A Daring Proposal by Sandra S. Kerns Read Free Book Online Page A

open?”
    Jed cocked his head. “Dare?”
    “Yeah, the dare you gave me at the wedding.”
    He had to think for a minute. She had to be kidding. It was Jed’s turn to spin some wheels. Where was she taking this? She couldn’t possibly be serious. She hated him. Unless of course it was just to see if she could still get him riled.
    “The one about getting married?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “You want to marry me?” Could it be this e asy? Hope bloomed in his chest.
    “Not exactly.”
    And withered just as fast. “Explain.”
    She turned back toward the table then glanced at the bar. “You blew my only other chance at keeping the ranch.”
    Looking at Billy and his new flavor of the night, Jed tried to decipher what Chaney meant. He couldn’t.
    “What could Billy, or I for that matter, possibly have to do with you keeping the ranch? I’m no rancher and he’s even less of one.”
    “That’s the point. The ranch is mine. I don’t want or need a man to run it.”
    “Okaaaay, if you don’t want a man to run the ranch, what do you want to get married for? Not that there aren’t other reasons, but the scuttlebutt is you haven’t been out for a while.”
    “Checking up on me, Jed?”
    “I didn’t have to. Your display on the dance floor had every tongue at the bar wagging.” It had caused his blood pressure to rise into the stratosphere that was for sure.
    “Sorry I embarrassed you. Though, what I do shouldn’t matter to you,” she told him.
    “You didn’t embarrass me, just confused me. As to the dare, like I said there are other reasons than needing help with the ranch, but considering you’re asking me, I doubt love has much to do with it.”
    She wadded the torn napkin into a ball and threw it across the table. “Never mind. Forget it. Chalk this conversation up to another one of Chaney’s stupid ideas. May I go now?”
    Her jaw clenched tight with the request. When she started to rise, Jed pressed his hand to her shoulder. “I didn’t say the conversation was stupid, just perplexing. You hate me. Why would you want to marry me?”
    “I’m desperate.”
    Well, he had asked. Not that he believed her. “You and desperate have never occupied the same time zone. Try again.”
    Her bangs puffed out with an exasperated breath. “Okay, look. I’ll explain this once then I’m gone.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “My thirtieth birthday is next Thursday.”
    “I know.” He hadn’t forgotten a single detail about Chaney in all the year’s he’d been gone. For a moment, she paused in her explanation to look at him. Her disbelief shone clear in the way she rolled her eyes.
    “Anyway,” she said, waving her hand as if to clear away a distracting thought, “I have to get married before then or I lose the ranch.”
    “What?”
    “I told you I was only saying it once.”
    “But why?”
    “Because it is too embarrassing to say twice.”
    Jed took a deep breath. She was being deliberately obtuse. “I got that. I mean, why would you lose the ranch?”
    “My father made marriage a condition of my inheritance.”
    “You’re kidding.” He regretted the comment the moment he said it. The pain filled glare she turned on him made it clear this was no joke. “Why?”
    She shrugged and looked away. “Because he didn’t think a woman could run a ranch? Because he didn’t think I could get a man on my own? Because he hated me? Because he wanted to punish me? Take your pick. It doesn’t matter.”
    Misery rang clear in her voice. She honestly believed what she said. As much as Jed detested Travis McBride, he knew the man had loved his daughter. If anyone knew how much, it was Jed. He covered her hands now clasped tightly together on the table.
    “Chaney, you can’t believe that. Your father loved you.”
    She pulled her hands from under his and shook her head. “You’re starting to sound like Martha, but you are both wrong. My father regretted my birth from my first breath to his last. He was