The 200% Wife

by Jennifer Greene

  “Not your lodge. You’ll never get any feet-up rest time there.”

  “You’ve got that right. Tahoe, thankfully, has a full-service nightlife. And I happen to know where they serve the best chocolate.” He zipped up, then aimed for the door. “Seven o’clock suit you?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You want to do it jeans or dress-up?”

  “Dress-up.”

  “Where was my head? In Tahiti? I knew it was a mistake to ask a woman that question,” Gar muttered humorously. “It’ll probably take me until seven to scare up a tie. If I have to go to all the trouble of dressing up, I’m warning you now to get in a nap, because I’m not promising to get you home before dawn.”

  She was just starting to sputter, something about. “Men!” and “Why do they ask you a question if they don’t want to hear an answer?” when he leaned over and dropped a kiss—on her nose.

  Silenced her completely. Seconds later, he was outside and hiking for his Cherokee, whistling, the sudden cold stinging his cheeks, thinking her response to that smack on the nose had been damn fascinating.

  So was she. Increasingly fascinating to him. Her warmth, her perception, her humor. That incredibly pugnacious chin. The mystery and depth in those gorgeous dark eyes. She turned on, flushed like an innocent schoolgirl, for a smack on the nose. Abby should know damn well it was dangerous to give a man an ego stroke like that. She could make a guy believe he was something special—or could be special to her.

  Gar peeled out of the driveway with sun blinding his eyes, and his ebullient mood suddenly sobered. He wanted to be blinded by Abby. He couldn’t remember, ever, being this captured or captivated by a woman. He wanted those compelling feelings…wanted her…wanted to believe they had the potential to go somewhere powerful and real together.

  He was damned afraid that he was falling in love with her.

  Yet his instinctive male antenna warned him against rushing into risking his heart. Abby was obviously deeply troubled by some problem, something that had led her to hiding out in Tahoe. He told himself it was unreasonable to expect her to open up when they’d known each other such a short while. Trust took time.

  Still, her tiny fibs and evasions troubled him. He’d had one marriage irreparably crippled because of a lack of honesty. It was a mistake he wouldn’t, couldn’t, make again. And there would come a point, Gar knew, when they would have nothing unless Abby took the risk—and was honest with him.

  Demo version limitation

  Demo version limitation

  Chapter Eight

  The last thing Gar wanted to do was desert Abby for long, but the phone call from his ex-wife took more time than he expected. Janet claimed she was struggling with her drug habit, and that seeing him was the only way she could resolve issues that were inhibiting her recovery. He didn’t want to argue with her. He didn’t want to callously cut her off. But he’d heard all those sound bites from Janet before. His ex-wife was excellent with words, and she had a manipulative gift for coloring the truth to shift responsibility on anyone who’d take it

  He hustled back down the hall, rubbing the back of his neck. The sticky phone call had left him feeling as sharp-edged and wrung out as all the others, and he’d never meant to leave Abby alone with Robb for this long. As he rounded the corner into the conference room, though, he stopped short. His hand dropped back from the back of his neck.

  Neither Abby nor Robb initially noticed that he’d walked in. No surprise. They were going at it nose-to-nose, talking ten for a dozen, noisily interrupting each other and squared off an exuberant verbal battle.

  “No, no, no. That’s a common mistake in advertising, knocking a competitor. Forget them entirely,” Abby shot at Robb.

  “The competitors are already the big names that everyone knows. They’re the reference point that any skier would recognize—”

  “But that’s not how it works. When you advertise the negative, that’s what people remember—the negative. You’ll get further, faster, if you attack a problem from a positive angle. Give the lodge an image, an identity, that focuses on the clientele you want to have—and then go for it. Aim for what you want, not for what you don’t want—”

  “You’re talking about a lot of money,” Robb snapped.

  “I’m talking about effective money. Dollars spent that will provably do a job for you…”

  Gar doubted he could get in a word in—and for a few minutes, he was more than content to just watch. Robb was his right hand, the best administrator he’d ever had, but Robb was distinctly a paper person, rather than a people person. He didn’t lack tact. He just never unbent. But his assistant, right now, had a tie hanging askew, a shirt untucked, and seemed to have thrown himself into a chair in a totally relaxed slouch for this…battle.

  And Abby. God. Her face was flushed, her eyes were full of fire, her hair was ruffled up as if she’d yanked a hand through it a half-dozen times. She was wriggling all over that chair, charged up as if someone had lit the fuse on her personal dynamite. A kid at Christmas couldn’t look much happier.

  This from a lady who had had to be bribed, conned, and cajoled into coming here. The lady who claimed to have no experience in or liking for business in any way.

  Gar cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt this…”

  Both heads swiveled in his direction, as if they’d been interrupted by an unwanted gunshot.

  ”…but I’m afraid Abby has to leave.”

  “I do?” Abby said blankly.

  “Uh-huh.” Swiftly Gar gathered up her jacket and gloves. “She has something she has to do this afternoon. But I was thinking…Robb? We could move a desk in that side office downstairs. Abby’s on vacation, but if she could spare us a few mornings to help with this PR thing, it’d be easier for her if she had an organized space to land.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Robb grabbed a pad of paper and punched his ballpoint, and was already starting to make lists and muttering about computer terminals as Gar steered her out the door.

  “Wait a minute, Gar….” Abby didn’t seem to mind the hand under her elbow, leading her down the hall and up a flight of stairs. She never asked where they were going. She seemed suddenly so flustered she could barely get a coherent word out. “I don’t…I didn’t…I know I said I’d come in, but that was only because you asked for my help this one time. There’s no reason for you to set up a desk—”

  “Did I tell you about my cousin Ryder?”

  She gave him another look of total confusion, as if doubly bewildered about how or why the conversation had shifted from desks to cousins.

  “I told you I had a couple hundred cousins, didn’t I?” Gar opened the door at the. top of stairs, and subtly herded her left. “Well, Ryder lives in Colorado. Silver Springs. Just starting up a new business, doesn’t have a clue how to promote or advertise. He’s got a great concept going, but he just doesn’t have any basic ideas for how to get it off the ground.”

  “Um, Cameron?” She waved a hand in front of his face, as if hoping someone sane was home behind those cool blue eyes. “I’m having a lot of trouble following this conversation. Are you telling me about your cousin for some reason?”

  He grinned. And piled her jacket and gloves and scarf back in her arms, so he’d have a hand free to fish out the key to his suite. “Yeah, there’s a reason. Ryder inherited a good slug of money. More than enough to pay you—and well. But he’s damn young. Can’t tell a fool from someone who’s giving him good advice. I was thinking that you might not mind talking with him.”

  “I swear there’s a piston short in your engine. You’re not making a lick of sense. I never did understand why you wanted me to come in and brainstorm with you and Robb. And I can’t imagine why you’d think I could help your cousin. I’ve told you several times that business just isn’t my cuppa—”

  “Uh-huh. I know what you told me. I also watched you level Robb, toots. Hell, I can’t even level Robb, and he’s been working for me fo
r seven years. Handling my little cousin would be a game of tiddly winks for you. He’s smart, I swear, damn near brilliant, but he just doesn’t have the age or experience to know what he’s doing.”

  “Gar, I haven’t given you one reason to think I know a balance sheet from a banana.”

  Yeah, she had. And Gar was beginning to pick up tattletale clues when Abby was trying to fib, particularly big fibs. Her eyes got this stricken look, as if she’d taken in a mouthful of guilt and couldn’t swallow it.

  Unlocking the door, he pushed it open and ushered her in. Totally by accident, his wrist grazed the swell of her breast as she moved past him. Her eyes instantly shot to his. Quicker than an electric short could cause a fire, high voltage shimmered between them. Gar couldn’t help but notice that her mind immediately strayed off business—and fibs.

  “So this is where you live? What are we doing here?”

  “No one would admit to living in this disaster,” Gar assured her dryly, “but if you’ll cover your eyes, we’re only going to be here for two minutes. I just need to pick up something from the bedroom, and then we’re out of here.”

  He disappeared into the bedroom and left her stranded. So far, she hadn’t raised any objections to being kidnapped for the evening. So far, he wasn’t sure she’d noticed. But, Abby being Abby, he strongly suspected that the immediate loud silence emanating from the living room indicated she was too busy poking and looking around to worry about being railroaded.

  He wasn’t sure what she’d think of his place. The guest-lodge rooms had luxury appointments. Not his. The bedroom and kitchen parts of the suite were humdrum-ordinary, and the massive living room…Well. Bookshelves lined one wall from floor to ceiling, with books toppling helter-skelter, on subjects ranging from history to management to fast mysteries. His mother was an afghan maker, and her favorite habit overflowed on him. He had an oil painting from an artist friend on one wall—a nude—and some Japanese prints on another. They didn’t go together. Nothing went together. The furniture beneath the debris wasn’t too bad, but a screen sectioned off a plain old shop table with a wood lathe. Shelves held rough pieces of zebra wood, ebony, rosewood, cedar.

  When he strode from the bedroom, carrying a black-cased hangar, he found Abby peering behind the screen. “You work with wood?” she asked him.

  “Yeah, and I know it looks like hell in here, but as big as this monster lodge is, there wasn’t a single place where I could set up a shop. Working with wood is my way of relaxing.”

  “I don’t think it looks like hell—and it’d be nobody’s business if it did. Everybody needs some private space. I’ve seen my fill of antiseptic upwardly mobile decorating—nothing you can touch, nothing you can do, no place to let down your hair and just…be.” He could have listened to her leap to his defense for a couple more hours, but all too quickly she noticed the garment bag on his arm. “What are you carrying there?”

  “A tux.”

  “Uh-huh. And the pope believes in reincarnation.”

  “Honest, it’s a tux. And we’re going from here to your place—you’ve got some glad rags and high-heeled sneakers in that closet of yours, don’t you?”

  “Glad rags,” she echoed.

  “Yup. We’re going to need them for a boat ride.”

  “Glad rags. To go on a boat ride in the middle of winter.” She touched his arm, as if offering comfort to the demented. “You’re off your rocker, Cameron. All this time I thought you were a nice, sane, rational man—”

  “You don’t believe me?” Gar camped up an injured tone, which started her laughing. She was positive he wasn’t serious. Almost. There were nerves in that laughter, which suited him fine. Keeping Abby just a little off balance struck him as the best idea in town.

  Fair was fair. She’d unbalanced him from the minute they met.

  He swept her back out the door, thinking that it was time he solved the mystery of who she was, what she’d done, where she’d been, that she hid so deeply. She protested about her nonbusiness background louder and longer than Shakespeare’s Kate.

  It wasn’t Janet’s type of lying, Gar had told himself a dozen times. Abby wasn’t manipulative. She had nothing to gain, that he could perceive, from those incredibly inventive fibs she made up. But something in her life obviously troubled her enough to hide it

  There were ways to make that daffodil blonde come clean. Putting his arms around her was one. And throwing her off-kilter was another. Tonight he planned to do both.

  Trust took time, Gar knew well. But his heart was going on the line damn fast, and sinking even more damn deeply. And the relationship had no prayer of going anywhere unless she was willing to be honest with him.

  Abby had assumed he was teasing about the boat ride. Even when he took over her upstairs bathroom to change into a tux, she’d just thought he had a more formal dinner in mind. And possibly her feminist philosophies had taken a short vacation to Timbuktu, because she loved his teasing her, loved his playing the kidnapping pirate and feeling swept off her feet.

  As ruthlessly as he’d kidnapped her, though, Abby was coming to know him—and she should have suspected she had an unshakably ethical pirate on her hands. Gar had told her the truth about the boat ride.

  As the paddleboat left the dock, the blue-green waters of Lake Tahoe churned into a froth. The blustery skies had cleared, opening a view of snowy mountain peaks and forested slopes against a fast-dropping red sun. Paddleboats ran on Lake Tahoe year-round, Gar had told her, and he’d thought she’d love one of the sunset dinner-dance cruises.

  She more than loved it. The inside cabin gleamed with oak and brass, and a trio was already warming up on the stamp-size dance floor by the bar. Outside, it was colder than a well digger’s ankle, but the view was so breathtaking she didn’t want to go inside until they absolutely had to.

  “I’ve never seen a blue like this lake,” she told Gar.

  “You’d better be careful, or you might just fall in love with Tahoe and never be able to leave. She has a long history of capturing even the toughest hearts. Even now…if you want to start a fight in town, just bring up all the ecological problems with preserving the lake. The funny thing is, from the old-timers to the money-grubbing new developers—we’re all really playing the same tune. No one wants anything to happen that could harm the lake. We’re all willing to fight to protect it…Are you cold?”

  She was freezing, but the look of him tempted her to shiver far more than any external temperature. Gar was leaning over the railing, as she was. The look of him in jeans could give a woman’s hormones a rush. In a tux, he was a kissing cousin to downright dangerous. His shoulders stretched that tux jacket in a distinctly mean, lean, elegant way, and the contrast of those clear blue eyes and that shock of dark hair against his ruddy skin made it damn hard to look away from him.

  “If I’m a little chilly, it’s because you made me dress wrong, Cameron.” She motioned to the passengers in the inside cabin. Some of the women wore dinner dresses, but plenty of the cruisers were clearly fresh from the ski slopes. No one was attired formally except for them. When she realized he was serious about the tux, she’d gussied up, teamed a white satin blouse with a black satin skirt, twisted her hair up and conned her feet into volunteering to wear killer heels.

  “You like dressing up. I figured that out before, and I didn’t care what anyone else was wearing. You’re the only one I was having dinner with.”

  The wind was churling her hair, ruining the swept-up style. He chuckled as he reached out to steal the last of her hairpins. Her hair tumbled and whirled around his fingers. The look in his eyes was possessive, his touch as intimate and sleepy-tender as a caress.

  Nerves churned in her stomach. When she was with him, she had this unforgivably helpless feeling that nothing else mattered but this moment, this man, and how they were together. Yet the past twenty-four hours had itched on her conscience like a mosquito bite. She hadn’t forgotten acting like a panicked goose the night before.
She hadn’t forgotten Gar walking in on her and Robb, how he’d caught her exuberantly immersed in that business discussion. Everything she did seemed okay with him.

  But it wasn’t okay with her.

  “Gar?” When he cocked his head in question, she took a breath. “I owe you an apology for last night.”

  “What for?”

  “You know darn well what for.” She straightened the lapel on his tux. “I’m sorry. For freaking out on you.”

  His dark eyebrows arched. “You didn’t freak out on me. Your sister called. Interrupted the mood. And I don’t think of either of us anticipated things were going to zoom out of control quite that fast. You had a right to say no. No apology is required, Abby. You weren’t going to make either of us happy if you did something you didn’t want to.”

  “I did want to. I just felt…anxious. That we were rushing, had never even talked about things. I wasn’t prepared—”

  Again he tucked a wild, wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “I was. I had protection…but I can’t swear it was on my mind. And normally I’m a believer in getting those sticky, awkward questions out of the way long before they’re a problem. You have a right to know I haven’t been sexually involved with anyone recently.”

  “I haven’t, either. That’s why I didn’t have—or wasn’t on—any type of birth control.”

  “Abby?”

  “What?” There’d been a smile in his eyes. A shared discomfort at having to handle those sticky, awkward questions. A shared understanding that neither of them was the kind to duck a problem just because it was uncomfortable. But that smile in his eyes died suddenly, and his tone turned grave.

  “We’ve got to get you inside and out of the cold before you freeze to death. But I need to cover one more page in this book,” he said quietly. “Maybe it wouldn’t have crossed your mind, but it could have. I know I told you my ex-wife was involved with cocaine. She wasn’t using needles, but in this day and age—hell, knowing she was on drugs and messing with a drug crowd was enough. I had myself tested, and retested. I have a clean bill of health. In fact, if you have any doubts or worries, I could show you the lab results—”