Morgan showed the movers where to put the box of her clothes, the stash she’d relocated to Josh’s apartment on Friday night. She hadn’t needed to bring anything else, as Seagram’s Campus House was fully furnished, right down to dishes in the cupboard and food in the pantry. While she’d been at class, someone from Seagram’s team had replaced all the wall art in the bedroom with the photos Tory had taken. Man, that kissing one in their swimsuits where Josh was holding her in the air, her legs dangling over his arm, and her arms around his neck was a little over the top. Especially since Tory had printed it out almost life-sized, and it hung right over the king-sized bed, torturing her.
Morgan couldn’t sleep beneath that, no matter how much she loved the room. Josh would have to be the one who slept underneath it and wake up to it every morning. The sight of it probably didn’t do to him what it did to her. Morgan was going to take the smaller room down at the far end of the hall. No arguments. End of story.
But the movers didn’t need to know that.
“In the closet will be fine. Thank you so much, gentlemen.” She didn’t know if she was supposed to tip them. Having made her living by tips for the past year, she sympathized. But, then again, she didn’t have any cash, and she certainly wasn’t going to dip into the scholarship. She and Josh, first thing Monday morning, had deposited the check in a special account at First Federal Bank. No touchy.
It was the only way to salve her conscience.
But, still, she’d have to eat the food in the fridge. It would go bad. Growing up with barely enough, and all through college living mostly on apples from their tree back home, taught Morgan that wasting food was worse than taking money from strangers in the moral hierarchy her mind was constantly concocting and reshuffling these days. For instance, moving in with a man who didn’t love her, but was married to her, versus forcing fifty elderly or indigent families onto the streets for not being able to pay their rent. That hierarchy, painful as it felt to choose, she’d been forced to determine.
And here she was. In the lap of luxury.
The doorbell rang. “Yoo-hoo!” A woman’s voice rang up the stairs. Morgan had left the front door open for the movers to come in and out, and someone had taken advantage of it. Nosy neighbors?
“Oh, Mom. Hi.” Morgan came down the stairs, and there stood Mom in a floral blouse, clutching Nixie to her chest. She looked lost in her surroundings.
“Morgan! This is just beautiful. I can’t believe it.” Mom wandered around with her head tilted back, her mouth agape, probably exactly how Morgan had looked when she first walked into the place. “When I saw the news clip Tory sent, I had to come and bring you a housewarming gift.”
“That wasn’t necessary, Mom.” Morgan cringed. How would Mom feel if she knew what an elaborate ruse this all was? “But it was thoughtful.”
Mom held out a gift bag with tissue poking out the top. “Open it right now. Go ahead.”
Morgan lifted a ceramic frog from inside.
“I know, it’s tacky. But I don’t want you to forget your tacky roots.”
“Never. I promise.” Morgan set it in the center of the beautiful dining room table and could almost hear its ribbit.
“Where is that man of yours? I still haven’t met him, you know.”
“He’s at class.” Morgan didn’t know that for certain. They hadn’t exchanged schedules. She wasn’t sure they ever would.
“Oh, fine. But soon, right? Good. Now, let’s find somewhere we can sit and talk.”
Morgan wasn’t sure of the house enough yet to know where was best, but she led her to the book room. There, on a special easel on the central shelf, Seagram had had one of his people display a copy of Frogs in the Sand. She winced. How perfect a reminder of all Morgan’s pain. But Mom was in raptures.
“Oh, look! I’m shocked!” She went and picked it up, fanned the pages. “Is this your personal copy? I thought I’d signed it.”
“No, it’s Seagram’s, I think. Did I tell you Mr. Seagram would like his copy signed?” Morgan had better tell Mom before she forgot.
“I can do that right now!” She bustled to her purse and took out a pen, taking her time to make the capital D in Desiree Clark have that special flourish. “Now, for the real reason I’m here.”
“It’s not just a visit?” Morgan knew Mom never did much of anything without an agenda. She’d had to scratch for an existence too long.
“I feel cheated.”
“Cheated?”
“Yes. You know I always looked forward to your wedding. A mother has dreams, too.”
Morgan didn’t like where this was going. “Mom—”
“Let me finish. Even though you and Joshua didn’t start things traditionally, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate your union.”
“Mom—”
“Wait. I’m still getting this out.” She pressed her hands together on her lap. “I don’t have a lot of expendable cash right now, as you know, but I’d still like to do something to launch you and Josh in your lives together. A reception.”
“Mom! No, it’s just not—”
“It just is. Now, listen. I’ve got a few ideas. We can make this really nice. You need some things. Every young couple does.”
“Mom, look around. What could we possibly need? We have it all.”
Her mom glanced around, taking it all in. “Okay, maybe so. But you won’t be staying here forever.”
“True, but by then, we’ll both be done with school and can afford what we need.” By then she’d be back in the single life and sharing the thrift store dishes and lumpy sofa with Tory again. No need for pasta makers or gilded picture frames she’d just have to keep in original packaging and return in a year when all this nonsense ended.
“Maybe, but will you really buy yourself a crock pot or a waffle iron? It’s not about need, when it comes to a wedding reception. It’s about the stuff you’d never buy for yourself.”
Because no one needs it, Morgan thought. She had to put the kibosh on this. It would make the annulment so much worse later, when she had to mail all the gifts back to her mom’s kind friends and their relatives—not to mention endure their sympathy. There had to be a silver bullet here for this plan. Or at least a postponement. “Let me think about it.”
But Mom was not to be deterred. “You won’t have to think about anything. I’ll handle it all.” She and Seagram ought to get together and teach a seminar called “How to Railroad People to Get Your Way in Any Circumstance.”
“I’m not sure Josh will go for it. I mean, there’s a reason he wanted to elope.” Just not the reason anyone suspected, Morgan hoped. “Our relationship. It’s a tender plant, Mom. We have to be gentle. You haven’t met him. You don’t know.”
This at least, had some effect. “Oh.” Mom scaled back her enthusiasm. “I see. Well, then, I expect you to use your powers to convince him. I mean, you had enough wiles to snare him into marrying you after an extremely short time, so you must be the most powerful person any Hyatt man ever met.”
“Uh-huh.” Morgan reverted to her teen self, rolling her eyes. “Look, I’ll talk to him. But you have to promise not to plan a single thing until I give you the green light that he’s on board with it.” There! Victory! It was kind of nice to have Josh as a scapegoat here. Maybe he’d come in handy in other situations in the future. “And I can’t guarantee anything. He’s a man with a mind of his own.”
“I know all too well about men like that.” Mom’s face took on a cloud of bad memories, but it cleared quickly. “Okay. That’s fair. But the second he relents, you’re calling me.”
“Agreed.”
Mom got a sly look. “Ask him first thing in the morning, while he’s still half asleep. Cuddle up to him and whisper it. That’s when they’re most pliable.”
Morgan’s face flushed at the image, and she forced it away. Besides, she would not be taking marriage relationship advice from her mom anytime soon. “Thanks. That might be an idea.” Or it might not.
>
∞∞∞
Josh wadded up his lab coat and tossed it on the back seat of the Explorer. He should have left it on its hanger in the plant, but he’d been thinking about the move and messed up three samples in a row at work. Finally George had just told him to go home.
“Newlyweds,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I guess you’ll be quitting now that you have the house.”
“Nah.” Josh’s salary was still going to go toward Morgan’s sister’s rent. She shouldn’t suffer just because he and Morgan came into good fortune. “Sorry. I’ll be better tomorrow.”
“No, you won’t. But you will in a couple of months.” George gave a knowing grin, and it sent Josh’s thoughts to Morgan, and in an unwholesome direction. Months of living with her might weaken his resolve. Already it had been a full weekend and he’d barely recollected Brielle’s name once.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up at Seagram’s Campus House. Morgan had the key for the movers today, but they’d solved that dilemma this morning by finding the garage door opener. Josh could still get in the house.
Garage door opener? Far cry from the gravel parking lot at Estrella Court.
He eased the Explorer into the stall beside Morgan’s truck. Side by side, truck and truck. How she ended up with that piece of junk, he had no idea. But she rocked it. Gorgeous girl in an old truck was a fantasy for a lot of guys.
Not that Josh necessarily started out in that club. He had Brielle, who still hadn’t written, and who now only had an out-of-date mailing address for him. He needed to hit the post office later to leave a forwarding address. Missing her snail mail letter after all this time would suck.
“Honey, I’m home.” It was a bad joke to call it into the air as he walked in the door. “Mm. You’ve been cooking?” The smell of a pot roast wafted to his nostrils. Morgan could cook? Score!
“I looked at the expiration date on the meat, and I couldn’t let it go to waste.” Morgan came around the corner, wearing jeans and a thin cotton t-shirt. Her legs looked so long and the shirt hugged her just right. Josh was a sucker for jeans and a t-shirt. “I hope I didn’t ruin it.”
“It smells good.” He went over to the oven and propped it open. “Is it done?”
“Probably. Good timing, huh?” She searched through a few drawers and located some oven mitts, and then bent over and pulled out the roast. Its aroma filled the room, and Josh’s stomach growled. He hadn’t been in a house that smelled like pot roast since Mom died.
“Did you make plans, invite other people?”
“No. I didn’t even think of that. It’s just us, I guess.”
Their first dinner together. Or maybe their only. He didn’t know if this was going to be a thing. Maybe he wouldn’t mind coming home and having food all ready. That could be nice.
“So you’re not a vegan?” He helped put plates on the table. Morgan had put together a salad and it was already waiting, next to a really ugly ceramic frog. Weird taste, if it was hers. “I mean, the pot roast isn’t a Veg-Out staple.”
“Nope. And I took a lot of flak for it working there, believe me. Some customers could be brutal. Not all of them, of course, but some were just so high and mighty. I finally started evading the question when they’d ask me how I decided to go vegan.”
Josh had seen this. Not in food choices, but other things. “People need a way to feel self-righteous.”
“I don’t remember that on Maslow’s hierarchy. Food, shelter, love, self-righteousness…”
“Put it on Hyatt’s hierarchy, then.” Josh had thought this through. “Yes, they need all the Maslow stuff, but once those are met, new needs come up. And a way to feel superior is one of them.”
Morgan placed a pitcher of ice water on the table. “Huh. Maybe you’re right.” Then she sniff-laughed. “Besides religion, my superiority complex is probably the fact I’m carnivorous. Or at least it was while I was stuck on roller skates for nine months.”
Josh could admire a woman who prioritized meat. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m only willing to stay together in this house if you’ll bring me my dinner wearing skates.” Morgan was also one who could take being teased. Brielle was pretty intense all the time and brushed off his teasing, but Morgan’s tugging smile showed she could take whatever he dished out.
“Is that so?” Morgan raised an eyebrow, and her blue eyes shone. “I’d like to see you try it yourself. These flagstone floors will not be your friend.”
There was an awkward moment while Josh couldn’t stop staring at that blue-eyed challenge, then he shook it off. “I’m the head of household here, and it would help my superiority complex if we say grace on this meal.”
“And for the hands that provided it.”
Josh initially misheard the phrase referring to Seagram’s generosity, thinking instead she said the hands that prepared it, which made him look at her hands. Dainty and slender, sporting the ruby that declared she belonged to him and him alone.
He cursed himself—so far in the past seven minutes since he walked in the door, he’d ogled Morgan’s t-shirt, her well-fitting jeans, the tug of her smile, her two locks of stray blonde hair, her blue eyes, and now her hands. What was next, the curve of her waist? Another curse at himself—and just when he was supposed to be saying grace.
∞∞∞
Morgan hunched over her advanced accounting textbook. This part about federal income tax was so confusing, she’d had to read it three times. It didn’t help that Josh was in the next room but still close enough that she could hear him cough every once in a while as he studied there, totally throwing her concentration out the window. It also didn’t help that the clock was inching toward eleven p.m. Moving and classes and cooking and getting ready for her test tomorrow had exhausted her. She wasn’t necessarily up to the argument she knew was coming.
She read the tax part a fourth time, and then she heard Josh’s chair at the kitchen table scraping back across the stone floor.
“I’m headed to bed. Good night.” How polite of him to say something. She kind of didn’t expect it. “I’ll take one of the spare rooms. You can have the master.”
“No, I’ve got my stuff in the room at the end of the hall. You take the master.”
Josh frowned. “I thought you loved that bedroom. I heard you sigh in ecstasy when we toured it with Darshelle.”
Bah. “Ecstasy. Not even. When I sigh in ecstasy, you’ll know it.” Suddenly she realized how that might sound, and she colored. “You take it.”
Josh shook his head. “I’m taking one of the other rooms. You sleep wherever makes you sigh in ecstasy, then.” He half-laughed. “I’ll be listening for that.”
Oh, great. “You wish.” A challenging retort was her only defense.
Well, that didn’t go as badly as planned. He did eventually back down and not insist she take the master with its huge kissy picture of them to taunt her. Boundaries! They were her blessing and her curse.
She looked up, and he hadn’t gone up to bed like she thought. He was still standing there, watching her. She hoped she hadn’t made faces reflecting the variety of emotions her brain took her through in the last ten seconds.
∞∞∞
“What are you studying?” Josh leaned against the archway between the kitchen and the book room. He should head for bed. It was late. He had to leave for work at five a.m., and he’d better be a little more focused than he was today. But something kept his feet planted here.
“Tax accounting. You?” Morgan’s bare feet were tucked under her on the couch, her toes sticking out beneath her hip.
“Cold War relations between East and West.” Not his best subject. They kept wanting him to analyze the Russian mindset, as if that were even possible. Those people ate beet soup as a staple, for Pete’s sake.
“Interesting.”
“Sort of.”
“What happened to your barrel of bacteria?” Morgan tossed his bacteria into the conversation. So she remembered it? He’d strategically stashed i
t in the workshop out back, thinking maybe she’d forget. “Somehow I guess instead of the shirt and tie of an intelligence analyst, I always pictured you in a lab coat.”
“That’s because I work at the water treatment plant in the lab, and you probably saw me come back to Estrella Court wearing it at some point.” He came over and sat down beside her, probably pushing some of those boundaries they’d set up. But she smelled better up close. “My composting stuff is in the shed.”
“Cool.” She unfolded a leg, reached it out and shut her book with her foot. She must be done for the night. He relaxed. It was nice to have someone to talk to. “I’m horrible at science,” she said, “but I’m fascinated by it. I had to go a different direction with my math skills. Accounting seemed like the right thing once I started college, but I always secretly wished I could do chemistry or biology.”
“I bet you’re not as horrible at it as you say.” Josh looked her over, and no question in his mind, Morgan had chemistry and biology down. Chemistry just emanated from her at him, and her biology looked like it didn’t need an iota of help. “I took a lot of those classes my first time through Claremont. There are some good professors. Maybe you should change majors.” Wouldn’t Morgan’s hips sashaying into Bio 335 really shake up the major?
“Hah. Not at this point in the game.” She stretched herself out on the sofa, her wavy hair spreading across the far armrest. “I’m surprised you were willing to change horses halfway through the ride.”
This kicked him in the gut, being the point of contention that caused pretty much this whole debacle of his being twenty-two and still not done with his undergrad. He frowned. “It didn’t make my family too happy, either.” What did he go saying that for? It wasn’t anyone’s business, not even his faux-wife’s.
“Don’t tell me that’s what the wedge is.” Morgan said this sleepily.
“What wedge?”
“Between you and your dad.”
His inner shell opened a crack. “Maybe,” leaked out through the crack against his will. He never meant to admit to her or anyone this was the source of his conflict with old Bronco. If he could hit the rewind and erase his answer to her right now, he would. She was only a business partner (who he sometimes kissed on command of strangers), and he didn’t have any obligation to go telling her all his issues, especially when he hadn’t even confided them even in Brielle, the girl he planned to spend the rest of his life with. He couldn’t tell Brielle she was the reason Bronco had sent him packing or he’d drive one of those wedges Morgan mentioned between his family and his future wife that could never be gouged out. Brielle didn’t understand how volatile Bronco could be, and the one time he’d dropped a hint of his dad’s displeasure at Josh’s change of course after meeting her, Brielle had been so upset he decided to drop the subject, go ahead with his plans, and just let time eventually take care of the problem—which it hadn’t, and now the rift between father and son, between father and future-daughter-in-law, was wider than ever.
Legally in Love Boxed Set 1 Page 15
