“So this is nothing to do with me,” Maura argued. “It’s all what you think should be done. Your rights. Your responsibility. Your child. Well go and have your marriage. Just don’t expect me to participate.”
“If you’ll quit being so damn stubborn about this, you could think rationally. For the sake of the baby we made, we have to get married. Our kid deserves two parents.”
“And he’ll have them.”
“He?” Jefferson asked.
She sighed. “No, I don’t know what sex the baby is and don’t want to know.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “I like the surprise, too.”
A part of her melted at that until she reminded herself that a man who cared for his child wouldn’t necessarily care for the child’s mother. This was all wrong. All of it. It broke her heart, but damned if she’d sentence either of them to a life without love.
“Do you really think I’ll marry you because you think you owe me your protection?” She shook her head and scoffed at the notion. “I’m a grown woman. And this isn’t the nineteenth century, Jefferson. Even in Ireland a woman alone can raise her child in peace. And the name Donohue will suit my child nicely.”
“Our child,” he corrected, “and there’s no reason for you to be alone. I accept my responsibilities, Maura.”
“Well, don’t I feel warm and treasured. A responsibility. Surely that’s a word every woman longs to hear from a man.”
“Not five hours ago, you were pissed at me because I wasn’t taking responsibility. Now I am.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“That’s a shame.”
The ewes scuttled uneasily in their pens again as if picking up on the tension in the air.
“And,” he continued, “once we’re married, I’ll take you back to Los Angeles. Buy you a big house in Beverly Hills.”
That gave her a start. For all her idle dreams of proposals, she’d never once considered leaving the home she loved. But of course he wouldn’t want to stay here. He had a life and a business in the States. She suddenly felt bereft for a dream that hadn’t had a chance to come true in the first place. “I’ve a home right here.”
“You can sell the farm,” he said offhandedly. “You won’t have to work so hard anymore. You can sleep in instead of running out in all weather taking care of sheep. You can have a life of luxury. Do whatever you want to do. Travel. Shop.”
He seemed so pleased with himself. Didn’t he hear how empty the life he described sounded? If she didn’t have her farm, her work, who would she be?
“So I’m to give up my home,” she said, her voice low, soft, barely making more than a hush in the quiet. “Sell the land my family’s worked for generations. And then I’m to go off to Hollywood and spend your money. Is that it? Is that the life you’ve planned for me?”
Something in her tone warned him. Wary now, Jefferson watched her as she gently set the lamb down in the pen beside her and just as carefully picked up the last one. Her features were blank, but her eyes were glittering darkly.
Jefferson didn’t see the problem. He was offering her the kind of life thousands of women would kill for. But maybe it would just take her a minute to see the beauty of it. So he gave her an easy smile and painted an even rosier—to his mind—picture than he had before. “Think about it, Maura. Lazy days sitting by a pool. Going out to lunch with your friends. Having time to play with the baby as much as you want. As my wife, you won’t be expected to work every day. You can take it easy for the first time in your life.”
“Take it easy. Just live to serve you, is that it?” she asked, tenderly stroking the head of the lamb suckling at the bottle she held.
In the glare of the lights, her features were in sharp relief. She looked calm, which Jefferson knew was a lie. Her eyes were bright and a flush of color filled her cheeks. No matter how tranquil she might appear, she was reining in a temper he’d seen in full force before, up close and personal.
“I don’t know what you’re getting all worked up over. You’re not going to be serving me, for God’s sake,” he said, wondering why she couldn’t see the simple beauty in his plan. “Maura, you’re deliberately putting words in my mouth and making this harder than it has to be.”
“Oh, am I? So selling my farm, my home should be easy? Leaving the life I love, my friends, my family, my country, should be a lark?” She shook her head and kept her voice low, not for his sake, he knew, but for the sake of the baby animal she held in her arms. “I’m sorry to tell you, but I’ve no interest at all in moving to Hollywood, with you or without you. And I can tell you now, you won’t be after changing my mind about this no matter what you have your assistant ‘arrange.’”
He put a lid on the frustration beginning to churn inside him. It wouldn’t help a thing to just hammer back at her. Instead, he had to try to smooth her into seeing things his way. “Just think about it, all right? Before you dismiss it out of hand. You can pick out whichever house you want. It doesn’t have to be in the city. We can buy something in the mountains. With some land. Whatever you want. I’ll even buy you some sheep if you want and you can hire someone to do the work. I can make your life a hell of a lot easier than it’s been so far. What’s so wrong with that?”
Silently, he congratulated himself on being able to lay the facts out so tidily. Surely she’d see now exactly what kind of life he could offer her.
“This is how you think to convince me?” she asked, shaking her head in disappointment as she looked at him. “Am I supposed to be impressed with your station?”
“My what?” Confusion bloomed in his mind.
“You use your money so easily. Are people so eager to be purchased by you that you expect it from everyone?”
“Purchased?” he echoed. “I’m not trying to buy you, Maura, I’m trying to give you—”
“Is your life so much better than mine?” she demanded, interrupting him as she put the lamb back in the pen and stood up. “Is this the prince offering the pauper a peek at the finer things in life? Should I be awed? Grateful? Is that it?”
“Prince? Where’d you get that?” This really wasn’t going at all well and damned if he could figure out how he’d blown it. But looking into dark blue eyes that were flashing with insult and anger, he knew he had.
“You’re speaking to me as you would to a child you’re offering a special treat. You with your money and your fine houses and your jets. Did you really think I’d be pleased to have you swoop in and throw money at me?” She lifted the lamb from his arms, returned it to the pen with the others, then snatched the empty baby bottle from him. “Well, I’m not. My life is just exactly that. My life. I don’t care two spits about your money, just so you know. If you put a torch to it, I wouldn’t so much as warm myself by the blaze.”
Completely baffled, he only stared at her. “How did this get to be about money?”
“You started it, with your list of temptations, thinking to seduce me away from the home I love.” Her eyes were wide and bright and her mouth was set into a furious line. “You with your fine education, pretty suits and private jets. Like all rich men, you wield power however it suits you no matter who is in the way. You’ve no idea at all how real people live, do you?”
“Real people?” That was enough. He stood up and looked down at her. “I don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about. I’m trying to do the right thing here. The right thing for you and the baby.”
“And I’m to fall in line, am I?”
“This is crazy,” he said and grabbed her shoulders, holding her still when she would have bolted. “You’re not going to make me feel guilty for offering to give you and my child a better life.”
“And who’s to say which life is better? You, I suppose?”
“Not better,” he corrected. “Easier.”
“The easy way isn’t always the best way. When I marry, if I marry, it’ll be for love, Jefferson King—and I’ve not heard that word out of you.”
He let her go as if his fingers had been burned. “This isn’t about love.”
“And that’s my point.”
He pushed his hand through his hair, then scrubbed that hand across the back of his neck. Finally, when he’d eased the tension in his own chest, he looked at her and said softly, “We weren’t in love when we made that child. Why do we need to be in love to raise it?”
She pulled in a slow, deep breath then let it slide from her lungs. “What we shared, neither of us thought to be a permanent thing. It was heat and passion and want. Raising a child is more than that, Jefferson, as well you know.”
“There was more to that night than simple desire and you know that.”
A long minute slipped past before she nodded. “I do, yes. There was caring between us, I admit that. But affection isn’t love.”
He couldn’t give her what she wanted. He’d done love once before and when it ended, he’d sworn off. Love wasn’t in his future plans. Wasn’t even on his horizon. Yes, he felt something for Maura, but it wasn’t love. He’d been in love before and what was now crowded in his chest, squeezing his heart, was nothing like he’d felt back then.
“There’s nothing wrong with affection, Maura. Plenty of marriages have started with less.”
“Mine won’t,” she said simply. Then she squared her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “You’ve done your duty, Jefferson King. You can go back to your life knowing you tried to do the right thing. But I tell you here and now, I won’t be marrying you.”
Eight
T wo days later, Maura felt like a caged animal. Oh, she had the run of the farm, but she remained under the watchful eye of Jefferson King. He was everywhere she turned. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since he’d arrived during the last storm. If she stepped outside the house, there he was. If she was feeding the lambs, he turned up to help. If she walked into the village, he went with her.
She’d reached the point now where she was looking for him, expecting him. Blast the man, that had most likely been his plan all along.
Though she’d set the village to rights and her friends and neighbors had once again opened their businesses to the film crew, Jefferson remained in the trailer parked outside her home. He didn’t go back to the inn. Didn’t move to a comfortable hotel. Oh, no. He stayed in that too-small trailer so that he could badger Maura and tell her what their future was going to be, like it or not.
“What kind of world is it when a woman has to sneak out of her own house?” she murmured to herself as she quietly closed the back door, wincing at the click of the door shutting. All she wanted was some time alone. To think. To feel sorry for herself. To do a little damn whining in private. Was that too much to ask?
Being around Jefferson was wearing on her. Love for him was caught up in her chest and strangling her with the effort to express itself. But how could she profess her love for a man who thought “affection” was enough to build a life on?
She snapped her fingers for King and the dog came running. He sprinted past her, out into the fields behind the farmhouse, chasing his own imagination and the rabbits he continually hoped to find. Maura only smiled. She’d made it. Gotten clean away and so she took a deep breath of the chill spring air. It was a fine day, and no sign of another storm yet, though she knew the good weather wouldn’t last. But while it did, she wanted to be outside, with the sunshine spilling down on her and the soft wind blowing through her hair.
And as she walked, she asked herself if she could really have given up this life. Her gaze followed the sweep and roll of the green hills and fields. Stone fences and trees twisted by wind and storm stood as monuments to the only life she’d ever known. Could she have walked away?
If Jefferson had actually meant that proposal. If there had been love rather than duty prompting it. Could she have sold her farm, moved thousands of miles away and given up the cool, clear beauty of the fields for the tangled crush of people?
The answer, of course, was yes. For love, she would have tried it. She might not have sold the farm, but she could have leased the land to a nearby farmer. She could have come back to visit, though the thought of leaving tore at her heart enough to make her stagger a bit. Yes. For love she would have made the effort.
For affection, she would not.
“Are you all right?” a too-familiar deep voice called out from behind her.
She sighed. So she hadn’t escaped after all.
Maura didn’t turn, didn’t slow down, just shouted, “I’m fine, Jefferson, just as I was the last time you asked that question an hour ago.”
He caught up with her in a moment’s time, her much-shorter legs no match for his long strides. Falling into step beside her, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lifted his face to the sun. “Feels good to actually see sunlight for a change.”
“Spring’s a stormy season,” she muttered and told her jittery stomach to calm down. Much to her own chagrin, it wasn’t just his constant presence that was making her feel trapped. It was her body’s, her heart’s reaction to him that was eating away at her.
Even now, her heartbeat was quickening. Being near Jefferson set her blood to boiling and her nerves dancing. His scent. His voice. His nearness. All combined to make her want with an ache she knew would never really leave her.
And to have him always close by was nothing less than torture.
“Where are you off to?”
“Just a walk,” she told him with a wave. “Up to the ruins and back.”
“That’s at least a mile,” he pointed out.
“At least.” She glanced up at him and smiled at the concerned frown she saw on his face. “I’m used to the exercise, Jefferson. And I don’t need a bodyguard here on my own land.”
He grinned suddenly. “But I enjoy guarding your body.”
She flushed as he’d meant her to and the nerves already scampering through her system went on a rampage. It was probably hormones, she thought. She’d always heard that pregnant women were needier than usual. So it wasn’t entirely her fault that at the moment she wanted nothing more than to feel his arms come around her. To have him roll the two of them to the sweet-smelling grass and bury himself inside her.
She took a shallow breath. No. Not her fault at all.
“Shouldn’t you be working with your people?” she asked, hoping against hope to convince him to stay at the farm.
“The director knows what he’s doing. I don’t butt in on his job.”
“But you’re comfortable butting into mine,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of the words.
“You’re not working. You’re walking.”
“You’re an impossible man, Jefferson King.”
“So I’ve been told.” He bent down, broke off the stem of a wild daffodil and held it out to her.
Charmed in spite of herself, Maura took it and twirled the dainty flower in her fingers. “How long are you staying in Ireland?”
“Eager to see me go?”
No. Of course she didn’t say what she was thinking. “There’s no real need for you to stay.”
“I say there is.” He stopped, turned her to face him and deliberately let his gaze slide down to her belly.
He couldn’t see the small bump because she was wearing one of her thick Irish sweaters. But she felt him watching her, and felt the possession in that steady gaze and it thrilled her. In some elemental part of her heart and soul, Maura loved the way he looked at her. At the child they’d made.
But even as she admitted that, she had to also admit that it meant nothing. He was concerned for her and their baby. But he didn’t love them.
Need without love was an empty thing she wanted no part of. Especially now that she had more than just her own feelings to think of.
“Don’t you have work to do, Jefferson? Worlds to buy, movies to make?”
He grinned again and the sudden sweep of emotion on his face was another staggering blow to a woman already distinctly off bal
ance.
“I’ve been working.”
“In your trailer?” She started walking again and looked into the distance for King. She spotted him then, a black blur, racing across the open fields, and she smiled.
“With technology, I could work in a tent,” Jefferson told her. “All I really need is a computer, a satellite phone with Internet and a fax machine, which I’m going to be buying today in Westport. You won’t mind if I connect it in your house, will you?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”
“Good, thanks.”
She muttered something under her breath about him being far more stubborn than she could ever hope to be. But a part of her relished what he was doing. Though she had no intention of being nothing more than a problem for Jefferson to solve, it salved her pride some to have him working so hard to persuade her.
“So, how’d the bull get out?”
His question brought a quick stop to her thoughts and it took her a second to realize what he was talking about. She cringed slightly, remembering. “Oh. You heard about that, did you?”
“Davy Simpson’s still telling the story,” Jefferson said, his grin spreading. “And with every telling, he runs a little faster, the bull gets bigger and meaner and the danger is more desperate.”
Maura laughed at the image. “He sounds Irish. We love nothing more than a good storyteller.”
“Uh-huh. The bull, Maura. Did you turn it loose on purpose?”
“Of course not!” She might have thought about it, but she never would have done it. In fact, she’d been terrified when the bull escaped, worried that it might actually hurt someone. “No, ’twas an accident entirely. I had Tim Daley in to help me that day. Tim’s but sixteen and his mind is forever wandering to Noreen Muldoon.”
“I know what that’s like,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Go on.”
“There’s not much more to the tale. After feeding the bull, Tim, with his mind still on Noreen, forgot to latch the gate behind him and…” She shrugged. “It was an accident, and thankfully no one was hurt. Took me more than an hour to get the bull set away again.”
Wedding at King's Convenience Page 9
