Marriage, Bravo Style!

by Christine Rimmer

  He tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “Think I’ll get a beer. You want something?”

  She shook her head—and the words just kind of rose to her lips and spilled on out. “Do you love me, Rogan?”

  He said what she’d known he would say. “Of course I do.”

  And she went even further with it. “You know, when I tell you I love you, you never say it back to me.”

  He frowned. And then he got up and came over to the rocker. He bent down and he kissed her, a lovely, light kiss. “I love you, Elena.”

  And she smiled against his lips. “Good. I love you, too.”

  She should have been satisfied with that. She told herself she was satisfied. Absolutely.

  A few days later, Brenda came home from New York City to spend four days with them during her spring break. She was as bright and fun as Elena remembered. They went shopping together and Niall came up from Austin on Brenda’s third day home. They had a family dinner on Friday night, all the Murdoch siblings together, along with Victor and Maddy Liz and their three kids. Elena took a bunch of pictures. It was a great dinner party to cap off a wonderful visit.

  Brenda was set to fly back to Manhattan Saturday afternoon. That morning, Rogan made his famous French toast for breakfast. Niall left at eleven. After that, they hung around the house, enjoying the last hours of Brenda’s visit before they took her to the airport at two o’clock.

  Around one-thirty, when Brenda was up in her room getting all her stuff together to go, Elena found the battered script for the play Rogan’s sister was rehearsing abandoned on the laundry room folding table. She grabbed it and headed for the stairs.

  At the landing on the second floor, she saw that Brenda’s door was open. As she approached, she could hear Brenda in there talking on the phone.

  “She’s great. I love her. And you should see my new nephew. Uh, yeah. Adorable…” A silence. And when Brenda spoke again, she lowered the volume to a more confidential level. “I know, I know. Big shocker. Rogan always swore he wouldn’t get married until he was old and gray—not after raising the three of us. Niall especially. Well, you remember. Nightmare. But hey, well, Elena is amazing and there is my darling nephew to think about…. What?… Yeah. Of course he would marry her. That’s who he is. And it’s not like he’s going to suffer all that much because his life didn’t turn out as planned. She’s not only a good person and fun to hang with, she’s really hot-looking. And she can cook.”

  Elena stood, frozen, a foot or two from that open door. Her face felt like someone had struck a match to it. Burning with shame.

  It wasn’t anything bad Brenda had said, exactly. It wasn’t anything Elena didn’t already know.

  It was just…

  Of course he would marry her. That’s who he is.

  And it’s not like he’s going to suffer all that much because his life didn’t turn out as planned.

  Beyond the open door, Brenda was still talking—at full volume, again. “I know. I’m sorry. Completely my bad and I will make it up to you. Next time, I promise…” And then she was on to how much she loved her life in New York.

  Slowly, still clutching the tattered script in her hand, Elena turned and retraced her steps. Down the stairs, through the living room and the family room, into the laundry room off the kitchen.

  She shut the door and leaned her forehead against it and wondered why she felt so terrible about this.

  Really, she kept telling herself, it just wasn’t anything that awful. It only felt awful.

  As if she’d somehow been tricked into believing that Rogan was someone he wasn’t.

  She found herself thinking about that night in the hospital, the night he proposed, about the night and day difference between the angry, determined man who had walked out on her at six—and the tender, romantic dream guy who had returned at eleven spouting words of love. Really, she needed to sit down with him and talk about this. She was letting her doubts about his true feelings get in the way of her love for him.

  Tonight, she promised herself. Tonight, when we’re alone, we’ll have a long talk about this….

  But then, well, the rest of the day passed. And she started thinking that she had overreacted.

  They took Brenda to the airport. Brenda grabbed Elena in a goodbye hug and whispered, “I am so glad to have you for my sister-in-law. I cannot tell you. Just really, really glad.” She said it with feeling and when she pulled back, she had tears in her eyes. She said, “My big brother is a very lucky man.”

  They went home, had dinner, made out like a couple of kids on the family room couch.

  And she decided she had taken the things she’d overheard Brenda saying way too seriously. She needed to forget all these vague doubts and enjoy the great life she and Rogan shared.

  Monday, she saw her new OB-GYN. And she got the go-ahead to do more than smooch on the couch. It was only five weeks and two days since she’d had Michael, but her doctor assured her that it would be safe.

  On her way home, she stopped and bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne. And for dinner, she slathered a prime rib with her own special dill and garlic rub. She baked a couple of giant Idaho potatoes and did the green beans with almonds, just the way her husband liked them best.

  And when Rogan got home from work, she met him at the front door wearing lingerie she’d bought shopping with Brenda, a wisp of peach silk that showed a whole lot more than it covered. They made love right there in the foyer, standing up.

  By the time he slowly let her feet slide down to touch the floor again, she had no doubt that her husband still thought she was sexy and desirable.

  Later, after she fed Michael and Rogan did diaper duty, they shared a champagne toast, ate their prime rib dinner—and went to bed to celebrate some more.

  No, he never once said he loved her, though she said it several times that night.

  But it didn’t matter, she told herself. He showed that he loved her in so many ways. Life was good. Life was amazing.

  They had it all.

  And then, on Friday, Caleb and Irina came up with baby Hanna for the weekend. It was a great visit. Friday night, they all went over to Victor and Maddy Liz’s for dinner.

  Saturday night, Elena cooked just for the four of them—five, including Hanna, who sat quietly in her high chair with bits of apple and grapes to munch on. Hanna got fussy around eight-thirty, so Irina took her upstairs to get her ready for bed.

  And then, just a minute or two after Irina went up, Michael, who had slept through the grown-ups’ dinner, started fussing in his crib. Elena went up to nurse him.

  He fell asleep quickly. She tucked him into bed again, pressed a kiss on his perfect little cheek and went back down to join the others. As she passed the guestroom, she heard Irina’s voice in there, singing a lullaby in Argovian, the language of her childhood.

  She almost tapped on the door and went in to sit with her sister-in-law while she sang baby Hanna to sleep.

  But no. Disturbing them would only wake Hanna up all over again. So she went on down the stairs. At the bottom, she could hear the low murmur of the men’s voices in the dining room.

  Something about their hushed tones made her hesitate in the shadowed living room, with her hand on the newel post.

  “Don’t get all defensive on me.” Caleb’s voice. “It looks to me like it’s working out great, is all I’m saying.”

  “Just shut up about it.” Rogan growled the words. “You said yourself she could never know.” She, who? “One of them could be back down here any second now.”

  One of them?

  So it was something neither she nor Irina was supposed to know.

  This was ridiculous. She thought of the way she’d behaved a week ago, running downstairs and hiding in the laundry room because she’d happened to overhear Brenda talking about her on the phone.

  Uh-uh. Enough. She turned and headed for the dining room.

  Caleb was talking again. “Don’t worry. They just went
up. Come on. Admit it. You’re happy being married. I did you a good turn. Sometimes a man just needs a little push to get it right.”

  Elena reached the dining room door by then. She went on in. “A little push to get what right?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Caleb almost dropped the glass of brandy he was sipping.

  But Rogan didn’t so much as blink. “Nothing—he went right back to sleep, huh?”

  For a moment, Elena considered getting pushy, demanding to know what in the world they were whispering about, telling them she wasn’t backing off until they explained what was going on.

  But then again, why ruin the evening? Now was neither the time nor the place.

  Later. After their guests had gone back to San Antonio.

  She smiled and snapped her fingers. “Out like a light.”

  A few minutes after that, Irina rejoined them. Elena served the dessert.

  More than once that evening, Elena found Caleb watching her. Was he nervous about something?

  She had a feeling he was. And she would be finding out what.

  All in good time.

  Caleb and his family left on Sunday morning.

  Elena waited until after lunch, when she’d just put Michael in his crib after a feeding, to bring up the issue of what she’d overheard Saturday night. She found Rogan sitting at the computer in his study at the front of the house.

  He looked up when she stepped into the open doorway.

  She leaned against the doorframe, feeling absurdly weak-kneed all of a sudden. “It’s, um, about Saturday night. I’ve been wondering what you and Caleb were talking about at the table when Irina and I went upstairs….”

  “I told you it was nothing.” His expression, like his voice, was flat. Careful.

  She entered the study, perched on a chair by the door. “Rogan…” She managed his name and then didn’t know where to go from there.

  And he wasn’t helping. “Can we talk about this later? I’ve got some things to catch up on here.”

  She wavered, asking herself, was it really so important? Did it really matter that much? He was good to her. If he and Caleb wanted to have a few secrets between themselves, what could that hurt?

  He was frowning. “Something else?”

  “When can we talk about it?”

  He picked up the pen on his desk pad, tapped the desk with it. “Seriously. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Again, she had to hold herself there, in the chair, to keep after him about this when he so clearly did not want to discuss it. Whatever it was. “I heard you tell Caleb to be quiet, that Irina or I could come back downstairs any minute. What was it you didn’t want me to hear?”

  He tossed the pen down. “All right. Fine.”

  “You look so…angry.”

  “I’m not angry. Caleb gave me a few…pointers, okay?”

  “Pointers about what?”

  Rogan sat back in his swivel chair, stretched his big arms behind his head and then sat forward again. “I said it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Can’t you just take my word on that and let it be?”

  “I only want to understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand.”

  What would Caleb not want her to know?

  It came to her: that he’d interfered between her and Rogan again.

  Was that it?

  She said, “That night you proposed to me. In the hospital. We argued. You left. You came back hours later and you were like a different man….”

  He braced an elbow on the desk, rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Let it be, will you?”

  She didn’t. She couldn’t. “You went to Caleb, didn’t you?”

  He slapped his palm, flat, on the desk top. She winced at the sound. “I did not go to Caleb.”

  “Let me put it this way. Did you see my brother between when you left the hospital that night and when you came back?”

  He looked away, toward the window and the bright afternoon outside. “It’s not that big of a deal, you know?”

  “I think it is. I think it’s something that I really need to understand. I think it’s the key to what isn’t…right between us.”

  “What do you mean, what isn’t right? Everything’s fine.”

  “Yes. That’s true. In some ways, it is. But I feel…like you’re hiding something from me, Rogan. Something you really need to talk to me about.”

  “What do you want from me, Elena?”

  “Just the truth. That’s all. What happened that night?”

  He took in a slow breath and let it out hard. “Fine. Caleb called me. I went over there, figuring he was going to pop me a good one for messing with his innocent baby sister. But what he was really interested in was if I was going to marry you. I told him I damn well was. But that you had turned me down.”

  “And he gave you…pointers?”

  “Yeah. That’s right. Pointers.” Now he was glaring at her. “That’s all of it. That’s the big freaking secret. He gave me a few pointers and I took them to heart. And it all worked out fine.”

  “What pointers?”

  “Damn it, Elena.”

  “What pointers?”

  He glared some more. She glared right back.

  Finally, he said, “Caleb said that you’re not really who you like to think you are.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He said that you consider yourself a realist, independent. Practical. But really, you’re a romantic to the core. He said you’d waited your whole life for the right guy and I was it, that you never would have been with me, if I wasn’t. He said…” The words ran out. He shook his head. “It’s enough.”

  “Tell me the rest.”

  “Elena…”

  “The rest.”

  “Fine. All right. He said that if I was serious about marrying you, I had to say that I love you. And I had to make you believe it. I had to convince you that you’re the only woman for me. He said I had to be romantic about it—and he said you could never know it wasn’t all my idea because a woman needs to think her guy knows what to say without being coached.”

  She was shaking her head now. “The flowers. The ring. The words you said…”

  He nodded. His green eyes were bleak as a winter sea. “Yeah. Caleb gives good advice, huh?”

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Which is why he didn’t want you ever to know.”

  “Too bad he just had to gloat about it last night.”

  “Yeah,” Rogan agreed way too quietly. “Completely blows that he did that, I gotta say.”

  “But he was wrong about one thing.”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t look all that excited to hear what.

  She told him anyway. “A woman doesn’t care so much if a man needs a few pointers. As long as he’s…sincere, you know? As long as when he says he loves her, he really means it.”

  Rogan winced. And then he braced both elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes. “Of course I meant it.”

  “You’re sounding a little…automatic. You know that?”

  He said nothing. He just sat there.

  She got up, then. She went over to the window and stood staring out at the long front walk, at the old live oak in the center of the lawn with its thick, wide branches spreading up to the blue Texas sky. “I think you lied to me, Rogan. You said that you really wanted to marry me—for me, not just because I had your baby. You said you loved me. And that night, you really seemed to mean it. But you’ve never said it again after that, not without me prompting you.”

  “What does it matter?” he said to her back. “We’re happy, aren’t we? We have a good life together. Why do you have to make a big deal out of this…this love thing? About a few little words and whether I say them without you pushing me, about how I say them when I say them. I just don’t get it. It makes no sense.”

  She turned to face him then. “I think you do get it. I think you know exactly what you did.”

/>   “What I did? What I did was marry you. Was that so wrong?”

  “You lied.”

  He didn’t deny it. She knew why. Because he had lied.

  She spoke again, schooling her voice to a gentle, even tone. “Oh, Rogan. Caleb got a lot of it right. I am a romantic. And I want the man I love to love me in return. I want him to tell me he loves me. And I want him to mean it. And you got me to marry you by telling me what I wanted to hear and being really, really convincing about it. You lied, that’s what you did. And I just want you to tell me, admit to my face that you lied.”

  “I didn’t lie. I…” The sentence trailed off without ever really getting started.

  She refused to back off. “I want to know, okay? I want to know what you were really thinking that night, what was really going through your mind the first time you started in on me about marriage. The time you got angry and walked out.”

  He shoved back his chair and stood. “There’s no point in rehashing all this. This is a bunch of noise about nothing. You have to see that.”

  She stood very still, facing him, in front of the window. Funny, how calm she felt given that her heart was breaking. “Are you going to walk out on me again?”

  “I didn’t say I was walking out.”

  “You didn’t have to say it. I can see it in your eyes.”

  He looked like he wanted to break something. And he asked, for the second time, “What do you want from me, Elena?”

  Her answer remained the same. “I want the truth. That’s all. Just the truth.”

  Rogan said nothing. He didn’t trust himself to speak. This was a truly stupid conversation.

  So why was he so pissed off at her that he could hardly see straight?

  She was waiting, just standing there in front of the sunlit window. Waiting for him to tell her what they both knew she didn’t really want to hear.

  “This is a bad idea,” he warned. Again.

  And still, she just stood there, watching him. Waiting.

  And he was getting angrier. “Look. You messed me over, okay? And that night in the hospital when I tried to get you to do the right thing and agree to marry me, I was seriously pissed off about that, about the way you messed me over.”