Expecting the Best (Harlequin Superromance)

by Lynnette Kent

  A huge circular window at the end of the hall showed them the city in the distance, a fairyland of light and color. Beside that window, the man ahead of her unlocked a door and stepped inside. “I hope you’ll be comfortable.” A lamp turned on as Shelley entered, and then another.

  She turned in time to see Zach pocket the room key. The innkeeper looked around, and then smiled as he backed toward the door. “Dinner is served until nine. Would you like to join us?”

  When Zach glanced her way, Shelley nodded. “Food would be a good idea.”

  “Excellent. I’ll prepare your table.”

  Their meal was more than quiet. Shelley ate because she knew she should, though she didn’t really taste anything. Other guests sat at the tables around them, their faces lit by candlelight, their voices a smooth hum under classical music and the clink of dinnerware. She and Zach were the only ones not talking.

  They left the dining room after dessert, arrived back at the end of the hallway without a word. Zach opened the door, then closed it behind him.

  Now it was just the two of them. Shelley walked to the window. Her husband—her husband—came up behind her and took hold of her shoulders. “Feel better?”

  She nodded. The quiet around them had weight, exerted pressure. Breathing normally had become a challenge.

  “You didn’t get to finish your nap. Why don’t you lie down?”

  Shelley glanced at the one bed, then moved beyond his reach. “That’s…that’s a good idea.” She slipped off her shoes and sat on the gray-and-silver-striped spread. But lying down was impossible. She couldn’t relax with Zach standing there watching her.

  “Or better yet…” He glanced toward the door, then put his hands in his pockets again. “You get changed, really comfortable, and crawl under the covers. You must be beat.” When she hesitated, his face closed and his mouth tightened. “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d go back to the lounge for a drink.”

  Relief and despair swept through her in equal measure. “No, I don’t mind at all. I—I’ll be here when you get back.”

  “Sure.” Zach paused, watching her, then pivoted quickly and let himself out. The door closed with a firm thud.

  Alone. On her wedding night. Shelley put her head in her hands. Even she and Dex had done better than this. What was Zach thinking? Were those wonderful kisses at the wedding…that glorious sense of rightness she’d felt waking up in the cab…only pretend?

  Sleep was the only obvious solution to this disaster. If she slept, she wouldn’t hurt so much. Change clothes, she ordered herself. Crawl into bed. Escape.

  Just as she stood up, Zach stalked back into the room. The door slammed shut. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until we get things settled.”

  Now she couldn’t breathe at all. “What are you talking about? Settle what?”

  “This,” he said, rounding the bed. Before she understood what he intended, before she could move, he plunged his fingers into her hair and took her mouth in a desperate, devastating kiss.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  INSTANT SECOND THOUGHTS…

  Zach drew back almost immediately. “Shelley, I’m sorry.” He pressed his mouth against her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Her small hands curled around his wrists. “You don’t have to apologize. I understand.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. Really. I don’t expect anything else.”

  “You should have time to…” Zach let his words die away as the echoes of what they’d been saying at each other caught up to him. He lifted his head to look down at the woman he held, her flushed face, her evasive eyes. “You don’t expect anything else? Than what, exactly?”

  Shelley released his wrists and tried to step away, but he didn’t budge, which kept her between his body and the side of the bed. “I—I—” She took a deep breath, staring at his tie. “We’ve done this for…for the baby. We don’t have to pretend there’s anything more.”

  “Anything more.” Pain flashed through him like a headache, followed quickly by a laugh. “That’s good. I don’t like pretending.”

  “Well, then—”

  “Shelley, I’m not pretending if I touch you…like this.” He rubbed his knuckles over the angle of her jaw, to the point of her chin, savoring soft skin and her very personal perfume. “Or this.” With his other hand, he pushed the hair back from her face, letting his fingertips drift across the sensitive shell of her ear.

  “Zach…” She looked up at him, anxiety and hope gathering in her gaze, along with desire.

  “And you can believe me when I tell you you’re beautiful.” Using both hands, he lifted the gold chain she wore over her head, let it puddle gently on the table beside them. “That I’ve never looked at you without wanting you.” He kissed her temples, her closed eyelids, her cheekbones, her chin. Just being this close to her set up an earthquake inside of him. “That there hasn’t been a night in the last seven months when I didn’t wake up thinking about you.”

  Shelley’s lips trembled as he kissed her again, and again. He swept his hands down her back, pulling her close. The fit was different, with a baby between them. But the sigh she gave, as her arms circled his shoulders, was the one he remembered.

  “Zach…” He tasted his name on her breath. His belly tightened as her hands slipped inside his shirt and she responded with all the passion he’d prayed for, all the intensity he remembered. Relieved beyond words, Zach made love to his wife through the dark desert night.

  Sometime during those hours, a wall inside him cracked, then crumbled. A surge of emotions—desperate needs he’d never let himself think about—poured into his soul. He couldn’t sort them out or understand their message, except that somehow the woman sleeping in his arms was the key to them all.

  Satisfied with the moment, content with his conclusion, Zach tightened his arms around his wife and allowed himself to drop into sleep.

  SHELLEY OPENED her eyes. After a few seconds, the scene framed by the window began to make sense—the desert, washed with lavender morning light.

  She was in Las Vegas. Married to Zach Harmon.

  Really married.

  She tried to move and realized Zach still held her close against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. At the same instant the baby kicked, with enough strength to make her gasp.

  Zach’s sleepy voice said, “Was that what I think it was?”

  Her stomach was pressed close into his ribs. “Um, yes.” Shelley scooted away as he loosened his arm.

  But he turned onto his side facing her, his head propped on one hand. “Pretty strong, for a baby. Can I feel?”

  She gazed at him, wondering. He looked so relaxed, so satisfied. As if this were the most normal marriage in the world. “If you want to.”

  His left hand slipped under the sheet, then under the camisole she wore to spread over her skin. Details of their night flashed through Shelley’s head, making her blush. Making her want to start all over again. Making her aware that she was practically naked.

  The baby obliged its dad with another powerful punch. “Cool.” Zach looked up again. “I haven’t felt that since before Carol was born. Suddenly you know there’s a person inside there.”

  “A very active person,” Shelley said, wondering where this conversation would lead. Zach hadn’t lifted his hand. The baby continued with morning stretches, and Zach lay there, his eyes focused inward as their baby moved. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She only knew that after another minute of his skin against hers, she would give in to her need for him, let herself reach for his smooth chest and supple shoulders. They were married, after all, and she wanted him.

  No, it was more than that, she realized suddenly. A shaft of light from the window struck his face, and by its radiance she saw the truth. Simply, purely…painfully… she loved Zach Harmon as she’d never loved anyone else.

  The baby chose that moment to dance a jig on her full bladder. “Excuse me,”
Shelley murmured, sliding awkwardly to the side of the bed. Sitting up took time, and her face warmed as she thought of Zach watching her, then grew even hotter. All she wore was the camisole. She couldn’t possibly parade across the room in a short piece of flimsy material that didn’t reach her hips.

  But when she looked over her shoulder, Zach had grabbed her pillow and pulled it over his face. “Wake me about noon,” he mumbled.

  How, in just a few seconds, could she come to love him even more? “What time is our flight?”

  “Nine-thirty.”

  She ached to touch him. To forget about going home. “Noon might be a little late.”

  “Okay. Eleven forty-five.” The noisy snores he faked followed her into the bathroom and left her chuckling.

  She took her time in the shower, with her hair, getting dressed.

  When she finally came out, he had fallen asleep for real. “Zach, it’s eight o’clock.” She shook his shoulder, cherishing the warm skin under her hand. “You need to wake up.”

  “Mmm. Yeah.” He breathed deeply and rolled over. His heavy lids lifted. Her heart skittered when he smiled.

  “You look good,” he growled. “All the way down to the skin.” With a huge stretch, he threw the sheets, blanket and coverlet to the foot of the bed, then followed them with a quick, athletic move that set him on his feet. She got a great view of his excellent backside just before he disappeared into the bathroom.

  Shelley sank onto the bed, put her palm in the hollow of the pillow where Zach had buried his head, then closed her eyes. This seemed to be her fate, marriage to a handsome, sexy, incredibly compelling man who didn’t—couldn’t possibly—love her.

  Without love, her marriage to Dex had ended in rage and recriminations on both sides. Only now, after six years, were those wounds beginning to heal.

  She wasn’t sure she would ever recover from Zach. As long as they stayed together, she would have to bear the knowledge he’d only married her out of duty. She didn’t think he would leave her. His sense of honor was too strong.

  But what would happen if—when—he found a woman he could truly love? How would Shelley let him go? How could she allow him to stay?

  Why hadn’t she just gone home alone that night in March?

  Zach came out of the bathroom, whistling. “Perfect timing. We’ve got an hour to get to the airport. We can get some breakfast there. Are you ready?”

  “Sure.” She gathered up her belongings in a sort of numbness, only half hearing his cheerful commentary.

  “We’ll be back at Stapleton by eleven. We’ve got the two cars, so I guess I’ll go home and you can go to your place, pack up some clothes and stuff and come back down. But wait…” She looked up, caught his grin as he turned suddenly to face her. “You don’t know where my house is, do you?”

  Shelley concentrated on his question. “No…no, I don’t. I guess I’ll drive home and you can go to your place, get a few clothes and then come up.”

  The grin faded. He was quiet for a minute, playing with the zipper pull on his shaving kit. “I thought you would come to live in my house.”

  “Oh.” She caught her breath. “But I have more room.”

  “You’re a long way out of the city. I need to be close to my mom and the job.”

  “I work downtown, too, remember? The drive is easy, even in bad weather.” Except for blizzards, of course.

  Zach kept his gaze on the zipper on his bag. “Okay, to be honest…” He looked up, his eyes somber. “I’m not crazy about the idea of living in a house Dex Hightower built.”

  Because of Claire? Shelley took a deep breath against a surge of panic. “We don’t have to do that forever. We can start out at my house, then find a place closer to town that we choose together.” She tried a smile. “How’s that?”

  No smile came back. “Why not start out in my house?”

  “Because it’s too small.”

  He cast an exasperated glance at the ceiling. “Thousands of people live their whole lives in a house that size. I’m in a good neighborhood for kids—and we’re doing what’s best for the child, right?”

  “My neighborhood is good for kids. We have one of the best public schools in the area. Not to mention a low crime rate and lower pollution than the city.” Shelley noticed she was breathing as if she’d run the bases twice, and tried to calm down. “I worked hard for what I have now. I’m not happy about giving up my life.”

  Zach sliced through her objection with the side of his hand. “I’m giving up my life, too, Shelley. Getting married was not part of my plans.”

  “Yes, I know.” And wasn’t that the real point? She just hadn’t expected things to fall apart so soon. “I tried very hard to keep from changing those plans. It’s not my fault you wouldn’t listen.”

  “You’re the one who wouldn’t listen!” With a quick turn, he paced to the door and back again. “If you’d said yes a couple of months ago, we could have gotten married at home, with our friends and family around, and taken our time to decide on where to live.” He shook his head. “God only knows how I’m going to tell my family about this.”

  As she should have expected—he was ashamed of what they’d done.

  Every feeling inside of her shut down. “Don’t tell them anything.” Shelley jerked the zipper on her own bag closed. “This has clearly been a mistake from beginning to end. You got what you wanted—we’re married. Your child has a dad. And we can work out some kind of custody arrangement. I know really good lawyers.” The laugh she attempted sounded like a sob. “This way, I live in my house, you live in your house, and your family never even needs to know what happened. See you later.”

  She tried to brush by him, but he caught her arm with a strength she couldn’t fight. “Shelley, you know that won’t work. Don’t walk out of here. We’ll get this settled.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it is settled.” Looking up, she focused on preserving her pride. “I won’t even expect you to be faithful, since it’s not a real marriage. Just think, Zach. You can have all the women you want, without strings, because you’re already married!”

  His eyes went gray with anger. “That’s a stupid idea.”

  “Well, give yourself some time. Maybe it’ll grow on you.” She looked pointedly down at his hand on her arm, until he released her. “Goodbye. Please don’t call me anymore.” The click of the door closing behind her seemed very, very final.

  The same cab they’d used last night arrived within minutes of the manager’s call. When the driver got into the front seat, he looked over his shoulder. “We waiting for the mister?”

  “No.” Shelley risked a glance up at the house. Zach stood in the doorway, still as a column. Her vision blurred with tears. “No. Please, just leave. Now.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  WORKING WITH about half his brain, Zach got to the airport in time to stand in line to get a new ticket for a later flight. At the departure gate, he leaned against a wall of the crowded lounge, wondering what in the world he was going to do when he got back to Denver.

  The passengers for first class boarded, and he moved into the line for the tourist seats. The flight attendants smiled as he stepped onto the plane. He tried for one of his own, then turned the corner into the aisle…and looked straight into Shelley’s wide eyes. She sat on the first row of first class.

  He thought she might faint, she turned so white. Her jaw dropped a little. Zach stared at her, speechless, while sentence fragments pitched through his brain. He couldn’t choose the right one to start with.

  “Hey, buddy, we flying standing up, here?” Someone behind Zach gave a push. “Let’s move it!”

  He stumbled forward, leaving first class behind, and dropped into his seat over the wing like a sack of dirty laundry.

  Shelley had obviously wanted to avoid the flight she thought he would take, and they’d ended up on the same plane after all. Call it coincidence. Or call it torture.

  But she’d booked a first-c
lass seat. She wanted to live in her big house, not his little one. Was this all about money? Had she backed off from marrying him all along because he didn’t earn enough? And had she realized this morning that such a drastic drop in her standard of living was too much to pay for great sex?

  To make his trip completely miserable, the loudmouth from the front of the plane sat between Zach and the window. He complained about the cabin temperature, the bumpy flight, the lack of food, the slowness of the attendants. Zach ground his teeth and wondered if a murder on this plane would be tried in Nevada or Colorado.

  About twenty minutes from Denver, they flew into a cloud bank. The cabin darkened. Above hushed conversations, the captain warned of turbulence and asked them to fasten seat belts.

  Almost before the request ended, the plane started falling. Straight down.

  “Jesus!” Loudmouth smashed into the seat in front of him, then into the overhead bin. He hadn’t buckled his seat belt.

  Screams, shouts, and cries for help echoed off the walls. The plane continued to drop. Purses flew through the air, scattering checkbooks, combs, and pens. A laptop computer crashed into Zach’s cheek, then moved on. He covered his head with his arms and prayed that Shelley had buckled her seat belt. Even so…

  With a sudden thud, the fall stopped. Everything up in the air came down, including the man next to Zach. Loudmouth clambered for his seat, swearing and yelling, adding profanities to the general chaos.

  An attendant staggered down the aisle, and Zach caught her arm. “I’m a cop. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She brushed her hair back with a shaking hand. “I haven’t found any serious injuries yet. I think we’re okay. But you’re bleeding!”

  He put a hand to the ache over his cheekbone, came away with a red smear. “Compliments of IBM,” he said. “I’ll live.” But he held her back when she would have moved on. “I know somebody up in first class. I’d like to go check on her.”