Wife, Mother...Lover?

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  “And Amy and Alex?”

  “I’ll tell them to congratulate us because we’re getting married.”

  Leanne’s heart sank at the thought of how that announcement would go over. Before she could protest any further, she heard a shriek from the other room.

  “Ginny knows,” Mitch said. “She’ll be here to congratulate us.”

  Sure enough, within seconds Ginny appeared. She came to stand in front of the two of them. With tears in her eyes and a smile on her face, she reached out for them, first Mitch, then Leanne.

  “It’s going to be fine,” she said, hugging them both.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  Later that evening, after Alex and Amy had arrived, along with a few neighbors and some of Mitch and Marc’s friends from work, Leanne and Mitch finally had a moment alone in the kitchen.

  “You all right?” Mitch asked softly.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  Mitch laughed and had the nerve to smile, and she marveled at the change she’d seen in this man in the past twenty-four hours. From the time she’d agreed to be his wife, he’d been like a new man. Calm, cool, confident. Happy, even. It was as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Mitch was certain this would work; to hear him explain it, he had no qualms about making another woman his wife under the circumstances.

  Leanne herself was close to panic. And Mitch wasn’t helping matters by standing so near to her.

  “We could still run away,” she said.

  “Cowardly,” he said, dismissing the notion immediately.

  “And that’s relevant in a situation like this?”

  Mitch’s smile told her it wouldn’t do any good to argue anymore, but she had to try.

  “We’d still be married, whether anyone knew beforehand or after,” she stated. “And once it’s done, no one can stop us.”

  “Leanne, no one can stop us, period,” he said.

  From where he was standing, he had her trapped between the kitchen cabinet, the wall and himself. She had her back to the cabinet. He leaned one hip against it, his hand in front of her, resting against the wall. She was sure that to anyone else the scene must look quite intimate, which no doubt was what Mitch hoped. But Leanne was finding it felt intimate, as well.

  “Leanne?”

  Her name rolled softly off his lips, sounding unlike it ever had to her own ears. And his tone set off this feeling of anxiety low in her stomach. How was she ever going to pull this off?

  “What?” she asked, dreading what was to come, wishing so much that this night were over.

  “I think I’m going to have to kiss you.”

  “Now?” Her heart kicked into high gear. Earlier, standing in the backyard, they’d discussed this like perfectly rational adults. Done right, one kiss, tonight, in front of her sister and brother, should be enough to set them all to wondering if this marriage was real, particularly since they were so quick to believe the worst of Leanne, anyway.

  One kiss, she thought. It sounded so simple, and yet, with Mitch this close to her, nothing seemed simple at all.

  “Amy’s coming in the back door,” he said, leaning ever closer, tilting his head to the side to match his lips to hers.

  Leanne watched as he did so. She gave a whimper as he got within a breath of her mouth. Her heart was racing.

  Mitch must have seen the panic in her eyes. “Shh,” he coaxed in that same tone he used to soothe the boys.

  She remembered the way he touched them, the gentleness that was so surprising, so incredibly appealing, in such a big, strong man. He would never hurt them. Leanne didn’t think he’d ever harm anyone intentionally.

  But it wasn’t his intentions she feared. It was her own treacherous heart, her traitorous longings. For him.

  “Hang on to me,” he whispered, as his mouth finally settled over hers.

  Her hands came up to clutch at his arms, because she didn’t want to fall down, and she wasn’t sure if he knew how unsteady she was. His lips were every bit as soft as she’d imagined. And warm to the touch. And as smooth as silk.

  Unwittingly, her lips parted ever so slightly, and she sighed, a sound Mitch absorbed into his mouth, as his lips parted, too. His grip on her arms tightened yet again as he adjusted the fit of his lips over hers, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth and sucking gently on it.

  His taste was sweet and sinful and absolutely forbidden. Quite easily, she could become addicted to it. He pushed forward until her back was firmly against the cabinets, and then held her there with his body pressed intimately to hers. Desire surged through her and him. There was no mistaking the feel of it.

  He wanted her. Terribly, it seemed. All from just a kiss.

  His mouth opened more fully over hers, his kiss bordering on desperation now. And for a moment, the world seemed just about perfect.

  “Oh, my God! It’s true!”

  Amy’s outraged voice cut cleanly through everything else.

  Mitch broke off the kiss instantly. Leanne turned just for a second to look at her sister, then buried her face in Mitch’s chest. Shaking even harder than before, she leaned into him, grateful when his hands gathered her close and held her against him.

  His chest was heaving; he was breathing just as hard as she was. Leanne took some comfort in knowing he’d been every bit as lost in that kiss as she had been.

  “We didn’t want you to find out like this,” Mitch said.

  “Alex was right,” Amy cried. “He said he saw you in each other’s arms at the house the other night. And I told him he was crazy, but I guess he’s not.”

  Leanne winced at her sister’s anger, and had to force herself to face Amy. Her cheeks burning, she lifted her head, her gaze colliding with Mitch’s stormy one, then her sister’s outraged look.

  “Amy,” Mitch began, “Leanne and I are going to be married.”

  “What?” Amy’s gaze caught on the flash of light coming from Leanne’s hand, which was hanging on to Mitch’s right arm. Then she looked at Leanne. - “How could you do this? She was your sister.”

  To that, Leanne could say nothing.

  “And you?” Amy fixed her attention on Mitch. “I thought you loved her.”

  “I did,” he said, steel in his unyielding tone. “But Kelly’s gone. And she’s never coming back.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Amy said. “I thought nothing Leanne ever did could surprise me, but this... Alex!” She whirled around and walked out the door, calling to her brother as she went.

  Leanne felt the fragile hold she had on her emotions crumbling rapidly as reaction set in, and she turned to the man still holding her loosely in his arms.

  “The expression on her face... it was so much worse than I’d ever imagined. She hates me, Mitch.”

  He took her face in his hands and made her look at him. “Amy’s upset right now, but she’ll calm down.”

  Leanne shook her head. “No. She hates me. My own sister hates me.”

  Mitch pushed her head down to his chest once again and locked his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Leanne was sorry, too. She also wasn’t far from hating herself. Because she knew exactly what Amy had seen when she’d walked in on that kiss.

  There’d been nothing phony about it. No playacting. No pretenses. Somehow, Mitch McCarthy wanted Leanne every bit as much as she wanted him. And by this time next week, she would be his wife.

  Day and night for the next year they would live in the same house, sleep in beds that weren’t twenty feet apart. Wanting each other like this? Leanne wondered.

  She’d never last a year.

  Chapter 10

  They were married the following Friday in the judge’s chambers at the main courthouse downtown. What was to have been a simple, private ceremony had somehow ballooned into a crowd of more than thirty people gathered in one of the domed lobbies of the building. Mitch’s friends and co-workers, his brother and sister-in-law, who lived abou
t forty-five minutes away, his parents, who drove in from Ohio and had been quite kind and supportive, and Marc and Ginny all attended.

  So far, there was no sign of Alex or Amy, although Mitch had invited them. Thankfully, there was no sign of Rena, either, who hadn’t been invited but would have had the nerve to show up regardless. She’d expressed her outrage to Mitch over this scam of a marriage, but found herself unable to stop it.

  Five minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, Leanne was a mass of nerves. Though Ginny knew exactly what this marriage was, she insisted it look real. And Mitch had agreed that it should. So he’d ordered a small bouquet for Leanne—lilies and yellow roses—the scent and the gesture so sweet she wanted to cry.

  With Ginny at her side, Leanne had gone shopping. She’d finally selected a soft, flowing dress in white silk with a skirt that nearly swept the floor. Though it was quite casual, the dress was more romantic than anything she had a right to wear.

  The boys had new suits in navy blue, to match the one their father had chosen to wear. And they had tiny carnations in the buttonholes of their jackets. At every opportunity, they picked at the petals of the little flowers, altogether puzzled over their purpose and, it seemed, insulted at the idea of wearing such things. They also had matching satin ring bearer’s pillows, which they kept throwing at each other as they giggled and dodged each other’s blows.

  And because Leanne knew it would delight Hannah so much, the little girl had a brand-new princess dress, a halo of flowers in her hair and a basket of rose petals to scatter when she preceded Leanne to the point where Mitch and the judge would be waiting.

  Hiding in a room off the lobby, Leanne felt Ginny’s hand close over her forearm. “Steady. It’s almost time.”

  “The judge still isn’t here, is he?” she asked nervously, grateful to the man for giving her this extra time.

  “Court never runs on time,” Ginny reassured her. “But don’t worry. The judge will arrive.”

  Leanne stopped to breathe. “Mitch is so certain this is the right thing to do,” she said, wondering if Ginny agreed.

  “And you trust Mitch.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you love the boys.”

  “I do. But...” Leanne didn’t mean to say it. The words just slipped out. “I think I love Mitch, too.”

  Ginny froze for an instant, understanding dawning. “Oh,” she said softly.

  “I’m not just doing this for the boys,” Leanne confessed. This was what she wanted with all her heart, what she simply couldn’t have. “What am I going to do?”

  Ginny took a breath, then let it out. “You’re going to marry Mitch. You’re going to be a wonderful mother to the boys. And I think you’re going to find out that Mitch’s heart may be bruised and battered, but it isn’t broken.”

  “He could never love me,” Leanne said desperately.

  “Why not?”

  “You saw him with Kelly. You saw him when he lost her. Ginny, he loved her.”

  “That doesn’t mean he can’t love you now.”

  “But she was my sister,” Leanne said.

  Ginny took a handkerchief from her pocket and started dabbing at the tears in Leanne’s eyes. “It’s not as if you’re taking anything away from Kelly by loving the boys or Mitch,” she said.

  “It feels that I am.”

  “Then you’re just going to have to examine those feelings when you’re not feeling so guilty and you’re done mourning your sister. Because I don’t think she’d rest any easier knowing Mitch was alone and the boys didn’t have a mother. I think Kelly would want her family to be taken care of, and that includes having someone like you to love them.”

  “I want to believe that,” Leanne cried.

  “Then believe it.”

  Ginny looked out from the door of the office where they’d hidden themselves away, to see what all the commotion was about.

  “Get ready,” she warned. “The judge is here.”

  For Leanne, the ceremony was like looking at a bad videotape, one in which someone kept changing the recording speeds. Things moved dizzyingly fast, then slowed to a crawl, only to speed up once again.

  She saw a crowd of smiling faces waiting for her, a clump of people that parted in the middle to make an aisle for her to walk down. Mitch stood at the end, the boys dancing around him. He tried to quiet them, and finally managed to draw them to his side. Teddy smiled shyly at Leanne, then wedged himself between her right leg and Mitch’s left one. That and Mitch’s hand steadied her when she feared nothing could.

  The judge, still in his solemn black robes, opened his book and started to speak. Leanne worked hard to follow the words of the sacred ceremony. Feeling like a fraud, she looked into Mitch’s eyes. Whatever he saw in hers must have worried him, because his arm slid around her waist, and his face came down toward hers.

  “You can’t back out on me now,” he said, his lips dangerously close to her ear. “Five more minutes, and we’ve got it made.”

  Swallowing hard, she leaned into him and waited for her cue. Mitch spoke his vows with no hesitation, using that same deep, sexy voice that always had her heart tripping over itself. Her vows, when they came, were uttered so softly she doubted anyone but Mitch heard her. Her fingers shook so much she nearly made Mitch drop her ring.

  And then there was nothing left but the kiss.

  “Oh,” she said, realizing it was time. The last time he’d kissed her was before that disastrous scene with Amy in Ginny and Marc’s kitchen, and Leanne had forgotten she had to get through one more of his kisses while put on for public display.

  Feeling the heat flooding into her cheeks because she’d hesitated so long that people had to notice, she wished she could just sink into the floor. Of course, that wasn’t an option.

  Mitch winked at her and muttered, “You’re making me look bad, Leanne. These people are going to think I’m a dreadful kisser.”

  “Mitch,” she warned, knowing he was going to prove them all wrong, that this wasn’t going to be any polite peck on the cheek.

  But it was too late. When she opened her mouth to beg him to go easy on her, he settled his lips against. hers, his tongue teasing at the opening of her mouth, then thrusting inside.

  It was the most blatantly sexy kiss she’d been given in years. Clinging to him, she felt that blast of heat that always came when she was this close to him, felt the steely grip of his arms, the hard wall of his chest and thighs.

  Not until the applause sounded behind them did Leanne remember that no less than three dozen people were witnessing this. Teddy was squirming around their legs and tugging on Leanne’s dress. Mitch, appearing a little sheepish but still entirely too sexy, picked Teddy up. Timmy scooted in front of them, and together they went to accept congratulations from the friends of Mitch who’d gathered there.

  Leanne. wasn’t sure what she expected next. To go home and pretend this was any other ordinary day, she supposed. And then Marc announced that the reception would begin in fifteen minutes at a hotel three blocks away.

  “Reception?” Leanne repeated. “We’re not having a reception.”

  “Surprise,” Ginny said as she came up behind them. She kissed Mitch on the cheek and gave Leanne a hug. “I’m so happy—for both of you.”

  Leanne waited for Mitch to say something, but all he did was kiss Ginny and tell her, “Thank you,” before someone on the other side of the room called out to him. To Leanne, as he headed across the room, he merely reminded her, “The hard part’s over.”

  As she watched him go, Ginny leaned close to Leanne’s side. “That was some kiss,” she said.

  There was indeed a reception, in a pretty suite atop one of the hotels bordering Lake Michigan. Finger food, a small cake and lots of champagne had people lingering and laughing and talking.

  Mitch tried his best to stay at Leanne’s side, but he kept getting pulled away. She found herself missing him when he was gone, nervous when he was so close his hand was at
her back or his arm around her waist.

  The memory of that kiss kept replaying in her head, just as the first one had kept her awake at night for much of the past week. And now she’d confessed her deepest, darkest secret to Ginny.

  She’d fallen in love with Mitch, and she honestly couldn’t explain to herself her primary motivation in marrying him today. For the boys, of course. For Kelly, because she knew her sister wouldn’t want Rena to have the boys. For Mitch, because Leanne didn’t think he would survive without Timmy and Teddy.

  But she’d done it for herself, as well. For all the foolish dreams she’d once had of a handsome, grinning boy named Mitch McCarthy who’d barely known her name. For the man he’d grown into, the love he’d shown her sister and the joy and the love he lavished upon his children. She’d done it for the future she wanted to have with this man.

  As she turned around, she felt a hand slide around her waist once more, felt a man’s body brush against hers.

  “You look awfully pale, even for a bride,” Mitch said.

  And when Leanne turned toward him, he was right there, so near she felt his breath rush past her lips. Once again, everything seemed to slow down, to fade away, everything except his face.

  She wanted him, in every way a woman wants a man. And she wanted this to last.

  “Leanne?” he said, obviously worried now and coming even closer than before.

  She watched the tightening of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the erratic thumping of blood in one of the pulse points at the side of his neck. Swallowing hard, telling herself to back away, Leanne inched forward, instead.

  It was the first time she’d ever taken the initiative with him, the first time she’d ever shown him so clearly that she wanted him to touch her, and she wondered what price she’d pay for revealing so much of herself. But that was for later. For now, she knew the deep satisfaction of hearing Mitch groan and feeling his hands tighten on her arms as his mouth slid seductively over hers.

  “I swear you’ve cast some sort of spell over me,” he said a moment later when he’d backed off just enough to catch a breath.