Chapter Fifteen #2
His mom waved her hand as if shooing a fly. “Your dad says there’s a big payday at the end of the summer, so there’s nothing to worry about. It will cover his bison and the new barn too.”
Just what he needed to hear—that his parents had the ranch’s cut of the Burning Scrub money already spent. He might end up having to rob a bank for real.
He waited in the kitchen for Malika while she changed her clothes.
She looked so cute when she walked in that his heart blinked a few times, then woke up.
She wore her curls in a long, twisted braid.
His mother had gifted her with a split skirt and low-heeled boots intended for riding from the costumes she kept on hand.
She looked straight out of the nineteenth century and born to the life.
He wouldn’t mind being married to her. He was beginning to think he’d prefer it.
But first, he had to ask her.
*
He couldn’t decide when he should propose, other than that it had to happen before they reached Burning Scrub.
He couldn’t ask her too soon. He didn’t want to have to discuss wedding details all afternoon, and women enjoyed that sort of thing. His mother had talked about Belle’s wedding for days.
He couldn’t leave it too late, either. The closer they got to Burning Scrub, the harder it would be for her to contain her excitement. He’d have to impress upon her the importance of not telling anyone, especially Tilly, until he’d talked to her brother.
They stopped at the camp where the research scientist had been stationed.
His tent and all his equipment were gone, as was the researcher, to Jayce’s relief.
He would have had to ask Adam to relocate him again, and Adam wasn’t known for his patience, especially with people who refused to take a hint.
Jayce didn’t want Adam to end up in jail.
By this time, Jayce had noticed Malika wasn’t herself, and that perhaps his mother was right, because she did seem upset. She hadn’t come to her senses and decided last night was a mistake, had she? If so, it was too late for regrets. They’d moved on to damage control.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
“Nothing.”
Jayce had heard nothing enough times from his mother, uttered in that exact tone, to understand that the word had different meanings to women, and none of them good.
“How about you clarify nothing for me,” he said, half-convinced he knew why she was upset, and that it was okay, because he had a plan.
“I have no money.”
Malika worrying about money was an odd twist. It grew on trees in her world.
“Is this about the phone call to your sister?” he asked.
Green eyes spit daggers of ice. “Your mother told you.”
He mentally apologized to his mother. She had a better bead on Malika than he did.
“Only because she was worried about you,” he said. “What do you need money for, anyway?” She had food and shelter, and Burning Scrub—plus his mother—supplied her with clothing.
“To start my new business. I told you about it. Aisha had given me two hundred thousand dollars to put toward it, but Adeel took the money from me when I was abducted. I needed more.”
He massaged the bridge of his nose with a fingertip.
Her flirting was one thing. Even an idiot—Andy Danvers came to mind—could tell she meant nothing by it.
But last night, he should have made himself clear.
Taking her clothes off online and telling strange men what to do was not going to happen. He had a much better option for her.
“You should be glad your brother took your money from you. It was a bad business idea.”
That might have been the wrong thing to say.
Malika got testy. “My roommate makes money, and she isn’t nearly as pretty as me.”
He didn’t tell her it wasn’t her face men would be watching, since she had to know. She’d taken care to draw his attention to her other fine features the night she performed for him from her balcony.
“If your roommate makes so much money, why is she still working for your brother?” he asked, trying to be reasonable, but reason and Malika didn’t always coincide, and she usually ended up making him crazy.
“If you own a ranch, why do you work for Burning Scrub?” was her snooty response.
There was nothing wrong with the way he earned money. He kept his clothes on.
Saber shot him a baleful look too, as if he’d taken her side, and he believed Jayce was the one being stupid.
“The ranch and Burning Scrub are a partnership,” he said, because he wasn’t about to be chastised by a horse. “Besides, do you even know how to set up payments online?”
“If my sister had sent me money, I could have hired someone to set it up for me.”
He pounced on that. “Do you know how much someone might charge to set it up for you?”
She drew Saber to a standstill. Side-eye, sensing serious discord about to erupt, sidled closer to Saber, in search of reassurance.
“Instead of pointing out my shortcomings,” she said coldly, “you could help me learn to overcome them. That’s what Mavis does.”
That wasn’t what Mavis did. Mavis gave her dumb, menial tasks to keep her occupied and out of trouble.
But if she wanted his help, then now was the right moment to propose, and he seized it.
“Marry me,” he said.
Her speechless expression was not one of joy. He’d seen that same look the last time he proposed to a woman, and it hadn’t ended in happily ever after. Not for him.
“I can’t marry you,” Malika said, as if she couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to ask and expect her to say yes.
Her incredulousness stung. “I’m pretty enough to sleep with but I’m not good enough for you to marry?”
“Your looks have nothing to do with it,” she said patiently.
“You aren’t Djitanian. Adeel is very patriotic about such things.
And while I might not know much about money, I feel confident that if you’re worried about buying a few bison, you don’t have the amount of money a man who owns several stables of the finest horses in the world would expect for my mahr. ”
He didn’t know what a mahr was, not precisely, but he knew it meant her brother expected money in exchange for his permission for them to marry.
It took some of the sting out of her rejection.
She wasn’t trying to be offensive. She was pointing out the flaw in his plan—the same as he’d done with hers.
Besides, she was right. He didn’t have the kind of money Adeel would likely expect for her mahr. He didn’t have twenty-five million dollars, either.
The money was a secondary problem. She only had a few more weeks remaining in Burning Scrub. What if she left, only to discover, after it was too late, that she was pregnant? He’d always wonder about it. He’d worry.
Certainty was worth far more than money to him. If there was a baby, that baby was his.
“Are you saying you don’t want to marry me?” he asked, because he’d prefer to have his facts straight before he went over her head to her brother and did the honorable thing. “What if you’re pregnant?”
She got her back up again. Poor Side-eye couldn’t decide which way to bolt, so he stayed put.
“I’m hardly stupid. I know my own cycle. Do you think I would take such a foolish risk?” Her chin went up a few notches. Her gaze dared him to contradict her, but he wasn’t that stupid, either. “I am no more interested in being your second choice than I am in becoming a second wife to Eli Chamas.”
He would never understand women. Trying to keep up made his head hurt.
“Why do you think you’re my second choice?”
“Because you’re in love with Belle.”
How had Belle gotten caught up in his proposal to Malika?
“I am not in love with Belle.”
He hadn’t thought about her in days. He couldn’t claim he was in love with Malika either, because she annoyed him, and she took a great deal of pleasure in it. But as far as women went, he had developed a distinct preference for her. Which meant she really had driven him crazy.
“I thought you didn’t believe in love before marriage?” he added, since she’d brought it up.
“Of course I don’t believe in love before marriage.
I’m Djitanian. But you’re an American, and Americans do things differently than we do.
Your parents’ marriage wasn’t arranged, and yet, they’ve built a lovely life together.
” A wistful smile crept onto her lips and softened her eyes. “They made a beautiful son.”
She was weakening. He didn’t care that she was Djitanian. All women went nuts over babies.
He took advantage of it. “Imagine how pretty our children will be.”
The chink in her resistance widened. “They would be very beautiful,” she agreed.
“You’d be my first wife. My only wife,” he added quickly. “I can put that in writing, if you like.”
“You would have to persuade Adeel,” she said.
“Leave Adeel to me.”
“Then yes,” Malika said. “I will marry you.”
He’d won.
Jayce’s heart unclenched. His lungs expanded. Relief spread through his chest and onto his face. Proposing to her had been harder than he’d anticipated.
It was worth it.
Her acceptance gave him far more pleasure than he’d expected too.