LITMIR.BIZ

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he should have laughed in her face. That was what any sane man would have done. He was already in enough trouble—he didn’t need to take on more by agreeing to a marriage that by its very nature was doomed to failure. And what would it really accomplish, anyway? True, the Kincaids were a powerful family in Whitehorn, but it wasn’t the family that was on trial. It was him, and few people seemed inclined to cut “that Indian boy from the wrong side of the tracks” any slack. He didn’t think marriage to a Kincaid would change that.

      But can you be sure of that? a voice in his head wondered. Summer Kincaid is well liked and respected. If she pretended to be in love with you and married you, people just might start to wonder what she saw in you and if they might have misjudged you. Granted, it’s a long shot, but at this point, it’s the only chance you’ve got. You’d be a fool to turn your back on the only person who’s helped you from the very beginning. Thanks to her intervention, her uncle hired Elizabeth Gardener to represent you, and now she wants to help you again. Why are you hesitating?

      That was a good question. Aside from himself, he also had to think of Alyssa and how this might benefit her. If, through some miracle, he was able to actually clear his name, he still might have to fight to get his daughter back. He’d have a much better chance of winning that fight if he had a wife the likes of Summer Kincaid by his side to act as Alyssa’s mother. And he wasn’t losing his daughter, damn it!

      Considering all that, he should have jumped at her offer like a drowning man being thrown a lifeline. But if the events of the past year had taught him anything, it was to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not everyone who appeared to have his best interests at heart did.

      “I’ll think about it,” he said stiffly, “and get back to you.”

      She nodded. “Just don’t take too long. For this to work, we’ve got to convince people that we’re really in love, and we can’t do that overnight. With your trial only a few weeks away, we don’t have a lot of time.”

      No one was more aware of that than he. Ever since the trial date had been announced, he’d felt as though there was a guillotine over his head, waiting to fall. And it scared the hell out of him. “I should have an answer by morning.”

      That was the best he could do, and she had no choice but to accept it. “Then I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “You can reach me at the hospital until two, then I’ll be at my clinic.”

      She walked out without another word, leaving Gavin staring after her with a frown. He’d thought he’d known who and what Summer Kincaid was, but now he wasn’t so sure. Why was she going out of her way to help him? What did she really want from him? Would she really go to such lengths to get help at her clinic or was that just an excuse to get involved in his life? Until he had some answers, he wasn’t making a decision about anything.

      Self-doubt didn’t hit Summer until later that night when she was getting ready for bed and had nothing to distract her from her own thoughts. She’d actually asked Gavin to marry her. Dear God, what had possessed her? He must think she was desperate, or out of her mind, or both, when nothing could have been further from the truth. When she’d made the suggestion, she hadn’t thought of anything beyond helping him out of the awful bind he was in. But now she had to wonder what she was going to do if he actually agreed to marry her. She’d made it clear that there would be no sex, but they would still have to live together, still have to act the happily married couple. She’d never been an actress, never had much use for pretense. How in the world was she going to pull this off if he said yes?

      He wouldn’t, she assured herself quickly. His back was already to the wall—if he’d thought marrying her would help him, he would have said yes in a heartbeat. Probably he was trying to find a way to let her down easy and spare her feelings. He’d call in a few days, thank her for the offer, and politely tell her he didn’t think it would work. And that would be the end of that.

      She’d done everything she could to help him, she told herself as she pulled on her pajamas and turned back the covers to her bed. If he insisted on going through this all alone, there was nothing she could do.

      Resigned to the fact that she would, in all likelihood, watch him be escorted off to prison, she was about to crawl into bed when her doorbell rang. At nine-thirty at night she seldom had visitors. Unless it was someone who didn’t have a phone coming from the reservation with a medical emergency.

      Concerned, she hurriedly pulled on a robe and rushed to the front of her small, two-bedroom house, flipping on lights as she went. She hoped it wasn’t Hannah Eagle. Six months’ pregnant, she’d had three other pregnancies that had ended in miscarriages. It would kill Hannah if this one did, too.

      But when Summer quickly unlocked her front door and pulled it open, it wasn’t Hannah’s husband John standing on her porch. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the last man she expected to seek her out at that hour of the night. Gavin Nighthawk.

      “Gavin! What are you doing here?”

      “I need to talk to you,” he said huskily. “I apologize for showing up without calling, but I was driving around and somehow just ended up here.” His eyes dropped to the thin material of her gown and robe. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

      She was respectably covered—there was no reason for her to be embarrassed—but in the harsh glare of the porch light, she could feel a painful blush climb into her cheeks. Instinctively, before she realized just how telling the gesture was, she started to reach for the overlapping neckline of her robe to check to see how low it was. But his gaze followed the movement and with a silent curse, she dropped her hand and forced herself to not fidget.

      “Actually, I was just going to read for a while before I went to bed,” she replied, standing stiffly in front of him. “If you’d like to come in, I’ll change into something more suitable and make some coffee—”

      “I’m not staying that long,” he said quickly, stopping her before she could push the door wider. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about your proposal all evening, and I’ve decided to accept it.”

      Stunned, Summer blinked, unable to believe she’d heard him correctly. “You have?”

      Nodding grimly, Gavin could well understand her surprise. He hadn’t realized he’d made a decision until he’d found himself pulling up in front of her house. “I have to admit, I’ve had my suspicions of you. I don’t know why you offered to do this—or why you believe I’m innocent when no one else does. But I don’t have time to worry about whether you’ve got some kind of hidden agenda or not. My only concerns are clearing my name and getting my daughter back. I have a better chance of doing that with you as my wife than I do standing alone. So if your offer is still good, I’d like to accept.”

      For a second, he thought she was going to say she’d changed her mind. She hesitated, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. Their arrangement—if she went through with it—was strictly a business one, but he was the one who stood to gain the most. If things worked out the way he hoped, he’d get not only his life, but his daughter back. All Summer was getting out of the deal was a hired hand at her clinic for a year.

      “Summer? If you’ve changed your mind—”

      “No,” she said quickly, silently cursing the betraying color in her cheeks. It wasn’t that she’d actually changed her mind—she’d just had her own share of self-doubts. But that wasn’t something she intended to share with him, not now that he’d decided to accept her offer. It would only cause misunderstandings and awkwardness, and there was enough of that already. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. When you said earlier that you needed some time to think about it, I really thought you were going to turn me down.”

      “So did I,” he replied. “But to be perfectly honest, you’re the only chance I’ve got. And if we’re going to carry this off and convince people that you trust me enough to fall in love with me, we’ve got to get busy.”

      “You mean, we’ve got to start dating.”

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