Her dad, of all people, had texted her this morning. He’d wanted to know if she was back from her honeymoon and how the adoption proceedings had gone. Since she couldn’t get away with another lie, she’d typed out the truth. Not in detail, but enough to convey that the adoption had fallen through, triggering a painful separation between her and Max.
She’d also told her father that she wanted to be alone. Not that he’d offered to rush over and comfort her. But she’d made it clear that she needed her space.
So far, there was no word from Max about the divorce. But she figured it was only a matter of time before he took legal action. Lizzie still hadn’t removed the ruby and diamonds from her finger. For now she was still emotionally attached to being Max’s wife, even if it was killing her inside.
She contemplated where he was at this early evening hour. She suspected that he was at the rough-and-tumble gym he frequented, letting off some steam. He took his workouts seriously, especially his boxing routines.
Her doorbell rang, and she nearly knocked over her tea. Was this the final countdown? Was it someone delivering the divorce papers? Was she being served?
She didn’t want to answer it, but that would only prolong the inevitable. She opened the door, preparing for the worst.
Lizzie started. The person on the other side was her dad. What part of her needing to be alone didn’t he understand?
“I just wanted to check on you,” he said. He wore a dark gray business suit and a concerned expression.
She glanced away. “I’m okay. I’m handling it.”
“You don’t look okay.”
If she broke down, would he know what to do or how to comfort her? She almost pitched forward, just to see if he would catch her. But she maintained her composure.
“This isn’t necessary, Dad.”
“Please, let me visit with you.”
Lizzie gave in to his persistence, hoping it was going to be quick. Like a bullet to the head, she thought. The last thing she wanted was to feel like a sad and lonely child, longing for her daddy’s affection.
“May I get you some tea?” she asked, playing the hostess, doing what came naturally. “I already brewed a cup for myself. Or I can make you coffee or something stronger, if you prefer.” She knew that he sometimes enjoyed a martini after work.
“I’m fine, Elizabeth. I don’t want anything.”
“Then have a seat.” She gestured to the sofa. He never called her Lizzie. That name had come from Mama.
They settled into the living room, and she clutched the armrests of her chair.
He asked, “What happened to cause all this? Why did the adoption fall through and why is it keeping you and Max apart?”
She’d already given him a condensed version in her texts, but that wasn’t going to suffice, not face-to-face. So Lizzie took a deep breath and explained why she and Max had gotten married, how they’d lost Tokoni and why they were separated now, including the achy part about her falling in love with Max.
“I’m so sorry,” her father said. “I never would have guessed that you weren’t a true couple.”
“Losa certainly figured it out.”
“That’s her job, I suppose, to be more observant than the rest of us. Maybe I didn’t see through your charade because I always thought you were meant for each other.”
She fought the threat of tears, forcing herself to keep her eyes clear and dry. “I’m never going to stop loving him.”
“I never stopped loving your mother, either, even after she was gone.” He paused, frowned, straightened his tie. “I just couldn’t get over the loss.”
“Mama dying was my loss, too.”
“I know. And I should have been a better parent to you.”
Yes, she thought. He should have. “Is that what you’re trying to do now, Dad? Be an attentive parent?”
He nodded, making one last pull at the knot in his tie. “How I am doing so far?”
She managed a smile. Suddenly she was grateful that he was here, attempting to be the kind of father she’d always longed to have. “Pretty good, actually.”
He blew out a relieved sigh. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
He finally smiled, too. “Did your mother ever tell you how she and I met?”
Curious, she shook her head. “No. No one ever told me.”
“It was at a charity ball, a big, stuffy Savannah soiree. It was the first function of that type that I’d ever been to. My family was new money, nouveau riche, as they say, and this was an old-money crowd.”
Lizzie leaned forward in her chair. “When was this? How old were you?”
“It was the summer before I left for university. Your mother was still in high school then, in her senior year at an all-girls’ academy. That’s who was hosting the ball. I was invited by a buddy of mine. He was dating one of the students and asked me to come along to meet her friend.”
“And that friend was Mama?”
He nodded. “She was such a strange delight, the most eccentric person I’d ever known. We dated that summer, and even after I left for university, we stayed in touch. She used to write me the most fascinating letters. Later she went off to college, too, but we continued to correspond and see each other when we came home on breaks.”
“When did you get engaged?”
“A year after she graduated. And two years later we were married. I wanted to wait until I was more established in my career. Her parents accepted me, but I still felt the new money stigma. They were such old-world people, so refined in their breeding. To me, they were like royalty.”
“I wish I could have known them. And your parents, too.”
“It was a tragedy that your mother and I shared, with both of us being only children and both of our families passing on so early in our lives—my father with heart failure when you were a baby, my mother with cancer when you were a toddler, and her parents in a helicopter crash, before you were even born. You’d think we were cursed.”
Maybe they were, Lizzie thought. Being rich hadn’t saved them, not old or new money.
He said, “Your mother never quite recovered from losing her parents. But she was already having bouts of depression before they died. It was always a part of who she was, being happy, then sad, then happy again. She had dramatic impulses, too, to do over-the-top things.”
“Did you ever encourage her to seek help?”
“No. I thought that if I loved her enough, she would be okay. I didn’t understand how depression worked. She might have been bipolar. Or maybe she had another type of disorder. I don’t know. She never saw a doctor about it, so she was never diagnosed with anything.”
Lizzie had to ask, “You never suspected that she was suicidal?”
His features tightened. “Sometimes she said odd things about death, about how freeing she thought it was going to be. But I didn’t attribute that to her being suicidal.” Another tight look came over him. “Even with as much as I loved her, sometimes she was just too much to handle. The moodier she got, the more time I spent at work.” He lowered his head. “But I should have been there. I should have saved her.”
Her heart went out to him, the father she’d barely known until now, the man struggling with his guilt. “You couldn’t have, not without knowing how truly ill she was.”
He glanced up. “If I’d gotten her the help she needed, she might be alive today.”
“You can’t go back and change it. You can only move forward.”
“I’d like to do that, with you.” He met her gaze. “But I have to admit that when you were a teenager and you brought Max home for the first time, I was impressed with how close you two seemed. I didn’t know how to be a father to you, but he knew how to be your friend, just as you knew how to be his. It made me feel better, with
him being part of your life.”
Her emotions whirled, her breath lodging in her throat. “He went through some horrible things when he was a kid. Things he shared only with me, and now he’s probably alone with his turmoil. He doesn’t confide in people very easily, not even his brothers.”
“If that’s the case, then don’t you think he needs you? More than he’s ever needed you before?”
Yes, she thought. Heavens, yes. This wasn’t the time to give up on Max. Even if he refused to believe that she loved him, she could still do what she’d always done.
Be his friend.
* * *
Max had been at the gym for hours, trying to knock the crap out of his past, throwing power punches at a heavy bag.
Why couldn’t he let go of what his mother had done to him? Why did those memories have to be there, lurking in the dark? He should be better than that; he should be stronger than the monsters.
As he threw another punch, a warm, hazy feeling came over him. He sensed a presence behind him.
An immortal, he thought, a spirit helper. The Lakota called them Tunkasila. Although it translated to Grandfather, it applied to all guardians. In that regard, the term was genderless. Sprit helpers came in many forms, and he could tell that his guardian was female. He could feel her whisper-soft energy.
Max had never seen one before. None had ever appeared to him. But now a guardian was here, offering to help him banish the monsters, to get rid of them for good.
He turned around, startled by what he saw. His guardian looked just like Lizzie: bright blue eyes, long, fiery red hair.
Confused, he shook his head. Had a spirit helper borrowed her form? Or was it Lady Ari dressed in street clothes? Had Tunkasila called upon her to intervene?
He felt as if he were in the middle of a dream. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t even at the gym at all.
She moved a little closer, this beautiful, oddly alluring spirit who mimicked Lizzie.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she said. “But I figured you’d be here, so I came on over.”
He blinked, told himself to get a grip. The female standing before him wasn’t an immortal. She was flesh and blood. She was human. She was Lizzie.
Tunkasila help him, he thought. He longed to pull her into his arms, to tell her how miserable he’d been without her. But he stood motionless instead, dripping with sweat, still wearing his boxing gloves. What if he touched her, what if he held her and the monsters still didn’t go away?
He glanced down, taking a quick inventory of her hand. She was wearing her wedding ring. So was he, under his left glove.
“My dad came to see me,” she told him.
Max finally spoke. “He did? When?”
“Today. This evening. We had a meaningful conversation, mostly about my mother. But he stopped by to make sure I was all right. He knows that you and I aren’t together anymore.” Her gaze lingered on him. “I’m sorry for taking my friendship away from you.”
“Are you offering to be my friend again?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Even if we get divorced?”
She nodded again, tender, determined, true. “I’ll be your friend, no matter what.”
He glanced at her ring again and noticed that her nail polish was chipped. He’d never seen her without a flawless manicure before. It made her seem fragile, but somehow powerful, too. “You’d do that to yourself? You’d deliberately put yourself in a painful situation for me?”
“I can’t turn my back on you. I love you too much to do that.”
His heart thumped in his chest. She wasn’t Tunkasila. But she was still his guardian, his helper. He removed his gloves, setting them aside.
He held out his hand to show her his ring. “I couldn’t bear to take it off. I haven’t filed the papers yet, either. I kept telling myself that I should, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.” He studied her, with her gauzy blouse and long, floral-printed skirt. He appreciated how it looked on her. Flowers were becoming her signature to him. He imagined them raining down from the ceiling like petals from the gods. “Since we split up, I must have walked through the garden at my house a hundred times, going into the gazebo and thinking about our wedding. It’s been torture, Lizzie, not having you in my life.”
She reached for him. “I’m here now.”
As soon as he hugged her, her blouse stuck to his bare skin. “I’m getting you all sweaty.”
“I don’t care.” She held him tighter. “It feels good.”
“I’m sorry for punishing you for loving me, for turning a deaf ear to it. But you know how badly it scared me.”
She stepped back to look at him. “I’m not trying to push you into more than you’re ready for.”
“I know. But I want to be ready. I want to stop being afraid of love, to accept that I’m worthy of it.” He explained the feelings rattling around inside him. “Whenever my mother used those words, they diminished me, as if I didn’t deserve to be loved. They made me feel small and insignificant. A shell of the boy I was, of the man I was going to be. But that’s not what you’re doing. That’s not what love is.”
She touched his cheek, skimming her fingers along the hollowed area beneath the bone. “This is a huge step for you. For both of us.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I love you, Max.”
For the first time in his life, he wanted to hear a woman say those words to him. But in this case, she wasn’t just any woman. She was his wife. “I love you, too,” he said. He knew now that he did. That maybe somewhere in the depths of his angst-ridden soul, he always had loved her.
She kissed him, creating a fusion of warmth and comfort and strength. If the monsters tried to come back, Max would slay them. He would slice them to bits, with his guardian by his side.
Lizzie wasn’t an immortal, but Tunkasila had sent her to him just the same. She’d been there all these years. The friend he needed, the lover he craved, the fiery-haired, tender, loving, supportive partner who’d turned his heart around.
When the kiss ended, he took both of her hands and held them in his. “There’s something we need to do, besides resume our marriage.”
“We have to try to get Tokoni back,” she replied, clearly aware of where his mind was at.
He nodded. “Even if Losa already started processing the other couple’s application, we have to try. It’s only been a few weeks. There’s still time for her to change her mind.”
“What if she won’t budge?”
“Then we’ll have to keep trying. We can’t give up, Lizzie. Tokoni is a part of us. He belongs to us as much as we belong to each other.”
“Yes, he does.” She put her head against his shoulder. “We’re supposed to be a family, the three of us.”
“I’ll call Losa and make the arrangements for us to go to Nulah as soon as we can.” He wrapped his arms around her. “But for now I want to take you home with me.” And be together, he thought, as husband and wife.
* * *
Lizzie stripped off her clothes, her heart reeling. Max loved her the way she loved him. He’d said it openly, with a truth she’d seen in his eyes. And now they were in the master bath at his house. He hadn’t showered at the gym. But she was glad that he’d waited, so they could get cleaned up together.
Clean and naked and wet.
He adjusted the water temperature, and she joined him in the clear glass enclosure. There was plenty of room for two people. But to her, it felt warm and cozy.
He took her in his arms, and they stood that way for the longest time, just holding each other, letting the water rain over them.
As steam fogged up the glass, Lizzie turned to face the enclosure door and drew a Valentine-type heart on it, using the tip of her finger. With a look of fascination, Max added their initials.
M + L, in his masculine script.
She smiled, laughed a little, felt her own heart go bump. “How wonderfully teenage of us.”
“We’re making up for lost time. Or I am, anyway. I still can’t believe you had a crush on me when we were kids.”
“Just like you had trouble believing that my love was real?”
“I believe it now.” He kissed her, strong and deep, his tongue making its way into her mouth.
Her body flexed, her mind swirled. She pulled him closer, the taste of passion between them. The kiss went on and on.
And on some more.
Finally, when they came up for air, she realized that her eyes were still closed. She opened them, water dotting her lashes.
Max pumped liquid soap into his hands and began washing her breasts. He thumbed her nipples, making them peak from his warm, slick, sudsy touch.
Sweet love. Sweet marriage.
Lizzie relished every wondrous thing he was doing to her. “I like the scent of your soap.” The sandalwood that often lingered on him.
“And I like touching you this way.”
He bathed her entire body, front to back. He washed her hair, too, with his shampoo. Everything in the shower belonged to him, including her.
He massaged her scalp, his fingers kneading her skin. She’d always enjoyed going to the salon, but this, this...
He used a conditioner, then moved out of the way, encouraging her to step under the spray so she could rinse, completing the task herself. But it didn’t end there. He watched her, like a voyeur taking forbidden thrills.
Within a heartbeat, he came forward, kissing her again. She nearly lost her breath, especially when he dropped to his knees. She gazed down at him, and he glanced up at her, a carnal warning in his eyes.
Lizzie didn’t know if she was going to make it out of this situation alive. He used his mouth in wicked ways, relentless in his pursuit—an intense journey, hot and thorough.
The orgasm that rocked her body sent her into a state of erotic shock. She moaned in the midst of it.
“Max... Max... Maxwell...”
She rarely used his full name, but she was doing it now, slipping into the sound of it. She gripped his shoulders to keep from falling over, her knees going weak, her pulse thumping in intimate places.
Paper Wedding, Best-Friend Bride Page 15
