“You put the bull away?” He goggled at her.
“And who else?” she asked. “’Tis my bull, after all.”
“Your bull.” He dropped his head forward, chin to chest, as he sighed.
“Aye, and his escape was a mistake, though I’ll admit that the sheep running mad through your set was not.”
He lifted his eyes to her. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I was angry. You were ignoring me.”
King bulleted back to them through the grass, gave a happy bark, then spun around and took off again.
“You had a right to be angry,” Jefferson said, “but now you’re being stubborn just to spite me.”
She stopped in the field, with wild daffodils blooming all around her. The sky was a soft blue, with clouds scudding its surface like sailing ships on a placid sea. The wind blew and the grass danced and in the distance, King barked, delighted with his life.
“Is that what you think?” she asked, turning her face up to his so that their eyes met and there could be no secrets between them on this. “Do you believe I’d punish you, myself, my baby all for the sake of spite?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You don’t know me as well as you think, Jefferson, if you believe me capable of that.” She plucked windblown hair out of her eyes and stared at him. “I’m doing what’s best. For all of us. I won’t be a pity wife.”
He gaped at her. “Pity wife? Where the hell did that come from?”
She smiled and shook her head. “We both know you’ve no interest in acquiring a wife. It’s the baby worrying you and that speaks well of you. But marrying me is nothing more than feeling sorry for what you see as my ‘difficult position.’”
“It’s not pity,” he told her. “It’s concern. For you and our child.”
“Doesn’t really matter. I won’t leave my home, Jefferson, and try to make myself into the kind of person who would belong in your world. Can’t you see it would never work?”
Instinctively, she reached out, laid one hand on his chest and felt the pounding of his heart beneath her palm. “I don’t belong in your world any more than you do in mine. We’d make each other miserable inside a year and that would be a punishment on a child who deserves only love.”
“That’s a great speech, Maura,” he said and caught her hand in his. “But it’s bull and you know it. This isn’t about you not belonging in Hollywood. You know damn well that you’d fit in anywhere if you made your mind up to it.”
She flushed and tried to pull free of his grip.
“This isn’t about us, anyway. This is about our baby. I won’t be an absentee father, Maura.” His fingers folded around her hand, holding it fast. “I won’t see my own child once a month or for summer vacations.”
Clouds covered the sun and the wind sharpened.
“I’m not leaving, Maura. I’m not going to walk away so you’d better get used to the idea of having me around.”
“It’ll do you no good, Jefferson. I won’t change my mind.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he told her with assurance, “and don’t say anything you’ll have to take back later. It’ll only make it that much harder on you.”
Astonished at his raw nerve, she said, “You’ve an ego the size of the moon.”
“It’s called confidence, babe,” he said with a smile that softened his words. Then he bent his head to hers and whispered, “And confidence comes from always getting what I want. Trust me when I say, I will have you, Maura. Just where I want you.”
Aggravated with him and furious at the way her body was humming with a near-electrical charge, she said, “Why you miserable, softheaded—”
He cut off her diatribe with a kiss that stole her breath, fogged her mind and sent her body sliding away into a sort of dazed confusion. His tongue tangled with hers and Maura groaned at the invasion. It had been too long. Too many empty nights had passed. Too many dreams of him had haunted her.
She surrendered to what she’d missed so sorely. It didn’t mean she was changing her mind. It only meant that sometimes, a bit of what you wanted was better than nothing at all.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the taste of him. The feel of him pressed against her. She’d longed for this. Dreamed of this. And now that it was here, she didn’t care if it was only making the situation more difficult. For this one brief moment, she would have him in her arms.
A heartbeat later, though, they jolted apart, with each of them staring down at the slight curve of her belly.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
“I felt…something.” Awed now, Jefferson came closer, laid one hand on her abdomen and Maura covered his hand with her own. She’d thought it was too soon to feel the baby move. But the doctor had told her it would be any day now and that she’d know it when it happened.
And so she had.
A flutter, then a twitch as if her child had wanted to make its presence known while both of its parents were handy. Maura was thrilled, and, looking at Jefferson, she could see he felt the same. It was magic, pure and simple. Life stirring. A life they’d created. What a gift it was to be able to share this moment with the man who’d given her the child. And how sad for each of them that they wouldn’t share more.
“It’s not moving anymore,” Jefferson said in a worried hush. “Why did it stop? Is everything all right? We should go to the doctor—”
She shook her head and smiled. “No doctor, just wait a moment…” She was whispering, as if afraid to have the baby within hear her and stop moving deliberately.
“Maybe…there!” A more solid movement this time, with a sort of rippling sensation to accompany it.
Awed, humbled, Maura turned amazed, shining eyes up to his and Jefferson grinned like a fool.
“He moved.”
“Aye, she did.” Still caught up in the enchantment of that moment, Maura took a second to notice the change in Jefferson’s eyes. They’d gone from amused to aroused and now, they were filled with a dark determination.
“I won’t lose this, Maura. Make up your mind to it.” He gave her belly a possessive pat, then pulled his hand back. “Whatever it takes. That baby is a King and he’ll grow up as one. Whether his mother likes it or not.”
“The problem is,” Cara was saying, “you’re going about this in all the wrong ways.”
Jefferson nodded, sat back in his chair and let his gaze scan the interior of the pub. Dark, noisy, with soft lamplight and a dark red glow of the peat fire in the hearth, the place smelled like beer and wet wool. It was raining again, so the Lion’s Den was busy. Locals gathered there to have a beer with friends and listen to music. To get out of their own homes for a while. And Jefferson was surrounded by a group of them who were now, it seemed, completely on his side of the situation. All it had taken was for them to find out that he’d proposed and Maura had turned him down.
Just remembering her refusal was enough to churn his guts and have him gritting his teeth. Not once had he imagined that she would say no. Should have known Maura would do the unexpected.
“Maura ever was a stubborn girl,” Michael said thoughtfully, waving away a customer clamoring for another beer.
“Nonsense,” Frances Boyle put in, taking a sip of her tea. “She’s a strong little thing is all and knows her own mind.”
“She does,” Cara said, “but she’s also one to take a stand and then not move from it whether or not she should.”
“True, true,” Michael agreed, with a sad shake of his head. Then he pointed his index finger at Jefferson. “She’s a fine woman though, mind, no matter what we who love her say.”
“I know.” Jefferson was still working on his first beer as advice swarmed around him like ants at a picnic.
It seemed everyone in the village had a theory on how he should be handling the situation with Maura. Not that he was listening to any of them. Since when did a King need help getting a woman?
Since now? a sneak
y, annoying voice in the back of his mind whispered to him and Jefferson grumbled under his breath in response. He’d never had to work this hard for anything. Always, when Jefferson King set out to do a thing, it got done. He’d never before run into a solid wall like the one Maura had erected between them and damned if he could figure out how to knock it down.
An ancient-looking man on one of the bar stools offered, “Buy her a ram. That’ll do it. A sheep farmer will appreciate fine stock.”
Jefferson snorted. Was the way to this woman’s heart through her sheep? He didn’t think so. Yet as he considered it, he felt a quick stir of something remarkably like anxiety flicker through him. He wasn’t trying to get to Maura’s heart, was he? No. This wasn’t about love. This was about the baby they’d made together, plain and simple. Telling himself that eased him a bit. “I don’t see how buying her a new ram for her flock will win me any points.”
“It’ll win you lots of points with the ewes,” someone shouted from the back of the pub.
Laughter erupted at that and Jefferson could only scowl at the whole damn room. Good to know that everyone in the village was having such an entertaining time.
“Great, that’s great.” What the hell was he doing here? Thousands of miles from home, from family, from sanity. He was sitting in the middle of an Irish Brigadoon trying to make sense of a woman who defied logic at every turn.
What woman in her right mind would turn down a proposal that offered her luxury? Every wish granted? He’d offered her a life of comfort and ease and she’d tossed it back in his face as if he’d insulted her.
Money and power, that’s what she’d said, he reminded himself. As if having contacts and financial independence were a bad thing. He didn’t understand real people. He was real people. His brothers were real. What, did she think just because a man had money, he was less than worthy?
“She’s the snob,” he muttered as the crowd around him continued the argument without his input, “not me.”
He’d never judged anyone on the size of their bank balance. He had friends who were mechanics as well as friends who were movie stars. And though his family had money, he hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’d had to work, just as his brothers had. They’d worked the ranch as kids and as they got older, their parents had told them if they wanted something, they’d have to earn it. So they’d each worked part-time jobs so they could afford secondhand cars and the gas and insurance that went with it.
Hell, he had friends who weren’t nearly as well off as his family had been and their parents had paid for everything. The more Jefferson thought about Maura’s accusations and generalizations, the angrier he became. He didn’t need to excuse his life or make apologies for the way he lived it just because she was being self-righteous.
“You could buy her a new house,” someone shouted.
“Or a new roof for the old house. It leaks something fierce in the winter,” Frances said.
“Pay them no mind,” Cara told him, and drew her chair closer to his. Leaning her forearms on the table, she said, “I can tell you how to win my sister.”
He glanced at her and caught the brilliant smile she had aimed at him. Cara, he thought, was the reasonable Donohue sister. She knew what she wanted—to be rich and famous doing what she loved doing—and went after it. She didn’t sneer at him for having money. Why would she? It’s what she wanted for herself.
With an inward sigh, he asked himself why it hadn’t been Cara who made his blood heat. Life would have been a hell of a lot easier.
Instead, he’d become involved with a woman whose head was as hard as the stones in her fields. Just thinking about it irritated him. Damned if he’d take it. Maura thought he was an arrogant, rich American. So he’d prove her right. If she was going to damn him for his money, he might as well make it worth her while.
His mind raced with possibilities. With ideas, notions and plans. And he liked every one of them. Time to pull off the gloves, he told himself. He’d never yet lost an acquisition he was determined to have and this wouldn’t be the first time.
“Jefferson? Are you listening?” Cara gave his arm a nudge. “I said, I’ve a way for you to win my sister round.”
“Thanks,” he said and stood up. Digging into his pocket, he came up with a sheaf of bills and tossed a few of them onto the table, paying not only for his and Cara’s drinks, but for most of those in the bar. “I appreciate it. But this is between me and Maura. And I’ve got a few ideas of my own.”
He left then and never saw Cara shake her head and murmur, “Luck to you, then. I’ve a feeling you’re going to need it.”
Nine
B right and early the next morning, Maura stepped outside, braced for the next confrontation with Jefferson. She glanced around and blew out a breath that misted in front of her face in the cold damp. Dawn was just painting the sky with the first of a palette of colors. Gray clouds rolled in from the sea and she smelled another storm on the air.
“Maybe the coming storm will keep him in the trailer,” she told herself, even though she didn’t believe it for a moment, and truth be told, she didn’t wish for it, either. Even as annoying as the man could become, she liked having him about. Which only went to prove she really was a madwoman.
What woman in her right mind would torture herself so willingly by being around a man she couldn’t have? But what choice did she have? It wasn’t as if asking him to leave her be had gotten her anywhere. Jefferson would stay until he left. Period. Nothing she could say would move him along any faster.
He’d made that clear enough.
There would be no way to escape his company and as long as that were true, she could admit, if only to herself, that she was storing this time up in her memories. Etching each moment with him on her brain so that she could draw the images out later, when he really was gone from her.
So she was prepared to have him riding as a passenger in her battered old lorry as she drove up to the high pasture. She’d even thought of a few things to tell him during the long, sleepless night. She was going to be reasonable, patient and firm. The only way to handle a man like Jefferson King. Temper wouldn’t do it as the man was immune to her shouts and curses. So she’d use practicality as it was his normal weapon of choice. She could explain to him simply and deliberately that he was wasting his time staying on at the farm. She wouldn’t be coerced or convinced to do something she’d no intention of doing.
She smiled to herself, called for King and stepped out of the way when the big dog raced down the hallway and out the back door.
The film crew was already busy in the front, according to the low rumbles of conversation and the sounds of engines and generators. Maura had become so accustomed to the sounds of the film crew that she had the oddest feeling she might actually miss all of the clatter and din they created each day. As she would soon be missing Jefferson, as well.
Her heart ached at the thought, but what else could she do? She couldn’t marry him knowing he had no interest in loving her. She couldn’t be a man’s duty. His penance. Her blood ran cold at the thought. What kind of life would that be? For any of them?
King was barking from the far side of the barn where she’d been parking her lorry since the arrival of the film crew. Musings shattered, Maura quickened her steps, wondering what it was that had set her dog off.
She rounded the corner of the barn and stopped dead. Her battered lorry was gone. In its place sat a gloriously new and shiny truck, bright red in color, boasting a massive white bow on its roof. “What? How? When?”
“All very good questions,” a deep voice rumbled from nearby.
Maura shot a look at Jefferson, leaning back against the side wall of the barn like a man well pleased with himself. The broad smile on his face told her he was responsible for this—as if she hadn’t been able to guess.
“What’ve you done?”
“I should think that’s fairly obvious.”
“Where’s my lorry?”
“You mean that chunk of rust with wheels?” He shrugged. “I had it towed away an hour or so ago. Surprised you didn’t hear it.”
She had heard more general clatter than usual this morning to be sure, but she’d become so accustomed to disregarding the hubbub caused by the film crew that she’d paid it no mind at all.
“You—” Maura looked at the new truck and felt herself being seduced by the shining paint and the large, sturdy tires—and even as her heart yearned, she closed herself off to it. “You’d no right.”
“I’ve every right, Maura.” He pushed away from the wall and walked toward her. When he was close enough, he ran the flat of his hand over the roof of the new truck and smiled, satisfied. “You weren’t just trusting your own life to that accident waiting to happen, remember. You’re carrying my baby. No way do I let you ride around in that old truck.”
“Let me?” She gasped, pulled in air and prepared for battle. “You don’t let me do anything, Jefferson King. I don’t want your shiny new toy here—”
He smiled knowingly. “Yes, you do.”
Oh, it was a hard thing to know that he could read her so easily.
“The nerve you have,” she muttered darkly and stepped around him. Her gaze raked the area, hoping that he’d lied and that she’d find her old truck still here, worn and weary from too many years of work. But it wasn’t. All that remained was the shiny, tempting lorry, complete with unpatched tires, uncracked windshield and—she peered in the window surreptitiously—lovely black leather seats. Wasn’t it a lovely thing?
Not that it mattered, she thought as she straightened up to glare at him again. “What made you think I would be happy about this?”
“Oh, believe me,” he said, opening the driver’s-side door for her, “I never once thought you’d be happy. In fact, I knew you’d look daggers at me. You’ll notice it didn’t stop me.”
Wedding at King's Convenience Page 10
