Instant Husband

By Judith Mcwilliams

CELEBRATION 1000
The Wedding Night

MAIL–ORDER MRS.

For Ann Lennon, travelling to Wyoming to marry a stranger made perfect sense. She needed a fresh start, and rancher Nick St. Hilarion needed a wife. All Ann wanted was to be a good mate. Then she laid eyes on her handsome groom .

MADE–TO–ORDER MAN

Before Ann came along, Nick's home had been in a shambles and his daughter out of control. Now his life was almost perfect. His new bride was decidedly domestic and dangerously desirable. But passion wasn't supposed to be part of the deal .

THE WEDDING NIGHT: The excitement started when they said "I do!"

CELEBRATION 1000: Come celebrate the publication of the 1000th Silhouette Desire, with scintillating love stories by some of your favourite writers!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460879993

Book preview

Dear Reader,

My love affair with Silhouette Desire started with the very first one I picked up at the bookstore. Three pages and I was hooked. The characters were real people with real problems. Even better, they were basically nice people. People who cared about something other than satisfying their own libido. I hurried back to the bookstore and bought the rest of the month’s offering.

Adding the role of writer of Desire novels to that of reader was a natural progression. And one that has brought me a great deal of personal satisfaction, as well as pleasure, because I deeply believe in the concepts that Desire has come to represent. Concepts such as love, family, loyalty, self-reliance, initiative and optimism about the future.

Thus, when I discovered that I was to be part of Celebration 1000 I was extremely pleased.

The idea for Nick and Ann’s story came as the result of a conversation I had with an elderly gentleman in a small museum in rural Wyoming, which was dedicated to the early settlement of the area. After viewing an exhibit on mail-order brides of a century ago, I commented on the scarcity of women in frontier times. He snorted and replied that marriageable women weren’t any too plentiful these days, either. That he knew several ranchers who would love to have a wife but couldn’t find one who was willing to put up with the isolation.

Like most writers, I immediately began to think in terms of what if, and the answers led to Instant Husband. A story I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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One

What if he didn’t come? Ann Lennon’s nervous gaze swept over the fast-emptying waiting area for the tenth time in as many minutes. Her flight had been on time. What could have kept him? Surely Cheyenne, Wyoming, wasn’t big enough to have traffic jams. Not at eight o’clock at night. Suppose he’d changed his mind? Suppose…

Stop it! Ann made a valiant attempt to stem her rising sense of panic. This was not the time to begin second-guessing her painful decision. Not two thousand miles from home. No, from her former home, she grimly reminded herself. The stately old brownstone where she’d grown up was gone. Gone along with everything else. Ann swallowed against the bitter taste of defeat that had dogged her for months.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on a dark stain on the gray tile near her left foot and slowly exhaled to the count of ten. New York City and Bill are the past. Wyoming and Nick St. Hilarion are the future.

At least he would be if he ever arrived. Ann watched with a growing sense of numbness as the last passenger off her flight was met, leaving her sitting alone. So alone. She shivered as the silence reached oppressive proportions. Everyone seemed to be elsewhere.

Which was where she wished she was. Elsewhere. Anywhere else than sitting on a hard, gray plastic chair waiting to see if the man she’d flown across the country to marry had decided to reject his mail-order bride sight unseen.

Or maybe he had seen her? The appalling thought suddenly occurred to her. Maybe he’d been waiting in the crowd when she’d arrived Maybe he’d taken one look at her and decided she’d never make a good ranch wife. Ann tucked a wayward strand of her golden-brown hair behind her right ear with fingers that shook. Maybe he’d instantly realized that she was a sham as a woman. Something it had taken her exhusband over a year to figure out. An icy chill feathered over her, tightening her skin and blurring her vision.

Ann hastily swallowed the hysterical giggle that bubbled up in her throat as visions of herself growing old and decrepit as she sat waiting for a groom who never came filled her mind.

Think. Don’t react, think. She repeated the word like a mantra. She had the phone number of his ranch. She latched onto that solid fact. She would wait another fifteen minutes, then call and leave a message that she’d checked into a motel. Just fifteen minutes more. Her slight body sagged against the hard chair.

Nick St. Hilarion shot into the closest parking space to the airport terminal he could find, cut the engine of his pickup truck and jumped out. He shoved his fingers through his short blond hair in frustration as he headed toward the nearest entrance at a brisk walk. Of all the times to be held up by an accident on the interstate!

He hurriedly located a flight-arrival screen to find the gate for her flight, then headed toward Gate F, his long legs quickly covering the distance. She was probably furious at not having been met. Bitter experience had taught him that women expected to have their every whim catered to. And being left stranded in an airport in a strange city would undoubtedly infuriate her. Suppose she hadn’t waited for him? Suppose she’d caught the first flight out?

Nick felt a curious blend of fear and hope surge through him. He wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted or not. But he was positive about one thing—that his cousin Maggie was right. He definitely needed a wife to help him deal with the unexpected arrival of his thirteen-year-old daughter into his life. But was Maggie also right when she claimed that her friend, Ann Lennon, was just the wife he needed?

Nick grimaced. He didn’t know, but if he turned down Maggie’s choice of bride for him, he held very little hope of finding a substitute on his own. He didn’t even know where to start looking. The area around his ranch wasn’t exactly teeming with matrimonial prospects.

In fact, other than a few giggly teenagers who made him feel ninety years old, the only unmarried woman that he personally knew was the sixty-year-old widowed sister-in-law of Clem who ran the feed store. He either accepted Maggie’s mail-order bride or he coped with his daughter on his own.

A shudder coursed through him at the thought of all the pitfalls lying in wait for the parents of adolescents these days. According to what he’d read, he was going to have to deal with sexual promiscuity, drug experimentation, rebellion against authority and a host of other problems. And while he hoped that it wouldn’t be that bad, in the back of his mind was the corroding fear that his daughter had taken after his ex-wife. If that were true…

Unconsciously Nick squared his shoulders. It didn’t matter what Ginny’s problems were. She was his daughter, too, and now that Mona had so suddenly decided that she didn’t want a living reminder of a former marriage cluttering up her new marriage, he wasn’t about to abandon the child to a boarding school the way his own mother had done to him. He’d do whatever it took to provide a home for Ginny, and common sense told him that the first step was to acquire a wife to help him.

His pace instinctively quickened as he saw the gate he was looking for halfway down the corridor.

Ann leaned forward slightly as she caught sight of someone moving toward her. She squinted, trying to get a better look. It was a man! Could this be her intended groom at last? She frowned uncertainly. Maggie hadn’t been able to find a current picture of her cousin, but she had mentioned that his father was Greek. Which probably meant that Nick was short and dark.

Which this man most definitely wasn’t, Ann realized as he got close enough for her to get a good look at him. He was at least three inches over six feet and built to match. Her eyes measured the breadth of his shoulders encased in his brown leather flight jacket. Impressive. Very impressive. He looked like a Hollywood representation of a cowboy hero. Emphatically masculine, sexy as the devil and totally outside her league, she instinctively rejected the brief flair of interest she’d felt.

Ann froze as his gaze swept the deserted area and came to rest on her. His brilliant blue eyes narrowed as he studied her. Unconsciously, she smoothed the jacket of her impeccably tailored brown tweed suit. To her surprise, he walked over to her.

Ann Lennon? The sound of his deep voice rolled through her mind and landed in the pit of her churning stomach.

Doubtfully, Ann stared at him. How did this stranger know her name? He couldn’t be Maggie’s cousin. He didn’t look like any Greek she’d ever seen. Nor could she see any family resemblance to Maggie. Maybe he worked for Nick. Maybe Nick had been unable to get away and had sent someone to pick her up—like a stray package.

Ann firmly squelched her irritation and got to her feet. This wasn’t the time to be hypersensitive, she told herself. If she were going to make a success of this unconventional marriage, she would have to develop a thick skin.

Yes. I’m Ann Lennon. She held out her hand, using the social amenities as a shield in this unreal situation. And you are?

Ann watched in fascination as the corners of his firm mouth lifted in what was either a pained smile or a grimace.

I’m your intended, Nick St. Hilarion.

Ann’s hazel eyes widened incredulously as his unexpected words echoed through her disbelieving mind. This was Maggie’s cousin! He couldn’t be. This had to be some kind of weird joke. Men who looked like this man didn’t have to resort to having their cousins find them wives. They’d be beating prospective candidates off with a stick.

But…Maggie had gone into great detail about his disastrous first marriage. Maybe Nick didn’t trust his own judgment anymore, either. It was possible. She noticed the rigid cast of his features for the first time. Maybe he felt as embarrassed and uncertain as she did.

She glanced down at her hand, which she was still holding out. Nick followed her gaze and muttered something that she didn’t quite catch before he grabbed it.

Ann’s breath caught in her lungs as she felt his warm fingers close around hers. Heat seemed to pour off him, seeping into her chilled flesh, making it tingle. She swallowed uneasily at her reaction. It was the weirdness of the situation, she assured herself. After all, it wasn’t every day that she flew across the country to marry a stranger. She was certainly allowed a few aberrations from her normal behavior.

I… Ann winced at the uncertain note in her voice. Firming it, she forged ahead, trying desperately to sound more assured than she felt. I’m glad to meet you, she muttered, feeling like a gauche fool. Very glad, she amended, and her words were sucked up into the oppressive silence that seemed to enclose them in their own little world.

Now what? Ann scrambled for something to say. Should she suggest that they leave for the ranch or would that sound pushy? Could his silence mean that he was having second thoughts about marrying her now that he’d met her? The devastating thought shook her fragile self-confidence. Maybe his taste in women ran along the lines of her exhusband. And Bill had most definitely found her lacking in feminine charms.

But Nick wasn’t marrying her for love, she told herself to stem her escalating fears. Nick was marrying her to obtain a mother for his daughter and to keep house for him.

Ann turned to pick up her brown leather purse from the seat beside her. Unfortunately, she forgot she’d set her suitcase at her feet. She tripped over it and pitched forward.

Straight into Nick’s arms. It was like landing against a warm rock wall, she thought in confusion. There was no give to him anywhere. Ann shivered as the faint tang of his cologne drifted into her nostrils, further muddling her thoughts. Instinctively, she jerked back, hit the backs of her legs on the hard edge of the chair and plopped into the seat.

What a time for her to turn klutzy, she thought in despair. If he had been harboring doubts about her as a wife, her behavior certainly wasn’t going to reassure him.

To her relief, Nick ignored her clumsiness. Reaching down, he picked up her heavy suitcase with an ease that she could only envy.

Do you have any other luggage?

Ann shook her head. I expressed the rest of it out last week.

I know. It arrived yesterday. We’ve got a two-hour drive to the ranch. We’d better get started.

Ann trotted along beside him, telling herself that the relief she felt at not being sent home was because she was too tired to face another plane trip so soon. Furtively, she studied him out of the corner of her eye as they made their way out of the terminal and into the icy spring air, wondering what he was thinking.

She hadn’t really thought of him as a distinct personality before. Not really. She’d been so busy trying to pick up the pieces of her own shattered life after her acrimonious divorce that she’d only seen Nick St. Hilarion as a means to an end. As a solution to her problem of how to parlay her love of homemaking into a viable career that could support her in her near-penniless state.

But now that she’d actually met him, the fact was suddenly driven home to her that Nick had thoughts and hopes and fears just like she did. But what were they? Her eyes lingered on the bunched muscles of his jaw. And did she have the right to try to find out? A sudden doubt shook her. They had a deal, she and this totally unexpected man. And it didn’t include delving into each other’s secrets.

She shivered as a particularly nasty gust of wind slithered down her neck as if in warning. She most assuredly didn’t want Nick poking into the ruins of her first marriage.

But there was a lot of ground between prying into his past and getting to know him in the here and now, she rationalized, feeling the first real spark of anticipation she’d felt in almost six months. The future that had seemed so dreary just hours before suddenly held a glimmer of hope. Who knew what might come of this unorthodox marriage of theirs? Mail-order brides were a part of Western tradition and most of the marriages had turned out just fine. There was no reason to assume that hers wouldn’t fare as well.

Holding on to that encouraging thought, Ann climbed into the cab of the pickup Nick unlocked and looked around curiously. Utilitarian, she categorized its barren interior. Nick certainly didn’t believe in pampering himself with luxury. Or couldn’t afford to, it occurred to her as she pulled her seat belt out of the crack in the seat.

Ann absently fastened it as Nick backed the truck out of the parking space. Maggie had said that his first wife had married him for his money and then proceeded to spend it like water. Could her extravagances have left him broke? Or at best, land rich but cash poor? It was certainly possible. She of all people knew what could happen when an unscrupulous spouse was given uncontrolled access to funds.

The familiar sense of defeat pressed down on her, but she made a valiant effort to shake it. It didn’t matter what kind of fool she’d been in the past, she told herself. She’d learned her lesson. She was no longer a young, impressionable woman who was expecting hearts, flowers and wild flights of passion from marriage. Now she was a mature thirty-three-year-old who had learned that it took a whole lot more to make a success of marriage than being in love. In fact, from what she’d seen, being in love was a distinct disadvantage. She’d been madly in love with Bill, and what had happened? She’d viewed him through rose-colored glasses, seeing him as she wanted him to be and not as he was. While she’d been dreaming about the future, he’d been busily running through her inheritance.

Ann shifted restlessly. In retrospect, she couldn’t believe that she had been so stupidly trusting. But never again.