He turned and stared into the fire. The flames licked the firewall and leapt toward the dark sky outside. Jarrod linked and unlinked his hands.
"Jarrod, are you nervous?" Catherine asked.
He turned back to her. His instinct was to say no. He found it difficult to be anything else when she was around, except nervous. And he found it impossible to lie to someone who looked like a queen. "Yes," he whispered.
"Sit down, Jarrod." She smiled.
He walked to the sofa and sank down next to her. “If I knew it was going to make you happy, I wouldn't have told you."
"Happy doesn't mean power, Jarrod. I'm not planning to use the way you feel. I want you to be comfortable around me."
"Are you nervous around me?" he asked.
She waited a moment, then said, "Yes." Jarrod watched her eyes turn to the fireplace.
"Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't know."
Jarrod took her face and pulled it around so she had to look at him. "Want me to tell you?"
He saw arousal in her eyes. She said nothing, but he noticed the slight movement of the springy ringlet of hair that dripped inside the sweater and onto her neck. Jarrod clenched his hand so he wouldn't reach out and touch it. He watched it, his eyes glued to its movement, as if it were a talisman holding him with its power.
Then his hand moved. Slowly he grasped the hair lightly between his fingers. Catherine's breath caught. If he hadn't moved so close to her he wouldn't have heard it.
His knuckles touched the sweater's collar. She jerked, as if he'd shocked her. He looked into her eyes. Dark as midnight they smoldered, Jarrod grew warm, his body tightening in places that felt good. Cathy made him feel good.
Pulling on the free strand, her head moved closer to his. Jarrod felt her breath on his mouth. He smelled the light fragrance she often wore, and that underlying scent that made him want to growl, along with the champagne. He saw her eyelids droop, then close. Barely an inch separated them. Jarrod moved to eliminate the separation.
"No," Catherine said, turning away.
He took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh that emptied his lungs. She was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her. Her arms were at her sides. Jarrod could feel her body vibrating. He should let her go, but he didn't want to. This was what she did to him. She'd bring him to the brink and set a limit.
He'd reached it.
"Catherine," he whispered.
"Yes?"
“What is the real reason you're afraid of marriage?"
"I'm not afraid."
"You're terrified." Jarrod remembered the times he'd held her before. He knew she was attracted to him, aroused by him. All he had to do was push her back to stare into her eyes to see the truth; the dark fathomless depths dilated pupils let him see the fire inside, the smoldering depths that he could bring to the surface and the flare of heat that would ignite if his mouth touched hers. He was sure his kisses set her on fire as much as they did him, but she hid behind her conviction that she only wanted to marry to divorce. There had to be more to it than family pressure.
Pushing herself away from him, Catherine poured more champagne into her glass and got up. She walked to the fireplace and looked into the grate. She was small next to the gigantic hearth. Then she turned to him and took a drink. Jarrod sat back and waited.
"What did your mother do before she married your father?"
"What?" Catherine didn't often evade a direct question.
"What did she do?"
"You know what she did. She was a sales rep for a computer corporation."
"What about your Aunt Marjorie?"
"Catherine, what does my Aunt Marjorie have to do with anything?"
"Do you remember what Audrey's dream was?" Jarrod didn't answer. Catherine seemed to be ready to tell him. "She was going to open her own business. Look at Wendy Miller."
"Wendy had her own business."
"Yes, had being the operative word. Wendy got married and gave up her dream."
"So this is why you're afraid? Because Wendy Miller gave up her business?"
Catherine came and sat on the table in front of him. She leaned forward, her arms on her thighs, her fingers linked around the glass. "It's not Wendy or Audrey or any of them. It's all of them. They had dreams and then they married. Somewhere their dreams got lost, but never their husbands' dreams. Look at your father and Wendy's husband and Audrey's. Audrey is too busy running everyone else's life to realize she doesn't have one."
"You don't have to be like any of those women. And if you find the right man, you don't have to worry that he'll take your dreams away."
"That kind of man doesn't exist."
"Maybe you just haven't looked hard enough," Jarrod said. "Or maybe you won't let yourself look." His mother had mentioned many times how much she enjoyed selling and meeting new people before she married. Jarrod always thought her statements were tinged with humor. Could she have been hiding a serious statement under pretended merriment?
When Jarrod looked back at Catherine, she was staring at him. His statement had been suggestive. He didn't know if she could read his thoughts, but he would never want her to give up her dreams. "Define marriage," he asked her seriously.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Which definition would you like—the idealistic definition or the real one?"
"I can handle it, give me both."
She poured another glass of champagne. This time she filled his and handed it to him. He let his hand touch hers for a moment before taking the wine and sipping it.
"Idealistically, marriage is a partnership. Two people fall in love, get married and work equally at building a life together. Each half of the partnership is as important as the other. Instead of one partner's job becoming more important than the other. They each are equally important. Instead of one partner making unilateral decisions as to what is the best course, they discuss it and make a decision that benefits the marriage."
Jarrod nodded. "And the real world?"
"In the real marriage, the wife gives up her dream for her husband's. The world pays him more as a rule, society looks at him as the breadwinner, the provider, the protector of the weak and meek. So wives fall in line."
"Even in this day of feminism."
She smiled and drank from her glass. "I'm afraid so."
"So your system to avoid the real marriage is the planned divorce method?"
"Works for me." She shrugged.
"Somehow it seems like cheating."
"How?"
"Not taking the chance, you opt out without even trying. Suppose there is a man out there who thinks like you do? You've already decided he isn't worth the effort. And by your own definition, it's a partnership."
"Oh, so you're the exception to the rule."
"I didn't say that."
“You didn't not say it either. I understand that going in we all think it's a partnership, but then life takes over. We must eat, so we go the way of the most money. Then it becomes his job, but it doesn't matter about the amount of money. It happens in marriages where money isn't an issue. Then it becomes travel and entertaining. And it's always the female who gives up for the good of the marriage."
"What about love?"
"What about it?"
"Don't you think the fact that these couples are in love with each other and the changes happen for love is a good thing?"
"Of course they happen for love. Most of them don't even realize they’ve done it. Suddenly they're middle-aged or old and feel like failures because they never did anything they really wanted to do."
"Catherine, that isn't it."
"Excuse me?"
"There's another issue here. One you haven't mentioned. I might believe you if you came from a low-income family and your parents never had enough money to make ends meet, but all the people you cited are wealthy. They have the means to do what they want. If my mother gave up working for—her
family, it was her choice or because her priorities changed, not because she thought my father's goals were more important than hers. Audrey's life is giving parties and making her house a showplace. She's doing what she wants to do, and Wendy Miller closed her business because it wasn't making enough money. She made a fiscally sound decision." Jarrod took a breath. "What is the real reason?"
She stared at him for a long time. Jarrod didn't think she was going to answer. "Catherine," he called her name.
"I've told you the real reason," she said, but she was lying and he knew it.
Jarrod took the glass out of Catherine's hand and set it on the table. "Tell me about him."
"Him?"
Jarrod nodded. "The man you were engaged to."
Catherine recoiled visibly. "He has nothing to do with this."
"I think he does. He obviously put you through a traumatic experience and you've adopted this attitude that you'll never marry because of him."
"I'm already married.'' She got up and walked away from him.
"No, you're not."
She turned back and stared at him.
"I don't mean sex, Catherine," he said, then paused. "Although I don't rule it out."
She dropped her hands.
"Marriage is a decision. It's when two people come together and decide to share their lives. A ceremony doesn't make you married. You're only married when your minds meld." He took a step toward her. "Now, tell me about the engagement."
"I thought I was in love," she began. "I know better now. I know that Jeff and I never thought along the same lines. We never would have made it as a couple." She sat down in a chair. Jarrod stretched out on the floor, his back against the sofa. He listened while she related details of living in New York, meeting Jeff Sherman and how he wanted to manipulate her life. Jarrod listened without comment until she finished.
He was irrationally angry at a man he'd never met. He was sorry she'd been hurt, sorry he hadn't been there to help her through it, but now he understood a lot more about Catherine.
"Some guy screws with your head, convinces you to marry him, not against your will, and when you find out his plans don't coincide with your own, you vow to never allow it to happen again.'' He leaned forward. "You resign from a job that had solid potential, one that you were good at, to run to the sanctuary of home, where you write shipping brochures and discover that all the females in your world have, in your eyes, compromised their ideals for the men they love."
"I did no such thing."
"And you'll never be one of them. It'll never happen to you, because you won't let it," he continued, ignoring her interruption. "You'll pretend to conform to society, because both of us know you've never been a conformist, and you'll bow to their mores for a short time, but you'll cheat everyone in the process. And at the top of the cheat list is you, Catherine."
He got up from the floor.
And me.
***
The clock read four A.M. Catherine groaned as she turned over. With the time difference it was six o'clock in the morning for her. She'd been up all night.
She hadn't imagined her wedding night would be like this; but then, she'd never intended to have a wedding night. Wasn't that what she'd essentially told Jarrod earlier? She hadn't intended to argue with him either. If it hadn't been for her mother and Audrey, Catherine wouldn't even be here. And Jarrod wouldn't be on the other side of the wall, angry with her. She could remember being angry with him, but never had he been angry with her.
She threw back the covers and swung her feet over the side. She couldn't stay in bed any longer. She wasn't going to sleep. She might as well go downstairs and riffle through the books in the great room's cases. She stood, wondering how many people actually read on their honeymoon.
Slipping her feet into shoes with small clear plastic heels, compliments of a misguided Audrey, she pulled the robe that went with the wedding night ensemble, this one from her mother, around her.
Downstairs the fire was almost out. Catherine put more logs on it. Red sparks shot up as the heavy logs fell. Soon the fire roared, lighting the room with a glow that turned her skin richer and darker. She sat down on the sofa where Jarrod had been earlier and pulled the knitted afghan someone had left over her.
The conversation she and Jarrod had had earlier came back to her. What did she want to do that couldn't be done if she was in love and married? Did she want to be in love? She'd tried love. Jeff Sherman had been the man she was engaged to marry, but that had led to disaster. She couldn't face that kind of disaster again. Would she have that with another man, with Jarrod?
Looking up, she stared at the door of the room where Jarrod slept. It concerned her that they'd argued. They had always been friends. She never thought of their relationship changing. She knew they would grow up, and eventually their lives would be different. He wouldn't pull her braids because she wouldn't have braids. When he married, his wife would be her friend too, although she couldn't imagine any of Jarrod's dates as his wife.
She snuggled into the afghan, shrugging off thoughts of their argument. She liked Jarrod more than she'd thought she ever would. Most of the time they were on the same level. Since they'd become engaged, his kisses sent her senses rocketing and she missed his touch, even though she set the boundary. At the wedding, when the minister pronounced them husband and wife, Jarrod had lifted her veil and bowed his head toward her. She looked in his eyes and glimpsed something she'd never seen before. Then his arms were around her and his mouth was on hers and she was lost in the sensations that invaded her body. Jarrod could take her to a world she'd only envisioned in fantasies. In his arms, she let her fantasies have freedom, something she'd never done with anyone else. Not even Jeff.
Catherine looked down at her hands. She stared at the two rings resting there. She was married. To Jarrod. The engagement ring once belonged to Jarrod's grandmother, but the wedding band was totally his. He'd shown her their names on the inside of the ring while they were on the plane. They were beautiful. The most beautiful rings she'd ever seen. Though the wedding gown had affected her, Catherine didn't think she'd have these feelings of emotion choking her when she thought of the rings. They didn't represent love or eternity, the endless or unbroken circle of a world without end. They stood for an arrangement, a temporary agreement between two people for a mutual purpose. Yet something moved inside Catherine when she looked at them. Emotion clogged her mind when she thought of her. . .husband. The rings had no power. Their promise held no preeminence, no sovereignty, yet the bond they represented was definite.
"Cathy?"
Catherine's head wrenched upward. She leaned back. Jarrod stood at the railing above her head. She'd been so intent on the rings, she hadn't heard him open his door.
"What are you doing down there?"
"I couldn't sleep."
Jarrod started for the stairs. Catherine watched his progress as he moved about the open corridor above the huge, square room. His form was powerful in the darkness. He walked with the ease of a warrior on a hunt, a man who should be holding a bow and arrow seeking his prey. Catherine shivered at the raw sexual awareness that streaked through her as fast as lightning and as unexpected as falling off a cliff.
Jarrod wore a short paisley robe that stopped at mid-thigh. Strong legs that should belong to a basketball player extended from the hem of the garment. Catherine stared at them as he came down the staircase and eventually stood in front of her.
"I thought you would be asleep at this hour. You've had a very long day," he said. "It's not our argument, is it?"
Their first argument as a married couple. Why did television glorify that? Catherine experienced no glory from fighting with Jarrod. She felt bad after the encounter. It had disturbed her sleep, but she had the feeling she'd be awake on this night under any circumstances.
"We've never really argued before, at least not over anything important."
"I know. I feel bad that we did. It's just that I wo
uldn't want you to lock yourself away in some mental convent over a man who didn't deserve you in the first place."
The comment sent a warmth through her that was unexpected. Jarrod seemed to be surprising her a lot since his return.
"I should be tired," she said. "I suppose it was the stress of the day, the trip here and not sleeping in my own bed."
Jarrod immediately sat down next to her. "We should have waited until tomorrow to come."
Catherine put her hand on his arm. "I'm fine, Jarrod. Don't worry about me." Then, realizing he was also up when he should be asleep, she asked, "Why are you awake at this hour?"
He smiled. "The same reason."
"You miss your bed too?"
"Just my pillow." They laughed. "And I want to apologize for saying what I did."
"I suppose there is a grain of truth in what you said. The breakup was angry. I don't suppose a person can go through any emotional experience and not have it effect some part of her, how she views the world or acts in the future."
Then the room quieted. Only the crackle of the fire and an occasional popping of burning logs created sound.
"You said you weren't in love with him."
"At the time I thought I loved him, but it was an illusion." Jarrod shifted in his seat. Catherine wondered if it was relief she felt in him. "Life was different in New York, something happening all the time. I loved the rush of it, the fast pace, the nonstop rhythm. It was moving so fast, I didn't see the reality of it."
"And what about loving the sea, the smell of the wood in the building yard?"
"I love that too." She smiled.
"Would you want to go back?"
"To New York?"
He nodded.
"I wouldn't mind." She had liked her job in the news department. It was frenzied and hurried and she was always running to get a tape to the floor or finish a flash that had just happened somewhere in the world. She was constantly on the phone with reporters the world over or passing out pages that needed facts checked. Would she do it again? Yeah, she would.
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