Free The Outsider by Rosalyn West Page B

shows up pregnant after being gonefor four years—do you know whose baby it is?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he gritted out.
    Reeve stared at him. “You’re going to toss away the chance of finding the right woman just to give a name to a baby a woman you don’t know made with a man she won’t name?”
    “That’s about it.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    Dodge jerked him up by the shirtfront. The movement was fierce and demonstrative, startling Reeve with a sudden hugeness of presence from the smaller man, the same powerful authority that allowed the unpretentious lieutenant to command an army into hell without question. “What I know is that this may be my only chance to raise a child as my own, and damn it, you’re not taking that away from me. You owe me this, Reeve.”
    Reeve blinked in sudden understanding as Dodge let him go, acting apologetic but no less obstinate.
    “I need something to hold me here,” Dodge went on in a low, almost angry tone. “I can’t go home. They’d treat me like—” He broke off to rethink his words, then continued in earnest. “I want a family to tie me here in Pride. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to—that I’ll ever have children of my own, and now I’ve got this chance to help out a friend of yours, a woman who can give me the family I need, and the reason to drag myself up in the morning. Don’t you dare tell me I can’t make this work. I will. For that baby, if for nothing else. Damn it, if that isn’t reason enough—”
    Reeve put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s reason enough.”
    Dodge expelled his breath noisily, and his hostility with it. He clasped his hand over Reeve’s for a brief instant, then Reeve walked back to the sideboard, where he spoke without turning.
    “Have you thought about the other two people involved in this grand gesture?”
    “You and Patrice?”
    “No. You and Starla. I don’t want to see either of you get hurt in this.”
    His friend’s sincerity warmed him to his soul. Dodge smiled with grim determination. “It’s worth the risk to me. It’s a business arrangement, Reeve. I make them all the time and nobody’s better at it than I am. Nobody gets cheated. We’ll be fine … as long as we can keep from killing each other.”
    “All right. I guess if any one can make Starla behave, you can.”
    Not exactly confidence-inspiring words to a groom-to-be.
    Exactly twenty-four hours later, Hamilton Dodge brought the same judge who’d married Patrice and Reeve to the door of the Glade. He didn’t draw a deep breath until he saw Starla there waiting, still of the same mind. He’d worried that perhaps—
    Then he saw her standing by the stairs in a demure gown of ivory silk, her glossy black hair swept back beneath a crown of lace and pearls, and his emotions staggered. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to convince himself that he was in love with this glorious creature who’d consented to be his wife.
    But of course, he wasn’t. He was merelystunned, as any man with eyes would be, by her exotic beauty. On closer examination, he could see how pale she was, how her vivaciousness was tempered to the vaguest of smiles when she saw him. Regrets? Or just wishing there were some other way than having to say vows with a perfect stranger? His mood sobered. This was no love match, so it wasn’t smart to consider it as anything but business.
    They said their vows in the sunny front parlor, Patrice weeping freely on one side, Reeve grim as a sentinel on the other. Beside him Starla spoke the necessary words without inflection, then lifted her hand so he could slide on the ring his mother had given him to see him safely through four years of war. Let it see him through this marriage with equal indemnity.
    As Reeve had predicted, the solemnity of the event didn’t strike home until the judge intoned the words pronouncing them man and wife.
    Man and wife.
    His to have and hold.
    An attack of nervous exhilaration took hold of him,