The Bride Came C.O.D. (Bachelor Fathers) Read online

  "Sure it is," said MacDougal as the tiny plane nosed downward.

  She looked out the window. "All I see is snow."

  "Over there." He inclined his head left. "See that stripe in the snow?"

  Lexi nodded. "I thought that was a shadow."

  MacDougal's laugh rumbled through the cabin. "Some shadow. That's an airstrip and we're about to land on it."

  It was amazing how many prayers a woman could remember when her life was about to end. Lexi closed her eyes tightly, crossed herself, then prepared to die.

  This is what you get for being greedy, Alexa Grace Marsden. This is your punishment for not marrying Franklin Wade Bainbridge when you had a chance.

  Her father had been Franklin's number one supporter and it wasn't difficult to see why. Franklin was kind, considerate, moderately handsome, wealthy as Croesus. He was perfect husband material for some lucky girl. Preferably one who loved him. Which Lexi didn't. She liked him. She respected him. But she didn't love him and that had made all the difference. She wanted someone wonderful: tall, dark, and handsome would be nice. Someone who made her heart beat faster when he came into a room. Someone who wouldn't give in to her every demand...at least, not at first. Someone who would love her to distraction.

  Love can grow, her father used to say, if you give it a chance. The notion of love at first sight was the product of an overworked romantic imagination, something Lexi could outgrow.

  On the morning of her father's death, he and Lexi had had a long discussion on her unmarried status and he'd lectured her sternly on the fact that Franklin wouldn't wait for her forever.

  "Good," Lexi had said sharply. "I hope he finds himself a wonderful woman and lives happily ever after."

  She clutched the sides of her seat as the plane bumped its way across the pathetic excuse for a landing strip. It's not like I didn't ask Franklin, she thought, trying to ignore the screech of brakes and the way the plane seemed to skid to the right. She'd gone straight from the lawyer's office to Franklin's club after the reading of her father's will and laid the whole story out for him. "I made a mistake," she'd said as he stared at her in disbelief. "You can marry me after all. I'll make it well worth your while."

  The memory of the horrified look on his face still managed to make her blush. The story quickly spread throughout their set and before sundown she had three marriage proposals from male acquaintances, none of who were willing to have a marriage in name only.

  Finally it had occurred to her that she was looking in all the wrong places for Mr. Right. The last thing she wanted was a strong man with a healthy libido. What she needed was a nerd. A pleasant nerd. One who would rather spend his time tinkering at a computer keyboard than practicing the Kama Sutra.

  Exactly like the nerd Joanna had offered to her last night.

  Oh, Joanna hadn't called him a nerd but she didn't have to say the word for Lexi to get the picture in three-dimensional detail. The man counted birds and moose for a living. Didn't that about say it all?

  She tapped MacDougal on the shoulder again. "Are there many spotted musk deer around here?"

  "Beats me," said MacDougal, unhitching his seat belt and standing up. "I'm not much for wild life myself unless it's marinated and on the grill." He rose to his feet and stretched. "Why'd you ask?"

  "The man I'm marrying is doing a long term study of their migratory patterns."

  MacDougal snorted as he flung open the door and a gust of cold air made her shiver. "A pretty girl like you marrying one of those tree-huggers. Seems like a waste to me."

  "Thank you," she said, gathering her belongings, "but he's exactly what I'm looking for."

  "No accountin' for taste." MacDougal leaped to the ground and helped her from the plane. "Now let's talk about the bill."

  First there was the uproar over the plane fare, then MacDougal decided to send her driver packing and take her to her final destination herself. Which probably shouldn't have surprised Lexi because the man was already two hundred dollars in the red and growing more agitated about it by the second.

  "If you took American Express we wouldn't have this problem," she pointed out as she climbed into the Jeep.

  "I take Visa," he said, "but you don't have it."

  "Visa is common," she said, buckling her seat belt.

  "What about Master Card?"

  "That too."

  "So we have a problem," said MacDougal, sliding behind the wheel.

  "My fiance will straighten things out," she said loftily. "You'll see."

  "I'd better see," said MacDougal.

  "You were much nicer before this problem with money came up."

  "Back then I could afford to be."

  They were silent for a few agonizing minutes. It seemed like a thousand years to Lexi. Finally she couldn't take the silence any longer and she began to prattle on about her upcoming marriage, sounding for all the world like a blushing bride with the wedding night on her mind.

  "What's that?" she asked, pointing toward a clump of buildings to her left.

  "Nowhere," said the driver. "Blink twice and you'll think you imagined it."

  "That's the town?"

  "None other."

  "You don't even have a traffic light."

  He glanced at her through the rearview mirror. "Ain't needed one so far."

  Lexi was beside herself by the time the driver guided the Jeep up the rutted road that led to her new home. "I'm afraid to look," she said, hands over her eyes. "How bad is it?"

  MacDougal brought the Jeep to a halt. "You could do worse."

  Considering what she'd seen of Nowhere so far, that was hardly comforting. Cautiously she peered between her fingers.

  A stand of pine trees towered majestically to her left. Another stand of pine trees towered equally majestically to her right. In the middle of those pine trees was a one-story log cabin that looked like it belonged on a postcard of New England. A beat-up old car and a new Jeep were parked in what passed for a driveway.

  "Well," she said, taking note of the huge windows in the front and the well-tended walkway, "I suppose I could have done worse."

  Again a curious look from the driver.

  "Is there something wrong?" she snapped, unnerved by his scrutiny. "You keep looking at me like I have two heads."

  "You talk enough for two heads," the driver said. "I don't think I ever saw a woman got so much to say about nothin'."

  She glowered at him. "Has anyone ever told you it's rude to insult a paying customer?"

  "Lady, so far you're not a paying customer. You owe me four hundred fifty dollars." He didn't bat an eye. "Plus tip."

  "That's highway robbery!"

  "Hell, no," he said. "We just spent two hours on the road and it'll take me another two to get back, at $65 per. Then there's the plane fare. I'm cutting you a deal."

  "I already told you I don't have that much cash. You'll have to speak with my fiance." Joanna, she thought, I could strangle you. Why hadn't her friend made it clear her organization wasn't footing the bills?

  The walkway had been shoveled but patches of ice still clung to the stones. Obviously high heels were not the normal footwear around here. She knocked on the door, waited five seconds, then knocked again.

  "Oh, come on," she muttered, aware of MacDougal's intense scrutiny. She banged harder on the door. He was probably up to his eyeballs in research books, fumbling with his bifocals, smoothing his baggy cords, stepping over his daughter's baby dolls.

  She heard the sound of footsteps.

  She straightened her shoulders.

  The door swung open and the biggest, most beautiful man she'd ever seen in her life appeared before her eyes. She prayed it wasn't her husband-to-be.

  She's not the one, he pleaded silently with fate. She couldn't be.

  She was altogether too little and too useless-looking for Kiel's taste, like a hood ornament on a fancy sports car instead of a real, live woman. She wore high heels, a white wool coat that would never survive an ho
ur with Kelsey, and a headful of sleek blond hair that probably took all day to arrange. The kind of woman who'd use up a month's worth of hot water with one lazy bubble bath.

  "Are you going to say something," he snapped, feeling entirely unlike his usual self, "or are you going to bang on the door again?"

  "I need four hundred fifty dollars," she blurted out with a defiant lift of her chin. Her china-blue eyes flashed with fire.

  "Yeah?" The statement was so absurd he laughed in her face. "Don't look at me."

  "I'd prefer not to," she said with the arrogance of the born aristocrat. "If you'd direct me to Kiel Brown, you can go about your business."

  Geez, O'Neal, he thought. What the hell have you gotten me into?

  He glanced at his cabin. Nothing short of Buckingham Palace would be big enough for the two of them. She'd tear through a truckload of generators just running her hairdryer. Either PAX was coming up with better covers for their operatives or this chick was the most unlikely spy since Boris and Natasha.

  "Stop looking at me like that!" She stamped her foot on the hard-packed snow. The last time he'd seen a grown woman stamp her foot it was in one of those screwball comedies from the Thirties with the spoiled-brat heroines and heroes who invariably fell in love with them.

  Not much chance of that.

  She was still yapping. "--and if you think I'm going to put up with such insolence from the hired help when I'm living here, you're mad. You can consider yourself--"

  He started to laugh. "Fired?"

  She looked like she wanted to hit him with her Gucci purse. "Yes," she said, her high cheekbones stained with color. "Fired."

  "I don't think so."

  Her eyes narrowed. "You think well of yourself for a handyman."

  "I'm not a handyman," he said, pulling her into his embrace. "I'm the man you're here to marry."

  And then he did what he had to do.

  He kissed her.

  Chapter 2

  He pulled her into his arms as if he owned her.

  Lexi opened her mouth to scream but his mouth slanted across hers and the scream lodged in her throat.

  His mouth was hard. His lips were soft. He smelled of soap and spice and something infinitely more appealing. Crushed up against his body she felt overwhelmed by a force greater than herself.

  There was something terrifying about being held by a man the size of a redwood tree...and something exciting.

  Oh yes.

  Exciting.

  He had no business kissing her. Or holding her that tight. If she could just gather her wits about her she'd kick him in the shins or slap his face or knee him in the groin. She wasn't stupid or powerless.

  But she didn't move.

  And he still didn't stop kissing her.

  "Put your arms around me," he murmured against her lips. "He's watching."

  She glanced over his shoulder at MacDougal who was making his way up the path toward them.

  "Now!" How he could murmur in such a threatening tone of voice was beyond her. Cautiously she placed her hands against his chest. Dear God, he was solid as a wall of granite and about as malleable.

  "Act like we're in love or the whole damn town will know the truth before the sun goes down."

  Her sanity returned. "Don't you dare tell me what to do. I'll--"

  "How about savin' that for later," MacDougal interrupted. "I've gotta get back to the air field before sunset and at he rate you're goin' I don't stand much of a chance." He looked from Lexi to Kiel then back again. "So is your hubby gonna pay your bill or is he sendin' you back where you came from?"

  "Don't tempt me," she heard Kiel mutter under his breath. The fact that she didn't kick him was a testament to the education she'd received at finishing school.

  She favored MacDougal with her best smile. "Of course my fiance will pay my bill." She linked her arm through Kiel's. For an environmentalist he had a very unscholarly arrangement of muscles underneath his plaid shirt. "Kiel knows I just have no mind when it comes to money." Only because I don't have any yet. When she came into her inheritance she intended to be a veritable financial wizard.

  "Lady," said MacDougal, "I don't much care if you can't add two and two. I just want my money."

  "You didn't bring any money?" asked Kiel.

  She considered dimpling but thought better of it. She had a feeling her future husband didn't put much store in feminine wiles. She opted for a sincere smile. "If you'd be so kind as to pay Mr. MacDougal, you can bring my luggage inside."

  "You are kidding, aren't you?"

  The smile faltered but she inched it up another notch. "Do I look as if I'm kidding?"

  His brows knotted. The man obviously knew how to glower with the best of them. "You don't have any money?"

  She sighed loudly. Six months was beginning to sound like a life sentence. "Not enough obviously. Now if you'd just take care of it, we can continue this argument in private."

  It occurred to Kiel that he could kill her right there on the spot and there wasn't a jury in the country that would convict him. The driver was looking at him as if he'd rather walk all the way back to the airport than be in Kiel's shoes.

  "I don't have that kind of cash on me," he said to MacDougal. "Will you take a check?"

  MacDougal nodded.

  "Come on in," Kiel said. "The checkbook's inside."

  MacDougal waited in the front room while Kiel got the checkbook from the bedroom.

  "You really goin' to marry her?" MacDougal asked as Kiel wrote out a check.

  Kiel grunted.

  "She'll run you a merry race, that one," said MacDougal. "Talked five hours straight without takin' a breath." He pocketed the check. "She's mighty cute to look at but I wouldn't marry her on a bet."

  Yeah, thought Kiel. At least you have a choice.

  MacDougal had left Lexi's bags at the edge of the road. Lexi was still standing next to them.

  Kiel approached her. "Grab what you can and I'll take the rest."

  She looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. "Can't you make two trips?"

  He started down the walkway. "No," he said over his shoulder. "I can't."

  The funny thing was, he really meant it.

  Lexi watched in growing amazement as he picked up her three matching leather Pullman cases and carried them into the house as if they were packed with feathers. Her makeup case, overnight bag, and accessories box were still resting on a pile of snow near the road.

  Surely he'd come back for them. He couldn't possibly expect her to walk down there in her high heels and drag everything inside.

  She wrapped her cashmere coat more closely around her body and waited. What on earth was taking him so long? All he had to do was deposit the suitcases in her room and come back outside. For all he knew she could have slipped on a treacherous patch of ice and have been lying there bleeding and in pain.

  She tapped her foot impatiently as the seconds turned into minutes. A fierce wind whipped her hair across her eyes and she brushed it away with a sharp gesture. September 15th and already there was a layer of snow on the ground. What on earth would it be like come December?

  The thought didn't bear closer inspection.

  Kiel peered out at her from the living room window.

  "What the hell are you going to do," he muttered, "stand there all day?"

  She wasn't exactly dressed for it. Spiky high heels and snow weren't a great combination. And that fancy white coat of hers looked like it would come apart at the first stiff breeze. In his experience PAX operatives could be many things, pigheaded and annoying among them, but they were never unprepared.

  He'd expected a competent, no-nonsense type of woman, one who at least came equipped with a polypropylene shirt, Gore-Tex mountaineering mittens, and blizzard-proof boots.

  "Daddy."

  He looked down to see Kelsey tugging at his sleeve. She'd tugged her baseball cap on over her tousled hair and her long-sleeved t-shirt had obviously seen better days.


  "There's a princess outside."

  He scooped her up in his arms. "Where?" he asked. As if he didn't know.

  Kelsey pointed toward Little Miss Obnoxious who was still cooling her heels outside. "She has blond hair," Kelsey said. "All princesses have blond hair."

  He looked at his dark-haired daughter. "The most beautiful princesses have hair just like yours," he said, planting a kiss on top of her baseball cap. God save him from spy/princesses with attitude problems.

  Kelsey, however, was having none of that. She met his eyes and he swore he could see every single digit of her considerable I.Q. zeroing in on him. "She kissed you."

  Not exactly the way it happened but close enough. "You saw that?"

  Kelsey nodded vigorously. "Why did she kiss you?"

  "Remember I told you that someone was coming to live with us to take care of you while I'm working?"

  She nodded again. "A mommy, but not really."

  His throat tightened with emotion. "That's right. She'll be with us as long as we live in Alaska."

  "But why did she kiss you?"

  "That's a long story, Kelse." And one he wasn't about to tackle.

  "I want to know."

  He took a deep breath. "She was saying hello."

  "When Mr. Packer says hello he doesn't kiss you."

  "And I'm grateful." Joe Packer ran the local filling station.

  Kelsey looked out the window again. "Isn't she cold?"

  "I don't know." She was probably too stubborn to admit it.

  "Can we let her in?"

  "I suppose we have to, don't we?"

  Kelsey nodded. "It's almost lunchtime."

  "Get your coat," he said, putting her down, "and we'll bring the rest of her things inside."

  He was watching her.

  Lexi didn't have to turn around to know that the rat was watching her from the warmth of his ridiculous log cabin. And she didn't need a Ph.D. from Harvard to know that he wasn't going to come back outside and help her with her luggage.

  "Kiel can be a bit...difficult," Joanna had said when she saw Lexi off at JFK less than twenty-four hours ago. "Geniuses are not your normal breed of cat."