Spur-Of-The-Moment Marriage Read online

  Max’s leathery face broke into a wide grin. “Oh, I think I owe you quite a bit, Cisco,” he remarked with unexpected gentleness. “Without your assistance, I could never’ve managed to marry off all three of my brother’s children to the loves of their lives in one rootin’-tootin’ forty-eight-hour period.”

  “They are happy, aren’t they?” Cisco noted, pleased with the way things had turned out.

  Max nodded solemnly. “And you should be happy, too,” Max said.

  Cisco did not trust the sudden mischievous twinkle in Max McKendrick’s eyes. It was the same twinkle the rambunctious old cowpoke got in his eyes when he’d talked about his matchmaking plans for Cody, Patience and Trace McKendrick. “What are you talking about?” Cisco demanded impatiently, bracing himself for the worst.

  Max slapped his cowboy hat against his knee. “Romance, pure and simple.”

  At the hint of matchmaking, Cisco noticed Gillian froze and paled considerably.

  “There’s nothing simple about romance, Max,” Gillian interrupted, her thick-lashed emerald green eyes glinting emotionally. “There never has been and never will be.”

  Ditto there, Cisco thought, agreeing wholeheartedly with the waif-size firebrand with the long, wildly curling auburn hair.

  “Which is exactly why I’ve decided both of you need my help picking out a mate,” Max explained.

  “Now hold on there a moment Max,” Cisco interrupted. He didn’t care if the thirty-year-old chef was pretty as could be, with her fair flawless skin, high cheekbones, pert turned-up nose and cover-girl smile. He did not want to be fixed up with anyone via one of Max’s grand plans.

  “I found the perfect woman for you, Cisco,” Max continued. “And the perfect man for you, Gillian.”

  “I know you may think you have,” Gillian sputtered, obviously incensed, the light dusting of pale auburn freckles across her nose standing out against the creamy porcelain of her skin. “But—”

  “All you two have to do is agree to a few terms of mine to collect your inheritances and—”

  “Inheritances!” Cisco interrupted disbelievingly. As Max’s attorney, he had drawn up Max’s will. He knew there was nothing in it for him or Gillian. Or at least there hadn’t been. And it hadn’t mattered to him. Not one whit It wasn’t money or property Cisco wanted from Max. It never had been. He’d thought Max understood that. “Listen to me, Max,” Cisco began, working hard to curtail his exasperation with the old man he loved. “You don’t need to give me anything—never mind pair me with anyone—when a simple thanks every now and again will do.”

  “The same goes for me,” Gillian added hastily.

  Max grinned wryly. “I’ll be the judge of what’s needed here, you two.”

  Cisco regarded him in exasperation. “Max, like you, I’m quite happy being a bachelor. Always have been. Always will be.”

  “And I like being single, too,” Gillian said passionately.

  Max shrugged, unconcerned, and folded his brawny arms in front of him. “That’s what my nephew Cody said, and look at him now.”

  Obviously, Cisco thought, now that Max was turning over most of his businesses to his heirs, and getting ready to retire, he had far too little to think about these days. “I don’t want to enter into a union that is destined to fail,” Cisco asserted bluntly.

  Max grinned triumphantly. “Trace felt the same reservations about the idea of getting back together with Susannah. He had no faith my idea for fixing his love life would work. But he gave it a chance, and look at him now. Look at them all.”

  “Susannah and Trace, Cody and Callie, and Patience and Josh are all deliriously happy with each other and their marriages,” Cisco agreed.

  “But they all had a romantic past with each other,” Gillian pointed out, taking Cisco’s side. “We don’t”

  Max grinned, like the wily old whippersnapper he was. “Then it’s, time we changed that, don’t you think?”

  DECIDING THE WHOLE McKendrick clan needed to hear the rest, Max rounded them up and brought them inside the tent, too. With arms crossed, he waited until they were all settled in their white folding chairs. “Now, I’m sorry for the interruption, but seeing as how I needed Cisco’s help as both an attorney and a matchmaker’s assistant the last few days, I could not get to my bequest to him until now.” Max pulled up a chair, too, and straddled it backward. “You see, Gillian, I feel partly to blame for Cisco’s lack of a wife. I’ve kept him so busy on the ranch and in the various business deals I’ve got going on that Cisco here’s had no time for romance. But all that is about to change.”

  “Look, Max,” Cisco said shortly as he tossed his hat down on a table and raked both hands through the slightly-too-long layers of his thick dark brown hair. “What you have done for Patience, Trace and Cody and their spouses is fine, but you don’t have to do the same for me,” Cisco emphasized bluntly. “I am, after all, only your attorney.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Cisco. You’ve been more than just my attorney for years now. You’ve become one of us McKendricks, heart and soul, and been like a son to me. That being the case, it’s only fair that I give you—and now Gillian, too—the same opportunity for happiness that I gave my other three heirs.”

  Max held up a palm to keep them from interrupting. “‘Course, I realize your situation with Gillian is a mite different, but I can already see the sparks aflyin’ whenever the two of you look at each other— to the point I know you two are made for each other. So I have decided to lasso you two a chance, and give you two the same forty-eight-hour time period I gave the others for courtship. Only, yours is going to have a twist—”

  “Oh, no,” Cody’s wife, Callie, muttered.

  “Here it comes,” Cody agreed.

  “I expect the two of you to be married during your courtship. And during this spur-of-the-moment matrimony of yours, the two of you will have to stick to each other like glue, with only three thirty-minute breaks apart. I figure at the end of that time, you’ll know in your hearts and souls what I already do— that the two of you are meant to be together for the long haul, too.”

  “And if we don’t agree to this spur-of-the-moment marriage?” Gillian asked, stunned. “Then what?”

  “Then I’m afraid the two of you are both going to have to forfeit your inheritances,” Max said, nodding at them sadly. “And that is an awful lot to give up. On the other hand, if you marry in the ceremony I have planned for you in just fifteen minutes, at the end of the forty-eight hours, Gillian will receive half ownership in the honeymoon cottage nestled in the trees at the foot of the Silver Ridge Mountains, as well as outright ownership of the Silver Spur logging camp kitchen and dining hall, with a lifelong contract with the ranch to expand her operation to supply meals for all the Silver Spur Ranch crews. Owning this business will give you the financial independence every woman should have,” Max said gently. “The cottage—a home.”

  Neither of which, Gillian thought a tad wistfully, she’d had in a very long time.

  “As for Cisco,” Max continued, his generosity seeming to have no bounds, “I intend for you to have sole ownership of all my land and businesses and residential properties in Fort Benton, as well as half ownership in the aforementioned honeymoon cottage at Silver Ridge, so that you too will always have a home on the Silver Spur.”

  Gillian had only to slant a look at Cisco to know how he secretly longed to have just that.

  Max continued in the same blunt, serious manner, “If, however, the two of you fail to meet the terms I am setting out for you, then you two will share a nontransferable ownership of the honeymoon cottage, but each of you will forfeit the businesses I am leaving you and the security they would bring.” He smiled at them fondly. “In either case, the two of you will be bound together for all eternity through your joint ownership of the honeymoon cottage.”

  As lovable and outlandish as Max McKendrick was, he was taking far too much for granted, Gillian thought. Especially in pressing them to get married,
just fifteen minutes from now! She leaned forward earnestly. “Max, I know what you’ve done for your niece and nephews and their respective spouses is nothing short of a miracle. And believe me, no one admires your ability to work matchmaking magic more than me,” she said softly as she pressed a hand over her heart. “But Cisco and I do not fall into the same category as the others.”

  “Gillian’s right, Max,” Cisco agreed hastily. “No one appreciates more than I the fact that you’re treating me like a member of the family, but Gillian and I can’t just get married in fifteen minutes. There are blood tests and waiting periods and licenses to consider—”

  “Doc’s standing by with the results of the blood tests from the ranch physicals the two of you recently took, and I’ve been told they’ll do just fine. There’s a court clerk here ready to issue the license, and the usual waiting time has been-waived.” Max regarded them, looking very proud of himself. “Anything else bothering the two of you?”

  “Yes. We can’t stay together for forty-eight hours because we each have to work.” Gillian said.

  Again, Max smiled in that you-don’t-need-to-worry way. “I’ve prearranged for you both to get time off from work. Gillian, we’ve got a substitute chef coming in from Butte, starting with the Monday-morning shift. You don’t have to worry about tomorrow, ‘cause the kitchen’s always closed on Sundays anyway. Cisco, your secretary is taking a vacation and attorney Roy McNamara is going to handle anything needing immediate attention, in your absence. So the two of you are all set in that regard, too.”

  “Seems like Uncle Max has thought of everything,” Patience McKendrick commented to Cisco.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Cisco muttered, looking every bit as angst-ridden as the rest of his unofficial siblings had been when they’d been unexpectedly roped into Max’s matrimonial plans for them.

  Max picked up on that, and addressed the issue. “Son, from the moment I met you I believed in you with all my heart, ‘cause I knew that you could do anything you set your mind to. I felt the same thing about Gillian.” Max held up a hand before either of them could interrupt. “Now, I know it’s not going to be easy. Just remember, wanting something is half the battle. Working for it, despite the often-powerful adversities you encounter, is the other half. So when you find happiness, as you two surely will, you need to forget your fears, forget all the reasons why you think this spur-of-the-moment marriage of yours won’t work, and reach out with both hands and grab the happiness that is waiting for you. I guarantee if the two of you listen to your hearts, you’ll know what to do. Now, Cisco, you get down on one knee and ask Gillian to marry you.”

  Cisco looked at Gillian and knew there was no way she figured that he would do as Max bid. And he probably wouldn’t have, had he been paired with any woman but the elusive Gillian Taylor. Just to get her goat, he took her hand in his and got down on one knee. “Gillian, will you marry me?” he repeated drolly, as the entire McKendrick clan gasped and chortled and whooped with glee.

  Gillian blinked, clearly stunned. “I can’t believe this,” she muttered, looking both confused and incensed. “You’re actually proposing?”

  “Heck, yes,” Cisco acknowledged with mock indignity. “So what do you say?” he asked, bracing himself for the inevitable “No” from Gillian that would end this cockeyed matchmaking plan of Max’s once and for all.

  Gillian smiled at Cisco ruefully and drew him up off his knees.

  “I say…I accept.”

  Chapter Two

  Deciding they were standing much too close, Cisco stepped away from her. He had to have misunderstood. “What did you say?”

  “Just what you think I said,” Gillian answered, pink color sweeping across her cheeks. “I accept.”

  “Well, what do you know.” Cody McKendrick grinned knowingly as Cisco stood there, shaking his head in wonderment. “Looks like Cisco finally met his match.”

  “And not a moment too soon,” Patience McKendrick added with an amused grin.

  To Cisco’s chagrin, Max seemed to think so, too.

  “I think these two need a moment alone,” Max decided. “Tell you what. While you two lovebirds are working out the, uh, details of your union, the rest of us will round up your wedding clothes. When you’re ready, give a whistle, and we’ll bring ‘em to you so you can change before the ceremony.”

  “Remember now, you’ve only got fifteen minutes,” Trace McKendrick teased.

  “Less, if you actually want to be garbed in your wedding clothes at the time you’re wed,” Susannah added with a wink and a smile.

  In unison, Pearl Pendergraph—who’d been suspiciously silent—and the McKendricks exited the tent. Alone, Gillian and Cisco faced off once again.

  Gillian tilted her head slightly to the side. “Didn’t think I’d say yes, did you?” Gillian said.

  Cisco shrugged and tried not to notice how appealing he found the soft, hyacinth scent of Gillian’s perfume, or how curvy her petite body was beneath the long, flowing lines of her dress. He drew himself up to his full height and regarded her with a steady, probing gaze. “Why did you?” he questioned.

  “Probably the same reason you got down on one knee and asked,” Gillian murmured, turning her eyes from his. “To please Max. To join in the fun and be a part of the McKendrick clan, just this once.”

  “You’re telling me you’ve got wedding fever?” Cisco queried. He, for one, didn’t buy it.

  Gillian kept her eyes on his a disconcertingly long time, then lifted her pretty chin and regarded him defiantly. “It’s a romantic evening.”

  “So it is.”

  She blushed at the derision in his low tone. “But you don’t think that’s all it is.”

  “No,” Cisco said emphatically. “I don’t.”

  “Well, then…” Gillian shrugged and started to walk away.

  Cisco clamped a gentle hand on her wrist before she could even take a step. She might be the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on in his life, and she might have led him on one heck of a merry chase, but this one time she was not running out on him. As she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and gave him a droll look, he said softly, “Let’s forget about the idea of us getting married for one second here and just cut to the chase, shall we?” With his free hand, he ran his fingers along his jaw. “I’ve been over your résumé and I know you didn’t put forth accurate information—”

  Gillian stiffened rebelliously under his bluntly assessing gaze.

  “—but I don’t know the whole story. That,” Cisco continued, leaning in close enough to take in the intoxicating fragrance of her perfume, and the annoyed sparkle in her green eyes, “I can only get from you. ‘Cause I figure if you misrepresented certain facts there has to be a very good reason.” He released her with that bold declaration.

  Her sassy chin lifted. Her eyes, serious and determined, now met his. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gillian replied with a stubbornness that would have been winning if it were not so ill-advised.

  Cisco noted the way she was suddenly trembling, and he continued to regard her complacently. “You don’t need to fear me because I know something’s not right with your life,” he said gently.

  The flush in Gillian’s cheeks deepened. She leveled him with the angry flash in her eyes. “I don’t…fear you.”

  Well, she sure as heck feared something! Cisco thought, taking in the little jump in her pulse at the base of her throat. “I’m not going to spill anything,” Cisco continued.

  “Why not,” Gillian shot right back, her look turning increasingly mutinous and betrayed, “if you really think I’ve misrepresented myself to the McKendricks?”

  Cisco sighed. Damn, but she was not going to be easy to help out, but he was determined to try anyway. “The fact you’ve worked side by side with Trace’s wife, Susannah, is proof of your excellent character,” he explained, letting his gaze drift over her fair, flawless skin and soft lips before returning to her eyes.
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br />   “So?”

  “So I want to help you,” Cisco explained.

  “Well, you can’t,” she told him as she folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts.

  Cisco tore his gaze from the soft, womanly curves of her breasts and returned his attention to her upturned face. Eyeing her unhappily, he asked, “How do you know unless you take me into your confidence and let me try? I am an attorney, you know.”

  Gillian quirked her auburn brow. “Look, I don’t know where you get these crazy ideas of yours, but I’m not running from the law, if that’s what you think!”

  “No one said you were,” Cisco replied just as deliberately, aware that just looking at Gillian made his lower body come alive in a way it hadn’t in quite some time.

  “But there is something that’s scaring you—otherwise you wouldn’t have that haunted look in your eyes whenever the subject of your past comes up. Otherwise there wouldn’t be those discrepancies on your résumé and in what you’ve told Susannah about your past.”

  Not wanting his advantage lessened in any way, he held up a hand before she could interrupt. “Yes, you attended chef school at Susannah’s behest and cooking classes here and there, but there’s no record of you ever attending UCLA twelve years ago.”

  By now, she looked mad enough to spit nails. “I assure you I attended college,” she informed him with a cool haughtiness that would have taken down a lesser man.

  “And studied liberal arts,” Cisco specified, not about to give up until he got at least a few answers, no matter how feisty she became.

  “Yes, although I never earned a degree.”

  “Then why isn’t your name in the university computer?”

  Gillian shrugged. “How should I know? Perhaps there was a clerical error.”

  Silence ticked out between them. Gillian paced back and forth, the skirt of her long feminine dress swirling about her legs. Her arms still clamped firmly beneath the soft swell of her breasts, she continued to regard him warily. “Are you sure you gave the university the right name and Social Security number?” she asked warily, after a moment.