Garth returned his attention to the coffeepot, wondering what he would say when they sat down to talk. He heard the movement behind him and fought the urge to look over his shoulder again. Was she thinking about the kiss as much as he was? Had she enjoyed it as much? Did she want to do it again? When the aroma of cinnamon floated across the kitchen to where he stood, he figured she was warming her muffin up in the microwave. A part of him wished she would come over and warm him up, too. In his present state, it wouldn’t take much.
By the time he poured the coffee into cups and headed for the table, she was sitting there waiting. He forced a smile onto his features. Now he was the one feeling nervous. “I guess going hiking with me in the morning is off the table. It’s after midnight,” he said, placing the coffee cup in front of her, and then sitting down with his own.
She shrugged her shoulders—those beautiful shoulders left bare in the outfit she was wearing. “Who knows? I might surprise you.” Then, taking a sip of her coffee, she said, “Mmm, you have the magic touch when it comes to making coffee, Garth.”
He chuckled. She’d always told him that, which was why she left the making of the coffee on the plane to him. He would make a pot before the jet took off, and by the time it leveled off in the sky, he was ready for a cup. He would also take a cup to her in the cockpit.
He watched her take a bite out of the muffin. She looked over at him, catching him staring. She licked a few crumbs from around her lips. “You sure you don’t want me to warm one up for you? It’s delicious.”
“Yes, I’d like one, but just a taste. May I have a bite of yours?”
He wasn’t sure whether or not his question surprised her. Her expression was unreadable. She lifted the muffin to his mouth and he took his own bite, in the very spot where she’d taken hers. Then he licked the crumbs off his lips, knowing she was watching him.
“You might be right after all, Regan,” he said. His gaze held hers, and he could see the pulse in her throat beating rapidly.
“Right about what?”
“Kidnapping Paulo.”
A smile spread across her lips. “Think we can come up with a plan?” she asked, finishing off the muffin.
Watching her, knowing they’d shared that muffin, made intense desire heat his core. “With us together, Regan, anything is possible.”
His words must have stirred something within her because he saw the pulse racing in her throat again. She took a sip of her coffee and then sat the cup down and looked at him. She licked her lips, which caused a hard jolt of need to pass through him. He picked up his cup to take a sip of his own coffee, wishing it was something stronger.
“You said we would talk, Garth.”
Placing his cup down, he met her gaze. “What I have to say can be summed up in a few words, Regan.”
She raised a brow. “And what words are those?”
“I want you.”
Eleven
Sensuous shivers spread through Regan as she stared at Garth, speechless. First off, the kiss; then he’d shared that muffin with her. And now...
Granted, she’d known he was a straight shooter. However, she hadn’t expected what he’d just said.
He wanted her?
“Yes, I want you,” he said again, when she didn’t respond. “I figured that kiss would have been a good indicator.”
She drew in a deep breath. It had been, but still... “I worked for you for almost five years, and you never paid me any attention, Garth.”
He leaned back in his chair as he picked up his coffee cup again to take a sip. “If you recall, Regan, after losing Karen, I wasn’t paying any woman much attention. I barely dated.”
As far as she was concerned, he barely dated now, and when he did, she figured it was to take care of his physical needs. “So why now and why me?”
“Why not you, Regan? You are a very beautiful woman.”
She rolled her eyes. “I look the same as I’ve always looked, Garth.”
“That might be the case, but I began truly noticing your looks a few months ago. I guess you can say my blinders were taken off.”
She took a sip of her coffee and met his gaze over the cup. “And just when were these blinders removed?”
“The night of the Westmoreland Charity Ball.”
She placed her cup down, remembering that night. He had surprised her by inviting her to go with him. She’d discovered later that Bailey, whom Regan had gotten to know after Bailey married Walker, had suggested that he bring Regan. She also recalled he’d been very attentive that night. Even his brothers had teased him about it.
“Do you remember that night?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Yes, I remember. I thought you were being overprotective.”
“You assumed that tonight, as well. You were wrong both times, Regan. Both times I was being territorial. That night I felt something that I hadn’t felt in ten years. Sexual attraction toward a woman, of a magnitude that it was hard for me think straight. It made me want to take you somewhere and seduce you.”
She blinked, finding what he was saying hard to believe. “Seriously?”
A smile curved his lips. “Yes, seriously.”
Regan took another sip of her coffee. Then with a boldness that surprised even her, she asked, “Why didn’t you seduce me, Garth?”
She saw the flash of heat that appeared in his eyes. He quickly took another sip of his coffee. “There’s no way I could have done that,” he finally said.
She lifted a brow. “Why not?”
“The man who seduces you should be the man who plans to marry you. You would expect that.”
He was right. Gone were the days when she was into sex for the sake of sex. She was older, wiser and a lot more mature than she’d been in her early twenties. At twenty-eight, she wanted more from a relationship. For her, being intimate with a man meant marriage was in their future. That was one of the reasons she hadn’t slept with Craig. In addition to him being the suspicious and jealous type, she hadn’t loved him.
Was Garth letting her know any seduction on his part would be nothing more than casual sex? If that was true, had he planned to spend two weeks with a woman he wasn’t serious about? Would his affair with that other woman have been nothing more than sex?
“Are you saying you’re not interested in getting married ever, Garth?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. In fact, I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot lately.”
Hope sprang up inside of Regan. “You have?”
“Yes. In fact, that’s the reason I came to Santa Cruz. I was to meet a woman I was contemplating marrying one day.”
Regan’s hope was replaced by disappointment and confusion. “Let me get this straight. The woman you were to meet here, the one who eventually was a no-show—you were thinking about marrying her?”
“Yes.”
“But now you want me?”
“Yes.”
She frowned. That didn’t make sense. For him to think about marrying a woman meant that he and the woman were in love and sharing a serious relationship. If that was the case, then how could he tell Regan that he wanted her? Did he not think that was betraying the woman he planned to marry? Did he assume Regan would just step right in and take the woman’s place in his bed? She expected better of him.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Garth,” she said in a curt tone, standing to her feet. “There are some substitutions I will not do.”
He reached out and took her hand. When she tried pulling it back, he tightened his grip. “I think you might have misunderstood me, Regan. Please sit back down so I can explain.”
Regan wasn’t sure what he could explain, but the feel of his hand touching hers caused all kinds of sensations to curl around in her stomach. She sat back down. Not because he’d requested it, but because she felt w
eak in the knees from his touch.
She lifted her chin. “You kissed me and said you wanted me. Yet, now you’re telling me the woman you were to spend two weeks with here was someone you might marry. So, what did I misunderstand, Garth?”
* * *
Garth had made a mess of things, when all he’d been trying to do was have a totally honest discussion with Regan. But her assumption was pretty damn damaging. There was a lot she needed to understand.
“First of all, I don’t expect you to take anybody’s place in my bed, Regan. To be honest, the woman who was supposed to meet me here would have been taking your place. It was you who I originally wanted in my bed.”
“What? You definitely need to explain that, Garth.”
A part of Garth wished he hadn’t been so blunt. But he had, and now he owed her an explanation. “My reaction to you that night in Denver, at the ball, bothered me. Like I said, it was the first time in nearly ten years I had felt such strong attraction to a woman. It also made me realize something else.”
“What?”
“That you weren’t Franklin’s little girl anymore or Charm’s teenage bestie. You had grown up to become a very beautiful woman.”
She shrugged. “Not sure about the beautiful part, Garth, but I’ve been a woman for quite a while now.”
“I honestly hadn’t noticed you that way. But that night...your dress, the hair, the makeup, the total package...” He paused a moment. “Especially that dress. You were wearing the hell out of it.”
“Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment, but it still doesn’t explain things.”
He nodded. “After we returned to Alaska we picked up our normal routine. I figured my attraction to you that night was one and done. But that wasn’t the case. My desire for you grew stronger, taking over my mind and senses, interfering with the way I handled business matters. I knew I had to do something. That’s when I came up with a plan.”
“And what was this plan?”
“To turn my attention elsewhere. That meant meeting someone I could get serious about since I considered you off-limits.”
She took a sip of her coffee before asking, “So how did you meet this ‘someone else’?”
He shifted in his seat, deciding he might as well tell her everything. “Through a very private dating service. And for the record, we never officially met. Santa Cruz was to be our first meeting.”
* * *
Garth and the woman hadn’t met?
Regan was surprised. She had used an online dating service before, so she knew how it worked.
“So, if the two of you would have clicked, then you would have considered her wife material?” she asked, trying to understand. The Garth Outlaw she knew preferred handling his own personal affairs, and she would think that would include selecting the woman he might end up sharing his life with.
“Yes, and before you make more assumptions, I was pretty detailed in my specifications. They are thorough when vetting people and have an exclusive clientele. Their match for me rated highly and I thought she might be perfect.”
Regan was trying hard to keep her composure when her heart was breaking. “Yet your perfect woman didn’t show.”
“No, but it wasn’t her fault. It was a dating service error. Somehow there was a mix-up on dates.”
“But you will reschedule?”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t. Her not showing up was a good thing.”
Regan glanced over at him. “Why?”
“Because I was only using her to help me get over my attraction to you. I see now that would not have been fair. And over these last few days, my desire for you has only increased. In fact, I can truthfully say that I desire you more than I’ve ever desired any woman before.”
She fought back the hope that tried to return. She wondered if he realized the power of what he’d just said. What she still didn’t understand, though, was why he’d felt he couldn’t act on his attraction to Regan. Why had he gone to all the trouble of finding someone else?
“You were contemplating marrying her had the two of you hit it off?” she asked again.
“Yes. And there is one thing you need to know, Regan.”
“What?” she asked past the lump suddenly forming in her throat.
He leaned forward in his chair and held her gaze. It was as if what he was about to say was highly important. She had a feeling that, whatever it was, she was not going to like it.
“What is it, Garth?”
“Whereas I was willing to marry another woman, I am not willing to marry you.”
Twelve
Regan snatched her hand from his as if she’d been physically slapped. She felt like she had been. Did he think she was not good enough for him?
As if he read her thoughts again, he said, “Let me explain—”
“You did already,” she said, pushing her chair away from the table. “I got it. I’m good enough to sleep with but not good enough to marry. Can’t have you marrying the hired help, right?”
“Damn it, Regan, that’s not it and you know it. How can you say something like that?”
He honestly had the nerve to ask her that after what he’d said? “I say it because you’re insinuating it.”
“No, I’m not. I would marry you if I could, but I can’t.”
That didn’t make sense. “And why not?”
He paused for a long moment. “My ability to love any woman ended the day Karen died. The woman I was to meet here knew that and was willing to accept a loveless marriage, but I don’t expect you to accept one. I wouldn’t want you to. You deserve better. You deserve to marry a man who will love you the way you should be loved. I wish I could be that man, but I can’t. My heart will always belong to Karen.”
He sighed deeply. “I’m being totally honest with you, Regan. I want you, but I can’t love you, or any woman. All I have to offer is an affair that you won’t forget or regret.”
“For me that’s not good enough, Garth.” She then left the kitchen and headed toward her bedroom.
Regan forced herself to keep walking and not look back. She should be angry with him, but she was only angry with herself for loving him so much and believing that one day he would notice her existence and love her back.
But he couldn’t love her.
She had heard something similar before...from her father. How many times had Franklin Fairchild told her that he still loved her mother and that no other woman would have his heart?
Regan would tell Garth the same thing she’d told her father more than once. He was a man with a lot of love to give and she knew the woman he’d lost would want him to move on with his life and love again.
Those words had fallen on deaf ears with her father, and she knew they would with Garth, as well.
Entering her bedroom, she closed the door behind her, tempted to throw herself against it and cry until she couldn’t cry anymore. But she refused to do that, because something Garth said tonight stuck out in her mind...
“I desire you more than I’ve ever desired any woman before.”
Did he truly mean that? And if he did mean it, did it mean he desired her more than he had Karen? She began pacing. When he and Karen had met and fallen in love, Garth had been about the same age Regan was now. From what Charm had told her, it was a whirlwind romance when the two had been stationed in Syria. Regan figured he had to have fallen deeply in love for him to still feel that way ten years later.
He’d said that if and when he did marry, it would not be for love. Some women would settle for that. Hell, a lot of them did.
Could Regan do the same?
She stopped pacing and sat on the edge of her bed. What about couples who didn’t marry for love, but then the love came later? She knew of one such couple. Agatha Meadows was one of Regan’s college friends. Agatha and Christopher had met on a
cruise and were intensely attracted to each other. They’d engaged in a hot and heavy affair onboard the ship, and after the cruise, they’d gone their separate ways—without so much as an exchange of phone numbers to keep in touch.
Two months later, Agatha had discovered she was pregnant. Believing Christopher had a right to know he’d fathered a child, she’d hired a private investigator to find him so she could give him the news. Christopher, elated at the thought of being a father, had convinced Agatha to enter into a loveless marriage for the sake of their unborn child. That had been a hard decision for Agatha to make since she’d dreamed of marrying one day for love.
She’d told Regan she would settle on desire rather than love because there was no doubt in her mind that she and Chris desired each other. In fact, Agatha was convinced their desire for each other had been the catalyst to them falling in love. Now, after nearly seven years of marriage and two children, Agatha would be the first to tell you that their desire for each other had transformed into love. They’d been determined to make the marriage work and it had blossomed into something neither had expected.
Granted, the situation with Garth was different from expecting a child together, but one aspect of their situation was similar. By his own admission he wanted her, and he had been willing to use another woman to get over his attraction to Regan. He’d even admitted that since being here with her, his desire for her had only increased. A part of her felt good knowing that, for the time being, she and she alone was the woman Garth wanted. The thought of that shouldn’t make her heart swell, but it did. It gave her hope. Hope that what could start off as purely sexual could blossom into something more.
Regan began pacing again. Would any other woman fight for something more with Garth? Just like Garth thought Regan should marry for love, she thought he should marry for love, as well—even if that love was one-sided.
The Wife He Needs Page 9
