Connal. Diana Palmer

      “The only paper was the twenty-dollar bill you gave the bartender,” she mused. “And if it hadn’t been for Bud whats-his-name helping me get you to bed last night, you wouldn’t still be working here. You know how Dad feels about booze. You were really tying one on.”

      He stared at the cigarette, then at her, intently. “I couldn’t have imagined all that,” he said finally.

      “You imagined a lot of things last night,” she laughed, making a joke out of it. “For one, that you were a Texas ranger on the trail of some desperado. Then you were a snake hunter, and you wanted to go out into the desert and hunt rattlers. Oh, I got you home in the nick of time,” she added, lying through her teeth with a very convincing grin.

      He relaxed a little. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have been a handful.”

      “You were. But, no harm done,” she told him. “Yet,” she added, indicating the sheet under her chin. “If my father finds you up here, things could get sticky pretty fast.”

      “Don’t be absurd,” he replied, frowning as if the insinuation disturbed him. “You’re only a little tomboy, not a vamp.”

      Just what he’d said last night, in fact, along with a few other references that had set off her temper. But she couldn’t let on.

      “All the same, if you and Dad want breakfast, you’d better leave. And your car is still in Juárez, by the way.”

      “Amazing that it made it that far,” he murmured dryly. “Okay. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time. Do I still get breakfast?”

      She relaxed, too, grateful that she didn’t have to lie anymore. “Yes.”

      He spared her one last scowling glance. “Pepi, you’ve got to stop mothering me.”

      “This was the last time,” she promised, and meant it.

      His broad shoulders rose and fell halfheartedly. “Sure.” He paused at the open door with his back to her. “Thanks,” he said gruffly.

      “You’d have done it for me,” she said simply.

      He started to turn, thought better of it, and went out, closing the door behind him.

      Pepi collapsed on the pillow with a heartfelt sigh. She’d gotten away with it! Now all she had to do was find out just how much trouble she was in legally with that sham marriage.

       Chapter 3

      It took Pepi half the next day to work up enough nerve to actually phone an attorney and ask if she was really married to C.C. She had to be careful. It couldn’t be a lawyer who knew her, so she called one in El Paso, giving the receptionist an assumed name. She was given an appointment for that afternoon, because the attorney had a cancellation in his busy schedule. She told the receptionist why she wanted to see the attorney, adding lightly that she’d gotten a Mexican marriage and thought it wasn’t binding. The secretary laughed and said a lot of people thought that, only to find out to their astonishment that they were very binding in Texas. She reconfirmed the appointment, wished Pepi a nice day and hung up.

      Pepi replaced the receiver with a dull thud and sat down heavily in the chair beside the telephone table in the hall. Her heart was beating madly. It would take having the lawyer look at the document to be sure, but it sounded as if his receptionist was right. Legally she was Mrs. C. C. Tremayne. She was Connal Tremayne’s wife.

      But he didn’t know it.

      The consequences of her deception could be far-reaching and tragic, especially if he decided to marry Edie. He would be commiting bigamy, and he wouldn’t even know it.

      What should she do? If she told him now, after having denied it when he’d demanded the truth, he’d never believe anything she said again. He’d hate her, too, for trapping him into marriage. It didn’t matter that he’d threatened to land them in jail if she didn’t go along. He’d been intoxicated, not responsible for his actions. But she’d been sober. When he asked her why she’d gone through with it, how would she answer him? Would he guess that she was shamefully in love with him?

      The questions tormented her. She burned lunch. Her father gave her a hard glare as he bit into a scraped grilled cheese sandwich.

      “Tastes like carbon,” he muttered.

      “Sorry.” She’d forgotten to buy cheese at the store on her latest shopping trip, so there had been only enough for three sandwiches. She’d managed to burn all three. All she could do was scrape them off and hope for the best.

      “You’ve been preoccupied all morning,” he remarked with intense scrutiny of the bright color in her cheeks. “Want to talk about it?”

      She managed a wan smile and shook her head. “Thanks anyway.”

      He got down another bite of overdone grilled cheese sandwich. “Would it have anything to do with C.C.’s absence last night?”

      She stared at him blankly. “What?”

      “C.C.’s car was missing all night, and I understand that he had to have one of the hands drive him over to Juárez to collect it this morning.” He glared at the remainder of his sandwiches and pushed the plate away. “He was drinking, wasn’t he, Pepi?”

      She couldn’t lie, but it wouldn’t do to tell the truth, either. “One of the men said C.C. had a few in Juárez, but on his own time,” she added quickly. “You can’t really jump on him unless he does it on your time.” She warmed to her subject. “Besides that, he only drinks once a year.”

      He frowned. “Once a year?”

      “That’s about the extent of it. And please don’t ask me why, because I can’t tell you.” She laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “Dad, you know we owe the ranch to his business sense.”

      “I know,” he muttered. “But damn it, Pepi, I can’t have one set of rules for the men and another for him.”

      “He probably won’t ever do it again,” she said reassuringly. “Come on, you haven’t actually caught him in the act, you know.”

      He grimaced. “I don’t guess I have. But, if I ever do…!” he added hotly.

      “I know. You’ll throw him off the roof.” She grinned. “Drink your coffee. At least it isn’t burned.” She finished hers. “I, uh, have to go into El Paso this afternoon to pick up a package I ordered.”

      He scowled. “What package?”

      “For your birthday,” she improvised. That wasn’t improbable; his birthday was only two weeks away.

      “What is it?” he asked.

      “I’ll never tell.”

      He let the subject drop after that, and went back out to work. Pepi washed up and then went to dress for her appointment. Jeans and a T-shirt weren’t exactly the best outfit to wear to her own doom, she thought blackly.

      She put on her full denim skirt with a blue print blouse and pinned her hair up on her head. She looked much more mature, she decided, although nothing could be done about the freckles on her nose. Not even makeup camouflaged them very well. She did the best she could, adding only a touch of makeup to her face and groaning over her voluptuous figure. If only she could lose enough weight to look like Edie…

      With a moan, she slipped her hose-clad feet into taupe high heels, transferred the contents of her handbag into the pocketbook that matched the heels, and went downstairs.

      As luck would have it, she ran right into C.C. on the front porch. He looked hung over and dusty. His bat-wing chaps were heavily stained, like the jeans under them and his chambray shirt. His hat had once been black, but now it was dusty gray. He glared down at her with