Page 2 of Montana Groom of Convenience (Montana Cowboys #5)

Bart Connelly had made her see how important that was.

He courted her ardently. She’d admired his interest in everything to do with the ranch operation.

Her admiration had cooled considerably after he let her see his real reason for the courtship.

He told her he intended to have his own ranch someday, and he didn’t mean to wait until he’d saved up enough from his wages.

That would take far too long. Nope. There was more than one way to get started.

Didn’t take Carly long to realize she was his shortcut. She might have been agreeable to a partnership but then he started to tell her how to do things. Started telling her to run along and get prettied up for him. She finally told him he should run along and get himself prettied up .

After that, she refused his company. Let him find someone else to marry in order to get his ranch.

Seems most men expected she’d change for them, get prettied up, and let them order her about. She soon stopped bothering with them. But now, here she was needing to marry someone. Bart was long gone, which was a mercy. She shuddered at the thought of giving in to his demands.

She pushed her chair back. She didn’t have time to listen to the man’s woes. She had to save the ranch. “I’m sorry about your plight, but I don’t know what I can do to help.”

“You can marry me.”

She sat down with a thud and opened her mouth but not a word came out. She stared. Blinked. Blinked again. Closed her eyes and told herself she was in a bad dream, but when she opened her eyes, the man still sat there, watching, waiting.

She found her voice, though it sounded a bit rusty. “Marry you? You’re a stranger. I don’t even know your name. I don’t know anything about you.”

“Name’s Sawyer Gallagher. I’m twenty-three. Been on my own since I was fourteen. Been working on ranches or riding herd on a trail ride. That’s about it.”

That was it? Who was he? What sort of life did he plan to live?

She studied him with narrowed eyes. Dirty blond hair. Blue-green eyes. Three days’ growth of dusty beard. A trail-soiled faded blue shirt. A look that shouted don’t mess with me. A man used to being in charge.

She almost shivered. No. She could not see herself married to this man .

Except to save the ranch?

He leaned forward, his eyes challenging and fierce enough to make her want to sit back and put more distance between them.

“You need a husband so you can keep your ranch. I need a home for Jill.” He looked down as he continued, not allowing her to read his expression.

“I know what it’s like to grow up homeless and drifting.

It’s how my pa and I were until he married Judith, and they had little Jill. ” He paused.

When he resumed speaking, his voice had deepened, and his words came slowly as if he found them difficult to say them.

“I learned not to care about people or places ’cause I knew they weren’t going to last. It killed something inside me, so I don’t feel things anymore.

” He lifted his head, and she sat back at the way his eyes blazed.

“I don’t want Jill to end up like me.” The fire in his gaze died, and she could have been looking into a bottomless pit for all she saw.

She swallowed hard. Not often a man made her feel small and vulnerable but something about this man did. He wasn’t big. Annie’s brothers were far bigger. But his soulless eyes unnerved her.

He went on, not hurrying, yet she felt his intensity. “I want nothing but a permanent home for my sister. No emotional ties. No expectations except for me to do the ranch work and you to teach Jill how to feel safe.”

Their glances went to the child. She picked her nose and wiped it on her already soiled dress. “I don’t suppose learning a few manners would hurt either.”

“No strings attached?” Why was she even considering this? One reason and one only...to keep the ranch. She looked again at the little girl. Maybe two reasons. The second is to give a child a home where she would be safe and secure.

“No strings.” His voice was flat but firm.

“You’d have your own bedroom?” Her cheeks burned at the question, but she had to be sure they were clear on this matter. She did not want to be controlled by a man indoors or out.

“Either that or I’ll sleep in the barn.”

“No need for that.” There was a small room next to Father’s that was used mostly for storage. It would be adequate.

Except this wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t seriously considering his suggestion. No. She wasn’t that desperate.

“I heard you say your father gave you two weeks.”

She stared at the wall behind him. Could she find someone else to marry in two weeks?

As Annie said, it didn’t allow time to advertise for a husband, and even if it did, there would not be enough time to get to know and evaluate any man who responded.

No one from around here would marry her, knowing how she conducted herself.

Every man she’d ever met wanted her to go to the house and pretty herself up.

The few single men in the area who might be desperate enough to marry her had already been dismissed as old, ugly, mean, or simpering.

Old Billy Cameron was but a sample of what she had to choose from.

She simply didn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing.

She squirmed in her chair. But to marry a complete stranger!

Jill got down from her chair and kicked at the table legs .

“Jill,” Sawyer said. “Don’t do that.”

The child kicked harder, causing the table to hop away. Then she gave Sawyer a look full of disdain, challenge and?—

Despair.

Carly saw it. She felt it, and her heart went out to the orphaned child who didn’t know where she belonged. She couldn’t imagine the pain of not having a home, no place to call one’s own.

If Carly didn’t marry and present her father with a man to help run the ranch, she was about to lose the place she called home, the place she considered her own.

“Okay. Let’s do it.” She would marry the man, ensure her own home, and give Jill one at the same time.

Sawyer didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t blink. Didn’t so much as allow his eyelids to flicker, even though the woman’s ready agreement left him feeling like he teetered at the brink of a bottomless ravine. Shouldn’t she have asked a lot of questions about him and his character?

“I’m an honest, honorable man.” The words fell out of his mouth. “I’ll treat you right.”

Carly gave him narrow-eyed study with those dark brown eyes. He had to concentrate not to shift his gaze away. “Mr. Gallagher, you might hit me once, but you’ll never hit me twice. I’ll see to that. I’ll not tolerate a man who rules with his fists. ”

He didn’t know if he should laugh at the idea of this little gal getting all feisty or congratulate her on her stand.

“Warning duly noted.” He wondered if she heard the humor in his voice, then remembered she wouldn’t.

He’d kept his responses cooled for so long that he seldom felt them, and even less often did others recognize them.

“But completely unnecessary. I’d never hit a woman or child. ”

Her lips pursed. “I won’t abide rough treatment of my animals, either.”

He nodded. “You and I see eye to eye on that matter.”

She studied him so hard he felt something inside shudder.

To avoid her gaze, he turned to Jill. “Her parents died right after Christmas.” It was the last time he’d been home, and he’d stayed only two days, anxious to be on the move.

Mostly from not wanting to feel like an outsider to the happy family of his pa, Judith and Jill, although Judith did everything she could to include him.

He’d seen the pain in her eyes and Pa’s when he rode out.

The neighbor said they’d taken sick shortly after he left, and the fever had claimed their lives.

“I was away, and when I came home, I found Jill living with an elderly woman who provided nothing but a roof over her head and some meals. From what I could see, Jill took care of herself, which meant she ran wild. She’d been shuffled from home to home. No one wanted to keep her.”

He studied his little sister. Already, he saw the evidence of her reaction to losing her parents and having a home where no discipline or affection was given.

“She accepts no affection. Rebuffs attempts of people to befriend her.” He gave a sound that was half snort, half amusement.

“Course, I’m hardly one to judge what a normal reaction is.

” He subdued a sigh. “Like I said, I don’t want her to end up like me. ”

“I expect she’s just wanting someone who will accept her as she is and be there for her every day.”

Those words ricocheted back and forth inside Sawyer’s heart. Every day? He’d long ago learned there was no such thing as counting on someone every day. He’d discovered the best way to keep from being hurt was to not allow himself to feel anything, not to trust anyone to always be there.

He’d gotten really good at it. So good that women considered him cold and distant.

He’d tried to change when he met Gladys Berry.

She talked of home and family...things he thought he wanted.

He soon learned he couldn’t become what she wanted, and she’d stopped letting him call on her.

Accused him of having no feelings—something he could not deny.

Said he was a loner and would always be so. Again, he was unable to deny it.

He’d been better off than Jill. He’d had his pa. Sort of. Pa was there in body but absent in every other way until he had met and married Judith.

By marrying Carly, Sawyer could hope to give Jill what Pa had found. He wasn’t sure what to call it but figured security best described it.

“How soon do you want to get married?” he asked.

“Today suit you?”

Long years of hiding emotions enabled him to sit perfectly still, revealing none of his surprise. “Today is fine by me.” There seemed nothing to be gained by waiting except to allow her time to change her mind. “You know someone who will marry us on such short notice?”

She rumbled her lips. “Now that might pose a problem.”

“How much of a problem?”

“I don’t know if I can find anyone to agree to our plan.”

He should have known this wouldn’t work out.

With studied indifference, he got to his feet.

“In that case, I’ll be moving along. Nice talking to you.

” He grabbed his worn and battered cowboy hat from where it hung on the back of the chair and reached for Jill’s hand.

“Come on.” Jill raced ahead and was out the door before he’d made three steps.

Knowing she could get into all kinds of trouble in less time than it took to say her name, he rushed after her.

“Mr. Gallagher, wait just one minute.”

He ignored Carly Morrison’s imperative call and hurried out the door just in time to see Jill dash into the middle of the street, right into the path of an oncoming wagon. He rushed after her, praying he’d get there in time to prevent a tragedy.