The Bride Said, I Did?

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “How did you find out?” Dani asked as Beau placed a lid onto the skillet.

  His eyes darkened unhappily. “I came home and found her with the twenty-year-old pool boy in our bed.”

  Dani had only to look at the expression on his face to know how much that must have hurt. “What did you do?” she asked quietly.

  Beau rubbed the tense muscles at the back of his neck. “I turned around and walked out. When I came back a couple of days later to get my things, she swore to me it had been a one-time thing. A mistake. She begged me to take her back.”

  Beginning to feel pretty tense herself, Dani edged closer. “Did you?” The heartache she felt for him echoed in her voice.

  “No.” Beau’s expression was grim and unrelenting as he crumbled the bacon in his fists. He lifted the skillet lid and sprinkled the bits over the sizzling potatoes and eggs. “In my view, the fact that the sex was meaningless made the betrayal even worse,” he said.

  Dani could understand that. She brought out the jug of orange juice and filled two paper cups. She carried them to the glass-topped table in the breakfast nook. “How did you find out about the others?” Dani asked.

  Beau slid two eggs and half of the potato, onion and bacon mixture onto each plate. “I had a feeling from the way she acted that the pool-boy thing was just the tip of the iceberg. Whatever the truth was, I had to know it.”

  That sounded like him, Dani thought. He’d behaved the same way about their predicament.

  He scowled as he carried their plates to the table. “So I thought about it and then went to have a man-to-man talk with each and every one of the guys that had seemed a little too attentive to my wife. Most of them were pretty young and woefully inexperienced—at least until Sharon came along and indoctrinated them into things—and it didn’t take long for the facts to come out.” Beau sighed, suddenly looking weary to his soul. A distant look came into his eyes. “In some cases it took a little money, but eventually all of them understood the wisdom of not discussing my wife’s hankering for men other than her husband.”

  “And then?” Dani asked as she ate a forkful of the hot delicious eggs.

  “I advised her to get therapy.” Beau dug into his potatoes.

  “But she refused,” Dani guessed.

  Beau rolled his eyes. “You bet she did. She said as long as she was of legal age and they were of legal age and everyone consented, it was okay. Forget that she was making a damn fool out of me, and our marriage. She thought of herself as sort of a sexual fairy godmother, for initiating them into sex.”

  “Oh, dear,” Dani said.

  Beau’s jaw clenched as he thought about what had happened between him and his ex-wife. “I could have gone public with the truth and probably kept her from getting anything other than what she had brought to the marriage in a financial sense, which wasn’t much. But I didn’t want to involve the guys she’d slept with—they were little more than kids themselves and I figured they’d already been misused enough. That no good could come of making the sordid mess public. Anyway—” Beau shrugged “—you know the rest. The settlement, the agreement to keep the reasons behind the divorce private.”

  For several minutes they ate in silence as Dani reflected on what Beau had been through with his ex-wife. No wonder he had become bitter, cynical and wary at the time of the divorce. Yet he seemed to have finally risen above it. At least he had until Sharon had come back to make more trouble for him. Dani’s fingers tightened on her fork as she regarded Beau anxiously.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “For the moment?” Beau suddenly seemed weary of the whole mess. “Let it ride.”

  He was certainly more generous than she would have been in the same situation, Dani thought, admiring him all the more. She would have wanted revenge, retaliation, something. She reached across the table and took his hand. “Why?”

  Beau tightened his grip on her fingers and looked deep into her eyes. “Because you and I have more important things to do.”

  Chapter Six

  “Oh, really,” Dani echoed dryly, wondering what in heaven’s name he was going to try to commandeer her into now. “Like what?” She moved carefully away from him, determined not to put herself in a physically or emotionally vulnerable situation with him again.

  “Like get this place organized.” Beau flashed her his movie-star I-can-conquer-anything grin. “We won’t be able to concentrate on us until there’s a peaceful environment to concentrate in. Therefore—” he shook his head disparagingly at the moving boxes stacked in every nook and cranny of the first floor “—we need to unpack.”

  “Only one problem with that,” Dani said, resenting that his immediate ambitions so clearly mirrored her own. She didn’t want them to think alike on anything. Except maybe about the baby. She wanted them both to care about the baby.

  Beau’s glance ran over her face, lingering on her lips for a long heart-stopping moment before returning to her eyes. Adding to her dismay was the fact that he seemed to like her low-flash-point temper. “And that problem is?”

  Dani blew out an exasperated breath, not sure when a man had gotten under her skin so swiftly. All she knew was that he was fast taking over her life. And she did not want that to happen. Letting Beau into her life meant taking chances she was not prepared to take. She was happy just the way she was, even if she was a little lonely from time to time. But knowing she would soon have a child she wanted with all her heart and soul and living near her sisters again would take care of that, she assured herself. She didn’t need Beau to see her through the pregnancy or help her take care of the baby. Her sisters could do that, too.

  Steeling herself against any passes he might make, she propped both hands on her hips and took an equally insouciant stance. “Billy Carter will be here in a few minutes and I’m still in my pajamas.” She might be working at home now, but she didn’t intend to greet her employee in her nightclothes.

  “I can remedy that.” Beau’s dark-blue eyes glimmered mischievously. “Where are your clothes? I’ll get you dressed in no time flat.”

  “Undressed is more like it.”

  “I admit it. I’m pretty good at that, too.”

  “Well, that’s a skill you are not going to be called on to use here,” Dani said as hot embarrassed color bled into her face. Honestly, what was wrong with her? He hadn’t even touched her and she was tingling all over!

  Beau leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. The look he gave her was direct, uncompromising and confident. “You never know,” he offered cheerfully.

  Dani shook her head imperiously. “I know.”

  He merely smiled in a way that made her feel all hot and bothered inside and continued looking at her.

  “However, I think I will get dressed,” Dani said, knowing the less time they spent together in an intimate fashion the better. Their situation was complicated enough without bringing sex back into the equation or allowing herself to think their marriage was anything but a temporary solution for the benefit of the child they were unexpectedly expecting.

  Looking as if he had no such reservations himself about either their present or their future, Beau took her in from head to toe. His glance lingered appreciatively on her breasts before returning to her face. “Need any help with that?” he teased.

  Dani rolled her eyes and drew in a short stabilizing breath. “Don’t you wish.”

  “NO,” DANI TOLD BEAU and Billy for the twentieth time that morning. “I don’t like that arrangement, either.”

  Beau and Billy put the sofa down in front of the bay window overlooking the front lawn. Wordlessly they traded impatient man-to-man glances and shook their heads.

  “Why don’t we just put them somewhere and worry about it later?” Beau told Dani, not sure when he had been so thoroughly exasperated by a woman. As far as he was concerned, every single way they’d had the living-room furniture arranged so far was just fine. Who cared, anyway, as long as you had a place to sit down
? Or in his case, as the husband-relegated-to-the-sofa, to sleep?

  “No,” Dani shot back. “I won’t be able to work unless it’s right.”

  “Well, I won’t be able to keep a lid on my temper unless we stop now,” Beau said just as firmly, ignoring Billy’s wide-eyed look of dismay.

  Dani gave Beau a deliberately provoking look. Smiled with all the steely resolve of a born and bred Texas belle. “Maybe that’s a sign, then, you weren’t cut out for…this and should run on home now,” she suggested sweetly.

  Beau knew what she meant, even if Billy didn’t. And he didn’t care what Dani did or how many hoops she tried to make him jump through. He wasn’t about to give up on this marriage of theirs. If he had married her, against his decision never to marry again, he’d had a reason. And he was damn well sticking to her like glue until he found out or remembered what that reason was.

  Beau glanced at his watch. “Maybe we should break for lunch.” And maybe it was time he made a few calls, without Dani’s knowledge, and took care of this problem once and for all. Their lives would be much simpler, much sooner, if he did now what he’d been tempted to do all along.

  “Suit yourself, but I’m staying where I am,” Dani said sweetly, looking at Beau in a way that made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her until she went weak in the knees and melted against him.

  Billy looked from one to the other. Clearly he felt as caught between the two of them as he was tired of moving furniture. “Maybe I should, um, go into your office and start setting up your computer,” Billy suggested to Dani nervously.

  “Good idea,” Dani said, her stubborn glance still trained on Beau.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll go out, make a few phone calls and bring us all back some lunch,” Beau promised, heading for the door.

  AS SOON AS BEAU LEFT, Dani went into the library/ study, with the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and beautiful marble fireplace, to help Billy. Although still cluttered with dozens of boxes stacked one on top of the other, she knew this large room with its abundant storage and floor space was going to be the perfect working environment for her. Not to mention that there was also plenty of room for a playpen or crib and a child-size play area, so her baby could come to work with her, in comfort and style. Dani hadn’t planned to mix motherhood and work just yet, but now that she was living in Laramie again, surrounded by family and friends and pregnant with Beau’s child, she had to admit, she couldn’t have been happier. Despite the fact the baby would link her and Beau forever.

  “I never knew you and Beau Chamberlain were such good friends,” Billy said as he tore open the box that contained her computer monitor.

  Dani cleared off her computer table, which had already been placed next to an electrical outlet, and began looking for the surge protector. “I wouldn’t call us that, exactly.”

  Billy carried the monitor over to the table, then went back to the box that contained the hard drive and carried it over. “He’s here helping you move in.”

  Dani sorted out the half-dozen cables that would connect the components of the computer. “I know.”

  Billy went back for the keyboard and brought that over, too. His expression puzzled, he asked, “Why would a big movie star like Beau be going all out to help you when he obviously doesn’t really like this moving stuff unless—” Billy stopped abruptly, a stricken expression on his face.

  “Unless what?” Dani asked, wondering what had Billy so upset. He didn’t know about her pregnancy or marriage.

  “Unless Beau’s trying to butter you up to write a good review of his next movie!”

  “When it comes to my reviews, I tell the plain unvarnished truth. Everyone knows I can’t be bought. And I don’t give favorable reviews for friends to help sales, either.”

  Billy stopped in the act of connecting the keyboard to the hard drive. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, but you gotta admit, Dani, you were awfully hard on him in your reviews of his last four movies.”

  So others had said. “Every word I wrote was dead on,” Dani said irritably. Beau’s movies had been good. She’d just thought they could be better. “Furthermore, other critics feel Beau could pick material that’s a little more realistic and a little less idealistic, too.”

  Billy shrugged that off. “That’s true. But your column is in a lot more than just one newspaper, Dani, now that your reviews are syndicated. Heck, you’re almost as famous as Ebert or Pauline Kael.”

  Dani knew that was true. In some ways the importance of her opinion had begun to weigh on her. She had never wanted to be responsible for a movie’s success or failure. She’d just wanted to review them. Let others know what she saw in them or didn’t see.

  “Beau is not here for that,” she said firmly, cutting open the box that held her printer, then signaling to Billy to come over and lift it out for her. Like her, Beau was far too ethical for that. He wanted to stand or fall on his own merits. He would never ask her to write something about him that was not true. He would never ask her to write good things about his movies she didn’t believe or be selective about telling the truth, the way Dani’s ex-boyfriend, Chris Avery, had.

  Billy carried the printer over to the stand and set it down. Scowling, he persisted, “Then how come he’s here so much?” Billy jerked in a breath as his next thought hit. He leaned urgently closer. “You two aren’t dating, are you?”

  Dani flushed self-consciously as she struggled to untangle the cord and plug the monitor into the hard drive. “No, we’re not dating.” We’re married.

  “Good.” Billy blew out a sigh of relief. “Because—” Again, he stopped abruptly. And grinned at her as if she’d just given him an unexpected Christmas gift.

  “Because what, Billy?” Dani asked softly. Maybe it was time to get this all out on the table. Discuss Billy’s obvious crush on her, openly and honestly, and then move past it. She looked at him gently, waiting for him to tell her what was on his mind and in his heart. And that was when he made his move. Closed the distance between them swiftly. Put his arms around her in a fierce hug and planted a big wet one on her lips. Dani gasped, struggled and clamped her lips together. Billy held her all the tighter and continued the hopelessly clumsy kiss.

  And that was when Beau walked in.

  He took one look, set down the bags containing their lunch, strode over. One swift yank and Billy was off Dani and held aloft in Beau’s fist. “You have,” Beau said through clenched teeth as Dani wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “exactly two seconds to explain.”

  Quaking from head to toe, Billy shouted, “Summer of ’42!”

  Dani blinked at the movie analogy, as did Beau. Then she put her hand on the flexed muscles of Beau’s arm and stepped in to intervene. “Put him down, Beau,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath.

  Beau let Billy’s feet touch the floor again, but did not release the powerful grip he had on Billy’s T-shirt. “Keep talking,” Beau growled at Billy, looking as if he was ready to punch out Billy at any second.

  “Didn’t you see the movie?” Billy sputtered anxiously, putting up both hands to ward off the blow he was sure was coming and obviously knew he no doubt deserved. “Where the sexy older woman falls for the young kid and takes him into her…well, you know.” Billy turned bright red.

  Yes, Dani did. And so, unfortunately, did Beau. And she had no intention of taking Billy into her bed. “This is not the movies, Billy,” Dani said sternly.

  “With one exception,” Beau growled. Keeping his grip on Billy’s shirt, he lifted him off his feet again so they were face-to-face. “You ever ever lay a hand on her again and you’re going to have your lights punched out—by me. Only these won’t be the fake punches you see on-screen. These will be the real thing. You got that?”

  Billy was shaking from head to toe. “Yes. Yessir!”

  “That’s good.” Beau lowered him to the floor. Releasing his grip on his shirt, he gave him a shove. “Now go home. Now!” he thundered, all the loud
er and more forcibly when Billy hesitated.

  “Yessir!” Billy shouted, and darted for the door.

  “And don’t come back!” Beau thundered, shutting the door behind him.

  Stunned, furious, Dani stared at him. That had been a terrible scene. No doubt about it. But she hadn’t wanted to end it that way. She hadn’t wanted Beau to end it at all. “You have no right,” she sputtered furiously. She was the one who should have put Billy in his place.

  Beau folded his arms and leaned against the front door. His eyes met hers. Once again he seemed to be watching and weighing everything she said and did. “I have every right,” he reminded her mildly. “Unless you have forgotten, you are my wife.”

  Her feelings wounded by Beau’s obvious lack of faith in her, Dani marched forward and stabbed a finger at his chest. “And Billy is my employee,” she countered, feeling a crazy mixture of emotion running riot inside her.

  Beau brushed past her, a censuring light in his eyes, a downward slant to his lips. “Not for long.”

  If she didn’t know better, she would think it was Beau’s heart that was hurting, instead of just his pride. Dani’s heart soared at the possibility even as she worried about the problems Beau’s feelings would cause. The truth was, she wasn’t any happier about Billy’s pass than Beau was, but she saw no reason to let Beau know that. He would just use it to further his own argument.

  Her temper soaring, Dani followed Beau across the foyer. “You can’t fire him, Beau. Only I can do that.”

  She gave Beau a quelling look that, to her chagrin, didn’t seem to weigh on him in the least as he turned and smiled back at her, at that moment looking every bit the kick-butt cowboy he played on-screen.

  “Want to bet?” Beau drawled, and started for the door as if to go after Billy.

  Dani intervened, putting herself between Beau and the front door. When he would have stepped right by her, she took him by the arm. There was no doubt Beau was bigger, taller and stronger than she was. But she had one weapon to use against him in this battle of wills—her words. “Listen to me, Beau Chamberlain,” she told him, her fingers curling around the powerful muscles in his arms. “I will not allow you to come in here and take over my life.”