Read Online Wishmakers by Dorothy Garlock - Free Book Online Page A

you said the woman you married would want to spend her life here in Flathead. You said city girls don't know nothin' but primpin' and dressin' up like that old man's girl. You said she was useless as tits on a boar. You said—”
    “I was wrong, Beth,” Chip interrupted. His voice was stern, but there was an undertone of gentleness. “City girls are like any other girls. If they want to adjust to this life, they can.”
    “But—”
    “Run along, Beth. Are you keeping your grades up like you promised?”
    “And if I don't, I suppose you'll take the old pickup back!” Resentment flared on the young face.
    “You're damn right I will! A bargain's a bargain.”
    Margaret watched the emotions flicker across the girl's face, and she forcefully moved out from the circle of Chip's arm. “Like I said, Beth. Nothing has been decided.” She wanted to say,
He's lying! I'm the useless one he told you about.
    “Don't you love him?” Beth asked hopefully, her eyes dark with hurt.
    “Of course she does. She told me so last night.” Chip shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. His glance at Margaret dared her to contradict him.
    Beth's face tightened angrily. “You get her pregnant before she decides and I'll never speak to you again!” She shot Margaret a stricken look and bolted out of the room. The front door slammed as she left the house.
    “Why did you tell her that? It was…unkind,” Margaret finished weakly.
    “Unkind? You think it's better to let her hope?” His voice was brusque. “It's time she stopped hanging around here and got a boyfriend her own age.”
    “You didn't have to be so brutal. You didn't have to lie about being…about me.”
    “I had two reasons for saying what I did. She'll spread it up and down Flathead Range that you're here as my fiancée, and she'll get over her silly romantic notions about me.”
    “You had no right to involve me. You should've talked to her father.”
    He looked at her with irony in the twist of his lips. “She doesn't have one. Well, I guess she does have one…somewhere. The bastard left them about six weeks ago.”
    The words were slow to sink in. When they did, Margaret was puzzled. “But she said her father was a foreman at one of the logging camps.”
    Chip shrugged. “Beth makes things up. She'll never admit that he pulled out and left them. She always has a reason why he's away. He's in the hospital, or he joined the service and is in Germany, or some other lie.”
    “Oh, the poor girl!” She frowned up at him. “All the more reason to show a little compassion.”
    He took a deep breath, as if making some inner decision. “Don't tell me how to run my affairs, Maggie. You know nothing at all about the situation.”
    “Maybe not. But I learned a little more about you—and your opinion of the
old man's girl!
I'm surprised you'd want someone so useless to even pretend to be your fiancée!” His smile only increased her irritation.
    “I knew you'd pick up on that.” His grin deepened, and he reminded her of a tiger that had just been thrown a piece of raw meat.
    She felt a hot wave wash over her body as he blatantly surveyed her slender figure. His eyes slowly lifted to her face. She might be technically inexperienced, but she interpreted his look to mean she wasn't entirely useless.
    The sexual assessment in those blue eyes left her chilled but angry.
    “Your jeans are in the dryer, you chauvinist…creep! I hope you enjoy wearing them!” She jerked her head toward the basement door, and her glasses slid down her nose. Chip reached out with a forefinger and pushed them up before she could jerk her head away.
    “You look kind of cute in those glasses. Why do you wear the contacts?”
    “Because I want to!” she snapped defiantly.
    “Good enough reason, princess. Now, run along and get a jacket so we can go to town and buy you some decent clothes.”
    She instantly hated him for speaking to her as if she were no older than