The Bride's Choice

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Copyright

“I’m Talking About A Marriage

In Name Only,”

Caleb said quietly. “There wouldn’t be anything physical—” he paused, his dark eyes boring into her “—unless you want a physical relationship.”

Juliana’s mouth dropped open as she stared at him, and Cal had to bite back a laugh.

“In name only?” she repeated.

He was in deep now and he clung to the remembrance of the amount of money each would inherit. “As beautiful as your body is, I know we’re strangers. I’m suggesting in name only. I like my solitary life and peace and quiet, and I am not a marrying man.”

He knew when to rest his case. He gazed at her and wondered idly how she would look with her hair falling free. He resisted the impulse to reach out and tug loose her golden locks. Her skin was as smooth as silk and her lips full, looking tantalizingly soft.

What would it be like to kiss her?

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire, where you can discover the answers to all your romantic questions. Such as…

Q. What would you think if you discovered the man you love has a secret identity—as a movie star?

A. That’s what happens to the heroine of August’s MAN OF THE MONTH, Don’t Fence Me In by award-winning writer Kathleen Korbel.

Q. What would you do if you were pregnant, in labor and snowbound with a sexy—but panicked—stranger?

A. Discover the answer in Father on the Brink, the conclusion to Elizabeth Bevarly’s FROM HERE TO PATERNITY series.

Q. Suppose you had to have a marriage of convenience?

A. Maybe you’d behave like the heroine in Barbara McMahon’s Bride of a Thousand Days.

Q. How could you talk a man into fathering your child…no strings attached?

A. Learn how in Susan Crosby’s Baby Fever!

Q. Would you ever marry a stranger?

A. You might, if he was the hero of Sara Orwig’s The Bride’s Choice.

Q. What does it take to lasso a sexy cowboy?

A. Find out in Shawna Delacorte’s Cowboy Dreaming.

Silhouette Desire…where all your questions are answered and your romantic dreams can come true. Until next month, happy reading!

Senior Editor

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U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

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The Bride’s Choice

Sara Orwig

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SARA ORWIG

lives with her husband and children in Oklahoma. She has a patient husband who will take her on research trips anywhere from big cities to old forts. She is an avid collector of Western history books. With a master’s degree in English, Sara writes historical romance, mainstream fiction and contemporary romance. Books are beloved treasures that take Sara to magical worlds, and she loves both reading and writing them.

To all my editors at Silhouette:

Lucia Macro, Cristine Niessner,

Angela Catalano and Lynda Curnyn.

One

“This is Elnora Roseanne Tangney Siever’s last will and testament.”

Caleb Duncan listened as Willard Mason read in an im- passive voice, and again felt shock that Elnora had written a new will with a new attorney. Cal had been the Siever at- torney since he had opened his practice. The Sievers were old family friends of his grandparents’ and Lawrence Siever had referred clients to Cal until Siever’s death. Cal had been El- nora’s lawyer. Why, only last month, he had taken her to lunch. He’d had no idea she’d hired another lawyer.

Cal glanced at the three people seated to his right: gray- haired Stoddard Tamblin, Elnora Siever’s elderly butler and chauffeur; Gladys Wicklund, the woman’s faithful ser- vant; and Juliana Aldrich, former companion and friend to Elnora.

Cal’s gaze raked over the blonde, slowing momentarily over her long, silken legs. Juliana Aldrich was a good- looking woman. Tall and willowy, she had golden hair the rich color of ripe wheat. It was pinned behind her head in a chignon. Distaste curled in Cal’s mouth. The beautiful lit- tle gold digger should not be sitting there. During college, she had worked as a companion for Elnora, probably play- ing on Elnora’s sympathy and winning her everlasting friendship.

Cal recalled several times Elnora had suggested changing her will to include Juliana, and each time Cal had talked her out of the notion. Or he thought he had. Cal’s instincts told him why Elnora had hired Mason and written another will. Memories of what Elnora had suggested made his anger boil. Surely not even Elnora could have been so flighty and whimsical as to have actually written the will she’d pro- posed to him? And surely Willard Mason would have talked her out of it, too.

As Cal looked at Juliana Aldrich, cool blue eyes met his gaze. He stared back, fury and wariness churning in him while he listened to Willard Mason’s deep voice.

“I, Elnora Siever of Colby County, state of Texas, being now in good health and strength of body and mind, desir- ing to make disposition of my property and affairs, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament.”

Provisions were made for bills to be paid, the standard legal jargon was read, and as she listened, Juliana was still surprised to be one of the heirs. She hadn’t given a thought to inheriting from Elnora. Various token amounts ran through her mind, but she felt certain she would be be- queathed some sentimental remembrance, Elnora’s music box that played “Lara’s Theme,” or some of Elnora’s books.

Yet, perhaps it was something more substantial; what- ever it was, Caleb Duncan must not approve. He’d been curt with her, and every glance he gave her looked angry while he was warm and courteous to Gladys and Stoddard. Yet per- haps his anger was caused by Elnora herself. As Juliana re- called, Caleb Duncan had been Elnora’s attorney. What had caused Elnora to get Willard Mason to write her will? she wondered. Had Cal Duncan displeased the elderly woman?

As if he realized she was thinking about him, Cal sud- denly turned and his dark gaze settled on her. Dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, with a snow-white shirt and maroon tie, he looked the calm, composed picture of the successful businessman. But when she looked closer, she noticed his snapping dark eyes, the firm jaw that was tightly set, the rugged angles and planes of his face; all his features held arrogance and a hint of danger. And another quality. As she stared into thickly lashed eyes, she felt a twist of curiosity about him as a man, a reaction that was purely feminine and physical. And as unwanted as cold germs.

To avoid his probing gaze, she shifted her attention to the leather briefcase beside his chair and the oak-paneled wall behind him, while Mason continued reading the will.

“To my employee, Stoddard Tamblin, he is to continue to draw the same salary as long as he shall live. In addition, he is to be given my Cadillac because he has maintained the car through the years. Also, he is to be given a sum of twenty-five thousand dollars for his years of faithful ser- vice. And he may continue to live in his house at Green Oaks.”

“Good heavens!” Stoddard gasped, fanning himself with his battered cotton cap and running thick fingers through his straight gray hair. “Bless Miss Siever’s heart.”

“My word,” Gladys muttered, pushing her bifocals higher on her round nose and staring at Stoddard.

Caleb Duncan glanced at Juliana, and she gazed into eyes that stabbed like twin stilettos. This time, there was no mis- taking his anger. He wasn’t happy with Elnora Siever’s will. Juliana lifted her chin. Whatever Elnora had left to her, it was what the woman wanted to do and Mr. Caleb Duncan would have to accept it, whether he liked it or not. Sud- denly, she realized she was caught in a staring contest as they continued to look at each other steadily. But she had no intention of being the first to look away. Caleb Duncan arched his eyebrows slightly then narrowed his eyes. Refusing to be intimidated by him, she stared back.

He raised his hand midway, and she glanced down at his fingers.

He dropped his hand, and too late, she realized she had been the first to look away. She wondered if he had moved his hand deliberately to distract her. He arched an eyebrow, and she clamped her lips closed, turning toward Stoddard who was smiling broadly.

“To Gladys Marie Thomas Wicklund…” Mason con- tinued reading, announcing the same bequest for Gladys that had been bestowed on Stoddard, with the exception of the Cadillac. Suddenly, Gladys broke into a huge grin. “My word!” she exclaimed again, patting her hair and smiling.

Juliana wasn’t unduly surprised. Elnora was a loving, generous woman and both servants had worked long and faithfully for her, and Juliana was certain Elnora could af- ford the legacy. Happy for both of them, Juliana smiled at Gladys, who was still smiling and shaking her head as if in disbelief.

Feeling watched, Juliana glanced around and immedi- ately wished she hadn’t. Caleb Duncan’s obvious disap- proval sent an uncomfortable prickle along the nape of her neck. He stared at her solemnly while she returned her at- tention to Willard Mason.

“It is my wish that Juliana Aldrich take care of my pre- cious cat, Snookums,” Mason read. “I know Juliana loves Snookums, and Snookums loves Juliana.”

Remembering the big fluffy white cat, Juliana knew her three rambunctious nephews would love him just as much as she did.

Again she received another look filled with smoldering anger. Why would Caleb Duncan disapprove of her inher- iting Snookums? Curious, Juliana raised her head, then re- turned her attention to Willard Mason.

“To Juliana Lou Aldrich,” the lawyer said, pausing to look intently at her. Juliana locked her fingers together in her lap, wondering what Elnora had done; Willard Mason looked somber, gazing at her and then shifting his atten- tion to the will.

“To Juliana Lou Aldrich,” he repeated, reading slowly and clearly, “who has been like a daughter to me, I wish to make a bequest. Also, I want to make one to Caleb John Duncan, the man who has been like a son to my dear de- parted husband, Lawrence, and to me. If these two people who are so dear to my heart, two people who are relatively alone in this world…”

Juliana felt as if she had not heard correctly. She was anything but alone, with her three orphaned nephews to raise. She pulled her attention back to Willard Mason.

“If these two people find it in their hearts to marry, it is my wish to leave them the bulk of my estate, my home and contents, Green Oaks…”

Marry!…bulk of estate… Stunned, Juliana’s heart pounded, and Mason’s voice receded as a roaring filled her ears.

“Damnation!” burst from the man beside her. She glanced at Caleb Duncan, and his dark eyes shot knives into her. Juliana’s head swam, the room spun and lights flashed before her eyes. For the first time in her life, she fainted.

“She’s coming around,” announced a man’s voice.

“Poor little thing had a shock.” Gladys wiped Juliana’s forehead with a cold cloth. They had moved her to the sofa.

“She ain’t poor now, Gladys,” Stoddard remarked. “Mercy, mercy. Miz Siever’s taken care of all of us good.”

“Only if they marry. Do you two know each other?” Gladys asked, her voice sounding dim and filled with curi- osity.

“Just barely,” came a curt reply.

“My heavens! Miss Siever was a dreamer.”

The voices and words swirled around Juliana as she looked at Gladys, who was leaning over her. Beyond her, standing at the foot of the sofa, was Caleb Duncan with his fists on his hips, his coat pushed open as he stared down at her. His dark eyes gleamed with rage and she remembered the will. Marriage. It was absurd and impossible and ridic- ulous. And for one fleeting moment, she thought about all Elnora’s money—what only a tiny bit of it would do for the boys!

Juliana gave a shake of her head. “I hope Elnora made some provision for her estate in the event that we don’t marry, because there is no way—”

“She did,” Willard Mason said, moving away. “If you feel like continuing, we’ll go ahead.”

With a parting dark look, Caleb Duncan returned to his seat. He crossed the room with the easy stride of a person in peak physical condition. His thick black hair waved slightly from his forehead, and Juliana had to concede he was ap- pealing. Her thoughts shifted to her departed friend El- nora, the hopeless romantic.

Juliana sat up and then finally stood. “I’m all right now,” she announced, hoping her voice sounded cool and in control. “Elnora’s bequest was a shock.” As she re- turned to her chair, she tried to ignore Caleb Duncan’s steady gaze.

Gladys and Stoddard were giving them curious glances as if Juliana and Caleb were strange specimens that had just crawled out of a test tube.

“I’m sorry. I’ve never done that before.” She settled on the forest-green wing chair and crossed her legs, catching Caleb looking at them.

Cal studied her, remembering the picture he’d seen of her in the paper only two months ago, after she had fended off a bank robber at the point of a pistol. She had been shot in the shoulder, but had retained her money. And even though the would-be robber had escaped, he had not gotten any money from anyone, thanks to Juliana Aldrich. She had to love money more than life.

Mason glanced at each of them, pausing when he looked into Juliana’s eyes. “Ready?” he asked. When she nodded, he returned to the will.

“If Caleb and Juliana marry, it is my hope they will live at Green Oaks in order that Snookums may continue to dwell in the only home he knows,” Mason read in an im- passive voice. “This marriage must take place within the next six months from the day of the reading of the will. The marriage of Caleb and Juliana must last one year or every- thing bequeathed to them reverts to my estate. After one year the estate is theirs to do with as they see fit, whether they remain married or they divorce. During the one-year period, Caleb John Duncan will be the trustee in charge of dispensing the money.”

Juliana’s mind stopped following Willard Mason as he continued reading about a trust fund, the stocks, the bonds, the real-estate holdings, the certificates of deposit. She lis- tened, but she was stunned, in shock over Elnora’s stipula- tion that they marry. Of all the ridiculous, unreasonable assumptions, yet Juliana knew all too well how whimsical and romantic Elnora had been. Elnora would have thought such a thing possible and a delightful arrangement for two people she loved. Even if the two people were all but total strangers. And from the looks Caleb Duncan had been giv- ing her, it was clear that he despised her on sight. His anger had to be caused by the will. She raised her chin. She had no desire to marry him, either, not for any amount of money.

Once again came the tiny nagging thought of how she had to scrimp and save for the boys and what she could do for them if she had more money, but she pushed the thought out of mind and tried to pay attention to Mason.

The lawyer was still listing Elnora’s assets and Juliana drew a deep breath, trying not to give one second’s thought to what might have been. But her thoughts quickly drifted again to the marriage provision and for a moment Wil- lard’s voice faded away. The sound of the lawyer’s clearing his throat brought her back to the present.

He smoothed the will and continued, “In the event my beloved friends decide against marriage—after giving this due thought—six months from the reading of this will, Green Oaks and its contents are to become a home for cats. Snookums will abide at Green Oaks and a board of three veterinarians are to oversee the running of the house. It is my wish that Ridley Westview actually oversee the running of Green Oaks as a haven for homeless kitties.”

Cal listened in angry silence. A real cat house. All of El- nora’s money was going to go to that dim-witted ball of fluff, Snookums, and a bunch of stray cats. There was enough money in the Siever estate to build homes for all the cats in Texas. Cal’s stomach knotted as he thought about his need for money and what he could do with a sum like that. Instead it was going to cats. No wonder Elnora had sought out another lawyer!

Willard Mason finally finished reading the will and looked up. “I’ve scheduled our appointment with Judge Dooley in two days at ten o’clock in the morning. If all of you will meet here at my office, we’ll go down to the court- house together. Any questions?”

He answered Gladys’s and Stoddard’s questions, made arrangements for Gladys to continue caring for Snookums temporarily and gave each person a copy of Elnora’s will. Caleb Duncan placed his in his briefcase, snapping the case shut as Willard said, “Also, Elnora asked me to give this envelope to you, Cal. As you can see by the instructions on the front, it is her wish that you do not open the envelope until a year from today.”

Cal accepted the envelope, opened his briefcase once more while Willard Mason told the two servants goodbye. At the door, he turned to shake hands with Caleb, glancing from him to Juliana. “You two will have some decisions to make, but you have several months in which to decide what you want to do.”

Cal looked at him, his expression tight. “I think we know—”

“Wait,” Mason cautioned, interrupting him. “You’re to give this thought. Elnora made me promise that I would not take an answer from either of you right away. She wanted both of you to give her bequest thought. This is a sizable estate, and she felt you could both do a great deal of good with the money.”

Juliana saw Caleb Duncan’s eyebrows arch and a glacial look come to his eyes. When his gaze shifted to her, she felt physically buffeted by his silent smoldering anger.

“Give it thought,” Mason repeated. “I’ll see you here Wednesday morning.”

He held open his office door and Juliana went ahead. They crossed the anteroom, passing the receptionist’s desk, and then stepped into a hallway.

Caleb closed the door behind them and faced her. She stared back at him, feeling as if she were going into battle. She could feel tension spark the air between them. “You tried to talk Elnora out of this, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he admitted tersely. “We never got down to exact details—like leaving all of it to cats.”

“At least you’re honest. But I don’t know why you’re so angry with me. I knew nothing about her intentions.”

His eyes narrowed only the slightest fraction and a mus- cle worked in his jaw, otherwise she wouldn’t have known he had any reaction to her question.

“I think Elnora used poor judgment,” he snapped, pushing open his coat and resting his hands on his hips.

The air seemed to crackle around them, and his dark eyes tugged at Juliana’s senses. She wanted to shake him, and realized no man had ever stirred that kind of reaction in her before. “What you think isn’t what’s important,” she re- minded him.

“No, unfortunately.”

“I’m a total stranger to you, so don’t take your anger out on me.”

“First of all, I think she should have left that money to medical research, to children who need help, to the chil- dren’s hospital, to all sorts of worthy causes,” he answered in a clipped tone as if he was fighting to control himself. “There’s enough money in her estate to establish houses for stray animals all over the Southwest. To pour all of that into one home here in Colby for stray cats is absurd.”

Juliana was inclined to agree with him, but she wasn’t about to tell him.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with why your fury is directed at me,” she said scathingly. There had to be more, she thought. There had to be something more personal that made him look as if he would like to send her into perma- nent orbit in outer space.

His dark eyes bored into hers as he spoke. “I wonder when you worked for her if you didn’t play on her vulner- ability just so she would do something like this. She’s been trying to get me to ask you out since—”

“What!” Juliana interrupted. She took a step closer to him. “Listen, you, I didn’t work on Elnora to try to in- herit. Besides, I’d always assumed she and Lawrence had had their wills drawn up years earlier. I’ve just seen her on brief visits the last few years.”

“Oh, come on. Any woman who would fight a bank robber at gunpoint for a few dollars at the risk of her life, wants money damned badly,” he remarked tersely. Juliana suspected he was getting down to his real reasons for dislik- ing her.

“Listen, you legal harpy, I worked hard for the money that jerk wanted to take from me, and he hadn’t done any- thing but point a gun at people and take what he wanted.”

Caleb Duncan’s lips suddenly pursed and his eyes nar- rowed, but his reaction only dimly registered with her as she shook with fury. She moved a step closer to him. “I earned every dime in the bag I was holding. I wasn’t about to turn it over to that creep and I didn’t stop to think about it. You, sir, may have been raised in affluence and don’t understand having to work hard for a living. You’re a lawyer, so obvi- ously you make more money than I do. If I’d had an easier time of it all my life, perhaps I could have tossed away the money without a care.”

She was breathing hard, wanting to punch his arrogant jaw.

He moved a step closer and placed his finger beneath her chin, tilting up her face. “Legal harpy?” he asked in a voice laced with curiosity. He studied her. “Maybe I’ve jumped to conclusions here.”

Her heart missed some beats, and she tried to ignore it as well as the awareness of his finger beneath her jaw, his brown eyes watching her so intently and the change in his attitude. She yanked her chin away from his finger. “The bequest is absurd. We’ll see each other Wednesday and that should be the last time. Goodbye, Mr. Duncan.” She turned to walk away, feeling her back prickle, wondering if he was watching her.

The next time—and she figured the last time—she had to deal with him was Wednesday in court. As they finished and said goodbye to Willard Mason, Gladys and Stoddard, Ju- liana nodded curtly to Caleb Duncan. She hurried down the courthouse steps and along the sunny walk toward her car.

“Miss Aldrich,” Cal said in a deep, quiet voice that car- ried an iron command. She paused and turned around as he closed the distance between them. Wind tumbled locks of his dark hair across his forehead.

“Is please in your vocabulary?” she asked as coldly as possible, wishing she didn’t feel so breathless. His whole attitude was infuriating and her disquieting reaction to him fueled her rage.

“Not this morning,” Cal replied. She annoyed the hell out of him. At the same time, he was beginning to wonder about her. “Juliana—”