The Accidental Bridegroom

by Ann Major

  She remembered the way Rafe acted every night when he came to her bedroom to comfort her. At her slightest touch, his face always grew dark and flushed, and he shuddered. Maybe he was just scared of trusting and loving and losing again.

  Maybe he wanted her, but he was fighting himself because of all that had happened.

  But they belonged together. They were more alike than they were different. Both of them had known lonely, unhappy childhoods and had been equally lonely as adults.

  She didn’t want to leave him in his solitary hell any more than she wanted to live that way herself. There had to be a way to make him believe in her again.

  *

  Two mornings later, after the kids had left for school and Rafe for San Antonio, Cathy came up with the answer. She was straightening the house. As she opened a drawer in the living room to put away a couple of Juanita’s pencils, she found Rafe’s handcuffs and the key to them.

  She picked them up and began to snap and unsnap the handcuffs as Sadie had before she’d locked them onto Rafe’s and her own wrist and then scampered away—so they wouldn’t lose each other again.

  So they wouldn’t lose each other. Primitive childish logic.

  Cathy smiled as she unlocked the handcuffs again. She was about to put them back inside the drawer. But the craziest vision formed in her mind.

  With a nervous giggle, she slipped the handcuffs into her pocket and slammed the drawer.

  The next morning, an unsuspecting Rafe finished his scrambled eggs and grits and shoved his plate aside and began correcting the last page of Juanito’s math paper. Apparently, Juanito was some sort of prodigy in mathematics. Although he was in the first grade, he was already in a sixth-grade math course.

  Cathy smiled as she listened to their garbled exchange, which was conducted in a crazy combination of the worst gringo-Spanish she had ever heard and Juanito’s cocky, broken English. At the toot from the highway, Old Yeller, Rafe’s big Lab, ran down the driveway and barked ferociously at something on the road.

  Cathy looked out the window. Through the cedar and live oaks, she saw a large yellow-and-black vehicle lumbering up the hill.

  “Kids! Your bus.”

  “Bus,” Juanito repeated, grabbing his papers, cramming them into his backpack as he put his plate into the sink.

  Sadie came up to Cathy and smiled her most sparkling, impishly knowing smile. “Today?”

  When Cathy nodded and kissed her, Sadie secretively opened her hand to reveal Rafe’s truck keys and handcuff key shining there. Cathy hugged her tightly and then let her go.

  “Don’t you dare lose him this time, Mommy.”

  Sadie hopped over to her father and gave him a powerful squeeze. Then the children were racing down the driveway with their heavy backpacks flopping wildly from side to side.

  And the adults were left alone in the suddenly tense silence of the kitchen, which seemed way too tiny.

  Cathy left the sink and poured Rafe another cup of coffee and sank onto her chair opposite him.

  The quiet of the room seemed to coil around her like a thick heaviness. With a fork, she toyed idly with a crumb of toast on her plate.

  Rafe’s newspaper rustled as his glossy black head and broad shoulders hunched lower behind it—as if to hide from her.

  She drummed her fork on the table.

  He jerked a page savagely.

  The screen door creaked as Old Yeller came back and plopped himself heavily on the floor.

  Another page flipped noisily. He wasn’t reading any more than she was eating.

  Never had she been more aware of him than she was now, with the cool autumn breeze gusting through the half-open window above the sink, bringing with it the woodsy scent of cedar. The yellow curtains she’d bought in Austin caught the sunlight and fluttered madly.

  It would be a perfect morning to make love, if only—

  She drummed her fork louder on the table.

  When he closed his paper violently, her hand froze on her fork.

  With a dark frown, he lifted his cup and sipped the steaming liquid. She stared at him, but his black head remained lowered.

  Coward! she wanted to scream at him. But she was just as afraid as he was.

  They could have been any ordinary couple—man and wife. Having breakfast.

  “You can’t even look at me,” she whispered.

  Rafe kicked back his chair and got up. Ignoring her, he pulled an envelope from the pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of his chair, tore out a paper and threw it onto the table in front of her.

  “I said why can’t you look—”

  “Read it,” he whispered in a frozen tone, ignoring her plea.

  Clearing her throat, she fought tears. Why did he refuse to look at her or even speak to her about anything other than business or the children?

  With shaking hands, she unfolded the crisp document, but the black print swam before her misting eyes. She rubbed frantically at her damp lashes so he wouldn’t see. “W-what does it say?”

  Rafe reached for his new black hat with the green peacock feather. “It’s a government paper that says Juanito stays. Mike had to pull a few strings, but it’s official now.”

  “Oh, Rafe, that’s wonderful.”

  This time, he did look at her before he remembered his rule not to. He took a quick breath. Then he tore his gaze from her face, but not in time to totally conceal the dark need that ravaged him.

  “Yes. It’s wonderful.” His voice was harsh.

  Her heart quickened when she realized he had picked up his jacket and was rummaging frantically for his truck keys. In another minute, he would say he was going—the way he always did, because he couldn’t stand to be alone with her.

  But, of course, he wasn’t going anywhere. Not today.

  Not if she followed her plan.

  “So what about me, Rafe?” she asked him weakly. “Do I stay, too?”

  He jerked at his jacket, yanking the lining out of his pockets. “Where the hell are my keys?” he roared as she got up and came closer.

  She knew just how eager he was to escape her. Her voice was quiet, dull, lost. “I—I saw Sadie playing with them.”

  Rafe opened a couple of kitchen drawers and slammed them shut. Then he whirled on her. “Why didn’t you get them from her?”

  Another little silence as Cathy edged closer. “Rafe, I asked you a question…about us.”

  “Damn it. Not now.”

  Softly, oh, so softly, “Then when?”

  He grabbed another drawer and yanked it all the way out, rifling through it on the counter beneath the window where the light was better.

  Her heart was in her throat, thudding violently, as she pulled the handcuffs out of her pocket. Not that she needed to be so careful. He wasn’t looking at her.

  She inhaled nervously as she locked a cuff around her wrist and then hid that hand behind her back.

  He jammed the drawer into place. She sprang lightly, casually, toward him.

  “I said, not now, Cathy—”

  “We have to talk. We can’t put our relationship on hold forever.”

  He tried to push past her, but she sidestepped as agilely as a cat, cornering him.

  He stiffened. He couldn’t get past her without at least touching her—which she knew he was afraid to do.

  A pause. “What do you think you’re doing?” he rasped in a queer voice when she didn’t budge.

  “Only this—” She slid her free hand up across the broad expanse of his chest, slipping her fingers under the lapels of his shirt to toy with his collar button.

  His heart pounded beneath her fingertips like thunder, but for once, he didn’t jerk away.

  “You like me touching you, don’t you, Rafe? You like it too much.” She undid the button and brushed the back of her hand gently across his throat.

  “Cathy—” His voice was a low groan.

  “Are you going to stay mad at me for the rest of our lives, Rafe?”

  �
��If you’re smart, you won’t push. I can’t take much more.”

  “I know. I’m counting on it. Because I can’t take much more, either.”

  “Where the hell are my keys?” Still, he didn’t move. Her touch, her nearness, seemed to have mesmerized him.

  “Sadie took them,” Cathy said innocently.

  “You knew she had them and you let her run off with them?”

  She grinned with more bravado than she felt.

  It was now or never.

  Her heart slammed in slow, painful strokes, but before she could lose her nerve, quickly, like Sadie had done it, Cathy locked the other cuff around his wrist when he wasn’t looking.

  If Cathy had wanted to get his attention, she had it now.

  He lunged back from her, dragging her with him, his blue eyes ablaze as he looked at their shackled wrists and realized what she had done.

  “You little fool,” he said in a low, hot voice. “Let me go.”

  “Can’t. Sorry.”

  He yanked his hand, and the throbbing pain that went from her shackled wrist to her elbow made her cry out.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Because I lie awake in the night and think of you,” she said quietly. “Because I’ve listened to you pacing, and I want you to come to me. And I know you want the same thing.”

  “No! I don’t.” But his blue eyes glittered opaquely, hopelessly. Again he struggled to yank his hand free, and that twisted her soft body into his so that she felt the solid muscular length of him. When her breasts slid tightly against his chest, she felt a frisson of alarm and pleasure and exquisite desire.

  He shuddered violently from her unwanted nearness. “What the hell did you go and do this for?”

  “I knew you’d run off—the way you always do—if I didn’t. I thought maybe we needed to spend some time together—alone.”

  “That’s the last thing I want. I hate being around you, remembering what you did, knowing what you’ll do again.”

  “I’ve said I was sorry. I said I never meant for anything to happen to you. I was so scared for you to be in Mexico that I left your bed to go get the car. Armi caught me and forced me into that kitchen. I had to go along with him and pretend I’d marry Maurice—to save you.”

  “Did he make you put that ring back on before you left me?”

  “I did that because—”

  “Don’t lie to me again, damn it. You don’t have to, you know.” His cruel, hard voice rose. “Not when I am a man bewitched by you. Whether you’re good or bad—it doesn’t matter to me. You are the mother of my child, a child you didn’t bother to tell me about.”

  “I know. I’m sorrier about that than anything else in this whole mess. But I can’t undo it.”

  “And I can’t get free of you even though you went back to Maurice and betrayed me a second time.”

  “I was going to return Maurice’s ring. I knew how much I loved you after we made love. And I want you to forgive me and love me now…not lust after me and despise me because you want me so much. I don’t want you to keep me just because I’m Sadie’s mother. I know we have a lot to forgive, but I believe…”

  She reached up to stroke his cheek softly, lovingly.

  But he grabbed her hand, crushing her wrist in a savage grip that made her wince in pain. “If you want my love, you have an odd way of showing it.” Passion blazed in his eyes as he looked down at her. “But I want you. God help me, I wish I didn’t.”

  She had wanted his love, his tenderness. But he was feeling something entirely different, and his pent-up fury, too long denied, raged out of control. When he grabbed her, forcing her body closer to his, she tried to push him away.

  “You little fool, you shouldn’t have handcuffed yourself to me.” His sensual mouth curled in a nasty smile. “Because now you can’t get away from me, either.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.” But she had begun to tremble.

  “You will—before I’m through. I promise you.”

  She shrank from the hot anger in his eyes, but he jerked her back with the handcuff, no more able to stop himself than a violent storm at sea could stop its rage.

  Then his rough hands were all over her, tearing at the pearl buttons at her neck, ripping her shirt apart. Tugging his own heavier clothes apart, too, so that his naked chest ground into her breasts as he lifted her onto the kitchen counter.

  A pile of dishes crashed to the floor and shattered.

  Even when she screamed, he arched her body into his. She heard the sound of a zipper as he opened his jeans. Then his mouth covered hers in a searing kiss that took her breath away. Callused fingers glided over her breasts as he positioned himself.

  Cruelly, Rafe ravaged the softness of her lips. Then his mouth moved across her throat with a fierce hunger that turned her blood to fire.

  She had wanted his arms around her, his lips devouring her. She had wanted to make him realize he needed her as she needed him. But not like this. This raw and elemental passion wasn’t love.

  Too late she knew she should never have forced him.

  Because now he was forcing her.

  “I—I don’t want your hatred,” she whispered, her frantic voice dying even as his punishing lips possessed hers again.

  “I don’t hate you,” he murmured raggedly a long time later, as he gripped her tighter against his mouth. “God, if only I could. I’m sorry, too. Sorry for all the lost years. I should have hunted you down long before. I’m good at that, you know.”

  Then she was kissing him back because, even if he couldn’t love her, his passion betrayed a wild, dark need that was more powerful than any force she’d ever known, and she was melting in the fire of it.

  Slowly, his rage became passion, and something else that was far more powerful. When the storm was over, she knew she had won.

  *

  The cypress leaves that had fallen from the towering trees now covered the grassy bank beside the creek like rust-colored feathers. Only they were crunchier under the blanket when Rafe rolled on top of Cathy.

  They were still handcuffed together, but Sadie would be home from school in an hour with the key to release them.

  Cathy was lying on her back, with her golden hair spilling everywhere, looking up through the bare gray branches at the high, thin clouds. She looked very satiated and conceitedly pleased with herself, he thought.

  She had beaten him. Conquered him.

  And he was glad. So glad.

  Sometimes—not that he would ever admit it aloud—women were a hell of a lot smarter than men.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” she murmured, smiling lovingly at him as she reached up and stroked his black hair.

  He wondered if she thought she was going to lead him around by the nose for the rest of his life.

  The compulsion to touch her was so overpowering, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose.

  “It’s prettier in the summer when everything is green. The water is green and clear and cold and the air hot.”

  “Is that an invitation to stay here—along with Juanito?”

  “It’s a proposal,” Rafe whispered. “I’m asking you to marry me.”

  “So you’re not mad at me anymore?”

  “I was killing myself, being mad at you like that,” he admitted. “You know that.”

  “It took you long enough to propose. Sadie’s six.”

  “You rejected me the first time I asked, remember?”

  Her beautiful face darkened. “I hurt you, very deeply, and I’m sorry. I don’t want to ever do that again.”

  “I can’t live without you,” he said simply. “I don’t know what I was trying to prove these last few weeks.”

  “We’ve both been stubborn and held onto grudges and mistaken beliefs to protect ourselves. We’ve made a few mistakes.”

  He lifted their handcuffed wrists and kissed the purple bruises on her arm that were a result of so much passionate lovemaking. After the kitchen, the
y had made love on the living room floor, in his bed and in hers. And then again in the shower.

  “You took a big risk—handcuffing yourself to me when I was so furious,” he said.

  “I had to make you face what you felt. It was a bigger risk to let the gap between us widen. Loving hurts…but not loving was hurting more. I don’t care if you took money from Armi, and I didn’t betray you to him in Mexico. The past is over.”

  Rafe drew back. “Wait a minute. I never took a dime from Armi.”

  “But he told me—”

  “He had me beaten up, and he threw money at me in the gutter. But I left it there.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Frankly, I never gave much of a damn. Even later when I needed it, I was too busy trying to get over you.”

  “Armi said you used it to start your business.”

  “I borrowed the money from Vadda after she married Mike.”

  “I want to know more about Mike and Vadda.”

  “He was her bodyguard. She went for him the same way you went for me. He didn’t want to marry her because he thought everybody would think he was just using her. But she’s a lady who knows how to get what she wants.”

  “So am I. And what I still want more than anything is to be your last.”

  “My last?”

  “Your last woman, you big hunk.”

  “You are. You are everything—my life, my love.”

  “Do you know something? I never believed in magic till today. But I’m starting to now. That was some potion Pita put in our champagne.”

  “We didn’t need Pita’s potion. You cast a spell on me the first night when you climbed over that wall.”

  “So my big feet turned you on.”

  He kissed the feathery edge of her eyebrow. “Everything about you turns me on. I love you. And I always will.”

  “I suppose we’ll have more fights.”

  He smiled. “Maybe we’d better keep the handcuffs around… just in case.”

  Cathy flashed him a teasing look as he drew her into his arms.

  “Something tells me the fun is just beginning,” he said as he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Epilogue