The Cowboy's E-Mail Order Bride (18 page)

“No, it’s Lacey. Is this Autumn?”

Autumn looked at the phone. Why would Lacey be calling at this hour? “Yes.”

“Ethan will be home soon, but I thought you’d want to know why he’s so late.”

“He’s looking for Rob,” Autumn said sharply, moving to hang up.

Lacey laughed. “Well, that’s the excuse he’ll use, but he’s actually been with me.”

“You’re a lousy liar,” Autumn said, but a little voice asked how Lacey knew he wasn’t home with her.

“That may be, but I’m the one who’s been making out with Ethan for the past hour, and you’re the one sitting home alone.”

She paced across the kitchen, her free hand balled into a fist. The clock read past two in the morning. Where was Ethan? Why wasn’t he home?

“You know Ethan could never keep his hands off of me. We did it two, three times a day when we were together. Inside, outside, in his truck.” Lacey broke off with a throaty laugh.

“Whatever. Lacey, you’re past history. Go to bed.”

“You want proof Ethan’s still in love with me? Proof that he can’t get my body out of his mind even now that I’m marrying Carl? He goes into his office every night after dinner, doesn’t he? Know what he’s doing? I bet he’s never let you in there.”

“What?” How did Lacey know she hadn’t been in Ethan’s office? There’d never been a reason for her to go in there and he always kept the door closed to hide the mess, or so he’d said. “He’s doing the accounts,” Autumn snapped, but a little tendril of dread tightened in her gut. She hated to think that Ethan’s daily rituals were as familiar to Lacey as they were to her. More familiar, actually. Lacey had dated Ethan for months, right? Years, even. She’d only been with him for three weeks.

“Is that what he calls it?” Another throaty laugh. “Uh uh, darling. You see, he calls me every night. If I’m not in, he listens to my answering machine, and he looks at my photograph – my naked photograph – and…well, you can picture the rest.”

“That is such bullshit,” Autumn said.

“Is it? Check out his office. You’ll see exactly what I mean. Oh, and by the way, that YouTube video – the one that lured you to Montana in the first place because you were so desperate for a husband? Ethan didn’t even make it. Rob did. As a joke.” Lacey hung up and Autumn stood there, nausea crawling up her throat, the phone still held in her hand.

Lacey couldn’t be serious – about any of it. There was no way Ethan was getting off to her answering machine in his office every night and then coming out and making love to her with a passion that swept her off her feet. There was no way this whole thing was a joke.

But what if he
was
thinking of Lacey when he was with her?

No. No way could he fake that.

What if he was only with her because Lacey was marrying Carl?

She couldn’t believe that, either.

And what did Lacey mean that Rob had made the YouTube video instead of Ethan? That couldn’t be true – except…she remembered Rob’s words at the restaurant: “Without me you’d never be marrying Autumn…”

The whole thing had been a joke?

She
was a joke?

She placed the phone back in its cradle with trembling hands and slowly made her way to Ethan’s bedroom, halting at the closed door to his office. She tentatively reached out and turned the handle. The door swung open, revealing a room so small the desk took up an entire wall.

She stepped in, turned on the light and cried out.

There on the wall beside his desk, just as Lacey had said, was a mass of photographs. All of them showed Lacey in various outfits at various locations, but smack in the middle of all of them was a very provocative, very naked image of Lacey. Right where Ethan would have to see it, every single night.

Tears filled her eyes and she flicked off the light. She backed out of the room, and blindly retraced her steps. He was still in love with Lacey – or in lust, or something. At the very least he spent nearly twenty minutes every night with her naked image before he was able to make love to her.

Shame burned the back of her throat and she stumbled to the guest bedroom and began to pack. She had to get out of here, right now. She was a pathetic stand-in for the woman Ethan truly loved and there was no way she’d spend her life as someone else’s second choice.

And everyone knew. Everyone in the restaurant tonight – at the bar – they all knew. She recalled the tension at the table as they waited with bated breath to see whether or not Rob would spill Ethan’s big secret – that the whole video ad for a mail order bride was a big, fat fake, and her wedding was probably a big, fat fake, too.

Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she pulled open the drawers of the bureau and began to pile her clothing on the bed. Was that it? Was the whole damn town in on the gag? When would Ethan have told her? At the altar? Before or after they exchanged their fake vows?

You were lying to him, too. If you’d submitted the article you came to write, all of New York City would be laughing at Ethan.

Tears spilled down over her cheeks. She bent to grab her suitcase and cursed when the lid swung open and a package fell out on her foot.

The pregnancy test.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She sat down hard and covered her face with her hands as sobs wracked her. Ethan was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be as excited as she was to find out whether or not they were having a child, but instead he was who knows where, tangled up in a web of lies so thick he’d trapped her good and hard within them.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and stared at the box for a full minute before slowly retrieving it. She might as well do it now, so she knew exactly what type of hell she’d be returning to New York City to face.

Five minutes later she sat on the closed lid of the toilet and stared at the plus sign on the pregnancy test stick.

Pregnant. She was carrying Ethan’s child. A few hours ago she would have been deliriously happy to see what she was seeing now, and she’d have bet her life Ethan would be happy, too. Now fear, disgust, and self-loathing gathered in her chest, crushing her. Not only would she be alone; her baby would be, too. She would do whatever it took to give this baby a good life, but just like her mother before her she needed to return to school, ask for help from her family, and leave the baby in the care of strangers while she took classes and found a better job. She would miss so many experiences with her child because she would need to be a breadwinner. And what about Ethan? What place would he demand in her child’s life? For all she hated him right now – for all he’d possessed her heart and then torn it into pieces – she couldn’t deny him his rights as a father.

Would he want to be involved? Or would he just move on and have children with Lacey?

Finally, when her heart hurt too much to bear it anymore, she returned to the guest room and shoved the pregnancy test into her bag. As evidence, she guessed. Evidence that she was the biggest idiot in Montana for believing this life could ever be hers.

When her bags were packed she sat on the bed and waited for Ethan to come home. As soon as she told him exactly what she thought of him, she was getting the hell out of Chance Creek for good.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ethan opened the back door as quietly as possible, in case Autumn was already asleep. He never did find Rob, but Cab – with the help of his buddies in the sheriff’s department – finally got a lead that he’d been spotted in Billings. Cab would make sure he stayed out of trouble for the rest of the night and got home safely.

All he wanted was to curl up with his bride and sleep – unless she had other ideas, that is. Autumn could wake up his passion with a single touch – hell, even a single look – and he’d never disappoint her. The kitchen light was on, but she wasn’t in sight. Nor was she in his bedroom, which gave him pause until he saw the light on in the guest room. Why would she be in there? He moved softly to the door and pushed it open.

Autumn was awake, fully dressed and sitting upright on the made bed, her suitcases at her feet.

“Don’t say a thing,” she said as he entered the room, and her tone made his blood run cold.

“Autumn…”

“Not one thing.” Her voice rose and he held up his hands in an appeasing gesture. “I talked to Lacey tonight,” she went on. “She had a lot of interesting things to say.”

Ethan groaned. “I’ll bet she did. You know that woman’s crazier than a loon, don’t you?”

“Did you kiss her tonight?”

Ethan’s mouth dropped open, closed, then opened again. “She…I didn’t kiss her.”

Autumn closed her eyes and he wanted to rush to her and smooth away every trace of the pain that was evident in her face.

“Autumn, I swear, I didn’t kiss her. She’s the one that threw herself at me. She was drunk and upset – something must have happened between her and Carl, I don’t know what. I got out of there as quickly as I could and I came back here.”

Her eyes snapped open. “She called me over an hour ago.”

“I’ve been looking for Rob! You know that. Hell, don’t let Lacey screw this up between us – not now,” Ethan pleaded. “That woman’s been nothing but trouble since I met her. She’s long gone, Autumn. Past history – she’s got no part in our story.”

Autumn said nothing, getting to her feet. Her eyes were shining with tears and a jagged pain stabbed through Ethan’s heart knowing he was the cause of it. “That woman is on your office wall. Naked on your office wall.”

Oh, hell.

Oh, holy hell.

“I can explain.” The words sounded so lame he wanted to gouge his own eyes out.

“No, you can’t.” She sounded tired. “Ethan, please. Don’t even try – it doesn’t become either of us.”

“It was so long ago – Lacey put them there when we started fighting, before we split up, and she used some kind of glue. I don’t know how she did it. They won’t peel off – I need to find a scraper and some solvent…and there’s always too damn much to do out there,” he waved a hand toward the ranch. “At first, when she ditched me, I kept it up because I was furious. She hurt my pride, telling me I was broke and worthless and she deserved better than me. She left a month after my parents died. You don’t know how I felt. Every time I saw that picture I remembered again how she’d done me wrong. It kept me feeling angry – and feeling angry felt better than feeling alone. Then I just got busy, and I didn’t care, and I stopped seeing it there all together. It’s just part of the room – like the desk or the window. I’ll take care of it tomorrow – I’ll do it right now if you need me to.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t even make the YouTube video. You didn’t even want a wife. It’s all a joke – this is all a joke. We both know you still love Lacey.”

“Fuck and hell, if you believe that then you’re the one who’s crazy!” Autumn’s eyes went wide at the anger in his voice, but he stepped forward, needed to drive his point home. “I love you. I have loved you from the minute I saw you walk through the airport and I want you to be my wife. Do you understand that?” She blinked and a tear spilled from her eye. “I made a mistake proposing to Lacey and thank God she broke it off, because if we’d gone through with marriage we would have made each other very miserable.” He took her arm, gently but firmly. “I may not have made that video, but God must have moved Rob’s hand to do it, because it brought me an angel – you. I’ve been a lucky man. I was saved from an unhappy marriage before it was too late, and then I was led to you – the woman I love more than anything. Taking down those pictures was a chore that required just a bit too much time and effort to make it to the top of my list. I will regret that little bit of laziness forever since it hurt you.

“I’m just a man, Autumn. A flawed man. But I love you more than you will ever know.”

“She said you called her every night,” Autumn whispered. “She said you looked at her photo and…”

Ethan counted to ten. The next time he saw Lacey it would be all he could do to keep from ripping her head right off her body. “That’s a lie, and I can prove it. I’ll get my phone records tomorrow – both the house and my cell. I’ll show you I haven’t spoken to Lacey since she dumped me.”

“Why would she lie?”

He shook his head. Should he explain all he knew about Lacey? Expose her secrets? “Lacey…I don’t know. Why does any woman lie?”

“Men lie, too,” Autumn blazed back.

“Not all men.”

“My father cheated on my mother. He left her for another woman – left her with two daughters to raise. He changed all of our lives in that moment, in ways I’m sure he never even considered. My mom was never the same.” Her voice broke. “He disappeared, so I never got to tell him what he did. He made her hate men and he made her so scared for her daughters that she did everything she could to make us hate men, too. And I’ve tried,” her voice rose. “I’ve tried to care about work, heart and soul like she does. I’ve tried to be a success, and to put everything else aside. Before you, I’d never once considered marriage or having children and you know what?”

“What?” He was afraid to say anything else.

“It’s lonely. I go home every night from my job and open the door to my empty apartment, where I can’t even keep a cat if I want to, and I work some more or watch t.v., or maybe go out with a friend, but even if there are men there I keep my distance because I. can’t. trust. a. man. I can’t! Because my mother raised me never to do so. And then I come here – here! – to your ranch,” she waved an arm, her eyes brimming with the tears she was struggling not to shed, “and here you were, and here was this place, and here was the life I wanted, and I thought maybe I could trust a man…and…I was so happy…and then Lacey called…”