Husband: Some Assembly Required

by Marie Ferrarella

  As she spoke, Murphy caught glimpses of the little girl Shawna had been. Hurt, lonely. He placed a hand over hers, offering mute comfort. “Seems to me she was looking in all the wrong places.”

  She knew what he was telling her. He understood. “You don’t expect it to be in your own backyard.”

  The house just up ahead was a wide, sprawling single-story ranch house with a rustic-looking rail fence framing the front lawn. Kelly and Thomas had moved here from Thomas’s house shortly after Harmony’s birth, wanting something that was neither “his” nor “hers,” but theirs.

  Murphy pulled up along the curb, squeezing into one of the last remaining spots. There were cars all along both sides of the road. “That’s where some people are mistaken.”

  She gathered her purse to her, ready to get out. This, too, she understood. “You’re getting serious again.”

  “And you’re evading again.” He placed a hand on her arm. Now that they were here, he was in no hurry to join the party. He wanted her to himself for a little while.

  The look in his eyes was easy to read. She knew what he was thinking—exactly what she had been thinking. What she couldn’t, under any circumstances, let happen. Having her heart torn out of her chest once was all a person should be required to allow.

  Shawna withdrew her hand from beneath his. “I don’t want this, Murphy. I don’t want any entanglements, any promises.”

  They were going to come together, to make love passionately. It was just a matter of time. He knew that and so did she.

  “Then we won’t make any promises, except that there’ll be no promises.” Humor lifted the corners of his mouth as his eyes coaxed her to relent. “Fair enough?”

  He put out his hand, waiting for her to take it, to accept the terms he was offering. No strings, no attachments. It was what they both wanted. Being mature adults, it was something they could both live with, as well.

  After a beat, Shawna took his hand. He could see by the look in her eyes that she was afraid that taking it meant tacitly giving her consent to whatever it was that followed.

  “I’d be very careful what I was agreeing to if I were you,” she heard a male voice say.

  Shawna turned to see Thomas bending over, peering into the car window.

  “He’s a slippery one,” Thomas told her. He opened the passenger door and stepped aside. When she got out of the car, he offered her his hand. “Hi.” He smiled at her warmly. “I’m Thomas Sheridan, in case you don’t remember.”

  Murphy was quick to place a proprietary arm around Shawna. “She remembers. She’s got a great memory.”

  Thomas did nothing to hide his amusement. Whether he knew it or not, Murphy was very interested in this woman. He and Murphy exchanged looks and Murphy gave an involuntary shrug, reinforcing his rakish smile.

  “Then I’d be embarrassed if I were you.” Thomas turned toward Shawna. “Fortunately, I’m not him.” Expertly he extricated her from beneath Murphy’s arm. “C’mon, let me introduce you around.”

  Murphy maneuvered to Shawna’s other side. “Thomas has gotten a lot pushier since high school.”

  “That’s charm,” Thomas corrected.

  His eyes shifted from his best friend to Shawna. If he wasn’t mistaken, he saw a little of himself within her, the way he’d been too many years ago to count. That first time, Murphy had brought him home because Thomas, new to the school, had taken Murphy’s part against a bully in the school yard. Thomas had been seven, living his life as an outsider. It took the Pendletons and their warmth to make him feel alive. She could use a little of that, he mused, looking at Shawna.

  “Murphy,” he confided in a stage whisper, “wouldn’t know charm if it raised its head and bit him.”

  “If it bit me, it wouldn’t be charm, now, would it?” Murphy turned his back on Thomas, his attention solely on Shawna. “He’s got a lot to learn about charm.”

  “Those of us with a genuine supply of charm,” Thomas countered, tongue in cheek, “don’t need to learn anything about it.”

  Caught between the two men and this so-called argument, put on solely for her benefit, Shawna laughed, entertained. “This I remember.”

  Murphy looked at her, his brows drawn together into a single line. “‘This’?”

  She nodded. “You two were always being competitive in high school.” She had watched and secretly envied them their friendship then.

  “Competitive?” Thomas echoed. He made the most of the three-inch difference in height as he looked down his nose at Murphy. “Why would I compete against him? It wouldn’t be a fair match.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Murphy told Thomas. Then his eyes shifted to Shawna. Pleasure filled him. She looked relaxed at last. “I never challenge an unarmed man.”

  Murphy pushed open the unlocked door. A wall of noise and mingling voices greeted them. Shawna looked around the sun-splashed living room with its wide, comfortable pieces of furniture. There were too many people here, she thought.

  Murphy sensed her unease immediately. He leaned his head in toward hers. “They’re just people, Shawna,” he whispered. He straightened, his voice rising to a conversation level as he continued. “They get dressed like everyone else. Except maybe for Thomas.” He looked over his shoulder as his brother-in-law joined them. “We haven’t figured out just what he is yet.”

  “Proud,” Kelly told her brother, coming to her husband’s defense. She slipped her arm through Thomas’s. The flash of intimacy between them stirred a sense of longing within Shawna that she quickly dismissed as foolish. But it lingered just on the fringes. “Very, very proud.”

  Murphy raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, like everybody’s kid doesn’t have a first birthday.”

  “Harmony’s special,” Kelly said defensively, though a smile played on her lips.

  Harmony was very special. To the whole family. Her golden-haired daughter was the child Kelly had been afraid she would never have.

  “Did you ever notice how cynical he’s been getting? That’s what comes of leading the life of a confirmed bachelor.” Kelly had aimed the remark at Thomas and Shawna. She stopped abruptly, realizing her mistake. Her eyes instantly filled with an unspoken apology. Murphy merely waved the matter away.

  But not before Shawna saw it.

  She wondered what was being silently communicated between brother and sister, because something obviously was.

  Shawna looked at the group around them. From her vantage point she could see more people in the kitchen and the family room. The window on the side looked out on the backyard, where there were even more people. Murphy had said that it was going to be a family party. This was the largest family she’d ever seen outside of the Kennedys’.

  She turned to Kelly. “Is everyone here related to each other?”

  Kelly nodded. “One way or another.” She separated Shawna from her brother. The woman needed a breather, she suspected, another woman to turn to. “Some we’ve adopted. Come.” She nodded toward another room. “I’d like to introduce you to my pride and joy.”

  Thomas slipped his arm around Kelly’s waist. It had taken him a long time to realize that he was in love with her. There was a lot of time to make up for. “She’s already met me.”

  Kelly disengaged herself. “Boy, one baby and they think they invented the process,” she confided to Shawna with a wink. “I was talking about Harmony,” she told Thomas.

  Kelly threaded her arm through Shawna’s as if they were lifelong friends and then led her away. Kelly had never had trouble making friends. She had a manner that made everyone feel as if they were her friend. With the eye of a veteran hostess, she looked around the room. Everything was going smoothly.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  Shawna laughed, thinking of the way Murphy had maneuvered her into this.

  “I didn’t seem to have a choice.” She stopped abruptly, feeling the flush creep along her neck. Boy, take the woman out of the operating room... “Not that—” She sighed. Ke
lly, she knew instinctively, would be the type to appreciate honesty. “Sorry, I get a little tongue-tied in crowds.”

  Compassion flooded through Kelly. She had never had a problem around people. The more, the better. But she could still sympathize. “Is that why you never spoke very much?”

  Shawna looked at her, confused.

  “In high school,” Kelly clarified. “You were two grades ahead of me, but we had the same lunch period. You used to sit at that lunch table in the corner, all by yourself, studying. I thought you were probably the most intelligent person I’d ever seen.”

  Shawna laughed softly. The truth was that she had been shy. Painfully shy. “Books were a buffer. They didn’t make me feel awkward or inadequate.”

  “Inadequate?” From what she remembered, Shawna, with her perfect grade average, had been more than adequate.

  Shawna nodded. It was almost painful to remember the way she’d been. She’d progressed light-years from then, but there was a part of her that still felt like that sixteen-year-old girl.

  “I had braces, glasses, and I was always the new kid in school.” Kelly urged a soft drink on her. Shawna accepted the can gratefully. “By the time I went to Bedford High, I’d been to eight different schools. Two in one year once.”

  That had been a particularly rough year, she recalled. Her mother had divorced Jack and tried to put as much distance between herself and her ex as she could. The country was pockmarked with men Sally had left behind for one reason or another.

  Kelly had never had to make those kinds of adjustments. She was living exactly ten miles away from the house she’d grown up in.

  She smiled at Shawna sympathetically. “Was your father in the service?”

  There was no point in saying anything about her nonexistent father, or the fact that she suspected that she was probably illegitimate.

  She merely shook her head. “My mother liked to travel. I think she was looking for the end of the rainbow,” she added lightly. “It was always over the next hill.” She looked down at the soft-drink can in her hand. “There were a lot of schools on those hills.”

  It was an experience that could easily have driven a person into herself, Kelly judged. She’d seen the discomfort in Shawna’s eyes when she looked at the sea of faces.

  “Well, this crowd is harmless. I know you’ll have a nice time.” The way she said it left little room for doubt on either on their parts. She placed a sisterly hand on Shawna’s arm and waited until the latter had lifted her eyes to hers. “Like I said, I’m very glad you could make it.”

  She had eyes like Murphy’s, Shawna thought. Like warm turquoise stones bathed in the sun. “Why?” Why should it make a difference to Kelly if she came or not? They really didn’t know each other.

  “Because you’re the first person Murphy’s brought around in a long time whose intelligence exceeds her dress size.”

  The description brought a smile to Shawna’s face. “Maybe he’s just looking for a change of pace.”

  If he was, Kelly took it as a hopeful sign. “I hope so. After Janice...”

  Damn, she’d done it again. What was it about this afternoon that had her sampling shoe leather like this?

  “Janice?” Why had Kelly stopped talking so abruptly? Shawna had a feeling that this was in some way connected to Kelly’s earlier mistake around Murphy.

  Kelly pressed her lips together, as if that could somehow keep her from putting her foot in her mouth again. She didn’t know what was the matter with her. She hadn’t mentioned Janice at all since the woman had left Murphy at the altar. Murphy had never wanted to discuss the incident. Now it had slipped out twice in the space of ten minutes.

  “That’s something Murphy’s going to have to tell you about on his own.” And she sincerely hoped that he would. It would mean that Murphy had found someone he wanted to get serious about. It was high time he did. High time he stopped eluding a shadow.

  She flashed an apologetic smile at Shawna. “My mouth tends to move a little too fast at times. It takes my brain a minute to catch up.”

  “Sometimes two minutes,” Murphy put in, coming up behind them. “You’ve had her long enough Kelly, and you still haven’t brought her to see Harmony.” He looked around. The room was thick with people, but one was conspicuously missing. “Where is the birthday girl?”

  “Down for her nap.” Kelly had put her sleepy daughter in her crib just before Murphy had arrived with Shawna.

  “She has that laid-back Pendleton attitude,” Murphy confided teasingly to Shawna. Kelly was about to lead them to Harmony’s room, but Murphy caught her arm. “Let me show her off,” he said when she raised a quizzical brow. “You always get to have all the fun.”

  Leave it to a bachelor to forget about all the work that went into raising a child. “I also change the diapers and got up for middle-of-the-night feedings.”

  Murphy tugged on a lock of her hair. “Like I said, brat, all the fun.”

  Without waiting for Kelly to respond, the way he knew she was quite capable of doing at length, he took Shawna’s hand and led the way to the rear of the house. He nodded at several people as he passed, but though a couple stopped, ready to talk, Murphy continued moving.

  “This is like a subway at rush hour,” Shawna commented, following.

  “Been to New York?” He threw the question over his shoulder.

  “Among other places.”

  She hadn’t been a willing traveler, he decided.

  He eased Harmony’s door open and then slipped in softly, closing the door behind them. It was like entering another world.

  The room looked as if it had been plucked out of a storybook. There were floor-to-ceiling murals on two of the walls, depicting sweet-faced children playing with furry kittens and plump puppies. The only sound that was heard was the soft, steady breathing of the child who lay sleeping in the crib.

  Murphy saw the way Shawna was looking at the walls, like a person who had unintentionally slipped into Wonderland. “My sister Kimberly paints,” he said in a whisper so low she almost didn’t hear him. “This was her contribution to the room.”

  His smile deepened as it softened. He was looking at the small occupant in the crib. “And there she is, the birthday princess herself.”

  They drew closer, like hushed worshipers to a cathedral railing. Shawna looked down at the little girl. She was sleeping on her tummy, her knees drawn up under her. She had a cherubic face, partially hidden by the ruffles of her pink-and-white dress, which had flipped upward.

  The sweetness that seemed to radiate from her was almost unbearable.

  It came to her without her summoning it. She remembered standing over another crib, in another room. Her son’s crib. She’d stood there for hours, in awe of the miracle of birth, the miracle of having a child of her own. Shawna backed away, feeling the tears gather in her eyes.

  Murphy turned. Surprise melted into concern. “Hey, what’s the matter?” Without thought he took her into his arms.

  Shawna tried to pull away, but his arms tightened around her. She shook her head, feeling foolish. “It’s nothing, really.”

  He knew Shawna wasn’t the type to weep over sentimental scenes for their own sake. “You don’t cry over nothing.”

  She blew out a long breath, attempting to regain control. She was behaving like an idiot. It was just that being here, in the heart of this family scene, had stripped her of her protective layer. “I was just remembering...”

  He understood without having her say any more. “Let it go, Shawna.”

  She looked up at Murphy in surprise. How could he ask her to do that? “He was my son.”

  “You can’t bring him back by grieving. By feeling guilty.” He didn’t want her ruining the rest of her life by torturing herself like this. “Don’t stain his memory with bad emotions. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  He was making sense, even if she knew she was a long way from accepting his advice. “How did you get to be such a philosopher?”
>
  He laughed softly. “I come from a large family. You tend to pick up a few things.” His smile faded into seriousness. “I didn’t bring you here to make you sad, Shawna. I brought you here so that you could see me in a family setting. So that you could feel more at ease with me.”

  An ulterior motive, she thought with a sad smile. He was attempting to tease her out of this oppressive feeling that threatened to overtake her. She worked with him. “So you could seduce me later?”

  His smile was gentle, kind and understanding. Though he hadn’t shared her experience, he knew what it felt like to have your heart wrenched out.

  “Later will take care of itself, but I have to admit, that’s not a bad suggestion.” He kissed her forehead. He wasn’t quite prepared for the warmth that flooded through him when she leaned into him, as if she were taking refuge there for a moment from everything that troubled her. “Feeling better?”

  “Yes.” She looked up at him and let herself remain in his embrace for a moment longer. What would it hurt? “You do have a way of making me feel better.”

  He caressed her face, sorely tempted to forget the party, to forget everything and find a haven for himself and this woman who had captured his fancy in such a viselike grip. But they couldn’t just slip away, as much as he wanted to.

  He crossed to the door, his hand in hers. “Heady stuff, coming from you.”

  “Speaking of heady.” She moved closer to him as they left the room. “Have you given any more thought to—”

  He knew what was coming from the tone of her voice and headed it off at the pass. “Lots of thought.” He moved ahead of her, still holding her hand. “I want you to meet a few people.”

  She wasn’t about to stay behind like a pull toy. Wiggling through an opening, she wedged herself in beside him. “You’re being evasive.”

  “You betcha.”