Hitched!. Ruth Dale Jean

an old busy-body.” Rand couldn’t help smiling, remembering Thom T. Taggart. “He was a real character, Maxine. He loved taking credit for getting my folks together, and both my uncles and their wives, too. He was quite the Cupid.”

      “I’ve never had a grandpa myself, great or otherwise, but you sound vaguely disrespectful to me.”

      “I would never disrespect Thom T.,” Rand said indignantly. “Neither would anyone else who knew him. He was just about the finest man ever to walk this earth, but he liked playing games. This is one of them. He couldn’t hang around long enough to get me and my sister and my cousins married, so he’s pulling strings from the grave.”

      “Rand!” She gave him a scandalized glance. “You can’t believe that.”

      “I sure as hell do.” The streets had narrowed and traffic kept increasing. The bus slowed almost to a crawl. “Looks like the main business district is right up there,” he said. “What say we dump this buggy?”

      “I’m not sure they’ll let us.”

      “Why not? We’re just innocent victims.”

      “I suppose you could try.”

      “Got to. The battery’s dead on my cell phone and I need to put through that call. You wouldn’t happen to have…?”

      “Sorry. I don’t believe in the things.”

      “In that case, we’ve got to make our break and find a phone. You’re with me on this, right?”

      “Up to a point. I’m not promising anything, though.”

      “If worst comes to worst, I’ll let my mom speak to my blushing bride. That’ll be you.”

      She grimaced and said, “All right,” again.

      Being nobody’s fool, he didn’t push it.

      MEG TAGGART ANSWERED the telephone on the second ring, her arms overflowing with flowers freshly picked from the garden she cultivated outside the back door of the Hells Bells ranch house. Fresh flowers helped her deceive herself into believing that this rustic existence held a candle to life in her hometown of Boston.

      She’d been battling such natural inclinations ever since she’d met Jesse James Taggart, the love of her life. A rodeo cowboy and a Boston socialite were an uneasy mix at best, but somehow they’d managed to work everything out—obviously, since they’d been married thirty-plus years and had two children to show for it.

      She supposed one of those children would be on the other end of the line—Clementime, probably, who called at least once a week from her job at Taggart Oil in Houston. Meg said a cheery, “Hello,” then buried her nose in the shaggy bouquet of daisies.

      “Mom? It’s me, Rand.”

      Meg straightened in surprise and pleasure. “Randy? Honey, it’s been so long since we’ve heard from you.” She dropped the flowers on the kitchen counter, instantly alert. Unlike his sister, her only son called rarely. When he did, you could bet he’d slip some bombshell into the conversation. Once, it had been the announcement that he was dropping out of college; another time, that he was moving to Europe.

      Still another call was to explain that they shouldn’t believe everything they read in the newspapers. That call had occurred just before photos hit the newspapers of him attending the Academy Awards with some actress— “Taylor Thompson and her fiancé, wealthy Texas playboy Rand Taggart…”

      “Sorry about that, Mom. I’ve been…busy.”

      His voice crackled on the line as if he was a very long way away. Bracing herself for the worst, she said, “Where are you, Randy? This connection is terrible.”

      “Uh, I’m in Mexico.”

      “Mexico! What in the world are you doing there?” She’d probably regret asking that.

      “Actually…I was hijacked.”

      “This is a terrible connection. It sounded as if you said you were hijacked.”

      “I did. I was. Have you heard about the hijack yesterday of a flight from Chicago to some village in Mexico?”

      Meg’s heart fluttered painfully in her breast and she pressed a hand to her chest. “You mean those two prison escapees who—Randy, you were on that plane?”

      “Uh-huh, but don’t worry. I’m fine. In fact, no one was hurt, just inconvenienced.”

      “This is terrible,” she wailed. “From what I hear, if it hadn’t been for that brave man from Iowa—”

      “Yeah, old Larry was something, all right.” His tone was dry. “That’s not why I’m calling, though.”

      Here it came, the bombshell. Meg sat down heavily on a chrome chair at the breakfast table. “I’m almost afraid to hear this.”

      “No, Mom, this is good.” A long pause; she could picture him taking a deep breath. Then he blurted, “I’m married.”

      “You’re…married?” She repeated the word stupidly, too shocked to censor her disbelief. “Randy!”

      His laughter sounded anxious. “Don’t have a stroke, Mom. She’s exactly the kind of girl you and Dad and Great-granddad always told me I needed.”

      Images of actresses and models flashed across her mind, not the sensible types she’d longed for her son to find. At almost thirty, he was certainly old enough for marriage, although his maturity was still in doubt.

      She was relieved when he filled the silence.

      “We were on that plane—me ’n’ Maxine, that’s her name. We were on our way to tell you and Dad the good news, that we were going to—”

      “You mean you’re not already married?”

      “We are now. We ended up in Mexico, where it’s easy to get married. It…it seemed like a sign. I mean, why wait?”

      “Married…exactly when, Randall?” Oh, she shouldn’t have called him by his formal name. She had no right to be angry at his marriage, a marriage she’d yearned for.

      Did he hesitate? “This morning, actually. We got married this morning.”

      She didn’t believe him.

      Meg Taggart, who took her son’s side in all things, who defended him against his father’s criticisms, who believed everything he ever said to her, simply didn’t believe this. “That’s pretty far-fetched, dear,” was the best she could come up with. “Tell me the truth. Why so sudden?”

      “Well, because…I want to start the legal wheels turning to get my inheritance from Thom T.”

      “I see.”

      Only, she didn’t. She didn’t see at all and he’d said very little to clarify matters. Why would he care about Thom T.’s Rocking T Ranch all of a sudden? Unless…maybe this Maxine was a ranch girl. Maybe she would be a good influence on Randy.

      Meg got hold of herself. “May I speak to her, Randy?”

      “Who?”

      “Your wife, of course. Maxine, you said?”

      “That’s right. Maxine. Sure, Mom, you can speak to her.”

      A brief pause and then another voice came over the line, a woman’s voice that was low and cautious. “Mrs. Taggart? It’s nice to meet you, so to speak.”

      “Maxine?” Meg’s mouth had gone dry. “Please call me ‘Mom,’ if you’d like, or ‘Mama.’ Even ‘Meg’ would be fine, but no ‘Mrs. Taggart,’ okay?”

      “Of course.”

      “My son tells me you’re married.”

      Light, perhaps nervous laughter. Then