The Marriage Pact (Hqn) Read Free Page B

a one-man bombing raid. Alas, as it turned out, air traffic over L.A. had been almost as bad as the bottlenecks on the highway below.
    By the time he’d finally landed at the airstrip outside Bliss River, thirty-five miles from Mustang Creek, Tripp was beginning to question his own sanity.
    Jim’s rattletrap of a truck was waiting, per Tripp’s harried request by phone, with a full gas tank, keys in the ignition and a note scrawled on the back of a page from an old feed store calendar—April 1994, to be precise.
    Couldn’t hang around to wait for you, Jim had written in his curiously elegant handwriting. Got a couple of sick calves on the place, so I had Charlie—he’s the new hired man—follow me over here to drop off the rig and give me a lift straight back home. See you later at the ranch. P.S. Be sure to break the news to Hadleigh real gentle, now. She’s going to be mighty hurt and mad as a wildcat with all four paws caught in a vat of molasses.
    With that sage advice running through his mind, Tripp had raced over twisting highways and dirt-road shortcuts with his foot practically jammed into the carburetor of that old truck, desperate to get to the church before the preacher made it official with the customary words.
    I now pronounce you husband and wife.
    They were well past the danger point, but, in spite of that, Tripp shuddered at the thought of Hadleigh as Mrs. Oakley Smyth.
    The marriage could have been annulled, of course, but only if the wedding night didn’t happen first. Even then, Hadleigh would have needed some serious convincing, and there’d still be a lot of legal wrangling once she’d seen the light. In the interim, Oakley might just be able to charm her down the aisle all over again.
    Squinting through the dust-coated windshield, Hadleigh blinked, her expression one of baffled disbelief. “Bad Billy’s?” she asked, as Tripp swung the truck into the lot. “What are we doing here?”
    “I’m starved,” Tripp replied affably, gliding into a parking spot near the entrance. The lot was nearly empty, a good sign. “And I believe you wanted a few answers?”
    “I am wearing a wedding dress,”Hadleigh pointed out, pushing the words out between her perfect white teeth. Not so long ago, Tripp mused nostalgically, she’d been a “metal-mouth,” as Will used to put it, reluctant to smile, lisping through so much steel grillwork that she could have moonlighted as a blade on a snow plow.
    “So I noticed.” Tripp shut off the engine, setting the brake.
    “Can’t you just take me home?” Hadleigh’s voice was small now; her batteries were running down. A temporary condition, for his money. In another minute, unless Tripp missed his guess, she’d be trying to claw his eyeballs out of their sockets.
    “Think of your reputation,” he counseled benevolently. “How would it look if we were alone at your place after what happened? What would people say?”
    “As if you cared what anybody says,” Hadleigh said, rolling her eyes as she spoke. “Anyway, I’m trying not to think of my reputation,” she lamented. “Since it’s been thoroughly trashed.”
    Tripp grinned, got out of the truck, came around to Hadleigh’s side and opened the door while she was still searching, he supposed, for the lock button, probably planning to shut him out. In her state of mind, it might not occur to her that he could use his key to get in.
    “Do you want to walk,” he asked her with exaggerated politeness and a slight bow, “or shall I carry you?”
    Hadleigh sort of spilledout of the cab and onto the running board, in a shifting, glimmering cloud of fuss and fabric, and stepped awkwardly to the ground, refusing to let Tripp assist her in any way. The glittering hem of her resplendent gown dragged in the unraked gravel surrounding Bad Billy’s place, swishing among cigarette butts and discarded gum wrappers and drinking straws squashed flat.
    “Don’t you dare touch me,” she commanded loftily,