Ten Brides for Ten Hot Guys

by Donna Fasano

  Joanne turned and looked at him. “Yes.”

  "I had no idea.” His expression was honest, sorrowful. “If I'd known…”

  She’d always wondered why her grandmother hadn’t taken his name. Virginia maintained she’d meant to, as soon as he returned from his training in Europe. His supposed training. When he never came back, she said it hadn’t seemed important. But now Joanne realized the truth.

  "You never even married her, did you?”

  A soft sigh of regret escaped his lips at her cold accusation. "No. Just one night of incredible promise.”

  Joanne tasted bile. "I can’t believe she can even speak your name out loud, let alone love you as she still does.”

  He looked up at her, an infinitely small pool of hope shining in his eyes, which slowly turned to pools of tears. With unsteady hands, he took the silver frame from her and touched the image of Virginia. "She is still the love of my life," he whispered.

  "You don't have to pretend for me." Joanne squeezed her eyes shut, almost shaking with mistrust. "I personally want nothing from you." She forced herself to look at him. "But since I've gotten this far, I felt it was my duty to meet you and get some sort of explanation, for my grandmother's sake. Although"—her gaze strayed to the photo he held in his hands and her heart squeezed with pain—"I haven't decided yet whether I should even tell her about you.”

  "I don't blame you." Defeat settled over his body, bowing his shoulders, turning his ashen face gray. "I have wrestled with that terrible decision nearly all my life, and, up until this moment, have always managed to convince myself that I made the right choice.”

  Replacing the picture on the mantelpiece, he rolled his wheelchair backward a few feet. He rested his hands in his lap, staring down at them. "But I knew in my heart it was wrong, and that a day of reckoning would come when I must pay a terrible price." He drew a trembling hand through his sparse hair. "It seems that day has arrived.”

  The sorrow and sincerity in his voice touched a place in Joanne's heart that no mere words could ever have reached. It was suddenly very clear to her that whatever he had done to her grandmother and mother, it had not been out of cruelty or thoughtlessness.

  Without a conscious decision to do so, she reconsidered her attitude. If she was going to hear him out, to be fair, the least she could do was to keep an open mind, and set aside what she thought she knew. Try to see the situation from his point of view. She was pretty sure her charity would not alter the outcome, but, in the end, it would make her feel better about her own role in all of this.

  Looking over at her grandfather, she was overwhelmed by a completely unexpected feeling of sympathy toward the old man.

  Her heart wrenched. This was not going to be easy.

  She cleared her throat to rid herself of the painful lump in it. "Tell me about yourself. And what happened.”

  Chapter 62

  The time Leif spent waiting downstairs for Joanne and Robert to come to terms dragged interminably. He chatted a bit more with Anna Lisa, and when they ran out of things to say, he excused himself and wandered around the lower floor of the retirement home.

  He nodded politely to the seniors who sat in the community rooms, saying a few words to those who looked lonely. But he couldn't put any enthusiasm into it. He could hardly keep up his concentration to hear what they were saying.

  When he spotted the gardens behind the building, he made his escape.

  Slouching on a cement bench in a pleasant, shady corner, he found himself in a good-sized, carefully tended garden. He inhaled the scents of the flowers, grown huge from the abundance of summer sunlight and rich soil. The garden buzzed with insects, and the trees teemed with the masses of birds who’d escaped the stifling southern heat to spend a few months in this northern paradise.

  He gave an ironic snort. Like Joanne, they’d head back south at the first sign of a storm.

  Resting his elbows on his thighs, he leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his hands, unable to appreciate the beauty of the setting. He was angry, heartbroken, disgusted with himself, and horny, all at the same time. And he needed a fucking nap. Herregud. He’d never been so exhausted in his life as he’d felt for the past few days with Joanne.

  The woman was driving him to desperation. He had to find a way to get her out of his system. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they'd made passionate, abandoned love, and yet...it was already starting—her rejection. He'd have thought it would take at least a few weeks, maybe even months, before she realized her mistake. She must be really perceptive. Or maybe the contrast between Detroit and northern Sweden was stark enough to have jolted her back to reality more quickly than usual.

  He swore blue at his aching cock for its betrayal when he thought of her. He laced his fingers behind his neck and groaned, recalling her wild, uninhibited lovemaking the night before. Damn. If he could only get her alone for five minutes. Just five. He'd rip her clothes off and have her begging for him in three.

  Abruptly, he got to his feet and jammed his hands in the pockets of his mercifully baggy jumpsuit.

  Helvete. This line of thinking was getting him nowhere.

  He did not want her begging for him. He wanted her on the next fucking plane to Detroit. He didn't need her—there were plenty of other women who wanted him. He'd found that out in abundance at the dance last night. The fact that none of them particularly appealed to him didn't matter. If he felt the urge, they were more than willing.

  No. He would complete his assignment, find that damned list, and then say good riddance. He’d been crazy ever to seriously consider asking her to stay. Hell, they’d only slept together once! Nobody fell in love that quickly.

  Certainly not him.

  With a snort, he strolled over to a patch of lawn under a birch tree. Stretching out in the shade, he lay down, closed his eyes, and slung one arm under his neck. Within thirty seconds he was asleep.

  The short rest worked wonders on his ragged brain, and served his resolve well.

  When Anna Lisa came to fetch him, he felt calm enough to face Joanne with a dignified and reserved silence.

  No matter what, he would not let her get to him.

  Never again.

  Chapter 63

  Joanne’s grandfather seemed grateful when she took control of the conversation, and wheeled meekly after her to the small dining table where he indicated she should pour them both a cup of coffee from the pot that had finished brewing in the kitchen.

  “What happened back then?” she asked again after she took a seat.

  "When the plane went down in 1956, the KGB defector I’d been sent to pick up was killed instantly.”

  “But you lived."

  Grant’s tight laugh lacked any trace of humor. "If you can call it that. I had severe injuries, especially to my legs." He looked down at his useless limbs with disdain. "I wasn't exactly sure where I’d crashed. At the time, northern Finland was a kind of no-man’s land. No radar, no nothing. It’s why I’d been sent in that way. So, I was lucky when two Swedes found me so quickly.”

  “Harry Adel and Kauti,” she said.

  He looked up, surprised, but nodded. "Yeah. When they found the plane and saw I was still alive, they took me to a nearby cottage. They had no idea who I was or what to do with me, but Harry regularly worked for the Swedish intelligence service, so he suspected I’d been on a mission, and didn’t want to blow it. So, later on, they returned with my bloody clothes and tore strips of them to leave in the wreck.”

  She nodded. "So everyone would think your body had been thrown out during the crash, and lost. That explains why all the files said you were dead.”

  Robert poured himself another cup of coffee. "Harry reported the crash, and Swedish Intelligence sent a team to pick up the defector’s remains and search for mine. I was unconscious and so badly injured I couldn’t be moved yet, so Harry decided to keep it a secret that I’d survived, until I could wake up and tell him what was going on.”

&
nbsp; She had been watching him as he talked, and now she lowered her eyes to the napkin in her lap. "So, you really weren't given a choice.”

  "No." Robert shook his head. “Eventually they moved me to a hospital here in Umeå, but I was a vegetable for weeks. Immobile for months. Depressed for...ages." His spoon tinkled against the porcelain cup as he stirred. "I was never going to walk again. Not without crutches." He drew in a long, shaky breath. His hands trembled so badly he put down the spoon. “I begged Harry not to tell anyone I was still alive. Not the Swedes. Not the Americans.”

  Joanne struggled with the bitter brew of feelings swirling in her chest. She folded her arms and pressed them into her abdomen. “But what about Virginia? How could you do that to her?”

  Tears filled his eyes. "How could I not? I was never going to have children."

  "Was that so damned important to you?” she cried. It was no excuse. None at all.

  It was a long time before he answered. When he did, his voice was filled with sixty years of anguish and torment. "Virginia and I wanted children more than anything. We would often talk about how many we would have. What we would name them." He looked up at her, his eyes swimming. "Grandchildren.”

  Joanne's lower lip trembled as she fought for control. "But that was no reason not to come back." Tears slipped over her own lashes. "She loved you so much.”

  “Don’t you see? That’s why I couldn’t go back.” He reached his hand tentatively over the table and laid it over hers. "I loved her more than life itself. Lying there for months in my hospital bed, I remembered the look in her eyes when she spoke of having children, and I wished to God I’d died, to spare us both. It literally broke my heart in pieces to stay away.” A tear crested, and he swiped it away. “But I thought it would break hers even more if I went back. I knew she would have stayed with me out of loyalty. That’s the kind of person she was.” He looked up, his heart shining in his tear-filled eyes. “Still is, I believe. But by doing that, I'd have been depriving her of her dearest wish.”

  “But she was pregnant,” Joanne whispered, her voice cracking.

  “If only I had known...”

  Heartsick, she turned her hand under her grandfather's thin, aging one and grasped it, her tears running freely down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible choice.”

  "You must believe me." His watery eyes appealed to her. "I thought it was for the best.”

  She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. "I do." She drew in a deep, steadying breath, gathering her ragged emotions. "I do believe you. I just wish—” She let it out again. “It was really hard on her, you know.”

  "I can’t even imagine.”

  He wept openly when Joanne told him that Virginia had never married, although, once she had borne his child and moved her small family to Detroit, she had not lacked for offers. He grieved for his daughter, Joanne’s mother, who'd had to endure all manner of rudeness and scorn for being what was whispered about her throughout the neighborhood. And finally, he sighed with regret over the granddaughter who had come to him harboring such antagonism and distrust.

  Joanne had risen and wandered around the small living room as she talked. Now, she found herself before the mantelpiece again, confronted by the picture of a woman. Not Virginia. The woman was plain and unadorned, but contentment shone in her face.

  Joanne turned to Robert. She was unable to keep the bitterness from rising up again. "But then you married.”

  He swallowed and nodded. "Yes. I did." He wheeled over, took the photo down, and looked at it. There was gentleness in his gaze, but not the anguished love that had been there when he’d spoken of Virginia. "She was a nurse in the hospital, somewhat older than I. She helped me regain my strength after I regained consciousness, and constantly encouraged me to learn to walk again. My despair over...everything...was so deep. I tried to kill myself twice. She pulled me back both times.”

  Joanne’s heart softened, and any remaining bitterness dissolved at that confession.

  He replaced the photo and tenderly touched the image. "She fell in love with me. And I owed her so much. When I finally accepted that I wouldn't be going back to Virginia, well, it seemed like the honorable thing to do. To stay with her.”

  Joanne walked back to the table and sat down again. She should probably be feeling resentment, anger, even hatred for the woman. But she just couldn't. This poor man had sacrificed his whole life so others might be happy. That Joanne and her family had not found the happiness he had intended was not his fault.

  Lord, why had he not trusted in the love that he and her grandmother had shared, and come back home where he belonged? Trusted Virginia to accept him as he was?

  He gazed over at her. "Does she ever talk about me, about the time we had together?”

  "Sometimes. Not too often, though,” Joanne admitted. “When she brings up the subject, my mother gets angry. Gram likes to avoid fights whenever possible." She winced at the effect this had on him.

  But he persisted. "You said she still loves me." He paused, his sad eyes again lit with a tiny spark of hope. "Did you mean it?”

  Joanne considered for several moments before answering, picking her words with care. "She's never said it in so many words. But the way she talks about you, the look in her eyes, I'd say yes, she still loves you. Or, I guess I should say, she loves the memory she has of you.”

  He regarded Joanne seriously. "If you believed I died so long ago... Why did you come to Sweden? Why dredge it all up again for her?”

  She folded her hands on the table in front of her. "Closure,” she confessed. “I thought if I found your body and brought it back, laid you to rest...all those other ghosts would be laid to rest, too.” She smiled bleakly at the irony. "Instead I find you alive and kicking—so to speak—and I'm the one who almost gets laid to rest.”

  He blinked. "What are you talking about?" he asked, his expression dipping into a frown.

  When she told him about the incidents of the past four days, the fire sprang back into Robert Grant's eyes.

  "Oh, hell, no,” he declared, his whole body transforming with determination. “I am not going to find out I have a granddaughter, only to lose her. Especially because of some sixty-year-old crap that I started.”

  She smiled. She had a feeling they were going to get along really well. If she lived that long...

  “Grandpa, trust me, I appreciate the sentiment. But what can we possibly do about it that we haven’t already done? The police are involved, and the Swedish State Department.”

  He gave her a considering look. “This young fellow who's been helping you, Harry's son, Leif, he's the one waiting downstairs?”

  With a start, she suddenly remembered Leif, and how things had stood when she'd last seen him, an endless lifetime ago. She nearly groaned out loud.

  She wanted to run down to him and leap into his arms and tell him it was all a big mistake, that she was so sorry she’d lost it so badly and pushed him away for no good reason.

  Well, okay, there had been a reason. She’d been so hurt while listening to him coolly discus her with his State Department, finding out he really had just been doing his duty when he got involved with her, as he’d once told her outright. She’d been devastated to learn he really hadn’t been interested in her, that he’d only wanted to find that damn list of KGB operatives.

  But those hurt feelings had just been her own insecurities talking. She didn’t know why he hadn’t told her about the list, but she knew in her heart that their lovemaking last night had been as real as it ever got between a man and a woman. That hadn’t been about any damn list.

  Leif might be afraid to commit to her because of his past, but his feelings for her were genuine.

  As were hers.

  She loved him, and her entire being ached to know he returned her feelings. She longed to hear him say he loved her, too.

  She had to give him a chance. Give them a chance.

  She didn’t know how she would face him after pushing
him away, but she knew she had to do it. And there was no time like the present.

  "Yes, Leif is the man waiting downstairs,” she replied to her grandfather’s question.

  He wheeled determinedly over to the phone. "Then I'd better call Anna Lisa and have him come up.”

  Chapter 64

  Leif wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when Robert Grant opened the door for him—a civilized discussion or an out-and-out war zone. But the old man ushered him in, shook his hand, and invited him to sit down, friendly as could be.

  Civilized, it was, then.

  Leif eased out a breath, adjusted his mental attitude, and plastered a civilized smile on his face.

  From the fact that that Joanne was in the kitchen making coffee, he gathered that she and Grant had reached some kind of understanding about the past, seemingly peaceful. Therefore, it must be time to deal with the present—which was no doubt the only reason Leif had been invited up.

  He wondered briefly what Grant could have said to make her forgive his abandonment of her family.

  Not that it mattered. None of his concern.

  He took a seat at the dining room table as Grant indicated, then proceeded to answer the old man’s questions. Apparently, Joanne had filled him in on most of what had happened since her arrival.

  As Leif filled in the missing details, she stayed in the kitchen, fussing with the coffee, and the dishes, and anything else she could find. He figured it was to avoid talking to him.

  She could have saved herself the bother. He knew where he stood, so he didn’t look at her except when absolutely necessary, and then only with the impassive, business-like expression her behavior had demanded through her total rejection of him earlier.

  At first, she seemed relieved, and started to relax a little. But as the discussion wore on, she glanced at him more and more, until she was actually staring at him outright. To his mild surprise, she looked sad, her face steeped in regret.