And now she had made another decision. To marry a stranger in order to legalize and protect her baby. That meant she was still in control…didn’t it?
“You can drop me off at my apartment,” she said a few minutes after they left in a flurry of best wishes and ribald remarks. She told him the address. “I can always walk to work and pick up my car on the way home tomorrow. One of the things I like about living in a small town—almost everything’s within walking distance.”
In some of the neighborhoods where she’d lived with her mother over the past few years, she had quickly learned that walking was not an option. Shortly after that they would pull up stakes and move again, hoping for something better. Always hoping…
“Depends on what you call a ‘walking distance.’” Idling at the stoplight, Will turned to study her averted face.
“Three miles a day, at least five days a week?”
He shot her an admiring look. “Nice going. But another thing about small towns—it’s hard to keep secrets.”
Her stricken look made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut.
“What I meant was that there was some speculation about you and Jack. A gated community like Pine Valley is hardly the best place to carry on a clandestine affair.”
“I hate that word.”
“Affair?”
“Clandestine. As if we’d been sneaking around like a couple of underage kids. Anyway, mostly we stayed at his cabin.”
He drove past her turnoff, and she sat up, alarmed. “I live on Macauley Street. The Lennox Apartments.” It was an old building, hanging on to respectability by a thread, but it was all she’d been able to afford at the time they’d moved to Royal.
“Like I said, small towns are big on gossip,” he said. “We both know the reason for this marriage. It’s hardly a love match.” Damn. Why not rub it in? Will mocked himself silently.
Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did her expression change, but her mouth—too large, too naked, too vulnerable—seemed to tighten just a bit. “Don’t you ever wear makeup?” he asked, irritated for no good reason.
“I always wear makeup.” It was a lie and they both knew it. Her kind of skin didn’t require any enhancement. “I must have chewed off my lipstick. Sometimes I do that when I’m nervous. There’s no room in this purse to carry much makeup.” She held up something that was roughly the size and shape of a business envelope. “My other one’s a black leather tote—hardly suitable for wedding wear.”
He pulled into the parking area behind his own apartment complex. It wasn’t up to Pine Valley standards, but it served his purpose. He’d never been big on status symbols. Switching off the engine, he stared through a row of carefully nurtured Leyland cypresses at the sunset—like an abstract painting done in shades of gray, gold and copper.
Now what? He asked himself. Some genius had once said, “Begin as you mean to go on,” or words to that effect. In their case it meant giving her a key, not carrying her over the threshold.
His palms were damp. Any kind of marriage, no matter what the reasons behind it, was a big step for a guy who’d avoided entanglements as long as he had. Even with all the safeguards, no man with half a grain of sense went into something like this without a few reservations.
She didn’t wear perfume—at least, not the kind that announced her presence the minute she entered a room. Yet, oddly enough, he was more aware of her than he’d been of any woman in a long, long time. The subtle scent of her skin—her soap and shampoo…
“I think we pretty well understand each other,” he said with a calmness that hid an increasing number of doubts. He would like to attribute the edginess he was feeling to filling up with junk food in the middle of the afternoon. “I should have scheduled things so that we could at least have a decent meal afterward. I didn’t plan the party, that was Seb’s idea.”
“It was a lovely idea. I like your friends. They don’t seem to—I mean, well—the fact that I was Sebastian’s father’s secretary…”
As well as his mistress. The words hung in the cool air, unspoken.
Diana unclipped her seat belt but made no move to get out. “Don’t they think it’s odd that we got married the way we did?”
“You mean in the courthouse instead of the church?”
“I mean you being who you are and me being who I am. We hardly even know each other.”
“Who we are is irrelevant. As for the rest—why we married, that’s nobody’s business but ours.”
What could he say? That they’d taken one look at each other and fallen madly in love? The guys would never buy it, not in a million years. After his first brief marriage, Will had made a point of avoiding long-term relationships.
Besides which, Seb probably knew about her relationship with Jack. As for the others, he couldn’t say. For a bunch of guys who had shared more than a few high-risk escapades, they respected each other’s privacy. Maybe he could remind them of an article he’d read recently about the increased life span of married men.
He went around to open her door. She sat there, making no move to get out. “Uh, Mrs. Bradford, we’re home.”
“You’re home. I told you where I live.”
“Look, Diana, one of the reasons we both agreed to this deal was to obscure the fact that in a few months you’re going to be having Jack’s baby. Another little Wescott contender. Or have you changed your mind about keeping it?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Right. Then we stick together for the duration. As a cover, I’ll admit it’s pretty thin, but it won’t even stand a chance if we live apart.” She sat there while he held the door open. The insulation on a few more overworked nerves began to unravel. “You don’t want to move in with me? Fine, we’ll stay at your place. Just let me run in and grab a few things for tonight. I can move the rest later.”
Diana looked up in horror at the thought of having him see where she lived. The thrift-shop specials, the things her mother had dragged all the way across the country. Tacky remnants of an idealistic age that had largely ended before she’d even been born.
“No—that is, we might as well stay here, but I’ll need something to sleep in. Some personal items.”
“I can lend you something to sleep in tonight, and I probably have a spare toothbrush, but if you’d rather, we can go back now and pack whatever you’ll need for the next few days. It’s early yet.”
She was tempted.
Actually she was tempted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend none of this had ever happened. Pretend her mother was still alive, listening to Joan Baez on the stereo while she wove her beaded macramé wall hangings. Or playing along on her old Gibson guitar that wouldn’t stay tuned because the tuning gears were shot.
Pretend she herself wasn’t pregnant, much less married to a man who both attracted and repelled her because he was too large, too reserved and too domineering, if only in the nicest possible way.
“Well…tomorrow, I guess. I can go by after breakfast. Do you have a kitchen in your apartment?”
He grinned, his lean cheeks that were already showing signs of what used to be called five-o’clock shadow before it became fashionable, creasing in a pair of unlikely dimples. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Four
This had to be the strangest wedding night in recorded history, Diana told herself a few hours later as she sat cross-legged on a large leather covered couch, eating curried garbanzos and watching a video of an old World War II submarine movie.
She slanted a look at her bridegroom, sprawled in a massive lounger, his eyes half-closed. His five o’clock shadow was now a fledgling beard. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and what must once have been a black T-shirt. Thanks to improper laundering, it was now a mottled shade of purple. Quite a change from the well-dressed executive whose department took up the entire tenth floor of the eleven-story Wescott Building.
Absently, Will held out a bowl of popcorn, and she helped herself to a
handful. He’d offered to grill steaks, but she’d been feeling queasy again. So much for morning sickness. In her case, it was an equal-opportunity affliction.
“I’ve been wondering—where am I supposed to report for work on Monday?” She waited for a lull in the dialogue to ask, but the question had been bothering her. She no longer had an office.
Did she even have a job?
“I wouldn’t be in any great rush to go back to work. Take a few days off. It’s expected of honeymooners.”
She sent him a mocking look. “Oh? And how long are you going to take off?”
“About a week should do it. I thought we might drive out to the ranch for a few days. You like horses?”
Horses? He expected her to go horseback riding? In her condition? Was it safe, even if she knew how? “Well, I don’t exactly dislike them. Actually, I’ve never met one.”
“I’ll introduce you. We’ll start out nice and easy and let nature take its course.”
Was he talking about her and his horse or her and their business-arrangement marriage?
On the TV screen, terror stalked in the form of a pair of swift, silent torpedoes. In black-and-white, on a small screen, the horror was no less potent. While Will sat seemingly relaxed and watched, Diana studied him. Studied his hands, which lay relaxed on his thighs. Studied the length—not to mention the strength—of his long legs.
Oh, she’d noticed him, all right, on the few occasions their paths had crossed at work. What woman wouldn’t? Even if his looks had been ordinary, the way he carried himself—assured without being noticeably arrogant, would have earned him more than a few admiring glances. At close range he radiated a tightly leashed sexuality that Jack, for all his polish, all his wealth and efforts, had never managed to achieve.
Jack had mentioned once that Will never used the private gym he had set up for senior employees. Could horseback riding have developed those long, smooth muscles?
He caught her studying his rugged profile, and she hurriedly lowered her eyes. “It’s nice. Your apartment. Have you lived here long?”
Oh, for Pete’s sake! Hello, cowboy, where’re you from?
Her mother would have asked him his sign by now, and told him more than he ever wanted to know about his traits, his future and his love life. Astrology had rated right up there with folk music and beaded macramé among her mother’s early passions.
“About ten years. It’s comfortable,” he said in answer to the questions she’d forgotten she’d asked.
For a man rumored to be extremely wealthy, it had come as something of a surprise, Will’s apartment. It was spacious, but hardly luxurious. The floors were carpeted in a muted neutral, the walls a slightly deeper shade of the same color. Fawn, perhaps. There were no pictures on the wall, not even any family photographs. The furniture, oak and leather, for the most part, was probably hideously expensive, but it had been chosen for comfort rather than style. Books overflowed the bookshelves and were stacked on the floor, along with videos.
The guest bedroom was small, but more than adequate.
“You mentioned a spare toothbrush?” She forced a yawn and followed it with a genuine one. And then another. “Mercy, it’s been a long day.”
“You feeling all right? You’re not, uh—feeling upset or anything, are you?”
“No, I’m fine.” And she would be, once her hormones settled down and she got back on a regular schedule. “As long as I remember to eat and don’t get stressed out, I’m in great health. The morning sickness is only temporary. It shouldn’t last much longer.”
He eyed her intently, making her wonder why hazel eyes were so underrated. Piercing was the word that came to mind.
Smoldering was the word that followed. Like banked coals.
“Wake me anytime if you need anything, promise? Anything at all. I’m a light sleeper.”
Suddenly she was fighting tears. When had anyone ever made that offer? Her mother hadn’t, not in a long, long time. It would never have occurred to Jack. He’d paid her mother’s hospitalization, which had been more than generous of him, but he had never wanted to hear about Diana’s personal needs, her fears, her hopes.
It had never occurred to her to share them with him.
“Thanks,” she said gruffly. “I’m an early riser, but I’ll try to be quiet.”
“No problem.” He stood, unfolding his six-foot-plus length from the dark-brown recliner. “Coffee, tea or decaf?”
“For breakfast? Coffee if you have it. The real thing. I’ll have to taper off caffeine soon, but I’d rather do it gradually.”
Will lay awake, his mind taking off down a few strange pathways. He was married again. Something he could have sworn he would never be. The first time had hurt too damned much, for too damned long.
Somewhere along the line, his brief marriage nearly twenty years earlier to Shelly of the infectious laughter, the flashing blue eyes, the sexy sulks that always ended in bed, had faded like an old photograph exposed to the light too long. When had that happened? He’d been too busy to notice, but obviously today’s events had stirred a few ashes.
They were nothing at all alike, his two wives.
But then, he was nothing like the eager young gyrene he’d been when he’d married, fresh out of boot camp. He’d owned the world then—a gorgeous bride and a promising career as a marine.
It had all come crashing down the day some drugged-up, two-bit hood had broken into their duplex. He’d headed straight for the bedroom and Shelly’s jewelry case. Hearing something, she’d come up from the basement where she’d been doing the laundry, and he had shoved her back down the stairs.
At least she hadn’t suffered. According to the authorities, she had died instantly of a broken neck. Someone in the neighborhood had seen the punk running across the backyard to the woods beyond and reported it. He’d been picked up, tried for manslaughter and sentenced to ten years, which in Will’s estimation was a joke. An insult. A slap on the wrist.
Will had been sent back to the States. Vowing to be waiting for the murdering son of a gun the day he got out of prison, he had grimly served out the rest of his hitch. By the time he left the service, his lust for revenge had faded just enough for common sense to take over.
Instead of setting himself up for a murder charge, he’d moved across the country. Still driven by anger and grief, he had earned a degree in accounting. Numbers were emotionless, exact—both qualities that had appealed to him back then.
Eventually the raw wound had healed over, but the scars were a permanent part of him. Over the years he had managed to fill a few of the hollow places inside him with challenging work, new friends and a few sub rosa missions with other members of the Cattleman’s Club. Not to mention half a dozen charities he funded anonymously. What more could a man expect out of life?
Sex, came the instant answer.
But not with his wife.
It was going to be a long, dry spell. He had taken certain vows. Not in a church, but nonetheless binding. For the next year or two, until Diana and the child were ready to move on with their own lives, he would abide by those promises.
It was still dark the next morning when Will rolled over, groaned and sat up in his rumpled bed. Too many champagne toasts hadn’t done his head any good. While it was still dark, he might run a few miles to clear away the static. This time of morning the sidewalks would be empty.
In honor of having a woman under his roof, he’d slept in sweats instead of his usual nothing. They would do to run in, as he was no more inclined to wear suitable running gear than he was to drive out to the park and jog along a designated track. His method of waking up his body was more efficient. Get up, get it done, get to work.
On the ranch, unloading a truckload of hay, checking a few miles of fence and maybe going after the big cat that had been spooking his mares would have done it.
In town he was forced to improvise.
She was in his kitchen. “Hi,” she said, her soft voice husky with sleep.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I warned you, I’m an early riser.”
“No. I mean, that’s great—uh, I don’t suppose you’d like to go for a short run with me?”
Glancing down at the oversize gray sweats he’d lent her to sleep in and her bare feet, she said, “Hardly. I’d better go home and pack a few things.”
“Yeah, sure.” Her skin had a pink glow that he knew damned well didn’t come from cosmetics. She’d braided her hair, but it was half-unraveled. There was something different about her—a certain softness instead of her usual patrician aloofness.
Yeah, softness—that was it. He’d lay odds that softness was hardly a quality the cool, conservatively dressed Miss Foster aspired to.
Amused for no real reason, he said, “Good morning, Mrs. Bradford,” and damned if she didn’t blush. Hell, he was only teasing—he hadn’t meant anything by it. At least, nothing personal.
“My car—you said you were going to have it driven to my apartment?”
“Right. Look, I don’t feel like running, anyway. My head would probably fall off and roll down a storm drain before I reached the end of the block. How about we have some coffee, think about breakfast, then I’ll drive you to your place and you can take your time packing and drive your car back here when you’re finished.”
While she was considering the offer, the coffeemaker gurgled its last gasp. Reaching past her for a mug, Will was conscious of the heat of her body and the scent of soap and toothpaste and woman.
How personal could you get? Good thing his sweats were baggy.
“Okay, coffee. I’ve already nibbled some saltines—I think things are settling down by now.”
He offered to cook bacon and eggs, and she said politely, “Thank you. One slice, one egg, both well done, please.”
“Hey, you’re eating for two now, don’t forget.”
“I’m also about to outgrow everything I own, so let’s not rush the process.”
She smiled. He chuckled. Some of the tension faded, but as his kitchen was small, physical contact was a given. Her arm brushed his shoulder when she reached for plates. He backed into her as he opened the massive stainless-steel refrigerator, muttered an apology and then stepped on her toe.
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