And she didn’t love him. His own jaw tightened. Well, fine. He could say the same. He’d been there, done that. He’d married Jill as a love-crazed twenty-year-old. He’d worn his heart on his sleeve then. Hell, he’d plastered it right across his chest.
And she’d trampled it on her way out the door.
“Love is highly overrated,” he told her. It only caused pain.
Their gazes met, locked. Challenged. And they might have fought forever if Martha hadn’t said dully, “Whatever you say,” and turned away. “I’m going to bed.”
So, they’d continue the battle another day. That was okay with him. He was in it for the long haul, regardless of what she thought.
“Where’m I sleeping?” he asked.
“Not with me!” she flung over her shoulder as she headed toward what he supposed was her bedroom.
“Now there’s a surprise,” he said sarcastically.
“Sleep on the couch,” she said.
“What about the other bedroom?” He’d seen it off the kitchen when he was preparing dinner. It was going to be the baby’s room. There was already a crib in it. But he’d seen a day bed, too.
There was a moment’s silence in which, he was sure, she was trying to figure out how to refuse. But finally she said, “All right. For tonight, Theo. That’s all. Then you can go. You don’t have to worry. I don’t expect anything of you. You’re free. I won’t ever ask for your help.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” he said after a moment, and was glad his voice didn’t sound as ragged as his emotions felt. “I’m staying, Martha. For now. For tonight. For next week, for as long as it takes to get you to marry me.”
She totally closed up on him then. Her face became a hard, unreadable mask. “Just go to bed, Theo.”
He’d get tired of it.
He couldn’t last forever. There was nothing for Theo to do in Montana. He was a world-class sailor. Montana was a landlocked state!
Martha promised herself this over and over. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. Day after day.
But he never went away.
In the mornings he was up before she was. He took Ted out. He shoveled the walk. He fixed oatmeal for breakfast and insisted that she eat it.
“Good for you,” he said. “Puts meat on your bones.”
And he tolerated her growling mutters and grumpy monosyllables with revolting good cheer. Her fingers itched to throw a book at him.
But the way he was acting, he’d probably just smile and say, “Thanks. I’ve always wanted to read that.”
She hated him.
Worse, she loved him. And day by day she felt herself slowly but inexorably falling under his spell.
He drove her to school and he picked her up after. She argued that she could get there herself.
But he just said, “Why? When I can drop you off at the door? You want to walk in the cold and ice? You want to fall and have the baby on the sidewalk?”
“I’m not going to give birth on the sidewalk!” she snapped.
But one day she did slip on a patch of ice and would have fallen if he hadn’t been there to catch her against him and haul her upright, so hard against him that she could feel his heartbeat through both their jackets.
Or was it only hers slamming away? And not just from the adrenaline rush of having almost fallen.
No matter. He reminded her of why she was resisting him by saying, “Told you so,” in a smugly superior tone of voice which made her want to throw another book at him. But after that he gave her a ride every day. And she let him. Only for the baby, though. Which was, of course, why he was doing it. It was why he added handrails to her scaffolding, too.
“I know you’ll just try to climb up on the damn thing, and I’m not having you falling,” he told her in no uncertain terms. “The boys agree.”
As if the approbation of a bunch of barely reformed juvenile delinquents was important to her! But her juvenile delinquents now insisted on watching over her like a bunch of protective little brothers, asking her how she was feeling, telling her she was working too hard, taking time away from their painting to help Theo put up rails for the scaffolding.
And as much as she would never admit it to any of them, Martha did feel safer with the rails there. Maybe she was a little bit of a sissy these days, but she was getting more awkward as the baby grew, so she didn’t quibble.
She just said, “Thank you.”
Theo nodded and at least didn’t say, “I told you so.” The boys all looked tremendously pleased with themselves.
“Maybe she’ll name the kid after me,” Jeremy said.
Martha shook her head. “No.”
“Nope. She’s namin’ him after me,” Dustin informed them.
“No,” Martha said to him, too.
“She named the dog after its dad,” Stephen pointed out.
“I did not!” Martha protested.
They all—even Theo—grinned.
“Get back to work,” she told them grumpily. “We don’t have forever to get this finished, you know.”
The boys all saluted mockingly, but went when Theo jerked his head toward the wall. He was the one they listened to, not her!
He had them wrapped around his little finger. And they weren’t the only ones. Sadie, Spence’s right-hand woman, thought Theo was gorgeous.
“He can light my fire,” she teased, then grinned at Martha’s scowl.
“Ours, too,” said Pauline, one of the cardigans-and-blue-hair brigade who came to quilt on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“Oh, my, yes,” another one, Grace, agreed and fluttered her lashes.
“Mine, too,” said Lucille, who had to be ninety if she was a day.
Martha looked at them, shocked.
“We’re not dead,” Grace reminded her indignantly.
The high school girls weren’t dead, either. And once Clare had Googled him and discovered that he was “the world’s sexiest sailor,” half a dozen more decided they would come help out on the mural. While Martha was grateful for all the extra help, it was something else she owed to Theo.
Damn Theo.
With every passing day, for all that she was determined to resist him, she knew she still loved him. And she couldn’t help wanting him to love her.
But while he said, “Marry me, Martha,” almost as often as he took Ted out, he never said the three words she hoped to hear.
She was driving him crazy with her aloofness.
He cooked her meals, he walked her dog, he shoveled her walk, he got to know—and like—her students, the artists, her friends. He was even pretty damn sure they liked him.
But Martha still acted as if he was the scourge of the earth.
Why?
Because he offered to marry her?
It didn’t make sense.
“It doesn’t, does it?” he asked Ted. They were walking along Park Street. It was snowing again. He’d seen more snow in the past two weeks than he’d seen in his life. He scuffed Ted a path and pondered his dilemma.
Would she like it better if he abandoned her, damn it? If he said, Go ahead and raise the child by yourself, and walked away? Was that responsible?
Of course not.
But wearing her down was proving harder than he’d thought.
He could do it, he thought, if he could get her into bed. Bed, like the ocean and sailboats, was one of Theo’s comfort zones. He did some of his best work in bed. He understood bed.
But Martha showed no inclination to want to go to bed with him now. Every time she caught him looking at her speculatively, curiously—okay, hungrily—she immediately looked away.
As if she hadn’t once wanted him, too.
Of course, it was different now. But Theo actually found the changes in her body—as much as he could see of it beneath all the sweaters and pullovers and shawls and jackets she wore!—intriguing and mysterious and frankly appealing.
But even his expertise in bed failed him here. He didn’t know the first thing abo
ut seducing a pregnant woman. Maybe when women were pregnant they didn’t even think about sex.
How would he know? Who could he ask?
The cardigans?
No way. More than his life was worth.
“What do you think?” he asked Ted.
Ted peed on his foot.
The mural was done.
And not a moment too soon. The troupe of traveling actors was arriving that evening to put on the show they had promised.
All the day before, the theater had been a beehive of activity as the high school drama students and teacher helped prepare the stage and lighting. A local Boy Scout troop was commandeered to set up chairs. And everyone in the art co-op was buzzing, too. All the studios as well as the gallery downstairs would be open for the theater-goers’ perusal. And, of course, everyone who came would be getting their first look at the mural.
And at Theo.
Martha wasn’t sure exactly when she realized that Theo was going to be part of the evening’s showcase. Not that he was doing anything. He was just going to be there. She knew that without asking. But everyone else asked her.
“You are bringing your, um, friend?” Clare’s mother had wanted to know earlier in the week when she’d rung about getting tickets to the play.
It would have been silly to pretend she didn’t know exactly who Clare’s mother was talking about. Obviously Clare had gone home from painting the mural and shared the news. But that wasn’t the only inquiry Martha fielded. It had simply been the first of many.
Other parents of about a dozen art students called to ask about the mural, about tickets to the play and—oh, so casually—to inquire if that “nice man who was helping out” was going to be there. “Just so we can thank him for taking the time to work with our kids,” they said.
Uh-huh. Right.
And then Grace and Lucille rang, first one and then the other, to be sure they wouldn’t be bringing vans full of their respective senior housing residents in vain.
“You’re not!” Martha was aghast.
“Well, they’re coming to see Butte history, of course,” Grace said flatly. “They made it, didn’t they? But life ain’t all history. And if they want a look at your fella, what’s wrong with that?”
It didn’t do any good to say he wasn’t “her fella.” They’d already decided he was.
When the phone rang this morning, she couldn’t imagine who was calling who hadn’t already called.
It was Spence. “I’d offer to pick you up, but I hear you’ve got a date for tonight.”
“I don’t have a date. I have Theo,” Martha replied through her teeth.
“So Sadie said. How’s that going?” Spence sounded merely curious.
“It’s not,” Martha said flatly. “He still thinks he wants to marry me.”
“You were crying all the way home from Greece because you thought you’d never see him again,” Spence reminded her.
“Because I wanted him to love me the way I loved him! And he doesn’t! He doesn’t love me at all. Would you marry someone who didn’t love you?” she demanded.
“Sure,” Spence said without hesitation. “If it was the smart thing to do.”
Martha banged the phone down, convinced that all men—or at least two of them—ought to be shot.
The door opened just as she did so, and Theo and Ted came in from their morning walk. It was snowing again and flakes of pure white dusted Theo’s raven black hair. He grinned at her, so handsome she could hardly stand it.
“Hey, beautiful.” His voice was gruff and just a little possessive. And the look on his face reminded her of the way he’d looked at her on Santorini right before he swept her off to bed.
But then they’d been playing games. And they’d known the rules. Now Martha only knew the pain of longing—of desire. And denial.
And worse, everyone seemed to think she should just give in to it!
And there he stood, bloody Theo Savas! The cause of all of her anguish, smiling and handsome, polite and long-suffering, ready to marry her, and not in the least in love with her!
“I’m not beautiful, and you know it!” she snapped at him and spun away, hurrying into the bedroom and crashing the door shut behind her.
Hormones.
It had to be hormones.
Theo knew it. He’d read her prenatal books. Pregnant women were on hormone overload, and the smartest thing a sane sensible man could do, according to the books, was shut up, turn the other cheek, lie low and stay out of the way.
“A guy’s gotta read the wind,” his old sailing buddy Foster used to say.
Same thing here. To win the race, you had to read the wind, take into account all the conditions—the weather, the water, the boat, the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of the crew—and then you simply did whatever needed to be done.
Theo was doing what needed to be done. He was taking care of his woman—whether she liked it or not.
She didn’t like it. She snapped at him all day. She fussed about having only one dress to wear, a black cashmere tent sort of thing that Theo thought was sexy as hell. But when he said so, she blew him off, told him to stop being so damn patronizing—and slammed the bedroom door again.
As it was, the theater was already packed by the time they got there. It had taken him tapping on the bedroom door and saying, “I don’t care if we go or not, but a lot of people are going to be expecting you,” to get her out of the apartment.
Her hair was wild—as if she’d been running her hands through it—and her cheeks were bright with color and he still thought she looked as sexy as she had on Santorini. But he didn’t want to get another door slammed in his face tonight, so he didn’t say a word.
He took her arm as he helped her out of the car, and he didn’t relinquish it even when she said, “I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
“You’re spectacular on your own,” he murmured, which got him his foot stepped on—by a very sharp high-heeled shoe—and a hissed, “Stop it!” that was so urgent he took her seriously and shut up.
Students and parents and teachers crowded around her as they went in, but someone dimmed the lights just then and they barely had time to find their seats before the performance began.
Later Theo heard a lot of people say that it was excellent. He supposed they were right. He didn’t know. He’d only paid attention to Martha. Other people watched the play. He watched her. Slid his arm along the back of her seat and cupped his fingers against her shoulder.
She sat up as if she’d been jabbed by a poker, then shot him a very clear “if looks could kill” glare. Theo turned his eyes, if not his attention, toward the stage.
He didn’t remove his arm—not until the play was over. And the two curtain calls. And the standing ovation. Then he only removed it just long enough to clap.
But he never got to put it back because as soon as the lights came up, people surrounded them, talking to Martha, wanting to be introduced to him. Even his favorite troublemakers, Dustin and Jeremy, had brought their parents.
“Ah, you came to see the mural?” he said to Dustin’s mother, eager to show her the progress Martha had made with her son.
“Yes,” she said, but didn’t move toward it. “I also came to see you.”
“Me?” Theo looked doubtful.
Dustin’s mother nodded toward Martha, who was talking to some other parents. Then she smiled. “Wanted to see if you’re good enough for the miracle worker.”
“Reckon he’ll do,” Grace Tredinnick said, materializing next to him and patting his sleeve. “This is the feller I was tellin’ you about,” she said to about a half-dozen ladies with hair as blue as her own. “He’s the one gonna make our Martha happy.”
“Is he?” They all looked Theo up and down.
At their intense scrutiny, Theo felt a sudden heat climbing up his neck. “Wouldn’t you like to have a look at the mural?”
“Seen it,” said one. “Where you from?”
“Er, New York
,” Theo said. “Originally.”
“Big-city feller?” They looked at him again and muttered among themselves.
“Some big-city fellows are very nice,” Dustin’s mother said diplomatically, then spoiled it by adding, “Dustin said you’re a sailor.”
The blue-haired brigade looked aghast. One looked particularly suspicious. “Isn’t wearing a uniform, is he?”
“Not that kind of sailor.” Theo latched on to that eagerly.
“They all go out in boats, don’t they?” came the response. “No oceans ’round here.”
“D’you mean to take her away?” Grace demanded, suspicious now, too.
“Well, I—”
Fortunately, before he had time to finish that sentence, they were interrupted by Clare bringing her parents over to chat, then by Jeremy and his parents. Theo could tell that a lot more assessing was going on.
He began to look urgently for Martha and finally spotted her on the far side of the room, pointing out something on the mural to Sadie and a couple of dark-haired men. One was distinguished and proper in a suit and tie, the other wore a pair of khakis and a leather bomber jacket. Theo didn’t know who the bomber jacket guy was, but the distinguished guy was undoubtedly Sadie’s boss, Spencer Tyack. He looked distinguished and sedate, and Theo found himself breathing a bit easier knowing now that Spencer might be a millionaire several times over, but he definitely wasn’t the sort of guy Martha would have chased two-thirds of the way across the country.
But then, laughing about something, Mr. Bomber Jacket looped an arm over her shoulders. Theo bristled. “Excuse me,” he said, cutting Grace off mid-sentence. “I have to go.”
Leaving them all standing there staring after him, he began to push his way through the crowd to reach Martha on the other side of the room. There were, conservatively, four hundred people in the room. And all of them seemed to be between him and Martha. At least half of them stopped him to talk or introduce their parents or friends to him. So that by the time he worked his way to where Martha had been, she was no longer there.
Hell. He scanned the crowd, spotted Bomber Jacket now talking to a group of cardigans and The Suit deep in conversation with Jeremy’s parents. But no Martha anywhere.
The Santorini Bride Page 16