The Bride Prize

She’d never been a coward, but having Nick over for supper would perhaps be the greatest act of courage in her life.

“If not tomorrow night,” Nick said, “then the next night. Or the next.” He gave her a smile that slanted a little. “It’s rude to invite myself, but I hope you’ll overlook the bad manners.”

Now his smile widened and her heart fluttered wildly. “My, my, Corrie. You look like you think I might be up to no good.”

“Are you?” she dared softly. “Up to no good?”

“If I am, I’m confident you’ll set me straight.”

Susan Fox lives in Des Moines, Iowa. A lifelong fan of Westerns, cowboys and love stories with guaranteed happy endings, she tends to think of romantic heroes in terms of Stetsons and boots.

Fans may visit her Web site at www.susanfox.org

Books by Susan Fox

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3740—THE PRODIGAL WIFE

3764—CONTRACT BRIDE

3777—THE MARRIAGE COMMAND

3788—BRIDE OF CONVENIENCE

3796—A MARRIAGE WORTH WAITING FOR

The Bride Prize

Susan Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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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

THE land was brutal and big, and her small ranch sat like a postage stamp in the vastness. The work was hard, the hours long. Dirt and sweat and sometimes blood made for a less than aesthetic or antiseptic environment. It wasn’t a safe environment either. The animals were large and even the best-behaved and best-trained could be dangerous on a bad day. Accidents happened, both to the unwary and to the vigilant. Things fouled up and broke down. Trouble could blow in from the west in a fierce storm or slither from beneath a rock.

Not the place for a lady, but Corrie Davis had given up on being a lady. There’d been a brief time at eighteen when she’d tried to rise above her plain-Jane, mostly tomboy life; a time when she’d gone out of her way to adapt to things like panty hose and makeup. She’d devoured books on etiquette from the local library, bought more than a few women’s magazines, and she’d spent a whole weekend in San Antonio to buy some extra dressy, extra feminine things.

Things which now hung, with tags still attached, in her closet, while the frilly unmentionables from that modest shopping spree languished in a drawer, unworn.

The man who’d inspired her brief rush toward femininity had unknowingly crushed the impulse with a few solemn words.

You’re bright, Corrie, and you’re sensible. I reckon you’ve figured out by now that you aren’t the girl for my brother. Our daddy has plans for Shane, plans for college, plans for him to take on his share of Merrick business. These next months and years, he’ll be testing his limits, finding his place…

Nick Merrick had paused then and given her a level look, his dark gaze impacting hers in a way that had made her heart pound with dread and shame, because she’d already sensed what he’d say next.

You won’t fit into that, Corrie. I’d hate to see you break your heart trying.

Much as hearing Nick Merrick say those things had hurt, he’d been right. She wouldn’t have fit into his father’s plans for his younger brother’s life. And she certainly wasn’t the woman Shane Merrick should marry. But that was because she’d had no wish to fit into Shane’s life and even fewer intentions of marrying him. Not then, not ever.

Corrie would ever be grateful that Nick had never figured out the truth: that he’d been the man she’d been in love with back then, not Shane. It had been Nick she’d hoped to attract with those pretty dresses and prissy manners. Letting her know so straightforwardly that he considered her unsuitable for his brother had seemed to confirm Nick’s personal opinion of her. He might as well have been speaking about himself.

And of course, since she’d hardly been the kind of girl men flocked around or tried to date anyway—and still wasn’t—what he’d said seemed to also confirm the dismal knowledge that she might never appeal to a man other than as a friend. In fact it had been her “just one of the boys” appeal that had won Shane’s friendship in the first place.

It still amazed her that Nick Merrick had thought there’d been anything more than friendship involved, but the idea that he’d thought either she or Shane had been contemplating marriage had been a shock.

Corrie hadn’t recalled that embarrassing conversation for years now. Once she’d got past the hurt, she’d pushed it all behind her and managed to go on as if nothing had happened. Her father had passed away shortly before she’d turned twenty, so she’d had more than enough to fill her days and crowd out any lingering interest in either of the Merrick brothers.

Aside from the fact that Merrick Ranch bordered hers, there hadn’t been much cause for social contact, so she’d rarely had to deal with Nick again. Shane had gone off to college, as planned, but he’d left after the first semester to pursue his rodeo dream. So much for the life Nick and their late father had mapped out for him.

In truth, Corrie had heard from Shane so infrequently in the past six years that she hardly ever thought about him anymore. Until yesterday when Nick had left a message on her answering machine. Since then, her memories of that time had come drifting back.

Nick had obviously taken for granted that she’d had contact with his brother. When you see Shane, would you have him give me a call?

The out-of-the-blue message had taken her completely by surprise. She hadn’t planned to call Nick back because the message had led her to believe she’d soon see Shane and would be able to pass on the request.

Now it had been over twenty-four hours and there’d been no sign of him. Surely Nick had heard from Shane himself by now, so there was still no reason to phone him unless he’d left a second message asking her to.

The walk from the stable to the house seemed particularly long after the tiring morning she’d put in. She was a hot, filthy mess, with grease stains on her hands and beneath her short fingernails, probably some in her hair, a torn sleeve and a layer of dust over the rest of her. Visual proof of a frustrating tinker with a windmill and a bruising fall from the colt she’d been working. Both had been extra chores she wished now she’d put off until she’d been less distracted.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, she’d get a cold lunch then make a pass at paperwork and take care of a few things around the house. Safe enough pursuits while she tried again to banish the Merrick brothers from her mind and put the past back in the past, where it belonged.

As she walked along, she was inspecting the torn shirtsleeve and debating whether to sew it or cut it off, when a laughing male voice drew her gaze to the back porch.

“What’s the other guy look like?”

Shane Merrick was sitting on the porch rail, handsome as ever, dressed in an outlaw black Stetson and a jewel blue, pearl snap Western shirt that matched his eyes. His jeans still carried enough color to look reasonably new, and his black boots had a subtle, go-to-town shine, but it was the large gold belt buckle that proclaimed his champion rodeo status that completed the picture.

As she took the two steps up onto the porch, Shane eased off the rail and came toward her. The instant she realized he was about to sweep her into a hug, Corrie put up a hand and took a hasty step away.

“You’ll get dirty.”

“A little dirt won’t hurt.” In that next moment, he caught her against him in a tight hug, startling a self-conscious laugh from her. “Damn, but it’s good to see you, Corrie.”

The words were wonderful to hear and the hug far too personal, but she was careful not to take them as anything more than they were.

“You’re looking good too, stranger. And you smell downright pretty.” She drew back and grinned up at him as she righted her Stetson. “How’s the champion bronc rider? Going for a third buckle?”

Shane smiled down at her and lifted a hand to pluck a wayward lock of dark hair off her cheek that had worked out of her braid. “Took me long enough to get that far. Might as well quit while I’m ahead.”

As Corrie pulled farther away, she reached for the door. “How about something cold to drink?”

“Sounds good.”

She led the way into the house and hung her Stetson on a wall peg before she walked to the sink.

“Help yourself to whatever you want. I need to get at least one layer of dirt off.”

She rolled up one shirtsleeve then did what she could with what was left of the other before she turned on the faucet and reached for the bar of soap and small hand brush in the dish next to the sink. In seconds, she’d worked up a lather then set about scouring the grease stains from her hands and from beneath her nails.

“Name your poison,” Shane called and she glanced over to where he stood in front of the open refrigerator door.

“Ice water for me,” she said, then turned back to her task.

She heard him close the refrigerator then walk to her side to hold the glass of water within reach. She turned her head a little to smile at him.

“Thanks. Just set it down till I get a little cleaner.”

“You look good enough to me.”

Corrie had been about to look away when he’d said that, but she detected a flash of something new in his blue eyes, something that flustered her. She pulled her gaze away to give her fingernails another going over with the small brush. After a quick rinse she soaped up again and bent over the sink to wash her face before she rinsed and blindly turned off the tap.

She put out a wet hand for the towel, but Shane pushed it into her fingers. Once she’d dried her face, she took care of her hands.

“Your brother left a message yesterday. Wanted you to call.” She finished with the towel and tossed it aside to reach for the glass as she added, “But I reckon you’ve had time to get home by now though.”

“Been home, heard the pitch.”

Corrie picked up the glass and had a reviving drink before she turned and briefly leaned back against the counter. Shane still had the pitcher, so she held out her glass for a refill.

“The pitch?” she asked after he’d finished pouring.

Shane walked to the refrigerator to put the pitcher away. “He’s willing to let me rule and reign with him without a business or agricultural degree.”

Corrie studied his face when he turned back to her and saw that his earlier teasing smile had flattened. “It’s a good offer, isn’t it?”

Shane made an attempt at a half smile. “I don’t think I’m cut out for that fifty-five/forty-five split. Aside from the fact that Nick has more say, there’s also the fact that I haven’t contributed forty-five percent, so I don’t reckon I deserve equal control. Less trouble to buy a place of my own, be my own boss.”

Corrie didn’t comment on that, but she wasn’t surprised. Shane had a strong independent streak. Proof of that had been his frequent clashes with his father and older brother, then after old Jake’s death and just before he’d started college, Shane’s clashes with Nick had multiplied. The fact that Shane had left school to pursue his own plans had been the ultimate declaration.

She didn’t agree that Shane wasn’t entitled to his inheritance though. Being born to a Merrick entitled him just as being born to a Davis had entitled her to her inheritance.

“Let’s go in and sit down,” she said, then led the way out of the kitchen into the hall. She heard Shane chuckle softly.

“Might be a good time to mention that there’s a hand-size grease spot on the right cheek of your britches.”

Corrie halted to glance back to see if he was teasing or serious, and of course, his blue gaze danced with amusement.

“Truly?”

Instead of answering, Shane held up the folded newspaper he must have picked up off the kitchen table on his way past. “You can sit on this.”

Corrie walked on into the living room. She waited while he opened the newspaper on the seat of an overstuffed chair before she dropped down on the cushion, grateful for the soft landing, and that she’d managed not to spill her glass of ice water.

Shane took a seat on the upholstered footstool that matched the old chair. He nodded toward her glass.

“By rights, that water should have slopped all over. You always did have a kind of elegance.”

Again Corrie caught a glimpse of…something…in his gaze. And again she tried to ignore it and made a doubtful face.

“No more elegance than the nearest gate half off its hinges.”

A little of his smile faded. “You still don’t know how to take a compliment. You probably haven’t figured out yet that most of the men in these parts make eyes at you and think naughty thoughts.”

The shock of hearing him say that was second only to the flash of shame she felt. Men barely noticed her, and it stung a little to have him call attention to it, even in a backhanded way.

She smiled as if it didn’t matter, blew out a half-embarrassed, half-exasperated breath, then reached back to catch her braid and bring it over her shoulder to strip the leather tie from the end. Braided, her dark hair went to just below her shoulder blades. Unbound, her hair fell nearly to her waist.

“Maybe I ought to send you to the barn for a shovel before it gets too deep in here,” she told him as she set the glass of water aside to start unraveling her braid.

And immediately wished she hadn’t when she caught sight of the solemn expression that dropped over Shane’s tanned face as he watched her fingers work. That odd, fluttery feeling came winging back and she immediately tried to suppress it.

“I don’t mean to be rude and bossy,” she said then, “but would you mind picking another place to sit so I can pry off these boots? The seam on my sock hasn’t set right all day.”

Shane dealt her another small surprise when instead of obliging, he grinned and reached down for her right boot to lift her foot. The gesture was completely new between them, and she was too caught off guard to do anything but stare as he pulled off her boot and set it down.

“I interrupted a stampede to the shower didn’t I?” One side of his handsome mouth quirked up.

Corrie was still a little too surprised to realize until after he’d leaned down to reach for her other foot that his arm had effectively trapped her ankle on top of his hard thigh.

“You never minded getting dirty,” he remarked, “but once you got to the house you were always in a girlish rush to get cleaned up.”

Then he had her other foot up and was stripping off the boot before he settled that foot next to the other on his thigh. The idea of having both her feet in his lap seemed incredibly intimate, which finally goaded her out of her silence.

“Is there a reason you’re so friendly with my feet?” she asked as she pulled them back, relieved when he allowed it.

“No good reason,” he admitted. “Just wondered how long you’d let me do it. You ever had a foot massage?”

“Nope. Don’t want one either.” Corrie felt a little prudish suddenly for taking this so seriously, but something had changed between them. Shane had always treated her as a pal, one of the guys. He was gentler with her of course, but there’d never been even a hint of real man/woman things, or even much acknowledgment that she was female.

Yes, there’d been that time when she’d turned her head at the wrong time as he’d been leaning over to whisper something silly to her. His lips had brushed hers, but they’d both jumped back as if they’d been burned. Then they’d laughed like hyenas over it. This wasn’t at all like that one time.

Now Shane’s smile leveled a little, but the intent look—that new look—in his eyes sent heat into her face. “You’re still an innocent, aren’t you, Corrie?” His voice dropped lower. “I can’t tell you how rare and special that is out there in that big, wide world.”

Corrie gave him a wary look, unsure what to say to that. Or to any of this. That seemed to tickle him. His face brightened and he chuckled as he leaned forward to tug on a lock of her hair before he abruptly stood.

“You go get that shower, darlin’. I need to get on down the road, but I’ll call you later. ’Kay?”

Darlin’? Corrie’s gaze was all but glued to his and she’d been unable to break contact with it as he’d risen. Her soft and belated, “’Kay,” was part squeak, part whisper, as if she’d somehow lost her voice.

She didn’t get up as she watched him turn and stride to the hall then to the front door. Once he was out of sight, her gaze fell and fixed on the footstool.

Confusion swamped her, and for the first time in her life, Corrie felt the magnitude of her inexperience. She could talk work or business or politics with just about any man, but she was ignorant about male/female things. She knew about courting and the mechanics of sex, but she had only hazy theories about how those things actually got started in real life.

Or, more specifically, in her life. The boys she’d grown up around hadn’t minded working alongside her on roundup or doing ranch work or on projects at school. She was a hard worker and they’d liked that she’d pulled her own weight and that she wasn’t squeamish or timid with the stock. And she’d been a favorite in classroom situations where the teacher wanted boys and girls to work together. Probably because she’d gotten good grades in everything, and the boys hadn’t needed to worry that Corrie Davis would get lovestruck and moon over one of them.

But when it had come to school dances and other dating opportunities, they’d passed her up like a mailbox along a highway. Town girls and girls who’d learned how to bat their eyelashes and flirt had gotten the dates. Girls who’d worn makeup and panty hose and short little blouses and skirts that bared midriffs and thighs. Girls who’d seemed to have been born knowing how to use their female powers to wrap boyfriends around their little fingers. Not girls like her, who could rope and ride, arm-wrestle them on a dare, bait a fishhook, and go hunting.

It had been the town girls’ example that she’d tried to follow when she’d fallen for Nick Merrick. Some of those girls had been plain, but they’d made over their plainness with eye shadow and other little beauty tricks from magazines. Her mistake had been in thinking Corrie Davis could do the same, with the same happy results.

Thinking of all that again reminded her that she’d been feeling more than a little weary of the sameness of her life lately, the solitude. She’d been in town from time to time the past few weeks, and seen a handful of old schoolmates with their husbands and kids. She’d told herself that being twenty-four wasn’t anywhere near old maid status, not at all. But she’d felt a little low for a while.

Now Shane Merrick was home and he was…flirting with her? The fact that she’d never had a man flirt with her made her uncertain, though the rare, so rare thrill of the notion excited her.

Corrie propped an elbow on the chair arm, not realizing for several moments that she’d pressed her fingers against her mouth.

Had Shane been flirting?

The numbing sameness of her life had lifted the past few minutes. It’d probably be back again tomorrow, but today…

Today the pattern—the rut—had been broken. That low feeling was gone, though she wasn’t sure she trusted the reason. She wasn’t even sure the reason was real, and yet suddenly she had the feeling that for the first time in her plain-Jane, tomboy life, she might actually have a chance for a little romance.

To maybe fall in love a little with a man who might fall a little in love with her. Maybe she wasn’t so impossible after all. Maybe love wasn’t so impossible. And if love was possible for Corrie Davis, maybe marriage and kids were also possible. Maybe. At some point.

By the time she got her shower, ate lunch and tried to concentrate on paperwork, she was struggling between common sense and the tantalizing notion of possibility. Common sense finally won out, as it always did, and that fine, all too hopeful—and a little giddy—feeling leaked away.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS hard for Nick Merrick to think of Corrie Davis as a femme fatale. He still didn’t understand what his kid brother had seen in her years ago, not when he compared Corrie to the pretty and far more sophisticated girls Shane had preferred in high school.

And still preferred, judging by the bevy of buckle bunnies who’d trailed him on the rodeo circuit. Two of those women had already called the ranch and left messages for him. A third had called after Shane had gone over to the Davis Ranch.

Nick assumed that’s where Shane had gone, because he’d spiffed up just enough to hint he wanted to make an impression. Most of his other old girlfriends had either married or moved away, so it made sense he’d been on his way to see Corrie. Besides, five minutes after he’d walked in yesterday afternoon, he’d mentioned her. He hadn’t mentioned any of the others.

Corrie Davis was the one who’d encouraged him years ago. Nick didn’t know how influential she’d been over Shane during his rodeo years, but her potential to sidetrack his brother again was worth considering.

She’d grown up on a small ranch, taken it over after her father’s death and managed to keep it going. But she’d have no idea of the complexities and demands of the massive operation Merrick Ranch was, and even less about other Merrick interests.

Shane was rebel enough to still be infatuated with the idea of striking out on his own again, which was why he was bucking the notion of coming back to Merrick Ranch to stay. And of course the fact that Corrie was her own boss would also appeal to Shane. Her example as a reasonably successful small-time rancher would no doubt fuel Shane’s notions of independence in a way that being handed almost half a small empire would not.

In truth Nick knew if his situation and Shane’s were reversed, he too might have chafed at the notion of being a second-fiddle owner to an older brother who had final say. Nick himself might have been lured by the notion of finding a way apart from Merrick money to make his mark.

But Nick was obliged to their father and generations of Merrick history and tradition to make an effort to bring his brother back into the fold. Family duty wasn’t a take it or leave it proposition, and it was past time for Shane to live up to his share of their obligation.

Their daddy had seen Shane’s dream of rodeo glory as a character failing. While Nick had never agreed with that, he’d also felt the pressure of wanting his kid brother to measure up to their daddy’s expectations and prove himself to their old man. Nick still wanted to see that, even if their father was no longer around.