He barely waited until the clock said one minute after nine that evening before he dialed the number she’d given him. It rang twice, and then a breathless female voice said, “Hello?”
“Juliette.”
“Marty?”
“Yeah. Hi.”
“Hi.”
If he’d harbored any doubts about her, they vanished the second her soft voice uttered his name. He closed his eyes and said the first thing that came into his head. “I wish I were there with you right now.”
There was a beat of silence, and he kicked himself for being too presumptuous. Just because he felt…connected to her didn’t mean she felt the same way.
Then she said, “I wish you were, too.”
The soft note of genuine regret in her tone pleased him. “I miss you.”
“That’s crazy. You don’t know me well enough to miss me.” There was another small silence, and then she confessed, “I miss you, too.”
He took a deep breath as his pulse increased; he had to clamp down hard on the urge to tell her he was going to drive into Rapid City right now. If he hadn’t had Cheyenne to think of, he just might have done it. “So how does one o’clock Friday sound?”
“One o’clock?” Her voice was a squeak. “You’re serious? You really want to go and get married at one o’clock on Friday?”
“Yep. If you’ll have me.” He knew he was pushing but suddenly he realized he had to hear a commitment from her, had to know she was going to be his.
He wasn’t aware that he was unconsciously holding his breath until she said, “I guess there’s no reason to wait,” in a timid little tone.
“Great.” He was pretty damned tickled that this whole thing seemed to be working out so well.
They talked for over an hour, mostly general getting-to-know-you conversation. He shared everything he could think of about Cheyenne with her. He also began to talk to Cheyenne about Juliette the following day, encouraged when she seemed receptive to the idea of a new mother living in their house.
On Monday he told his brother he was getting married on Friday, and while Deck was still reeling from the shock, he got a promise that Cheyenne could stay with Silver, his sister-in-law, during the day. And he called his bride-to-be again Monday night and Tuesday night.
He told her about his family, his newly married brother and sister-in-law and the closest neighbors, also newly married.
“It was funny,” he said. “I was the one who wanted to get married, and it seemed like everybody else except me was saying ‘I do.”’
“They’re all going to think we’re crazy,” she said.
“I don’t care what they think,” he said. “As long as I get to share a bed with you from dusk to dawn every night.”
He had intended to tease her, but his words back-fired as a heavy rush of desire filled him. He’d been mildly turned on since he’d heard her voice; now he had a serious case of circuit overload threatening.
There was silence on her end of the line. Oh, hell. Had he offended her? He had a big mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can you just pretend I never said that?”
She laughed, a sweet, musical sound that tiptoed along his nerve endings and snuggled into his bones like an old friend. “Not a chance. I’m going to hold you to it. Dusk to dawn, buddy.”
Now it was his turn to laugh, and it was as much relief that he hadn’t angered her as it was delight. “You little tease. Just wait till I get my hands on you.”
“Okay.”
He groaned.
She said, “Maybe we’d better change the topic,” and he could hear the shy smile in her voice.
“Not a bad plan,” he said. He cast around for something to talk about, but drew a blank.
There was a beat of silence.
“Tell me more about your ranch,” she requested.
“My ranch. All right.” He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation. “I already told you my brother and I own it. We work it together. It’s a good-size operation, about thirty thousand acres.”
“Do you and your brother live together?”
“Not anymore. He and his wife, Silver, live in a cabin that my father built my mother when they were first married but they’re building their own place.”
“I don’t know very much about ranches or cows,” she said.
“That’s okay. I don’t know much about women’s underwear, either.”
She laughed, and there was a short pause. “Have you lived all your life on your ranch?”
“All my life,” he said. “I would never have made it through college. I can’t stand being shut up indoors.”
There was another silence. “I enjoy learning,” she said. “I want to go back to school someday.”
“What do you want to study?”
“Literature,” she said. Then she laughed. “When I said I liked to read, I wasn’t kidding.”
“Were you one of those kids who took a book out on the playground at school recess?” he teased.
“Guilty. My friends used to get so furious with me because they’d ask me a question three times, and if I was reading, I never even heard them.”
“Remind me not to talk to you when you have a book in your hand,” he said.
She chuckled. The sound was soft and musical and it made his blood pressure rise, along with other, more noticeable parts of him. “What was your day like today?” she asked. “I’m trying to get a picture of what your life is like.”
“It was pretty normal for this time of year,” he said. “I spent most of the day in the neighbors’ pasture hunting for three bulls that didn’t come in last time we fed. We finally found them. Two were more than happy to come along home, but the third one wasn’t so cooperative.”
“So what did you do?” His life was as alien to her as if he came from another planet. She’d lived in or near a city all her life; Rapid City, which barely qualified compared to L.A. or San Diego, was by far the smallest metropolis in which she’d ever lived. And a real-live ranch…it certainly was going to be a new experience!
He was laughing as he answered her. “Outsmarted him. He wasn’t about to do what we wanted, so we just kept deviling him until he was so tired he finally gave up. After that, he decided maybe going home wasn’t such a bad idea.”
A noise from the second floor caught his attention, and he stilled. Sounded like Cheyenne was having a nightmare. “I hate to cut this short but I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow night, all right?”
“All right.” Her voice was soft and sweet, and he hated breaking the connection.
“See you Friday,” he promised.
“All right. Goodbye, Marty.”
Her voice still vibrated along his nerve endings as he raced up the stairs and headed into Cheyenne’s room. God, he couldn’t wait to see her again!
He called her every night during the rest of the week.
It was silly, she told herself, to be getting so dependent on a little thing like the ring of a telephone at a certain time. Still, she caught herself checking her watch every few minutes, anticipation burgeoning within her as the big hand dragged closer and closer to ten.
They