Love Is Elected

by Alyssa Howard

  "Gee, Kara," her former roommate exclaimed. "It will be good to have you back for a while, even for a few days. But I've been roped into working overtime, so don't expect me until seven or so."

  "Oh, that's all right," Kara reassured her, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "We'll talk this evening."

  Feeling somewhat at loose ends, Kara fixed herself a cup of tea, took off her shoes and lay down on the sofa to relax. Before she knew it, she had dozed off into an exhausted but fitful sleep. Her uncle's illness had taken a heavy toll on her reserves of energy. And the upsetting scene with Vera at the hospital had left her as limp as a wilted flower. Her emotions about Matt had never been more confused. And sleep was a welcome refuge.

  She could have slept for hours there on the sofa. But after only thirty minutes, Kara was pulled back to dazed consciousness by a persistent rapping at the front door. Shaking her sleep fogged head to try and clear it, she pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. Who could it be? she wondered, swaying across the room toward the noise.

  In her half-awake state, she neglected to put on the security chain. Before she knew what was happening, Wayne Lyle had stepped into the room.

  "What, what do you want?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Aren't you glad I'm here?" he inquired, his most charming smile plastered across his smoothly handsome face. "I was in the neighborhood and saw your car, so I thought I'd stop by."

  "But I don't want to see you," Kara blurted. "I thought I made that perfectly clear at my wedding reception."

  Wayne's expression became more serious. "You don't have to pretend anymore with me, Kara," he began. "I know all about your marriage of convenience. In fact, Vera and I have talked it over. It sounds as if you need a good lawyer, and I'm here to offer my services."

  Kara's eyes narrowed. She hadn't even been aware that the two of them were acquainted. "How do you know Vera, and what business do you have talking to her about my marriage?" she challenged.

  "Actually, we met at your lovely wedding reception," he explained, grinning broadly at her obvious surprise. "And we quickly found out that we had your and Matt's best interests at heart. Or I might rephrase that," he added meaningfully. "I'm interested in you, and Vera is interested in Matt."

  Kara's face clouded. "You're presuming an awful lot, aren't you?" she asserted heatedly. "My relationship with Matt is no concern of yours or Vera's. But that's beside the point. I told you that I didn't want to see you again. And I meant it—under any conditions." She gazed at him levelly, intent on making her meaning absolutely clear.

  The sandy-haired lawyer took a step forward. "You used to love me," he insisted, searching her uncompromising face intently. "I know you did. Everything was all right between us until you got involved with that posturing politician."

  Kara found that she had involuntarily taken a step backward. In her heart she knew that her relationship with him had been over before she had met Matt—even before Wayne had announced his affair with Gloria Ferguson. But there was nothing to be gained by bringing that incident up again, she reasoned. So she chose her words carefully. "No, you're wrong, Wayne," she corrected. "I might have been infatuated with you once. But now that I know what real love is, I can see the difference. I met you at a time in my life when I was vulnerable, when I needed affection. But things never could have worked out between us. We're just too different." Her violet eyes met his, pleading for him to understand. But neither her words nor her unspoken message seemed to be having the desired effect.

  "You used to respond to my kisses," Wayne maintained stubbornly. "Let me prove to you that you will again." There was something in the young lawyer's eyes now that frightened Kara. Before his attitude had been conciliatory, almost pleading. Now there was a look of determination on his set features.

  Kara shook her head and took another step backward. "Please leave, Wayne," she begged. "Please leave before you do something we'll both be sorry for."

  But her words fell like stones against a brick wall. Paying no attention to her protest, Wayne closed the distance between them in a few strides and pulled her into his arms. As his lips descended on hers, she felt none of the excitement that Matt's lovemaking had aroused. And when Wayne tried to deepen the kiss, the feeling turned to one of revulsion. Desperately, Kara tried to turn her face to the side. And at the same time, she began to push against his chest.

  She was so intent upon ending the embrace that she failed to hear the still unlocked front door open.

  The next thing she knew Wayne's arms had been pulled roughly away from her body. And in a shocked blur she saw Matt knock the lawyer to the floor.

  "I thought I told you to stay away from my wife," he rasped at the white-faced young man now sprawled in a daze on the rug.

  The next thing Kara knew, Wayne had scrambled to his feet and made for the door.

  "Oh, Matt, thank goodness you've come," Kara exclaimed. "I couldn't make him go away." But her relief at being rescued was cut short by the look of cold fury on her husband's face.

  "It didn't look that way to me," he contradicted. "You didn't want me last night, but you couldn't wait to get down here to your old lover. When I got your note at the hospital, I knew this was where you would be."

  "That isn't the way it was at all," Kara began, desperately smoothing her hair, her cheeks scarlet as her husband took in her disheveled appearance. But Matt gave her no chance to complete her protestation of innocence.

  Reaching out and pulling her up against his taut body, he stared down into her flushed face, his features alive with emotion. Trembling, Kara caught the savage wildness in his eyes and tried to draw back. But his strong arms held her fast. She could feel his muscular thighs pressed hard against hers. And a tingling heat began to spread through her veins.

  "Kara, you're driving me crazy," Matt murmured, pressing his lips against her hair. "I don't know what to expect of you from one moment to the next. But I know one thing, I'm going to make you forget about that two-bit lawyer."

  Possessively, Matt began a deliberate attack on her senses. His lips trailed a path of fire across her cheek before settling warmly over her own. His hands slid down her back, molding the contour of her soft hips to his hard form. She could feel her body trembling in his arms. And when he cupped the fullness of her breasts, a soft moan escaped from her parted lips.

  But despite her arousal, Kara struggled to resist him, trying to remember what the red-haired reporter had said only hours before. And then there were Matt's own actions. He had exploited her feelings for him in the past. Was he doing that now? But her body ignored the logic of her mind. It was impossible to resist him when she loved him so much. Without conscious thought, her arms slid around his neck, her fingers twining in the dark thickness of his hair.

  With one hand, Matt reached down to the backs of Kara's legs, gently forcing them to bend. Then she felt herself being lowered to the red and blue oriental rug under their feet. In the next moment she felt the weight of Matt's body pressing urgently down on top of hers.

  "Kara," Matt murmured. And his voice sent a wave of sensual anticipation to the core of her being. Sharp needles of desire pierced her. She felt Matt's fingers on the buttons of her blouse. In a moment he had removed the unwanted garment and unhooked the fastening at the front of her bra. His head bent to the soft mounds of her breasts, and his lips teased and caressed their sensitive peaks to aching tautness. She felt his hand trace the curve of her hip. And his lips were traveling upward to the warm hollow at the base of her neck, exploring her throat and shoulders in slow seductive movements. Kara could hold nothing back in response. His hands and lips were melting all her inhibitions to a molten desire. With tender passion, she helped Matt out of his clothing, marveling at the sensuous feel of his bare skin against her hands, feeling the powerful ripple of his muscles. And when he took possession of her, she cried out at the all-consuming pleasure of their joining. It was as if she and Matt were being swept along on a powerful wave of passio
n that rolled and swelled and finally spent itself in ecstasy on some hidden beach known only to them.

  Kara was overwhelmed with the intensity of her fulfillment.

  "Oh, Matt, Matt, I love you," she whispered, pressing her cheek against his. But when she drew back to gaze into his face, Kara was brought up in sharp surprise. His eyes were dark with an expression she couldn't interpret.

  "You can't really care about our marriage, or you wouldn't have come down here to Wayne," he forced out hoarsely. "I know I can make you respond physically. But I refuse to be a substitute for another man."

  Kara's throat closed and she stared at him with horror, not knowing what to say. After the loving passion of her response, how could he believe such a thing? He must not have any real feeling for her, she thought brokenly.

  In the next moment he had rolled away from her and begun to put on his clothes.

  "No, Matt. Wait," she begged, thrusting her pride aside. "What we shared together, couldn't you tell it was something special—something I couldn't share with any other man?"

  But he turned his head away, his face a hard mask as he pulled on his slacks. He had convicted her on circumstantial evidence. And she saw that he would not reverse his decision. Obviously he was seizing on the incident as an excuse to divorce her and marry Vera. He had cast her away with the ease of a broken campaign promise. When he left the apartment a few minutes later, he closed the door with a force that made the walls reverberate.

  Sobbing, Kara struggled to her feet. She felt that she was standing on the edge of a precipice with the ground slipping out from under her.

  "Oh, Matt, how could it have ended this way?" she cried to the empty room.

  When he had slammed the door shut without another word, she knew he had slammed it shut on their marriage.

  Kara looked wildly around the apartment. The tiny but elegantly furnished room that she had once loved was now a scene of emotional disaster for her. She couldn't bear to stay there any longer. Grief-stricken, she fled to the bedroom where some of her clothes still hung in the closet. Still sobbing, she pulled on a serviceable pair of slacks and an old blouse.

  "I've got to get out of here," she murmured in desperation. "But where can I go?" Sinking down on the bed and cradling her forehead in her clenched hands, she tried to think clearly. She couldn't go to Uncle James's cabin. Too many memories of Matt waited there. Nor could she go to Matt's town house. That was impossible now.

  Too distraught to make a rational decision, she abandoned the effort. "I just know I can't stay here any longer," she said aloud, wiping fresh tears from her cheeks.

  Uncertain of her destination but determined to leave, Kara scribbled a hasty note to Jill, telling her not to worry. Then she snatched up her purse and headed out of the apartment. Once in her car she began to drive aimlessly, letting herself be swept along out of the city by the flow of rush-hour traffic. On the radio an announcer was talking about the imminent primary election. When she heard Matt's name mentioned, she hurriedly snapped it off.

  She drove on in silence. And though she had no fixed destination in mind, an hour later she found herself on Route 97 heading north. She was only five miles from Windy Willow Farm.

  Do I really want to go there? she asked herself. But then the warm, comforting face of Elizabeth Jordan surfaced in her mind.

  She realized then that she desperately needed to turn to someone. And she had felt so at ease with this old friend of her own mother. Mrs. Jordan might be her mother-in-law, but she really seemed to care about Kara for herself, not just as her son's wife.

  It was good to be able to make some sort of decision. Ten minutes later she was heading up the curving drive to the now familiar stone house.

  But after she had knocked on the door and stood waiting for someone to answer, a sudden panic gripped her. How could she explain any of this to Matt's mother?

  Chapter Twelve

  It was Mrs. Jordan herself who answered the door. And when she saw Kara's tear-streaked cheeks, she wrapped her arm protectively around the younger woman.

  The gesture of compassion was more than Kara could bear. The floodgates of her emotional turmoil opened and she collapsed in tears on Mrs. Jordan's sympathetic shoulder.

  "What is it? What's happened?" the older woman questioned anxiously.

  But Kara could only shake her head, while she tried vainly to control her sobbing. Mrs. Jordan drew her into the family room, sat her down on the couch and waited for her emotional storm to subside.

  When Kara was finally able to speak, she looked at her mother-in-law through tear-reddened eyes.

  "I know it's all over between Matt and me," she choked out. "I know for certain now that he doesn't love me."

  Mrs. Jordan's blue eyes were full of concern. "Oh, Kara, I think you're mistaken. Would you like to tell me what happened," she continued in a gentle voice.

  Kara shook her head. "Oh no. I just can't."

  Wisely, the older woman didn't press her.

  "Why don't you go upstairs and take a hot bath? And when you come out, I'll have a tray sent up to your room. Maybe you'll feel more like talking in the morning."

  A hot bath. It sounded wonderful. She was halfway up the stairs when another thought entered her mind.

  "Please, if Matt calls, don't tell him I'm here," she begged Mrs. Jordan.

  The older woman hesitated. "But he might be worried about you."

  Kara looked doubtful.

  "All right, my dear, I'll respect your wishes for tonight."

  Gratefully, Kara climbed the remaining steps and headed for the guest bedroom. Mrs. Jordan's voice floated after her. "Since you don't have any luggage, I'll leave a nightgown and robe in the guest room."

  Alone at last in the bathroom, Kara began to run steamy water into the tub. Automatically she reached for a bottle of bath oil and poured it into the churning water. As the scent of peach blossoms rose to her nostrils, she remembered the similar bottle in Matt's apartment. Could it have been left there by his mother? But she didn't want to think of Matt just now.

  Stripping off her clothes, she climbed into the tub and sank down into the warm, scented water, letting it wrap her unhappy thoughts in an obscuring cloud of mist. She couldn't bear to think of what had happened. She wanted only to forget.

  After her bath, she had a cup of soup and nibbled dutifully at the roast beef sandwich Mrs. Jordan sent her. But she soon set the tray aside and lay back against the soft pillows on the bed. Overcome by exhaustion it was only a few minutes before she had drifted off into a deep sleep.

  Over the next few days, Mrs. Jordan was able to draw out some of the story that had brought Kara in such distress to Windy Willow Farm. She confided her doubts about Matt's love, her jealousy of Vera Caldwell, the cruel rebuff she had received from Frank Adams, and her feelings of inadequacy at being able to handle the job of a politician's wife. The stormy sexual encounters she kept to herself, not knowing what to say to Matt's mother about such intimate details of their marriage.

  Tuesday was primary election day, and Kara stayed in bed late trying to avoid thinking about Matt. But when she finally came downstairs, a radio news broadcast describing voter turnout assailed her ears.

  "I can see the election news distresses you," Mrs. Jordan said, setting down the cup of coffee she was drinking. Kara nodded weakly.

  "You must realize that this primary is one of the most important days in Matt's life," the older woman continued. "His political future is at stake. It could be your future, too," Mrs. Jordan said pointedly.

  Kara looked startled. For the past few days her mother-in-law had been so comforting. But now her tone was firm.

  "This is the time when Matt most needs you to stand by him. If you fail him now, how will you feel about yourself? After all, if you're honest, you'll admit that you do love him, regardless of your differences."

  "But he doesn't love me," Kara objected. "And I can't take his rejection another time. He probably prefers Vera at his s
ide now anyway."

  "Is that what you really want?"

  "Of course not," Kara admitted, realizing how true her statement was. She hated the thought of that redhead hanging on his arm. The idea made her sick.

  "I never thought the daughter of Catherine Hilton Barnett would be a coward."

  Kara blanched. "I'm not a coward!" she insisted.

  "Then why are you admitting defeat without putting up a good fight?" Mrs. Jordan countered sternly.

  "I… I don't know. I don't want to talk about it. I feel so confused. Let me think." Fleeing back to her room, Kara got dressed in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. Maybe the cool spring air outside would help clear away the fog of confusion that was clouding her mind.

  She took a path that led away from the barn toward a small stream she could see in the distance. Its verge was snowy with massed bushes of blooming wild blackberries. As she absentmindedly plucked one of the blossoms and twirled it between her fingers, Mrs. Jordan's words echoed in her mind.

  "A coward," she had called her. "A woman who was willing to admit defeat without putting up a good fight." Maybe Mrs. Jordan was right. Maybe she was letting Vera win by default. She had faced Matt's rejection before. Maybe now she had to be brave enough to face it one more time—in order to win her husband back. She knew that she loved him and could never be happy with anyone else. Wasn't it worth any risk to make their marriage work?

  Kara stopped in mid-stride, realizing she had made a decision. Resolutely she turned and hurried back to the house. Mrs. Jordan was still sitting at the dining room table and smiled when she saw the expression on Kara's face.

  "You're right," her daughter-in-law announced. "Matt is worth fighting for. I'm going back to our town house now and I'll be by his side tonight when the election returns come in."

  "I'm proud of you," Mrs. Jordan beamed. "I always knew you were a fighter. I only said those harsh words to make you realize it yourself."