Trading Secrets

by Christine Flynn

  He had his plans, his future. But she felt as if she were living in limbo. For the first time in her life she had no sense of direction, not even a vague idea of what she wanted beyond what Greg would never offer. Even when she’d left behind the mess in Boston, she’d at least had a plan to start over. Now she felt as if she were in an odd sort of freefall and had no idea when or how she would land.

  If there were just some way she could turn off her mind, she thought, she would be fine. As worries about her child had popped up at the most unexpected times, as the days passed, thoughts of that loss and Greg’s move seemed to hit out of nowhere. They were inescapable when she was alone. And alone she couldn’t seem to avoid what she’d always been afraid to allow before the dam had finally broken last week and the tears would fall.

  It helped that the assaults didn’t seem quite so painful outside her bedroom. While she went over the documents she’d sorted for Greg, focused on how his agitation with them seemed to lessen a little each evening, or when she worked on preparations for the festival—which moved into his living room toward the end of that week—she could bury most of what she felt by throwing herself deeper into whatever required her attention.

  For the most part the technique worked fairly well. Claire and her cohorts all remarked on how quickly her energy had returned after her bout of the flu. Even Bess took her aside to tell her how pleased she was to see that she was doing so well.

  The only person she couldn’t seem to fool was Greg. But then, the man always had been far too observant as far as Jenny was concerned.

  “Are you feeling too tired to go to the parade?”

  Caught with her inescapable thoughts, Jenny turned from the living room window.

  On the street beyond, Claire was running around like a wind-up toy making sure the little marching pumpkins were in a straight line ahead of the twelve-member community high-school band. The pumpkin queen and her attendants were seated on hay bales on a chrysanthemum-covered flatbed truck across the street in the neighbor’s driveway. Farther up the road that had been blocked off earlier that morning, kids on their decorated bikes and makeshift floats were lined up for the start of the six-block march to the community center where the bunting-draped food and craft booths waited.

  “I’m fine,” she told him, desperately wanting to be. “I was just thinking how cute the little pumpkins look.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And about how nice it was of you to help hang the bunting last night.” With a game little smile, she turned back to the sheer curtains filtering the view. “This town is going to miss you when you’re gone.”

  Greg watched her from where he stood near the front entry. He’d thought to ask if she wanted to watch the parade from the front porch or join the locals and the tourists lined up along the road. He knew she’d planned to go. He knew too that she’d found the escape she’d sought in the preparations and in the time she’d spent wading through the documents he’d finally signed to start probate. She’d mailed them yesterday. Oddly enough, he hadn’t felt at all as if he’d somehow relinquished responsibility by allowing her help. What he’d felt had been gratitude for not having to begin the task alone.

  He’d also discovered for himself how much lighter a burden felt when the weight was shared.

  Watching her now, wishing she could feel that relief, too, he wondered if she hadn’t pushed herself too hard. And if maybe he had left her alone long enough.

  The muffled sounds of excited voices filtered in from the street as he walked into the room. He knew she wasn’t doing nearly as well as she pretended. A couple of times, late at night when he’d finally gone to bed himself, he’d thought he’d heard her weeping. The sounds had been so hushed he hadn’t been totally sure. But both times when he’d gone to her door and asked if she was all right and if he could come in, she’d said she was fine and that she’d rather he didn’t. Short of ignoring her wishes, the only thing he could think to do was give her the space she seemed to need.

  He’d never truly understood how helpless husbands felt when their hurting wives shut them out. What he understood now was that the husbands were hurting, too.

  Coming up behind her, hoping she wouldn’t pull away, he did what he’d wanted to do a dozen times in the past week and curved his hand over her shoulder. Beneath the soft knit of her autumn-gold sweater, she remained blessedly still.

  “Are you okay, Jenny?”

  Her felt her slender shoulder rise with her deeply drawn breath. The fact that she nodded rather than answered told him what he’d already suspected. That the brightness he’d seen in her eyes was tears.

  “I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it,” he said, feeling oddly out of his depth. He should know what to say to a woman who’d gone through what she had. And he did. But all the textbook explanations about emotional impact and what her body was still going through seemed as inadequate as he felt at being unable to comfort her. “And I know it’s been harder on you than you’ve let on. I just want to know if that’s what’s bothering you now.”

  From the street came a young child’s shouted greeting, the sound exuberant and cheerful.

  “That’s part of it.” She offered the admission quietly, her voice steady, her tone subdued. “But I know it’ll just take time.”

  He didn’t know what he could offer beyond that. “It will,” he said, anyway, remembering how she’d looked that day in the woods. “There really will come a time when it won’t hurt so much.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  He felt her shoulder rise again, the deep breath as telling as her nod had been. “You said that was part of what’s on your mind. What else is bothering you?”

  This time she shook her head.

  “Come on, Jenny,” he coaxed, and turned her to her face him.

  The tears pooled in her eyes hit him like a physical blow.

  Lowering her head, she wiped away what she hadn’t intended for him to see. But just as she started to turn, he caught her face between his hands.

  “Talk to me,” he begged, catching another tear with his thumb. “What else is wrong?”

  Rather than answer, she tried a wobbly smile. “I thought I was doing better, but I can’t seem to stop this.”

  The smile nearly undid him.

  Her lower lashes were spiky from the two tears that spilled over them, her eyes shining with those she held back.

  The need to soothe, to console, became a living thing inside him.

  The need for her was tangled up in there somewhere, too.

  With his thumbs he brushed moisture from where it silently trailed down her cheek. Even as he smoothed those tears away, he lowered his head to catch the one spilling from the corner of her eye.

  He wasn’t helping.

  The thought hit Jenny as his lips caught what she hadn’t been able to stop. His tenderness only made her ache even more. And want. There was so much he made her yearn for. So much she needed to let go.

  She felt the warmth of his mouth move to the corner of hers, then gently over it, his kiss so gentle she might have wept had she not already been precariously close to doing just that. As it was, a small sob snagged at the back of her throat when he slowly gathered her in his arms.

  She didn’t know if she loved him or hated him for what he was doing just then. She knew only that he was making it impossible to accomplish what she’d been trying to do when he’d walked in, and deny how much she was going to miss him. How much she already did. She couldn’t always tell which she was mourning, her child or him, but she was having a hard enough time trying to figure it out without him reminding her of how badly she didn’t want the divorce they would eventually have to discuss.

  There never seemed to be an end to the unwelcome thoughts that haunted her nights.

  Lowering her head, she leaned it against his chest.

  “Are you going to talk to me?” he asked. Cupping his hand to the back of her head, he stroked he
r hair.

  She didn’t want to bring up the legal termination of their arrangement. Not now. For that moment, she just wanted to…be.

  “I’m going to miss you when you leave.”

  The motion of his hand stilled. So did the rest of his body.

  “I don’t necessarily have to go anywhere, Jenny.”

  It was her turn to hesitate—which she did a moment before she lifted her head.

  “I can stay if you want me to.”

  She couldn’t have imagined anything he could have said just then that would have caught her more off guard. Or left her feeling more confused.

  Greg saw that confusion join the brightness remaining in her eyes, along with something that looked an awful lot like disbelief. And hope.

  It was the hope that had him breathing again.

  “I’ve been talking with Ed Cochran and he’s willing to go to Brayborough if I want to stay here. He and his wife just want to raise their kids away from the city, so he said he’d be happy with any place like Maple Mountain. We’d have some details to hammer out with the community there, but it’s all workable. If you’re interested.”

  “You want to stay?” she asked, hope still struggling with disbelief.

  Encouraged by what he saw in her pretty face, he said, “I really do.”

  “When did you decide that?”

  That was tougher to answer. The decision, he supposed, reaching into the front pocket of his jeans, had come in stages. But the beginning had been the night he’d first admitted how much he wanted her concern and her caring.

  “I guess I started thinking about it about the time I bought this.”

  Pulling out his hand, he held up the wide gold band he’d carried with him ever since he’d returned from the symposium.

  “There was a jewelry shop in the hotel in Montpelier. When I saw the rings, I thought you should have one to wear.” Especially once your pregnancy started showing, he thought. But when he’d come back, the need for that symbol of marriage had no longer existed. A different need, however, had taken its place. The need to keep her in his life.

  With everything she’d been going through, he just hadn’t known when to tell her that. Considering the distance he’d put between them before he’d left, he didn’t know if she’d even want to hear it.

  Jenny blinked from the simple gold ring he held between his thumb and index finger to the quiet certainty carved in his handsome face.

  “You were right when you said I was letting my past dictate my future,” he told her, palming the ring to trace her jaw with his knuckles. “I just hadn’t realized how blind I’d been to that until you made me face why I kept putting off dealing with the estate.”

  He couldn’t believe how much she’d helped lift that burden. Or how good it felt to see some of the sadness fade from her pretty face.

  “As for what you said about how I detach myself,” he told her, because he’d thought about that, too, “I know I’ve done it in some ways. A lot of ways,” he amended, needing to be honest. “But I was never able to do it with you. I started falling in love with you the night we met. That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he hurried to confide, because there had been a time when the word love had held only negative connotations for him. “And I know you’ve taken a pretty heavy hit in that department, so if you don’t think you can feel the same way, I understand. I just want a chance to do things right with you.”

  It had never occurred to Jenny that she would actually be able to feel emptiness dissolve. But she did. With every word Greg said, she’d felt a tiny bubble of hope in her heart expanding, pushing out the edges until there was nothing left but a fullness in her chest that made it feel as if her heart might burst right through. Inside her heart, a little knot of sadness remained, but the warmth Greg caused to surround it, made it so much easier to bear.

  With his knuckles still slowly skimming her jaw, she tipped her head. “I already do love you,” she confessed. “I thought you probably suspected that.”

  His touch drew to a halt below her chin. He’d known she felt gratitude. He’d known she’d felt obligated. Friendship had been in there, too. And the physical heat they’d shared had been unquestionable. But when he’d thought her heart might be getting involved, he hadn’t understood what loving someone was really all about. When he finally realized what it meant, it never occurred to him that she felt anything like he did when he thought of loving her.

  He wanted to be there when she needed him. He wanted to share her life, her bed, to belong with her, to her.

  He had the feeling that was why he’d never called his lawyer about the prenuptial agreement. Somewhere in his subconscious he’d known even then that his sense of trust in her was absolute.

  The ring felt as if it were burning his palm, when he slipped his fist under her jaw and brushed her cheek with his thumb. He never would have imagined how much it would mean to hear those three little words.

  “Say it,” he asked, as if he wouldn’t let himself believe it otherwise.

  “I love you,” she said, searching his face. She curved her hand at the side of his neck. He had entered her life as a confidant, become her friend, her protector. Her was her knight in shining armor.

  His eyes darkened as his head descended. “Again.”

  A faint smile touched her mouth. “I love you,” she repeated, but her last word was muffled against his lips.

  With one hand at the small of her back, he pulled her closer. She went willingly, looping her arms around his neck, loving the possessiveness she felt in his kiss. There was desire there, too, and hunger, need and unspoken promises. As she kissed him back, her heart beating against his, she let him know she felt all that and more in the long moments before he lifted his head.

  She let out a sigh. “I don’t mind repeating that.”

  “Which? The words or the kiss?”

  “Either. But you said you want to do this right with me.” A light of teasing slipped into her smile as she savored the protective feel of his arms. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Easing them apart, he opened his hand, the ring gleaming in his palm. “For starters, we forget about going anywhere. I do feel a sense of belonging in this place,” he admitted, having faced that, too. “And I’d really like to raise a family with you here. When we’re ready,” he amended, making it clear there was no rush.

  He picked up her left hand, held the band to the tip of her third finger. “I’d ask you to marry me,” he murmured, slipping the ring into place, “but we’re already married.”

  He folded her hand in his, drew her arms back around his neck.

  Drawing herself closer, she could practically feel her future falling into place. “You could ask me, anyway.”

  He grinned. “Do I have to get down on one knee?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Good. I kind of like it where I am.” He tightened his hold. “So, Jenny Baker Reid, will you marry me?”

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered.

  Greg’s heart felt amazingly full as he met his wife’s sweet smile. “Thank you,” he whispered back, and drew the woman who had healed him into a soul-deep kiss as the boom of a drum and the crash of cymbals started a parade on the street beyond their window.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-2481-0

  TRADING SECRETS

  Copyright © 2005 by Christine Flynn

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unk
nown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  *The Whitaker Brides

  †The Kendricks of Camelot

  ††Going Home