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But even as his fingers sought her hips in a fierce urgency, the liquor finally caught up with him. He
gave a soft, explosive sigh and a curse and suddenly went limp on her, the full weight of his body
pressing her hard into the sheets.
She lay dazed, wondering exactly what had happened. Cag had no clothes on. She was wearing briefs,
but nothing more. Not being totally stupid, she realized that sex involved a little more contact than
this, but it was blatant intimacy, all the same. She shifted experimentally, but nothing happened. He'd
been very aroused, but now he was relaxed all over.
She eased away a little and pushed. He went over onto his back in a liquid sprawl and with a long sigh.
Curious, she sat up in bed and looked at him, surprised at how much she enjoyed the sight of him like
that. He might have been a warm statue for all the movement in him, but he was a delight even to her
innocent eyes. She smiled secretively as she studied him unashamedly, thinking that for tonight he
belonged to her, even if he didn't want to. After all, she hadn't coaxed him in here. He'd come of his
own free will. He had to feel something for her, if he'd had to go out and get himself drunk to express
what he really wanted.
While she looked at him she weighed her options. She could leave him here and shoo him out first
thing in the morning—unless, of course, he awoke in the same condition he'd just been in except
sober. In which case, her innocence was really going to be gone. Or she could try to get him back to
his room. That would be impossible. He was deadweight. She could call the brothers to help her—but
that would create a scandal.
In the end, she curled up beside him, pulled the sheet over both of them and went to sleep in his arms.
Let tomorrow take care of itself, she mused while she enjoyed the feel of all that latent strength so
close against her nudity. She loved him. If this was all she could ever have, she was going to have this
one night. Even if he never knew about it.
Cag felt little hammers at either side of his head. He couldn't seem to open his eyes to discover what
was the sound that had disturbed him. He remembered drinking a glass of bourbon whiskey. Several
glasses. He remembered taking a shower and falling into bed. He remembered....
His eyes flew open and he sat straight up. But instead of looking at the bare back beside him, covered
just decently by a sheet, he scanned his own nudity to the door, where Rey and Leo were standing
frozen in place.
He jerked the sheet over his hips, held his throbbing head and said, predictably, "How did I get in
here?"
"You bounder," Leo murmured, so delighted by his brother's pre-dicament that he had to bite his
tongue to keep from smiling. Finally he'd got Cag just where he wanted him!
"That goes double for me," Rey said, acting disgusted as he glanced toward Tess's prone figure
barely covered by the sheet. "And she works for us!"
"Not anymore," Leo said with pure confidence as he folded his over his chest. "Guess who's getting
married?" He raised his voice, despite Cag's outraged look. "Tess? Tess! Wake up!"
She forced her eyes open, glanced at Cag and froze. As she pulled up the sheet to her chin, she turned
and saw the brothers standing poker-faced in the doorway..
Then she did what any sane woman might do under the circumstances. She screamed.
Chapter 10
An awkward few minutes later, a cold sober and poleaxed Cag jerked into his robe and Tess retreated
under the sheet until he left. He never looked at her, or spoke. She huddled into the sheet and wished
she could disappear.
She felt terrible. Even though it wasn't her fault, any of it. She hadn't gone and climbed into bed with
him, after all, and she certainly hadn't invited him into bed with her! When she'd dozed off, she'd been
almost convinced that the whole episode had been a dream. Now it was more like a nightmare.
Tess went into the kitchen to make the breakfast that the brothers had found missing at its usual time.
That was why they'd come looking for her, and how they knew Cag was in bed with her. She groaned
as she realized what she was going to have to endure around the table.
She decided beforehand that she'd eat her breakfast after they finished and keep busy in another part
of the house until they were gone.
The meal was on the table when three subdued men walked into the kitchen and sat down.
Tess couldn't look at any of them. She mumbled something about dusting the living room and
escaped.
Not ten minutes later, Leo came looking for her.
She was cleaning a window that she'd done twice already. She couldn't meet his eyes.
"Was everything okay? I'm sorry if the bacon was a little overdone...."
"Nobody's blaming you for anything," he said, interrupting her quietly. "And Cag's going to do the
right thing."
She turned, red-faced. "But he didn't do anything, Leo," she said huskily. "He was drunk and he got
into the wrong bed, that's all. Nothing, absolutely nothing, went on!"
He held up a hand. "Cag doesn't know that nothing went on," he said, lowering his voice.
"And you aren't going to tell him. Listen to me," he emphasized when she tried to interrupt,
"you're the only thing that's going to save him from drying into dust and blowing away, Tess.
He's alone and he's going to stay that way. He'll never get married voluntarily. This is the only way it
will ever happen, and you know it."
She lifted her head proudly. "I won't trick him into marriage," she said curtly.
"I'm not asking you to. We'll trick him into it. You just go along."
"I won't," she said stubbornly. "He shouldn't have to marry me for something he didn't do!"
"Well, he remembers some of it. And he's afraid of what he can't remember, so he's willing to get
married."
She was still staring at him with her eyes unblinking. "I love him!" she said miserably. "How can I
ever expect him to forgive me if I let him marry me when he doesn't want to!"
"He does want to. At least, he wants to right now. Rey's gone for the license, you both go to the doctor
in thirty minutes for a blood test and you get married Friday in the probate judge's office." He put a
gentle hand on her shoulder. “Tess, if you love him, you have to save him from himself. He cares
about you. It's so obvious to us that it's blatant. But he won't do anything about it. This is the only way
he has a chance at happiness, and we're not letting him throw it away on half-baked fears of failure.
So I'm sorry, but you're sort of the fall guy here. It's a gamble. But I'd bet on it."
"What about when he remembers, if he does, and we're already married?" she asked plaintively.
"That's a bridge you can cross when you have to." He gave her a wicked grin. "Besides, you need an
insurance policy against anything that might... happen.'
"Nothing's going to happen!" she growled, her fists clenched at her side.
"That's what you think," he murmured under his breath, smiling—but only after he'd closed the door
between them. He rubbed his hands together with gleeful satisfaction and went to find his sibling.
It was like lightning striking. Everything happened too fast for Tess's protests to make any
differences. She wanted to tell Cag the truth, because she hadn't been drunk and she remembered what
had gone on. But somehow she couldn't get him to herself for five minutes in the three days that
followed. Before she knew what was happening, she and Cag were in the probate judge's office with
Corrigan and Dorie, Simon and Tira, Leo and Rey behind them, cheering them on.
Tess was wearing a white off-the-shoulder cotton dress with a sprig of lily of the valley in her hair in
lieu of a veil, and carrying a small nosegay of flowers. They were pronounced man and wife and Cag
leaned down to kiss her—on the cheek, perfunctorily, even reluctantly.
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