Bride Required

by Alison Fraser

  They went upstairs and met Joseph on the first landing. Another African man, dressed in suit and tie, was holding his bags.

  ‘Deborah, I am so glad you could come,’ Joseph said, smiling. ‘I did not want to leave without saying goodbye. Dr Baxter has told you I am going?’

  Dee nodded. ‘Not where, though.’

  Joseph looked towards his companion, and the man shook his head, saying something in their own language.

  ‘I am sorry, but can only tell you a little,’ Joseph ran on. ‘You see, I go to join my uncle in country where he has gained political asylum.’

  ‘The uncle who was a minister in your government?’ Dee concluded.

  Joseph smiled. ‘Yes, my uncle Patrice. He went into hiding when it was overthrown. I did not know where until the Doctor found out. My uncle has been looking for me also, and has sent Marcelle to collect me.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you.’ Dee smiled at Joseph’s evident happiness at rediscovering his family.

  ‘Now you do not have to marry me,’ he added. ‘But I will always be most grateful. I give you something.’ He handed her a rectangular box.

  Dee took from it an oval ring set with a blue jewel so exquisite she didn’t have to feign delight.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ She reached up and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘I’ll keep it for ever.’

  Joseph smiled, satisfied by her pleasure at his gift, then turned to take his leave of Baxter.

  ‘There are so many things I wish to say, Doctor,’ he began, but his voice was already choked.

  ‘No need, man. No need,’ Baxter dismissed, and embraced Joseph in a father-son way. ‘I’ll see you down.’

  Too full of emotion to speak, Joseph nodded goodbye to Dee, and the men began to go downstairs with the luggage.

  Dee did not follow them. She felt she would be intruding. Though she’d been only a week away from marrying Joseph, they had never been more than friends. It was Baxter who’d been important to him, Baxter who had been his hero.

  He was no hero to Dee. No friend, either, considering how he’d acted.

  She went through to the kitchen to wait for him, and found the place an untidy mess. Opened letters and magazines lay on work surfaces, jackets were on the backs of chairs and dirty dishes were in the sink. She stacked them at the side, then began to run the hot water before she realised what she was doing and asked herself why she was doing it. She was no longer paid to clean up after Baxter.

  She didn’t hide her disgust when he reappeared.

  ‘Yeah, okay, it’s in a state.’ He pushed a distracted hand through his hair. ‘I haven’t bothered much since you’ve gone.’

  ‘You didn’t bother much when I was here,’ Dee retorted. ‘You need a cleaner.’

  ‘Cat said she’d advertise.’

  ‘Don’t you think Cat has enough to do?’

  He raised a brow at her sharp tone. ‘She offered,’ he told her. ‘But, yes, you’re probably right.’

  Dee didn’t want him agreeing with her. She was too cross.

  ‘So how long has it been arranged, Joseph going to join his uncle?’ She asked the question that really mattered.

  ‘Contact was established a couple of weeks ago,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s only in the last few days that Joseph was given official permission to enter France.’

  ‘France?’ Dee echoed. ‘Why are you telling me? I thought it was hush-hush.’

  ‘I don’t want you thinking he’s going somewhere dangerous,’ he explained. ‘And, besides, if I can find his uncle, I’m sure his enemies are well aware of his whereabouts too.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Why not tell me weeks ago I didn’t have to marry him?’

  ‘I wanted to wait till everything was cut and dried… Anyway, you never had to marry Joseph. You chose to,’ he corrected pedantically.

  ‘You’re the one who wanted me to do it in the first place,’ she accused in return.

  ‘That was before.’

  ‘Before what? Before you decided I wasn’t reliable?’

  He shook his head, and said simply, ‘Before you and I.’

  It stopped Dee in her tracks for a moment. The words, There is no you and I, rose on her lips, but the blue eyes that met hers told her she was a liar before she could speak them.

  ‘Did you really think I’d let you marry him?’ He held her gaze as he took a step towards her.

  ‘I…’ Dee didn’t know what to think. ‘You gave me money for the dress.’

  ‘I wanted to see how far you’d go.’ His eyes darkened. ‘I saw this afternoon… What was the idea? To show me what I was missing?’

  Dee remained silent, but a blush betrayed her.

  ‘There was no need, of course.’ He took another step until they were all but touching. ‘I already knew what I was missing, remember?’

  From the night he’d turned up at Cat’s. Dee remembered too well. All of it. That had also started as an argument.

  How easily one passion became another. She’d felt almost violent towards him a moment ago, and now here she was, trembling like a leaf because he was close enough to fan her cheek with his breath. Such weakness was frightening.

  She hid her feelings behind an imperious, ‘I’d like to go home now.’

  He countered with a simple, ‘You are home,’ that confused her more.

  Home? Here? What was he saying?

  He made it clearer. ‘I need you with me, Dee.’

  A hand lifted to touch her face with a gentleness that touched her soul.

  She shut her eyes against its warmth. ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘Why not? You want me, too.’ It was a truth too obvious to deny.

  ‘And that’s enough?’

  ‘No, but I’ll settle for it.’

  Dee didn’t understand his answer, but then he hadn’t understood the question. And in the end what did it matter? It was as inevitable as night and day, their being together.

  Why else did she let him take her face in his hands and kiss her slow and hard, stealing the breath from her body, the reason from her mind? Why else did she go with him, without another word, up the spiral staircase? Why else did she accept the little on offer even as her heart was breaking with each step, crying out for more?

  He took her to the room where she’d once slept, and led her towards the four-poster bed. Evening was drawing in and casting shadows across the counterpane. They didn’t bother with lights, didn’t bother with words.

  He undressed her with almost detached efficiency and, having no will of her own, she let him. He pulled her jersey over her head, followed by her T-shirt, before bending to slip off her sneakers. Then he unzipped her jeans and slid them down her hips until she was forced to step out of them, leaving herself in a white lace bra and panties.

  Dee felt chilled—not by the coolness of the room, but by his apparent lack of emotion. She watched him strip off his shirt and unbuckle his belt, and she began to move away from him. She didn’t get very far, because he reached out to catch her hand and pull her towards him, turning her so her back was against his chest. Then he circled her with his strong, hair-roughened arms and drew her to his body, bending to touch the nape of her neck with his lips.

  He kissed the soft hollow at her throat, the leap of her pulse, and Dee’s head fell back as a wave of desire went through her. It spread with his hands as they reached up to cup a breast, down to splay over her taut stomach. It became a flood as he slid his way past the barrier of her clothing to touch her in places only he knew.

  She was breathing hard even before he dragged her back round to cover her mouth with his. She was lost even as, still kissing her, he discarded his jeans, letting them lie where they fell. She surrendered willingly as he pulled her down on the bed with him and, pleasuring her with his hands and mouth, drew off the rest of her clothing.

  Dee wanted it all until the very last moment when he was poised above her, handsome fa
ce set, body hard with bone and muscle. That was when fear suddenly gripped her—she knew she would never come back from this point a whole person. But it was already too late; he was penetrating her, heart, body, soul, and she was riven, contracting, crying out more in shock than pain.

  Then a hand was stroking her hair, a voice caressing her with words. ‘It’s okay… It’s okay… I won’t hurt you…I’ll never hurt you…I love you…’

  Dee barely registered it as he kissed her lips, her face, her hair, making desire kick in her belly once more until her legs uncoiled and he began to move inside her, fragmenting all thought.

  For a moment she lay passive beneath him, impaled by the sheer force of it, then passion and love fused and she reached for him, clung to him, moaning aloud as she rose to each powerful thrust of his body, accepting him into the depth of her own till pleasure was sweet agony and they were one, drowning, crying, dying in it.

  It was a perfect act of union. Baxter was driven by an urge so primitive he forgot a lifetime’s caution and cried out her name as he spilled his seed into her. Then, spent, he rolled with her clasped in his arms.

  Dee lay with her head against his thundering heart, and struggled to calm the beat of her own. She’d never been with another man, never made love before, but she knew instinctively that it would not be like this. No one else would reach her this way.

  Her certainty of it was absolute. Her first lover, Baxter Ross, was also her ultimate, even if a legion were to follow. She would never be complete without him—a sobering realisation when taken with the fact that happy-ever-afters weren’t on his agenda.

  He tilted her head back, his smile fading at her solemn face. ‘All right?’

  Dee nodded, but it was a lie. She wasn’t all right. How could she be? Her life had just changed for ever.

  Not his, of course. He’d done this before. Probably a thousand times. It was a thought she could have done without.

  ‘Something’s wrong. Tell me.’ He watched her changing expression.

  Dee shook her head and, slipping from under his arm, clutched a sheet to hide her nakedness.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ She tried to sound tough and uncaring, but she heard the cracks in her voice. In a moment she would be crying, betraying her real feelings. ‘I have to go.’

  She edged to one side of the bed and picked up her discarded T-shirt; it effectively covered her from neck to thigh. But, before she could put on her jeans, he stretched out an arm and pulled her round.

  ‘Go?’ His eyes expressed disbelief.

  What did he expect? That she would cling to him?

  ‘Go where?’

  Dee had no idea. Anywhere. Just so long as he wasn’t there to see her break down.

  ‘I have to go,’ she repeated, and, desperation giving her strength, she slipped free of his grip.

  She didn’t hang around. She snatched her pants and jeans from the floor and, ignoring his command to stop, rushed to the door.

  It was absurd, of course, to think she could just run away. She reached the first landing, then paused to drag on her jeans and appreciate the fact she’d left her shoes upstairs. Pride wouldn’t let her return for them; practicality told her she wouldn’t get far barefoot and in the dark. She slumped down at the top of the next flight of stairs.

  That was where Baxter found her, having hung around long enough to pull on his own trousers. He sat beside her on the cold step. She didn’t look at him. He sensed her fragility, and didn’t try to touch her.

  ‘Is it what I said earlier?’ he asked her quietly. ‘About loving you? Is that what’s scaring you?’

  Dee shook her head. She wondered if it was scaring him—that she might have taken him seriously.

  ‘Because you don’t have to love me, you know,’ he continued in the same vein. ‘I accept that. Just stay a while.’

  Confused, Dee turned to stare at him. ‘Stay the night, you mean?’

  ‘A night, a week, a month, a year.’ He seemed to be saying it was up to her.

  Dee didn’t think so. If it was her choice, there would be no talk of time limits. And how much harder would it be to leave in a week, a month, a year?

  She found the strength now. ‘I can’t stay.’

  He didn’t seem to hear as he brushed a strand of hair from her cold cheek and kissed her gently. ‘Stay and let me take care of you.’

  Sweet words, but they broke the spell for Dee. She’d heard them before from another man, and they brought back such bad memories that she knocked his hand away.

  ‘I am not a child,’ she raged back at him. ‘And if I wanted taking care of, I could have stayed at home and let my stepfather do it… As in, do it.’ Her mouth twisted, revealing the stark, bitter truth.

  Baxter reeled from it, any jealousy he’d felt for Edward Litton turning into revulsion. No wonder she had run from home.

  But was he any better? He had always known she was vulnerable, had had from the start an urge to protect her, but there were other feelings for her he couldn’t control.

  ‘What have I done?’ He looked into eyes that were feral with distrust. ‘If I’d known… I thought if I made love to you—’

  ‘I’d be easy?’ Dee cut in, angry with herself now. ‘Well, you were right, I was, so spare us the guilt trip. You wanted me, I wanted you. We had each other. End of story.’

  She rose before he could stop her, and retraced her steps to the bedroom, meaning to collect her shoes and go.

  He was there in the doorway when she turned.

  ‘So just tell me. What was it about, Dee?’ he asked, struggling with some emotion. ‘Curiosity? A game? Or some kind of pay-back for what Litton did?’

  Dee shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t you? You wait till I’m on my knees to you then walk away.’ He made it sound as if it had been some grand plan on her part.

  ‘Edward has nothing to do with this!’ she denied, temper rising once again. ‘You think I ever let him touch me? Reach me? Make love to me?’

  ‘So why let me?’ he countered. ‘If you don’t want any kind of relationship?’

  Dee thought the answer was painfully obvious, and confessing wouldn’t make it hurt less. She settled for a shrug that he could interpret how he liked.

  His mouth went into a tight white line. ‘I could have made you pregnant, you know. Have you considered that?’

  Dee hadn’t, but he clearly had. ‘So that’s what’s bothering you.’

  ‘Of course it’s bothering me!’ he exploded at her apparent indifference. ‘If you’re pregnant, it’ll be my responsibility as well as yours.’

  ‘Fine. Great. Let’s get married now just in case.’ The suggestion was purely sarcastic, a throwaway line as she made to walk past him.

  He caught her arm and held her there by his side, his voice harsh as he replied, ‘Okay, let’s.’

  ‘Very funny.’ Dee assumed he was trying to be, but there wasn’t a flicker of amusement on his hard, handsome face. ‘I was joking.’

  ‘I know,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t.’

  He really was offering to marry her—had he just missed the last ten years of social development?

  ‘People don’t marry these days because they’re pregnant,’ she informed him stonily.

  ‘I do.’ He didn’t care what other people did.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Dee accused, even as she reflected on her own sanity.

  She loved this man. He was prepared to marry her. Why was she talking him out of it?

  ‘It’s not a good enough reason,’ she reminded them both.

  ‘You want others?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. We’ve just had the most incredible sex,’ he stated with jaw-dropping frankness. ‘You may not be aware of that, being new to the whole thing, but take my word for it.’

  Well, Dee thought, she had asked! She blushed to the roots of her hair, but didn’t pull away as he drew her round to face him.


  ‘Add to that the fact we’re surprisingly compatible,’ he ran on, ‘in intellect, interests and attitudes. Having had a number of failed relationships, I can testify to the importance of such a symbiosis.’

  ‘Symbiosis?’ Dee wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but was unable to resist a dry, ‘You really know how to romance a girl, Doc.’

  ‘I’ve already tried the romance angle,’ he pointed out. ‘It didn’t get me very far, remember?’

  Actually, Dee didn’t. ‘I think I must have missed that part.’

  ‘Then let me recap for you.’ His mouth slanted with self-mockery. ‘I tell you I love you and ask you to stay with me. You tell me to get lost, and stamp off up here to get the rest of your things… Forgive me if I thought a different approach was called for,’ he concluded, matching her sarcasm.

  But Dee didn’t hear it. She hadn’t got further than the love part.

  ‘You love me?’ she echoed, staring at him.

  He gave her an impatient look. ‘I’ve said so often enough.’

  She shook her head. No, he hadn’t. It wasn’t the kind of thing she would forget.

  ‘Just once,’ she corrected, ‘when we were making love.’

  ‘Okay, once then,’ he conceded. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  She agreed that it might have been in different circumstances. ‘I imagine men say all sorts of things in the throes of passion.’

  ‘Some men,’ he qualified. ‘Not me.’

  No, not him. Baxter Ross only ever said what he meant. She knew that. How had she forgotten it?

  She was torn between laughing and crying. She was such a fool.

  ‘Do you want me to say it again?’ He was clearly reluctant.

  But now Dee understood. He had his pride, just as she had hers. If they weren’t careful, they’d lose everything to it.

  ‘No, I think it’s my turn.’ Steady blue eyes met the blue-grey of his, and in her gaze was all the things she wanted to say. She still gave him the words, lifting her mouth to whisper against his, ‘I love you, Baxter Ross, and that’s what scares me. You say stay “a while”. I love you so much I couldn’t bear just a day or a week or a—’

  The rest was lost as he drew her into his arms and stole the breath from her in a kiss that spoke of a love as real as her own.