Her shoulders straightened and her chin came up. "I haven't lied. Not about anything. There's a reason I kept that check."

"Other than to cash it?" he asked cynically.

"You think I'd cash it after all the things I told you the past few weeks? You think I'd cash it when you know how much I want to be independent from my parents?"

"As your stepfather said in his letter, you can be very independent with that amount."

"Married to Winston? Reed, what's happening to you? Why are you doubting what I told you?"

"It's easy to doubt when the proof's in front of my nose."

Where before she had looked confused and hurt, now he recognized sparks of anger in her hazel eyes. "If you can't trust me or accept my word, we don't even have a fake marriage." Keys still in her hand, she spun around, walked out and slammed the door behind her.

Reed glanced at the check again and then with a loud oath, slammed his fist down on the table.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Mallory left the Double Crown and turned onto the main highway. Then she drove, not on the back roads where she'd supervised Matilda's driving this morning, but on the main highway. When she saw the sign to Leather Bucket, she turned and headed for the small town. She didn't really care where she was going. The wind blew in her window, ruffling her hair as she tried to sort her thoughts.

But only one thought kept making itself clear-Reed didn't trust her. Apparently he hadn't felt any of the love she'd tried to give him. If he had, he never would have doubted her, never would have believed she'd go back to Winston.

She drove through Leather Bucket, pa.s.sing a twenty-four-hour diner and the other businesses on the main street. But she kept going. Reaching a main thoroughfare, she headed for San Antonio, parked, and walked along the river. She remembered all too well the night she'd come here with Reed and they'd met with Gwen and Zane. She remembered every minute of these last few weeks with Reed...except for their wedding ceremony and her first night in bed with him. Maybe she'd never remember that. Right now she wished she could block out the rest of it, too. She never knew love could hurt so much.

It was after dark when she returned to the Double Crown. She couldn't go back to the adobe. Without thinking twice, she went to Ryan and Lily's. Rosita had left for the day, and Lily answered the door herself. When she saw Mallory's face, she said, "Come inside and tell me what's wrong."

Mallory knew she couldn't do that without crying. Matilda came into the room then, took one look at her and asked, "What has my brother done now?"

Mallory's tears began falling then, and they didn't stop for quite a while. Finally drained, she sat in the guest bedroom where she'd spent the nights when Reed was away and told Lily and Matilda exactly what had happened. She started at the beginning from her first dance with Reed at the Golden Spur, through Winston trying to kidnap her, to this past weekend when she realized just how very much she loved her husband.

"But you didn't tell him, did you?" Matilda asked.

"Of course, I didn't tell him," Mallory erupted. "How could I tell him when he's still in love with Stephanie and he's going back to Australia?"

Lily and Matilda exchanged a look.

"What?" Mallory asked.

"Most times, it takes men longer than women to realize their feelings," Lily offered.

"Oh, he has feelings, all right. He expressed them in bed."

"Exactly," Matilda agreed.

Mallory was none too happy Reed's sister had agreed with her. "Terrific. So I was convenient for him, a way to get his needs met."

"All of his needs," Lily said wisely. "Even the ones he wasn't conscious of. I called him, by the way, while you were drinking your third cup of tea. To tell him you were safe."

"What did he say?" Mallory asked, holding her breath.

"He thanked me. That's all."

Mallory felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her world. "I was just a subst.i.tute," she concluded morosely.

Lily came over to sit beside her on the bed. "I don't think you could be anybody's subst.i.tute, Mallory, and I think Reed knows that, too. If he doesn't now, he will shortly. Give him a little bit of time to think about everything."

"But if he thinks I was going to cash that check-"

"If he decides to believe that, then he doesn't deserve you," Matilda added.

But that was small comfort when Mallory knew her love for Reed was so high she couldn't see over it and so wide she couldn't see around it, and so deep she couldn't imagine ever letting it go.

For the second night in a row, Reed hardly slept. In the early morning he stood at the kitchen window, watching the sun come up, thinking about his life, a.n.a.lyzing it, searching his soul. Though he thought he'd wanted a future with Stephanie Milton, how much had he really wanted it? How much had he cared for her? He'd decided it was time to settle down, and that she would be an appropriate wife. Was he any better than Winston Bentley who'd decided the same thing about Mallory?

Once he'd met Mallory, he hadn't thought about Stephanie. He'd practically forgotten her.

In a flash of insight, Reed realized he'd never truly loved Stephanie, not the way she deserved to be loved. Apparently she hadn't loved him that way, either. When the right person for her came along, she'd known exactly what she had to do.

Maybe so had he.

Mallory had bowled him over from the first moment he'd seen her. As he'd spent the evening with her at the Golden Spur, subconsciously he'd known she was the woman he needed in his life. That's why he'd asked her to marry him. It didn't have anything to do with s.e.x. Sure, he'd wanted her. She was a beautiful woman. But he'd started caring about her, and falling for her, before he'd even had a chance to realize what was happening.

But what about her? She didn't even remember their wedding ceremony! She'd kept distance between them.... But then, so had he-because he was afraid of wanting her too much, of caring too deeply when he had to return to Australia.

Why had she kept her stepfather's check? Why hadn't he listened when she'd tried to explain? Because he was afraid the explanation would take her out of his life?

What if he asked her to go back to Australia with him?

What if he tried to explain he hadn't known true love until he'd found her?

He had to ask her if she'd go back home with him. Because he couldn't imagine leaving Texas without her.

Waiting until a respectable hour was as difficult as spending the night not sleeping. Thank goodness Lily had phoned him or he would have been out looking for Mallory. Now he just had to figure out what to say to her and how to say it.

After several cups of coffee, he finally got in the pickup and drove to Ryan and Lily's. But there was a limousine sitting outside the house, and Reed's pulse pounded as he wondered if Winston Bentley had come to claim Mallory.

The man would have a fight on his hands if he had. When Reed jabbed at the doorbell, Rosita answered. She shook her head and said, "You're just in time."

Not sure what that meant, Reed hurried to the great room. Mallory was standing by the armoire, looking terribly upset. But it wasn't Winston Bentley standing in the room. It was a tall, husky, gray-haired man, whose voice was raised in anger. "You will come home with me, Mallory. You've obviously spent the night here. You're not even living with Reed Fortune. I'm going to have this marriage annulled."

It didn't take a master investigator to figure out that this was Mallory's stepfather. Reed wasn't letting the man take Mallory anywhere. In a voice not as loud but just as firm Reed broke in, "There's not a judge anywhere who will annul our marriage. Mallory and I are husband and wife in every sense of the word. And I will never let her go...unless she wants to go."

Mallory's gaze collided with Reed's. It was a few very long moments until she asked, "Are you saying that because you want to protect me or because you really care about me?"

"I've been so stupid, Mallory," he answered, knowing he had to bare his heart or lose her. "I've been kidding myself, pretending all I want is to protect you and to keep you safe, when what I really want is to be married to you. My engagement was-" He shook his head, knowing he had to explain there were no feelings left for Stephanie. "It was a rite of pa.s.sage. Something I felt I should do. I didn't know what true love was until I found you. I love you, Mallory. I want you to come to Australia with me. I want you to make a life with me. Will you?"

Mallory looked as stunned as George Pennington Smythe looked baffled. But she recovered sooner than her stepfather, and she ran toward Reed, flinging her arms around his neck. "I'll go anywhere with you. I love you. I've loved you since...since that night in Reno. I don't want Winston's house. He was going to put my name on the t.i.tle. I tore up the contracts, but I kept the brochure to call the agent to make sure she knew the truth. And I intended to frame George's check, not cash it. I wanted to keep it as a symbol of my independence."

He should have known Mallory's explanations would have to do with her independence. "What about your independence?" he asked, not wanting her to give up anything, knowing she'd always want to do some things on her own, just to prove she could.

Her voice became tender. "I can be independent, but I can be a partner, too. I can let myself need you because I know in some ways you need me. I want to share the rest of my life with you, Reed."

He hauled her up against him then, and kissed her with the fervor of his desire and the depth of his love. Nothing was ever going to come between them again.

Making sure he wasn't dreaming, wanting to be certain Mallory's answer was real, he pulled away and gazed into her eyes. There were tears there, tears of joy, and he knew he held everything he had ever wanted in this life in his arms.

Barely aware of what was going on around him, he saw Matilda and Lily come in from the courtyard. Lily patted George's arm and suggested, "Why don't you come have breakfast with us and get to know your son-in-law? If you don't want to lose Mallory, you'd better start listening to her and her wishes."

The pause only underscored Lily's words.

Finally George Pennington Smythe said, "He does seem like the type of man who will protect Mallory through h.e.l.l or high water. I don't believe that there's any way her mother and I can convince her otherwise."

As Brody and Griff came into the great room from the hall, Reed bent his head to Mallory for another kiss, not caring if the whole world watched.

Epilogue.

In the midst of lists, pictures of wedding cakes and travel brochures, Mallory sat cross-legged on the bed in the cabin, waiting for Reed. She had something special to tell him. She'd thought of going up to the barn, but she wanted to tell him here, where they could be alone. So she'd busied herself all day with wedding preparations.

Lily and Ryan insisted on giving them a real wedding. Reed's parents were going to fly over for the occasion. Mallory was looking forward to meeting Fiona and Teddy Fortune in person, though they'd spoken on the phone at more length since she and Reed were now truly together. After their wedding reception, she and Reed were to honeymoon in Australia, and then return to the Double Crown for a while so she could spend more time with Dawson before she started her new life in Australia with her husband.

Checking the clock, she thought she really should get supper started, but before she could move, Reed came through the door with a small package in his hand. He grinned when he saw her, and her heart leaped just looking at him. If the past three weeks were any indication, the rest of their lives was going to be one uninterrupted honeymoon.

"Hi," she said softly.

"Hi, yourself," he returned with that look in his eyes that told her supper was going to be postponed. But as he came toward the bed, he held out a six-inch-long box wrapped with silver paper, adorned with a white bow.

"What is this?" she asked.

"It's a wedding present. I had it delivered to Ryan and Lily's so I could wrap it for you."

He always took such tender care of her and cherished her.

"Open it," he ordered.

She took off the bow and placed it on the picture of the wedding cake she liked. Then she tore off the paper and found a blue velvet box. Opening it, she gasped when she saw the necklace and earrings. Opals and diamonds against black velvet reminded her of all the stars in the sky, and the nights she and Reed had spent sleeping under them. "Oh, Reed. They're beautiful."

"I knew exactly what I wanted. I called the jeweler in Sydney and he sent them."

"Thank you so much. I want to keep them and wear them on our wedding day for the first time."

"Whatever you want." He gave her a long kiss, then raised his head. His voice was husky when he said, "I got a call from George today. He's pleased you asked him to walk you down the aisle."

Before her stepfather had returned to San Francisco, he'd read the information that Reed had gathered on Winston Bentley and finally understood the type of man Winston was. Since then, George had cut off all of his business dealings with him and was taking steps to see that the man was prosecuted for his tactics. But Mallory didn't want to think about her stepfather now. Something else much more important was on her mind.

"I have a present for you, too," she said.

"Oh?" Reed raised one brow.

"You were gone this morning before I woke up, so I couldn't tell you. After we made love last night, I had a very special dream. I was standing in a room painted all white, with silver bells hanging from the ceiling. There were chairs with pink velvet seats and a justice of the peace with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses perched on the tip of his nose. His wife was dressed in lavender, and she was our witness."

Reed's expression had changed, and there was emotion in his eyes.

Mallory went on. "I remember our wedding ceremony, Reed. I remember you telling me that you'd honor and love me and cherish me forever. And I remember telling you the same. My heart knew all along that I belong with you, and now that we're going to profess our love in front of the whole world, my memory's caught up with my heart."

Taking the opal necklace and earrings from her hands, he carefully laid the box on the nightstand. Then he pushed lists, brochures and pictures to the floor as he lay beside her and enfolded her in his arms. "I love you," he said, gazing into her eyes, making sure she knew exactly what he felt and how much her love meant to him.

"I love you, too," she returned, eager to marry him again, eager to start on the road to their future.

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Karen Rose Smith for her contribution to THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS series.

MARRY IN HASTE...

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7336-2.

end.