Last-Chance Marriage Rescue

by Catherine Mann

  They were a chatty duo and had offered a couple of times to quiet down, but Nina encouraged them. And he had to admit, it made things less awkward as they rambled on about their grandchildren.

  Lonnie kneaded along Douglas’s neck and shoulders as they neared the end of their hour. “One year at Christmastime, we took the grandkids to Dollywood. And Alexa got sick after riding the Lightning Rod. Her brother teased her about that for years. Even made a little song about it to taunt her when her friends came over.”

  Patsy laughed, sweeping aside a strand of Nina’s blond hair that had fallen loose onto her arm, sticking to the shiny oil. “That reminds me about when we took them to Nashville. Remember how Alexa and Andre sang Johnny Cash songs with me as we drove to the Country Music Hall of Fame?”

  Lonnie pumped the bottle attached to her waist, oil streaming into her palm, releasing a fresh whiff of lavender. “She’s doing her best to instill a love of country music. Aren’t you, Patsy?”

  “Well, I was named for Patsy Cline, after all,” she said, sidestepping her pup as little Waylon scampered to find a bone, then settled back down to sleep again. “Is the temperature on the table okay?”

  “Perfect,” Nina moaned in a way that made him want to moan for another reason entirely. “I bet this would have worked wonders for Douglas after a cold winter day in the saddle.”

  Patsy shifted to Nina’s head, massaging her scalp. “Is this a second honeymoon for you two?”

  Douglas held his breath waiting for her answer.

  “Actually, we’re here with our daughters,” Nina said, her voice flat, neutral. “They, uh, told us about the Top Dog Dude Ranch and here we are.”

  “Awww,” Patsy crooned. “How sweet that you’re still making time for each other while the kids are off doing their own thing. Tending the husband-and-wife relationship is just as important as being parents.”

  Lonnie chuckled, massaging small circles along Douglas’s jaw. “If the mama and daddy are happy, the kids are happy.”

  Great. So much for relaxing.

  Nina let loose a sleepy laugh, though, surprising him. She cranked one eye open to peer at him. “Remember our honeymoon?”

  “When we went white-water rafting and you got seasick?” he said instead.

  “I sure do.” Her muffled voice drifted through the face cradle. “Pregnancy hormones in overdrive.”

  He’d loved her so much but had also been scared to death about impending fatherhood. What did he know about being a dad? His dad had been a workaholic who barely spoke to his kids. Even at dinner, when he wanted something, he would thump his fist on the table, then point to what he wanted.

  Douglas pulled his thoughts from the past before it tensed his muscles all back up again. “We spent the rest of the honeymoon by the fire...”

  “Eating a romantic dinner of crackers, crackers and more crackers.”

  Regret pinched him. “I wish I had taken you on a real honeymoon.”

  She reached to touch his arm lightly, setting his skin on fire. “You tried. Three times as I recall.”

  He’d booked a weekend at a cabin for a snowy retreat, then the twins got ear infections.

  Next time, he’d tried for a totally different vibe and booked a beach condo. A hurricane hit.

  Thinking that surely the third time would be a charm, in a year that money had actually been plentiful for once, he’d booked a cruise. Tyler’s accident happened the day before they were supposed to leave. At least they hadn’t left already with the girls there alone.

  Life had been about day-to-day survival after that.

  “Mr. Archer,” Lonnie’s baritone cut through his thoughts. “You need to relax. Take a deep breath. Now let it out slowly. Is this your first massage?”

  Nina looked over at him, her blond hair piled high on her head in a beautiful—tempting—tumble. “His first massage and our first couples’ massage. But he gave me a spa certificate for Mother’s Day one year.”

  “Ah, good man.” Lonnie pressed Douglas’s temples, nearing the end of the massage. “But why not treat yourself, too, sir?”

  There hadn’t been time, really; he’d always wanted to make sure everyone else was taken care of.

  Nina adjusted the sheet more securely. “He’s not much for pampering.”

  Actually, what he’d said was that pampering made him feel weak. His brother had torn him up for the comment, reminding him of all the massages Tyler had gotten as a baseball player.

  Which then also reminded Douglas of all his brother had given up to stay on the farm for him. He cleared his throat. “I’m learning to appreciate the experience.”

  And he really appreciated the view of his wife’s bare skin, a view he didn’t get to enjoy these days.

  Patsy chuckled softly.

  Lonnie backed away from the table. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Archer, that concludes our session for today. Feel free to take your time getting up. We will collect our tables when you are at dinner.”

  Douglas’s gaze locked with his wife’s. The room echoed with the sounds of the couple packing their bags, silencing the music, then the door quietly clicking after them. Leaving him alone. With his beautiful wife. Romantic music playing in the background, candles flickering on the mantel.

  She gazed back at him, her brown eyes darkening with pupils widening, aroused. Tendrils of fire passed between them. Nina’s delicate arm was outstretched in the space between them, hanging off the side of the table.

  Without sitting up, he reached toward her. She didn’t pull away or say a word. So he took that as encouragement and stroked a finger down her hand. She started breathing faster, her lips parting.

  The feel of her silky skin, even those few inches, tempted him more than he could remember. It had been so long since they’d caressed each other. Line dancing and the half kiss didn’t count. Not like this, such an intimate moment for its understated nature.

  Then her hand curled into a fist and the moment was lost. Regret burned through him, and even as he told himself to be patient, he was tired of waiting for his life to return to some semblance of normalcy.

  Scrambling for something to say to either recapture the moment or diffuse the too-awkward tension between them, he swung his legs off the side, the sheet gathering around his waist.

  A noise from under the table nearly startled him into dropping his sheet. Paws click, click, clicking on the ground had Douglas snapping to attention, pulling him from the moment of broken potential. Little Waylon—apparently forgotten by his owners—darted out in a flurry of orange fur.

  Nina squealed. The Pomeranian looked back, took a corner of her sheet in his mouth. Then yanked, the linen tumbling off the table like a waterfall.

  With his wife wearing nothing but blue lace panties.

  * * *

  While being naked in front of her husband wasn’t anything new, Nina felt the heat of a blush cover her from head to toe. So much so, she barely felt the whoosh of cold air as the fluffy pooch ran around the room with the sheet fluttering behind them like a parachute.

  Hand over her chest, she grasped to catch the sheet, so close. Her fingertips brushed the very edge. Her hand curled, almost plucking.

  Douglas gave chase in nothing but his boxer briefs, calling out to the mischievous canine. “Come. I mean it. Come right now.”

  The elusive cotton slipped away as the pup ran under the sofa.

  So much for modesty. She stood by the cabin’s fireplace, bare except for her blue lace panties.

  Dim lighting from the chandelier streamed down on him, broad shoulders still glistening from the oils. Her heart stuttered. Her breath caught. And oh my, how she craved.

  Frozen in place, the heat of his gaze making her flesh tingle, she wanted to say something, anything, but her mouth went dry. Her mind went blank. Her libido was shouting so loud it overshadowed anythin
g else.

  Quietly, he passed his sheet to her, arm extended.

  She would have thought him unaffected, but his chest rose and fell faster, his pulse throbbing in his neck, his erection straining against his boxers.

  Reaching, she took the sheet from his grasp, their fingers skimming each other. The crackle in the air was so much more than static. It was a current connecting them in the way it always had. On this level, at least, they’d always been compatible.

  And then she was in his arms, the dog all but forgotten, her naked chest against his. She couldn’t help but soak in the beautifully familiar sensation of him, the heat of his skin against hers.

  His mouth against hers.

  He stroked along her back, trailing up and down her spine.

  Pressing closer and yet nowhere near enough, she swept her tongue against his, warm and spicy. She’d missed him, missed this. She loved kissing and her husband sure knew how to kiss, pouring everything into the moment in the way that could only draw her in. Lure her. In this, at least, he didn’t hold back or put up walls. He was alive with emotion, heat, all the tumult he hid from the world.

  Without breaking the connection, he backed her toward the leather sofa, the massive couch just the right size for the two of them. He reclined her back into the butter-soft leather, the lavender scent of the massage oil heavy in the air between them.

  The fire in the hearth crackled and sparked like an echo to the flames between them. She hitched her leg up, stroking her foot along the back of his calf. The weight of him anchored her to the sofa, to the moment.

  He skimmed kisses along her jaw, her neck, while palming her breast. She arched into his touch, a husky moan slipping from between her lips. “I’ve missed you.”

  His growl vibrated against her flesh. “I’ve missed you, too, woman, every day.” He nuzzled her ear. “Let’s move this to the other room so you can get your diaphragm.”

  Her blood iced in her veins. “I left it at home. I didn’t think, expect, that we would...”

  “Right,” he said, his voice clipped as he shifted off her to sit. He scrubbed a hand through dark hair still tousled from her frantic fingers. “And I don’t have condoms.”

  Her body screamed a great big no as the moment slipped further out of reach. “It’s a safe time of the month. You know I’m so regular there’s no guesswork—”

  He shot to his feet, holding a hand up as if to put even another barrier between them. “How can you even think about risking a pregnancy? Our marriage is on the rocks. We are about to lose our home.”

  Tugging the sheet from under the couch, she wrapped the length around her body as he pulled on his jeans. The little Pomeranian scampered out, exploring the room. She had bigger worries right now than chasing the pup. “I understand that, trust me, I do. That’s why I’ve fought so hard to hold on to the place. But Douglas, it’s just that. A place.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong about that. Maybe it’s because you grew up moving around so much. But losing the farm is losing a piece of myself I can never get back.”

  Pulse thudding, Nina turned his dismissal of her opinion over in her head, made all the worse by him so casually noting her chaotic childhood.

  True, they were in financial trouble and she didn’t want to lose the only real home she’d ever known. But she also knew what it was like to thrive in new places. His rebuke about home being land-specific instead of people-oriented had her reeling.

  Breathing deeply, she struggled to rein in her temper and keep her voice steady, calm. “Douglas, you don’t cease to exist as a person the day the land passes to someone else.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong. That land is as much a part of my family as any person. It’s been the core of our family for over a hundred years.” He shook his head, looked down and away, snatched up the fire poker and jabbed at the logs. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Because I didn’t grow up with roots? That’s very condescending of you, don’t you think?”

  He stayed silent, shifting his gaze to the Pom pup as he curled up on top of the sheet on the floor.

  Simmering heat sped through Nina’s veins. Soft cloth still clinging to her skin, she stood straighter. “Then do like I suggested the last time we fought and don’t give up on the farm.”

  “That’s only delaying the inevitable—filing for bankruptcy. At least this way, we’ll have our credit intact and maybe enough left over to buy the girls a pizza.”

  Last time they’d fought about this, she’d begged him to think outside the box. Even if their marriage was on the rocks, at least he would have his family’s land; the girls would have that connection.

  He brushed off the suggestion, dismissing her plea for creativity as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. Numbers—reason—didn’t lie.

  That had been such a splash of cold water, that he didn’t respect her as a person. He didn’t see the value of what she brought to the relationship.

  Marriages rarely died from one event. She’d learned the hard way that the collapse too often came one nail at a time. Somehow, she’d allowed herself to be so enchanted by this place that she’d lost sight of that and started to think of them as a couple.

  From now on, no more couples’ events. They were here for the girls, as a family. Every choice would include both of their pint-sized chaperones. Because one thing was certain.

  The last thing she and Douglas needed was an accidental pregnancy.

  * * *

  Rain hammered the roof of the ice cream parlor as Douglas cranked the ice cream churn, the day full of storms having canceled out their scheduled canoeing trip and bird watching. They’d substituted their sensory day with indoor activities—soap making and ice cream churning.

  An array of small cups with pastel-colored spoons were arranged in a perfect circle—probably Kelsey’s doing—at the center of the table where Nina and the girls sat. Kacie snatched one of the little sample sizes from in front of her sister, a whooping laugh of joy as she tried the small container with the pastel green spoon.

  Nina’s focus stayed with the table, avoiding his gaze. He and Nina hadn’t spent more than five minutes alone since their couples’ massage debacle. Even at night, she made a point of being in bed before him, her back to him and utterly silent by the time he parked himself on the futon. And once he woke up, she had their agenda planned out to the second.

  Now they were the proud bearers of a bag of goat’s milk soap bars, scented with lavender, citrus, jasmine. All for stress relief.

  Which moved them along to the bakery/ice cream parlor. Apparently, this was Mrs. O’Brien’s domain. Bone Appétit was a small, brightly lit parlor. Four tables of guests were arranged on the brown-tiled floor, surrounded by walls brimming with chocolates and baked goods. Warm yellow lights made the space cozier, homey. Really homey to him in particular. Bone Appétit had its guests work together to churn ice. He was surprised the girls had chosen this activity since it was a common occurrence for them growing up on a dairy farm.

  Scents of cinnamon and vanilla clung to the space filled with wrought iron tables and chairs on the patio as well as inside. There were two sides to the shop, one with human treats and one with pooch treats. Ice cream. Cakes. Cookies.

  The dogs around here got treats too—pup-sicles and pup-cakes. Off to the left at the tiniest table sat a couple in their thirties fawning all over each other like newlyweds. A beagle lay at the husband’s feet and the wife placed a pup-cake shaped like a paw in front of the dog. The beagle lifted his head and let loose a bay of approval.

  Douglas had to confess, the O’Briens had their act together when it came to planning events with a dual purpose. It wasn’t just about enjoyment. All the sessions were firmly rooted in farming, while keeping in focus the benefits of living a back-to-nature lifestyle. Somehow he’d lost sight of those advantages, focusing only on the st
ressors.

  And now it was too late for him to tune in to those things on his family’s homestead.

  He cleared his throat, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry about my lack of self-control. The last thing I want is to upset you. To hurt you.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. We’re both adults and we’ve certainly said worse to each other.” Nina spooned up a sample of the mint chocolate chip ice cream. The tightness on her face eased with a blissful sigh as she savored the taste.

  He wished she still sighed like that for him. “That doesn’t make it right.”

  Her bright eyes pierced right through him. “Today, we can just chalk it up to sexual frustration.”

  Well, that was certainly true enough. He was on sensory overload. The scents of the soaps made him imagine rubbing the bars over his wife’s body. The lemony taste of ice cream had him fantasizing about sharing the spoon after sex. All thoughts that were making him increasingly uncomfortable.

  He searched for something benign to say. Small talk had never been his forte. “Which flavor’s your favorite?”

  “The buttercream is amazing. I thought I’d tasted the best of the best back home, but Hollie has quite a talent with her recipes. I can only imagine what it would taste like with fresh milk from our cows.”

  Kacie and Kelsey shot to their feet, excitement animating their steps as they picked their way over to the sampling station. Despite their physical appearance, the girls were different sides of a coin. Wearing light jeans, boots and a flannel shirt, Kacie leaned on the counter decorated with fall leaves and mini hay bales. Kelsey stood straight next to her sister, waiting with patience as Hollie bustled behind the counter even as she fidgeted with her fuzzy daisy-and-sunflower pullover. So reserved and careful it tugged at a parent’s heart.