The Prodigal Wife

by Susan Fox

Knowing it was only a matter of seconds before he’d realize she wasn’t really reading the pages, Lainey forced herself to look at him.

  “Could I look at these tomorrow when my mind is a little sharper?” She didn’t realize when she handed him the papers that her hand was trembling until she looked away from the probe of his gaze and caught sight of the faint flutter.

  Gabe took the pages to set them and his nearly empty cup on the side table next to him, but he didn’t remark. Lainey hesitated to look completely away from him, so she was still staring where the trembling pages had been. She raced to think of something to say.

  If he’d already changed his mind, it could also account for his near silence and persistent remoteness. It was amazing how difficult it was to speak the actual words that would lead up to a straightforward question.

  “You said last night that I might feel more at ease if I did some of the things a wife might do.” Lainey cringed inwardly at the artless opening, but she dared to look at him and forced herself to go on.

  “The outcome went well, or it seemed to, but I can’t help noticing that you didn’t…well, there’s been no sign you found it…thought of it…like I did, so…”

  Lainey knew right away that not only had her daring exceeded her courage but that she’d turned into a babbling idiot. The sharpness in his gaze had disrupted her ability to hold her train of thought. She suddenly wished she’d just read the papers and kept silent.

  “So?” he prompted, and his dark eyes began to glitter. Lainey felt the tension in his big body grow more taut, though he looked completely at ease. There was no hint of anger in him, nothing to warn her that she was treading on thin ice. She tried to sound more coherent as she got to the question she’d meant to ask.

  “So, since the last thing I heard from you on the subject is that you want me to live up to my vows, I wondered if you had reconsidered since then, or if you were…waiting.” She had to pause to try to swallow away the dryness in her throat. “On me. I mean—waiting on me. Or maybe waiting on the…situation.”

  “Which do you think it is?”

  He’d asked in a low, no-nonsense tone, and she searched his gaze, trying to discern the answer before she could hazard a guess—or to at least detect some sign that bringing this subject up was safe to do. She could tell he might be interested in what she’d say, but only marginally.

  The thought that she might have stumbled onto a conversation he wouldn’t cut short encouraged her to blunder on and risk a guess.

  “Maybe it’s a combination of those things. You maybe have doubts about whether you can trust me enough to stay married, but you’re also waiting for the situation to…improve. Either way, you’re waiting for something, probably looking for something to show in me. S-something that will redeem my past behavior. Or maybe waiting for me to…do something.”

  Lainey felt her face go hot. She was mangling it, probably missing the right answer by a mile, even if he could make sense of what she’d said. She wasn’t sure she could make sense of what she’d just said!

  The whole time Gabe had sat there, his gaze calmly probing hers then shifting to search her face as she’d become more flustered. But he’d given no clue that she’d either guessed right or that he’d tell her so even if she had.

  Because he was a man who judged situations by observation as much as words, Gabe was quite good at concealing his own thoughts. There wasn’t a hint of what he might be thinking, which made her believe she’d missed on every count. If so, she couldn’t imagine the reason for his distance, unless he just plain loathed her.

  And yet he hadn’t closed the subject or cut her off, so she wondered why the silence stretched. Lainey had to look away from the laser search he made of her face. Frustration made it difficult to keep from giving up completely.

  She’d been here little more than twenty-four hours, but she wasn’t sure she could continue like this. She certainly couldn’t consider intimacy with Gabe, much less have his children unless something radically changed. Though it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds since she’d finished speaking, Lainey was suddenly impatient.

  “You’re right about too much talk. Things do get said, lots of them not very clear or coherent.” She started to slide to the edge of the sofa and stand, but Gabe caught her wrist to stop her and her gaze flew to his.

  His expression was stony, but his eyes held a fiery darkness. The showery tingles that radiated from his light grip caused a peculiar weakness to follow in their wake.

  “I’m waiting for you Lainey,” he drawled before his voice went grim. “Waiting to see if all you really came here for was to humor me. You know I can petition the courts to compensate my investment in Talbot, and I’d probably win. Maybe you’re thinking if you played everything just so, wrapped me around your little finger, maybe you’d get me to promise to let it go back to you. Intact.”

  Lainey stared at his implacable expression, stunned. This explained a lot. A huge knot of misery rose into her throat and pounded sickly. She couldn’t get the words past it at first and when she could, her voice was hoarse.

  “I deserve that,” she admitted quietly.

  Though she’d more than earned his mistrust, she couldn’t help the craving to somehow defend herself, since the only real defense she had in any part of what she’d done was on the subject of Talbot Ranch.

  “I spoke to my lawyer about compensation for Talbot before I left Chicago. I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him to get started. Your attorney will probably get a call soon, so you might want to make sure he’s prepared.”

  Lainey started to pull her wrist from his light grip but his fingers flexed to keep her there. He wasn’t finished with her, but she already knew what he’d say next. If she was right, then she might as well say it first.

  “Would you rather I just pack my bags?”

  “Leave the bags where they are.”

  The growling sound of that sent a shiver of wariness through her.

  “What’s the point? You’ll be getting the major portion of Talbot whatever happens between you and me.” She tried again to pull her wrist from Gabe’s grip, but it was immovable.

  His dark eyes began to glitter. Lainey was suddenly desperate to get him to see sense. They had absolutely no foundation for marriage but a piece of paper and vows neither of them could honestly live up to at this late date.

  “I think we both know going on with this marriage will only prevent you from finding someone you could truly be happy with.”

  “You don’t want to mix a mongrel with the Talbot pedigree.”

  The out-of-the-blue remark completely stunned her, and Lainey searched his dark eyes. The hardness she saw there told her he was completely serious. She knew instinctively this was no spur of the moment notion, but some long-standing belief. She’d never given a thought to the fact that Gabe’s impoverished upbringing might have caused him think of himself as less than anyone. Particularly after the success he’d proved himself to be.

  Now she remembered the rumors of the women who’d pursued him while he was still a work-for-wages cowhand. Had some of them given him that impression, or worse, said so? Whatever the cause for his belief, it was absolutely shocking to realize he’d as much as confessed it to her.

  “No, that’s not true—it was never true,” she said hastily, so anxious to correct his impression and to demonstrate her sincerity that she put her free hand over the one that gripped her wrist. She didn’t pay attention to her next words before they were out. “I loved you once.”

  It was as if her urgent declaration had set off a giant boom of thunder in the room. The glitter in Gabe’s eyes suddenly burst into a dark conflagration and she went light-headed with alarm.

  Oh, God, had she made him angry? Did he think she was lying?

  The chances of that were greater than of him believing her so long after the fact. Years ago, she’d thought her only protection from the humiliation of being rejected was to keep her feelings for Gabe hidden. To
reveal them at this late date, even though she didn’t still love him, would either make her look like a liar now or a liar back then. Even if Gabe believed her, the danger was that he would use the unintended confession to hurt and humiliate her.

  “Do it.” His terse order wasn’t what she’d expected.

  “Do…what?”

  “Call your lawyer tomorrow. Early.”

  Shocked by the abrupt demand, Lainey gave a small nod. Was he ignoring what she’d said about loving him once? Did that mean he thought she was lying and he’d take her offer of compensation then order her to leave?

  Lainey started to take her hand off his and pull away, but he caught it to tug her close. She suddenly knew what would happen now, she could see it in his eyes, though she couldn’t understand why. She’d no more than registered the impression when his arm came tightly around her and he slipped his other hand to her head to force her soft lips against his.

  This wasn’t the tender, expertly sensual kiss of last night. It was devouring and carnal, like a conqueror ruthlessly seizing the delicate spoils of a vanquished enemy and taking a lusty bite. And yet there was no brutality in his kiss, just an all-consuming sexual rawness that staggered her brain and immediately turned her into a weakling who could do no more than cling to him and shakily submit.

  Whatever his kiss had been last night, it hadn’t taken over her will like this one did. Suddenly she wasn’t only clinging to him, she was on his lap, shoving her fingers into his long hair and making fists to hang on. Her own feminine drive shocked her as he masterfully drove it to the surface until she was meeting him kiss for kiss, pressing herself restlessly into him, desperate for more.

  She was on fire, wildly on fire, and she was too dizzy from the roaring heat to realize the desperate little sounds she dimly heard were her own or that her body was all but shouting that she was his for the taking.

  To have Gabe wrench his mouth from hers without warning as he called out a gruff, “Who the hell is it?” made her jerk and reflexively pull back. His hard arms kept her tightly against him, and she realized he was calling out to someone, probably Elisa.

  Belatedly she remembered that the door to the hall was open, and she glanced dazedly toward it. Now she heard Elisa’s voice from down the hall in the direction of the living room, though she was nowhere in sight.

  “Señorita McClain to see you, Señor Gabe.”

  “Tell her we’ll be right out.”

  Lainey’s neck didn’t seem strong enough to support her head and she dropped her forehead to his hard shoulder. She was still panting in the aftermath of that devastating kiss, and her skin felt as if it had been sensitized with sandpaper. Every feminine place inside her was still heavy and heated, and for the first time in her life, Lainey felt the barbed wire nettles of frustrated desire.

  “If you don’t get up, I’ll never cool off enough for company,” he growled, his hot breath gusting into her hair.

  His voice was harsh, but his hands still moved on her as if he couldn’t get enough. Lainey lifted her head, unable to look him in the eye, and tried to compose herself. She realized from the cool air that hit her that her blouse had come unbuttoned and had pulled from the waistband of her denim skirt. She could tell by putting up a hand that her hair was a mess because Gabe’s fingers had clutched and combed through it as eagerly as her fingers had his.

  Somehow she managed to move off his lap and stand on legs that still felt heavy and weak. Gabe got up, but she couldn’t look at him. He caught her hand and led her to the French doors behind his desk. Lainey gripped the gap of her blouse closed as they stepped out on the patio then walked to the master bedroom. Gabe let her go in ahead of him.

  “Best straighten yourself before you come out.”

  Lainey glanced at him as he strode to the dresser to run a flat brush through his hair before he walked to the hall door to leave, efficiently smoothing a couple loosened riffles of his shirt into the belted waist of his jeans as he did. He didn’t spare her a single glance the whole way.

  Still shaky, but rapidly returning to her senses, Lainey straightened her clothes and brushed her hair before she took an extra few moments to splash her face with cold water. A last look in the big mirror in the bathroom told her she still looked flushed and dazed, and from the slight swell of her soft lips, she’d obviously just been kissed to within an inch of her life.

  She found her sandals and walked into the hall.

  Señorita McClain, Elisa had said. Cassidy McClain—Cassie—one of the last people Lainey would want to face after that kiss. Cassie had been the high school nemesis who’d constantly competed with her in everything, from ranching to grades to sports to boys.

  Lainey had been popular enough in school, but not nearly as popular as blond-haired, blue-eyed Cassie McClain. No one had been. But while Cassie was bold and outgoing, Lainey had been quieter and more reserved, struggling to behave like a lady, gracious in defeat even if it killed her, but also modest in her few victories over the very competitive Cassie.

  At least the discomfort of facing Cassie again when she, as well as everyone else in a four-county area, knew what Lainey had done to Gabe, would distract her from the worry of the other thoughts that were just beginning to dawn on her passion-dazed brain. The ones about the weapon she’d just handed Gabe.

  And her own weak-willed participation in whatever he might secretly have in mind to humiliate her.

  Many girls had a nemesis of some kind in high school. It was usually someone popular and gorgeous and clever, a nemesis who had the social clout to make them feel inadequate and awful, and who might not hesitate to use it.

  When Lainey found the courage to face Cassie again, she pasted a calm smile on her face and walked into the big living room as Cassie sat down on the sofa. She arrived just in time to see Gabe hand Cassie a tumbler of iced tea. Cassie batted her big blue eyes up at him and smiled with appealing sweetness.

  But it wasn’t Cassie’s face Lainey paid attention to, it was Gabe’s. He was actually smiling in a way that creased his lean cheeks and made him look not only devastatingly handsome but wholly approachable. And he bestowed that smile on Cassie so effortlessly that Lainey couldn’t help but feel miserable. She would have had trouble even looking at another man after that kiss, much less be able to smile like Gabe was with any sort of ease or enthusiasm.

  Lainey was certain neither of them had noticed her arrival until Gabe said, “Here’s Lainey now,” as he moved toward the overstuffed chair next to the end of the sofa where Cassie had chosen to sit.

  Cassie glanced her way just as Lainey reached them and smiled, but Lainey noticed her smile had a sly curl on one side that Gabe wouldn’t be able to see from his view of Cassie’s profile. Lainey tensed for the opening salvo.

  “Long time, no see, Lainey. Is this just a quick visit or are you here to stay?”

  One of the most annoying things about Cassie was that she could unerringly target Lainey’s most uncomfortable subjects, and she’d never been shy about bluntly bringing them up. Since this wasn’t a question Lainey dared answer either way, she decided to meet Cassie’s provocative question with one of her own. Two could play at this game, and Lainey tried for a convincing smile as she chose a seat on an overstuffed chair across from the sofa. Gabe waited to sit down until after she did.

  “I was about to ask you the same question, Cass,” Lainey said, then quickly injected false enthusiasm into her voice as she added, “How are you?”

  She saw the faint surprise in Cassie’s eyes, but tried not to notice that Gabe’s big fingers drummed once on the arm of his chair. Because she didn’t look, she had no idea if it was a reaction to her comeback to Cassie or not, though there was no way it couldn’t be.

  The surprise in Cassie’s eyes shifted to a look of orneriness and she gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “Just out drivin’ around. Thought I’d remind Gabe of Daddy’s barbecue Saturday night and see if I could coax him to come. It seems like
years since Gabe’s gotten out to socialize.”

  Lainey smiled, but realized grimly that their not-quite-polite banter could rapidly escalate. Though she’d tried to ignore Cassie’s occasional barbs in high school and had allowed most without giving a comeback, she was too sensitive about what she’d done to Gabe to either ignore or allow them now.

  “Has he given you an answer yet?”

  As she asked the question, Lainey caught sight of the somber look Gabe gave her, but shifted her gaze back to Cassie.

  “I hadn’t got around to askin’ him yet,” Cassie replied, then allowed a meaningful pause before she added, “Of course, Daddy would consider it rude to mention it in front of you and leave you out, so you’re invited, too.”

  There couldn’t have been a better way to put it to send the message that Cassie had just stooped to toss her a bone. Lainey might have been shocked if she hadn’t known what Cassie could be like, but she was surprised she’d keep it up in front of Gabe.

  On the other hand, perhaps Cassie had designs on Gabe. Back in school, a method Cassie had used at least once when she’d zeroed in on a potential boy-friend had been to subtly expose the flaws or shortcomings of the girl he was seeing at the time.

  Public embarrassment was a handy weapon, and since Lainey was vulnerable to it on a grand scale these days, she might be in for torture anywhere she showed up that Cassie was present.

  Lainey had just formulated a dandy comeback when she suddenly realized what she was about to do. Though it was difficult to keep the comeback to herself, she had to. Not just because Gabe was listening to every word, but because she’d promised herself. She gave Cassie as gracious a smile as she could manage.

  “Why thank you, Cassie,” she said, still straining a bit as she realized how difficult it was to just lay down and take it. But since it hadn’t killed her to go this far, Lainey added a more enthusiastic, “Your daddy always threw great barbecues. Is he still using his special recipe?”

  Mac McClain’s special barbecue recipe was truly noteworthy, and it was a compliment to bring it up. And bringing it up now was a signal to Gabe that Lainey had traded all the barbs she was going to with Cassie McClain. She was not as brash and daring as Cassie, particularly in front of Gabe, but he might already take a dim view of the way she’d started to treat a guest in his home. Besides which, she was the true outsider here, not Cassie.