by Laurie Paige
“So, he married you, did he?”
Isa nearly choked on her tea. She managed to swal- low and nod at the same time. Harrison thumped her on the back.
“I’m all right,” she told him in annoyance.
“Just trying to help.” He let his hand slide across her back, then down her arm, before he removed it.
Isa tried to ignore the trail of heat his touch had caused. It was impossible. Those hours in his arms lin- gered at the back of her mind like a restless spirit. They rushed forward at the slightest pretext and engulfed her with yearning that she dared not heed. Desire left her too vulnerable.
“Isa and I were married at the prettiest little chapel.” He proceeded to tell his housekeeper all about it, down to the color of the roses in her bouquet and the scene from the window.
He made it sound so real, Isa could almost smell the roses again and feel the odd, excited jump of her heart when he’d slipped the ring on her finger. She touched the warm circle of metal with her thumb and pushed it around and around.
Harrison caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “It was a quick marriage, but there won’t be a quick divorce, will there, darling?”
His eyes bored into hers, sending her a silent mes- sage. She licked her lips. “No. No, of course not.”
Apparently he didn’t want the housekeeper to know the truth behind their marriage. That was fine with her.
“So how come she slept in a guest room last night?” Maggie demanded, skepticism lavishly coating every word.
“Umm, yes, darling, why did you go to the guest room?” His hazel eyes gleamed with sardonic amuse- ment.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She remembered something from her youth. “Your snoring kept me awake, so I went to the other room.” She lifted her chin. Let him try and get out of that.
He laughed and clapped a hand on the back of her neck, sliding his long, lean fingers under her hair so he could caress the skin. “I’ve never had that complaint before.”
She squirmed as much as she dared under Maggie’s keen gaze. The housekeeper watched them like a buz- zard observing a likely morsel. Isa’s throat closed as Harrison toyed endlessly with her hair or stroked her neck or along her ear.
Finally, she pulled away. “You’re tickling,” she said by way of excuse. She ate quickly, wanting the meal to be over and the penetrating gaze of the housekeeper off her. Maggie reminded Isa of a schoolteacher she’d once had. The woman could see every thought in a person’s head.
“I talked to Harry Stockard this morning. He’s look- ing into your brother’s case for us. He thinks he can get jurisdiction moved to Reno. That should make things simpler.”
“Thank you. I hadn’t expected anything so soon.” She looked at him, then away.
Harrison had resisted the urge to kiss his wife during the meal, but when she gazed at him with the light of hope in her eyes, he lost the battle. He leaned over to her and brushed a soft kiss over her mouth, then lin- gered for a long minute.
“It’s part of my husbandly duty,” he murmured hus- kily. He wished he’d cancelled the day’s meetings…. He pulled himself back from the abyss of foolishness over his conniving wife.
“There’s gonna be someone else living here, too?” Maggie demanded, sending an annoyed frown his way.
He groaned inwardly. Maggie didn’t take well to change, especially without notice. Perhaps he should have been here when she arrived and told her all the news. He could sense things were tense between the two women.
“Yeah, Isa’s brother. Rick is fourteen. Isn’t that right?” he asked his wife, drawing her into the conver- sation.
“Yes. He’ll be fifteen next month.”
“A teenage boy,” Maggie said, as if this could be the start of the bubonic plague.
“He has no place else to go,” Isa stated defensively. “I’m his only family.”
“And now me,” Harrison reminded her, feeling his anger soften fractionally at the fiercely protective atti- tude Isa displayed regarding her brother. It occurred to him that she would make a good mother.
Of his children?
His gaze went to her slender body. Harry’s warning sounded in his mind. The fury rose in him. He tamped it down. If she used pregnancy to try to get something more out of him as Harry was positive she would, he’d divorce her in an instant and get custody of the baby.
Maggie broke into his murderous thoughts. “Do I fix dinner, or is she going to do it?”
“We’ll continue as we always have,” he told her.
“For now.” Isa surprised him by putting in her two cents worth. She gave him, then Maggie, a direct, de- termined look that let them know she was mistress of the house. “I’ll go over the menus with you each week. Perhaps there’ll be other changes. We’ll work them out as we go along.”
He waited for Maggie to slam down the glass she was holding and quit on the spot. Instead, the house- keeper nodded her head, regally, as if bestowing a favor, but still, it was a sign of cooperation. Harrison sighed with relief that he wouldn’t have to deal with a scene between the two women.
He grimaced at the irony of his life—from happy bachelor to henpecked husband in one easy move. And to further sweeten the pot, brother-in-law to a teenage hood who needed some serious straightening out.
It could be a very long year.
“Time to go back to work. I’ll probably be late to- night,” he told both women. After a barely perceptible hesitation, he turned Isa’s face up to his and kissed her again, lighter and quicker this time. His pulse still pounded from the first kiss.
Isa climbed out of the pool and raked her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes and back over her forehead. She grabbed a towel and dried her face before going to the panel in the room that housed the pool filter equipment. She hit the button and watched the cover slide over the rectangle of clear wa- ter. This was life as she’d dreamed of living it.
So why wasn’t she delirious with joy?
It certainly wasn’t because Harrison bothered her. He was rarely at home. In fact, he’d worked late every night of the thirteen days since they’d returned from Lake Tahoe, including the weekends.
Not that it mattered. She was busy making arrange- ments for Rick’s arrival and with her own work at the community center. Money was tight. They were barely covering their bills. Her job might not last long.
She had wondered more than once during the days since their marriage if the story of her short life would be told in one of those true-crime books. If looks could kill, she’d have been dead any number of times as she fled her husband’s cold, mocking smile for the safety of her room..
The cool air of the house chilled her skin as she stepped inside. She jerked as she caught a movement from the corner of her eye.
Maggie gathered a bundle of sheets from the floor and straightened up. “I’m through in here. Is there any- thing you want from the store? I’m going after I finish Harrison’s room.”
“No, thanks. I have everything I need.”
“Huh,” the housekeeper said at that statement. She went out into the hall. “Never thought I’d see the day Harrison Stone would let his wife sleep in a guest bed- room. Oddest marriage I ever heard of,” she mumbled to herself as she walked away.
Isa pretended not to hear most of Maggie’s suspicious remarks concerning her and Harrison. The woman had thawed out a degree or two, but she viewed their living arrangements as weird and never failed to mention it at least once a day for the five days each week she was there.
After rinsing out her suit and hanging it to dry, Isa showered and dressed conservatively in a blue linen dress with a short-sleeved jacket piped in white. She wore red-and-white spectator pumps and carried a matching purse. A red-white-and-blue flag pin com- pleted the outfit.
Harrison arrived just when she finished with her makeup. She heard his voice in the kitchen with Mag- gie. When she joined them, they were having a glass of iced tea, Maggie standing as usual and H
arrison seated at the breakfast bar.
His dark gaze swung to her as soon as she walked in. Her heart did its usual nosedive straight to her toes whenever she saw him. She took a deep, calming breath.
He was dressed in a medium blue suit with a gray, blue and red tie. A paradigm of the business tycoon— successful, poised, conservative. All the things she wasn’t. The next hour would tell if her stratagem had worked.
“You look lovely,” he said, surprising her. “Ready?”
She nodded.
“It will work out,” Maggie said suddenly. “I read the sacred smoke last night. It’s going to be hard, but all will be well if you hold to a steady course.”
The housekeeper appeared to be sincere. Isa won- dered what to say to this strange pronouncement. “Thank you,” she finally murmured.
Harrison finished his tea and stood. He took her arm and led her out to the car parked in the drive.
“Just what does Maggie use to produce her sacred smoke?” she asked in a light tone to break the stiff silence between them. She’d had trouble thinking of anything to say to her husband on the few occasions she’d been in his company the past two weeks.
He gave her an amused perusal. “It varies. She’s the spirit woman for her tribe in these parts. I believe she takes her duties quite seriously.”
“Oh.” She wished she hadn’t made the smart re- mark. “I didn’t know.”
“You should try talking to her sometime. She’s a woman wise in the ways of life.”
“Is she married?”
“No, but she’s had plenty of experience. She’s been married five times.”
Isa used the few minutes devoted to getting in the car and buckling up to hide her astonishment. Five mar- riages.
“They weren’t all in this lifetime,” he added.
He cranked up the engine. They left the house and went to the judge’s chambers where her brother’s case would be discussed and a decision made. Isa’s hands were ice-cold as they climbed the stone steps leading to the door.
Inside, she barely kept pace with Harrison’s long stride as they went to the end of the corridor. Why, she wondered, did all institutions paint their walls green?
A couple stood in the hallway. When she and Har- rison drew near, she realized it was her brother and the social worker.
“Ricky,” she said. Her breath caught on a sob. With- out thinking, she grabbed him and hugged him close, at that moment realizing how afraid she’d been that she’d never see him again.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, drawing back to check him over better.
“Yeah, sure.” He barely glanced at her before gazing down at his high-top basketball shoes.
She swallowed hard as worry balled in her throat. He seemed to have grown taller and older and harder in the three months since she’d last seen him. She spoke to the social worker, a gray-haired, grandmotherly woman.
Rick choked back the need to throw himself into Isa’s arms and bawl like a kid. Aww, man, don’t. Aww, man, don’t. He kept saying it until the tears slacked off.
The weeks in detention had been the worse thing he’d ever experienced—monotonous days of classes and busywork, of fear that he couldn’t show, not if he wanted to live among the bullies who tried to take the few possessions he had and the chump change he earned at the stupid chores.
Now, seeing his sister, he was about to break down in front of all these people. There’d been times when he’d thought he’d never see her again. Aww, man…
He pulled himself together. A man had to hang tough. “Who’s he?” He gestured toward the tall guy who stood beside Isa. He was dressed in a suit, so he was probably a lawyer. Or the new husband Isa had told him about.
An old fear surfaced. Maybe he was like that other guy she’d nearly married. Maybe they wouldn’t want him.
“This is my…my husband.”
“Harrison Stone,” the man said and held his hand out.
Rick had no choice but to shake hands. The man looked him over as if he were a slug that had crawled out from under a handy rock. He wouldn’t want a kid brother around, that was for sure.
When he glanced at his sister, she smiled at him the way she used to a long time ago. It had once made the world right. The magic didn’t work anymore. He still felt miserable.
The door opened behind them. “The judge is ready,” a young woman informed them.
His heart plummeted, and fear washed over him. What if the judge wouldn’t set him free?
Aww, man…
Isa didn’t miss the suspicious appraisal Rick gave Harrison. She hoped he wasn’t going to be difficult. Teenagers could be so uncooperative at times. She en- tered the judicial chambers.
Her husband held the door for them, then closed it and stood beside her, his arm brushing hers as they congregated in the office lined with row upon row of law books.
The judge, wearing a frown of concentration, lifted a red-edged folder from his desk. He checked it, then looked up. “I think I’m ready. Let’s go into the con- ference room, shall we?”
They all trooped after him into the adjoining room. Isa felt as if she were going to a hanging. Hers.
The judge sat at the end of the table and motioned them to take chairs. The social worker, Mrs. Addleson, sat next to the judge. She motioned Rick to sit beside her. He chose a seat two chairs down, isolating himself from the others.
Isa and Harrison sat on the other side of the table.
“Now, run through the background for me,” the judge said, after introducing himself and getting their relationships and names straight in his mind.
Mrs. Addleson opened her file and listed the facts of Rick’s life. Mother died when he was five, father when he was nine. Lived with his sister, an unmarried woman, until taken into custody three months ago. Joined a gang nine months ago. Caught as a lookout in a warehouse burglary. One of the young men had a gun, making it armed robbery.
The facts sounded dismal, even to Isa, who knew the living, breathing details behind them. Fear smuggled doubts into her heart. For the first time, she faced the fact that she might lose her brother, her only relative in the world. She had a feeling that she’d never see him again if that happened.
The judge studied Rick, his face very stern. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
Rick shrugged.
The fear grabbed at Isa. “He didn’t know they were going to rob the warehouse. Moe told him they were going to mark their territory. They were going to spray graffiti—”
“Let’s let him speak for himself,” the judge sug- gested. “Did you agree to be the lookout for the rob- bery?”
Rick slumped farther down in his seat. He mumbled something that sounded like “not exactly.”
“Speak up,” the judge snapped. “And sit up.”
With deliberate slowness, the teenager straightened in the chair. “I thought we wuz gonna do a little spray paintin’. You know, put our marks on the territory. I didn’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no robbery.”
Isa stared at her brother in despair. His every action, including the street talk, was designed to be insolent and shout his defiance of authority. She clenched her hands together.
So close…so close to reaching the goal of having them together as a family…so close, but her brother seemed determined to throw this chance away.
The juvenile centers were nothing more than holding tanks where young toughs learned how to be real criminals. If Rick didn’t cooperate with the judge, he would surely be sent back.
The familiar symptoms of panic washed over her, a queasy fear of failure that had loomed continuously be- fore her for most of her life. She couldn’t fail. Not now.
She’d promised her mother she’d keep their family intact and make sure Rick didn’t quit school. They had a chance now. The goal was near. She had to say some- thing, do something….
A large, warm hand settled over her icy cold ones.
She jerked her gaze from her bro
ther to her husband. He was observing the scene between Rick and the judge. He released her and settled back into his chair as if watching a play.
“But once the gang was at the warehouse, you knew it wasn’t just pranks, but a burglary, didn’t you?”
The teenager shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“No wheels.”
“Rick,” Isa said, unable to keep quiet. She fought her fears, knowing she had to be calm for his sake.
Her brother finally looked at her. She sent him a pleading glance and fought the overwhelming despair that threatened to reduce her to tears of frustration. She resolutely held on to her composure. A woman’s tears meant nothing to men.
Harrison studied the little family drama being played out in the judge’s chambers: the teenager, defiant and insolent as only the young can be; the judge, who’d already seen enough punks to last him a lifetime and wasn’t impressed with one more; the sister…. Her role was more complex, he thought.
The mother-figure, fighting for home and family?
That image didn’t jibe with the lovely blackmailer he knew her to be. She’d been after the main chance…and he’d been it.
This was another of her acts. Her brother was prob- ably part of her plan to bilk him out of more money— or whatever the hell it was she wanted from him and this farce of a marriage.
“Your honor, if I may speak?” she requested po- litely.
The judge flicked his gaze to her. He nodded.
“Things have been difficult the past few years since my father died. I…let work interfere with our home life. I wasn’t there to guide Ricky in his dealings with others. All that has changed now.”
“How?”
“Here, in Reno, with a different environment, things will be better. Our lives will be more…settled.”
Harrison was pretty sure the judge didn’t agree with her assessment. Rick didn’t seem in the least reformed by his stay at the detention center, nor inclined to co- operate with his sister. The boy had slumped into the chair once more, his lips curled into the perpetual half sneer shared, no doubt, by his streetwise cronies.
