The Marrying Man

by Barbara Bretton

  "I thought you were writing up your daily schedule."

  "I was but as soon as I wrote 'load the dishwasher,' I flashed on a brilliant idea where the perp stashes the bloody murder weapon in the dishwasher with the Thanksgiving dinner dishes and washes away the evidence."

  He wasn't entirely sure he liked the way her mind worked.

  "You're awfully quiet," she said with a grin. "Do I make you nervous?"

  "I went to Harvard, Zaslow. I know the difference between fact and fiction."

  The grin widened. "Are you sure you do?"

  Truth was, she unnerved the hell out of him, sitting there all innocent and beautiful, bathed in the morning sunshine that spilled through the kitchen windows. "How'd you get started writing murder mysteries anyway?"

  "I found a dead body near my rosebushes."

  "Right," he said, not believing her for a minute, "and a six foot rabbit on the porch."

  "You asked, McKendrick."

  Maybe she was telling the truth. "So what were you, a homicide detective?"

  "I answered phones and typed envelopes by day and wrote freelance by night."

  "Before you got married?"

  "No." A shadow flickered across her face. "After David died. I'd been working as a staff reporter at Newsweek when we met but there was no way I could juggle that and full-time motherhood."

  "From Newsweek to typing envelopes?"

  "Money was tight and I'm not afraid of hard work."

  "So where does the body come in?"

  "We were still living on the lower East Side of Manhattan in David's old apartment. I was pushing Sarah in her stroller and I saw something funny behind Mrs. Mazzelli's rosebushes."

  "Mr. Mazzelli?"

  "Bingo, cowboy. And he was clutching the little woman's cat's eye glasses in his hand."

  "You look downright nostalgic."

  "I am," she said. "It was serendipity."

  A beautiful woman who waxed poetic over a corpse. "So what happened after you found the body?"

  "I called the police, I hung around, I asked questions. Nobody paid much attention to the little housewife with the new baby and the four rowdy little boys. Eight weeks later I sent Roses Are For Killing on to Max who managed to sell it for more money than I'd ever seen in one place in my life. And the rest, as they say, is history."

  "Have you found any more corpses in the rosebushes?"

  "No, but I believe we make our own luck."

  His eyebrow lifted. "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning I'd sleep with my light on if I were you."

  He wasn't sure whether to laugh or check his insurance policy. "Admit it, Zaslow, you're not your average mother of five."

  "And you're not exactly my idea of the quintessential time management expert." She made a big production out of looking him over, head to toe. She also made it obvious that her inspection was meant to get on his nerves. It didn't. He liked it. "You should have a sunken chest, a high-pitched voice, and a pocket protector."

  He struck a Schwarzenegger pose. "I don't."

  She swallowed. "I've noticed."

  There it was again. That indefinable tug in the center of his gut. That voice in his ear that kept saying, This is the one.

  Her gaze was steady as she looked up at him. His grasp on reality was anything but. Her blue eyes seemed smoky, darker than they had a moment ago. He moved closer. His blood pounded in his ears. Her lips parted a fraction. His hunger was a living, breathing force. Kiss her. That's what this is all about. Kiss her and get on with it.

  ***

  He was going to kiss her.

  Cat knew it in her head, in her heart, in the way her blood moved through her body like a river seeking its source.

  And the amazing this was, she was going to let him.

  She was under an enchantment, that's what it was, some kind of erotic magical spell that made normally sane women do things their mothers had warned them against years ago. Like kissing a stranger.

  And he was a stranger. Just because Max had thrown them together was no reason to think otherwise. She didn't know much of anything about Riley McKendrick. Oh, she knew the basics -- Nevada born, Harvard educated -- but she didn't know one single thing of importance about the man who was preparing to take her in his arms.

  Does it matter, Cat? You know everything you'll ever need to know about him.

  He held out his hand to her and she placed her own hand in his. A shock of recognition sizzled through her body, the certainty that something much more powerful than she could ever understand had brought her to this moment in time.

  She stood up. He drew her into his arms. She'd wondered if she would ever know this feeling again, this powerful surge of light and heat that made everything else fade to nothingness.

  Now she knew. It had been waiting deep inside her, waiting for the right man and the right moment to bring it back to painful, glorious life.

  He cupped her face with his massive hands and her eyes fluttered closed. She was a strong and successful woman who prided herself on her independence but as he brought his mouth down to hers, she wondered if she'd ever truly known about the wonders the world had to offer.

  Wonders as simple as a man's mouth open and hot against yours, wonders as wild and intoxicating as the touch of his tongue against your lips, seeking, demanding, urging you to open for him, forcing you to acknowledge that what was happening between you was as fierce and demanding as a force of nature--and even more untamed.

  Her hands came up between them and she placed her palms against his chest. It wasn't enough. She wanted to rip past the layers of clothing until it was skin to skin, heat to heat, hunger to hunger. She wanted--

  The kids! The footsteps thundering through the hall were coming closer.

  She pushed Riley away, feeling guilty as sin but alive. Alive to the moment and the man and the wonder of it all and she wished she could feel that way for the rest of her life.

  ***

  Being a man had its drawbacks, one of which was making itself obvious as Riley struggled back to a mere mortal plane of existence. He quickly crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator and occupied himself with checking for orange juice or some other damn thing while he waited.

  "We got the lists, Mr. McKendrick," said Kevin, bounding into the room with his siblings close behind, "but my sister can't write."

  "Great," said Riley with as much enthusiasm as he could muster under the circumstances.

  Sarah appeared at his side. "I can so write," she said. "Mommy taught me to write my name."

  "You'll have to show me," he said, pretending great interest in the contents of Cat's refrigerator.

  "What are you doing in there?" Ben popped up on his other side. "You're not supposed to keep the door open that long."

  "You're right," he said, straightening up. "Bad example."

  Like being caught making out with the kid's mother right there in broad daylight in the middle of the kitchen. If a man was looking for trouble, that was one damn good way to find it.

  Cat was seated at the table. Looking at her, you'd never know she'd been anything but domestic in that kitchen. Sarah climbed up on her lap and pushed a sheet of bright yellow paper into her mother's hands. "Read my list, mommy," she demanded. She was Cat all over again and he had to smile as he looked at her.

  Cat hugged her daughter as she read the list aloud. "'Feed the fish. Put away my toys. Watch television..'" She gave Sarah a kiss atop her head. "This is a great list, honey. You did a good job."

  The little girl beamed with excitement. "I wrote it myself, mommy. I thought up all the words and Kevin just put them on the paper."

  The boys snickered but quickly stopped beneath their mother's sharp-eyed glance. "Your sister put a lot of thought into her list, boys. I hope you did the same."

  "So now what?" Kevin asked, staring up at Riley. "What'll we do next?"

  He looked at Cat and their eyes locked. A look from her was worth a night in another woman's arms.


  But it wasn't enough.

  Chapter Six

  Maybe if he hadn't kissed her she might have had a chance but the moment his lips met hers, Cat knew she was lost.

  He'd kissed her the way women dreamed of being kissed, an erotic blend of tenderness and heat, of fierce need and sweet surrender that had toppled her defenses. She'd felt that kiss deep in her soul, in her heart, in every cell and fiber of her body. And she still felt it now, hours later, as she sat at her desk and stared at the mountain of unanswered correspondence waiting for her to organize it.

  She'd wanted him more in that moment than she'd ever wanted anything or anybody in her entire life. Nothing else had mattered, not reason, not sanity, not the fact that they were quite probably the most mismatched couple in the United States and destined to remain so.

  She sat there in her office, oblivious to the steady hum of her computer, and considered the situation. The man had ice water in his veins. The kiss had been his idea, but if it had meant one blasted thing to him, you'd never know it by the way he'd been acting ever since. A split second before the kids burst into the kitchen, they'd broken apart, and instantly it was as if the kiss had never happened. Cat had looked deeply into his green eyes, searching for a clue, a sign, anything that would indicate he'd felt a fraction of the wonder she'd found in his arms but there was nothing.

  The rat.

  Missy and Taj, two of her housecats, leaped up onto the desk, sending letters and magazines flying every which way. Scooter, who'd been sleeping at her feet on a bed of manuscript pages, grumbled loudly then lumbered off to find another place to nap. She hoped it was on top of the cowboy's pillow. Scooter drooled. It would serve him right.

  The louse.

  She ripped open a few sweepstakes offers from Publishers Clearing House and managed to waste a good half hour affixing gold seals and labels to various locations on the entry forms, all in the name of efficiency. It occurred to her that she could be putting her time to better use but she pushed that thought from her mind. Somebody had to win these things, a fact even the anal-retentive, clock-watching Riley McKendrick should understand.

  The monster.

  Even her own children were turning against her. The only one who was still normal was poor Jack, and that was only because he was in bed with the flu. By tomorrow Riley would have the kid asking for a horizontal file for his birthday. She'd seen the way the other little traitors hopped to it when the cowboy barked out an order. Wasn't this how fascism got its start?

  The whole thing was disgusting. With McKendrick's help they'd color-coded clothes and toys and schoolbooks, and even followed him down to the basement to tackle the dozens of unmarked boxes that had followed them from their old house, and the house before that. The same boxes Cat had assumed would follow her one day to the old age home.

  Well, not if Riley McKendrick had anything to do with it. Wasn't it enough the cowboy was turning her present inside out--did he have to stick his nose into her future as well? She'd grown attached to the idea of having those mystery boxes with her to warm her in her old age.

  She pushed back her desk chair and rose to her feet. She couldn't just sit there while he turned her children into little robots with calculators tucked into their lunchboxes. Her nerves were on edge, she felt like she was coming down with something, and the fact that he was pretending that kiss never happened was suddenly more than she could take. If you were going to kiss someone the way he'd kissed her, the least you could do was own up to it.

  With righteous fury in her breast, she marched through the hallway and downstairs to the basement where the situation was even worse than she'd thought. Kevin, Michael, Ben, and even Sarah were sorting through boxes of old comic books, doll clothes, and toys. They even looked like they were enjoying themselves. The radio in the corner was on full blast, the puppies were playing with a pair of old baby blankets and two of Taj's kittens practiced their pouncing on shadows cast against the floor.

  The pile of discards was astonishing. Board games, toy trucks, G.I. Joe, even one of Cat's old Barbie dolls. She made a mental note to retrieve Barbie later that night under cover of darkness. Some things, after all, were sacred. She watched, amazed, as Ben tossed his Spiderman Halloween costume atop the pile, followed quickly by Kevin's outgrown hockey skates. Were these the same kids who swore that even used chewing gum might be a collector's item some day?

  "Hi, mom," said Kevin, looking up from his task. "Gonna have a lot for recycling next week."

  She nodded. Tomorrow she'd care about recycling. Right now she only cared about justice. "Where's Riley?"

  "I dunno," her son said. "I thought he was with you."

  She turned on her heel and marched back upstairs, aware of her children's curious whispers.

  "Where are you, McKendrick?" she muttered, peering into the living room, the kitchen, the dining room. A wonderfully delicious thought occurred to her. Maybe he was sprawled across the bed in the guest room, reading Playboy and drinking beer, while the rest of them sorted, color-coded, and alphabetized.

  She took the stairs two at a time, heart pounding with anticipation. She'd catch him in the act, that's what she'd do, and she'd throw all of his annoying platitudes about schedules and discipline right back in his smug and gorgeous kisser. The thought filled her with glee as she tore down the hallway toward his room.

  She flung open the door to the guest room, ready, willing, and able to face down her adversary but her adversary was nowhere in sight. She stepped inside and tilted her head, listening for the sound of running water from the bathroom but heard only silence.

  Okay, so he wasn't holed up in the guest room with a can of Coors and the latest Playboy. Maybe he was in one of the kids' rooms, sticking those idiotic colored dots on their toys, the organizing tool that was supposed to make it easy to answer the eternal question, "Which one of you left the roller skate on the staircase?"

  She peeked into Kevin and Michael's room. No sign of McKendrick. Same with the room Jack and Ben shared. Jack was sleeping beneath his favorite T Rex bedspread and she pressed her lips to his forehead then smiled. His skin was cool and dry to the touch and she knew it was only a matter of hours until the little boy was back on his feet. Murmuring a relieved prayer, she glanced quickly into Sarah's tiny room then was about to head downstairs when she heard a sound from the one place she hadn't thought to check.

  Her room.

  Righteous fury turned quickly into shock. McKendrick was not only in her room, he was in her lingerie drawer and she'd caught him with the evidence in his hands.

  ***

  Riley supposed it looked pretty bad, what with him standing there with Cat's underwear drawer wide open and her lacy black bra in his but the evidence was purely circumstantial.

  "It's not what you think."

  "Put my underwear down!" Her tone was lethal. "Now!"

  "You don't understand. I--"

  "I understand, all right. I understand you're a filthy skunk with a big problem."

  "The dog did it."

  "You can do better than that, cowboy."

  "Damn right," he shot back, "but I'm telling you the truth. I caught one of your dogs playing with it in the kitchen."

  "You did not."

  "Remember the hall closet," Riley said. "Does it really seem that impossible to you?"

  Her eyes flashed fire. "I don't care how where you found that but stop doing what you're doing right now!"

  "Stop doing what?"

  "That." She pointed toward his hands. "Do you have to hold it that way?"

  The bra cups rested in the palm of his hand. "What's wrong with the way I'm holding it?"

  Her cheeks reddened and she reached for the undergarment. "Just hand it over and be quiet."

  He glanced down at the profusion of lace, silk, and cotton jumbled together in the drawer. "You'd be able to stuff more junk in there if you folded things."

  "Mind your own business."

  "This is my business, Zaslow, or have y
ou forgotten the bet?"

  "Touch one thing in that drawer and you're a dead man."

  He kneed the drawer shut. "So what're you doing in here? Checking up on me? Afraid I'm a crossdresser and I've got my eye on your Jockeys?"

  "I--" She stopped abruptly, bra dangling from her fingers like a lacy flag of surrender.

  "Don't get shy on me now, Zaslow. Tell me what's on your mind."

  "You." She swallowed. "I want to talk about--I mean, we need to talk about what happened in the kitchen."

  "The kiss?"

  She nodded. "Yes. I want to know why you did it."

  "Pretty obvious, wouldn't you say?"

  She gestured toward the lingerie drawer. "Pretty obvious, too, wouldn't you say? I still want an answer."

  "Why do men climb mountains?" he countered.

  "I don't know," she snapped. "Why do they?"

  "Because the mountain is there for the taking."

  "I suppose you make a habit of seducing women by the Cuisinart every day of the week."

  "Trust me, lady. You'd know it if I was seducing you."

  "Think a lot of yourself, don't you, cowboy?"

  "When it comes to seduction I do."

  "Seduction's politically incorrect."

  "Not when it's done right."

  ***

  Cat's knees began to tremble. The man was lethal. Good thing he wasn't trying to seduce her. She didn't think her nerves could stand the real thing. "Seduction is an outdated notion, another example of male domination."

  "The hell it is." He moved closer. "Mutual seduction is about as good as life gets."

  "Well, there you have it, cowboy," she said with false bravado. "You weren't trying to seduce me and I wasn't looking to be seduced. Case closed."

  He took another step closer. Her skin registered his heat. "There's one way to prove this, Zaslow."

  Her heart caught in her throat and she met his eyes. It was there again, that look of sadness, of vulnerability, that had touched her so the first time she saw him. And once again it threatened to be her undoing.