His Shotgun Proposal. Karen Whittenburg Toller

dinner he didn’t eat and a beer he didn’t drink, and stared out the restaurant window until the waiter asked for the umpteenth time if everything was satisfactory, to which Mac had replied finally “No. No, it isn’t.” Then he’d thrown who knows how much money onto the table to make up for not touching the food and drink and walked out, every bit as miserable as when he’d walked in. Driving west to San Marcos, he’d stopped to skip rocks into the muddy Blanco River, then slammed the pickup door once again and driven a succession of winding roads back to Bridle and the ranch, a round trip of close to two hundred miles. And all he’d accomplished was to shift his mood from black to gloomy gray.

      He figured Abbie had told her lies to the whole family by now, and his absence had only given them validity. But what did he care? His family would stand shoulder to shoulder with him when they knew the truth. He could count on them. If there was anything in life he was certain of, it was that family mattered. Right now, they might all be wondering why he’d allowed Abbie to lure him into the same trap Gillian had set for him only a couple of years before. On the other hand, they might have greeted Abbie’s tale of woe with a sympathetic ear. But once he revealed her for the fraud she was, his family would stand with him against her. He knew they would.

      Of course, it probably would have made things easier for them if he’d stood his ground tonight instead of running like a coward who had something to hide. But he just couldn’t bear the thought of sitting across the dinner table from the woman who’d haunted his dreams for months now, knowing her for the schemer she obviously had been all along. So he ran. Running from the memory of Gillian’s betrayal two years ago. Running from the memory of how sweet Abbie’s kiss had seemed five months earlier. Running from his own traitorous heart, which couldn’t seem to distinguish between lust and love. It was nearly midnight now and for all the miles he’d gone, he hadn’t outrun even one of the voices in his head. Gillian had lied to him. Abbie had lied to him. Women could not be trusted. There wasn’t an ounce of honor among them.

      Okay, so there were a few good ones out there. His two new sisters-in-law, Hannah and Serena, for example. Neither of them would have considered resorting to trickery and treachery to gain the name of Coleman. He couldn’t imagine them staking the life of a child against the possibility of an advantageous marriage, as Gillian had done. As Abbie was doing. His cousin, too, was as moral and honest as any old-fashioned girl, but then Jessie was born a Coleman and had been raised with the proper respect for the truth. Olivia Smith, the young ranch hand he’d taken on as an assistant trainer, was as wholesome as fresh butter and far too good with horses to harbor any deceit. Horses, especially Arabians, had a keen sense of just who could be trusted and who couldn’t. Then, on the list of honorable women, there was Aunt Vi, who couldn’t even tell a fib without blushing a vivid, culpable red. And although Mac had only recently begun to know his mother, Rose, he refused to believe she had ever stooped to duplicity when it came to dealing with his father, or any other man.

      But for every female who deserved a man’s trust and respect, there was another like Abigail Jones. A schemer. A manipulator. A liar. She was lying. She had to be lying, because…

      There was no because. She was as bad as he believed her to be. Worse even than Gillian, who had had, at least at one time, some genuine feeling for him. Gillian’s mistake had been in thinking Mac was so much in love with her he would never believe she could do what she had, in fact, done. Abbie’s mistake was in coming to the Desert Rose, thinking she could manipulate him, and his family, into aiding and abetting her schemes.

      It was just too bad she wasn’t outside with him right now so he could tell her exactly what she could do with her malicious and misbegotten plans. Kicking at a bit of gravel, Mac headed for the darkened house, paying no attention to the sleepy sounds of a hot and humid night. A glimpse of movement, of something white where there should be only dark, caught his eye and he looked toward the lake and the section of dock that extended out into the water. Someone stood there and he told himself it might be his mother, out for a late-night walk around the ranch. Or maybe his aunt Vi, fretting about the fiftieth birthday that seemed to loom large and ponderously on her horizon. But even before the heels of his boots struck the redwood docking, he knew the figure bathed in moon glow was Abbie. Abbie, the schemer. Abbie, the liar. Abbie, with her hair curling loose and dusty gold about her shoulders. Abbie, with her face tilted to the night sky. Abbie, so beautiful his heart actually ached at the sight of her.

      Which was crazy. He had fallen in love with an illusion. The mystery woman he had been dreaming of for five long months had never existed except in his imagination. And here was Abbie to prove it.

      She turned at his approach, her hand grabbing the dock railing, her expression tightening, her eyes narrowing, her shoulders stiffening as if she expected trouble. Well, she was right on that count. She could look like an angel all she wanted, with her hair streaked silver by the moonlight and the shape of her body outlined softly beneath the loose white shirt she wore. He was trouble. And she hadn’t seen the half of it yet.

      “Can’t sleep?” he stopped, directly across from her, and leaned a hip against the railing. Fed by the boisterous Colorado River as it loped lazily through Texas, the lake lapped gently below the dock, lit by the light of a million stars and the shimmer of a moon reflected twice over in the dark water. “Conscience keeping you awake?”

      “Heartburn,” she said succinctly, turning in profile but clearly determined to stand her ground against him.

      “Really? I’ve never been bothered by heartburn.”

      “Yet another example of how Mother Nature allows men to escape responsibility for their actions.”

      “Ah, now. I expected better from you than that old life-is-unfair-to-the-female line. A woman of your imaginative talents can surely do better than that worn-out excuse.”

      Her gaze settled on him, narrowed and cool. “Look, Prince Not Charming, I came out here to be alone with my thoughts, and while I know it’s probably a lot to ask, I’d appreciate it if you left me the hell alone.”

      She was scrappy, he’d say that much for her. “Nicely put, but still just another lie.”

      “Another lie? You think I want you to stay out here and insult me?”

      “I think if you’d wanted me to leave you the hell alone, you’d have stayed the hell away from me in the first place.”

      Her eyes narrowed to slits and he realized she wasn’t wearing the black glasses, which was why, probably, he couldn’t stop looking at her. That or the rather obvious fact that she didn’t appear to be wearing anything but the oversize white shirt, which was certainly modest enough, although unsettling in its brevity. “I don’t know how you ever managed to seduce me,” she said tightly.

      “Probably because it was the other way around. You seduced me.”

      “That’s not the way I remember it.”

      “No, that’s not the way you want me to remember it.”

      She sighed. “Okay, let me see if I’ve got your version of events down correctly. I planned the whole seduction. Bumped into you at the bar on purpose. Insisted on secrecy—no names, no phone numbers, no personal information. Had my wicked way with you all night, intentionally getting pregnant in the process. Slipped away the next morning, already plotting to run into you, by accident, five months later so I could make nefarious demands on your pristine name and fabulous fortune, which of course, I have researched to the last penny. Oh, yes, and then there’s your oh-so-precious royal blue blood, which I traced all the way back to Lawrence of Arabia. Did I miss anything, Your Highness?”

      He’d spent hours now going over just that scenario and, although it sounded ridiculous the way she said it, he thought there was as much evidence to support his theory as her claim that it was all sheer coincidence. Plus, he had the advantage of firsthand experience on just how duplicitous a woman could be and the lengths she would go to in order to get a wedding ring. “Only one small detail,” he said, attempting to pierce her facade of innocent outrage with a hard stare. “I don’t believe for a second I’m the father of that baby.”

      Her