Barbara Dunlop - His Convenient Virgin Bride

“We mean a love match with you.”

Alec gave his head a little shake.

He’d step up. He’d provide financial and any other support needed, but he and Stephanie barely knew each other. They weren’t going to settle down and live happily ever after just because her brothers decreed it.

He would never put any woman in that position. He knew from the catastrophe of his own parents’ marriage, exactly what happened when you tried to fake it.

“I hope that was a joke,” he intoned.

Jared took yet another step forward. “There is nothing remotely funny about any of this.”

Alec looked into the man’s eyes. “No, there’s not. But you can’t control people’s emotions. She’s no more in love with me than I am with her.”

“You can change that,” said Royce. “Tell her you love her, and make her fall in love with you.”

Alec slid his glance sideways. “No.”

Not a chance in hell. There was not a freaking chance in hell he would set Stephanie up for that kind of heartache.

Royce squared his shoulders. “It wasn’t a question.”

Alec could well imagine that few people said no to the Ryder brothers. They were intellectually and physically powerful men. Add to that their economic wherewithal, and they were pretty much going to get their own way in life.

But Alec didn’t intimidate easily, and he had a set of personal principles that stopped well short of duping a woman into falling in love with him.

“I’ll marry Stephanie,” he told them both. “I’ll respect her. I will provide for our child. And I’ll lie to the world about it if she wants me to. But I won’t lie to her.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “You two might think you’re protecting her by-”

“We are protecting her,” said Royce, and Jared’s expression backed him up.

“Nevertheless,” Alec articulated carefully. “I’m going to be honest with her.”

Since Alec spent most of his life on the road, a marriage of convenience would be fairly easy to pull off. And after the baby was born, she could decide what she wanted. If it was a quiet divorce, no problem.

Jared and Royce glanced uncertainly at each other. It was obvious the meeting wasn’t going the way they’d planned.

“May I assume I’m fired?” Alec put in.

The two men exchanged another glance.

Royce cleared his throat.

“I think we’ll leave that up to Stephanie,” said Jared.

This time Alec did laugh. “Then you might as well take your files with you when you go. She’s pretty ticked off about my valuation of her publicity.”

The two men hesitated again.

“It is right?” asked Jared.

“It’s right,” Alec confirmed.

“Let’s maybe leave the business arrangement as is for now,” said Royce.

Alec glanced from one man to the other. “You sure?”

They both nodded.

“No point in disrupting everything at once,” said Jared. Then he clapped a hand down on Alec’s shoulder. “You can come back to the ranch with us.”

“You afraid I’m going to try to run off?”

“We don’t want Stephanie to be upset any longer than necessary.”

“She’ll still be upset after I get there.” Alec tried to picture their conversation. Then he wondered how Stephanie felt about the baby. Then, finally, he let his mind explore how he felt about the baby.

He’d never planned to have children. The genetics in his family did not lend themselves to quality parenting. His father was incapable of love, and his mother had been unable to put her child’s welfare ahead of her own misery.

At least Alec’s child would have Stephanie.

For some reason, the thought warmed him. Stephanie might be indulged and impulsive, but she was also sweet and loving. He’d seen her work with both animals and children, and he knew instinctively she’d be a great mother.

And he was going to be a father.

As he exited the office with Jared and Royce, he tried hard to keep the prospect from terrifying him.

At the front of the stall, Stephanie rested her forehead against Rosie-Jo’s soft nose. She placed her hand on the horse’s neck, feeling it twitch and pulse with strength beneath her fingertips.

“I went to see the doctor today,” she told Rosie-Jo, wrapping her hands around the mare’s bridle.

Rosie-Jo nickered softly in response, bobbing her head up and down.

Stephanie slowly drew back, gazing into the horse’s liquid, brown eyes. Her throat closed over. “I’m definitely pregnant, girl.”

Rosie-Jo blinked her lashes.

“And that affects you,” Stephanie forced herself to continue. “Because he’s afraid I might fall off. He’s afraid I’ll hurt the baby.” Stephanie closed her eyes and drew a bracing breath. “I’m so sorry, Rosie. I know how you love the crowds. And you’ve worked so hard. And I’ve worked so hard. For so long.”

Rosie snuffled Stephanie’s shoulder.

Stephanie opened her eyes to the blur of gray horse hair, her voice catching. “So, he doesn’t want me to jump anymore.”

“That sounds like good advice to me,” someone rumbled behind her.

Rosie snorted, while Stephanie startled. She turned and came face-to-face with the man who’d haunted her dreams.

“Alec?” She struggled to make sense of his presence in the barn. “What are you doing here?”

“Your brothers picked me up in Chicago.” His gaze scanned her thin cotton shirt, blue jeans and worn boots.

The implication of his arrival, and the meaning of his opening words penetrated Stephanie’s brain.

He knew she was pregnant.

And her brothers must know, too.

She felt the walls close in. She hadn’t prepared for this moment, hadn’t had any time to even think about it. She’d assumed it would be weeks, even months before her pregnancy was general knowledge.

“I believe Amber gave you up,” Alec offered.

Stephanie didn’t respond, her mind still grappling with the fact that he knew, that he was here, that the secret was out.

“When were you planning to tell me?” he asked, face impassive, tone guarding his mood. The word never sprang to mind. Though she knew she wouldn’t have kept it from him.

“I don’t know,” she managed, answering him honestly. “I hadn’t thought about it.” It was enough of a challenge coming to terms with the situation herself.

He shook his head and gave a scoff of disbelief. “You hadn’t thought about it? You’re unexpectedly pregnant, and it’s not on your mind twenty-four seven?”

“I just found out.”

“You told Amber a week ago.”

“And I saw the doctor this morning. I hadn’t even decided-”

“Decided what?” His voice went deadly low, and his gray eyes turned to black.

“What to do.” She had her riding career, her students, her business. Not to mention a baby, then a child. She’d never even known her own mother, how would she handle it all?

He wrapped his hand firmly around her upper arm. “Stephanie, if you even think about-”

She blinked up at him.

“-harming our baby.”

Harming? What was he talking…

Then her eyes went wide, and she jerked her arm from his grip. “What is the matter with you?”

“Me? You’re the one who hasn’t made up her mind-”

“How to raise the baby.” She smacked him on the front of his shoulder. “Not whether to keep the baby.”

He didn’t even react to the blow. “You can’t be happy about this.”

“Of course I’m not happy about this. I’m not ready to be a mother. I have a business to run. My jumping career is ruined. And my brothers know I slept with you.”

“Your brothers will get over it.”

Her brothers. She groaned inwardly.

Royce and Jared knew Alec had made her pregnant.

Wait a minute. She looked him up and down. “You’re still standing.”

“I am.”

She cocked her head. “How come you’re still standing?”

“You thought your brothers would kill me for sleeping with you?”

“I never thought my brothers would find out.”

“Yeah.” He glanced away. “I was kind of counting on the same thing.”

Then the fog lifted, and a picture came clear in her mind. Of course her brothers hadn’t harmed him. They needed him alive.

She didn’t know whether to be furious or mortified. “You’re here for a shotgun wedding.”

“Something like that,” he admitted.

She felt guilty on a whole new front now. Alec was a decent guy. He didn’t deserve this.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Do I look worried?”

“You definitely look worried.”

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“It doesn’t have to be anything at all.” Making up her mind, she turned decisively and started down the corridor.

Alec settled in beside her.

She finger-combed her hair and refastened her ponytail at the base of her neck. “Thanks for stopping by, Alec. You’re an honorable man. But your baby is safe in my hands. I’ll drop you a line once it’s born.”

He coughed out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

“Your life is in Chicago. Leave this to me.” In this day and age, a reluctant husband was a complication not a benefit. What had her brothers been thinking?

“Not quite the way things are going to happen,” he said.

“They can’t make you marry me.”

“Now that part’s debatable.”

“Okay. Maybe they can make you. But they can’t make me.” She spotted a length of binder twine on the floor and reflexively stooped to pick it up.

“They want what’s best for you, Stephanie.”

She wrapped the orange twine neatly around her hand. “No, Alec. They want you to pay for your sins.”

“They want to protect you.”

She gave a dry chuckle. “From what? A scarlet letter?”

He didn’t respond.

“I’m a big girl, Alec. I made a mistake, and I’m going to pay. But it doesn’t mean you have to get dragged along for the ride.” She peeled the loop of twine from her hand and reached for the door latch.

His hand shot out, blocking the door shut. He stared down at her with an intense singularity of purpose. “Get this straight in your mind, Stephanie. You are marrying me.”

She squinted at him in the dim light. “That was a joke, right?”

“Am I laughing?”

“I don’t know what they threatened you with.”

“Nobody threatened me with anything.”

“Then why are you talking crazy?”

“I’m talking logic. It doesn’t have to be forever.”

“And what girl doesn’t want to hear that in a marriage proposal?”

“Stephanie.”

His words shouldn’t have the power to hurt her. She barely knew the man. And she needed to keep it that way.

She stuffed the twine in her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. “Marriage would make a bad situation worse.”

He imitated her posture, crossing his own arms. “Marriage would make things right.”

Suddenly the entire conversation seemed absurd, and a cold laugh burst out of her. “How do you figure?”

His jaw clenched. “I’m the baby’s father.”

“Yes?”

“I have a responsibility.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know,” he practically shouted. “Provide for it.”

“You can write a check without having a marriage license.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

“And I have no say?”

“Not really.”

He glared at her for a long moment. Then he smacked the door open and marched out of the barn.

As she watched his retreating back, Stephanie realized she had won.

She tried to feel glad about that, but somehow the emotion wouldn’t come.

“Well, what was I supposed to say?” Stephanie challenged. Sitting on a submerged ledge, water to her waist in the ranch swimming hole, she stared at Amber over the rippled surface of the water.

“Yes?” Amber suggested as she pulled the last couple of strokes across the small, cliff bordered pool and settled on the ledge next to Stephanie. Her forehead was completely healed, and the cut from the accident would barely leave a scar.

The swimming hole was a favorite place for Stephanie. Water from a small tributary to the Windy River trickled down a waterfall and gathered in a deep pool, hollowed out over millennia. The semicircle cliffs were open to the east, so the morning sun soaked into the granite, heating the water, keeping it comfortable all summer long.

It was near noon, and the sun streamed down on Amber’s wet, blond hair, reflecting in her jewel-blue eyes.

“And actually marry him?” Stephanie swiped her own wet hair back from her forehead, tucking it behind her ears.

“You are having his baby.”

“And, we’re practically strangers.”

“Not completely.” Amber’s eyes took on a meaningful gleam.

Stephanie glared in return. “Nobody gets married because of a baby anymore.”