Marriage at Circle M
Donna Alward
For my husband and children….
Thank you for your tolerance,
your support, and your enthusiasm through this journey to publication.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN MIKE GARDNER came walking up the path in just that way, Grace knew she was in trouble.
And when he stopped at the foot of her stepladder, hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and squinted up at her, she gripped her paintbrush tighter so as not to drop it. Mike was all long, lazy strides and sexy smiles, and despite her best intentions, she’d never been able to remain immune to his charm. Not since she’d hit puberty, anyway.
“Mornin’, Grace.” The words weren’t exactly drawled, but were drawn out just enough to give that impression.
Grace straightened her shoulders and did her best to look nonchalant as she swiped another stripe of white paint over the window trim. “Hello, Mike.”
Great. Now why in the world did those two words come out all breathless, anyway?
She had to remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that she’d made a fool of herself where Mike was concerned. It had been years since there had been anything between them. But she’d had a little too much punch, there’d been a little too much giggling and she’d blurted out one very ill-thought-out sentence. She still felt the heat of her embarrassment and every time they met now, she did everything she could to assure him—to assure herself, even, that Mike Gardner was completely resistible. Lord knew he didn’t need her fawning over him the way the rest of the female population seemed to. Without thinking, she tucked an errant strand of blond hair back behind her ear, leaving it streaked with paint.
“You’re up with the birds,” he commented, a lazy smile creeping up his cheek as she chanced a look down at him.
“And you knew I would be, or you wouldn’t be here so early.” She pointedly checked her watch. “It’s 7:46.”
“It is?” His chin flattened ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, I thought it was later.”
“You’ve likely been up and done chores already.”
“Yes.”
Darn him. She couldn’t just stand up on the stepladder like an idiot, carrying on a conversation that was barely holding its own. Besides, she was all too aware that his height, paired with her distance up the ladder, put his line of vision right at her backside. She sighed, put her brush across the top of the paint-smeared can and took a step down—and her dew-slick sneaker slipped on the metal step.
His hands were there to catch her.
“Whoa, there.”
She shrugged off his touch. It felt far too strong and too good. “I’m not one of your horses, Mike.”
He laughed. “No, ma’am. You sure aren’t.”
It wasn’t fair. She’d had a thing for Mike since she was fourteen, but he’d tended to treat her like a kid sister. An annoying one. For a brief time, when she’d been in high school, they’d been more. But that seemed a lifetime ago. For him to flirt now…weeks after she’d made a complete idiot of herself, it was too much. That one little slip of the lip was the only time she’d ever come close to telling him how she felt, and at the time he’d only laughed at her.
She was older…and far wiser now at twenty-seven. There was no room in her life for schoolgirl crushes. She planted her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Look, you obviously didn’t come around for idle chitchat. Tell me what’s on your mind so I can get back to work.”
Mike had to turn away to hide his smile. She was good and irritated, he could tell. And besides that, she looked wonderful this morning. Her blond hair was tucked into some sort of strange clip, and little pieces tangled around her ears. Her eyes flashed at him now, icy blue with annoyance. Looking up that stepladder at her slim, tanned legs had almost made him forget why he was here. And steadying her with his arms as she’d slipped had wiped his brain clean of any other thoughts whatsoever. He liked the feel of his hands on her skin.
He stepped back, ignoring her jab, instead turning to survey the small yellow bungalow she called home.
It had seen better days, but Grace had a way of making it welcoming. A caragana hedge flanked the west side of her paved drive—a driveway that was in need of some serious patchwork. He recognized the bleeding heart shrubs, next to some sort of bushes with tiny white flowers. Everything was dressed up by circles of lilies and stalks of purply blue flowers he remembered from one of his foster homes. The peeling trim on the eaves would soon be gleaming and white like the sections she’d already painted. Somehow she’d taken a plain, aging bungalow and made it home.
“You’re painting.”
She kept her eyes front as if refusing to look at him. “Your powers of deduction astound me. What tipped you off?”
He ignored that bit of sarcasm, too. She had to be tired, after all. The drips down the side of her paint can were fresh; she’d obviously been at it a while before he showed up. And he knew for a fact that she’d been up late last night, because her lights had been on when he’d been on his way back from town at nearly one o’clock. He wished…He wished she didn’t have to work so hard for everything. But he was the last person who could make things better for her. At least for right now he was.
“How do you find time to do everything, Grace? Whenever I see you you’re busy at something.”
By getting up at 5:00 a.m., she thought. Instead she shoved her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “It keeps me out of trouble.”
“Then I sure hate to ask what I’m about to.”
Mike was serious, she realized, pushing away the urge to use sarcasm as a shield against him. Normally he said nothing at all or what he did say was disarming and funny. But Grace had known him long enough to know when he was troubled. And the tone of his voice right now told her something was definitely going on. When he merely stared at her house longer, she wrinkled her brow and went to him, gently placing a paint-splattered hand on his forearm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Connor took Alex to the hospital yesterday afternoon.”
Grace’s eyes clouded with worry, a strange twisting in her belly at the news. Mike and Connor were like brothers, so much more than business partners. When Connor had to slaughter his beef herd, he and Mike had become partners in Circle M Quarterhorses.
“Is it the baby? Are they okay?” Alex had a baby due in a few months.
Mike didn’t seem to be able to look at her, but she could feel the worry emanating from him. His arm was tense beneath her fingers and his jaw clamped tight. “She went into early labor, so they’re keeping her in for a while. Doc says she’ll be on bed rest from here on out. That’s all I know