The Cowboy Encounter Read online

  “A-hem!”

  Warwick lifted his head, and Becca looked over Warwick’s shoulder. Leo watched them with a knowing grin.

  Warwick pulled away slowly.

  “This here is a barn,” Leo said. “But that don’t mean you get to act like animals. We do that inside the bedroom.” His smile softened the censure of his words.

  Warwick took her hand, returned Leo’s grin, and led Becca into the house. She stumbled along beside him, her thoughts racing. She wanted to kiss him again—just as an experiment. It had certainly felt real. She thought of all her other sexy dreams—had they made her pulse skitter? Had they caused her head to swim and her knees to buckle?

  Warwick tugged on her hand, and she let him lead her to wherever he wanted to go. If she told him that she wanted to kiss him again, she was pretty sure he’d be game. So, why go back in the house?

  She balked.

  Warwick turned to her, his eyebrows raised in a question.

  “Will you kiss me again?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s time for breakfast.” He dropped her hand and strode into the house.

  Feeling rebuffed, Becca followed.

  Hilda fussed over the food: a mountain of hash browns, a tower of pancakes, long strips of bacon, and a slippery pile of fried eggs. Becca tried to smile at all the cholesterol as she settled into a chair.

  Hilda sat in a chair beside her husband and reached for him. Leo took his wife’s hand before he picked up Becca’s. Warwick claimed her other hand. Everyone but Becca bowed their heads.

  “Dear Lord,” Leo prayed. “Bless this food and bless our family and friends. Amen.”

  Becca had never been religious, but Leo’s simple prayer tugged at her. She felt cold when both Leo and Warwick dropped her hands and picked up their forks.

  No one spoke while they ate. Becca wasn’t hungry, and she stirred the food on her plate, trying to process her feelings.

  She knew that she should want to leave for Denver as soon as possible so that she could rescue Joel, but if she was honest with herself, that’s not what she wanted at all.

  She looked at Warwick. He caught her gaze and winked.

  She wanted Warwick.

  No.

  This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how the delusion was supposed to go.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Hilda said without looking up from her plate, “but I invited a few friends over tonight to celebrate your wedding.”

  Becca opened her mouth to say that they were leaving, but Warwick spoke first.

  “Now Hilda, how do you expect me to believe that in just a few short hours you got invitations to your neighbors? You didn’t even know we were coming. In fact, you didn’t even know I was married.”

  Hilda met his gaze and blushed. “Well, they were all coming over anyway for a barbeque, but I thought that since you were here, a little celebration and an introduction to your wife would be nice.”

  Warwick’s expression softened as he looked at his aunt. “It does sound nice, mighty nice, but Becca and I need to get on our way.”

  Hilda put down her fork and frowned at Warwick. “Men! You are so selfish! I bet Becca could use an extra day for some rest after all that travel. Look at her! She’s as skinny as a wet cat, and she’s not even touching her food. Knowing you, she’s probably in the family way already.”

  Warwick flushed and shook his head.

  “How do you know she’s not?” Hilda demanded. “Men are clueless about these things.”

  “Trust me, I would know,” Warwick said.

  “I’m not,” Becca blurted, tired of being discussed as if she wasn’t sitting right there.

  All heads swiveled her way.

  “I know I’m not pregnant,” she repeated, before taking a big bite of her eggs just to prove that she didn’t have morning sickness.

  “Well, even if you’re not now, you soon will be.”

  “Now, Aunt Hilda, how can you know that?” Warwick asked. “You and Leo were never blessed with children.”

  Hilda blinked back sudden tears. “That’s why you are our only hope!”

  “Your only hope?” Warwick echoed.

  Becca put down her fork. “Warwick, can I speak to you outside? Privately?”

  #

  She rounded on him as soon as they were out of earshot of the house. “We can’t keep lying to your family!”

  Warwick looked at his boots. “We can leave right now if you wish.”

  “Yes, but they’ll still think we’re married!”

  Warwick bit his lip and a small wrinkle creased his forehead. “Do you want to get married?”

  “No! You don’t get it. This—” she waved her arm around in the air, “is making a mockery of marriage.”

  “Look, I don’t know how marriage works in the twenty-third century—”

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” she told him.

  “Twenty-third, twenty-first doesn’t matter—”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “I’m sure it does matter! A lot can change in two hundred years.”

  “Yeah, about that…like I was saying, there’s plenty of marriages forged in this day and age that are based on convenience, and right now, you’re pretty darn convenient.”

  “That has to be the most unromantic marriage proposal in the history of the world.”

  Warwick grinned. “Nah. I’m sure there’ve been plenty of less romantic proposals.”

  “It’s not a competition.”

  “Good, because either way, I win.”

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Well, either you’re married to me or you’re pretending to be married to me. So, yeah, I win.”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her again. Leaning against him, she felt herself being swept away. She told herself that no harm could come from this. How could she be hurt by her own fantasy? Falling in love with her own creation made perfect sense. She deepened the kiss, pressed herself against him, and ran her hands up under his shirt. He felt good, and oh so real. The muscles in his back rippled beneath her touch.

  She felt his surprise and hesitation, but then, as if he’d reached a decision or breaking point, he scooped her up in his arms.

  “A-hem!” Uncle Leo cleared his throat. “Now where the blazes do you two think you’re going?” He tsked his tongue and wagged his head. “Carrying on like love-sick—”

  “Call the preacher!” Warwick said, still holding Becca in his arms.

  “What?” Leo and Becca asked at the same time.

  “The preacher,” Warwick said.

  “But I thought you two was done already married?”

  Warwick nodded—not actually lying. “But I want to be married here on the ranch, before God and the people I love most.”

  Leo’s gaze softened. “If that ain’t the sweetest thing. Warwick, you old softie, didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Does Hilda have a dress Becca can borrow?”

  “Well now, I reckon she may,” Leo said.

  Still holding Becca, Warwick turned toward the house. “Let’s go and ask her.”

  #

  Wedding plans threw Hilda into overdrive. The kitchen became pie central—flour and spices filling the air as Hilda worked at a nearly frenetic pace. After Becca had been fitted, pinned and tucked into Hilda’s wedding dress, Hilda banished her to the rocker in the corner with the instructions to make the necessary alterations.

  But Becca didn’t sew. She had never learned to use a machine, and she wasn’t any more capable with a needle and thread. She kept telling herself that it wasn’t hard, it was just like putting in sutures, after all, but she squirmed under Hilda’s worried glances.

  “Didn’t your ma ever teach you to sew?” Hilda asked.

  Becca resisted the urge to suck her needle-pricked thumb and shook her head.

  “What an upbringing you must have had!” Hilda said, going back to her rolling pin and pie doug
h. “Being taught doctoring by your pa and all, but not learning the basic home arts.”

  “I just…well, I didn’t see the need to learn how to sew.” Or make pies.

  “Then where’d you get your clothes?”

  “I bought them.”

  “Goodness. You must come from some high-living people.”

  Becca ducked her head, and tried to concentrate on making tiny straight stitches. “Things are different in the city.” Especially in the twenty-first century.

  Warwick poked his head in the door.

  Hilda frowned at him. “Now, you know better, boy! You ain’t supposed to be seeing the bride on your wedding day.”

  Becca set down her needle and thread and stood. “Can I talk to you?” She didn’t give him time to answer, but hustled him out the door.

  Warwick cast his aunt a worried look, before nodding yes and following her.

  Taking his hand, she led him to the side of the barn, hopefully out of earshot of everyone but cows, sheep, and horses.

  “Why are we doing this?” she whispered. Everything had happened so fast, she felt as if she stood on a slippery slope that led to a life of “home arts.”

  Warwick flushed, and leaned forward so he could whisper in her ear. “If I’m going to be sharing your bed—I want to share your bed.”

  “But getting married doesn’t change anything.” But then she saw from the look on his face that for him, it did.

  Stunned, she asked. “Do you really believe in God?”

  He rocked back on his heels. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Everyone believes in God,” he said. “Even the people who say they don’t, when pressed up in a corner, they start to pray.”

  Becca thought of her years at medical school—the text book learning, versus the real life experiences that couldn’t be rationally explained. “I believe in science.”

  “And you don’t think the two can coincide?”

  Becca inhaled slowly, before releasing a long breath. “I don’t know if it matters. As long as you try to be a good person—what more would a God ask of you?”

  Warwick grinned and pressed against her, pinning her to the side of the barn. “Well, right now, God and a whole lot of science running through my veins are telling me to marry you.”

  She put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. “But what about Mary Kate? Where’s she? How do you think she’s going to feel about this?”

  A pained look briefly touched Warwick’s expression. “She loved me. She would want me to be happy. And right now, taking you to my marriage bed is the happiest thing I can think of. Hell, it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “You mean she loves you, right? If there’s a God and a heaven, then she’s still here, somehow. Watching.”

  Warwick groaned. “What I want to do to you—I don’t want any eye-witnesses.”

  “What happens when I go back to the twenty-first century?”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” He leaned in for a kiss.

  Becca stopped him by putting her hand on his forehead.

  He grabbed her wrist, pulled her against him, and kissed her hard.

  Her knees buckled, and her body warmed with desire.

  Warwick broke the kiss to whisper in her ear. “With God, angels and any eye-witnesses He deems to send in, I will have you as my wife.”

  A disgusted sigh interrupted them.

  Becca looked over Warwick’s shoulder to see Uncle Leo frowning at them. “Am I going to have to throw a bucket of water at you two?” He pointed the pitchfork he held in his hand at Warwick. “You, get!” He turned his weapon in Becca’s direction. “My wife has instructed me to fetch you. Seems you got some mending to do.”

  #

  As the evening shadows fell, Becca and Warwick stood before a preacher. A cluster of Uncle Leo and Aunt Hilda’s friends stood behind them. The sun hung over the mountain, and filled the meadow with a warm glow. A light breeze ruffled through the trees, and autumn leaves tumbled midair like colorful confetti.

  Pastor Lucas in his brown suit looked a little like a water barrel with arms and legs. But his face beneath his bush beard was friendly.

  “Friends and family, we are gathered here today to witness the marriage of Clint Warwick and Miss Becca Martin,” Pastor Luca said. “God is pleased when his children enter into the sacred holy union of matrimony.”

  Becca considered his words, sacred holy union of matrimony—did she believe that? Her parents had divorced, and yet neither remarried. Her mother only spoke of Becca’s father with bitterness, while her father never mentioned Becca’s mother without his lips growing tense and white. From her clinical work, Becca knew that the opposite of love isn’t hate—it’s indifference. If her parents truly didn’t care for each other—they would simply no longer care.

  But that hadn’t been the case. Even years after their divorce, they had still cared.

  Her gaze went to Warwick. This wedding seemed unreal, because it was. None of this—the flowers in the meadow, the birds flitting through the sky, or the man standing so close she could feel his body warmth through her thin cottony dress. In all of her girlish fantasies, this wedding was not what she had ever imagined.

  She had always thought—no, knew—that she would marry Joel. A twinge of guilt touched her, but she let it go. Maybe the whole point of this crazy delusional episode was to teach her that she really didn’t love Joel. Maybe she had grown so used to him, so used to waiting for him to notice her, that the illusion of his love and their future together prevented her from moving on and exploring deep and meaningful relationships with others.

  Maybe she hadn’t been sent into this dream world to prove her love to Joel, but to learn that a whole world of love existed beyond her imagination. She needed to open herself up to all the possibilities, to all the—

  Becca suddenly realized that Warwick and the preacher were staring at her, waiting for her response.

  “I…do?” she stammered. No, that wasn’t right. Her vows shouldn’t sound like a question. “I do,” she said, lacing her voice with conviction.

  Pastor Lucas smiled at her, and visible tension eased from Warwick’s face.

  The preacher turned to Warwick. “And do you, Clinton Warwick, take Miss Rebecca Martin to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow? Do you promise to love even as Christ loves each of us, putting her needs, desires and righteous goals before your own?”

  “I do,” Warwick said.

  Had Becca made those promises as well? Could she really put Warwick’s desires above her own? Because looking at him, she didn’t see an eternal love in his eyes, she just saw desire. But maybe desire was the beginning, maybe desire was the glue that—

  Warwick interrupted her thoughts with a kiss, while the crowd cheered and clapped. Someone started playing a fiddle.

  She held onto his shoulders, completely aware that if she didn’t, she would fall over. His kisses had the power to do that…to make her legs jelly and her bones mush…and her thoughts scattered.

  As he led her into the crowd, people parted for them, making room. She thought they would dance, as the fiddler’s song turned from serious to joyful. All around her, men tapped their feet to the rhythm, and the women’s long skirts swayed in time. But Warwick took her hand and pulled her toward the house. When she stumbled, he stopped, kissed her, and swept her into his arms. His friends and family cheered as he carried her up the steps of the farmhouse.

  “Wait. What?” Becca kicked her legs. “We’re not…”

  “Oh yes, we are,” Warwick said in a thick breath as he bumped open the door.

  “But…everyone will know what we’re doing!”

  Warwick paused outside the bedroom door and lifted one eyebrow. “I’m okay with that.”

  “But I’m not sure I am.”

  “Really?”

  They star
ed at each other, and she read the hesitation battling with disappointment in his expression. He kissed her hard, pulled away, and met her gaze again. “Do you think I can change your mind?”

  “It…well…maybe,” she stuttered.

  So he kissed her again, and all her visions of a perfect wedding celebration transformed from silk, satin, lace and ribbons, to a quiet twilight evening spent beneath a rough cotton quilt on top of a feather mattress with Warwick.

  #

  The next morning, she reached for him. Finding nothing but cold, rumpled sheets, she peeked open an eye and saw him standing by the window and tightening his belt buckle.

  “Where you going?” she asked, propping up on one elbow to watch him button up his shirt.

  He smirked. “Denver. Have you forgotten?”

  “Denver?” She had forgotten. How? And what about Joel? She leaned back with a smile.

  That’s it, she thought. This is what I’ve come here to learn! I don’t love Joel. I probably never have. The idea stunned her, but as she thought about it, she knew with a deep conviction that it was true. He had been a dream that she had grown used to—like a comfortable pair of warm, fuzzy slippers. Loving Joel had been just an excuse that protected her from forming real relationships, risking her heart, and getting hurt. As long as she’d carried around the image of her fantasy future with Joel, she didn’t have to emotionally invest in relationships that may, or may not, work out.

  And sure, there was a chance that Joel could find someone else and fall in love, but even when and if that happened, he would never intentionally hurt her. He would never be cruel. She couldn’t say the same for some of the other men she knew. Men like her father, who went away and never came back.

  “What are you smiling about?” Warwick said.

  Becca flushed. “Come back to bed and I’ll show you.”

  He gazed at her, his eyes warm with last night’s memories. “Tempting…” He sat down beside her. “I really do have to go to Denver to see about a horse, and I thought you were coming with me.”

  Becca thought about Joel. She wanted to tell him that she had outgrown him. She wanted to tell him that she still loved him—she always would—but as a brother. She needed this. Her studies had taught her the importance of emotional closure. So, even though she knew that this Joel in her imagination wasn’t real, to be truly done with her decade long obsession with him, she needed to tell him how she felt.