Wife By Contract. Raye Morgan

the way her breasts filled out the pale pink silk shell she wore and the way her lower lip seemed to pout when she was annoyed with him. His mind began to wander for just a moment, mulling over what it would be like to order up a woman like this from a catalog and have her appear on the doorstep, ready to be a wife. It was a caveman dream, but he kind of liked it.

      But before he had time to indulge in it for more than a few seconds, a cry came from the living room, and suddenly a huge crash shook the house.

      “Yeah, those adorable kids,” he muttered to himself as she jerked away, spun and started for the living room. “I just can’t get enough of how cute they are.”

      But he started after her. Until Greg showed up, he guessed it was his job to act as a sort of surrogate husband here. Though before he made any commitments, maybe he ought to think over just exactly what that was going to entail.

      His gaze fell on the letter she’d left lying on the table, and he stopped, hesitating. It wasn’t nice to read other people’s mail. But what the hell. He had a situation here. Reaching out, he took hold of the letter by the corner, as though he wasn’t sure it wasn’t contagious, and carried it over to where the light from the window was the brightest. Gingerly, he unfolded it and began to read.

      It was the letter Greg had written to Chynna, but it didn’t sound like his brother at all. The handwriting was Greg’s. So was the signature at the bottom of the page. But the thoughts he’d written down sounded like someone else’s entirely. There were references to loneliness and love of the land, and those he could readily identify with his brother. But there was also talk of soul mates and walking hand in hand through life together, which made Joe want to laugh out loud.

      What did he do, copy these romantic phrases from a book? he wondered to himself as he looked them over. The closest thing to a soul mate he could think of for Gregg might be a rabid wolverine.

      He frowned, shaking his head. He and Greg had never been close. In some ways, they were the typical Cain and Abel siblings. Whenever Joe said black, Greg claimed white. When Joe wanted peace, Greg turned his radio on high screech. When Greg came home late, like as not, Joe would have locked the door. When Greg spoke, Joe tended to answer him sarcastically, and when Joe laughed, Greg found a way to turn the mood surly.

      Now that Joe had been away all these years, he sometimes regretted the way they couldn’t get along. He’d even decided, a few years back, that the rift between them was childish and should be over now that they were men, so he’d come home. But nothing had changed. If anything, Greg had grown moodier and more aloof. The planned-for reconciliation hadn’t panned out.

      And now this recluse, this mountain man was figuring to take himself a wife, was he? The situation made no sense at all. And yet it was obvious Chynna was right when she claimed to be here because Greg had...good Lord! Ordered her from a catalog?

      His brother, Greg, was preparing to take himself this lovely woman as a wife.

      “Over my dead body,” Joe muttered aloud, thinking of Chynna and her wide, hopeful gaze. “It can’t happen. I’d better get her out of here as soon as possible.”

      Unfortunately, that was going to be more difficult than it might seem. Unless there had been a radical and unexpected change, the only way out by air would be on the mail plane, and who knew what the schedule was these days. There was probably no other way out except by truck or car, and he couldn’t leave. He had to find Greg.

      He might as well resign himself to the fact that she was going to be staying overnight at least.

      But then she would have to go. It would be much too dangerous to let her stay.

      Two

      This wasn’t working out the way she’d planned it.

      Chynna picked up the small table and vase, which luckily was made of some sort of sturdy ceramic that didn’t break easily. After a nervous glance at the goldfish bowl on the hutch at the window, which luckily hadn’t been touched, she scolded her children for their behavior, her nervousness making her words a little sharper than they might usually have been. Kim looked up at her warily and popped a thumb in her mouth. Rusty’s lower lip began to quiver. Chynna noted that fact, hesitated, then sighed regretfully and drew him to her.

      Her kids were usually so good. She’d been so sure they would charm this man she’d come to marry, make him happy to have them as a family. Instead, things were slipping out of control.

      “What is it, Rusty?” she asked, her instincts telling her that something other than the overturned table was bothering him. As she looked down into his earnest face, it seemed to crumple beneath her gaze, and he threw himself against her.

      “I bit the man,” Rusty told her, sobbing quietly into her shoulder. “I bit him.”

      She frowned, holding him close and trying to understand what it was he was saying. “What man? Greg Camden?” He nodded, his face pressed into the hollow. “You bit him? You mean with teeth?”

      Rusty drew back so that she could see him, made a face, then clamped his teeth together with a snap. “Like that,” he said, nodding tearfully. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I d-d-didn’t mean to.”

      Chynna recalled the sight of her son racing down the hill and Greg coming behind him and she winced. “Did he do anything to you?” she asked anxiously, studying his dirt-streaked face.

      “I was hiding,” he said, gulping back a sob. Huge drops of water stood in his eyes. “I thought he was going to grab me. So I did this.” He snapped his jaws together again, his eyes brightening. Obviously, he was beginning to enjoy the reenactments. “I did it hard,” he said with just a hint of satisfaction. “He yelled.”

      “Oh, Rusty,” she cried in horror, pulling him to her chest and rocking him. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

      “I was protecting myself from a stranger,” he reminded her, echoing lessons she’d taught him, his childlike voice carefully enunciating the grown-up words.

      Her son had bitten the man she was planning to marry. She closed her eyes. Had she thought things were slipping out of control? Galloping was more like it. She caught her breath and straightened her shoulders. There had to be a way to salvage the situation, but it had better be done quickly.

      “Come on,” she told Rusty, swinging him down to his feet. “Let’s go into the other room. You have to apologize.”

      He hung back, dread filling his shining eyes. “Do I have ta?”

      “Yes, you have ta. Come on. And make it sincere.”

      He slunk along beside her, trying to hide behind her skirt as they made their way into the living room, where the man he’d bitten was waiting.

      Joe was still pondering the letter, his blue eyes frowning, but his expression changed as he looked up to see Chynna and Rusty coming toward him. His gaze narrowed appreciatively as he watched her neat form walking briskly through the room. No, it still didn’t make sense. If you really could get something like this from a catalog, the mail would be swamped with orders. How did his brother get so lucky?

      She stopped before him, tugging on her son’s arm to pull him out from behind her. “Rusty tells me he bit you,” she said, going right to the point. “He wants to apologize.”

      “Oh, yeah.” He’d forgotten about that. He held out his hand and looked at it. The bite marks were still quite distinct, though the skin hadn’t broken. Shrugging, he smiled at the freckle-faced boy. “This is nothing. Baby bites. You want to see where my brother bit me when he was about ten?” He pushed back his sleeve and revealed a long, jagged scar on his bicep. “Now, that’s what I call a bite,” he said rather proudly. “It tore flesh open. The traveling nurse had to be flown in to give me stitches.”

      Rusty stared at him with wide eyes, but if Joe had been harboring any thoughts of bringing the boy closer with his old war stories, he realized he wasn’t going to win over the kid this way. Instead of