The Bride's Choice

by Sara Orwig

  She held out her hand and looked at the glittering dia- mond and the plain gold band. What had she gotten her- self into? Her lips tingled and she could remember in the finest detail being held tightly in his arms. Was it because it had been so long since she’d dated? Staring at her reflec- tion, she shook her head. No man’s kisses had ever been as exciting.

  She would just be more careful in the future, she re- solved firmly. Today had been exceptional, and they had both been caught up in the mood of the moment. Yet she knew sparks flew when she was around him, and it was clear that he felt them, too.

  She stared at her image and pulled her dress back in place, taking one last look at herself in a wedding gown.

  Reluctantly, she let the dress fall around her feet. With a whispery sigh, it billowed around her ankles, and she stepped out of it, feeling as if she were leaving a fantasy and returning to reality. At least this reality would no longer hold a mountain of bills.

  In the backyard, Cal shifted his weight, watching Stod- dard lean down to give advice to Josh on how to hold the bat. Cal had known Stoddard as long as he had known the Sievers and he was amazed that the boys had cajoled Stod- dard into playing ball. Red was flopped down in the grass near Cal. After a few minutes of frolicking around Snook- urns, the cat viewing the dog with great disdain, Red had lost interest in Snookums and trailed after Cal.

  Cal looked at Quin, who adamantly refused to play. Chris and Josh had accepted his refusal without argument. The little kid sat beneath a tree, Snooks sleeping in his lap. At least the cat was finally proving some worth. Cal shifted his feet, kicking dust away from the worn lawn-chair cushion that was now first base. Without enough players, they were all taking turns and at the moment, he covered the outfield and bases, Stoddard was catcher and umpire, Chris was pitcher and Josh was at bat. Cal’s thoughts drifted to Ju- liana and he looked at the house. It was her wedding night and she was changing clothes to play ball. She had been a beautiful bride. His thoughts jumped to the moment when he had unfastened the long row of buttons down the back of her dress. As his body heated, he tried to get his atten- tion back to the game.

  Josh swung and missed. The back door opened and Ju- liana crossed the porch that ran behind the kitchen and halfway along the back of the house to the solarium. She came down the steps. She was dressed in cutoffs, sneakers and a yellow T-shirt. Her hair was in one long braid. Seeing her, Cal felt as if Josh had swung the bat and struck him solidly in the middle. His breath went out and his mouth went dry as he looked at his new bride.

  Six

  Cal’s gaze swept down the length of Juliana’s long, shapely legs and instantly he had an erotic image of those legs wrapped around him. He waved and she nodded, moving toward the boys in a seductive walk that made his body tighten. His new bride was a knockout. A paper marriage. “Be careful,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t want to get entangled with her and her boys. And the day she found out the truth about him, she would be enraged.

  “Hey! Juliana, come play!” Chris yelled when she stopped to talk to Quin. She nodded and jogged toward the players and Cal felt his resolve to leave her and her neph- ews to themselves begin to evaporate. Gorgeous. Long legs, big eyes, hot kisses.

  In minutes, she was holding the bat. She slammed it against the ball, sending it over Chris’s head as he made a jump to catch it. The ball grazed the top of his glove and fell, rolling across the ground. Cal ran, scooped up the ball and raced for first. Juliana was trying to beat him to it, running as if for her life, her long braid flying and bounc- ing behind her head.

  When he neared the base, she made a dive for it and slid into him in a tangle of legs.

  “Safe!” Stoddard called.

  “Safe!” Josh screamed. “She’s safe!”

  Grinning, Cal pulled her to her feet while she brushed the dust off her hip. “Good slide,” he said, his hand still hold- ing hers. “I’m impressed.”

  “Sure,” she answered dryly, yet she gave him a big smile that made his pulse skitter. He was intrigued with her will- ingness to throw herself into the kids’ ball game on her wedding night. She seemed to take life as it came and make the most of it and he found that admirable.

  “Throw the ball!” Chris yelled, and Cal turned to toss it to him. He glanced down at her. “All right?”

  “Yes,” she said, brushing dust off her saucy, round bot- tom. He longed to help her finish the task. “Playing with the boys can be dangerous.”

  “So I’m learning, but it isn’t the boys who are a threat.”

  Her head came up and she studied him.

  “I seem to recall,” he drawled, “telling you how I would keep to myself and we wouldn’t get involved with each other, yet here I am in the thick of a ball game with the most luscious hitter to ever step up to home plate.”

  “Thank you,” she said with another big smile. “I warned you, Counselor, that you wouldn’t be able to keep to your- self.”

  “So you did.” He glanced toward the unmanned second base. “According to the boys, you can’t steal bases in this game.”

  “I know their rules. How did they get Stoddard here?”

  “They’re persuasive.”

  “Oh, great, now I live with four persuasive males,” she said dryly.

  “You’ll hold your own.”

  She wondered if she could possibly hold her own with this man who was a contradictory bundle of surprises and too sexy for words.

  The crack of the ball interrupted them. She ran for sec- ond base as Stoddard ambled toward first. On the next play, Cal watched her race for third, her long legs stretching out.

  Once, Chris tossed the ball to her as Cal ran for the base. She tagged him and Stoddard yelled out.

  “You could have slid into base and made it,” she said, tossing the ball back to Chris.

  “I might have slammed into my new bride,” he replied, brushing dust off her jaw.

  “I think you’re deliberately trying to help the boys and me score points.”

  “Is that a complaint?”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “To get a smile like that, I’d gladly be thrown out. It was worth it, babe,” he added softly.

  “Can we play ball?” Chris yelled and Cal walked away. Her heartbeat raced and she felt breathless from his com- pliment. Gone were the cold looks she had received from him in their first few encounters. All day long, his looks had held enough warmth to melt ice and now he was beginning to tease and flirt.

  They played until it was too dark to see, and then Stod- dard told them good-night and left. Cal draped his arm across her shoulders casually.

  “I’ll make some lemonade, guys,” she said, going to the house, aware how easy it was to fall into a relaxed relation- ship with Cal. He fit into their family like the last piece to a puzzle. And it scared her senseless because she didn’t want him to fit that well and then leave them in twelve months.

  After the boys downed big glasses of iced lemonade, they went back outside to chase fireflies while she sat down next to Cal on the porch. His casual slouch was inviting, making him look like the man of the house, relaxed at home with his family, and she realized there would be far more pitfalls in this situation than she had guessed. He picked up her hand, holding it in his and her pulse jumped even though she knew there was no reason for it to.

  “You’re having a strange wedding night—mind?”

  She shook her head. “It’s a strange wedding.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “You’re good with them, but I don’t think you’ve been giving much of any- thing to yourself.”

  Don’t start wearing down my defenses with worries about me. It still shocked her how deadly dangerous this man could be to her well-being. She still had no illusions about what he would do at the end of the year.

  “I’m happy. I love the boys,” she said, aware of Cal’s thumb idly rubbing her knuckles and wrist as if he needed to explore and learn the shape and textures of her hand. Tingles foll
owed his slight touches, and she became more aware of what he was doing with his fingers than she was of their conversation.

  “They’ll grow up and get their own lives and you’ll be left with nothing,” he said.

  “Well, now, for a year I have no choice. I’m bound in a fake marriage—”

  “A marriage of convenience. It’s real.”

  “Not too real,” she snapped, turning to face him in ex- asperation. He was making all the right moves, doing what would shatter her defenses. “If it was real, we’d be alone and in bed.”

  “We can change our status in a twinkling,” he said softly, studying her.

  She pulled her hand away from his and ran it across her forehead. “You’re getting to me, Counselor.”

  “Me?”

  “Right. Don’t act as if you’re surprised. You’ve been sexy, considerate, appealing, great with the boys—”

  “Holy Toledo,” he remarked, sitting up straight and scooting his chair closer.

  “Stay where you are!” she snapped, scooting her chair farther away from him. “Just stay. And stop worrying about me and my love life. We have a marriage of conve- nience. I couldn’t date even if Mr. Wonderful appeared on the doorstep and I fell madly in love with him.” Her tone of voice changed as she finished her sentence and Cal studied her in the darkness.

  “Do I hear the war drums beginning to beat again?”

  “Are you working up to another offer about how we can liven up my life during this temporary union?”

  He took her hand again and drew circles on her palm with his finger. The touch was electrifying and she tried to jerk her hand free, but his fingers tightened and he held her wrist.

  “Calm down. I’m barely touching you,” he drawled. “And no, I’m not making suggestions, merely observa- tions. I want to keep things as platonic and uninvolved as you do, because when the year is up, I want to go back to my solitary life.”

  She leaned closer to him, and he caught a whiff of her perfume. “Then why are you holding my hand?”

  Releasing her hand, he settled back on his chair, stretch- ing out his long legs and propping his feet on the porch railing. “It meant nothing. It’s a nice night, you’re a beau- tiful, desirable woman and you’re sitting close beside me while we talk. Maybe it was habit,” he said dryly, and heard a soft laugh.

  “That’s an honest answer, so you win more points,” she said while his words dazzled her…a beautiful, desirable woman… She was desirable to him? And beautiful?

  “You told Quin he could bring Snookums outside, didn’t you?” she asked after a few minutes.

  “Yes. We’re not going to lose that cat.”

  “You know Elnora never let him outside. Tonight was the first.”

  “Which was ridiculous. Quin kept him in his arms the entire time. And old Snooks was content.”

  “That he was.” She stood. “I better call curfew. Josh and Quin should go to bed. When they do, Chris will.” She turned to go down the steps and in minutes the boys raced past with quick calls of good-night to him. Then she fol- lowed her nephews inside.

  An hour later, she returned to the porch to sit down be- side Cal. He had moved their chairs closer together and the moment she was seated, he reached over to take her hand.

  “Habit again?” she asked, trying to extricate herself.

  He shook his head. “No. I’m thinking about what I’m doing. And it’s harmless. It won’t hurt to be friends.”

  She started to point out that hand-holding went beyond casual friendship, but then she stopped struggling and let him hold it.

  “You were gone a long time,” he said.

  “I always read to Josh. Chris and Quin have their own books.”

  “You’re second mother to your nephews, you have a preschool and you want to write a book to help children to read. All those things and none of the kids involved are your own. You must love children very much.”

  “I do,” she answered, aware his thumb moved lightly back and forth over her fingers, the faint touch keeping her disturbingly aware of him. His long legs were stretched in front of him, one foot propped on the porch railing.

  “Your love of children is all the more reason you ought to develop a life of your own.”

  “It seems to me that you should have brought up these arguments about my life-style before we married. Now I’m not in a position to date or go out.”

  “I’m thinking ahead so that when we part you don’t go back to the life you had before.”

  “I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” she said, thinking about the mound of bills she intended to pay right away. “Thanks for your concern, but it isn’t necessary.”

  “I think you need to look at your life again. Don’t you want your own children someday?”

  She thought about his question. She loved children and always thought that someday she would marry and have her own, but after taking on her nephews, she had given up the idea of marriage. “I hadn’t stopped to think about it lately, but I realize now I might not have my own. If I don’t, I have the boys and they already seem like mine.”

  “But you’ve never had a baby that was yours. I’ll get you out to meet people. I have single friends.”

  She laughed and studied him. “Thanks, anyway, Coun- selor, but I like my life just as you seem to like yours. You start introducing me to your single friends, and I’ll do the same for you.”

  “Okay, but remember, I offered. And remember that your boys will grow up and be gone someday,”

  “And then I’ll be ready for solitude. Where do you go for your vacations? Off somewhere by yourself?”

  “Sometimes, not always,” Cal answered, remembering six months ago when he took Leah Caldwell to New Or- leans for a weekend. “Have the boys ever seen a pro foot- ball game?” he asked, wanting to change the subject of whether or not he traveled alone.

  “No, I’m sure they haven’t.”

  “Maybe I can take them to a Cowboys’ game sometime.”

  “Chris and Josh would love it. I doubt if Quin would go.”

  Silence stretched between them, yet Juliana was aware of his thumb still stroking her hand and wrist, their arms touching. While she watched fireflies dance over the dark yard, she wondered about Cal and his past.

  “You said you were engaged once and broke it off. How close were you to the wedding?”

  “Three months. Getting close.”

  “You don’t see her anymore?”

  “Nope, I don’t. I know she lives in Austin and she’s married now.”

  “Any regrets?”

  “No. Do you regret Barry Fowler?”

  “I did at first because I thought I was in love with him, but as time passes, memories of Barry are beginning to blur. The hurt is wearing away. How long ago did you break your engagement?”

  “I was twenty-six,” he answered and she calculated quickly that it had been eight years. Long enough for the hurt to heal.

  “You know Barry’s name, so tell me, who was your fi- ancee?”

  “Andrea Holt.”

  The name sounded familiar. About ten seconds later, Ju- liana turned to him. “She was Governor Holt’s daughter?”

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  Surprised, Juliana remembered the publicity about An- drea Holt’s lavish wedding while her father was in his last months as governor. “Which one of you broke it off?”

  “She did,” he replied. “Differences.”

  His terse answers did not encourage her to question him, but she wondered if he had been hurt badly. “Are you still in love with her?”

  “No.” Dark eyes met hers with directness. “Nope. I got over Andrea. We didn’t belong together.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I don’t think I’m cut out for mar- riage.”

  “Well, you just married me this morning.”

  “Not completely and forever,” he answered, reminding her of the flimsiness of their union. “But I’m getting too old to want just a night in
the sack.”

  “I’ll remember that, old-timer.”

  “If it’s with you, it won’t just be a night in the sack,” he said softly, and her pulse jumped.

  “So what would it be?” she asked him, her eyebrows arching, unable to resist, yet knowing she shouldn’t in- quire. She bit her lip and shook her head. “Forget I asked. I don’t know what it is about you that makes me say things like that,” she said with a long sigh.

  “It isn’t me so much as you yourself. You’re ready, babe, for more than you have in your life right now.”

  “Are you offering to fill the gaps?”

  “Some I can, some I can’t.”

  “Counselor, a direct answer just isn’t in you. Right now, I have a brand-new husband who is causing me turmoil and sleepless nights.”

  He groaned. “Earlier tonight, you told me that I’m sexy, appealing and considerate. Now I find out I’m causing you to lose sleep. I can’t ignore comments like those.”

  “Yes, you can. Sometimes I speak before I think. Now, let’s talk about the movies you like and other safe topics, like what sports you prefer. We do that or I go inside right now.”

  “You get your way. I like action pictures, westerns, com- edies. What do you like?” he asked, only half hearing her answer while he thought about her remarks. She found him sexy, appealing, considerate with the boys. Also, he was causing her turmoil; she was losing sleep over him. He felt a deep twist inside. If that was the case, then he should be able to overcome her defenses with almost no argument and take her to bed. Yet he didn’t want to be ensnared in this paper marriage for life, and if he took their relationship to a deeper level that’s what could easily happen.