To Take a Chance

by Rochelle Alers

  A slight gasp escaped her as another image joined hers in the mirror. Sheldon stood behind her, resplendent in formal dress. He wore a tailored tuxedo, white spread collar dress shirt and dark blue silk tie with an aplomb she hadn’t seen on many men. Close-cropped raven hair brushed off his forehead and fell in layered precision against his scalp. The heat from his body and the tantalizing smell of his aftershave made her heart beat a little too quickly.

  Sheldon placed one hand over the silk fabric artfully concealing her belly; the other circled her neck. His thumb caressed the skin over the nape of her neck as Renee’s gaze met his.

  His impassive expression did not reveal what he was feeling at that moment, what lay in his heart. He had deliberately avoided Renee because he’d found himself caught in a web of desire that held him captive. Each time he encountered her he was sucked into a force field, making him helpless and vulnerable. These were familiar emotions he had not wanted to experience again.

  Renee shivered as Sheldon’s forefinger toyed with the diamond stud in her right ear. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against his shoulder. The shiver became a noticeable shudder as he trailed kisses along the column of her neck.

  “You look incredibly beautiful, smell delicious and taste scrumptious,” he murmured against her velvety flesh.

  Renee drank in his strength. “If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late,” she said not too convincingly.

  “We won’t be late, princess,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear. “Thank you, darling.”

  She melted against his stronger body, her breath coming quickly. “For what, honey?” The endearment slipped out of its own accord.

  “For being you, Renee.” Sheldon’s hands went to her upper arms and he turned her in his embrace. His hands came up and he cradled her face. His gaze widened, the gray orbs missing nothing. “I never thought you’d be able to improve on perfection, but you have. I’m going to be the envy of every man tonight.” Her professionally coiffed hair and makeup highlighted her best features.

  Renee reached for his hands, pulling them down. “Is that why you asked me to go with you and paid for this dress? To show me off like one of your prize thoroughbreds?”

  A warning cloud settled into Sheldon’s features, his expression a mask of stone. “Is that what you think, Renee?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You don’t know, do you?”

  Her waxed eyebrows lifted. “Know what?”

  Without warning his expression changed, his eyes brimming with tenderness and passion. “I adore you.”

  Renee’s body stiffened in shock, complete surprise on her face. Sheldon had given her everything she wanted, but she never suspected deeper feelings would become a part of their plan. She wanted to tell Sheldon she adored and loved him, too, but his confession caused the words to wedge in her throat.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, recovering her voice.

  Inclining his head, Sheldon forced a smile, successfully concealing his disappointment. It was apparent she did not share his sentiment.

  Threads of doubt nagged at him. Was she still in love with her ex?

  “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Renee walked out of the chapel, her hand resting on Sheldon’s sleeve. She had given him several sidelong glances as the bride and groom exchanged vows, wondering whether he had relived the moment when he’d married his young bride; however, his solemn expression had not changed.

  Sheldon covered the small hand on his arm. Renee’s fingers were ice-cold. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Your hand feels cold.”

  “This is one time when I’m not cold.” The temperature inside the mansion was comfortably set for the expanse of bared skin in low-cut and backless gowns.

  The number of carats glittering from throats, wrists and ears of the other women present in the grand ballroom stunned Renee. The guests were Virginia’s aristocracy, with a few Washington senators and other politicians in attendance. The wedding was touted as the wedding of the year, linking heirs to two of the largest and the most profitable horse farms in the state.

  Sheldon found their table and seated her. Leaning down, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “What can I get you to drink?” Guests were quickly lining up at several bars set up around the ballroom.

  Renee opened her mouth to say milk, but changed her mind. “Sparkling water with a wedge of lime.”

  Sheldon chuckled softly, his gaze straying from her mouth to the swell of breasts rising and falling above her revealing décolletage. “Does this mean that I’m going to have to be the designated driver tonight?”

  “Hello again, Renee.” A familiar voice interrupted their interchange.

  Renee glanced over her shoulder. Kent Taylor leered at her chest, a lopsided grin on his face. His attention was temporarily averted when Sheldon grabbed his hand and shook it, while pounding his back.

  “When are you racing Kiss Me Kate again?”

  The high color in Kent’s face deepened. He still had not recovered from his horse coming in second at the International Gold Cup. “I don’t know.” He eased his fingers from Sheldon’s firm grip. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask your lady for a dance later on tonight.”

  Sheldon’s cold smile would’ve chilled most men, but Kent was too inebriated to notice. “I do mind.”

  Nonplussed, Kent blinked a few times, hoping he hadn’t heard what he thought he heard. Shrugging a shoulder, he turned and walked away.

  “He’s worse than a swarm of mosquitoes,” Sheldon mumbled under his breath.

  Renee’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re not going to growl at every man who asks to dance with me. I came here tonight to have a good time.”

  Sheldon hunkered down beside her chair, cradled the back of her head and pressed his mouth to hers. “And you will have a good time.”

  Her dimples winked at him. “You promise.”

  His smile matched hers. “I promise.”

  She did have a good time as she danced with Sheldon. A band whose repertoire included more than four decades of familiar tunes replaced a string quartet that played during the meal and many toasts.

  Excusing herself, Renee whispered to Sheldon that she was going to the ladies’ lounge. Making her way across the marble floor of the ballroom, she felt as if every eye was directed at her. Whenever Sheldon introduced her, he only offered her first name. Of course that made her more mysterious and others more curious.

  Fortunately, she did not have to wait on line in the opulent bath and powder room. In the stall, as she adjusted her dress, she heard someone mention her name.

  “Who is she?” came a soft drawling female voice.

  “I don’t know.” This feminine voice was lower, more dulcet than the other woman’s. “I thought you knew who she was. After all, you went to Sheldon’s pre-race party.”

  “I don’t remember her,” the first woman admitted in a hushed tone.

  “Where on earth do you think Sheldon picked her up?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he joined some dating service, or he could’ve picked her up in one of those so-called gentlemen’s clubs. You can find anything there.”

  “What do you mean anything?”

  “Women who dance topless and swing around poles.”

  “Are you saying she’s a whore?”

  “She doesn’t really look like a whore. But, one can never tell nowadays.”

  “The cut of her dress is a little deceiving, but I think she’s in the family way.”

  “Bite your tongue, Valerie Marie Winston. I can’t imagine Sheldon waiting until he’s a grandfather to start making babies again.”

  “Bite your own tongue, Susanna Caroline Sullivan. You see what she looks like. The good Lord was certainly smiling on her when He handed out bosoms.”

  Renee could not move. If she left the stall, then the women would know she
was eavesdropping on their conversation. But she also did not intend to hide behind the door indefinitely.

  “No one has seen Sheldon with a woman since Julia died. Maybe he was having a problem with you-know-what,” Valerie continued.

  “Where have you been?” Susanna chided. “There are drugs for men with that kind of problem.”

  Renee had heard enough. Sliding back the lock, she left the stall. The shocked expression on the women’s faces was priceless. It was impossible to tell their ages. They were the surgically altered women Sheldon had mentioned: perfect noses, collagen-enhanced lips, facelifts and expertly dyed ash-blond hair.

  Smiling, she washed her hands and accepted a towel from the bathroom attendant. It was apparent Valerie and Susanna thought the woman so insignificant they could gossip in her presence. Opening her evening purse, she left a bill in the plate on the countertop before she faced the elegantly dressed women who had taken a sudden interest in powdering their noses.

  Renee cradled her breasts, her gaze meeting and fusing with wide-eyed stares in the mirror. “Yes, these are mine. And to set the record straight, Sheldon Blackstone doesn’t have that particular problem.”

  Head held high, back ramrod-straight, Renee strutted out of the rest room, staring down anyone whose gaze lingered longer than was sociably polite.

  She found Sheldon sitting with several men as she neared their table. Vertical lines appeared between his eyes when he saw her tight-lipped expression. He stood up, the other men following suit.

  Rounding the table, Sheldon cupped Renee’s elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  “I want to leave,” she whispered.

  “Now?”

  Renee had clenched her teeth so tightly that her jaw ached. “Yes, Sheldon. Now.”

  Sheldon saw something in Renee’s eyes that had never been there before, and he wondered what had set her off. He nodded to the other men. “Gentlemen. We’ll continue our conversation another time.”

  “Give me a call next week, Blackstone, so we can get together.”

  “Will do,” Sheldon said to a tall, lanky man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln.

  He led Renee out of the ballroom and retrieved her jacket from the cloakroom. They waited, staring at each other in silence while a valet brought his car around.

  * * *

  Five minutes into the return drive to the farm, Sheldon broke the swollen silence. “What’s the matter, Renee?” She told him everything, including the full names of the two women who had indirectly called her a whore.

  “If this is a taste of what I’m going to have to confront every time we go out together, then I want out of our agreement. They know nothing about me, yet they have the audacity to call me a whore.”

  Signaling, Sheldon maneuvered the car to the shoulder of the road and stopped. He shifted into park. His eyes glittered like particles of diamond dust in the diffused light of the dashboard. “You know who you are, and I know who—”

  “You know nothing about me,” Renee countered, cutting him off. “You’ve slept with me, Sheldon, yet you know nothing about me.” She willed the tears filling her eyes not to fall.

  His eyes widened. “Is what you’ve told me about yourself a lie?” he asked in a dangerously soft voice.

  Averting her head, she stared out the windshield. The rapid pumping of her heart echoed in her ears, the roaring sound deafening. “When you introduced me to your high-born friends why didn’t you give my full name? I’m not on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. I’m also not one of those women who make their living as Amber or Bambi for 1-900-talk-dirty-to-me.”

  Sheldon shook his head. “It’s not like that, darling.”

  “Oh, really? Let me tell you what it’s like. I’m not going out with you again.”

  Sheldon gave Renee a long, penetrating stare. She did not understand, couldn’t understand her impact on those who’d met her. The men were awed by her lush beauty, the women envious because she claimed what most of them hadn’t had in a long time—natural beauty. He would not refute her accusations. Not now. Not when she was so visibly upset. He shifted into gear, then rejoined the flow of traffic.

  He didn’t know whether Renee had lied to him about her ex, but he was certain of one thing: he hadn’t been entirely forthcoming when he admitted adoring her. The truth was that he had fallen in love with her. It was only the second time in his life that he’d found himself in love with a woman.

  * * *

  Renee sat at the workstation, staring out the window instead of printing an inventory schedule. She hadn’t been able to concentrate for days. Her confrontation with Sheldon had caused a shift in her emotional equilibrium.

  They’d returned home Saturday night, climbed the staircase and gone to bed—alone. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in days, and it was over breakfast she overheard Ryan tell Jeremy that they would have to wait for Sheldon to return from his mountain retreat.

  He had gone without her, and his promise to teach her to fish had been an empty one.

  She felt a familiar flutter, closed her eyes and smiled. Her expanding waistline, viewing sonogram pictures and listening to the rapidly beating heartbeat with Doppler had all become insignificant since the first time she felt her baby move.

  “Renee.”

  She swiveled on her chair. Jeremy stood in the doorway. He had come for his report. “Please come in. I just have to print out the schedule for you.”

  Jeremy sat in a chair near a desk, draping one leg over the opposite knee and studied Renee from under lowered lids. She’d changed since coming to the farm, and it wasn’t only the changes in her body. She had become less reclusive, more open with the other farm residents.

  He’d told himself to mind his own business; what went on between Sheldon and Renee was of no concern of his. The responsibility of running the horse farm, being a husband and impending fatherhood left little time for him to indulge in gossip.

  Leaning forward, Jeremy studied the printed list Renee had tacked to a corkboard. It was a schedule of tasks and projected dates for completion. So far, it appeared as if she was ahead of schedule.

  While Renee waited for the printer to complete printing more than thirty sheets, her cell phone rang. The sound startled her. It wasn’t often her phone rang, and if it did it was usually her mother, brother or sister-in-law.

  Reaching for the tiny instrument, she pushed the talk button. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Rennie.”

  She smiled. It was her brother. “Hey, yourself. What’s up, Teddy?”

  There was a pause before Edward Wilson’s voice came through the earpiece. “This is not a social call, Rennie.”

  Knees shaking, she sank down to her chair and closed her eyes. “Is it Mama?” She had just spoken to her mother the week before.

  “No,” came his quick reply. “It’s about Donald.”

  Renee sat up straighter, opened her eyes. “What about him?”

  “He called here looking for you. He said he just got a divorce and he wants to marry you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him that I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Thanks, Teddy.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Rennie. He says he knows you always spend Thanksgiving with us, so he plans to stop by to see if he can run into you.”

  “I can’t come, Teddy. If he sees me then he’ll know that I’m carrying his baby.” Her voice had lowered when a pair of smoky gray eyes studied her.

  “Then, don’t come. Let me handle Mr. Rush. If he decides to get funky with me, then I’ll just have to lock him up. I’ll come up with a charge after I cuff the lying bastard.”

  Renee smiled. Her brother, a Kentucky state trooper, flew into a rage after she’d told him of Donald’s duplicity.

  “I’m going to miss you guys.”

  “We’ll miss you, too. Let’s plan to get together for Christmas. I have a lot of time coming to me, so we’ll come to Virginia. The kids have been buggi
ng me about visiting Williamsburg.”

  “I would like to see it, too.”

  “Then that does it. We’ll come by and pick you up Friday afternoon, and bring you back Monday night.”

  “Okay, Teddy.”

  “I’ll call and let you know if the clown shows up here.”

  Renee pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “Please be careful. I’ve seen Donald lose his temper a few times and he was unbelievably rude.”

  “Don’t worry about me. You just stay put.”

  “Okay. Love you, Teddy.”

  “Love you back, Rennie.”

  Renee ended the call, gathering the pages from the printer. She stapled and handed them to Jeremy, mindful her hands were shaking.

  Jeremy took the papers without dropping his gaze. “Do you want to get together when you’re feeling better?”

  “I’m all right,” she said a little too quickly.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “I’ll be okay in a few minutes.” She made her way over to her chair and sat down. Meeting her boss’s questioning gaze, Renee drew in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “The first page is an analysis covering the past three years.”

  Jeremy half listened to what Renee was saying, his mind recalling her telephone conversation. He knew Teddy was her brother, because when he’d called the Louisville area code and exchange, Teddy Wilson had answered the call, telling him he would give his sister the message.

  He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop on her conversation, but once she said, “If he sees me then he’ll know that I’m carrying his baby,” all of his senses were on full alert. It was obvious Renee did not want the father of her baby to know her whereabouts.

  There came a light knock against the door frame. “I’m sorry for interrupting.” Jeremy and Renee turned to find Sheldon’s broad shoulders filling out the doorway. He nodded to her. “Good afternoon.”

  Renee hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Sheldon until now. She missed his drawling voice, deep sensual laugh and most of all the warmth of his embrace. She had come to depend on him more than she’d wanted to.