THE EIGHT SECOND WEDDING Read online

  He ignored that. "What the hell have you been telling my mother? What's this nonsense about meeting me at the ranch?"

  "Well, in two weeks it'll be the end of May. Where do you want me to meet you?"

  He still couldn't fathom that she was actually coming. "You're not serious. You're not coming."

  "Of course I'm serious. And I'm coming. We agreed."

  "But—"

  "Chickening out, Richardson?" she asked sweetly.

  His teeth came together. "Like hell I am."

  "Then where?"

  He looked over his shoulder at his camper, full of his traveling buddies, Wiley, Dev, Gil, all watching him with curious, speculative grins. He shut his eyes.

  "End of May?" he said hollowly. He counted two weeks down the road. "Vegas."

  "Las Vegas!" She sounded like he'd suggested Sodom or Gomorrah.

  "What's the matter with Las Vegas?"

  "Have you got a few years?"

  "Too tough a town for you, Decker?"

  He heard a sharp, explosive breath. "Never mind. I'll be there. No problem. I'll let you know what time I'm arriving."

  * * *

  A time that would be here in less than twenty-four hours from now.

  "This is crazy," he complained to his mother. He was pacing around her kitchen, feeling as if the hound of hell was nipping at his heels. He'd purposely stopped in on his way to Vegas, ostensibly to take another shot at staying on Danny Boy, but actually in the desperate hope that she'd tell him what a bad idea it was, how wrong she'd been, and then maybe she'd volunteer to call Madeleine Decker and head her off at the pass.

  She said, "You can't know how delighted I am, Chan. When Antonia and I heard, we thought it was an absolutely brilliant plan."

  "Absolutely nuts," Chan corrected. "Can you imagine what it'll be like, dragging some … some … professor all over the place?"

  "Enlightening, I should think," Julia said brightly. "For both of you. You'll get to know each other so well."

  Chan groaned at the thought. "She'll freak."

  "I doubt it. You might be surprised."

  "The only thing that'll surprise me is if she lasts longer than a week."

  Believing Madeleine wouldn't last more than that was the only bright light in Chan's life at the moment. It sure wasn't his spot in the standings. He was barely in the top fifteen. Nor was it the way his ribs and shoulder felt, which was as if that last bull in Montana had ridden him rather than the other way around.

  He never should have tackled Danny Boy this morning. He flexed his shoulders and stretched painfully, then did another lap of the kitchen floor and kicked at the rag rug underfoot. But really his muscles weren't the problem. The problem was Madeleine. Julia watched, bemused.

  "You're enjoying this," Chan accused her.

  "A little."

  "A lot."

  His mother laughed and slid off the stool. "Well, yes. It's been a long time since I've seen you unnerved by anything."

  "I'm not unnerved."

  "Aren't you." It wasn't a question.

  He gave her a wry smile.

  She smiled gently back at him. "I love you, Chan."

  "You sure as hell have a funny way of showing it. You never set up any of your other sons."

  "I never got the chance. Perhaps if you'd been quicker off the mark—"

  Chan said a rude word.

  "Don't swear, dear." Julia reached up and ruffled a hand through his hair exactly the way she'd done when he was no taller than her waist. "You're taking this much too seriously. I didn't mean this to be a great trial, only a good way for you to get to know a woman who might be right for you."

  "Madeleine Decker?"

  She gave a self-conscious little laugh. "You know me and my charts."

  "There's more to marriage than charts, Ma."

  She nodded. "You're absolutely right. The most important thing is love."

  "And you set me up with Madeleine Decker, anyway?"

  She hugged him once more and stepped back and brushed light fingers against his cheek as she looked up into his eyes. "You set you up," she pointed out. "Antonia and I only suggested the possibility that you might like each other."

  "That's all you did, huh?"

  Julia had the grace to look slightly abashed. "It's not as if it's forever, Chan. Only a little while."

  "Two damned months!"

  "You chose the time frame," she reminded him.

  "She chose it. Scientifically."

  Julia smiled. "There is something to be said for science, Chan."

  He snorted.

  "And Madeleine is a bright young woman."

  "Madeleine is a pain in the a – neck."

  "Give her a chance, Chan. Who knows? You really might fall in love with her."

  Chan rocked slowly back and forth on his heels and didn't say a word. There was no use arguing about an absurdity like that.

  * * *

  Back on October June had seemed centuries away. Or years away at least. Far enough so that for the longest time the reality of spending two months with Channing Richardson had been but a dim threat clouding Madeleine's horizon.

  Any number of unforeseen things could happen between late October and the end of May, she'd assured herself. Chances were she would never have to spend all of June and July with Chan Richardson.

  Unfortunately nothing unforeseen did.

  The world didn't end. She didn't fall madly and senselessly in love with anyone else – or even marry someone else whom she wasn't madly and senselessly in love with.

  Her perfect man was as elusive as ever. Not that she'd gone looking for him.

  She'd been too busy.

  Still she might have been able to conveniently forget about their agreement if Antonia, like the Chinese water torture in human form, hadn't dropped Chan's name into every conversation, and then met Madeleine for brunch on Mother's Day with a tall blond man in tow.

  "I know you remember Scott Barlowe," she said, oblivious to Madeleine's suddenly pale face. "You wrote me a letter on his behalf several years ago."

  "Of course she does," Scott said smoothly and touched his lips to Madeleine's icy ones, then slipped an arm around her to give her a squeeze. "How's my Madeleine?"

  Fortunately for Madeleine, she hadn't had to answer.

  Antonia had gone right on. "Scott just got in from Bali last night. He's been there all semester doing research where Lothar and I were. And he's going back when Jeremiah and I go next month. But he called me last night to catch me up on things, and I knew since you spent so much time there as a child, you'd want to hear, too. Isn't that nice?"

  Mute, Madeleine nodded.

  The waitress took their order and disappeared. Scott smiled and talked about Bali. He talked about places she'd been as a girl, people she knew, things she'd seen. A pitcher of Bloody Marys arrived. Then their eggs Benedict. Scott talked on, enthused. Antonia questioned eagerly, her eyes alight.

  And Madeleine listened – and yet somewhere deep inside, she didn't listen at all.

  He'd gone to Bali, she thought. Just as she'd dreamed. He'd gone to Bali and—

  "—this summer, Madeleine?"

  She blinked, aware that her mother had spoken to her. "What?"

  "I said, why don't you bring your dissertation along and join us this summer? Jeremiah and me. And Scott. I'm sure Scott would be glad of your company, wouldn't you?"

  "Absolutely," Scott agreed and gave Madeleine a fresh glimpse of the smile she'd once been in love with.

  Madeleine looked at him, she looked at her mother. She thought about her hopes, her dreams, the ashes they'd become. And she knew she would die before she raked over them again. Both Antonia and Scott smiled at her encouragingly.

  "I can't," she said.

  "Can't?" Scott echoed. He actually looked disappointed.

  Antonia frowned. "You can't? Why not?"

  "Because," said Madeleine rashly, "I'm doing what you've been after me to do for months, Mothe
r. I'm going down the road with Channing Richardson. I'm giving your perfect man a chance."

  * * *

  And now, heaven help her, here she was.

  She had sublet her apartment, sent her cat and her slinky black dress to live with Alfie for the summer, packed her laptop computer, her notes and her floppy disks, thrown all the jeans and T-shirts she owned into a pair of duffel bags, told her dissertation director she'd be in touch every week, and, at one forty-five on the last Sunday in May Madeleine Decker had boarded a plane to Las Vegas.

  She'd never been to Las Vegas in her life, couldn't imagine a life in which a visit to Vegas would ever be required.

  Surprise, surprise.

  Chan had agreed to return her to the airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the end of Cheyenne Frontier Days. In the interim Madeleine would spend two months – sixty-one days or 1464 hours or 87,840 minutes, more or less – in Channing Richardson's company.

  Unless, she thought hopefully as the plane lifted off that afternoon, the plane crashed or he came to his senses before then and simply didn't show up.

  No such luck.

  When she walked off the plane and into the airport there he was.

  She'd come on this absurd journey to avoid Scott, to avoid temptation, to avoid making a fool of herself a second time. She'd come to prove to her mother that Chan Richardson wasn't the perfect man, either. She'd come to prove to herself that she could easily resist the Richardson charm as well as the Richardson genes and the Richardson handsome face.

  Well, she told herself, good luck.

  There must be upwards of four million men in New York. She saw hundreds, perhaps thousands, every day, and she couldn't ever remember seeing one like him. Certainly she'd never met one who seemed half as alive, half as vigorously masculine as the man walking toward her now.

  With his dark hair peeking out from beneath the straw cowboy hat, with his deeply tanned face and pale blue, ice chip eyes, Channing Richardson looked every bit the handsome, hard, devil-may-care cowboy he was.

  Back in New York City, the thought of spending two months with him had seemed annoying but not particularly daunting. But that was then – when he'd been dwarfed by skyscrapers, hemmed in by taxis and buses, kicked by a bull and lying there looking at her bleary-eyed, through a concussed fog.

  This was now.

  Madeleine's only consolation was that he looked no less thrilled to see her than she was to be here.

  He took his hat off and raked his fingers through his hair, ruffling it. Then he slapped his hat down on his head again, tugged it over his eyes and moved toward her with as much enthusiasm as Gary Cooper facing a baddie at high noon.

  He walked with a slow measured stride. A gunslinger's stride, Madeleine thought warily. There was a roll to his gait, too, almost as if his hips fitted differently onto his legs.

  Damn it, she thought. She was not going to think about Chan Richardson's hips and legs.

  He stopped directly in front of her. His blue eyes met her green ones. "You came."

  Such enthusiasm was hardly overwhelming. She lifted her chin. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

  "Hoped." For a second a heart-stopping grin flickered across his face. "No one ever said I had any sense. Reckon I was counting on you."

  "Don't," Madeleine warned him.

  His brows lifted, then he nodded. "Fair enough. So, you ready?"

  As I'll ever be, Madeleine thought. She nodded.

  "Come on, then. Let's get your gear." He turned and started toward the baggage claim. Madeleine had to almost run to keep up.

  "So, what's the plan?" she asked. They hadn't discussed anything. She had done her best, made lists of what she'd thought she would need, plans for testing their compatibility so she'd have plenty of documented evidence for her mother come August. But she hadn't had a chance to talk to Chan at all other than two brief "I'm-in-a-phone-booth-gotta-run" conversations.

  He shrugged. "I'm goin' down the road. You're tagging along."

  So he was going to be difficult. "That's not precisely the way I would have put it," she said stiffly after a moment.

  Chan slanted her a sideways glance. "What would you call it?"

  "A mutual survival pact. Isn't that the general idea? We've banded together so we can convince our mothers not to meddle."

  "Makes us sound like a couple of grade schoolers," he grumbled.

  "You agreed that it was necessary last fall," she reminded him.

  "The more fool I."

  "Well, we can certainly call it off," she said. "There's a phone right over there. You just call your mother and tell her you chickened out. Then I'll just ring up my mother and—"

  She wouldn't, of course. Her mother would see it as an opportunity to drag her along to Bali.

  "I'm not chickening out!" Chan snapped.

  "Well, then, we're going. So why don't you just try to be civil?"

  "I am civil. You want me to sweep you off your feet? Throw my arms around you? Give you a kiss? Test for compatibility?" He gave her a leer instead.

  She backed up a step. "Of course not. But you could show a few manners."

  "Maybe I don't have any."

  "Maybe you don't."

  They glared at each other. Madeleine's chin rose in a stubborn tilt. She refused to give an inch.

  Finally Chan grinned and winked at her. "Gonna be a hell of a two months, Mad, ol' girl."

  "Don't call me Mad!"

  Chan just laughed. "Right, Decker."

  They reached the baggage claim, but she didn't see her luggage. She glanced warily at Chan. He was watching the women go by. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head.

  "So," she said briskly, "did you ride this afternoon?"

  "Huh?" He jerked his gaze back from a statuesque blonde he'd been evaluating. "Er, yeah. I did."

  "How did you do?" Madeleine wasn't sure if she should ask that or not. She didn't know what the proper etiquette was for inquiring about the success or failure of bull rides. Frankly she didn't care.

  "82."

  Which meant what? He must have noticed her baffled look because he went on to explain.

  "Out of a possible score of 100. There's two judges and each of them can award a maximum of 50 points, 25 for the rider and 25 for the bull."

  "They grade the bull?" She was surprised.

  "Yep. That's why you want a rank one."

  "Rank?"

  "Bad. Mean. Stomp you into the dirt."

  "Ah. The worse the bull the higher the score?"

  "You got it."

  "And 82 is good?"

  "Not bad." He glanced at his watch.

  "Are we in a hurry?"

  "I said we'd have dinner with some friends. Here comes the luggage. Do you see yours?"

  "Those two navy duffels."

  Chan grabbed them off the baggage carrier, hefting them both easily. Then he headed toward the exit, leaving Madeleine once again to catch up or trail in his wake. But when they got to the door, he stopped and held it open for her.

  She blinked, opened her mouth to comment, then thought better of it. But she was still puzzling over his gallantry when they reached the lot.

  She trailed just behind him, wondering what kind of car he drove. Something sturdy and macho, no doubt. She made bets with herself as they approached sturdy Jeeps and Ford utility vehicles and anything else that seemed likely.

  She would have lost no matter which she bet on. He didn't drive a car at all; he drove a truck.

  The truck didn't surprise her. What surprised her was the large camper on back. It was less a truck than a sort of mini motor home.

  Madeleine stopped dead. "This isn't—"

  "Home sweet home," Chan said. He held the back door open for her.

  Madeleine hesitated, this time not in amazement at his chivalry, but in awareness of some very important questions that she had failed to ask.

  She'd expected car trips with Chan, yes. She knew "going down the road" meant literally going d
own the road, traveling from one rodeo to the next, one town to the next, one state to the next.

  But she'd also expected nighttime stops complete with motel rooms. Separate motel rooms. Space. Privacy. Not twenty-four-hour-a day togetherness in a camper the size of a Shredded Wheat box.

  "Don't tell me. You're waiting for an engraved invitation?" His head was cocked and he was grinning at her.

  Madeleine shot him a hard glare. Why in heaven's name hadn't he mentioned their living quarters, told her what she was getting into? But then, she imagined him saying, if living quarters were an issue, why hadn't she asked?

  Indeed, why hadn't she?

  Because she was an idiot, apparently.

  Well, yes. And she knew what he'd say if she protested now: "So chicken out."

  No way.

  Taking a deep breath, she climbed in.

  It was bigger than she'd thought. In fact, the back of the truck with its tiny kitchen area, its table and couch and bed seemed almost spacious … until Chan stepped in behind her and shut the door.

  Suddenly it became cereal-box-size again. Meal-in-a-cereal-box-size, as a matter of fact.

  Chan tossed her duffels onto the couch. "You can make yourself at home. I cleared out some drawers and part of the closet. Just throw my stuff aside if it's in your way. Except my shirts." He jerked open a closet door and she saw a half a dozen colorful, neatly pressed, long-sleeved shirts hanging side by side. He winked. "Gotta look snazzy for the fans."

  "I'm sure," Madeleine said dryly.

  Chan laughed. "And my rigging bag." He nodded at a dirty black duffel shoved under the table. "Don't mess with it. Otherwise you can do what you want. Later. Now we gotta go."

  He brushed past her and settled into the driver's seat, started up the engine and, with the ease of long practice, whipped them out of the parking lot.

  Madeleine, still standing in the aisle, was dumped unceremoniously onto the narrow couch.

  "You wanta sit down when we're movin'," Chan advised without even turning around. "Safer that way."

  Driving slower would be safer, too. "I'll keep it in mind," Madeleine said to the back of his black head.

  * * *

  Las Vegas was everything she'd ever imagined – and more. More sky. More mountains in the distance. More hotels. More casinos. More gaudiness. More neon. More heat.

  When she got out of the truck to go into the restaurant, she felt as if she was stepping into an oven. Chan didn't even seem to notice. He just locked the door after her and led the way into the splashy Western-style building. They went through a casino where Madeleine's eyes grew round as the poker chips on the tables as she took in the rows of people clad in everything from plaid polyester to gold lamé, industriously tugging on the handles of slot machines.