Marriage For Sale

She had noticed his tall, imposing form during the livestock sale. Dressed in a fringed Western-cut cowhide coat and crisp black felt cowboy hat, he wasn’t the only rancher to visit the auction today. Yet he stood out from the others like a rogue stallion, content to stay aloof and alone.

Rugged and rangy, he moved toward her the way a skilled cowboy would move, which heartened her. Rachel resisted the urge to smooth back her hair or fuss with her dress. She was through conforming to the needs and desires of others.

When he introduced himself and lifted his hat, his flint-green eyes remained cold and he didn’t smile. “Hello, Rachel. I’m Lincoln Monroe. Are you ready? The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“But we cannot leave yet.”

“Why not?”

“I thought Granny Isaacs explained our customs to you during the auction. You and I must be married first.”

Dear Reader,

Spring is in the air…and so is romance. Especially at Silhouette, where we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary throughout 2000! And Silhouette Desire promises you six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories every month.

Fabulous Anne McAllister offers an irresistible MAN OF THE MONTH with A Cowboy’s Secret. A rugged cowboy fears his darkest secret will separate him from the beauty he loves.

Bestselling author Leanne Banks continues her exciting miniseries LONE STAR FAMILIES: THE LOGANS with a sexy bachelor doctor in The Doctor Wore Spurs. In A Whole Lot of Love, Justine Davis tells the emotional story of a full-figured woman feeling worthy of love for the first time.

Kathryn Jensen returns to Desire with another wonderful fairy-tale romance, The Earl Takes a Bride. THE BABY BANK, a brand-new theme promotion in Desire in which love is found through sperm bank babies, debuts with The Pregnant Virgin by Anne Eames. And be sure to enjoy another BRIDAL BID story, which continues with Carol Devine’s Marriage for Sale, in which the hero “buys” the heroine at auction.

We hope you plan to usher in the spring season with all six of these supersensual romances, only from Silhouette Desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Marriage for Sale

Carol Devine

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Susie

CAROL DEVINE

lives in Colorado with her husband and three sons, including identical twins. When she’s not playing pickup games of basketball and hunting for lost Reebok footwear, she’s holed up in her office, dreaming of romantic heroes.

Her writing has won numerous awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s 1992 Golden Heart for Short Contemporary Series Romance. She has also served as president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

“Next up for bid is Miss Rachel Johnson, as fine a woman as you folks will ever see,” bellowed the auctioneer. His resonant voice boomed out over the people milling around the barnyard. Hooking his thumbs under his suspenders, which curved around his ample middle, the auctioneer rocked back on his heels, sweeping the audience with his affable gaze. “At eight and twenty years of age, Miss Rachel is in her prime, and of good, hardworking Johnson stock. Do I hear a bid? The startin’ price is one hundred dollars!”

Thinking he must have misheard, Lincoln Monroe checked the rough-hewn wooden platform these people used as an auction block. The sheer volume of sights, sounds and smells made it difficult for him to see and hear what was going on. A sea of buyers and sellers flowed in uneven waves back and forth across the yard, heads covered by calico bonnets and widebrimmed straw hats. Friends stood gossiping, families strolled holding hands, and children ran laughing and chasing each other. Smells of grilling sausages, roasted corn and fresh-baked pies assaulted Linc’s senses, as well. He took his latest purchase, a spirited three-year-old Appaloosa filly, into the wooden corral, shouldered his way past a half dozen horse-drawn wagons and moved closer to the auction block.

Unbelievably, a young woman was standing there, dressed in the same old-fashioned gowns as the other women. Caught in at the waist by an unbleached-muslin apron, the long, pale-pink gown buttoned at her neck and brushed the ankles of her black-stockinged legs. Sensible, brown-leather laced boots covered her feet.

Unlike the other women, however, whose heads were covered by bonnets, their hair pinned in neat coils at the back of the neck, this woman had slipped off her bonnet, letting it hang down her back to reveal her near-white, corn silk hair—the straight type that tended to escape its bounds. She had braided hers into many strands and wrapped them like a halo around her head.

She stood up straight on the block, as tall as her short stature allowed, her covered arms hanging loosely at her sides. Wispy blond tendrils accented her heart-shaped face and pointed chin. The honey tint to her complexion, scrubbed free of makeup, was shades darker than the gold of her hair, making her turquoise-colored eyes stand out in startling contrast.

She pursed her lips in serious contemplation as she looked out over the crowd from her high vantage point. She looked nowhere near twenty-eight, but unmistakable composure and maturity kept her chin high and her shoulders thrown back. The ramrod-straight posture pulled her bodice across her breasts—generously rounded breasts that put lust in men’s hearts, his included. It made the mystery of why she was being auctioned off like this all the more appalling.

“Come on, folks,” called the auctioneer, who tipped his straw hat back on his balding head. “You don’t want to hurt Miss Rachel’s feelings, do you? When am I going to hear that bid for one hundred dollars? Turn around, honey, and show the folks out there what you have to offer.”

The sight of her obediently turning in place chilled Linc. So did the hoots and whistles from the onlookers. Ignoring the catcalls, the woman named Rachel fixed her unblinking turquoise gaze on some faraway point, determined to see her sale through, Linc thought. Her sale into slavery.

Linc wondered which disgusted him more—that a human being was being auctioned off like a piece of meat or that she was actually going along with it. Considering her defiant stance, he’d bet his last world-champion rodeo title that the woman named Rachel didn’t have a choice.

Loath as he was to interfere in other people’s business, he signaled the auctioneer of his bid in the same way he had all morning, with a tug on the brim of his black Stetson. The bidding didn’t pick up much, however, remaining slow, uninterested. Linc wondered about that, too. Even in an insulated environment like this, women like Rachel would be easy to take advantage of, if a man were so inclined.

To his left, a grizzled, gray-bearded man raised his meaty red hand in an obvious bid. A couple of women alongside grinned and elbowed each other, whispering behind their hands. Laughter rippled around them. Linc felt every muscle in his body tense. What was wrong with these people? If he had his hunting rifle, he would have fired into the air and put a stop to this. Poker-faced, he tugged the brim of his Stetson instead.

Up till now, he had cultivated a certain amount of respect for the members of The Community, as they called themselves. Like the Amish or Northern Montana’s Hutterites, members of The Community prided themselves on living an old-fashioned and reverential life, dedicated to caring for the land that supported them.

Ever since he’d bought his ranch six months ago, Linc had heard that the best livestock in the region was found at The Community’s annual auction, held every spring before planting time. His purchase today of the prize Appy filly and fifty head of mixed-breed cattle proved his sources of information were right. But that didn’t explain how supposedly God-fearing people could justify selling one human being to another.

The auctioneer’s staccato chant sped up as gray beard raised his hand again. Linc didn’t hesitate in answering. But he did hesitate when a wizened old lady shuffled forward from the crowd and rapped the tall edge of the auction block with her cane, drawing the auctioneer’s attention with her high bid, called out in a loud, gravel-edged voice. Linc had assumed all the women were little more than servants to the men.

The forcefulness of the old lady’s manner surprised him, too, especially when he bid again. She spun around and wagged the knobby-headed cane in his face. “You are an outsider, sir,” she hissed. “I’d advise you to stay out of our business.”

Linc didn’t bother to give her the courtesy of tipping his hat, and he exaggerated his West Texas drawl into sarcasm. “Well, howdy-do to you, ma’am. I may be an outsider here, but I pretty much do what I damn well please whether it’s my business or not.”

“And what I’m saying to you, young man,” she retorted, peering at him through crescents of wrinkles, “is that you don’t have the faintest idea what you are getting yourself into. All I can say is, I hope you’re a bachelor.”

“A bachelor? What for? So when you have me drawn and quartered for interfering in your so-called business, I won’t be leaving a widow?”

She snorted and thrust the cane at the middle of his chest, ruffling the leather fringe of his buff suede cattleman’s jacket. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Linc ignored her and raised his next bid considerably, proving his contempt. Clearly unimpressed, the old lady rapped the auction block again, upping her bid.

Linc tugged his hat brim again. “You’re going to lose. I don’t care what I have to pay.”

“Our laws regarding women of Rachel’s age are very specific,” she informed him while keeping the bidding alive. “You’d do well to heed my words. We take care of our own.”

Linc spoke through gritted teeth. “Is this how you take care of your own? Selling a defenseless young woman? No way can you justify this.”

She waved her cane at him in dismissal. “Yet you are bidding for her. You are participating in what you call unjustifiable.”

“I’m buying her for one reason and one reason only—to give the lady her freedom.”

“Freedom, hmm?” Her wrinkled-raisin eyes brightened in renewed consideration. “Perhaps you are not as high and mighty as you appear.”

Linc iced her with one glare. “Don’t count on it.”

“You are angry. That is good. Rachel knows how to handle anger and the single-mindedness of a beast obsessed. Instead of freeing her, perhaps you should consider keeping her for your own use.”

“My own use? What kind of people are you?”

“Simple people. That is our motto. We began as a collection of dreamers and doers, and became The Community. It is the way we choose to live.”

Linc stabbed his finger toward the auction block. “Does Rachel have a choice?”

“Of course she does. She asked to be sold in this manner. It is her right.”

“Then she must be even more brainwashed than you are.”

The old lady cackled with glee. “You speak your mind as does she. I have reconsidered. The two of you will be well matched.”

Linc shook his head in disgust at the crazy ramblings of the old woman and, determined to bring an end to this charade, signaled a huge jump in the size of his bid. The auctioneer incorporated the amount in his chant, and the audience gasped.

“Going, going, gone!” the auctioneer announced, pointing at Linc. “Sold to the clean-shaven outsider in the black cowboy hat.”

It sickened Linc to breathe the same air as these people as he pushed his way to the auctioneer. The women in their bonnets and the men in their straw hats parted before him in apparent awe.

Linc didn’t understand them. He didn’t want to understand them. All he wanted to do was pay his money and get the woman named Rachel out of here.

Rachel watched her buyer come forward to claim her.

She had noticed his tall, imposing form previously during the livestock sale. Dressed in a fringed, Western-cut cowhide coat and crisp black felt cowboy hat, he wasn’t the only rancher to visit the auction this day. Yet he stood out from the others like a rogue stallion, content to stay aloof and alone. He ignored the tables of farm produce and canned goods and the friendly overtures of the sellers who made them.

Rugged and rangy, he moved toward her with economy, the way a skilled cowboy would move, which heartened her. Appreciation of the vast land and its creatures was an important attribute in a man. If the cattle he’d bought this morning were any indication, he had a good eye for quality. His worndenim jeans and silver belt buckle also spoke of an experienced cattleman. Trim and fit, he carried himself with the authority of a substantial landowner. Another point in his favor was the three-year-old Appaloosa filly he’d bought earlier—the finest prospective cutting horse in the lot.

Rachel resisted the urge to smooth back her hair or fuss with her dress. She was through making herself conform to the needs and desires of others. Either he accepted her as she was or she would find another path to the life she was determined to set for herself.

Her buyer shook hands with the auctioneer, and Rachel examined his lean-jawed face. Harsh prairie sun and wind had burnished his skin and etched squint lines around his eyes. Thick lashes and thicker brows were as black as his hat. His straight nose matched the uncompromising lines of his mouth while day-old whiskers shadowed his cheeks. He seemed a fine specimen of a man.

But when he introduced himself and lifted his hat to her, his flint-green eyes remained cold and he didn’t smile. “Hello, Rachel. I’m Lincoln Monroe.”

He had the kind of low and dusty voice that led people to listen closely. Tremors traveled up her arm as she pumped his swallowing hand. “Pleased to meet you, Lincoln Monroe.”

“Linc is fine.”

“Linc.” Accustomed to the biblical names the people of The Community favored, his name felt foreign on her tongue. The tremors she felt were also foreign to her and traversed across and down her body, flushing it with unfamiliar warmth. She tried not to show it, acting natural as could be, but he must have sensed the power of her feeling, for his jaw tightened and he questioned her with his gaze.

She did not move. He possessed the penetrating gaze of a hunter—ever hungry and ever searching. The direct force of it pinned her in place as surely as if she were his prey.

Confusion hit her—she refused to be prey for anyone or anything. Yet the danger she felt emanating from him exhilarated her. Instinct told her he was different from everyone else, that he was worthy of trust. In spite of the fact that she was a stranger to him, he had bid for her, confirming the fact that she truly wasn’t as strange and ugly as so many claimed.

She met his gaze for a long, wordless moment before he broke it off, his jaw set more tightly than ever.

Attuned to his changing mood, Rachel straightened her backbone and watched him turn to the cashier as the people surrounding them witnessed in hushed silence. She wasn’t surprised by their reaction. No other member of The Community, man or woman, had ever been sold for such a high price.

She expected Lincoln Monroe to examine her before paying his money, as was his right, but he didn’t ask her to read anything or test the strength of her arms. Instead he pulled out his wallet and paid in one-hundred-dollar bills. That might be a problem, breaking those bills into lesser currency, she thought.

“Follow me,” he said curtly, cutting his way through the throng. She barely had time to accept her selling price from the cashier and pocket the roll of money in her skirt.

He should have ordered her to walk before him, so all in The Community could see, at last, that she was worth coveting. But he was unfamiliar with her customs and striding fast, as well, and because her legs didn’t match the long length of his, she had to trot to keep up. Some folks snickered, but she kept her gaze focused straight ahead and concentrated on the comforting solidity of her buyer’s broad back.

The denim he wore fitted his legs with little material to spare, hiding his cowboy boots down to the well-worn heels. His cowboy hat offset the thick coalblack hair at his nape. The length was trimmed neatly compared to most men she knew but Rachel decided that his matched the angular lines of his body and no-nonsense strides. The trim of his forelock in front had done little to soften the rather grim expression he had greeted her with, but she no longer cared about that. She knew how to gentle any soul, human or otherwise.

Just thinking about her future with him made her heart beat like a tiny bird’s. She had learned long ago that a person’s appearance wasn’t nearly as important as the content of their character. But when it came right down to lying together and the business of making babies, she couldn’t imagine how it might be done if the man and the woman didn’t see some sort of beauty in each other.

He halted at his rig, and Rachel had a moment to examine the large black truck, taking in the fat wheels and metal frame. It was the outsider’s version of a wagon, made for hauling heavy loads, only it roared like a bear and spewed noxious-smelling smoke. Rachel told herself to prepare to get inside it. The marriage ceremony would only take a few minutes. Then she would be his and he, hers.

She was glad to see that the horse trailer behind the truck was clean and in good repair. The filly, raised free on The Community’s pastures, deserved fine quarters and the best of care. Fortunately the truck was parked close to her corral. She already had plenty of opportunity to familiarize herself with such a modern contraption.

“Where’s your stuff?” Linc asked.

Rachel broke from her reverie. “Stuff?”

“Bags, luggage—whatever it is you want to take with you,” he replied.

“My trunk contains most of my possessions.” She pointed to a large trunk close by. “The rest I will fetch myself.”

She literally ran off. Linc examined the trunk. Bright brass rivets stretched the leather over the wooden frame. New leather, not dyed. It hadn’t had a chance to age like the one that had been passed down to him from his great-grandmother. But in every other way it was identical.

Rachel returned, lugging her saddle with both arms in front of her, with her most precious possessions tucked into the parfleche slung over one shoulder. Linc got one look at her and wrested the saddle from her. “This is way too heavy for you to carry.”

“I’ve been carrying it for most of my life,” she replied, her tone milder and more pliant than she intended. She had heard rumors about how outsiders often took their women for granted. He must not feel he had dominion over her.

Linc threw the saddle alongside her trunk in the bed of his truck. “You’ve been treated like a beast of burden. That’s not going to happen anymore.”

“Hard work soothes my soul.”

“Yeah? Is that why you agreed to be auctioned off like a piece of meat?”

“My last relation died last year.” She shrugged. “Obviously, I could not live alone.”

“Obviously.” Although he had been called a male chauvinist more than once in his life, even he understood the misogyny implied in her statement. It was one more strike against this supposed utopia, The Community. “Let’s go,” he said in a clipped voice. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“I thought Granny Isaacs explained our customs to you during the auction. You and I must be married first.”

“Excuse me?”

“An unmarried man and an unmarried woman of similar age are not allowed to live together.”

He took her arm, hurrying her toward the truck. “Don’t worry. We won’t be living together.”

“But—”

The old lady who had given him such a hard time separated from the watchdog crowd and pushed her way between them. She stabbed a gnarled finger at the middle of Linc’s chest. “Are we of The Community, who have had Rachel with us for her whole life, supposed to take you at your word?” she demanded.

“You of all people know what my intentions are,” Linc retorted.

“Do I? You are little more than a stranger to us.”

“Please, Linc,” interrupted Rachel. “Granny Isaacs is right. Unless we are wed, you will not be allowed to take me with you. It is for my protection should I be ill-treated.”

“You have got to be kidding.” Tempted to just pack her into the cab of his truck, Linc realized that strong-arming her was precisely why these people were insisting on the commitment that marriage implied. “What if I’m already involved with someone else?” His casual relationships with various women didn’t exactly qualify, but he wasn’t about to back down. Not when his freedom was at stake.

“Rachel will be sold to another.”

Linc appealed to Rachel. “Look, you and I are on the same side here. I wouldn’t have spent my money if I wasn’t going to take good care of you.”

“Money is not enough of a guarantee,” interrupted Granny Isaac.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “If the granny’s bid had won over mine, you wouldn’t have to marry her.”

“The commitment The Community requires is the same,” Rachel explained. “Both parties must pledge to treat each other with respect.”

Granny Isaacs chimed in. “Certainly we can require no less from you.”

Linc wheeled on her. “Yes, you can. You have my word.”

“We require more than your word,” she replied. “We require you and Rachel to be legally wed.”

“How in hell can this be legal? There’s no blood test, no waiting period.”

“The federal laws of this country waive such requirements when they violate certain religious practices.”

“You can’t force me to get married,” Linc said. The no-promises, no-demands, confirmed-bachelor part of him wanted to throw his hands up and leave the place. But he refused to walk away, not when a human being’s freedom was at stake.

“There is nothing forced about this marriage,” Granny Isaacs informed him. “Rachel gave her consent when she agreed to be sold at the auction. You, on the other hand, are free to refuse.”

Their little discussion was drawing quite a crowd. Linc folded his arms over his chest in disgust. “What’s to stop me from going through with this idiotic marriage bit, then annulling the thing the minute we hit the nearest town?”

“An annulment requires both your consent. If it is granted, there is nothing I can do to prevent it.”

The noise of a sharply rude whistle ripped through the air. “Rachel Johnson!” yelled a woman, her face sneering. “He doesn’t want you, after all.”

“Give ’im back his money!” another woman screamed.

Linc grabbed Rachel’s hand and tugged her toward the truck. “I’m taking you away from this crazy place.”

Rachel twisted from his grasp. “I won’t go unless we are married. Please, Linc. It is our law.” Desperation shadowed those extraordinary eyes.

He pulled her aside, out of earshot of the others.

“If I have to marry you to get you out of here, then we’ll do it. But I want an annulment as soon as we hit town.”

Faced by his clear reluctance, Rachel shook her head. “It is unfair to hold you to traditions that were unknown to you at the time of the auction.”