Wife By Contract. Raye Morgan

this kid, he probably was the devil.

      “Hey, I won’t hurt you,” he called after him halfheartedly, frowning as he looked down at the unmistakable imprint of teeth on his hand. He’d seen them often enough before, when he and his brother, Greg, were young and he would pin Greg down and Greg would fight back any way he could.

      He shook his head as though to clear it. Too many things were echoing the past, and he was beginning to feel a little weird about it. There was no Champ, and this kid wasn’t Greg. But what was he doing at Greg’s house?

      He started down the hill after him. Before he’d gone more than a few feet, a woman appeared, coming out through the front door to stand on the porch. The sight of her surprised Joe, pulling him up short.

      She raised her hand to shade her eyes against the slice of noonday sun that hit her face. “Rusty?” she called out to the boy as he raced toward her. Then she looked up and saw Joe, and she seemed to freeze, just as he had done.

      He stared. He’d never seen anything like her in Alaska before. Out here, conditions were rough and the women dressed appropriately. This woman wore a white wool suit with heels and stockings. Her silvery blond hair shimmered around her face in a chic, professional style, catching the sunbeams, setting off a glow, so that she seemed to be standing in a shaft of golden light.

      He shook his head slowly, drawn even more out of sync with this situation. It just didn’t fit his experience of Alaska, didn’t fit with his past, didn’t fit with what he knew of his brother’s present. He felt unbalanced. Who in the world was this woman, and what was she doing in his brother’s house?

      

      Chynna Sinclair saw the man coming down from the rise, saw the car in the background, and her mouth went dry.

      “Oh, dam it,” she whispered softly to herself. He’d already seen Rusty. There was going to be no way to hide the boy now, even for the first few minutes while they got acquainted.

      Rusty reached her and threw himself against her, wrapping his little arms around her knees and burying his face against her skirt. She looked down at him and tousled his hair lovingly.

      Oh, well. Maybe it was best that they get the worst over with right from the beginning. She looked out at the man again. Why was he just standing there, staring at her?

      “Come on into the house,” she told her son, gently untangling his arms from her legs. “Come stay with Kim while I talk to the man.”

      Maybe if she got the kids quieted down and playing with something, she would have time to talk to him and prepare him....

      But whom was she kidding? There was no more time to hide, to make up stories. She’d been putting if off all during the plane ride from Chicago, all during the flight from Anchorage in the little six-seater plane; even in the ride from the landing strip, when the pilot had kindly borrowed a car to get them here, she’d told herself it was time to make a decision on what she was going to say when she saw him. But now it was too late. He’d already seen Rusty. He already knew that the mail-order bride he’d ordered, the pretty young woman he expected, had brought along some baggage she hadn’t warned him about.

      Hurrying her son inside, she settled him and his little sister with coloring books in the living room and went back out on the porch. He was still standing there, staring at the house. She hesitated, thinking she should walk out to greet this large male she hoped would be her husband soon, but knowing her heels would sink in the mud if she tried it. She knew she wasn’t dressed for the area, but she’d done it on purpose. This was a selling job she was going to have to do here, and image, as her boss used to tell her in Chicago, was everything. She waited instead, fingers curling around the post at the top of the stairs, her heart beating like a wild thing in her chest.

      What if he didn’t want her? What if he didn’t want her kids? She had to convince him. There was no choice in the matter.

      She still didn’t know what she was going to say. This was so hard to explain on the spur of the moment. It was the sort of thing it would be better for him to learn about gradually, as he got to know her, as he got to know the kids. As he got to know them, he would understand. But how could he possibly understand when it was dropped in his lap in one large lump like this?

      Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile. “Hi, there,” she called to him. “I guess you missed us at the landing strip. The pilot drove us over.”

      As though she’d flicked a switch and brought him back to life, he started walking slowly toward her.

      She wet her lips and smiled a welcome. “I hope you don’t mind. Your house wasn’t locked and I...I went on in.”

      He was closer now and she could see his face, and something inside her relaxed. She hadn’t allowed herself to believe in the picture he’d sent her. It showed a man so handsome, she’d told herself to assume it was taken ten years ago, or was a phony in some other way.

      But no. The picture hadn’t lied. This was the same man, all right. In fact, with his broad shoulders and dark hair and glittering blue eyes, he looked even better than he had in the photograph. He wore crisp jeans and a leather bomber jacket, and neither was old or dirty. They looked, in fact, startlingly fashionable for this neighborhood.

      She’d had a picture in her mind of what she would find here, and this wasn’t really it. She’d imagined a farmer-hunter type, rough-hewn and bashful. This man was none of those things. This man looked a little too good to be real.

      He’d reached the porch and was coming up the stairs, his face drawn into a frown as he looked her over, as though she puzzled him, or annoyed him, or something. She stepped forward quickly.

      “Hi,” she said, holding out her hand and bringing back her quick smile. “I’m Chynna Sinclair, and I’m very glad to be here.”

      He took her hand and seemed to marvel at it. Then he looked into her face and shook his head. “What’s going on here?” he asked her, searching her eyes for answers. “Where’s Greg?”

      But his last question was drowned out by a shriek from inside the house and then by the sound of something breaking. Chynna whirled, glanced at him quickly and muttered, “Uh...I’d better see what happened” before running in to tend to her children.

      Joe followed her, then stopped just inside the entryway, turning slowly to take it all in. The house was just the same as it had been before he’d left. Greg hadn’t changed a thing.

      He could hear Chynna settling some sort of argument that was going on in the next room, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was looking at the picture of his grandfather that still hung on the wall, his flinty pioneer eyes still staring at his grandson with the same old sense of disapproval; at the snow shovel propped in the corner, the one that always gave him splinters that lasted longer in his skin than the snow lasted on the ground; at the tall, elegant breakfront where his mother had kept her precious dishes and porcelain figurines. Only a few were left, the ones she didn’t care about. He supposed she’d taken all the rest when she moved to Anchorage, five years before. Nothing had changed.

      Nothing—except Joe himself.

      The woman who called herself Chynna Sinclair came back into the entryway, and he looked up, blinking, wondering how she managed to seem to carry the sunlight with her. She was certainly a pretty thing, but she looked so out of place here in the Alaskan wilderness. He supposed she must be Greg’s girlfriend, though he could hardly imagine where Greg could have met her. Greg wouldn’t go near the city, and this was city bred, all the way. But then, what did he really know about his brother these days? If only Greg were here, these things could be cleared up right away.

      “I... I have to introduce you to my children,” she said, stuttering slightly, and he looked into her eyes with surprise. Why was she so nervous? “This is Rusty. He’s five. And Kim is three.”

      He looked down at the two sets of eyes, both open very wide, looking as though awe had struck them silly, and he smiled and nodded. “Hi, kids,” he said casually, his mind still