The Virgin Bride Said, 'Wow!'

KELSEY AND BRADY WENT straight to the bank, then headed back to the ranch. They were still wearing the boots, jeans, denim work shirts and hats they’d had on earlier in the day. The only difference were the matching dime-store wedding rings on their left ring fingers. “See,” Kelsey said after a while, trying not to worry about what she’d recklessly insisted they get themselves into, “I told you it’d be fine.”

Brady’s black brows drew together. To Kelsey’s consternation, he didn’t exactly look as if he agreed with her.

“Absolutely nothing has changed,” Kelsey continued, as she studied Brady’s strong, six-foot frame. Although he tended to be a little mysterious—he never talked to anyone about the life he’d had before he had landed in Laramie, Texas—there wasn’t a finer-looking cowboy or more capable cattleman around, as far as she was concerned. He was solidly muscled from head to toe and had shoulders that were broad enough to lean on. Not that she’d ever really done so. A suntanned face, and a smile that was sexy and reckless enough to make her heart skip a beat. And he made a good partner, too.

Brady turned his pickup truck into the lane, the fading afternoon sunlight casting shadows along their path. “Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” he said, nodding at the proliferation of cars and trucks in their drive. As she turned her gaze in the direction of his, it was all Kelsey could do not to groan out loud. It looked like a convention of the Lockharts and the McCabes. He turned to Kelsey expectantly. “Are we having a party I didn’t know about?” he asked.

Kelsey frowned, then allowed hesitantly, “Maybe a wedding reception.”

Brady’s lips came together firmly. He slanted her a glance. “What?”

“Well, you know my sisters.” Kelsey shrugged off the concern in Brady’s midnight-blue eyes. “And now that the word is out, they probably want to throw us a party or something to welcome you to the family.” As well as chew her out, big time, for not inviting them to witness the ceremony when they were all right there in town and could easily have attended and or tried to talk her out of doing such a reckless and impulsive thing in the first place.

Brady cut the motor on the pickup. “Sounds like fun,” he said unenthusiastically.

Judging by the surly look on his face, Kelsey guessed, the duplicity of what they had done was beginning to get to Brady, too. But knowing there was no going back and undoing anything, especially now that they had the money they needed sitting in the bank, Kelsey pushed open her door and jumped down from the truck. “I just hope they don’t have our family minister in there,” Kelsey said. If she had to say her vows in front of clergy, she’d really feel married. And she didn’t want to feel linked to Brady in that way. It was going to be hard enough as it was, pretending to one and all they were truly head over heels in love when they were in public. Noting Brady looked as alarmed about that prospect as she was feeling, Kelsey quickly reassured him. “They probably just have a cake or a wedding dress from my sister Jenna’s shop that they want me to wear for pictures. I’m sure we won’t have to say our vows again.” It had been hard enough rushing through the words the first time, without really meaning or even concentrating on the promises they were making to each other.

“Good.” Brady released a short sigh of relief. He lifted his hat and ran his hand through the inky-black layers of his hair, straightening the tousled layers as best he could. “’Cause, uh…”

“I understand perfectly,” Kelsey said, cutting him off and letting him know with a quick, decisive look that it wasn’t necessary to say more, as he slammed his hat back on his head and circled around the truck to join her. She knew he didn’t want to have to fib to people about the nature of their relationship any more than she did. “And I quite agree.” She linked hands with him—as much for moral support as show—and drew a deep breath, still holding her bouquet of Texas wildflowers and their certificate of marriage close to her chest. “There’s only so much pretending a body can take in one day.” Drawing strength from both his touch and the look in his eyes, she said, “Ready to go in and face the music?”

“Sure.” Brady grinned, abruptly looking as determined and devil-may-care as Kelsey had felt earlier. He shrugged and tightened his hand on hers. “Why not?”

Chapter Two

“I can’t believe you did this,” Meg Lockhart said the moment Kelsey and Brady walked in the door.

“So much for any hopes of a wedding reception,” Kelsey said lightly, as she looked at the faces gathered around her. Her oldest sister, Meg, was there with her doctor-husband Luke Carrigan. Second-oldest Jenna stood next to her, looking fashionably pretty in one of her own designs, with her rancher-businessman husband, Jake. Dani, who was closest in age to Kelsey and could usually be counted on to understand her little sister, was seated on the sofa, with her movie-star husband, Beau Chamberlain. Lilah and John McCabe rounded out the party. All looked grim, worried and very, very concerned about the nuptials that had just taken place, sans festivities of any kind. “This feels like an intervention,” Kelsey continued joking, hoping to bring a little levity to the situation.

“It is,” Jenna said. “And I called it.”

“Thanks, heaps.” Kelsey took off her hat and hung it on the rack next to the front door. She strode across the polished wood floor. “Just what Brady and I needed on our wedding night, a lecture times eight.”

“Believe it or not,” Dani said as she stood and put her right hand on her rounded tummy, “we just have your best interests at heart.”

“We’re all worried about you,” Meg agreed gently but firmly.

“Well, you needn’t be,” Kelsey shot right back. She linked her arm through Brady’s and put her head on his shoulder. “Because Brady and I are happy as can be.”

Everyone in the room sighed and frowned at that.

“You know we promised your parents we’d watch over you girls,” Lilah McCabe said.

“I’m not sure a business arrangement called a marriage is what they would want for you, Kelsey,” John McCabe added.

Kelsey’s conscience ignited like a match to a flame. Stubbornly, she pushed any doubts she had about what she was doing aside. In this case, she told herself firmly, the end did justify the means. “On the contrary, Dr. McCabe, I think they’d be very happy to see the ranch back in the family, and looking so good again.”

“I don’t think that’s what John and Lilah mean,” Jenna said a little testily.

Kelsey glared at her sister.

“We want you to have love, Kelsey,” Meg added.

“Passion,” Dani agreed.

“Not to mention a relationship that will stand the test of time,” John elaborated bluntly. He looked at Brady.

“Well, thank you all for your vote of confidence,” Kelsey said, more irritated than ever at the depth of familial interference going on. “But Brady and I want to be alone now, so…if you don’t mind…”

“Kelsey—” Meg started.

Knowing there was only one way to end it as quickly as she wanted to end it, Kelsey turned to her new husband, grabbed him by the shirtfront and tugged him toward her. She barely had time to register the surprise in his eyes before she planted a big kiss right on his lips.

BRADY HEARD THE GASPS around him as Kelsey’s soft, luscious lips pressed against his. He had two choices. He could push her away, which would humiliate her even more than she already had been that day by her own actions and the words of others. Or he could play along. Given how good, how right her lips felt molded to his, Brady decided to play along. Not content to be a passive participant at anything he did, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her up on tiptoe, so she was pressed even closer to him. And then the world faded away, as it became just the two of them. Locked together.

Only the sound of a collective “ahem” brought them back to reality. Reluctantly, Brady lifted his lips from hers and looked down at Kelsey. Her lips were dewy and pink, her eyes dazed with the same kind of wonder he felt. Heck of a first kiss, he thought. Heck of a first kiss.

“You know, maybe there’s a little more going on here than we realized.” Lilah McCabe was the first to speak.

“I think we should go and leave the newlyweds alone,” John McCabe concurred. He and Lilah led the way out the door, followed by the Lockhart sisters and their husbands.

“You hurt her,” Jake said to Brady, “you deal with us.” Beau and Luke nodded their confirmation of that threat. “You call if you need anything,” Beau told Kelsey sympathetically, before he exited with the group.

Jenna came back in. She put a key on the table beside the door. “My apartment above the shop is empty right now. Should either of you need it, for any reason, you feel free to use it.” She left again, too.

Motors started up. One by one, the vehicles headed down the lane to the highway. Kelsey looked at Brady. Brady looked at Kelsey. She had never looked more beautiful or desirable to him than she did at that very moment. He sighed. This was going to be a lot harder than he’d thought. A lot harder. Given the way she had just felt in his arms, he didn’t know how in the heck he was going to keep their relationship platonic. “I hate to say it, Kelse,” he drawled, “but I think we’ve just gotten ourselves into one heck of a mess.”

KELSEY COULDN’T HELP BUT notice the mixture of derision and regret in Brady’s low tone. Suddenly, it seemed the Lockharts and the McCabes weren’t the only ones worried about what she and Brady had done. Determined not to let herself fall prey to the same pessimism, Kelsey propped her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Why in the world would you say that?”

Brady rolled his eyes and continued to pace. “Besides the fact I’ve got the whole Lockhart-McCabe ‘army’ breathing down my neck?”

“They’re a little excited.” Kelsey plopped down on the sofa as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She shrugged, and continued, “They’ll get over it.”

Brady’s lips curved up on either side. “Before or after they pulverize me?” he asked. His probing glance made a leisurely tour of her body before returning to her eyes. “And speaking of pulverizing me, what was that kiss about just now?”

Kelsey had hoped he would be too nice a partner to bring that up. Guess not. Again, she pretended a lot more self-confidence and courage than she really felt. “I know we promised no sex.”

Brady’s midnight-blue eyes narrowed. “That was part of the deal, all right.”

“But we had to make it look good,” Kelsey persisted as she leapt to her feet once again. Unfortunately, Kelsey thought, it had felt good, too. Much more so than she had expected or ever experienced. But Brady didn’t need to know that.

Brady clamped a hand on her shoulder and spun her around to face him. His fingers were as warm and strong as the rest of him, his manner every bit as stubborn and headstrong as hers. “Are we going to have to keep on making it look good?”

Kelsey flushed and stepped back, out of reach. “What do you mean?” she demanded, still able to feel the impression of his touch, even though he was no longer holding on to her.

Brady’s eyes narrowed as he reminded her seriously, “Wade McCabe said if our marriage is nothing but a ruse to get his money—which, by the way, we’ve already taken—then he’s going to take the ranch from us.”

“I remember,” Kelsey said irritably.