"Oh." Carly tugged on her ragged T-shirt and touched her hair, which was still tousled from sleep. "What time this afternoon?"

"Will two work?"

That gave her nearly four hours. "If you're absolutely bent on doing this, I guess two will be fine."

"I'm bent on it," he said firmly. "Would it help if I sat down with you and went over my financial situation?"

"That won't be necessary."

"You sure? You might feel better about all this if you could see the entire picture and know in your own mind that we've got no other choice."

Carly doubted anything would make her feel better. She wasn't even sure she was thinking rationally. Bess didn't seem to think so. Maybe her hormones were in a state of flux, and she was being unreasonably difficult.

"I'm sure," she managed to assure him.

"Two it is, then. Before you hang up, can we try something?"

"What?"

"I just thought we might try saying good-bye this time, like normal people. So far, all our phone conversations have ended with you hanging up on me."

The teasing note in his voice caught her by surprise, and she almost smiled. Then she caught herself and firmed her lips. She wasn't going to be charmed by him again. Letting her guard down with Hank Coulter was dangerous. "I enjoy hanging up on you. It gives me a perverse satisfaction."

Brief silence. There was another smile in his voice when he said, "I always like to satisfy a lady. Go for broke."

Carly grinned in spite of herself as she dropped the receiver into the cradle without telling him good-bye.

Hank arrived on Carly's doorstep promptly at two. He knocked, three spaced raps with the back of his knuckles, and then cooled his heels on the welcome mat, waiting for her to answer. He heard rattling sounds coming from inside, then what sounded like bare feet pounding across the carpet.

When the door finally swung open, Carly stood at the threshold, holding three blouses on hangers in one tightly fisted hand. She wore an overlarge white T-shirt over a gathered blue skirt that sported a red-and-pink floral pattern. Hank took in her fine-boned bare feet and dainty little toes, her gracefully turned ankles, and a brief expanse of shapely calf before jerking his gaze back to her face. A guy could do worse in a shotgun wedding, he decided. A hell of a lot worse.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I meant to be ready." pushed at her beautiful hair. "I have this embarrassing problem, and since Bess isn't here, I thought you might help me."

"What kind of problem?"

"I'm still lousy at matching colors." She held the blouses higher for his inspection. "Can you tell which of these goes best with my skirt?"

One of the tops was hunter's orange with purple and green starbursts. Hank could scarcely believe might consider wearing it with a floral print. Pointing to his choice, he said, "I'm no fashion expert, but if I were you, I'd go with the white one."

She spun away. "I'll be ready in two seconds."

He stepped inside and closed the door. "Don't rush on my account."

As she rounded the corner, she began tugging off the T-shirt. Hank got a tantalizing glimpse of bare back and slender arm. Then the bedroom door slammed shut, depriving him of the view. He sat on the sofa to wait.

Two minutes later, she emerged from the bedroom. Hank glanced up and barely suppressed an appreciative grin. She rubbed the end of her nose, making it turn a pretty pink. "Thanks for the help. Do I look all right?"

She looked fabulous. And so sweet and uncertain of herself that he yearned to lavish her with compliments. Not a good idea.

"You look great." He pushed to his feet. "If I'd known this was going to be a dress-up affair, I'd have changed my shirt."

She pressed a slender hand to her chest. Then she retreated a step. "You're right. A skirt is too dressy. Slacks would be better. Excuse me for a minute while I go-"

Hank snaked out a hand to catch her by the wrist, "You look perfect the way you are," he assured her. "I was only joking."

She stiffened at his touch. Hank quickly released her. Silence. He tried to think of something else to say. Nothing brilliant came to mind, so he settled for, "Well? You about ready to go?"

She rubbed the wrist that he'd just touched as though to remove contaminants. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"You'll need your purse."

"Oh, of course. I'll need ID. Will I need my birth certificate, too?"

"They don't require them here. Just a picture ID."

She went into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a small black clutch bag barely large enough to hold a wallet. Hank was accustomed to women carrying much bigger purses. As near as he could tell, Carly wore no makeup. Maybe that explained it.

"You travel light."

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Let's go get this done."

Once outside, she struggled to lock the door. Hank remembered Bess's hurdle theory and refrained from offering assistance. While he stood there watching, he couldn't help but notice how badly her hands were shaking. Nerves, he guessed. The realization bothered him because he knew he was the cause. He tried to remember that night-more specifically its ending. The images that circled through his head were vague and impossibly jumbled, culminating in blackness. Unfortunately, the proof was in the pudding, as his father was fond of saying. Whether he could remember it or not, he'd definitely done something to make this girl scared to death of him.

The thought jerked Hank up short. Girl? She was twenty-eight years old, damn it, and he was going soft in the head. Even so, as he stood there fidgeting while she tried to get the door locked, he couldn't chase away the thought that she was as shy and uncertain as a young teenager.

After three tries, she finally got the key in the hole. Seconds later when he tried to help her into the truck she avoided his hands and managed by herself. After she got settled on the seat, Hank closed the door and left her to handle the seat belt. When he swung in on the driver's side, she was sitting straight enough to rule paper with her spine. For a second, Hank couldn't think what might have kicked her anxiety level up another notch. Then he recalled what had transpired between them the last time she'd been inside this vehicle.

As he pulled out into traffic, his palms sweat bullets on the steering wheel, making the plastic slick. He sneaked a glance her way, wishing she'd say something.

She finally broke the silence with, "What a beautiful day!"

Grateful for anything they might talk about, Hank leaped at the conversational opening with absurd relief. "That's one of the nice things about Crystal Falls. Lots of sunshine. Over three hundred days a year on average."

"Really? How interesting. In Portland, it rains almost that much."

Hank almost said, "Really?" He caught himself before the exchange went from absurd to ridiculous. "You know what they say about Oregonians. We don't tan, we rust."

She laughed shrilly. "Not over here, though."

"Nope. Over here, we get honest-to-goodness tans and skin cancer like other folks."

Hank drew to a stop at a red light. Still brittle with tension, but trying to pretend she wasn't, she stared out the passenger window.

"I love the sky here," she said. "It's such a gorgeous blue. That was one of the first beautiful things I ever saw, you know, the Central Oregon sky."

"You were already living over here when you had your first eye surgery?"

"We moved into the apartment the week before and then drove back to Portland for the operation. It made things a little hectic, but Bess had to be settled in over here so she could start interviewing for jobs as soon as possible. She hopes to work full time the rest of the summer and then go part time after classes begin."

Hank was glad that their friendship was still intact. He'd worried that Bess's defection might cause a permanent rift. The fact that Carly had forgiven her friend for the betrayal told him more about her than she could possibly know.

A few minutes later after Hank found a parking spot on Main for his overlong truck, Carly took off walking toward the courthouse without him. He hurried to catch up, then grasped her by the shoulders and circled to her left, putting her between him and the storefronts.

At her questioning look, he said, "Sorry. A man should always walk on the outside. The rules of gentlemanly behavior, according to my father."

"Hasn't he heard of the feminist movement?"

"The what?"

She rolled her eyes and rewarded him with a smile that rivaled the sunlight. "I realize this is a rural community compared to Portland, but it can't be that far out of the mainstream."

"Depends on the company you keep. My dad was a third generation rancher. We ranchers have our own way of thinking, especially about women."

"Oh?"

Hank verbally scrambled to clarify that statement. "It's a little known fact, but female ranchers claim to have started the feminist movement."

"Really?" Her eyes twinkled with amusement. "How do they figure?"

"They never needed to demonstrate with picket signs to get equal rights. They earned them by the sweat of their brows over a century ago. Take my mom, for instance. You'll never meet any woman who's more ladylike, but she held her own as a rancher's wife, taking care of the house and us kids, plus bailing Dad out whenever he needed her help. I've seen her butt heads with bulls, buck hay alongside men, take care of us kids while she was doing it, and still feed twenty hired hands at the end of the day. My father says she's a hell of a woman, and he's right. She saved his ass so many times you'll never hear him say that it was his ranch or his money. They each had their own roles, of course, but Dad would come in from the fields, throw on an apron, and do kitchen duty just as quickly as she'd throw on jeans and boots to work outdoors with him. 'Needs Must' was their motto, and they shared the workload."

"They sound wonderful.""Yeah. My mom's a sweetheart, and my dad-well, you'll meet him soon enough.He's a curious blend of modern thinking and old-fashioned courtesy. He's all for a woman shattering the glass ceiling, but no man better treat her with disrespect whileshe's climbing the corporate ladder."When they reached the courthouse steps, she said, "I'm so nervous my stomach has butterflies.""About getting a marriage license?"She shifted her small purse from one hand to the other. "I really, really wish there were another solution."

Hank nudged up the brim of his Stetson to better see her face. When she looked upat him again, he smiled gently. "It's going to be okay. I promise."She nodded and straightened her shoulders. "Right. It's the most practical way to do things. I know that."

He just wished she could be marginally relaxed about it. He gestured toward thebroad steps.She turned and began the climb. Hank noticed her scowling in concentration, which told him the rises were difficult for her to see.

"It's my visual cortex," she explained when she caught him watching her. "I havetrouble with depth perception and can't see depressions and edges.""Ah."Once at the landing, he pushed open the double doors and stood back for her to enter first. Then he grasped her elbow again to guide her to the elevator."We can use the stairs," she protested."I put in a hard morning," he lied.As the metal doors of the elevator slid closed behind them, Hank pressed the button for the third floor. Then he settled against the handrail with his arms folded at hiswaist. Carly stood center front for the duration of the ride, fidgeting with her purse and hair. Hank noticed that her hands were trembling.

"It's not that big a deal, you know. In five minutes, we'll be finished."

She nodded. Then she graced him with a hesitant smile. Hank felt as if the sun had just peeked out at him from behind a cloud again. Her mouth was one of the loveliest he had ever seen, the upper lip a perfect bow, the lower one full and soft. "It just seems so strange," she said. "I've never gotten married before."

He chuckled in spite of himself. "Me, neither, come to think of it."

The elevator bumped to a stop and the doors opened. He led the way to the clerk's office, opened the door, and ushered Carly inside. Moments later they were trying to fill out the required form. To see the fine print, Carly held the paper a few inches from her nose. Why, Hank didn't know. She had to study each letter to make out a word.

"Why are there so many different fonts?" she grumped. "One time, A's have curlicues, the next they don't. It drives me nuts."

Hank studied the words, and in the doing, he began to get a glimmer of understanding. Carly was seeing letters for the first time and trying to correlate them with the unchanging shapes she'd memorized by touch.

To save her unnecessary frustration, he began reading the lines aloud to her, which earned him a scolding frown from the clerk. He didn't care. He didn't want to be there for three hours.

"It's just a standard application," he whispered. "Is it absolutely necessary to read all the fine print?"

"I like to know what I'm signing."

Hank didn't know what possessed him, but as he began to read the next line, he altered the wording. "I hereby swear on this blank day of blank," he softly intoned, "that I'll be my lawfully wedded husband's sex slave, no questions asked, and will obey him in all things, even when he's criminally abusive and unreasonable."

Her eyes went wide. "What?" She snatched the paper away from him. For an awful moment, Hank feared he might have made a mistake by teasing her. But then she gulped back a giggle and rolled her eyes. "You're impossible. It doesn't say that."

"My point, exactly. It's just a standard form."She sighed. "Oh, all right. Just show me where to sign."He pointed and then made the mistake of glancing away. When he looked back, he saw that she'd put her John Hancock on the witness line. Oops. Hank signaled for theclerk. "I'm sorry. Could we get a fresh form?"

Carly squinted at her signature. "What? Did I mess up?""No big deal." Hank shoved the new application under her nose, pressed his fingerto the correct line, and said, "Sign right there."

Sticking out the tip of her tongue, she pursed her lips in concentration and squeezedthe pen hard enough to snap the plastic as she scrawled her signature. Hank forgotall about the form. That mouth. He would have happily forfeited his share of the LazyJ to kiss her again.

When she finished, she whispered, "Did I stay on the line?"

Not precisely. "You did great," he said and quickly added his signature. Done. He hadhis pretty little sex slave all wrapped up and tied with a bow.Moments later, they showed the clerk their picture IDs and were finished. Carly puffed air into her cheeks as they walked to the elevator. "I'm glad that part's over."Hank felt relieved, too. Why, he didn't know. It had only been paperwork. Carly fell silent as they walked back to his truck. Hank didn't try to help her in this time.Before he started the engine, he looked over at her."Would you like to go out for lunch or something?"She looked surprised by the suggestion. "I've already eaten.""Coffee, then?" He felt it was important that they spend some time together before the wedding, his hope being that she'd feel a little less nervous if she came to know

him better."No thanks," she said with a smile to take the sting out of her refusal. "Coffee isn'tallowed now. It may harm the baby."

Hank thought of all the drinks served in restaurants that wouldn't harm the baby,

but he decided to let the subject drop. She clearly didn't care to go.

The drive back to the apartment complex passed in silence. When Hank had parked at the curb, he switched off the ignition. "Well, I guess I'll see you Friday?"

She nodded. Her fingers fiddled nervously with a button on her blouse. "Would it be possible for you to pick me up on the way to the courthouse? Bess got called back for a second interview at a dentist office today. That's a positive sign. If she gets the job, she may have to work that afternoon."

"Sure, I can pick you up," Hank assured her. "Will three thirty work?"

"That'll be fine." She sat there for a moment, clearly searching for something to say. Then she sighed. "Well, I'd better go. Until Friday, then?"

"Right."

It bothered Hank to just sit there while she exited the vehicle. He was accustomed to performing the gentlemanly courtesies. But he resisted the urge.

Before shutting the passenger door, she flashed him a brittle smile and said, " 'Bye."

Hank gazed after her as she moved along the walkway that led to her apartment. Friday. In four short days, he'd be a married man. As unnerving as that realization was, he knew it was even more unsettling for Carly. He wished he could do something to make her feel better about it. But for the life of him, he couldn't think what.