The Ready-Made Family (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Laurie Paige

  He heaved a deep breath. “Not quite nine months.”

  She looked away from his searching gaze. “Yes.”

  “The year is up in April, but school isn’t out until the middle of June. There’s still time.”

  “I could never give a child up.” She choked on the words and shook her head helplessly.

  “Neither could I.” He handed her clothing to her. They dressed in silence.

  “What would happen if I were pregnant?” she asked.

  “We’d have to come to a new agreement, I suppose.” He gave her a probing look, his eyes dark and moody, a challenge in them that she couldn’t decipher.

  She looked away.

  “We don’t have to worry about that until it hap- pens,” he said as if tired of the conversation. Pulling his suit jacket on, he walked out.

  After raising the blinds, she opened the window and let the one-hundred-and-ten-degree heat sweep into the office, driving out the scent of their lovemaking and the questions she couldn’t answer and that he wouldn’t.

  When she looked into the parking area behind the building, she saw Rick unloading boxes from a truck. His boss came out and gave him some instructions, then headed back into the air-conditioned interior. Rick con- tinued to work alone, a lanky, earnest adolescent grow- ing to manhood.

  Her heart constricted with love for him. He really was trying to turn over a new leaf, thanks to Harrison’s in- fluence. That was almost enough to justify her contin- uing the lie.

  Almost.

  But sooner or later she would have to tell Harrison that his father hadn’t cheated hers when Dan Stone had refiled the claim in his name only. She should do it before he found out from someone else. With the attor- ney investigating the claim, it could only be a matter of time….

  She clasped her arms across her waist and wondered if Harrison would let Rick stay and finish this year of school. She would have to leave, of course, but if he’d let Rick stay, she would have time to find a job and establish a home for them.

  It was the most she would let herself hope for.

  “Maggie?”

  Rick waited until Maggie looked up from the dinner salad she was putting together.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Huh.” She went back to work.

  He twiddled with a straw. He’d stopped at a fast-food drive-through and picked up a cola on the way here. His boss had sent him home as soon as the truck was unloaded and the stuff stacked in the storage room. It was too hot to do any more today. Rick was to come in early in the morning to finish.

  “Uh…”

  Maggie glanced up again.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  She put the salad in the fridge, poured a glass of iced tea and fanned herself with a folded piece of paper. At a hundred and ten degrees, even the air-conditioning was hard put to keep the house cool. They’d had salads or sandwiches for dinner every night that week. Too hot to cook.

  “What’s bothering you, kid?”

  He liked that about Maggie. She had a bite, but she was upfront with a person. Could he tell her about Moe? God, he had to tell somebody or go crazy.

  “If…if you knew somebody…and they were going to do something like, crooked, you know?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What would you do?”

  “How crooked? How good a friend?”

  Maggie dove right to the heart of a matter. She un- derstood things. Isa would have told him he had to turn them in to the police and given him a lecture about honor and all that. This was more complicated.

  “Not much of a friend,” he admitted. He slurped up the last of the soda. It made a loud noise in the quiet kitchen, a kid’s noise. He pushed the empty cup away and propped his elbows on the counter.

  “Can you turn him in?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “He hasn’t done anything yet.”

  “What’s he gonna do?”

  Rick swallowed but it didn’t dislodge the lump in his throat. He cast a furtive glance around the kitchen, the living room. This was his home now. He loved it here. He wanted to stay. Moe could ruin everything.

  Misery burned his throat. Aww, man.

  “Well, uh, rob a place.”

  “What’s he want you to do?”

  Yeah, Maggie understood. “Leave the loading-bay door unlocked tomorrow when I’m through.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said with a knowing twist. “That would make you an accomplice. You’d be in deep yo- gurt if you were caught.”

  He nodded. The misery solidified into a hard ball with a sloshing core. He felt sick. Moe’d said he’d hurt Isa if Rick didn’t go along with his plan.

  “I don’t care about that. It’s…well…people could get hurt. You know?”

  She studied him for a long minute. “How hurt?”

  He shrugged.

  The ice clinked in her tea glass while she took a sip and thought it over. “You want out of it?”

  “Yeah.” Like, man, did he ever. “How?”

  “Tell him no. It’ll be hard, but you have to stand up to bullies like that, else they never leave you alone. They get you one time, they got you forever. Know what I mean?”

  His throat tightened. He nodded.

  “Tell him you won’t do it and that if he doesn’t leave you alone, you’ll have to get help.” She paused. “You have to tell your sister—”

  “No.” He shook his head vehemently. “It would scare her. I can’t. She’d hate me,” he finished. The tears burned his eyeballs. He was going to cry right here. Aww, man, don’t.

  “Tell Harrison. He’ll know what to do. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll think about it.” His voice had sunk low. He could hardly speak. Harrison would be disgusted. He’d send him away, or worse, let him stay but wish he was gone. Aww, man.

  Maggie gave him one of her no-nonsense stares. “Tell him.”

  Harrison would hate him, too. “Life’s a bitch,” he muttered, swamped by self-pity.

  “And then you die,” Maggie finished in her cheer- fully caustic manner.

  He sniffed, rubbed his nose, blinked his eyes. “Yeah. Got any rat poison?”

  “Nope. Don’t have any rats, just a bunch of clowns in this house. Weirdest bunch of ‘em I ever saw.”

  Isa heard the laughter when she opened the door. It gave her a pleasant shock. It sounded like a happy house, a place where people laughed. She clutched the bag of groceries tighter as emotion gripped her.

  “Hi, what’s so funny?” she asked, setting the bag on the kitchen counter. Maggie and Rick were having a fine time, it seemed. In spite of her worries, her heart felt lighter.

  Rick was happy here. So was she. Harrison didn’t seem to mind having them, and Maggie had adjusted to their presence.

  Paradise. Almost. She was the snake in the grass.

  “Uh, nothing,” her brother replied in his usual in- formative manner. He ducked his head.

  “Private joke. You’d have had to be there,” Maggie added.

  Casting a fond glance at the other two, Isa set her purse aside and put the fruit and salad vegetables away. They were going through so much fresh stuff because of the heat that it was hard to keep up. It was too hot to cook.

  So far August was hotter than July had been, and July had set new records for the duration of high tempera- tures.

  “Harrison will be late tonight. He and Ken and Mr. Merry are having a conference call on the state of the economy.”

  “How are things going?” Maggie asked. “Should I be looking for a new job?”

  “Please, don’t even joke about it,” Isa implored. “I’d shoot myself.”

  “My nephew designs jewelry for Harrison.”

  “Firebird? Tall, lean as a wolf, cheekbones to die for?”

  Maggie nodded. “The business is doing well?”

  “Yes, it’s fine. I’ve met Jackson. The Firebird de- signs are stunning and our most popular.”

  “
Not Indian.” Maggie snorted in disdain.

  “Turquoise and silver have a limited market. His use of other natural stones expands the base. His signature pieces are exquisite. He did a fire sapphire-and-diamond pendant that I’d sell my soul to have. Unfortunately, the jewelry is worth more than that.”

  Rick stood abruptly. “I, uh, think I’ll take a swim.” He shuffled down the hall and into his room.

  Isa gazed after him, then her smile reappeared. “I talked Mr. Merry into a line of fine jewelry for his stores. The curmudgeon—that’s Mr. Parker, my boss— was impressed.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. She leaned close. “Go swim with your brother. I think he needs to talk. But don’t push,” she added.

  “I won’t.” Isa went to her room and changed to a swimsuit. Out on the patio, she dropped a towel on a chair and crossed the hot patio to the pool.

  Maggie called goodbye on her way out before Isa dived in.

  Rick, who’d been swimming laps, pulled himself up on the side and waved to Maggie. The two exchanged glances, then solemn smiles. Isa wondered what secrets they shared.

  She swam for twenty minutes, then Rick ducked her. She thrashed after him, starting a game of tag. For the first time in years, they played and laughed with each other. After a while, she sat on the side and dangled her legs in the water.

  That was where Harrison found them when he got home. “Be out in a sec,” he called, heading for the bedroom.

  Isa went to the kitchen and prepared tall glasses of iced tea and heaping bowls of Chinese chicken salad for them. She added a basket of crisp flatbread called “bark” by the locals.

  Harrison was in the water when she returned to the patio with their supper. She set the table, then tilted the umbrella for maximum shade. The sun would be gone behind the mountains soon. Watching the twilight from the patio was one of her favorite moments. Watching her husband was another.

  He emerged from the pool as fluid and sleek as a seal. Her heart gave a painful hitch as he toweled off. She could love a man like him. It would be so easy….

  Rick splashed out of the pool, shedding water like a happy puppy. Droplets sprayed over her as he flipped a towel behind his back and sawed it back and forth. He flopped into a chair in that boneless way the young had.

  “Madam.” Harrison held her chair.

  She settled into it, felt his kiss on her head and lifted her face to his. He kissed her mouth, a quick kiss with a lot of promise in it. His smile was sensuous, his gaze playful.

  “So, how did the conference call with Merry go?” she asked.

  “Perfect.”

  They discussed the future while they ate. Even Rick joined in, asking questions that clearly showed his keen intellect. Isa was proud of her two men.

  Later, they swam and played games in the pool. After that, they watched a storm over the Sierras, a summer storm full of heat lightning and sweeping sheets of rain. The tall peaks captured the clouds so that the storm didn’t reach the valley where they watched the awe- some display of nature.

  Isa glanced at Harrison in the fading twilight. His face seemed sculpted from luminous stone, his eyes from some dark, undiscovered gem that gleamed with magic light.

  It wasn’t real. She looked at them as if she were an alien observing the scene from afar—the stormy hills, the sage-dotted valley, the snug house, the tranquil pool, the happy family. It wasn’t real.

  Feelings she’d fought so hard to suppress rushed over her like lightning zigzagging across the far peaks. She was in love with her husband, oh, so terribly in love.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’m going to the office this morning,” Harrison an- nounced at breakfast on Saturday. He refilled his and Isa’s coffee mugs. “What are you two doing today?”

  “I have to work,” Rick told him. “We got a big shipment of stuff yesterday. It has to be unpacked and inventoried.”

  “How about you?” Harrison asked when Isa re- mained quiet. He steeled himself against her allure. Af- ter the session in her office yesterday, he’d decided not to let passion get the upper hand last night.

  She’d surprised him. As soon as they were in bed, she’d turned to him with an urgency that had been grat- ifying. Yeah, it was nice to be wanted, but he wondered what scheme she was hatching. She had seemed almost desperate.

  Later, her sleep had been restless and more than once he’d been awakened by low mumbled sounds of protest from her. Perhaps her conscience was bothering her. Ha. She hadn’t blinked an eye when she’d forced him into marriage.

  Still, there were undercurrents of emotion between them that he didn’t understand. He wondered if she was trying to make him fall in love with her. With the life she had here, compared to her former existence, she’d be a fool not to try to figure out a way she could stay.

  By forgetting to use protection, he might have given her the perfect excuse. If she were pregnant, he wouldn’t let her leave, not with his child.

  His personal life was in a hell of a mess.

  “I have some shopping to do. Then…I don’t know.”

  “Come have lunch with me,” he invited on an im- pulse. Maybe he’d find out what plan she’d been con- centrating on so furiously the past few days. “I’ll be finished by noon. We could go to that little place you like. How about you, Rick? Will you be finished by then?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think so. But, uh, I gotta…I’ve got things to do.” He put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher. “See you guys later.” He loped out without looking at either of them.

  A long beat of silence followed his departure.

  “Something’s wrong,” Isa said.

  He felt a tightening in his gut. “Like what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “With us?”

  She looked at him, startled. Color ran under her skin. “No. At least…I mean…”

  “Nothing more than usual?” he suggested wryly.

  He waited while she sipped the hot coffee. He noticed her fingers trembled on the mug. It made him nervous, this anxiety of hers. Like maybe she was anxious for him to be gone. Was she meeting someone else?

  It was damned odd to be so certain of a woman when they made love and to be so uncertain the rest of the time. They’d been married almost four months and he was no closer to understanding her than when they’d met.

  “A man could get frustrated dealing with a woman,” he mentioned when she didn’t speak. He suppressed an impulse to shake the truth out of her.

  Her smile disclosed nothing of her thoughts. “Lots of men seem to feel that way about women.”

  Seeing he wasn’t going to win points in discussing the battle of the sexes, he went back to her original statement. “So what do you think is wrong?”

  “It’s Rick.”

  She looked at him, her green eyes luminous with worry. It made him want to leap tall buildings for her. What a fool. Going soft in the head over a woman was the last thing he needed right now.

  “He seems to be doing okay. He told me he liked the job. His boss said the boy was a fine worker.”

  “No, it isn’t that. It’s…well, it’s probably nothing. I think he said something to Maggie. I’ll talk to her Mon- day.”

  “You want me to talk to him?”

  Isa clasped her hands around the warm porcelain and watched the steam rise from the coffee. Rick was her responsibility. She’d forced Harrison to take them into his home. That was the extent of their deal. Harrison had already done a lot for Rick.

  “Would you mind?” she asked.

  “No.” He leaned close, his smile mocking. “A man will do anything for his woman, don’t you know?”

  She looked away as a bottomless pit opened inside her. He was baiting her. She’d sensed his wariness of her increasing lately. He distrusted her now, but he ac- cepted her in his life. He’d hate her when she told him the truth.

  The only thing he wanted from her was sexual grat- ification. Humiliation burned in her. She’d turn
ed to him as soon as they went to bed, needing the security of his arms around her. Then she’d wanted more.

  It scared her, this wanting…as if she depended on him, as if she couldn’t live without him. She didn’t like being in love. It was too scary.

  Harrison cupped his hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. His expression was hard. “What are you scheming about now? I can almost hear the wheels turn- ing. Don’t think you can wind your way around me like a vine smothering an oak.” His hand tightened. “I can easily tear you out by the roots and toss you on the fire.”

  Long after he’d left, she sat in the kitchen, her hands to her forehead until her heart settled into a steady beat again. Harrison knew something was wrong. He knew.

  The ringing of the telephone interrupted her tortured reverie.

  “This is Martha Addleson,” a friendly voice said.

  The social worker. Isa’s heart went frantic again. “Hello, Martha. How are you?” she asked.

  “Fine. Is Rick in? I have his grades here and I wanted to congratulate him on a job well done.”

  “No, he had to work today.”

  “Oh? Where?”

  Isa wondered if it was okay for Rick to have a job. She hadn’t thought to ask. “Reno Wholesale Imports. It’s in the same building as Harrison’s company. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, of course. He just didn’t mention it when I talked to him on the phone last time.”

  “I see. Does he seem to be adjusting okay?” Worry gnawed at her. Something was definitely bothering him. Maybe he’d shared it with the case worker.

  “Yes. His teachers report he did well last term. He’s made a couple of friends, one of them a girl. That’s usually a good sign,” Martha told her, laughing. “He seems to have settled in very well. Sometimes it’s sim- ply a matter of getting away from the influence of bad companions. Rick also admires your husband. Harrison is a fine role model. I understand they worked together on a car this summer.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Excellent. Well, I have to go. Tell Rick I’m proud of him and that I’ll talk to him next week.”

  “Right. I will. ‘Bye.”

  Isa hung up, her mind racing with half thoughts that flitted off before she had time to analyze them. There was trouble. She could sense it the way a wild creature senses danger.