“Well, hell,” he said plaintively. “It’s not like I ever won any waltzing contests, but normally I’m slightly less clumsy than a three-legged ox.”
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t worked in close confines before, either. While Jack’s office was certainly spacious, there was only so much room in front of a filing cabinet. He must have managed to bump into her a dozen times—looking back, it might even have been deliberate. But that had been different.
Yeah, she wasn’t your wife then.
“Crazy weather we’re having, huh?” Go ahead, Bradford, impress her with your brilliant conversation.
“Did you mean what you said last night?”
He rifled through his brain, searching for any indiscretion he might have committed. “Uh, you mean about…?”
“Going to your ranch?”
He let out his breath in a sigh of relief, poured two mugs of coffee and flipped the bacon. One slice for her, two for him, when he could easily have put away half a dozen. Jack’s death had been a warning. “Sure, if you’d like to go. Matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about taking a month off, maybe spending a couple of weeks at the ranch and then heading for salt water to do some serious fishing. You like fishing?”
She was beating up the eggs while he cooked the bacon. She added a dash of salt, a dash of black pepper, and he started to suggest a whopping dollop of salsa con queso—the hot variety—but decided the baby might not care for it.
“Fishing? I don’t know, I’ve never tried it.” She handed him the bowl and he poured the eggs in the pan and stirred while she made toast. Nothing like teamwork.
“You like seafood?” he asked. Breakfast with a woman was a new experience. He hadn’t had time to get used to it when he was married the first time, and since then, his dalliances had rarely included breakfast.
“Hmm,” she said, and bit her lip. He watched, wondering what it felt like. Soft. Moist. Naked…vulnerable. Maybe there was a reason why women wore lipstick. In men, war paint was used to lend a feeling of invincibility.
Not until they had sampled the fare did she speak again. “If by seafood you mean frozen breaded fish sticks, then not particularly. Canned tuna is okay— I’ve never tried clams, but I looked at a raw oyster once, and it was horribly icky. I could never eat one.”
Will tilted back his chair and laughed until his headache reminded him that he needed to take a couple of aspirin tablets. “We’ll break you in easy, shall we? I’ll take you to Claire’s for some mountain trout. Did Jack take you there?”
The question lay between them like a dead horse.
“Actually, Jack never took me anywhere. We were—that is, we tried…”
“I know, I know. Look, I’m sorry. Like I said, I never won any waltzing contests, and waltzing around the obvious comes under that heading.” Might as well lay it all out on the table, between the apple jelly and the Texas Pete. “For what it’s worth, Diana, I doubt if too many people knew about you and Jack, so why don’t we start today with us. You and me. Not you and Jack and me.”
“How about you and me and Jack’s baby?” She blotted her lips on a paper napkin, which was the only kind he had.
“How about you and me and your baby? By the time it’s born it’ll be our baby.”
Suddenly her eyes were flooded with tears. She laughed, a soft, broken sound that twisted his gut. “Sorry—I’m not crying, honestly I’m not. It’s these hormones of mine. At least it’s better than having to rush to the bathroom to be sick every morning.”
“I never knew about any of this stuff. About pregnancy, I mean. And listen, Diana, before you go getting the wind up about what I said—I mean, about it being our baby—no way would I ever try to take him away from you. For any reason. I just want to do what I think Jack would have done—that is, to look after you until you’re on your feet again.”
Liar, he thought. Jack would’ve bought her a one-way ticket out of town.
She yawned, and he said, “Why don’t we leave the dishes and go for a walk. Not a run—you probably shouldn’t be running, anyway, in case you—uh, jar something loose.”
“Honestly, I’m not always like this,” she said, laughing, then yawning again.
“Hey, I understand. Besides, even Sleeping Beauty eventually woke up, didn’t she?”
Rising, Will set his dishes on the counter, then impulsively leaned down and kissed her. There was nothing at all sexual about it, and she told herself that what she was feeling—the simmering warmth, the neediness—was only hormones.
Well, of course it is, you ninny! she thought. What do you think drives a woman’s libido?
That afternoon she called the clinic and asked to speak to Dr. Woodbury.
“He’s out, but if I can help you? I’m Kelly Cartwright, the nurse practitioner.”
“Oh. Well, my name is Diana Foster, uh, Bradford. I was in a few weeks ago, and…well, I’m pregnant, and—”
“Just let me pull your chart, Ms. Foster-Bradford.”
“It would be under Foster, but call me Diana…please.”
“Okay, Diana, you were suffering the usual symptoms, morning sickness, sleepiness, right?”
“The morning sickness seems to have stopped, but now I can’t seem to stay awake. Besides that, I cry at nothing at all. Last night I started crying in the middle of an old Smothers Brothers video. Is this normal? I mean, I don’t even show yet. What’s going to happen once I get really going on this thing?”
The nurse practitioner, who invited Diana to call her Kelly, laughed. “The only thing you have to watch is your nibbling. Stick to pickles and low-fat ice cream, and you’ll be just fine. Luckily, you can afford to gain at least twenty pounds, but let’s not do it all at once, shall we? As for other symptoms, you might even skip the heartburn, but chances are, you’ll be sticking pretty close to a bathroom as more pressure is put on your bladder. Oh, and sex is just fine until you get close to term. We’ll talk about it when you come in.”
Sex was just fine? Well, great. Now that she was married to a man who could curl her toes with a single sweep of his eyelashes, sex was not an option.
Talk about life’s little ironies.
After making an appointment, she settled back in Will’s marvelously comfortable chair. She had a feeling it wasn’t one of those that could be had in any furniture store. It was brown cowhide, with creases and natural scars showing. Her mother would have hated it. She’d have wanted to cover it with a zebra-print throw.
Oh, Mama, I wish you could be here. I need to talk to you. We always had each other, but now I don’t have anyone at all.
For a long time she sat and thought about the crazy route her life had taken. From Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania, to Royal, Texas, with half a dozen stops along the way. There was no knowing how long her mother had been ill, as the symptoms didn’t manifest until nearly the end. The daughter of a New England clergyman who had disowned her after she’d run away to something called a love-in, Lila Smithers Foster had made her share of mistakes, but in her own way she’d been a good mother. She would have made a wonderful grandmother, Diana thought tearfully.
She dried her eyes, then thought about the way Will had accepted her mother’s idea of decorating as graciously as if Martha Stewart had done the job. She’d tried her best to keep him from helping her move, but he was too much the gentleman.
“Honey, we can’t have you straining yourself,” he’d said. “You do the packing, I’ll do the donkey work.”
So she’d unlocked the door, painfully conscious of the posters, the lumpy, uneven, hemp wall hangings, the tacky lava lamp and the leopard-print throw on the back of the thrift-shop sofa. For someone who hated the use of animal products, her mother had dearly loved animal prints. Then there were the dried flowers in lumpy, unglazed pots thrown by long-forgotten potters. And her mother’s old Gibson propped in a corner in the battered hardshell case decorated with peace symbols and painted daisies.
Will had carried it out to the car as car
efully as if it had been a Stradivarius.
Diana had stared at the stack of tattered music that neither she nor her mother could read, and teared up again. Her mother had taught her the words and they’d sung together, old songs from the days of protests and idealism. Songs filled with hope, which—at least in her mother’s case—had died a long and painful death.
“It’s going to take a while,” she’d warned her new husband, looking at all the boxes she’d packed and left stacked in her mother’s bedroom.
“No hurry. Pack what you’ll need and I’ll have someone come in and do the rest.”
“I’d rather do it myself. I know it’s not much, but my mother was— That is, she was—”
“Your mother,” he’d said quietly.
She’d had to swallow hard several times to keep from bawling her eyes out all over again. The man was almost too kind.
She’d left the furnishings—after all, the lease still had almost a month to go—but she’d taken a few things, such as the guitar and a matted watercolor some long-ago unknown artist had done that she particularly liked.
Somewhat to her surprise, Will had liked it, too. He’d insisted on having it framed for her. He brought it back from the framers on the way home the next day, and now he wanted to hang it in the living room.
Predictably Diana burst into tears. “You shouldn’t,” she sobbed.
“We can hang it in the guest room if you don’t want it in here. It needs to be kept under glass for protection against air pollution, though. The framer said it probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer unframed.”
When had his arms closed around her? When had she wrapped her own arms around his neck?
She cried some more, then hiccuped a few times, and then she laughed. “Is there a medal for men who take on the care and feeding of newly pregnant women? I think I must have saved up a lifetime of tears just waiting for a handy shoulder to drench.”
He laughed, and then he kissed her, salty tears and all. She thought, if only she hadn’t messed up her life so thoroughly. If only she could have had waited….
“Yeah, I know, it’s the hormones,” he murmured. “I should have guessed right off when you tackled me with that triple cone of chocolate.” She had told him what the nurse practitioner had said about the quirky symptoms of early pregnancy. “Besides which,” he added gently, “I suspect you’re hauling around a lot of baggage you need to get out of your system.”
If only he knew. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” She pulled away, her lips still tingling from a kiss that had been over almost as quickly as it had begun. Soft, almost tentative, there’d been nothing at all sexual about it.
Correction. Everything about this man was sexual, only he hadn’t intended it that way, and she had no business interpreting it that way.
Hugging herself, Diana watched as he hammered a nail into his pristine wall and hung the newly framed watercolor. She pictured his long, lean, muscular body wearing nothing at all instead of the body-hugging chambray shirt and blue jeans he wore to relax in.
Among the symptoms the nurse had mentioned was a heightened libido. Which had to explain, Diana rationalized, why she found herself picturing him in her bed, in her arms, sharing her afternoon naps and making slow, sweet love to her. Whispering words that no man had ever said to her—words about love and together and forever….
Five
Will poured himself a cup of coffee, the morning paper tucked under his arm, and then settled down to read the business section. He needed to go by the office this morning. He would leave a note for Diana, suggesting that when she felt like it, she might drive over to her old place, pack a few more things, and he would pick them up this afternoon. The more of her belongings she surrounded herself with, the sooner she would adapt.
Or so he told himself. Pregnant women were a breed apart, he was discovering.
The market was taking another nosedive. Tech stocks down heavily—utilities holding. Thank God. Will scanned the section, then went back and glanced at headlines—no surprises there. He was on the sports section when he heard the bathroom door close.
By the time he’d finished his coffee and dressed in modified business attire—casual suit, no tie—he heard the shower cut off. Might as well wait instead of leaving a note. They were honeymooning, after all. It wouldn’t do to rush downtown too early.
A few minutes later she emerged, flush-faced, in a cloud of talcum-scented steam, wearing a yellow flannel bathrobe, her hair covered by a towel.
“Oh! You startled me. You’re already dressed. Are we going somewhere?”
“I’ve been thinking—why don’t we close out the lease on the Lennox place and move all your things here. We can rent a storage unit for whatever we can’t fit in.”
“You’re kidding…right?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Will, look at this place.” She waved her arms expressively, so he looked. It was your typical upper-end apartment. Nothing outstanding. Certainly not as…distinctive, he thought for want of a better term, as her own apartment. Having noticed her when she’d first come to work at Wescott Oil, he could vouch for Diana’s taste. While not expensive, it was impeccable—which meant someone else was responsible for the decor of her old apartment. Chances were, it had been her mother.
“Thanks for letting me bring as much as I did, but most of what’s left came from the local thrift shop. It can go back there once I’m finished with it.”
“You’re finished with it.” Will knew the moment the words left his tongue it was the wrong thing to say. “That is, you can take your time. Naturally, you’ll stay here, though.”
She grabbed the towel with both hands, gave her hair a thorough rubbing, then looked him squarely in the eye. “Don’t tell me what to do. Please. I make my own decisions.”
He swore softly. “Don’t yank my chain, lady. I’ve got troubles enough at work without adding any domestic games.”
She took a deep breath that caused her robe to gape open, revealing the soft swell of her breasts. “Let me put it another way. There’s nothing domestic involved here. Ours is strictly a business arrangement. We both agreed to that, else I’d never have gone through with it. And I certainly I don’t remember anything in our agreement that says you get to take control of my life now.”
“You’re ready to give up on this so soon? Come on, Danny, girl—give me another chance.” His tone was openly mocking, his deep-set eyes glinting with something that might—or might not—be amusement.
Wariness came over her like a dark shadow. She wrapped her robe more closely around her body. “Yes, well…I just wanted to be sure we understood each other.”
He said nothing, his very silence an invitation to babble on, to try desperately to explain something she didn’t understand herself. “I mean, it’s not as if we were— Well, you know…”
“No I don’t. We aren’t what, Danny?”
“We aren’t really married!”
“We’re not? Funny—I distinctly remember paying for a license. The judge said all the right words. At least I don’t think she left out anything important. We both signed certain documents. In my book, that makes us legally wed.” He knew what she was trying to say, but he wasn’t ready to let her off the hook. If there was one thing he insisted on in both his business and his personal dealings—and marriage was the most personal of all—it was honesty. Square dealing.
She flung out her arms again. Funny, he’d never noticed the way she used gestures to emphasize her words. “Haven’t you ever heard of a marriage of convenience, for mercy’s sake? Read a romance! Half of them are based on marriages of convenience!”
“Why?”
“Why what?” She blinked. Freshly scrubbed, free of any possible enhancement, lashes like hers should be registered as lethal weapons.
“Why are marriages of convenience considered romantic?”
She took a deep breath, crossed her arms over her modest boso
m, and he thought, Aha! Gotcha!
“How do I know? I’m no expert on romance. Look, can we please change the subject? You’re all dressed to go out somewhere, and I’ve got loads of things I need to do today.”
Name one, he wanted to say, but didn’t. His gaze moved over her, this woman he had married because it had seemed like the honorable thing to do and he was in a position to do it. And, yeah, because she intrigued him. “I’m going in to work for a few hours. I’m not telling you where to go or what to do, but I’d appreciate not having to track you down. Might spoil the illusion we’re trying to create.” He didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.
Funny thing—he seldom resorted to sarcasm. The lady had a talent for bringing out hidden facets of his personality.
“All right,” she said grudgingly. “But anytime you change your mind and want to get out of this marriage, it’s just fine with me. I didn’t suggest it in the first place, if you’ll remember. If you’re afraid Sebastian might be embarrassed about the baby, then I can leave town. In fact, I’d planned to relocate.” Her rich-brown eyes took on a militant sparkle. “But just so you know, I don’t need you or anyone else to take care of me. I’ve been taking care of myself all my adult life—even before that.”
Will wasn’t in the habit of badgering anyone, especially not a woman. Especially not a woman he was married to—and especially not about matters such as the one they were discussing now.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, he scratched his jaw and apologized. “I guess I came on too strong.” He wasn’t about to admit that, convenient or not, she and her baby were now his responsibility. He was learning what set her off and what he could get away with.
“I guess you did. But you need to understand that being in control of my own life is important to me. I, um, I might have overreacted, too.” If her quick, tremulous smile was meant to disarm, it did the trick. “And we haven’t really known each other very long.”
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