by Laurie Paige
Not for the first time, he wondered what he had let himself in for by agreeing to this impromptu marriage. He’d saved the mine, but what had he lost?
“Why do you think that?” the judge asked Isa.
“I’m married now. My husband and I will provide a home for Ricky…for Rick.”
Harrison smiled tightly as four pairs of eyes turned his way. He nodded to indicate his agreement with his wife.
“We’ll be there. Ricky…Rick…will have the sup- port and supervision he needs.”
The judge studied the three of them. He talked to the social worker about the boy’s grades—excellent—his previous record—none—then pinned Harrison with a direct question. “Are you willing to assume responsi- bility for the boy? It’s a big job and not one to be taken lightly. If I put him in your custody, you’ll have to know where he is twenty-four hours a day, see that he stays in school, doesn’t fall in with bad companions and keeps his grades up. Can you handle that?”
Harrison met the kid’s eyes. They were like the sis- ter’s, disclosing nothing of his inner self. He turned to his wife.
The mask—that beautifully blank expression she showed the world—had disappeared. Gone was the cool, conniving woman who’d demanded marriage in return for her cooperation. He read desperation and quiet pleading in her expression.
As quickly as it had lifted, the mask slipped back into place. She turned and looked toward the window, her spine straight, her face composed. He had to admire her control.
“Yes, I think so. I’m willing to give it a try.” He paused. “I agree with my wife. A stable home in a caring environment must be a better situation than in- stitutional care.” He smiled rather grimly. “We can al- ways throw him to the sharks if he proves too much for the minnows.”
His wife stirred at his deliberately cynical remark, but she held her tongue. She looked at the judge with just the right amount of anxious hope in every line of her tempting body and played her part to perfection.
Harrison let his gaze drift over her while his libido played tricks with his mind. He remembered how she’d trembled under his hands and that she’d nearly wept for reasons he didn’t know.
He’d fallen for the whole act.
He cursed silently while the judge and social worker conversed again in quiet tones. Isa’s hands were locked together in her lap, the only sign of her tension. She did seem to care about her brother. He had to give her that.
A sharp pang went through him, similar to the one he’d felt when she’d laughed and chatted so gaily with his financial expert at the cabin. He mocked the envy and his wishful thinking. His sweet wife didn’t give a damn about him. To her, he was the meal ticket that got her and her brother onto easy street.
Only it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as they thought. Little brother would learn to do things the right way, which was to say, his way, or else.
“All right,” the judge said, drawing their attention to him. “The court’s decision is to place Ricardo Chavez under the joint care and cognizance of Harrison and Isadora Stone. For a period of one year, he will be under court observation. At the end of that time, all charges will be dismissed, provided no further charges have been incurred or are pending at that time. Do all of you understand these conditions?” He looked at each person.
Isa murmured assent immediately.
Rick, his one-sided sneer in place, dipped his head once.
Harrison nodded slowly, thoughtfully..
An auspicious beginning. This might be more than a hard year. It might be an impossible one. He already felt inclined to knock the chip off the teenager’s shoul- der.
“Good. That’s settled, then.” The judge stood and left the conference room. The four of them left the mu- nicipal building.
The social worker touched Rick’s arm and told him how happy she was and how grateful he should be that he had people who cared about him. After letting him get his suitcase from the trunk of her car, she slid into the driver’s seat, still talking as she closed the door. “I’ll drop by in a week or so.”
Harrison gestured to his wife and brother-in-law to precede him to the parking lot across the street. He breathed deeply of the sage-scented air. “Just being in there was enough to set me on the straight and narrow,” he commented. “I couldn’t stand to be closed up in some prison.”
“It would be horrible,” Isa agreed.
He checked the time. “Maggie said she’d have lunch ready by twelve. It’s five past. Shall we go home?”
Isa yawned when she was seated in the comfortable luxury sedan. Its smooth leather seats invited her to curl up and take a catnap. She yawned-again. She was so tired.
“How was your trip from Oregon?” she heard Har- rison ask Rick.
“Okay.”
“Did you come alone?
“Yeah. They had a guy put me on the plane. The social worker met me at this end,” Rick explained, sneer still in place.
Isa wondered what she’d done to make him into the young tough he’d become. As a child, he’d been so sweet, with his dark, curly hair and girlish fringe of eyelashes surrounding eyes so dark they appeared black instead of brown. She and her mother had adored him. She still did.
She yawned wearily. She’d hardly slept last night, she’d been so worried. But now, thank God, she had a home for her brother. Everything would be okay….
“Isa?” Harrison shook her shoulder.
She was dead to the world. He frowned, puzzled when she didn’t wake up, her mind instantly alert.
“Isa, wake up. We’re home.”
She opened her eyes as if drugged. He unsnapped the seat belt and helped her out. She held his arm as they went inside.
“This way,” he said to his new brother-in-law, who offered no comment as he followed with his suitcase.
Maggie was in the kitchen, the luncheon ready as promised. Rick looked mildly interested at the scent of hot, spicy food.
Isa murmured something about going to her room to change. She walked off without looking back.
Harrison met Maggie’s gaze and shrugged. “This is Rick. Rick, Maggie. Don’t cross her. This way to your room.”
He led Rick to the other guest bedroom and had him leave his luggage there.
They returned to the kitchen. Harrison pulled out a chair and sat down at the bar, which was set for three. “I’m starved. Everything looks great, Maggie.”
“Thanks.” She glanced in the direction Isa had gone, shrugged and passed the Mexican casserole to him, then to the kid. They ate in total silence.
Harrison wondered what had happened to his wife.
Chapter Seven
Maggie beckoned Harrison to her when he returned from the office that afternoon. He’d taken off early to see about his new family. He was afraid the kid might have done something to make the housekeeper quit by now. Apprehension stirred in him when Maggie leaned close enough to whisper in his ear.
“Your wife didn’t eat lunch,” she confided. “She’s been in her room all afternoon.”
“Where’s the kid?”
“In the den watching television, where else?”
“He been any problem?”
“No. Don’t worry. Troublemakers are a dime a dozen in the tribe. I can handle your brother-in-law.”
Harrison winced at the reminder of his kinship with the boy. “I’ll see about her.”
He went to the closed door and, feeling foolish at having to knock on the door of his own wife’s bedroom, did so anyway.
No answer.
He tried again, louder this time as his temper began to boil. Still no answer.
He tried the door. The knob turned under his hand. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He took in the room at a glance. There were few signs of her habitation—a book on the night table by the bed, the blue dress and jacket laid neatly over a chair, shoes and stockings on the floor below.
And his wife, clad in her slip and curled up in a ball in the middle of the be
d, sound asleep.
He walked over to the bed as soundlessly as he could and stared down at her, wondering if this was some trick. It didn’t appear to be.
She didn’t move a muscle, not even an eyelid, when he sat down on the bed beside her. Her body shifted slightly, her hip meeting his as the bed dipped. The hot shock of desire jolted through him.
For two cents, or less, he’d tear off his clothes and join her….
He fought his instincts and won a brief respite from overwhelming need. He’d told his sweet wife he could live without sensual gratification, but he might regret those words before a month was past, much less a whole year.
His bitter snort of laughter didn’t produce a change in Isa’s consciousness. She still slept as guilelessly as a child.
However, she was a beautiful-woman.
Her breasts pushed against the confines of her bra, the luscious bulges barely covered by the lacy top of the slip. Lace brushed her thighs, too, where the slip had rucked up over her knees. She had incredibly long, gorgeous legs.
He’d noticed them that day in the hot tub. He also knew she’d used the pool. He’d noticed wet tracks on the patio one day when he came home early, but he’d never seen her in it.
His body stirred as images of them naked in the wa- ter, the sun warm on their shoulders as they came to- gether and slowly locked into each other’s arms, danced in his mind.
Gritting his teeth, he shook her gently. “Isa? Time to wake up, dream girl.”
She didn’t stir.
He bent over her and peered into her face. He felt her breath against his cheek, but that was the only thing moving about her. Well, he’d let her sleep. Obviously she hadn’t slept the previous night…probably worried all night about her slug of a brother.
Instead of leaving, he lingered, experiencing the heat of her body all along his thigh and chest as he leaned over her. Without taking time to think, he reached out and ran his fingers along the lacy edge of the slip at her breasts.
He rubbed over the lace and down the silky material. Her nipple beaded at his touch. His breath hung in his throat.
Unable to draw away, he circled the pebbled tip and remembered sucking it into his mouth…she’d given a little cry of ecstasy when he did…and he’d moaned with the effort to hold back and not let himself sink into her womanly softness…then she’d stroked all along his sides, his back, then over his buttocks until she’d reached his hips. She’d pulled him to her, for a few glorious minutes. He’d wanted to delve into the hot satin of her body like a miner looking for gold, but she’d pulled back, her eyes cloudy with tears, as elusive as ever.
He let his hand slide down until he touched the warm flesh of her thigh. She had a firm, athletic body, the kind he’d always liked in a woman….
Realizing what he was doing, he leapt to his feet, his breath coming in quick, hot pants. Damnation, he was worse than a peeping tom, slavering over a sleeping woman!
He strode out of the room as if the hounds of the worst hell he could ever imagine were at his heels.
Maybe they were, he reflected cynically three hours later. He banged a pencil eraser against his desk, caught it on the rebound and dropped it again while he stared out the window at the clouds hovering over the moun- tains in the distance.
It was late, and he was still hiding in his office.
Coward. He grimaced at the term. Afraid to go home to a woman and a fourteen-year-old? Yep, he admitted it.
He dropped the pencil, stretched and yawned, then locked up. The rest of the employees had left almost two hours ago. It was time he checked on his little nest.
The situation didn’t fit his idea of how one got a wife and kid. He’d thought marital bliss started out with a man and woman. The kids came later. He’d gone from bachelor to father of a troubled teen in a single bound. Lucky him.
Arriving at home, he checked the living areas. Not a soul in sight. The scent of Maggie’s stew wafted from the oven, which was turned to two hundred degrees to keep the meal warm. No signs that anyone had eaten anything, though.
Had his wife and her kid brother gone out?
He changed to shorts and a T-shirt in his room, then, barefoot, wandered to Isa’s door. He noticed the kid’s door was open and peered inside. The boy wasn’t there, but the suitcase was open and empty at the foot of the bed, so Harrison presumed he’d be back..
Returning to Isa’s door, he knocked, then tried the knob. With a sense of “been there, done that”, he opened the door and stepped inside. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.
His wife was exactly as he’d left her several hours ago, still curled into a ball on the bed, still in her pet- ticoat. She had her arms wrapped across her upper body. She looked cold.
He went to the closet and found a lightweight thermal blanket, shook it out and tossed it across her. In a min- ute, she shifted position, visibly relaxing as the warmth surrounded her.
She drew a deep breath which caught on a sound like a sob when she let it out. He wondered what troubling dreams she had when her lips trembled slightly.
He remembered how her mouth had often trembled under his when he’d kissed her. He’d thought it was a sign of leashed passion, now he didn’t know.
It could have been an act, part of her plan to trap him into this farce of a marriage. Or maybe it was real.
His ego would like to think that, but he didn’t kid himself. She’d planned her campaign to the last detail. Duty-bound to protect the family business and its em- ployees, he’d been caught like an intrigued moth in her honeyed web.
His sweet witch of a wife was sharp. He had to give her that. She’d gotten him, the marriage and her brother out of the deal. Now it was his turn to get what he wanted.
“Move over, wife,” he murmured.
Lying down beside her, he looped an arm over her waist and pulled her close. He slipped one thigh over hers and nestled his leg between hers. She sighed and snuggled close.
He nuzzled her neck, the sweet-smelling place behind her ear and down between her breasts. Not a peep out of her.
Drawing back, he studied her face.
She seemed to be deeply asleep. In repose, she looked much as she did awake. Only the lively intelligence of her gaze was missing. No emotion revealed itself in either case.
“What makes you tick, sweet witch?”
Her eyes flickered behind her eyelids briefly. Other than that, she made no move. A niggle of worry formed in the back of his mind. He pressed kisses along her jaw and onto her mouth.
No response.
Frowning, he studied her again. He ran his hand over her body, tweaked her breasts, raked his nails gently along the inner skin of her thighs. She didn’t give one indication that she knew he was on the face of the earth.
He stood and walked out of the room, as frustrated as a cat whose mouse wouldn’t play. He went to his room, picked up the telephone and dialed a friend from college days.
“Bill, Harrison here. I want to ask you a question, a medical question.”
“Are you sick?” Bill asked.
“Not me, but…uh…my wife—”
There was startled curse from the doctor. “What wife?” he demanded in an incredulous tone.
“It’s a long story.”
A chuckle came over the line. “Well, I have three hours before I go to bed, unless an emergency comes up. This isn’t an emergency, is it?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”
“You’d better start at the beginning,” his friend sug- gested.
Harrison explained as quickly as he could. His attor- ney and godfather, now his doctor and friend knew the story of his marriage. With Ken, his financial wizard, that trio made up the three most significant people in his life, all of whom now knew his marriage was a joke.
“Hmm,” Bill said thoughtfully when he finished ex- plaining about his wife sleeping her head off while he worried that she was dying or something. “Did she take any sleeping pills?”
“Hell, I don’t know.”
“If she did and she wasn’t used to them or hadn’t used them in a while, they could put her into a comalike sleep. Did you take her pulse?”
Harrison was relieved to have something to do. “Hold on, I’ll check it.” He rushed to Isa’s room.
She lay peacefully under the blanket and didn’t move an eyelash while he counted her heartbeats.
“Sixty beats a minute,” he reported into the phone by her bed. “Her color is okay. Her breathing seems normal. No rash that I can see. No fever, no chills.”
“You know what I think this is?” Bill asked after thinking about it for a long minute.
“No. That’s why I called you,” Harrison replied, not hiding the sharp bite of sarcasm in his words.
“Battle fatigue.”
Harrison shook his head, not sure he’d heard right. “What?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, warming to his theory. “Battle fatigue. My father used to tell me about his Vietnam days. Soldiers who’d been out on missions for days or weeks would stumble to their cots and sleep for twelve hours, sometimes for a full day or more. One man who’d been rescued after spending six months in a bamboo cage with two other guys, slept for three days with- out moving. He needed sleep more than food. It’s the mind’s reaction to too much stress.”
Isa, the cool, the beautiful, stressed out? Harrison doubted it. His silence must have said so.
“You want me to come over and look at her?”
He thanked his friend, but declined the offer. He’d keep an eye on her. Besides, he wanted to be the one with her when she awoke. In the meantime he’d better check on the brother and find out where he’d gone.
His family had left messages on the refrigerator door, the most frequented place in the house. Sure enough, that’s where he found Rick’s note. Gone out, it reported in a scrawled missive. Very informative.
An hour later, Harrison heard the entry gate open. “In here,” he called. “Where’d you get off to?” he asked in friendly tones when the teenager sauntered in and slumped into a chair with the grace of the boneless young.
