"Married?" Marie squeaked.
"At least she didn't say this is terrible," Cole muttered.
Joey elbowed him in the ribs.
"Married?" Marie repeated, her face ashen. "When?"
"Last night," Cole said. Feeling like he'd been here, done that before, he added, "Yes, it's legal. Witnesses and everything. Joey is my wife."
Wife. That sounded good. Right. He smiled down at Joey, not caring that Marie stood less than a foot away. "Mrs. Lassiter," he asserted, daring Joey to dispute it after they'd spent the afternoon in bed.
Joey flushed and cleared her throat. "Mom, why don't you wait for us in the other room? We'll be there in a minute."
Marie cast a glance at Joey's half-dressed state and retreated without a word.
Cole stepped back into the bedroom and pulled her in after him. Without giving her a chance to speak, he kissed her thoroughly. And then he kissed her again.
When he finally let her up for air, she gasped, "What was that for?"
"Thanking you."
"For what?"
"For not pretending." He kissed her. "For being you." He kissed her once more. "For marrying me," he murmured and kissed her silly.
"Sweet heavens," she said when she could get her breath. Her head spun with his nearness, she felt desire coiling deep, heated and ready to burst free. "I thought we were going to finish dressing."
"I'd rather get naked." He bit her earlobe, then whispered other things he'd like to do, in a low sexy growl that dissolved her kneecaps.
With an effort, she stepped away and reached for a pair of bright flowered leggings. She pulled them up, snuggling them over her hips while Cole watched open-mouthed. "My God, woman, those are indecent."
She lowered the T-shirt over the leggings. Now all that showed were her knees and calves. Cole snapped his mouth shut and reached for his belt. Joey picked it up first and after examining the buckle, she passed it to him. "Rodeo. This is a champion's buckle. I thought you said you barely made enough to get by on?"
He barely glanced at it, but studied the amused look on her face, "Most of the time. What's so funny?"
Shaking her head at him, still smiling, she slipped her feet into sandals. He watched her run a comb through her short curls. He couldn't help it, he had to weave his hands through her hair. "Soft, silky. Like you."
And then he had to kiss her again. In moments, they were sprawled on the bed, with his hands under her shirt, his fingers playing with her breasts, his lips on her bare belly. She pulled his shirt snaps free and let her hands frolic on his chest. She tugged lightly at his dark chest hair, then pushed through it with her mouth to find his flat nipples. With a groan of pleasure, he brought one hand up to press her head to him. "Keep that up and we're going to have our honeymoon right here."
Her head fell back on the bed. "Honeymoon?"
"We could manage a weekend in Banff, then go somewhere later on when Sam's back on his feet."
"Uh, Cole, aren't you getting ahead of yourself here?"
He stopped doing up his shirt. "What do you mean?"
"I had to tell my mother, but that doesn't mean anything's changed."
"The hell it hasn't. What do you think that," with a toss of his head at the rumpled bed, "means? We're married, Joey, and I plan on staying married."
"We don't know each other," she burst out. If she'd know he had this streak of male dominance, she'd have thought twice. Shades of her childhood, to hear Cole laying down the law.
"We can get to know each other, honey. We have a lifetime ahead of us to do just that."
She glared at him. "I have children to consider."
"So do I. You want more? We can discuss that." Oh, hell, he thought as he watched her expression change. He remembered she'd said she couldn't get pregnant. He hadn't even thought of asking why. What did that make him?
Joey caught the regret chasing over his face. "I had a tubal ligation years ago."
"Oh." He eyed her. "I've heard they can be reversed."
Was he suggesting he'd want children with her? She caught her breath at the idea. "Maybe so, but we're getting off the track here. We're just too different to make marriage work."
"You don't know that, honey. There's lots of things we have in common."
"Besides sex?"
"Well, sure."
"Name one," she challenged.
After a moment, his lip quirked in that gesture she found totally endearing. "I don't think you like those mutts out there anymore than I do."
"You can't build a marriage on dogs." Despite herself, she grinned.
"It's a start. We'll find more as we go along."
"How can you be sure?"
"Beats me. I just am. Can't you trust me on this?"
That was an awful lot to ask, she thought as she watched him shove his foot into the other boot, then stand to comb his hair. His shoulders moved, the muscles in his back tightened and released under his Western-styled shirt and all she wanted to do was tear that shirt off and lure him back to bed. Sweet heavens. She'd never been like this, never, not even when she and Tom were young and couldn't bear to be apart for more than a few minutes.
He turned back to her. "Ready?"
She looked up from straightening the bed once more. "We haven't settled anything."
"We will."
Marie had coffee waiting for them. Her movements a little jerky, Joey made herself a cup of tea before settling down on the couch. Cole brought his mug and sat next to her. For an instant, she felt like a teenager again, expecting to be grounded for staying out too late. She bit back a giggle.
Cole shot her a curious look, then grinned. He leaned closer and whispered, "Do I lose my car privileges or what?"
The giggle escaped and turned into full-fledged laughter. She leaned back against the cushions and laughed as she hadn't in ages. Cole joined in, his deeper rumble counterpoint to hers.
How quickly he picked up on her inner thoughts, as if he were right inside her head with her. It took some people a great many married years to achieve that level of wordless communication, and here they'd managed it less than a day after their wedding. The thought left her unnerved.
Marie sat across from them, eyeing them both severely. "Do you want to tell me what's going on here?"
That provoked more laughter. Marie smiled faintly. Cole put his mug down on the coffee table and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.
Joey placed her hand on his back and rubbed absently. Cole sighed and patted her thigh. It felt so good, so intimate, so natural to Joey that she relaxed and smiled at her mother. "I guess you're a little surprised."
Marie nodded, her gaze on Cole's hand possessively on her daughter's leg.
"So are we," Joey admitted.
"I don't understand. How could this happen?"
"We don't need to go into that," Cole interrupted. "It did."
Marie blinked and turned her gaze to Joey.
Joey explained as best she could, keeping the more private details for herself. "So you see, Mom, now we have to decide what we're going to do about this."
"What's to decide?" Cole turned to her, his eyes turning dark. "We've already been over this. We're married. We're going to stay married."
Joey dropped her hand from his back. "That remains to be seen."
"We'll talk about this later. C'mon, let's get your things and go."
"What?" Joey asked in confusion. "Go where?"
"Home. To the ranch."
"You've got to be kidding!"
His brow furrowed. "I mean it. Let's go."
"No."
He stood abruptly and glared down at her, then spoke over his shoulder to Marie. "Would you excuse us while we discuss this?"
Marie stood uncertainly. She looked at Joey. "Okay?"
Her gaze on Cole's, Joey nodded. "Give us a few minutes, Mom."
Marie walked down hall, calling the dogs with her.
"All right, Joey. What's the matter now?"
She stood. Even standing, she was a head shorter than he, but at least he wasn't thundering down at her. Bracing herself, she looked up at him. "Cole, be sensible. I can't go out to your ranch with you. I can't show up like an overnight guest."
"You're my wife, dammit. You'll go there as my wife."
"No. We had to tell my mother, but that's as far as it goes. I'll speak to her, she won't say anything. No one has to know."
"We didn't commit a crime, Joey. We got married."
She ignored the low tones of his voice. "Will you stop saying that? I don't feel married!"
"You don't feel married?" he repeated. "Well, hell, Joey, give it a chance!"
"I'm not sure I want to do that, Cole."
"What was this afternoon all about, then?"
She heard the wounded tone and reacted honestly. Placing a hand on his chest, feeling his heart thump, she stared at his throat where his pulse beat. "That was two people going crazy for awhile."
"Maybe so, honey, but it was good, wasn't it?"
Oh, yes, it was good. So good it frightened her. She had to be perverse, to be indulging in such passion with a man she hardly knew. Swallowing hard, she fought the urge to indulge a little bit more, right here and now.
"Joey?"
"Oh, Cole," she sighed. "I just don't know what to say. I can't believe we're fighting over this. How can I stay here, be married to you? Everything I've ever known or loved is back in Santa Cruz."
"We'll make a new life. Bring your kids here. We'll both start over."
For a moment, the idea was tempting. She crushed it down. Their lives were just too different. "It's best that we put an end to this marriage before anyone gets hurt."
"Too late for that," he muttered.
"Don't be absurd, Cole. We're a flash in the pan. There's nothing to build anything solid on. We're kidding ourselves if we think anything else."
"You're wrong, honey. I know you well enough to know that you would never have gone to bed with me, never married me, unless you felt something for me."
"But I was drunk!" she cried.
"So maybe it loosened your inhibitions, but booze couldn't have manufactured what we felt for each other."
She laughed at that. "That is the silliest thing I have ever heard. Alcohol makes people do crazy things all the time."
"Hey, give a guy a break. I'm fighting for something I want here."
"You keep saying that, but how can you be so sure? This time yesterday, neither of us had any intention of getting married. We weren't even thinking of making love!"
"Speak for yourself, honey."
Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she muttered, "Get serious. You weren't thinking of getting married."
"No. But I was thinking of making love to you. Why do you think I asked you out to the ranch?"
Joey averted her gaze, knowing that Cole would read her too easily. She'd known that was what he had in mind, and she'd gone anyway. She'd wanted it, too. "That doesn't mean we'd wind up married."
"But we did. We are married. And I want it to work."
"Are you sure, Cole? Really sure?"
"Yup."
She blew her breath out. Maybe it was a mistake. She knew it was risky and irresponsible, but maybe, just maybe, they had a chance. "Give me a little time to think things out."
"How much time?"
"How do I know?" She threw up her hands. "Until I know what to do."
"Are we talking a day, a week here? Six months?"
"Somewhere in there."
He shook his head. "I don't want to wait around while you make up your mind."
"C'mon, Cole," she coaxed, aware of how far he'd unbent from his previous flat 'no.' "Give me a break."
His eyes narrowed. She stared right back. His lip quirked and Joey knew she'd won.
"All right. One week. Then we make the announcement and you move out to the ranch."
She rolled her eyes. "What makes you so sure of that?"
"You will."
She couldn't resist having the last word. "We'll see."
Ready for the next chapter?
Chapter Eleven -- posted December 25, 1997
Last updated: January 4, 1998