Reluctant Wife

by Carla Cassidy

  A ghost of a smile whispered across the doctor’s features. “Not good for the man who did this to her. But she’ll be fine. The blow to the back of her head was a glancing one. I’ve got her on some pretty heavy-duty painkillers for her leg.”

  Tyler nodded, realizing the drugs were probably the reason for her dopey grin when he’d entered the room. At that moment Samantha came out of the bathroom. “Thanks, Doc, for all your help,” she said. Neither the doctor nor Tyler mentioned to her that her blouse was buttoned wrong or that her skirt was twisted crookedly. “Come on, Tyler. Let’s go home.” Without waiting for him, she clomped out of the room.

  “I want to see her in a week to check on that leg,” Dr. Bumgarten said. “When those painkillers wear off, she’s probably going to be pretty miserable.”

  “I have a feeling I will be, too,” Tyler muttered wryly. Thanking the doctor, he hurried out after Samantha.

  “Thanks for coming to take me home,” she said to him as he caught up with her. She flashed him a quicksilver smile. “Waiting for cabs can be hazardous to your health.”

  Tyler said nothing. He refused to make light of the situation, but knew the hospital parking lot was no place to conduct the kind of conversation he intended to have with her when they got home.

  He helped her into his car, the cast on her leg making her unnaturally clumsy and off balance. She got in, leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  She remained that way until they were nearly home. When Tyler turned into the driveway, she opened her eyes and gazed at him. “You’re mad, aren’t you? I hated to wake you up but I didn’t know who else to call to come and get me.”

  Tyler parked the car, then turned and looked at her incredulously. “You think I’m mad because you woke me up?” He frowned at her, then realized that would only add to her misperception. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

  He helped her into the house where both of them immediately went to the study. As Samantha sank into one of the wing chairs, Tyler lit a fire in the fireplace. When he turned back to her, he smiled. “Samantha, I’m not angry because you woke me up.”

  “That’s a relief.” She cast him a crooked smile. “I feel too good to have anyone angry with me. Those pills the doctor gave me have given me a nice euphoric cushion.”

  “We do have to talk about what happened. You realize it wasn’t just a simple mugging.”

  “I know. I also have a clue as to who was behind the attack,” she said. “And I don’t think it has anything to do with the Marcola case.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Then what? Who?”

  She pulled something from her pocket and held it out to him. It was a silver money clip with the initials R.B. engraved on it. “That was on the ground next to me when I came to. Rick Brennon,” she said.

  Tyler thought of the burly man he’d tangled with at the Devil’s Kitchen. Was it possible the attack on Samantha had been payback?

  Samantha grinned at him, her eyes slightly glazed from the painkillers. “I guess maybe Brennon thought he’d be getting back at you by hurting me. Silly, huh?”

  “Samantha, this is nothing to joke about,” he replied, his blood hot as he thought of Brennon assaulting Samantha. “Did you make a police report? Give the police this information?”

  She nodded. “Sheriff Caldwell came to the hospital and took a report. I didn’t tell him about finding the money clip, although I did tell him I thought Brennon might be involved.”

  Tyler looked down at the clip in his hand. “I knew the man wasn’t exactly a mental giant, but this seems even too stupid for Brennon—to drop a calling card at the scene of a crime.” He frowned. It just didn’t feel right. Brennon was a bar brawler, not the type to hit a defenseless woman in some sort of retribution.

  “Personally, I prefer to think whoever attacked me wanted to stop me from proceeding on the Marcola case,” Samantha said, her eyes having difficulty focusing on Tyler. “Because that would mean whoever it is, is afraid of my legal skills. That they think I might succeed in proving Dominic innocent and the case would be reopened. That’s what I like to think.” As her words slurred, Tyler realized the full brunt of the pain pills must be hitting her.

  “Come on, Ms. Legal Eagle, it’s time for you to go to sleep.” He stood and helped her out of the chair. When they reached the foot of the stairs, Samantha paused, sighing as she eyed her destination at the top.

  Without hesitation, Tyler scooped her up in his arms. He tensed as she immediately wound her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest. “Thanks,” she murmured. Her breath played warm and sweet against his throat. “I want you to be the first one to sign my cast,” she said.

  He didn’t reply. He carried her into her room, pulled down the covers on the bed and placed her there, but she didn’t release her grasp on him. “Stay with me,” she whispered, and attempted to pull him down next to her on the bed. “Oh, Tyler, when I got hit from behind, I was so scared. I thought I was going to die.”

  “Shh, you’re safe now.” Gently, he unwound her arms from around his neck, then removed her shoes. His gaze fell on the cast and he imagined Rick Brennon hitting her with something...a bat...a pipe...hitting her sweet, soft flesh so hard it broke the bones within.

  Rage tore through Tyler—a killing, blinding rage. If the sheriff didn’t arrest Brennon, if the legal system somehow failed, then Tyler would seek his own particular brand of justice. He didn’t care how long it took, sooner or later somebody would pay for Samantha’s pain.

  “Tyler?” Samantha’s voice was soft, blurred by the sleep-inducing drugs.

  “What?” He pulled the sheet up around her.

  “I’m glad we made love.” A smile curved her lips as her eyes drifted closed. “I...I wouldn’t have wanted to die without doing that.” Her words faded and with a sigh she surrendered herself to sleep.

  Tyler watched her for a long time. He stood next to her bed, noting the spill of her hair against the pillowcase, the tiny veins across her eyelids that made her look so vulnerable.

  He loved her. Hopelessly. Helplessly. He loved her as deeply as he’d ever loved before. The knowledge filled him with horror, twisted his gut. He didn’t want to love her, was afraid of feeling that emotion for her.

  He left the room but didn’t go far. He leaned against the wall in the hallway, drawing in deep breaths as he fought an internal war between love and fear. Loving Samantha scared him more than anything he’d ever experienced.

  He’d sworn to himself years before that he would never allow fate to play havoc with his heart again. He’d sworn he would never love a woman who took chances, lived so fully, and rode the edge of risk. He’d loved a woman like that once, and she’d wound up dead. He would never put himself through that again.

  Sooner or later he was going to have to come to a decision. He was going to have to either learn how to hate Samantha, or sell her his half of Justice Inc. and leave her and this town behind.

  “There’s got to be a mistake.” Samantha looked at the big, bald old man sitting across from her. “I could have sworn it was Rick Brennon who attacked me.”

  Wylie Brooks shrugged his massive shoulders. “Not unless the man can be at two places at one time. As you see in my report, at the time of your assault, he was in attendance at his niece’s wedding. More than thirty witnesses placed him there.”

  Samantha set that particular report aside and thumbed through the others Wylie had brought with him. “Anything interesting in Abigail’s background?”

  Wylie shook his head. “Nothing that jumped out at me. Before marrying Morgan Monroe, she was living alone, dating your client and working as a waitress out at the country club. No scandals that I could find, no skeletons to rattle, no potential suspects to point to.”

  Samantha sighed dispiritedly. “Thanks, Wylie. I’ll look these over and if I think of anything else I need, I’ll call you.”

  After Wylie left the office, Samantha leaned back i
n her chair and released another long, weary sigh. The day after her assault, Samantha had shown up in court, only to have the judge, despite her protests, grant a week’s delay in the proceedings for the benefit of her health.

  “Ms. Dark, there is no way you can be at your best today after what you experienced last night,” Judge Halloran had explained. Although Samantha had argued with him, the judge had been adamant. Samantha had gone home and spent the next two days in bed, realizing Judge Halloran had been right. Her body ached and her mind felt numb.

  This morning she’d awakened knowing it was time to get back to work. Now she had two goals—to get Dominic off and to find whoever had tried to kill her.

  She scanned Wylie’s reports, searching for something, anything that could be used in Dominic’s defense. She’d assigned Wylie to getting any and all background material on Abigail, Kyle and Georgia Monroe, and Rick Brennon.

  Brennon’s report read like a rap sheet. She noticed that on more than one occasion Brennon’s arresting officer had been Dominic Marcola. In and out of trouble since his teenage years, Brennon had more than enough reason to frame Dominic. And if he framed Dominic, he wouldn’t want the man to get off because that would reopen the investigation.

  It made sense to think that Brennon had attacked her, hoping to get her pulled from the case. In all probability, if she dropped Dominic’s case, an overworked, underpaid public defendant would take over, making Dominic’s chances of acquittal virtually nil.

  But Brennon hadn’t attacked her. The proof was in Wylie’s report before her. And if he hadn’t done it, why had somebody tried to make it look as if he had? To provide a false lead?

  She leaned back in the chair and placed her leg with the cast on top of the desk. Although she’d only had the cast on for three days, already her leg had started the itching that indicated healing. She drew a pencil from her drawer and shoved it beneath the edge of the cast, trying to hit the place that itched with the eraser end of the pencil.

  “I don’t remember that being on your list of written instructions from Dr. Bumgarten.”

  Samantha looked up to see Tyler standing in her doorway. She blushed, pulled the pencil out of the cast, and set her leg back on the floor. “It itches.”

  “There are some itches best left unscratched.”

  Samantha grinned. “Not as far as I’m concerned. I’m a firm believer in scratching where it itches.” Her smile faltered as Tyler didn’t reply, didn’t smile. He’d been cool and distant since the night of her attack—although he’d insisted he drive her to and from work, and that she not go anyplace else unless she had somebody with her. It had surprised Samantha how much his aloofness bothered her.

  “You ready to head home?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Just let me gather up some paperwork.”

  “I’ll wait right out here.” He disappeared from her vision and she quickly shoved Wylie’s reports and Dominic’s thick file into her briefcase.

  “All set,” she told Tyler a moment later as she met him by Edie’s desk. “Good night, Edie,” she said to the red-haired receptionist. “Don’t work too late.”

  Edie laughed. “Honey, work is about the most exciting thing in my life these days.” She waved to them as they went out the door and into the cool twilight shadows of approaching night.

  “I saw Wylie a little while ago,” Tyler said as they got into his car.

  “He came by to give me some reports.”

  “Anything worthwhile?”

  “Not really, although I now know Rick Brennon wasn’t the one who did this to me. While I was being attacked, Rick was at a wedding reception on the other side of town. As far as the other reports are concerned, I haven’t had a chance to look them over yet, but Wylie said nothing jumped out at him.”

  They fell silent—not the companionable silence they had enjoyed in the past, but one filled with tension. Samantha endured it until they got to the house, then spoke. “Tyler, are you mad at me?”

  “Have you done something that I should be mad about?” he countered.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I don’t always know when I’m being irritating or maddening.”

  Tyler parked and shut off the engine, then turned to her.

  In his dark gaze, she saw irritation, ire...and a flame of something she knew she shouldn’t disturb: desire. It burned in his eyes, warmed her from the inside out. She knew she was a fool to want it, but she did.

  She leaned toward him, intent on touching him, wanting to place her lips against his until he moaned. In a single fluid movement, he got out of the car.

  “I hope Virginia fixed something good for dinner. I’m starved.” His voice had a forced lightness as he helped her out of the car.

  “Me, too,” she replied. Although she wasn’t speaking about dinner. She was starved for his touch, wanted a repeat of their lovemaking. It had nothing to do with love, she thought, as they made their way to the front door. It had to do with pleasure. She could make love without being in love, she told herself. She stumbled as her head filled with the memory of the single night they had shared. Yes, she wanted to be in his arms again, feel the joy of their union.

  The house smelled of spaghetti sauce and garlic when they walked in. Virginia met them at the door, obviously pleased to have them home for the meal on time for a change. “I’ll just set it on the table,” she said.

  As Virginia bustled to finish preparing the meal, Tyler and Samantha settled in at the table. When Samantha’s father had been alive, all meals had been eaten in the formal dining room. Samantha was grateful that she and Tyler preferred the cozy confines of the kitchen. Here, the table was a smaller, round one, making the meal more intimate. Samantha liked the fact that she sat close enough to Tyler to smell his scent, to see into the depths of his eyes when they spoke.

  As Virginia served them, Samantha looked down at her plate in sudden confusion. She liked the fact that she and Tyler sat together each evening at the table, sharing pieces of their day, bantering like a comfortable married couple. When had that happened? When had she begun to look forward to this time with Tyler? How had the man she’d wanted to hate, the man she couldn’t wait to force out of the firm and out of her life, become such an integral part of her life?

  It was crazy to think a relationship with Tyler could go anywhere. Absurd to even think a long-term relationship with Tyler was possible. She could never be the kind of woman he wanted. So, why was she so certain that before the night was over she would be in his arms? Why did she know with heart certainty that they were going to make love before this night was through?

  Chapter 11

  It worried Tyler that Samantha was so silent during their meal. In the past several weeks, their dinners had been accompanied by her easy chatter. They debated legal issues, argued past decisions rendered, and rarely suffered a moment’s quiet while eating.

  Tonight, silence reigned. She concentrated on her meal, obviously filled with thoughts she preferred not to share. What was brewing in her pretty head?

  The ticktock of the kitchen clock seemed unnaturally loud and he could hear the faint but steady rhythm of Samantha’s breathing.

  “You’re terribly quiet,” he finally said, breaking the oppressive stillness.

  She looked up and flashed him a quick smile. “Just thinking.”

  “Anything you want to share?”

  She hesitated, as if weighing options, then shook her head. “No, nothing important.” She toyed with her spaghetti, her fork twirling and untwirling strands of pasta. She looked at him again, her expression thoughtful. “Do you ever think about where you would be now if my father hadn’t met you when he did?”

  “I know where I’d be—in jail.”

  She nodded, her brow wrinkled in thought. “I sometimes wonder where I would be now if I hadn’t left Wilford years ago.”

  Tyler smiled at her. “Probably in the cell next to mine.”

  She laughed, the low throaty sound shooting a thrill of d
esire through Tyler. “You’re probably right,” she agreed. Her smile faded and her gaze met his. “You know, I wasn’t half as bad as everyone thought I was.” Her eyes shone with an intensity that touched his heart.

  “I know.”

  A teasing light stole into her eyes. “Although sometimes I have wicked thoughts that I know would make you blush if you knew what they were.”

  Tyler felt the beginning of a responding blush heat his hairline. Her laughter surrounded him once again—stimulating, provocative. Life with Samantha would never be dull or boring.

  Once again he felt a desperate need to distance himself from her. He stood and took his plate to the sink.

  “Oh, Tyler, sometimes you are so predictable,” she teased.

  He rinsed his plate, wondering why “predictable” sounded so much like “boring.” “You make ‘predictable’ sound like a negative trait,” he said as he placed his dishes in the dishwasher.

  “On the contrary, I find it an admirable trait.” She got up and walked toward him.

  How was it possible for her to look so damned sexy with a heavy cast on her leg? he wondered as she stopped directly in front of him. He tensed, both worried and excited by the little smile that played at the corners of her mouth.

  “There is something nice about ‘predictable,’” she said softly. “For example, I know if I do this—” she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her body against his “—I know I’ll feel your heart quicken against mine.”

  Tyler tried to stop his body’s response to hers, but it was as impossible as attempting to stop his next breath. “Samantha...what are you doing?”

  “I’m showing you how predictable you are.” She pressed her lips against his throat. “And when I kiss you here, you tighten your arms around me.”

  Tyler cursed inwardly as he felt his arms pulling her closer, more tightly against him. Boring? Predictable? She squealed in surprise as he scooped her up in his arms. “What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly as he headed for the stairs.