The Maverick Marriage

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Seconds later, he was dancing her backward, through the doorway, to the bed. Excitement pounded through her as he unzipped her slacks and pushed them down her thighs, still kissing her all the while. The linen pooled around her ankles. One hand pressed against her lower spine, the other moving downward from her navel, he slipped his palms inside the elastic of her bikini panties, caressed her warmly. Intimately. Knowingly. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she jerked against him, in shock, then shuddered again, as the liquid heat inside her began to implode. She whimpered, low in her throat, as he made her tremble, again and again and again. Then his hands danced up her sides, over her ribs. He dispensed with the clasp of her bra and gently cupped the weight of her breasts with both palms.

  He let the kiss come to a slow, languorous halt. One that spoke of volumes of control. His eyes were darker, sexier, than she had ever seen them.

  “I want you,” he whispered, already lowering her to the bed. “I want you now. Here.” He slipped between her thighs. “This way.”

  Susannah’s breath came in quick, shallow spurts. She knew they were rushing things. She didn’t care. She helped him with the zipper on his slacks, surged up against him, every inch of her wanting every inch of him. “I want you, too,” she whispered back throatily. “So much.”

  Trace stroked her face as the hot, heavy length of him strained against her open thigh. Shifting lower so he was positioned exactly where he should be, he took her back into his arms. She was trembling with a fierce, unquenchable ache. Even as he lowered his mouth to kiss her again, even as their kisses melted one into another, as she strained against him, her body moving in undulations, she knew this wouldn’t solve everything. It wouldn’t make her closer to him. It wouldn’t erase the past nor guarantee the serenity of their future. But it would do something toward sating this fierce, unquenchable ache. And for the moment, she thought as his hands lifted her and he surged into her, powerfully, lovingly, that was enough. It had to be.

  SUSANNAH LAY tangled in the sheets, the right side of her face resting against the pillow. She might have her back to Trace, but there was no disguising her reaction to what had just passed between them. Her breath was still coming in shallow spurts. Her body was still humming with the aftershocks of their lovemaking. And all the emotions, every ounce of feeling she had suppressed over the years apart, was now coming to the fore. She knew making love now, while they still had so much unresolved between them, when they might never resolve everything between them, hadn’t been the smartest action for them to take. On the other hand, they’d had to do something with all that emotion simmering between them. Who was it that had said, make love, not war…?

  “What are you thinking?” Trace stretched out beside her. He was also lying on his side.

  Susannah sighed and rolled to face him. Like it or not, there were some things they had to confront. And discuss. “That I should have told you I was pregnant,” Susannah confessed softly, fixing her gaze on the sexy mat of golden hair furring his sinewy chest.

  “Why didn’t you?” Trace caught her fingers and brought them to his mouth, where he suckled them gently.

  Susannah melted a little at the new wave of desire surging through her. She let her head rest against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “I wanted to, but I didn’t think you wanted me or a baby in your life at that point. And I didn’t want our child to grow up feeling the way my mother inadvertently made me feel when I was growing up.”

  “And how was that?” Trace stroked her hair with gentle motions of his palm.

  Susannah cringed, recalling, “Like an unmet obligation. Something to feel remorseful and guilty about.”

  Trace paused, his grip on her loosening. “Your mother did that to you?”

  Susannah pushed herself to a sitting position. “She didn’t mean to react that way. I realize that in retrospect,” she told Trace as she propped a row of plump comfortable pillows between the split-rail headboard and her spine. “But at the time, all I knew was that her work as a surgeon came first, always. It didn’t matter if she had promised she would attend my school play or piano recital.” Settled comfortably back against the pillows, Susannah dragged the sheet up over her breasts. “If something came up at the hospital, a patient took a turn for the worse, she skipped whatever was going on in my life and my father’s, and stayed to take care of the patient.”

  Listening intently, Trace sat up, too.

  “When she would eventually get home,” Susannah continued, “which was almost always hours after dinner, she would be physically and emotionally exhausted. Most of the time, she had already eaten and didn’t even remember what she had missed.”

  Trace’s eyes turned a very stormy blue. “But you did,” he guessed softly.

  Susannah nodded, the memories she had strove so hard to forget coming back to haunt her. “And so did my father,” she explained as she linked hands with Trace. “He never let her go unchastised when it came to broken promises, and that went double for promises she had made to me. The end result was, they quarreled constantly.”

  Trace’s fingers tightened over hers. “You never told me any of this.”

  Susannah shrugged, embarrassed. “They had been divorced for three years by the time we met and married. My father had given up teaching drama in high school and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in film. I was trying to put it all behind me and build a new, more satisfying life for myself.”

  “Only to find yourself married to and at the emotional mercy of yet another workaholic,” Trace concluded heavily, his own regret apparent.

  Susannah sighed, letting him know with a look that she wished she had not made that mistake, either. “That pretty much sums it up,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “You should have said something to me then,” Trace scolded her gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding her even closer.

  Susannah studied the pattern of sunlight falling through the trees outside and through the windows. She was stunned at how easy it had been to make love with Trace again, and even more amazed by how right it felt. “I didn’t know how to even begin to articulate my needs to you without turning into a nagging shrew. Besides, all the complaining my father did hadn’t helped my parents’ situation any. All it did was make them more bitterly isolated from each other, and consequently, me. My mother’s ambition was constant. It wasn’t going to change then, no matter what he said, and to this day it still hasn’t,” she said emphatically. “My father, on the other hand, needed more of a homebody for a mate. Once he stopped expecting my mother to magically conform to his needs, and he found that in someone else, he became very content, too.”

  “So your parents are now happy?”

  “Deliriously so.”

  “Did your mother ever remarry?”

  “No. She decided long ago that she was the kind of work-driven person who needed to stay single.”

  “So, at the time you left me, you thought I had the same woefully ineffective potential to be a mate and parent as your mother.”

  “Yes, although, having seen you with your sons, I now know how much I misjudged you, Trace. Unlike my mother, you’re a wonderful parent to your boys.”

  Trace frowned, admitting, “More so now than when Natalie was alive. Sad to say, back then, I left quite a bit of the parenting to her. More than was fair, I see in retrospect.”

  “But you’ve made up for it.”

  “Yes. I have.”

  If only I could make it up to you and Scott, Trace thought. For he knew Susannah was not a cruel person. If she had not told him about their son, it was because he hadn’t met her needs as a husband, lover and friend.

  Once again, he had failed someone close to him by not being sensitive enough. The question was, how to keep that from happening again. He couldn’t read her mind. She had admitted, when push came to shove, that she had trouble articulating her needs. Which in turn left only one solution.

  He turned to her,
knowing there was a risk in his proposal, more in not making one. “We can’t go into this second marriage as naively as we went into our first,” he told her firmly.

  Susannah pushed the silky length of her hair from her face. “I’ll agree with you there,” she said wryly.

  Which left them only one solution, Trace decided swiftly. “To protect ourselves from similar hurt and unhappiness, to make this new arrangement of ours work on every level, we need a more businesslike approach to our relationship.”

  At the word businesslike, Susannah blanched. Her fingers tightened on the sheet. “Actually, Trace—” She looked oddly desperate, even as Trace struggled to put her at ease. “I—I don’t think we should even discuss this,” she sputtered.

  Thinking like hers was precisely what had gotten them into trouble before, Trace was certain. “Well, I do.” He disagreed, his mood altering from blazing passion to tenderness to frustration with lightning speed. “We need a marriage contract,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Susannah stared at Trace. Whether Max had meant for this to happen or not, somewhere in the last twenty-three hours she had become a challenge to Trace that he was determined to surmount by whatever means necessary. The stakes, in the desperate situation they suddenly found themselves in, were high. Their future happiness depended on them being able to make this relationship work in a way it never had before. She was no longer able to deny her desire for him. The realization of just how vulnerable she was shook her to the core.

  Susannah leaned back against the headboard, staring at him incredulously. She clutched the sheet tightly to her chest. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I never kid around when it comes to contracts.” Trace leaned away from her as he rummaged in the nightstand for a notepad and pen. Finding both, he let the sheet drift past his waist and sat back against the headboard. “We can get started on it right away. Spelling out the dos and don’ts of our relationship. That way,” he continued with startling efficiency, “we won’t have any misunderstandings about our expectations of each other.”

  Abruptly, Susannah felt as if she was part of one of his business deals, and not a particularly necessary part, at that. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the bedspread, wrapped it around her, toga-style, and got out of bed. “This is not a good idea,” she announced as she rummage around for her clothes.

  “Of course it is,” Trace disagreed politely. “What better way is there for us to avoid the pitfalls we suffered before? Now, where do you want to start?” he asked, his blond eyebrows lifting emphatically.

  Susannah ducked into the bathroom to put on her bra and panties. “How about with lovemaking?” Susannah suggested sarcastically.

  There was a thoughtful silence from the other room. “Okay,” Trace said agreeably a moment later. “What seems reasonable to you?”

  Susannah slipped her sweater on over her head and padded back into the bedroom. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” She paused to tug on her slacks.

  “What seems reasonable to you?” Trace persisted, seemingly irritated that she would not be as cooperative in stating her needs and expectations as he planned to be. “Three, four times a week?” He kept his eyes on her face. “Every day?” His smile widened recklessly as he lobbied for the latter.

  Susannah found her shoes, and reaching into her purse, pulled a brush through her hopelessly mussed hair. “Or would you prefer to go in the other direction as far as guarantees go, say…once or twice a week?” Trace continued.

  Finished, Susannah dropped the brush onto the distressed surface of the rough-hewn bureau and pivoted to face Trace. Hands braced on either side of her, she returned his probing gaze with one of her own. “What happens if we decide on twice, and then end up making love six times that week? Do we subtract it from the next three weeks, until we’re on schedule again, or charge ourselves a penalty?”

  Trace shrugged his broad shoulders. Putting aside the notepad and pen, leaving the sheet on the bed, he walked naked to her side. “Making love above what we decide on as the norm seems more like bonus material to me.”

  “It would.”

  He took her into his arms. “You’re angry.”

  Susannah splayed her hands across his chest and pushed away. “Heck, yes, I’m angry! How can you even suggest such a thing?” she demanded as heat started in her cheeks and swept across her face in both directions.

  Trace stepped back slightly, a perplexed expression on his handsome face. For once not bothenng to mask his obvious confusion, he asked incredulously, “How can you expect us to get by without one?”

  Susannah rolled her eyes and, aware she was still barefoot, began to hunt for her shoes. “This is impossible.”

  Trace scooped up his clothes from the pile on the floor. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said as he pulled on his boxers and slacks.

  Susannah swept into the other room. “You cannot run our marriage with the same single-mindedness that you run your company.”

  “Not without your cooperation, I can’t.” Trace followed, buttoning his starched white dress shirt.

  Deciding it might be wise if they remade the bed, Susannah hurried back into the other room. “I agreed to marry you and stay married to you because of Scott. But that is as far as I am willing to go when it comes to making myself part of any deal.” She picked up the top sheet and tossed it over the bed.

  Trace grasped the opposite corners of the sheet and tugged until they were lying straight. He tucked in the corners, hospital-style, and reached for the bedspread. “You’re just angry because you found out you are not over me, Susannah, any more than I’m over you,” he said as he threw the bedspread over the sheet.

  “How do you figure that?” Susannah asked, aware telltale color was still rioting across her face.

  “By the way you just made love to me.” Trace tossed one pillow to her, and threw another on the bed. Finished with his side, he circled the bed to take her in his arms once again. He studied her with a hungry expression. “We owe it to each other to try again,” he said firmly.

  He felt warm and hard against her. Too warm. Susannah levered herself away from him. “I don’t see that anything has really changed.” Once again, she marched into the living room.

  “Then help me make things change.” Trace followed her lazily, picking up his wing-tip shoes as he went. He sank down on the sofa and put on his shoes. “You can start by spelling out for me just what it is you expect and want in a husband, and I’ll do the same. Maybe if we exchange priority lists, we’ll have more luck pleasing each other.” Giving her no chance to get a word in edgewise, he decreed bluntly, “In the meantime, I think we should tell the boys at supper that we have decided to make our marriage a real one in every respect, starting in twenty-four hours.”

  Beginning to feel completely overwhelmed, Susannah shook her head. “It’s too soon.” Trace was simply stepping in, making all the decisions, taking charge again. And she was not going to allow it.

  She folded her arms in front of her. “I want to stick to our original plan. Marry according to the will, then see how things go.”

  “Meaning?” Trace rolled lazily to his feet.

  Susannah resisted the urge to back up as he came toward her. “Meaning, we shouldn’t tell the boys our marriage is going to be a real one unless we are sure our relationship is going to last,” she said seriously. The part of her that was always looking out for her children, and herself, and keeping one eye on the future, would not be completely banished, no matter how inexpedient Trace found her worry. “Until then,” she continued sternly, “it’ll have to be one step, one day at a time, with establishing a lasting friendship our first and primary goal.”

  The disappointment reflected in his deep blue eyes briefly took her aback. Aware it was not her purpose to hurt him any more than she had already hurt him, she sighed, amending, “If we can be lovers and make our relationship work, great. If not, for Scott’s sake, we still have to maintain our friendship.” />
  Trace studied her. “All right,” he said finally, giving in to her practically stated options. “We’ll do it your way, for now.”

  Susannah could see he hadn’t given up on his goal of ultimately having her as his wife in every sense. The question was, did he love her, or just want her in his life again? She knew he didn’t like to fail at anything any more than she did. Unlike her, he was compulsive about going back to fix anything flawed that he had left in his wake, until it, too, was as perfect as he wanted.

  Was that the situation with their marriage? she wondered. Was he simply trying to right what he had once failed to achieve? And if so, how long would his interest in her and their marriage last?

  24:01

  “YOU’RE A CHEF, right, as well as a consultant?” Nate asked Susannah an hour later. Having already cleaned the fish, Trace and the boys had all headed upstairs for showers. Nate, the speediest and most efficient of the boys, was the first to come back downstairs, where he had promptly joined her in the kitchen.

  Susannah smiled at his question and gestured for him to have a seat. “I sure am. Do you want to help me with the menu for dinner?”

  “Sure.” Nate poured himself a glass of milk then joined her at the table, where she was busy filleting the fish into serving-size portions. “What’d you have in mind?”

  As Susannah studied Nate, she thought about how much he looked like Trace. “We’ll have the trout you all caught, of course. What else do you think everyone would like?”

  Nate shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Finished cutting up the fish, Susannah dropped the pieces into a shallow dish and covered them with milk. “I was thinking about corn on the cob, slaw.” She knew they had the ingredients for both in the pantry and fridge.

  Nate watched as she mixed flour, salt and pepper. “Do you know how to make scalloped potatoes?”

  Susannah smiled. She put aside the flour mixture, and sliced several lemons. “I sure do.”