed her on the bed and stretched out beside her, Blake kissed her soft, perfect lips. “Are you sure you want to quit your job, Karly? I don’t want you doing anything you might regret.”

“I’m positive.” She reached for the snaps on his chambray shirt. “Now, will my husband please make love to me?”

They could plan their wedding and discuss her decision to quit her job later. Right now, he had his beautiful wife asking him to make love to her and she wasn’t going to have to ask him twice.

“I love you, Karly Ewing Hartwell. You own me, heart and soul.”

“And I love you, Blake. More than you’ll ever know.”

Epilogue

T
wo weeks later, as Karly stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom she’d used at the foreman’s cottage, she waited for Tori Laughlin to work the tiny buttons through the decorative loops at the back of her long, white satin and lace strapless wedding gown. “Is Eli here with the carriage?” she asked.

“He just arrived,” Tori answered, finishing with the buttons on Karly’s dress. She walked over and picked up the veil they’d laid out on the bed earlier. “Thank heavens Blake got the road asphalted these past two weeks. I’d hate to see your beautiful dress covered in Wyoming dust.”

Karly nodded. “I couldn’t believe how quickly the crew from the construction company finished surfacing the road from here to the main house.”

“It doesn’t take long,” Tori said as she pinned the tulle and lace to the back of Karly’s loosely upswept hair. When Karly’s new best friend stepped back, she smiled. “You’re going to knock the socks off Blake when he sees you in this.”

“That’s the plan,” Karly said, smiling as she looked at herself in the full length mirror.

After she and Blake returned to the ranch from Seattle, Karly had gone into full wedding mode and, with Tori’s recommendation, hired a wedding planner from Cheyenne. The woman had been nothing short of a miracle worker and once Karly had told her what she wanted and the date, all that had been left for Karly to do was decide on the perfect dress. Fortunately, she found what she wanted at the first bridal shop she and Tori visited and once the alterations were completed there really hadn’t been all that much for her to do.

A knock on the door signaled that it was time for Eli to drive them over to the main house for the ceremony that would renew Karly and Blake’s wedding vows. When Tori opened the door he grinned. “You ladies look beautiful.” Eli kissed his wife. “Blake and I are the two luckiest guys this side of the Great Divide.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Tori said, kissing her husband’s cheek. Turning to Karly, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“I’m more than ready,” Karly said, picking up the bouquet the wedding planner had delivered earlier.

As they made their way downstairs and out to the white horse-drawn carriage that would take them over to the main house for the ceremony, Karly couldn’t stop smiling. She felt a little like Cinderella and knowing that her very own Prince Charming would be waiting to help her down from the carriage once they arrived at the ranch house made her impatient to get there. She hadn’t seen Blake since earlier in the day when Tori arrived to take them to get their hair and nails done down in Eagle Fork and she’d missed him terribly.

When Eli drove the carriage up the drive to the log mansion, Karly’s breath caught at the sight of Blake waiting for them at the end of the sidewalk leading to the patio. Dressed in a Western cut tuxedo, black snake-skin boots and a wide brimmed black hat, he truly was the man of her dreams.

“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered close to her ear as he lifted her down from the carriage.

“You clean up real nice yourself, cowboy,” Karly said, rising on tiptoes to kiss his lean cheek.

“Are you ready to become Mrs. Hartwell?” he asked as he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and started walking toward the waterfall where the minister and his brother Sean were waiting on them.

“I’m already Mrs. Hartwell,” she said, loving her new last name.

He nodded. “But this time it’s permanent, sweetheart.”

As she glanced toward the Western sky, the sun was just beginning to sink behind the mountain peaks and it was time for her sunset wedding to begin. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my entire life,” she said as they walked past over a hundred guests assembled on the patio.

* * *

As the last of their wedding guests drove away from the ranch house, Blake took Karly in his arms and kissed her until she sagged against him. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, taking her by the hand to lead her around to the other side of the pool.

When he stopped by the fire pit where he’d lain a small amount of kindling, the woman he loved more than life itself looked up at him like he’d lost every ounce of sense he possessed. “Seriously? Do you really want to build a fire now?”

Happier than he’d ever been, he grinned. “Trust me. I think you’ll like this.”

“I was looking forward to going upstairs to give you a wedding surprise of my own,” she said as she continued to stare at him.

“I promise this won’t take long,” he said, lighting the dry wood. When the fire began to crackle, Blake reached into the inside pocket of his tuxedo and pulled out an envelope. “I thought we could get rid of these together.”

A look of understanding sparkled in her pretty blue eyes and a smile curved her lips. “The divorce papers. I had forgotten all about them.”

“I hadn’t,” he said, removing the documents from the envelope. He gave them to her, then just as they’d done when they cut their wedding cake, he covered her hand with his and they tossed them onto the fire together.

As they watched the papers curl and turn black as they burned, Blake held Karly close. “Now that we have that taken care of, what’s this about you having a gift for me?”

Her lovely smile sent his blood pressure sky-high. “You’ll have to wait until early summer for the actual gift. But I can tell you about it.”

He leaned forward to press his lips to hers. “I’m listening.”

“It’s going to be small and loud at times,” she said, grinning. “And you’re probably going to lose a lot of sleep because of it.”

Blake had no idea where she was going with this, but she definitely had his full attention. “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Would you like to tell me what
it
is?”

“I don’t know yet.” Something about the look in her eyes caused the air to lodge in his lungs a moment before she grinned. “But as soon as we find out, we’ll be redecorating the room across the hall from the master suite in either pink or blue.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“No, we’re pregnant,” she said, laughing. “
We
got me into this together and
we’re
going to get me out of it. Together.”

He suddenly couldn’t stop grinning and he was pretty sure he looked like a damned fool. He couldn’t have cared less. They were going to have a baby.

Pulling her in his arms, he kissed her until they both gasped for breath. “It happened the morning we worked things out.”

She nodded. “We were so caught up in the moment, that’s the only time we forgot about protection.”

“I love you, Karly Hartwell,” he said around the lump clogging his throat.

When he swung her up into his arms and started toward the house, she cupped his face with her soft palm. “And I love you, Blake. Now, please take me upstairs so I can show you just how much.”

* * * * *

If you liked this tale of strong, sexy cowboys, pick up
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE TEXAN
series from
USA TODAY
bestselling author Kathie DeNosky:

HIS MARRIAGE TO REMEMBER
A BABY BETWEEN FRIENDS
YOUR RANCH...OR MINE?
THE COWBOY’S WAY
PREGNANT WITH THE RANCHER’S BABY
TEMPTED BY THE TEXAN

Available now from Harlequin Desire!

***

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Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE BOSS’S BABY ARRANGEMENT
by Catherine Mann.

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