A Marriage-Minded Man?

by Linda Turner

  Through the cloud of passion that fogged her brain, she heard him whispering to her, coaxing her to give herself to him. And she was helpless to resist. Sobbing, needing to touch him, to wrap herself around him and find release in his arms, she strained against his hold. “Sam, please! I can’t stand this! Let me go!”

  But he wouldn’t listen. Not until he had her writhing under him, her body tight with need. Before she’d even realized he’d released her hands, he parted her thighs and settled himself between them. In the warm darkness, her eyes met his and she never thought to be afraid. Not of him. Never of him. If she knew nothing else in life, she knew that.

  Because she loved him.

  The thought slipped out of the darkness to steal her breath, and she could do nothing but stare at him. Where? How? When? The questions flew at her from all directions and she couldn’t answer any of them. Not when he was this close, and she ached for him with every fiber of her being.

  She wanted, needed to tell him. But then his fingers linked with hers, and he began to slowly ease into her, filling her, inexorably pushing until he came up against the wall of her virginity. She instinctively stiffened against the pain, but there was no escaping it—not then, and not when the delicate tissue suddenly tore free and he surged into her with a low rumbling groan of satisfaction.

  Gasping, a flood of emotions swamping her in waves, Jennifer felt tears well in her eyes and could do nothing to stop them from spilling over her lashes. She’d read enough books and seen enough movies to know what to expect, but no one had warned her that simply by taking her, he would stake a claim on her very soul. It was beautiful, frightening, overwhelming. And terribly, so terribly intimate.

  His expression as fierce as a hawk’s, he leaned down to kiss away the tears that silently trailed down her cheeks. “Are you okay?” he rasped.

  She nodded, her smile tremulous. “I didn’t expect...”

  She couldn’t find the words, but he understood. “I know. I didn’t, either.” Then he moved, and she gasped at the sensations that rippled through her like heat lightning. Urgency filled her and fueled her blood, and with a sob, she lifted her hips to his again and again in a rhythm that pounded like thunder in her veins. She heard him murmur encouragement to her, felt his hands close around her hips and lift her into his thrusts, and thought she was surely going to die of the hot unbearable tension that consumed her.

  Insanity. There was no other way to describe it. He’d taken control of her head and her heart and her body, and was driving her unrelentingly toward an end she couldn’t see. Then, before she was ready, they were upon it, and she could no more have pulled back than she could have stopped the rising and setting of the sun.

  With a cry that rose to the rafters, she hurtled over the edge into the unknown.

  Dazed, pleasure rippling through her like wildfire, she dimly heard Sam’s own shout, and then he was convulsing in her arms. At last he collapsed against her, his body heavy, his breath warm and enticing as he buried his face in her neck. Feeling boneless, she curled her arms around him and held him close, a sleepy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. So this was what all the fuss was about. Now she could see why people did stupid things for love. She’d never felt more complete in her life.

  Chapter 11

  Sam reached for her twice more during the night. He couldn’t help himself. She was in his blood, a thirst he couldn’t seem to quench, and in the all-concealing darkness, there was no tomorrow, no yesterday to make him stop and think about what he might be getting himself into. There was just Jennifer, in his bed, in his arms.

  But with the coming of dawn, there was no darkness to hide behind, no shadows to conceal the love lighting her face when he awoke to find her lying close, smiling at him dreamily. His eyes tracing the enticing curve of her mouth, he felt his heart shift and knew that if he wasn’t already in love with her, he was damn close. If things had been different...

  But they weren’t. And no one regretted that more than he did. She might be twenty-four years old, but if last night had done nothing else, it had proved to him once and for all just how innocent she was. No doubt she thought she was in love! But she’d never even had a boyfriend before, let alone a lover. For the first time in her life, she was dealing with good old-fashioned lust, and just like every young girl with stars in her eyes, she thought it was love. When she was more experienced, she’d know better.

  His gut clenching at the thought of another man touching her, something of his feelings must have shown in his face. The soft glow in her eyes dimmed. “Obviously I don’t have any experience with mornings after,” she said quietly. “Is this where you tell me last night was a mistake?”

  He winced, unable to deny it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” she agreed, surprising him. “But that’s not going to change anything, is it? You’re still dumping me and turning last night into nothing but a one-night stand.” With a dignity he couldn’t help but admire, she clutched the covers to her bare breasts and sat up against the headboard to face him. “I think I’ve got a right to know why.”

  Any other woman would have cried and raged and accused him of leading her on just so he could get her into bed. But not Jennifer. Oh, no. Unconcerned that the only thing hiding her nakedness from him was a sheet, she looked him right in the eye, her hurt as obvious as an open wound, and insisted that he explain himself. He’d never felt more like a heel. God, she was something!

  “I’m not dumping you,” he said irritably.

  She laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. “That’s easy for you to say. Trying sitting where I am and you might change your mind.”

  “You don’t understand...”

  “No, I don’t. So make me.”

  Swearing, he threw back the covers, reached for his jeans and rose naked from the bed. He heard her gasp, but he was too agitated to worry about her sensibilities. Stepping into his jeans, he hauled up the zipper and just barely missed injuring himself.

  Then he whirled to confront her. “Do you think I like doing this? I care about you, dammit! And after last night, you sure as hell can’t deny I want you. But that isn’t always enough. Believe me, I know, honey. I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

  Pacing, he didn’t see her go pale. “You’re talking about your ex-wife.”

  “She was a kid when I met her, barely twenty-two. Not much younger than you,” he said. “And an innocent. She wanted a husband and babies and a life right out of ‘Father Knows Best,’ and she thought I could give it to her. The only problem was I wasn’t Robert Young, and the real world’s nothing like a TV show. I couldn’t be home every night at five for the dinner she’d slaved over all afternoon. Hell, there were times I had to work double shifts and was lucky if I got to see her two or three nights a week.”

  “You’re a cop,” Jennifer said stiffly. “She must have realized when she married you that you were never going to work banker’s hours.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. To be perfectly honest I didn’t know what was going on in her head. We never had that much in common, but I figured as long as I loved her and we got along in bed, nothing else mattered. Six months after we were married, she was bored and lonely and went looking for someone to keep her company. It was three months before I even had a clue she was fooling around. I came home unexpectedly one night when I was supposed to be working and found her in our bed with another main.”

  “So are you saying that because one woman cheated on you, another one will? That I will?”

  “You’re young,” he said flatly. “And inexperienced. And like most young girls, I’m sure you want the fairy tale—the husband, the castle and happily-ever-after.”

  “Did I say I wanted those things? I don’t remember even hinting at anything of the kind.”

  She didn’t have to. He could see the pain of disenchantment in her eyes. And he hated it. Hated himself for putting it there. The last thing he wanted to do was hu
rt her, but this was a discussion he’d put off for too long.

  “No, you didn’t say anything,” he retorted, “but just for the record, don’t get caught up in Alice’s stories about this house. That’s all they are—stories. Happily-ever-after doesn’t exist in real life, and magic doesn’t last.”

  His words cut her to the bone, but it was the disillusionment in his eyes that really hurt her. He was wrong. True love did last—she’d seen it every day of her life in her grandparents’ eyes when she was growing up. She just hadn’t thought she’d ever find it for herself. Now that she had, she wanted what her grandparents had had. She wanted fifty or more years of waking up in his bed, finishing his sentences, loving him to distraction. She would, in fact, settle for nothing less; and the sooner he knew that, the better.

  “If that’s the way you feel, I can’t do anything about that. But just for the record, I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. I love you,” she said boldly, knowing he would rather not hear the words but saying them, anyway. “And it’s got nothing to do with the magic that really is in this house. If we’d met on a mountaintop in Tibet, I’d still feel the same, and that’s not ever going to change. If that makes you uncomfortable,” she said when his brows snapped together in a scowl, “I’m sorry, but I thought you should know.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable, dammit! I’m just concerned about you.”

  “Don’t be,” she said with a rueful smile. “Because although I can’t see anything for myself, I know you’ve got something wonderful waiting for you down the road, and I’ve got to believe that it’s me.”

  Unfazed by his fierce scowl, she said lightly, “Now that we’ve got that settled, I’d appreciate it if you’d hand me my gown so I can get out of here. I want to hit the ground running at the café today, and the sooner I get over there, the better.”

  He wanted to argue—she could see it in his eyes—but her smile was steady, her attitude all business, and what, after all, could he say? He’d wanted her out of his bed and she was leaving without a fuss. Grinding an obscenity between his teeth, he grabbed her gown up from the spot he’d tossed it last night and handed it to her without a word. Striding to the window, he turned his back to her, giving her privacy to dress.

  She’d meant every word she’d said about his future and her place in it, but that didn’t make leaving him any easier. How she got out of there without falling apart, she never knew. Once she was decently covered by her gown, she felt more in control, but when he walked her to the front door of his apartment, she was horribly afraid he was going to insist on escorting her all the way downstairs to Alice’s door, and that she couldn’t have borne.

  Stepping over his threshold into the upstairs hallway, she stopped and turned to face him. It was still early, the house quiet, her voice low as she said, “There’s no need for you to walk me downstairs. It’s not that far and I know the way. Goodbye, Sam.”

  She would have held her hand out to him and ended it all with a businesslike handshake, but one look at his stony expression and she changed her mind. This was what he wanted, she reminded herself as she turned toward the stairs and started down them. After the hell of his ex-wife’s betrayal, she could understand how leery he would be of letting her or any other woman get close to him. But she wasn’t the one who’d hurt him. Giving him the time he needed to realize that was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  In spite of all her firm resolve, though, she couldn’t believe he would just stand there and let her walk out of his life. But every step she took brought her farther away from him, and he never said a word. She reached the ground floor, and the only sound from above was that of his apartment door quietly, but firmly, shutting. He couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d stabbed her in the heart. Still, she didn’t cry. She couldn’t and not still hold on to the hope that she was his destiny.

  She’d already decided she wasn’t going to tell Alice anything about their breakup and put the woman in the uncomfortable position of choosing sides. But the minute Alice opened her apartment door to her quiet knock, she took one look at her face and said, “What’s wrong?”

  Jennifer had to smile. Alice hadn’t batted an eye at the sight of her standing in the hall in her bare feet and nightgown, but one look at her sad face, and she puffed up like a mother hen.

  Suddenly the words came tumbling out. “I’m in love with Sam and he dumped me because he thinks I’m just like his ex-wife. He even warned me not to believe the stories about this house because there’s no such thing as happily-ever-after and magic doesn’t last.”

  Wiping at her eyes, she half expected Alice to bristle at the dig about the house, but amazingly she only laughed. “Oh, he did, did he? Well, I’m glad to hear it. Because the more someone fights the magic of this old house, the harder he falls. You hang in there, dear. He’ll come around. You just wait.”

  Considering the circumstances, there was nothing Jennifer could do but wait. Time, she convinced herself, was her best friend. And living at the Lone Star Social Club could only help her cause. She would be close, but just out of reach. And that just might be what Sam Kelly needed to shake him up.

  Or at least that was what she thought until she walked through the Lone Star’s front door later that afternoon and came face-to-face with Sam. He was on his way out, his thoughts elsewhere. He looked up, saw her right in front of him and stopped dead in his tracks. He nodded a greeting, but his expression was grim, as was the silence that neither of them seemed able to break. When he finally stepped around her and continued on outside, it was all she could do not to cry.

  If she’d had anywhere else to go, she would have moved out that night. As much as she hated to cut and run like a coward, she knew now she couldn’t stay there for long, not if Sam was going to freeze up every time he saw her. She couldn’t bear it. She’d just have to get her apartment fixed up as soon as possible. It was the only solution.

  The first thing she did the next morning when she arrived at the café was haul out the telephone book and start calling contractors who specialized in remodeling. She pleaded and begged and bullied and finally convinced four of them to stop by as soon as they could that day to assess the damage and give her a bid. When the first one arrived before noon and walked through both her apartment and the café, she could have cried with relief when he told her he could get started on the job by the end of the week if she accepted his bid. The three others told her the same thing when they arrived that afternoon. By the time she was ready to lock up at the end of the day, she was feeling better than she’d dared to hope. Once she got the verbal bids in writing and checked references, all she needed was the go-ahead from her insurance company to get started later in the week.

  Half-afraid she would run into Sam in the hall again, she spent long hours at the café and her apartment cleaning and hauling out debris. And whenever she was there, there was always a patrol car parked across the street. She knew Sam was responsible for that and liked to think he’d ordered the extra security because he loved her and wanted to make sure she was safe until the thug who tried to burn her out was caught. In the back of her mind, however, a caustic little voice reminded her that she was the only one who’d seen the perpetrator without a mask. In all likelihood, Sam was just protecting a valuable witness.

  The truth hurt, but she had a lot of work to do, and that helped. On Friday morning workers arrived at dawn to begin the repairs to her apartment. Charred walls and burnt flooring were torn out, and soon the whine of electric saws, followed by the pounding of hammers, was so loud you could hardly hear yourself think. Jennifer loved it.

  By the time she got back to the Lone Star that evening, she couldn’t stop rattling on to Alice about how much work the construction crew had accomplished in only a day. At the rate they were going, she could move back home just as soon as the broken front window was replaced and the apartment had been rewired.

  “Oh, surely not so soon!” Alice cried, surprised. “You just
moved in. And you haven’t seen Sam at all.”

  “Because that’s the way he wants it,” Jennifer told her. “And what do you mean I just moved in? I’ve been here a week already. And it’s not like I’m moving out today or tomorrow. I just wanted you to know that if the rest of the repairs go as well as they did today, it won’t be too much longer until I’m out of your hair.”

  Alice sniffed at that. “It’s not my hair you should be in. It’s Sam’s.”

  She seemed so put out that Jennifer couldn’t help but smile. “I agree, but he’s avoiding me, Alice. Pretending otherwise won’t make that hurt any less. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I need to go home. If Sam wants me, he knows where to find me.”

  “I know. But if you could just stay a little longer...”

  Pain squeezing her heart, Jennifer shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve already stayed too long as it is.”

  Nothing if not persistent, Alice tried to change her mind. For nearly a week she took advantage of every opportunity to bring the subject up and had no idea how close she came to success. The nights were cold and lonely, and Jennifer would lie in her borrowed bed and ache for the feel of Sam’s arms around her. The holidays were coming up—Thanksgiving was only two weeks away—and there was only one person she wanted to spend them with. But she flatly refused to hang around like a lovesick teenager waiting for a chance to run into him in the hall.

  Anything was better than that, so two weeks to the day after she moved in with Alice, she moved back to her apartment. The paint fumes were still strong, the place bare of furniture except for the few old pieces Alice had lent her, but it was home. If she was lonely and miserable, no one had to know that but her.

  Work had always been a panacea for her in times of trouble, and now was no different. The damage to the café had turned out to be minimal, and after scouring the entire place from top to bottom and installing new ceiling tiles, the place looked as good as ever. The same day she moved home, the city health inspector gave her permission to reopen for business. She couldn’t have been more thrilled if he’d told her she’d just won the lottery.