He threw one arm across his eyes and tried to wipe that particular image out of his brain. Hell, he’d never get to sleep otherwise. Scooting over a bit more, he clung to the edge of the mattress, trying to keep as much space between them as possible without actually falling off the bed.
If he had known that this temporary marriage was going to be so blasted hard, he never would have offered to go through with it. He snorted a muffled laugh. Who was he trying to kid? He would have married her, anyway. So what kind of a nut did that make him?
A nut destined for long, frustrating nights. Because he could admit, if only to himself, that from the moment he’d laid eyes on Donna Candello trying to sneak into the ball, he’d wanted her as he’d never wanted anything else in his life.
Two days later Jack was still telling himself that he must have heard her wrong. No way would Donna Candello be interested in him. Okay, fine, she had married him. But that was different. That had been desperation talking. And guilt screaming.
He glanced across the room to where Donna sat curled up on one end of the couch, thumbing through a magazine. She licked her forefinger before turning the page and Jack’s insides tightened. His gaze locked on her mouth. He found himself hoping she’d do it again. Breath held, he waited while she perused the page, then slowly lifted her right hand to her lips.
Her tongue darted out and smoothed across her fingertip in an unconsciously seductive manner.
Jack swallowed heavily, closed his eyes and tried to ignore a throbbing ache low in his body with which he was becoming all too familiar.
What if she had said what he’d thought she’d said—about wasting a perfectly good bed? She couldn’t have meant anything about him specifically. He was not the kind of man she would be interested in. They had absolutely nothing in common. So why did he want her so badly? And where did that leave him? Was he supposed to be the one to go back on their agreement? Hell, it had been his idea to make this a platonic marriage. He couldn’t just up and announce that he’d changed his mind, could he?
“Change your mind, Jack?” Donna asked.
“Huh?” He blinked, startled at her mind reading abilities. Just to be sure, though, he asked, “About what?”
She waved one hand at the file folder on the coffee table in front of him. “I thought you said you were going to get those reports done tonight.”
That had been the plan. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his mind on any figures other than hers.
“Nah. Do ’em in the morning.”
She frowned at him. “Are you all right?”
Dandy, he thought. “Yeah. Fine.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Something is wrong,” she said. “Still getting ribbed about marrying the colonel’s daughter?”
“Not too much,” he told her, and didn’t add that he was never ribbed by the same man twice. Once some joker faced Jack’s steely gray stare, he seemed reluctant to try it again. In general, the hoo-hah was dying down, just as he had predicted it would.
Of course, if he and Donna hadn’t gotten married so quickly, the gossip would never have eased off.
And, if they hadn’t gotten married, he might be a well-rested man right now. Certainly, he wouldn’t be questioning his own sanity.
“You know,” she said quietly, “you never did tell me what debt you owed my father that required such a huge payback as marrying me.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “Yeah, I know.”
Donna studied him for a long minute. This husband of hers was a study in contrasts. Tough, rule-following marine by day. Touchy, skittish husband by night. They’d managed to live together for nearly a week now without killing each other and she was quite sure she was the only one suffering from bouts of near fatal attraction. Little by little, she was coming to know him and yet she knew that there was a big part of himself that he kept hidden…tucked away.
She wanted to reach that part of him and didn’t even bother to ask herself why it was so important to her.
“So?” she prompted. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“Hadn’t planned on it,” he admitted, standing and walking to the window that overlooked the street. Planting both hands on the wall at either side of the window, he stared quietly out at the darkness.
“Jack,” she said, half turning to look at his broad back and rigid stance.
“You want to know why?” he muttered thickly, his voice rough and harsh as it grated over clearly unpleasant memories. “All right, I’ll tell you.”
Donna almost stopped him. Almost. She didn’t like the way he was holding his shoulders. Stiff, yet hunched, as if expecting a blow. But her instinct was to draw him out. To find out more about the man she had married in such a hurry.
“I got in some trouble when I was a kid,” he stated flatly.
“What kind of trouble?”
He snorted a choked laugh that died almost immediately. “All kinds. My folks died in a car wreck when I was eight. Went to live with an aunt and uncle.”
“How awful,” she whispered.
“They weren’t real thrilled with becoming instant parents, so I pretty much raised myself after that.”
“But you were just a kid,” she said, sympathy for the boy he had been welling within her.
“No, I wasn’t,” he said quietly, stiffly. “My childhood ended in that car accident.”
She could see the tension in his body from across the room. What a lonely life he’d led, she thought sadly. Although her parents hadn’t been together, she had always known she was loved. Her gaze moved over Jack and a part of her ached to go to him, ease years-old pain. But Donna knew that he wouldn’t appreciate sympathy, so she didn’t move. Instead, she held her breath and waited for him to continue.
“Anyway,” he said, his voice tight, “the trouble I found escalated the older I got. My aunt and uncle couldn’t be bothered to deal with me. So, when I was eighteen, a judge gave me a choice. The corps or jail.”
Donna blinked. She never would have believed that Jack had, at one time, been faced with jail.
He seemed to sense her surprise, or maybe he had simply been ready for it. Turning, he stood straight, shoulders squared, as if someone had planted him against a wall for a firing squad. Not meeting her gaze, he stared straight ahead as he went on. “Not being a dummy, I chose the corps.” A sliver of a self-mocking smile tilted one side of his mouth briefly. “But I almost screwed that up, too.”
“How?” she whispered, her gaze locked on her husband’s stoic, grim features.
“A bad attitude and a big mouth.” That smile that wasn’t a smile chased across his lips again. “A deadly combination anywhere. But in the corps, a one-way ticket to disaster.”
It was hard to imagine First Sergeant Harris as a big-mouthed private, but she tried.
He rubbed the back of his neck, a sure sign that he wasn’t happy. “Anyway, the colonel—your father—was a lieutenant back then.”
She nodded.
“One day he’d had his fill of my attitude and took me aside for a private lesson in the chain of command.”
Frowning, Donna asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Jack said, looking directly at her for the first time, “he took off his lieutenant’s bars and offered me the chance to back up my mouth with my fists.”
“He fought you?”
A different smile briefly appeared on his face then. A smile of admiration. “No, ma’am,” he countered. “He beat the hell out of me.” At her horrified expression, he added, “In a fair fight.”
“I don’t believe it,” she muttered, trying to imagine her loving, patient father as a brawler.
“Believe it. He convinced me.” Jack moved away from the wall and stalked across the small room. “After that,” he said while pacing like a caged lion, “he requested me as his radioman. I got to know him. Respect him.” He stopped suddenly, his gaze shooting to hers. “He saved my miserable life. I owe him everything.”
“
So you married his daughter,” she said, vaguely surprised that her voice sounded so hollow.
“Yeah.”
Ridiculous to feel this pang of disappointment. After all, she’d known that he had only proposed marriage in an attempt to help her father. Why should hearing him say it now affect her in the slightest?
She knew darn well why. Because she had been hoping that maybe he was hiding a small kernel of interest in her. At least now, she knew. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“Well,” she said, deliberately forcing a brightness she didn’t feel into her tone, “I guess the debt is paid in full now, huh?”
“I’ll never be able to repay him completely,” Jack assured her stiffly.
“Jeez, Jack, why don’t you just offer to throw yourself on a grenade?” she snapped as a headache leaped into life.
“What?”
“It would be quicker and a lot less painful than having to pretend to love me. To like being married to me.” Shut up, she thought. Close your mouth and leave the room. But her feet wouldn’t cooperate. She wished she could say the same for her mouth.
“How much of your life are you willing to lay down on the altar of Colonel Thomas Candello?” she asked tightly.
“What the hell are you so mad about?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” she shouted right back, throwing her hands high in the air. “I guess, even knowing why we got married, I just don’t like the idea of being the poison pill you were forced to swallow for the good of your country.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know,” she snapped, “‘Close your eyes and think of England.’”
“Huh?”
“You figure it out,” she told him as the headache between her eyes began to throb with an insistent, ugly regularity.
“Donna.”
“No.” She held up one hand, effectively silencing him. “It’s okay. I only gave up my apartment, my job, and my roommate. You sacrificed your life for the good of your commanding officer.”
He took a step closer, but she backed up.
“I’m sure my father appreciates your loyal service, Marine.”
“This is nuts,” he told her. “Why are we fighting about this now?”
She laughed, more at herself than anything else. “I guess the honeymoon’s over, First Sergeant.”
“We’ve been getting along all right so far, haven’t we?” Jack asked, apparently determined to smooth things over. Though she couldn’t imagine why.
What possible difference could it make now?
“Sure,” she said, shrugging in what she hoped conveyed nonchalance.
“Then why can’t we just leave it at that?”
“Because we’re people, Jack. People talk. People fight.”
“What’s the point?”
She drew her head back and stared at him as if he’d slapped her. Emotionally, he had. Heck, he wasn’t even willing to fight with her. She wasn’t worth a good argument. “You’re right. This whole situation is only temporary. What is the point?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe not, but it’s the truth.”
“Donna—”
Jack looked hard at her and tried to figure out where this had all gone wrong. He’d thought he was giving her what she wanted. A small enough piece of his past to prove to her that they didn’t belong together. The reasons behind his loyalty to her father.
Hell, he’d had no idea she would react this way. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she looked as if she were about to cry or something. Over him?
That didn’t make sense at all.
“What are you so mad about?” he asked finally.
She shook her head slowly. “I’m not mad,” she said, but her tone was unconvincing. “I’m just…tired.”
Okay, that he understood. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since they’d started sharing a bed. Hoping to help, he offered, “Look, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. Let you get some rest.”
She snorted a laugh. “Perfect. You’re even willing to sleep on a couch that’s two feet too short for you. Heck, Jack, you shouldn’t be a marine. You should be a saint.”
Anger began to simmer in the pit of his stomach, boiling with other, just as strong emotions to blend into a dangerous mixture. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want from me, Donna?”
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shook her head, more firmly this time. “No. I think it’s best if we just forget this whole night ever happened. How about that?”
Forget it? He couldn’t even make sense of it. But for the sake of peace and because he didn’t want to get any deeper into the mess he’d somehow created for himself, he agreed. “Deal.”
“Good.” She inhaled sharply, unconsciously drawing his gaze to the swell of her breasts beneath the dark blue T-shirt she wore. “Now. I’m going to bed. Good night, Jack.”
“Good night, Donna,” he returned as evenly as possible.
She walked away, headed for the bathroom, and he took a deep, unsteady breath. It was going to be a long night. He wasn’t sure how many more nights he was going to be able to survive lying beside her and not touching her.
At that thought, he spoke up suddenly. “Did you talk to housing about fixing the ceiling?”
She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him.
“Yeah,” she said tiredly, “for all the good it did me.”
“What’d they say?” he asked, even knowing, from long, painful experience, what the answer to his question would be.
“Let’s see…” She tilted her head to one side and tapped her chin with the tip of one finger. “I want to get this right. Oh, yeah.” She smiled tightly. “‘Mrs. Harris,’” she mimicked in a deep, slow, Southern drawl, “‘of course we’ll get on out there just as soon as we can. But it could take some time.’” She dragged the word “time” out to be three syllables long.
Naturally, Jack thought. The corps didn’t do anything in a hurry. Except go into battle. Then everybody snapped to and got their jobs done in record time. But as far as getting repairs made, he’d probably have his next duty assignment before that ceiling got fixed.
Great.
“Anyway,” Donna said, her voice deliberately more cheerful than necessary, “the guy told me how fortunate we were that it was just our ‘guest’ room that had been ruined. So I don’t think they’re going to be in any big hurry to get to us.”
“I suppose not.” Absently, Jack wondered if he could figure out how to fix the damn ceiling himself.
“You coming?” Donna asked before heading for the bedroom again.
Not likely, he thought grimly. Out loud, he said only, “In a minute.”
“Okay, then, good night.” Then she added. “I’m sorry about—”
“Me, too. ’Night.” As she left, his chin dropped to his chest. How could she be so relaxed about the very sleeping arrangements that had him walking around like a zombie for lack of rest?
Easy, he told himself. She obviously didn’t want him. So, there was the answer to the problem of whether or not to break his own word about sexless marriages. If the bride wasn’t interested, the groom really had nowhere to go.
Jack straightened and looked toward the bedroom. He couldn’t help wondering just what kind of horrible karmic debt he was paying off.
They each started out on the edges of the mattress. Lying on either side of an invisible but nonetheless impenetrable brick wall.
As always, though, after a few tense minutes, Donna’s breathing deepened and the first, soft sound of humming reached him.
Jack turned his head to look at his wife. Black hair fanned across the pillow, her expression unguarded, Donna’s lips curved slightly as if she were enjoying a dream. Well, he was glad one of them had something to smile about.
Donna lay on her side, facing him, one hand stretched out across the mattress as if reaching for him in her sleep. He smiled to himself at the idea.
Man, she really was something, Jack thought. Strong, gorgeous, intelligent and funny. Not afraid to face him down in an argument, giving as good as she got. Everything he had ever dreamed of finding in a woman.
A wife.
He shifted his gaze to stare at the ceiling in the dark. Wouldn’t his aunt and uncle laugh at him if they could see him now? They’d always told him he was worthless. That no woman would ever love him.
Oh, yeah, he thought grimly. They’d get a real kick out of knowing that the only way he could get a woman to marry him was by swearing that he wouldn’t touch her.
Memories rose up inside him, swirling around his mind until the images twisted together into a blinding mass of remembered pain. He’d tried to make them love him. After his parents had died, he’d done everything he could to show his new family that he was worthy of their love.
But they’d paid no more attention to him than they might a stray hound that had wandered into their home. So, just as an unwanted dog would, he had turned on them. It had been as if there’d been a devil on his shoulder, urging him, guiding him into trouble.
He closed his eyes against the old wounds. That Jack was gone, forgotten as he should be. Things were different now. He’d made his own life. He’d become a man to respect. To admire.
But still, just as his aunt and uncle had predicted so long ago, no one loved him.
Donna suddenly rolled up against him. Before he could ease to one side, she’d draped one arm across his chest and snuggled her head into the hollow of his shoulder.
Jack inhaled sharply. His body hardened instantly. He muffled a groan that might have awakened her, and tried to slip out from beneath her. But she only moved in closer, her soft humming becoming louder as she cuddled against him.
Insistent desire ebbed and was replaced by an emotion so tender, it caught him unaware. Lust gave way to the instinct to protect. To cherish. Briefly, he wondered what it might be like to spend the rest of his life like this. With Donna curled in beside him. An imagination he hadn’t been aware of before, suddenly produced images of the two of them together, surrounded by kids and dogs. Happy. Laughing. Loving.
He closed his eyes, letting those visions fill his mind until his soul felt full, complete.
The Littlest Marine & The Oldest Living Married Virgin Page 21
