The McClintock Proposal

Pushing back from the table, Rod tossed several dollars on the table. Callie scooped them up and counted out the eight dollars.

“Not enough?” Rod reached for his wallet.

“No. Very generous, considering we got our own food. I’m trying to keep track of how much I owe you, once I get my hands on some money.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re husband and wife, remember?”

She sucked in her lower lip and sighed. “I’m going to have to hit you up once more. I want to get out of this dress. Not taking a shower or brushing my teeth for twenty-four hours is bad enough.”

He plucked some bills out of his wallet. “Buy yourself some clothes, a couple of toothbrushes and some toothpaste, and I’ll roam the hotel hallways and filch some soap from a maid’s cart. We’ll clean up in one of the bathrooms before we take off.”

A half-hour later—armed with two bars of soap and two towels tucked under his arm—Rod met Callie outside the shop where she’d bought her shoes. She handed him a toothbrush after squeezing some toothpaste onto the bristles, and he headed for the men’s room. After he brushed his teeth and washed his face and neck, he hung the hotel towel over one of the stalls in the bathroom.

He caught his breath when Callie emerged from the ladies’ room, her blond hair pulled back into a silky mane. The blue, flowered skirt brushed her slim calves, and the blue top matched the color of her eyes.

She looked pretty in the wedding dress, but it belonged to another time, another life.

The valet delivered his truck, and Rod pulled forward, idling at the end of the hotel driveway. “Okay, where to? Do you need to go straight to the ranch?”

“No.” She tossed the wedding dress into the backseat. “I need to see my grandfather’s attorney first.”

“It’s still Sunday. His office won’t be open.” Rod pulled out the GPS and secured it to the windshield. “And by the time we roll into Wyoming, it’ll be close to ten o’clock at night.”

She tilted her head, her ponytail slipping over her shoulder. “My grandfather’s attorney isn’t in Wyoming.”

“I figured his attorney would be near the ranch.” His fingers hovered over the GPS screen.

“It is, but the ranch isn’t in Wyoming.”

“You said he built a house on his ranch in Wyoming.”

“Oh that. In all the excitement and prewedding jitters, I forgot to mention that he sold that original ranch and bought another one…in Colorado.”

A prickling sensation attacked the back of his neck, and Rod rubbed it. “Colorado?”

“The ranch is in Colorado, and my grandfather’s attorney is in Durango. So you see, we don’t have that far to go. But you’re right, his office will be closed on Sunday. So I guess it’s to the ranch first. Un-unless you want to go to your home.”

“Where is your ranch in Colorado?”

“It’s outside of Durango in a former mining town, Silverhill.”

Swallowing, Rod gripped the steering wheel with both hands, a low roar building in his ears. “Does the ranch have a name?”

“Yeah, the irony of it hit me on the road. You know how we were in Truth or Consequences?”

Rod nodded, his throat too tight to speak.

“Grandfather Ennis named his ranch Price Is Right. Isn’t that a coincidence? Another game show? Maybe it was a sign.”

“Price?”

“My last name.” She snorted. “I know we didn’t formally introduce ourselves but I’m, or rather I was, Callie Price.”

The roar in his ears cascaded in a thunderous roll. Callie Price. Ennis Price, the eccentric old man who owned Price Is Right. The ranch right next to his own.

The ranch he just acquired by marrying old man Price’s granddaughter.

Chapter Four

The knuckles on the strong hands grasping the steering wheel bleached white, matching the line etched around her new husband’s mouth. By revealing the name of the ranch, did she convince him that her relatives consisted of a bunch of howl-at-the-moon crazies?

Her fingers danced along the braided muscles of his forearm. “Don’t worry. My family members aren’t half as crazy as they seem. Besides, it’s not as if we’re going to procreate.”

Not that she’d mind a few attempts at procreation with this hunk of sexy cowboy. She clenched her hands in her lap, trying to squelch the impure thoughts about her husband that galloped in her head.

Ignoring her attempt at a joke, Rod uncurled his hands from the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. “Silverhill, Colorado?”

“Near Durango.” She tapped the GPS screen. “Should take us about nine hours. And don’t go all macho on me. Let me take over the wheel when we’re halfway there. I like to drive. Heck, I live in L.A. Our butts are practically glued to the seats of our cars.”

That twisted a smile out of those sensuous lips, still tightly pursed. Maybe the food and coffee had restored him to his senses, and he was aware of the lunacy of this scheme.

Tough.

Rod’s cheap wedding ring burned a circle around her finger, and she had their marriage license ready to wave in the face of her grandfather’s attorney, Douglas Smyth Jr. Once Smyth stamped her name and Rod’s on the title to Price Is Right, she’d sell off or borrow some money from the property, pay off Dad’s debt to Bobby and hand over a tidy sum of cash to Rod for his part of the bargain.

Beyond that, she faced a murky future. She didn’t have a clue what to do with a deserted ranch in Colorado. Maybe she’d sell the whole thing and return to L.A. She could start over with a new studio and buy a house in a good school district—prove to child services that she could provide a good home for five-year-old Jesse. That boy needed her as much as she needed him.

It had been over five months since she’d seen him, although she’d called him several times from New Mexico. He still remembered her, although he seemed distant, guarded, in their last conversation. She wouldn’t desert him like everyone else had.

She sniffled. First things first. She popped the GPS off the windshield and entered Silverhill, Colorado, hesitating over the address entry. “Not sure what the address of the ranch is out there, but Silverhill’s a small town. I’m sure someone can direct us to the ranch, once we roll in.”

His jaw still tight, Rod started the engine of the truck and pulled away from the curb of the Milano. “About the ranch…”

Oh God, here it comes. The regret. The misgivings. The chivalry… The annulment?

“Stop. You saved me. Twice. You fought off Bobby’s thugs and you agreed to marry me. You changed your plans and put your life on hold to help me—a complete stranger.”

“But I…”

Callie held up her hands. “I know you’re probably thinking people will peg you as a gold-digging cad, marrying me for money, but I know that’s not true. And what do you care what the people in Silverhill, Colorado, have to say?”

“I do care. I know—”

“I understand your real reasons, and that’s all that matters. You didn’t know who I was and that I stood to inherit a bunch of land in Colorado when you rescued me at the side of the road. You didn’t think there would be anything in it for you when you pummeled Bobby’s guys and bloodied your own knuckles. And now here you are, married to someone you’d never laid eyes on, miles away from your home in…in…” She waved her hands around, not having a clue where he lived. “You will have earned every penny I can give you from the ranch.”

She collapsed back in her seat, panting. “So don’t get any ideas about ending this marriage. I need you. I need you to get that ranch, save my father and maybe even to save myself.”

Ending on a sob, she allowed a single teardrop to tremble on the end of her lashes. As she slid her gaze in Rod’s direction, the tear wobbled and then dripped onto her cheek.