So today was a little ironic, Cinda decided. Her greatest fear in the past six months had been that she, in her new-mother reluctance to get back out there and date, would become some needy, clingy female who glommed on to the first eligible male who crossed her path and would make him want to run. And that seemed to be happening because Trey had been in her company less than thirty minutes, and he already wanted to leave. Cinda thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. Good, Cinda. You’re doing great here, girlfriend.
Totally demoralized now, Cinda twisted her lips. Maybe I’m not ready for this. Maybe Trey’s right. We should call this whole thing off. It’s only fair to us both. And to Chelsi. The last thing she needs is to get attached to a man who won’t be around long. And that’s the last thing I need, too.
There. That was good and healthy. Cinda pushed away from the wall at her back and listened yet again at the door. All was quiet. Good. Cinda turned to face the stairs at the end of the hall. If Trey Cooper was still downstairs, then she owed him hospitality, if nothing else. Cinda smoothed her hands down the front of her flower-sprigged summer dress and fussed with her hair. And stopped. And entertained second thoughts. You know what? Forget that. He’s not getting out of this so easily. I want to do this. So we are going to do this—whether he likes it or not. He made an invitation and I accepted it.
Now, that felt better. A whole lot better. Squaring her shoulders, Cinda marched with resolute steps toward the sweep of stairs that would carry her down to risk and adventure—and fun and laughter. Just what she needed. She started down the steps, her tread light and bouncy. She couldn’t have felt more giddy, more adrenalin-pumped—
“No.” Cinda stalled out, stopping on the stairs. “I can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do any longer.” She turned and fled back up the stairs. She stood at the head of them, one hand gripping the banister as she faced the second floor hall. “Wait a minute,” she said softly to herself, a frown capturing her features. “He has to go through with this. He still needs us.” Cinda saw herself standing there in the empty hallway. “And maybe I need to quit standing here talking to myself.”
And maybe she needed, too, to quit being such a timid little mouse about men. Just because Richard hadn’t valued her didn’t mean no man would. Sure, he’d shaken her with his careless affection, but she knew how to live, how to have fun. Certainly her family was big and raucous and outgoing. Her father was an investment banker and her mother an attorney. Cinda thought of her three older brothers. Jeff was a pilot. Tim a policeman. And John, perhaps the bravest of them all, was the mayor of Canandaigua. And her? She was a journalist. Or had been. Still, no timid mice there in her bloodlines.
And it wasn’t as if Trey was asking her to rappel down the Matterhorn with the baby strapped to her back. Richard might have wanted her to do that. But not Trey. Still, what they were going to attempt to pull off could prove to be just as tricky. But at least it wouldn’t be physically dangerous. Certainly, Richard’s derring-do and the fact that it had finally killed him had made her gun-shy, but only to physical danger. And that was only smart, she supposed.
Then why didn’t Trey’s occupation concern her? Well, it did. She had been concerned for him every time she’d read the sports section of the paper during the racing season. Stock car racing certainly had its share of tragedies. But Trey isn’t a driver, she would always remind herself. He was a mechanic. So unless he dropped a lug wrench or a power drill on his head, he wasn’t in the line of fire. She could live with that.
Happy again, her resolve renewed, Cinda once again took to the stairs. She could now face Trey with an open heart and a clear conscience. And now she could also show him a picture of her husband and laugh with him when he saw Richard’s black hair. Chelsi didn’t resemble her father at all. She looked more like a Mayes, Cinda’s side of the family. Of course, she could have told Trey that downstairs, but she hadn’t been ready then and, besides, what better proof than a picture?
“Which I can’t show him without an actual picture in my hand. Hello.” She stopped on the stairs. “Oh, Cinda. Go get the picture. Duh.” She whipped around and scrambled back up the steps. A part of her mind wondered if Trey could hear all the noise she was making. Well, if he could, it was on his behalf, she reassured herself.
Cinda hurried to the closed door to Chelsi’s room and put her ear to it. Thankfully, no fussing sounds came from that direction. Good. Cinda smiled. Now she could turn her full attention to safely and sanely pretending to be Trey Cooper’s real-life wife in order to help him avoid the clutches of an over-sexed former girlfriend.
Cinda thought of the woman, a faceless stranger to her, and made a face of her own. What had she thought only a moment ago about this not being physically dangerous? What if the woman got violent? Oh, surely not. Please. Certainly we’re all mature adults here.
Or…maybe not. Cinda treated herself to the mental image of her and some Southwood honey going at it tooth, nail and claw over Trey Cooper. Of course, Cinda saw herself getting the best of the woman. After all, she did have those three older brothers…. Suddenly, that prospect was funny—her in a catfight over a man who wasn’t really hers.
She chuckled…then slowly sobered.
Still standing outside her daughter’s room, Cinda crossed her arms under her breasts. She kept thinking words like “pretend” and “false scenario” and “for one weekend only.” She didn’t like the sounds of those. What she felt inside didn’t feel false. Or like it would or should be short-lived. It felt more promising than that. At least to her, it did. Did it to Trey? Was he thinking past the weekend? Or would he just drop her and Chelsi off at the end of forty-eight hours, thank her, and drive happily away?
She’d kill him.
No, wait. Why would he be so upset that she might be looking for Richard in him if all he wanted was a wham-bam-thank-you-wife for forty-eight hours? In that case, it wouldn’t matter what she might be thinking. And hadn’t he said something about there being a possibility of something between them that would outlive their weekend together? Why, yes he had. Joyful again, Cinda wanted to cheer out loud but didn’t dare. Still she pumped the air with a celebratory fist, mouthing, “Whoopee. He likes me.”
Then didn’t she need to get back downstairs before he gave up on her and left? Yes, she did. Cinda grinned diabolically. She was going to go get her a man. The thought became action. She turned and hurried back to the stairs and started down to the first floor. But then she turned right back around and charged back up them. “The picture, the picture, the picture, Cinda. God, think, girlfriend.”
Suddenly she knew exactly which one to show Trey. It was in the home theater. In this particular snapshot, Richard was riding a camel in Egypt. He was tanned and swarthy and turbaned and looked like no one in this house. That ought to convince Trey that in her eyes he was his own man. A tiny little part of Cinda’s woman’s heart whispered, With any luck, he’ll be your own man, too.
Luck, phooey. Cinda’s snort was indelicate. What female needed luck when she possessed feminine wiles? So, there it was, her plan. Once they got to Southwood, Georgia, next weekend, she promised herself, she would play the role of Mrs. Trey Cooper to the hilt. But not only to fool, or to foil, the scheming ex-girlfriend’s plotting. No, Cinda now had an agenda of her own with regard to Mr. Trey Cooper—a man who didn’t know it yet, but a man who had just leaped from the frying pan…right into the fire.
Feeling good, feeling healthy and aware, Cinda told herself she almost felt sorry for Trey. But only almost. Because by the time she was through with him, the man would be thinking he’d been trampled by his very own herd of stampeding yaks. But in a good way, of course.
Cinda hurried into the home theater, snatched up the framed picture, and again took to the stairs. This time, she made it all the way down them and through the house and back to the family room…where her guest awaited her. When her heart tripped happily at the sight of him standing there with his back to h
er, his hands in his pants pockets as he stared out her French doors onto the garden, Cinda knew she was right to pursue this with him.
“Trey?” she called out softly. He turned to her, a framed picture himself of masculine beauty all his own. Cinda’s breath caught in her throat. Recovering, she said, “I want to show you this picture and tell you why you have nothing to worry about here. At least, not from Richard.”
7
SO THIS WAS SOUTHWOOD. It was late in the afternoon on the following Friday, when Cinda got her first look at Trey’s hometown. Through the car’s windows, as they motored toward his mother’s house on the other side of the small, quaint town, Cinda noted the passing sights. Decked out in its patriotic Fourth of July bunting, the place looked like a throwback to the nineteen-fifties. Unpaved roads met main streets. A redbrick schoolhouse sat happily closed for the summer. A drive-in hamburger place featured carhops and cars full of teenagers. A bowling alley sat surrounded by cars big enough to be called land yachts. Well-used pickup trucks kept them company.
A brick theater’s old-time marquee advertised a two-year-old romantic comedy now showing on its one screen. They next drove past a soda fountain, then a drugstore, a clothing and furniture resale shop, a farm equipment dealership, a barbershop and of course, a beauty shop. And they had grabbed a soda at the greasy-spoon diner where the town’s men probably gathered every morning for coffee and gossip and politics.
Cinda smiled. She loved it. She was glad she’d convinced Trey that she saw him for himself and that she was here with him. She’d broken free of the shackles of wealth. More than once, she’d felt she was as sheltered and coddled and restricted as any medieval princess in her castle tower. But not here. She was her own woman. Not Richard Cavanaugh’s widow. Not Ruth Cavanaugh of the Long Island Cavanaughs’ daughter-in-law. Here she was…pretending to be Trey Cooper’s wife. Cinda came back to earth with a wry grin. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly her own woman.
“And here’s Main Street,” Trey said, capturing her attention as he made a right turn. “The nerve center of town. City Hall and the rest of the bastions of local government.”
Sure enough, official-looking buildings from another era, perhaps another century, held captive a town square, complete with a cannon at its grassy center. Scattered around under the trees were park benches populated by old-timers. Off to one side resided a bronze statue of what was no doubt a war hero.
Cinda pointed to it. “Trey, that statue there.” She looked over at him. “Didn’t you tell me once that Southwood had no war heroes?”
A teasing light in his blue eyes rewarded her when he flashed her a grin carrying enough sensual wattage to light up a Christmas tree. “We don’t. He’s a borrowed Civil War hero. Belongs to the next town over.”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“No, but I can if you want me to.” He made a playful feint in her direction, as if to grab her thigh.
Ticklish, Cinda squawked and grabbed his muscled forearm. “You stop that. You’re going to make me wake up Chelsi.”
Still looking devilish, Trey settled back into his driving. “Hey, look there,” he said, pointing ahead.
Cinda saw a big banner strung high up between street lamps on opposites sides of the road. Waving in the slight breeze, it announced the town’s high-school reunion and welcomed all the alumni back to town. To her surprise, Cinda was overcome with a warm but inexplicable feeling of actually coming home. “I like this town. It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting of small-town America.”
Trey’s expression mixed doubt with hope. “You’re just being nice. This is Hicksville, Nowhere, USA.”
“It is not. Quit saying that.” Turning toward her passenger-side window, Cinda smiled a secret smile at the note of boyish pride in his voice that put the lie to his words. This was the same man who’d spent the past hour telling her how much she was going to hate it here and how glad he was that he didn’t live here anymore.
And all of that from the same excited man who had shown up at her house today an hour earlier than their agreed-upon time. He’d calmed down quite a bit, though, after Major Clovis took him aside and told him—to use Trey’s exact words—how the cow ate the cabbage. As near as Cinda could tell, that came close to meaning the same thing as having been read the riot act. Or being threatened with a guillotine.
“You’ll notice this street is actually paved,” Trey observed dryly. “And that, unlike on Elm Street, there are no dogs sitting in the middle of the road licking their, uh, private parts.”
“Hey, I was impressed that you knew the dog’s name and who he belonged to,” Cinda quipped. “Mr. Cheevers’s old mutt named Ed, right?”
“Right.” Again he glanced over at her. “You hate it here, don’t you?”
He wanted so much for her to like Southwood that he didn’t believe her when she said she did. “I don’t hate it here, Trey. In fact, I was just thinking how much I like it. How unlike Atlanta it is.”
“I thought you liked living in Atlanta.”
Cinda shrugged. “I do. But it doesn’t feel like home.” Not like it did here, either.
Trey made a left onto a residential street—Maple Avenue. As Trey drove slowly down it, Cinda caught sight of a few brick homes interspersed with the mostly wood-framed ones. The houses were well-kept, modest, and sported cyclone fences that enclosed grassy backyards.
Gravel driveways were laid out beside each house. Some led to attached single-car garages. Others ended at former garages that had been enclosed at some point for extra room in the house. Shading everything in a friendly manner were tall, leafy oaks and pecan trees. Also scattered in the area were various running, playing children, and a few mothers chatting on the sidewalk amid toddlers and their toys.
Excitement coursed through Cinda. She sat up straighter, thinking this was how life was supposed to be. “Oh, Trey, this is so great. If Chelsi were older, she would love all this.” Cinda turned in her seat as best she could, given the constraints of her seat belt, to see what her daughter was doing. Still sleeping. Cinda again faced forward. “What a great place to grow up. Why did you ever leave here?”
He chuckled as he pulled into a gravel drive that ended at a small wood-frame house surrounded by tall trees and fronted by a neglected flower bed. “Why did I leave? Ask me that again after this weekend.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I mean it, too.” Trey pulled up to the closed gate to the backyard and stopped his red, shiny American-made muscle car. “Here we are. All safe and sound.” Leaving the engine and the air conditioner running, he looked over at her. “So. Let the games begin…Mrs. Cooper.”
Cinda looked around. “Your mother? Where?”
Trey gripped her arm. “Cinda, that’s you. Don’t forget.”
Cinda’s heart thumped with apprehension. “Ohmigod, that’s right. I’m sorry. I’ll get better at this, I swear. I guess it was just being here at your mother’s house that threw me for a second. I’m okay. Really.”
“You sure?”
It was there in his raised eyebrows and doubting look. This whole weekend could blow up in their faces if she didn’t remember her role here. What had she been thinking to agree to such a thing as this? “What are we doing? This is wrong. I mean…look at this.”
By looking down at her hands in her lap, she directed Trey’s gaze there as well. Circling her ring finger was a fake gold wedding band. Once again, in her mind’s eye, she saw Trey’s reddening face earlier when he’d unceremoniously presented it to her and had put a matching cheap band on his own ring finger. “Trey, we can’t do this. You have to think of something else. We’ll be lying to your family and friends. I don’t think I can—”
“Hey,” he said softly. From the corner of her eye, she saw him undo his seat belt and reach out to her. Before she could even hold her breath in anticipation of his touch, he tucked a finger under her chin and turned her head until her gaze met his. A thrill chased through her. The merest tou
ch from him, the briefest of glances, and she was mush, even now.
To her utter surprise, he then leaned over and gently kissed her on the lips. Tiny shocks of electricity skated over Cinda’s lips. She barely had time to close her eyes before Trey pulled back. “I wondered when this reaction was going to set in. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had second thoughts about all this, too. I think it’s a little late now for backing out, but just say the word, Cinda, and I’ll take you back to Atlanta.”
He gently caressed her cheek and then took his hand away, resting it on his thigh. Cinda stared at his work-roughened, capable hand and wished she had the courage to reach over and take it in hers and guide it back to her cheek and nuzzle it, like a cat would. Exhaling, she said, “No. I promised you I’d do this, and I will. Just call it a case of, I don’t know, new-bride jitters, I guess.”
“I like that. New-bride jitters, huh?” His smile was warm and sympathetic—and sensual.
But then his expression became serious. Cinda held her breath. Trey was giving every appearance that an admission of some sort was coming.
Sure enough, he said, “Cinda, I just…” He glanced at her and then away. “I want you to know—” Again he stopped himself. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled, and then looked over at her. “You know, I’m a grown man and this shouldn’t be so hard. But what I’m stumbling through trying to tell you is I want you to know that the only reason I asked you to come with me this weekend was…so I could spend time with you.”
Cinda exhaled her relief. She’d had no idea what he might have been about to say. But this was good. Very good. As if to prove it, a jet of desire flitted through her veins, carried by steadily warming blood. She found she had to swallow before she could speak. “I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife Page 9
