Wife on Approval

by Leigh Michaels

  She put her coat on and pushed through the main entrance-and stared unbelieving at the empty spot in the parking lot where she'd left her van.

  It couldn't be gone, she told herself. No car thief in his right mind would drive off with an aging minivan, when there were far more interesting and valuable means of transportation available. But it had without question vanished.

  The door opened behind her, and-grateful she hadn't given in to the urge to make faces at the security guard - she turned around to ask for help.

  Austin said, "You were right about the cleanup crews you hired. The place looks better than it has since I got here."

  Paige blinked. "I thought you left a long time ago."

  'I had some work to do, so Cassie took Jennifer home with her. It didn't take much enticement," he added dryly, "because I understand Jake just got himself a dog. I thought you were going home to a tub of bubbles as soon as you'd finished."

  "I can't," Paige said bitterly. "My van's been stolen."

  Austin's eyebrows arched. "From Tanner's parking lot? Surely not."

  "So much for your celebrated security people."

  "I'll bet that's the answer. Did you ever get visitor tags for your van?"

  Paige's jaw dropped. "Visitor - you have got to be kidding."

  Austin nodded. "I'll bet Security towed it. No proper tags. No employee number."

  "Damn your security system! They did it to get even with me for the Christmas tree, didn't they?"

  "Well, you did put the tree smack in their way," Austin said reasonably. "Can I give you a ride?"

  "You can get your bruisers to give my van back."

  "If it's in a lockup somewhere, it's probably stuck there till Monday morning. But I'll drive you home."

  "You can take me to a rental agency." Paige added sweetly, "And you'll be paying the bill."

  "Fair enough. But on a weekend we'd better call first, or you'll end up with a compact that your mother couldn't get into."

  Muttering, Paige dug into her tote bag for her cell phone. "You wouldn't happen to know the number?"

  Austin complained, "It's too cold to stand out here, anyway. Let's go into the building, at least."

  Against her better judgment, she let him take her arm. Inside, she went straight to the security desk. The guard had vanished, no doubt gone to do his regular rounds. But if she could reach a telephone directory...

  "When I proposed to you," Austin said quietly, "I meant every word of it, Paige."

  "How flattering." She could see the book she needed, but it was just out of reach.

  "I was telling you the truth. I believed what I was saying. And I was absolutely wrong."

  "That's nice. Can you reach that directory for me?"

  "I could, but I won't. Half an hour, Paige, I swear. That's all. Give me half an hour, and then I'll take you home, or call a cab, or do whatever you want."

  "And I suppose you'll never mention the subject again?"

  "I didn't go quite that far," he admitted.

  She turned her back to the security desk and boosted herself up to sit on it. "You're like Chinese water torture, Austin, you know that? You never give up. All right, you've got your half hour." She stretched as far as she could and got her fingertips on the directory.

  "The real reason I proposed to you - the reason that I didn't want to admit even to myself - is because I love you, Paige."

  The hand she was using to support herself skidded on the slick surface of the desk, and Austin's iron grip was the only thing that kept Paige from going face-first over the edge.

  Austin pulled her back into a sitting position, but he didn't remove his arm from around her waist. Instead he stepped closer, until their faces - on a level because of her perch - were just inches apart.

  "Leaving you behind when I left Denver was the single worst decision of my entire life. The stupidest thing I have ever done. Not only do I love you, Paige..." His voice dropped to a husky whisper. "I've never stopped loving you."

  Furious, Paige shoved at his chest. He didn't move. "You expect me to believe that? You married Marliss Howard. You have a child-"

  "Actually," Austin said, "I didn't."

  "What are you talking about? Jennifer is not a figment of my imagination!"

  "I mean, I didn't marry her mother."

  Paige almost shrieked, "And that's supposed to make me feel better? That you didn't even marry the mother of your child?"

  "Well...yes, I expect so. Marliss was a good friend-"

  "Yeah," Paige muttered. "I'd say. Now if you don't mind..." She tried to slide off the desk.

  Austin held her. "You promised me a half hour."

  "Justifying this would take days, Austin. If you think you can do it in your remaining twenty minutes, you're delusional."

  "Just let me tell you what happened."

  Paige saw the determination in his face and gave up.

  She shrugged out of her coat. "I might as well be comfortable."

  "I met Marliss when I applied for the Philadelphia job."

  "The one you left me for." She was deliberately picking at the wound, making sure she didn't forget how much it had hurt.

  He nodded. "She was the human resources manager who interviewed me. I was new in town, and I was just beginning to realize that I'd messed up in a big way. And she was feeling a bit lonely at the time, too."

  "Austin, if you fell for that old trick-"

  "I'm not defending, just explaining. Marliss's job was choosing people, but in her personal life she apparently didn't apply all the same rules-so when she broke the news to her boyfriend that she was pregnant, he vanished from the picture."

  "And of course she needed a friend," Paige said. She didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  Austin didn't seem to hear it. "And then things got worse. When Marliss was four months pregnant, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. They couldn't treat it while she was pregnant, and they didn't have time to wait till they could safely deliver the baby. Her only chance to live was to abort the pregnancy."

  Paige put her hands over her face. She could almost feel what was coming.

  "Marliss refused to do that. If she sacrificed her child, she said, she wouldn't want to live. But she didn't have any illusions about the choice she was making. She asked me - as a friend - to raise her child."

  “Jennifer?'' Paige whispered.

  "I swore to her that I would do my best. I brought Jennifer home from the hospital, and just three weeks later her mother died. The only thing she'd had time to do was sketch out the nursery she wanted her baby to have."

  "Jennifer's room," Paige said. "That's why it was so important to have it right-to make it as close as possible to what her mother planned."

  Austin nodded. "It's the only thing she has from Marliss - that and an album of photographs. As soon as the paperwork could be done, I adopted her."

  "Does Jennifer know?"

  "Yes, though I edited it down to what she can handle, at her age." He sighed. "She saved me, Paige - Jennifer did. And she also forced me to face what I'd done. What I'd given up when I lost you."

  She said levelly, "You mean, when you threw me away."

  "That hurts - but as you told me once, the truth often does. I was stupid, Paige. I had no idea what I was giving up when I left you. I put my ambition above my commitment to you - told myself that the desire to succeed was natural and normal, that I was only trying to provide well for you, and that if you really loved me you'd see that. I convinced myself you were just being selfish."

  "Trying to keep you from chasing the brass ring."

  "By the time I realized that there were more important things than getting to the top of a corporate mountain, it was too late to patch the mistake. So I went on. I did the best I could to juggle my job and my daughter. And I pretended I didn't miss you."

  She sighed. "Why did you come back to Denver, Austin?"

  He said wryly, "I thought it was because Caleb offered m
e a terrific opportunity - a job I would love but which was flexible enough to let me make up for the time I'd missed with Jennifer."

  "And the first person you run into is me. That must have been quite a surprise."

  "Not really," he admitted. "I saw our china at Sabrina's dinner party the night of my interview - the china you'd picked out as our wedding pattern even though we didn't have a table to put it on. And it didn't take much inquiry to find out there was an elusive third partner in Rent-A-Wife and her name was Paige."

  "That's what you meant," she said, startled. "When you first came into the apartment and I was there, you said, 'It was you.' You sounded so strange - almost as if you were relieved, and yet I didn't think that was possible."

  "Relieved? Yes, but I was still too proud to admit it. I didn't know I was coming back here to find you, Paige. I just knew I wanted to come home. I wanted to set down roots. I wanted to build a family. It wasn't until I saw you with Jennifer that I realized I wanted to build that family with you. I even told your mother the day I came to pick Jennifer up that I was back to stay - but I was still too proud to admit the reason."

  Paige could hardly take it in, herself. He'd told Eileen? No wonder her mother had looked as if she'd had an electrical shock.

  "You'd gone on without me," he said softly, "and it hurt. That was why I let you believe that I'd married Marliss, that I went straight from you to another woman. You didn't seem to miss me in the least. And I thought the only thing I could offer you, the only thing that might tempt you-"

  "Was money," she said softly. "The very thing that took you away from me in the first place."

  "I'm a fool, Paige. A blind, stupid fool, not to know what was happening to me. I wouldn't blame you a bit if you told me to get lost." His voice was husky.

  She smiled a little. "Why bother? You wouldn't do it." Austin's jaw tightened. "If that's what you want, Paige-"

  She shook her head, and watched the slow dawn of hope in his eyes. The glow of it took her breath away, and she had to swallow hard before she could speak. "I want to be Paige Weaver again," she said softly.

  He swept her down from the security desk and into his arms, and for a long time Paige's world narrowed till there was room for only the two of them.

  Finally, when he stopped kissing her, she admitted with a tremor in her voice, "I wanted so much to say yes. But I didn't think it was me you really wanted. I thought you were looking for a symbol, and an errand-runner, and a nanny-"

  "Shall I prove it's you I want?" he asked. "I always did like a good challenge."

  She held him off. "Let me finish. You were right when you said I was selfish not to go with you, Austin. Yes, my mother needed me right then-but that's not why I stayed. Even then, you'd changed from when we were first married. You were growing distant. The new job wasn't going to be any different, really, except that it would be even worse. Longer hours, more things to prove. Less time for me." She took a deep breath. "If I'd been convinced I was important to you, I could have fought. But I thought I didn't matter to you. And if I wasn't going to have a marriage, anyway, then I might as well be here, where my mother needed me. Where somebody needed me."

  "I need you," he whispered. "Not to be a symbol. Not to smooth my life. Not to be a nanny. I need you, Paige - my wife, my lover, my love. I should never have left you-"

  She laid a finger across his lips to silence him. "If you hadn't," she reminded softly, "we wouldn't have Jennifer."

  "We? You don't know how happy that makes me. My darling, I've never stopped loving you. But I've also never loved you as much as I do right now."

  It was a long time later that Paige tugged playfully at his earlobe and said, "I hate to be practical, but it's getting late and I still need a car. Just because Ben Orcutt seems to be spending the better part of his waking hours at my house these days doesn't mean I can depend on him for transportation."

  "Is he really?"

  "Today he brought popcorn and a movie, and when I was leaving I heard Mother laugh. I thought she'd forgotten how." She swallowed hard. "So go ahead and say you told me so."

  Austin shook his head. "I wouldn't dream of it. I was jealous of Eileen, too - but now I'm glad that she'll always need you. Maybe it will just be in different ways."

  Paige blinked back tears. "About that rental car-"

  "You don't need one."

  "Why? You're going to stick around all weekend and be a taxi service?" The idea had its positive aspects, she decided.

  "If you like. But your van should be in your driveway by now. Right where I told the tow truck driver to take it."

  She stared at him. "You had my van towed? And then you blamed security for it?"

  "Well," he said reasonably, "I had to get my half hour somehow. Do you really think it was such a bad idea?"

  She smiled, and shook her head. "Caleb was absolutely right. Whatever Austin wants, Austin gets."

  "And," he whispered, holding her even closer, "Austin keeps."