Читать книгу Instant Husband - Judith McWilliams - Страница 9

Ann jumped as the pencil she held clenched in her fingers suddenly snapped with a loud crack that echoed through the silent kitchen. Blankly, she stared down at the pieces for a startled moment and then impatiently shoved them aside.

Relax, she ordered her tense muscles, but her muscles didn’t respond. She felt as if she’d been wound too tightly. As if she might shatter into pieces like the pencil at any second. Her disconnected thoughts seemed to scurry around her mind like mice on a treadmill, going nowhere and solving nothing.

What was she doing here? She looked around the dilapidated kitchen with a sense of unreality. This wasn’t her environment. She’d spent her whole life in New York City. She didn’t know anything about the West or ranching. Or men like Nick St. Hilarion. She must have been crazy to have thought that she could make this work. Mail-order brides were a thing of the past. They had no place in modern society.

Ann shot to her feet, propelled by her fears, which had been steadily growing ever since Nick had left. She had to get out of here before it was too late. Before she made a terrible mistake. She had to—

“Nick said ta tell ya he’s almost done within the stock.”

“Done with the stock?” Ann parroted, taken off guard by Snake’s sudden appearance at the back door.

“That’s what I said. Nick said ta be ready ta go get hitched,” Snake said belligerently.

“But…” Ann began, only to find herself talking to empty air.

“And that’s another thing,” she muttered as honest indignation began to nudge aside her corroding fears. “That refugee from a bad spaghetti Western treats me like I had a highly contagious disease.” She grimaced as she heard the peevish note in her voice. What did it matter if she couldn’t get along with Snake? What mattered was whether or not she could get along with Snake’s boss.

Ann walked over to the window and stared outside into the blinding sunlight as she tried to think. Her reasons for accepting Nick hadn’t changed. She would be getting a career that appealed to her and one that she had a definite talent for—homemaking—and, hopefully, she would find companionship with Nick. A sense of belonging.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she willed her racing heart to slow down. If her reasons for marrying Nick hadn’t changed, then why was she indulging in hysterical doubts? She tried to follow her chaotic emotions through to their inception. It wasn’t the state of his house, appalling as it was. Nor was it his surly hired hand. The cause of her uncertainty was Nick himself. She squarely faced this fact. He was not at all what she had expected.

Instead of a quiet, retiring specimen of manhood, she had found someone who looked like the embodiment of an adolescent romantic fantasy. What was worse, it was a romantic fantasy that touched something deep inside her. Something she hadn’t even been aware had existed. And that was on their first meeting. What would she feel like after a few weeks?

She didn’t know. Possibly her initial attraction would fade beneath the demands of daily living. Or it might mellow out into something more comfortable.

And Nick had no idea how he’d impacted on her emotions, she mused, soothing her frayed nerves. Nor was she some overeager adolescent who couldn’t control her own reactions. If she didn’t act on her impulses, they’d remain just thoughts, known only to her.

Ann pressed her lips together in unconscious determination. There were no guarantees, but she had a decent shot at making this marriage work. Mainly because Nick was as committed to its success as she was. She took a deep, calming breath. She’d marry Nick and she’d build a solid relationship that would be a comfort to both of them, she vowed as she headed upstairs to change into the cream wool suit she’d bought because it had looked vaguely bridal without being fussy.

To her surprise and slight hurt, when she came back downstairs she found that Nick hadn’t bothered to change. Telling herself that their marriage wouldn’t be any more valid if he were wearing a suit, Ann climbed into the cab of the truck.

Her sense of purpose held through the trip to town despite Nick’s monosyllabic answers to her few tentative stabs at conversation. Knowing that he was probably worried about the cow who had had the calf early, she refused to allow her sense of unease to grow. If Nick had changed his mind about marrying her, all he had to do was say so-much as Snake was doing in the jump seat of the truck, Ann thought wryly as she listened to his mutters about one more good man biting the dust.

“If you feel that way, why are you coming to the wedding?” Ann finally asked.

“I’s hopin’ he’ll change his mind,” Snake shot back.

“I’m not going to change my mind, Snake.” Nick’s voice sounded loud and overly emphatic in the close confines of the truck. Who was he trying so hard to convince? Ann wondered. Her? Snake? Or maybe himself?

“Jake’s Market is down that street.” Nick pointed to his left as they entered the tiny town. “He delivers. Just call and tell him what you want.”

A large dose of self-confidence would be nice, Ann thought ruefully.

“Aren’t we going to the courthouse?” she asked as they passed the red brick building with its identifying sign in front.

“Should be,” Snake muttered. “Marriage should be a crime.”

“No.” Nick ignored Snake, and Ann gamely followed his lead, although her growing impulse was to say something rude. Very rude. “Judge Adams is recovering from a heart attack, and he’s at home so his wife can keep an eye on him.”

Nick pulled up in front of a neat, two-story white clapboard house and cut the engine.

“This is it,” Nick said baldly.

“The end of the line,” Snake agreed somberly.

“Change is the essence of the human condition,” Ann offered, as much to encourage herself as to rebuke Snake. Scrambling out of the car, she nervously brushed the front of her suit, checking to make sure it was still spotless. She took a deep breath, clutched her best Italian leather purse in her icy fingers and fell into step beside Nick as he mounted the porch steps.

Nick paused at the top and turned to look for Snake. He was standing by the car, drinking from a flask he’d pulled out of his back pocket.

“Need a snootful of whiskey ta face up ta this,” Snake muttered at Nick’s raised eyebrows.

Ann squashed an impulse to ask for a swallow herself and turned to Nick. “Doesn’t it take two witnesses?”

“Mabel, the judge’s wife, offered to be our second witness,” Nick said as he rung the doorbell.

The door opened before the sound of the chimes had died away to reveal a short, plump, elderly woman who took one look at them and burst into noisy tears.

Nick instinctively stepped back and glanced over his shoulder as if checking his escape route.

“Have we come at a bad time?” Ann asked uncertainly.

“No, no.” The woman beamed at them through her tears. “I always cry at weddings. I just love romance. By the way, I’m Mabel. The judge’s better half.”

“Glad to meet you,” Ann murmured, leaving the woman to her illusions. There wasn’t much romance to be found in this particular wedding.

“Come in, come in.” Mabel made a shooing motion into the house. “You, too,” she called to Snake, who was still standing by the car. “And wipe the barnyard off your boots and keep your stupid ideas to yourself,” Mabel ordered as Snake slowly climbed the porch steps. “This is my house, and I’ll not be listening to your antifeminism.

“You want to put him in his place from the start,” Mabel whispered in an audible aside to Ann. “Snake’s like most men, only worse. Come on now. The judge is waiting in the study, although I should warn you that there’s been a slight hitch.”

“Oh?” Ann asked when Nick didn’t respond.

“The poor man set his glasses down when he was through reading the paper this morning, and he’s blind as a bat without them,” Mabel explained.

“And now he can’t find them?” Ann hazarded a guess.

“Oh, no. He knows right where they are. Not that it’ll do him any good. You see, the puppy carried them off and chewed them. He scratched the lenses something awful. Now the judge can’t see to read the marriage lines. But don’t you worry none. We’ve thought of a way around the problem.” Mabel nodded emphatically. “I’m going to read the words to him, and he’ll repeat it to you.

“Come along.” Mabel hurried down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. “Here they are, dear,” she announced.

“Ah, good morning, Nick. And this must be the happy bride?” The judge squinted in Ann’s direction.

“Yes.” Nick performed the introductions with a shortness that increased Ann’s nervousness.

Think of this as the roller-coaster ride at the amusement park, she told herself. Just blank what’s happening out of your mind and hang on until it’s over.

“You got the license, Nick?” the judge asked, and Nick dug into his pocket and passed over a well-creased piece of paper.

“Good, good. Now if you and your little bride will stand here—” the judge gestured to a spot in front of him “—we’ll have this over before you know it. Dear, if you’ll begin…” He nodded to his wife.

Mabel sniffed happily, blew her nose and picked up a book from the cluttered desk.

“Dearly beloved,” she began, and her husband parroted the words. “We are—” She broke off as a loud snore suddenly sounded from the corner.

“Drat.” The judge looked exasperated. “I forgot about Pa. He always takes his morning nap there.”

“Don’t wake him on my account,” Ann said weakly, feeling as if she’d stumbled into a badly written farce. This wedding was about as different from her first one as it was possible to be. That one had taken place in a huge church with hundreds of guests, six bridesmaids and three flower girls. A soloist had sung “The Wind That Breathed O’er Eden” while she’d floated down the aisle in a cloud of white satin and antique lace.

But for all its grandeur, that wedding had been a disastrous flop, she reminded herself. This one might be stripped down to the bare essentials, but perhaps it would be all the more real for that.

The judge turned to his wife. “If you’ll continue, dear…?”

Five minutes later he pronounced them man and wife and told Nick he could kiss the bride. Neither Snake’s snort of disgust nor Mabel’s increased sobs could entirely suppress the tingle of awareness Ann felt as Nick’s lips brushed her cheek. What would it feel like if he were to really kiss her? she wondered.

“I like your wedding ring, Ann.” Mabel studied the plain gold band Nick had slipped on her finger. “But I notice you aren’t wearing your engagement ring. What does it look like? It must be a beauty. Why, I remember the monstrous diamond Nick gave Mona—” Mabel’s reminiscences came to an embarrassed stop as she suddenly seemed to realize that enumerating Nick’s gifts to his first wife might not be in the best of taste.

“How about some coffee?” Mabel asked, hurriedly changing the subject.

“Thank you, but we need to get back to the ranch,” Nick answered, while Ann considered what Mabel had said. So Nick had bought Mona a huge diamond. Why? Because he had loved her to distraction or because she’d asked for one?

It didn’t really matter, Ann told herself, because she didn’t want a diamond—big or otherwise. She’d had one once. Bill had picked it out and she’d paid for it. And it hadn’t insured a happy marriage. The simple gold band Nick had given her somehow seemed more enduring than any ostentatious diamond.

“Stop by when you’re in town, Ann, and we’ll get acquainted,” Mabel called after her as Nick hurried her out to the truck and bundled her inside.

“I will,” Ann responded. Then Nick started the truck, almost as if he were escaping the scene of a crime, Ann thought, not sure whether she should laugh or cry. His hasty retreat added the final farcical touch to the event.

Surreptitiously, she studied Nick from beneath her lashes as he maneuvered through the sparse traffic. She was his wife. Mrs. Nick St. Hilarion. She tried the name out and found it curiously satisfying. What she had to do now was to turn this taciturn stranger into a friend.

For a moment, self-doubt at her ability to accomplish it shook her but she fought it. She could do it, she encouraged herself. She might have no talent as a lover, but she did for friendship. She had scores of friends. Good friends. People whose company she enjoyed and who enjoyed hers. There was no reason she couldn’t make a friend out of Nick just because she was married to him. But how did she go about it? Ann stared blankly out the window at the passing landscape as she tried to remember how her friendships had started.

Shared interests, she finally decided. People with shared interests were drawn together because they had something in common to discuss. So what interests did she share with Nick? They were both survivors of a disastrous first marriage They both were lonely—at least Maggie claimed her cousin was lonely, and from what she’d seen so far, Maggie was probably right. They both wanted a secure relationship, to be part of a family group. But two of those things were more negative than positive. She needed an interest to talk about that didn’t bring bad memories to the surface. But what? She chewed on her lip uncertainly. She wasn’t sure. Maybe her best bet would be to get Nick talking about himself and his life and maybe she could find something there to share with him. Something to use as a foundation to build a friendship on.

But first she had to get rid of Snake. Snake was absolute death to any kind of conversation. In fact, his very presence was akin to the proverbial wet blanket.

Obviously Snake had no more desire for her company than she had for his, because the minute the truck stopped, he scrambled out and headed toward the barn. “I’m going ta check the fencing on the north pasture,” he said as he hurried toward the barn.

Get Nick talking, Ann told herself as she slowly climbed out of the truck. But talking about what? The ranch! She suddenly realized that she was standing in the middle of his greatest interest. Surely there was something on the ranch that she could find interesting without having to fake it. At the very least, questions about the ranch would serve as an opening for conversation.

“Is this a slack time for the ranch?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Spring?” Nick looked shocked at her question. “The calves are born in the spring.”

“Oh?” Ann looked around. From the porch steps there wasn’t a bit of stock to be seen. “Where do you keep them?” she continued, hoping she didn’t sound as idiotic as she felt.

“Most of them stay in the fields with their mothers. If they have a problem, we keep them there.” Nick gestured toward the far barn. “Perhaps I ought to show you around the place before I get back to work.”

Success, Ann thought, feeling a sense of accomplishment lift her spirits.

“I’d very much like to see things.” Ann was careful to keep her voice matter-of-fact. She didn’t want him to think that she was trying to coerce him into anything. Or—a flush warmed her thin cheeks—that she was trying to come on to him.

“We can…” Nick paused as he caught sight of a cloud of dust moving down the dirt road from the highway to the house. He squinted, trying to get a better look, and was rewarded by a red gleam from the sun reflecting off the lights on top.

The sheriff’s car, he realized with a quick glance at Ann, who was also watching the car approach. Damn! Why did Sherrie have to come in person. A call would have sufficed to fill him in on the latest developments in the cattle disappearances. Ann was bound to already have a list of things wrong with ranch life. If she were to discover that there were cattle thieves running loose…

“Why don’t you go change into something more suitable,” he blurted out, using the first excuse he could think of to get rid of her.

Something more suitable! The words hit Ann with the force of a blow, dislodging bitter memories of her first husband’s caustic comments about her lack of fashion flair. Her feeling of pleasure at Nick’s willingness to show her the ranch was buried beneath the humiliating flood of memories, and she felt her skin tighten painfully, as if it were bracing for an additional blow.

“Yes, of course,” she muttered, escaping into the house. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. She took a deep breath to try to steady her racing heart.

Finally she straightened up and headed toward the stairs. You’re mixing up the past with the present, she told herself. Nick isn’t Bill. Nor is he responsible for anything Bill did. Judge Nick by what Nick does.

All Nick actually said was that you should change into something more suitable. She glanced down at her cream wool jacket. It really wasn’t a very practical outfit for exploring a ranch. It was too easy to soil and too hard to clean.

But even if his request was logical, why make it when someone was coming? Why not introduce her first? Was he ashamed of her? Don’t worry about it, she ordered herself as she pushed open the door to her bedroom. You can’t second-guess everything.

She hurriedly slipped out of her suit, carefully hanging it in the narrow closet. She knew she was right about not allowing her imagination to run riot. What she didn’t know was how to stop the past from coloring the present.

She sighed as she began to scramble into jeans. She could only try. Maybe when she knew Nick better, she’d find it easier to keep him separated in her mind from Bill. Because if she couldn’t…Ann shivered violently. If she couldn’t, then she would have allowed Bill to not only destroy her first marriage but her second.

A spark of anger flickered to life. She refused to give Bill that much power over her. She wasn’t that weak. She drew on the pair of jeans and jammed her feet into her new sneakers. She had more pride than that. She pressed her lips together in determination. She could make of this marriage anything she wanted.

Well, almost anything. She yanked a thick, green cableknit sweater over her head. She did have to take into account what Nick was willing to invest in the marriage. And at the moment what he was investing was a tour of the ranch—an opening she intended to take full advantage of.

Ann emerged from the house and paused in surprise when she realized that the car sitting in front of the house was a sheriff’s car. And the uniformed officer leaning against its hood talking to Nick was unlike any officer she’d ever seen. The woman was a petite, curvaceous blonde who couldn’t have been more than four-ten.

The woman looked up and, catching sight of Ann, gave her a wide smile that appeared genuine even to Ann’s critical eyes.

“Welcome to Wyoming, Ann. I’m Sherrie Bellington, the sheriff’s one and only deputy. I couldn’t believe it when Mabel said that Nick was going to get married again.” Sherrie chuckled, displaying perfect white teeth. “Truth to tell, I didn’t think old Snake’d let him do it.”

Ann shook the hand Sherrie held out. “He wasn’t any too happy about it.”

“So she wanted to come out and meet you,” Nick inserted with a glance at Sherrie that Ann couldn’t quite read.

Sherrie looked blankly at Nick for a moment, then said, “Yes, of course. And now that I’ve met you, I’d better be getting back. Things are kind of hectic with the sheriff laid up with his broken leg. Bye, Ann.”

“Goodbye.” Ann watched as Nick walked Sherrie around to the driver’s side and closed the car door behind her, muttering something through the open window that Ann couldn’t quite catch. Why had Sherrie come out here? Ann wondered, not believing for a minute her story about wanting to meet her. There was more to it than that. But what?

Jealousy made no sense. If Nick had been interested in Sherrie, he would have hardly married Ann. Could Nick be in some kind of trouble with the law? The appalling thought surfaced only to be dismissed. That look Sherrie had given Nick hadn’t been adversarial. It had been…conspiratorial, Ann finally decided. She stifled a sigh. Yet another thing she didn’t understand and didn’t feel free to ask about.

“Where shall we start?” she asked when Sherrie drove away.

Nick looked around, as if trying to decide, then said, “The barns, I guess. Other than the original cabin, there isn’t much else to see. I mostly raise breeding stock, not beef cattle.”

“How old?” Ann asked, her interest caught.

Nick blinked. “What?”

“How old is the original cabin? For that matter, how old is the ranch?”

“They’re both about 150 years, although the ranch hasn’t been worked continuously. The first settlers were starved out. The original cabin is over there.” Nick gestured toward his left as they rounded the first barn, a relatively new, perfectly repaired building. Ann studied it curiously. Clearly Nick had spent what funds he had had on the barns, which made sense. If the ranch was to prosper, the stock’s needs had to be met first.

Ann turned to look, her nose wrinkling in shock as an appalling odor slapped her in the face.

“Snake likes to grow vegetables.” Nick noticed her expression.

“That’s not any rotting veggie I’ve ever smelled. It’s more like…”

“Fertilizer,” Nick supplied. “Aging horse manure, to be specific.”

“There are limits to this back-to-nature kick,” Ann muttered.

That manure pile had been there for as long as he’d owned the ranch, and getting rid of it simply because she objected to the smell would be bound to give Ann the idea that she could induce him to make other changes. He decided to ignore the comment, thinking it was best to go on.

“I want to show you Silas.” Nick moved toward a fenced area behind the barn. Ann followed him.

“Is Silas another hired hand?”

“No.” Nick put his fingers in his mouth and emitted an ear-piercing whistle. “Silas is my prize bull. He’s very temperamental and is not to be upset under any circumstances.”

Ann instinctively stepped back as a huge black animal emerged from the open barn door and trotted toward them. She gulped. As far as she was concerned, it would take a confirmed masochist to bother that thing.

“Don’t feed him,” Nick continued. “And don’t let him out of the fence. Despite what he thinks, he’s not a pet.”

“Turning him into a pet never crossed my mind,” Ann said earnestly. “I can guarantee you that I’ll give him a wide berth. Do you have any animals on the ranch that are more manageable? Like chickens or ducks or pigs?”

“Pigs!” Nick repeated in horror. “This is a ranch. We don’t do pigs.”

“Anyone brave enough to do that thing—” she nodded toward Silas, who was pushing against the fence in his eagerness to reach them “—should be brave enough to do pigs.”

“Pigs are for farmers. I’m a rancher.”

Ann opened her mouth and then closed it in the interest of harmony. It sounded like rank bigotry to her, but pointing out the fact would not be helpful to her goal of getting to know Nick.

“Right, no pigs,” she said. “So what else do you have on a ranch besides oversized cows and manure piles?”

“Horses,” Nick offered, wondering if she were regretting her decision to marry him already.

He walked through an open door into the dim interior of the larger of the two barns with Ann right behind him. She sniffed curiously. The barn smelled of hay and animals and other more elusive scents. But they weren’t unpleasant scents, just different.

“Most of the horses are out to pasture, but my mount is in the stall over here.”

Ann leaned over the end of the wooden stall. It contained a large brown horse who lifted his head to look at her. Bits of hay were sticking out of his velvety-looking lips, and he studied her with soft, brown eyes.

“What’s his name?”

“Joe.”

“He’s got kind eyes.” Ann tentatively petted him.

So does she, Nick thought as he watched the hazel hue of her eyes deepen when Joe nickered in pleasure at her caress. Nick’s eyes were drawn to the stroking movement of Ann’s fingers as they slowly moved over Joe’s neck. What would it be like to have her touch him like that? The unexpected thought popped into his mind. To have her hands stroking over his bare chest? He tensed as a wave of longing slammed through him.

“I always wanted to have a horse,” Ann confided. “Ever since I was about seven and read Black Beauty. ”

Nick used patting Joe as an excuse to move closer to her. A tantalizing whiff of the perfume she was wearing teased his nostrils, and he fought the impulse to put his arms around her. To pull her up against him. To bury his face against her smooth skin and deeply breathe in the heady fragrance.

“There’s no reason you can’t learn to ride.” His voice was husky with the longings coloring his thoughts. “Joe won’t mind.”

Nick opened the door of the stall, slipped inside and saddled Joe with fingers that felt clumsy. He just hoped that Ann didn’t notice. A quick glance at her both reassured and annoyed him. She was concentrating on the horse, not him.

When he finally got the saddle adjusted, he led Joe out into the open barnyard.

Ann hurried after him, pausing uncertainly when she reached his side. This close, Joe seemed to be much bigger than he had been in the barn. She shifted from one foot to the other. Didn’t they have anything on this ranch that came in a small size?

“Up you go,” Nick ordered.

Ann looked from the ground to the stirrup to the saddle, and then back down at her feet. “How?” she finally asked.

“Put your left foot in the stirrup, grab hold of the saddle and pull yourself up.”

Ann took a deep breath and followed his directions. It didn’t turn out to be that easy. She wound up half on and half off, hanging on to the pommel of the saddle for dear life.

“Pull yourself up,” Nick said.

Ann gritted her teeth in frustration, embarrassed at seeming so inept. “If I could do that, I wouldn’t be dangling here,” she said tightly.

To her shock, Nick put his hands on her hips and gave her a shove. Ann awkwardly scrambled up into the saddle. Her flesh seemed to burn where he’d touched her, and she could still feel the imprint of his hard fingers. She wiggled slightly, trying to dispel the sensation, and forced herself to focus on the riding lesson.

“Now what?” Her voice came out high and breathless sounding.

“Squeeze your legs together and Joe will move.”

Ann obediently tightened her legs, and Joe took off at a brisk walk. Ann jerked backward, yanking on the reins. Joe came to a sudden stop, and she pitched forward against his neck.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks on television,” she muttered.

“Perhaps I can help until you get your balance.” Before she realized what he intended to do, Nick swung up behind her with a lithe grace that she envied. Ann gulped as he reached around her and took the reins. She could feel the muscles of his forearms pushing into her rib cage, and he was pressed against her from hip to shoulder. His body felt hot, stiflingly hot, and the heat was beginning to affect her, loosening her muscles and making them soft and pliable. She licked her lips, trying to regain control. She felt as if she were getting a lesson in frustration, not riding.

“Try to relax and move with the horse’s gait.” Nick’s breath warmed the skin on her neck, sending a cascade of shivers over her.

Relax! Ann thought incredulously. She was wound tightly enough to break, and he wanted her to relax!

Nick purposefully took a deep breath, forcing his chest closer to her. His gut clenched in reaction, and he could feel his body hardening. He wanted to nuzzle the soft white skin beneath her ear. To nibble her lips. To press his own to them and force them apart.

He squarely faced the fact that he wanted to go to bed with her. No, not wanted. That was a take-it-or-leave-it feeling. This was stronger than that. Much stronger. He craved sex with her.

Why shouldn’t he? He was married to her. Sex was part of marriage, he rationalized. So why not indulge his senses?

But what had happened the last time he’d lost his head over a woman? The chilling thought intruded. He’d been sucked into a disastrous situation that had ended in a very acrimonious divorce.

Ann wiggled slightly, and he lost his train of thought at the feel of her soft behind pressing into his groin. He couldn’t stand this! It had been so long since he’d had a woman. Over ten years—and until Ann had arrived, the lack had been no more than a minor inconvenience. But now…

This time would be different, he tried to convince himself. This time he wasn’t wallowing in overheated hormones and calling it love. This time he was in control of both his emotions and the situation and he would remain in control. All he had to do was make sure that he maintained an emotional distance from her. He swallowed as she lurched backward, hitting his chest. But not a physical distance. In fact, he wanted nothing so much as to eliminate all physical distance as soon as possible.

But how? It was a disquieting question. How did he bring up the subject of going to bed with her? He walked Joe around the barnyard in a wide circle while he pondered the problem, but he couldn’t think of a single graceful way of asking her to go to bed with him without first making a lot of emotional promises that he had no intention of keeping.

Joe stopped of his own accord as they approached the open barn door. Nick slowly swung out of the saddle and looked back up at Ann. Her eyes were gleaming with pleasure, and her soft lips were curved in a triumphant smile at her ride. An unexpected feeling of tenderness engulfed him, and he opened his mouth, intending to say something sophisticated and witty. To his horror, what emerged was neither.

“I have no objections to having sex with you,” he said, and then froze in stunned disbelief as he heard his bald words echo through the air.