She wanted this marriage.She would make certain he knew where she stood.
Midafternoon, she stormed to the front door of the lodge.
She pounded her fist on the wood.“Adeel!”she shouted.“Answer the door.We need to talk.”She continued to pound.
Two months had passed since he abandoned her here.He needn’t think he could walk back into her adventure—the one forced on her—as if nothing had changed.
She was not the same little sister who once depended on him.She had fought off a bear.She’d helped foil a bank robbery.She’d survived an Indian attack on the town and avenged the murder of the man she loved.She was a woman of the Western frontier, and she’d earned her place in this town.
The door opened.She held her head high.She might be a woman of the West, but she was also a direct descendant of desert nomads whose women held power.She would determine the outcome of her adventure, not her treacherous brother.
“It wasn’t locked,” Adeel said.“You could have walked in.”
She swept past him, then swung around.She jabbed his chest with her finger, refusing to be distracted from her rage.
“I will not marry Eli Chamas.”
Adeel ignored the jab of her finger and nodded.“Agreed.Eli is no longer an option for you.”
Confusion deflated the righteous indignation raging inside her.“Why is he no longer an option?”
“I believe his exact words were, I’d rather wake up next to a flea-riddled camel.Return the mahr I paid.”
How dare he insult her.And to think she’d felt a little guilty about electrocuting him.
“I hope you weren’t too harsh with him,” she said.
Destroying him financially should be enough.He’d already lost any hope for an alliance with Adeel Jiorji and his family.
“I returned his money.”
“Adeel.” She gasped, horrified.“What abouthonor?”
“Funny thing about that.”Adeel walked into the front room of the lodge.
She followed.He took a seat facing the window.She remained standing.
“Word has spread that I’m unable to manage you.”The harsh lines of his face hardened.“Eli was the only man in all Djitania who made an offer for you, and only then because he believed he could succeed where I have failed.Thank you for proving him wrong, by the way.But I have my daughters to think of, and they need husbands too.You’ll return to your mother’s house and live with her.I will not arrange another marriage for you.”
She reconsidered the protest that sprang automatically to her lips.As far as fates went, that was generous of him.She wasn’t returning to Djitania to accept it, however.
She was in love.The American kind.The kind that sneaked up on a woman when she least expected it to.The kind she’d never experience again, because she didn’t have the amount of patience required to wait for it to grow after marriage the way her sisters assured her it would, even if Adeel hadn’t refused to arrange another marriage for her.
“I’m not leaving Montana.I’m staying right here, in Burning Scrub, and I’m marrying Jayce.”
“My sister?Marry a cowboy?”
She began to have suspicions about the sincerity of his opposition.His dark expression and his stilted tone didn’t match.As if he were acting.He adored cowboys.He especially adored Jayce.
And he adored her.He would never have promised her to someone as coldly arrogant as Eli Chamas when he could have banished her to her mother’s household, as he now threatened, instead.
“Jayce has no choice but to marry me.He has already ruined me,” she said.
Adeel drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.“This is a serious matter, Malika.This isn’t the Wild West adventure I’ve paid for we’re discussing.It’s your future.”
“My future is here.I want my own family.With Jayce.”
“You’re pregnant.”Adeel launched out of his chair.“I’ll kill him.”
