The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

by Jennifer Greene

  That something else was in the gleam of her eyes when she leaned down…crouched down…and then pounced.

  The aim on her first kiss missed the mark. Her lips smooshed his cheek, but then homed more accurately than radar on the target she really wanted. In the dark corner of the porch, where he was sitting cross-legged on a mat, he felt her elbow dig into his rib and her fanny nestle into his lap-initially threatening the family jewels. He caught a pale hint of perfume. Felt the silky long gown drift around him. Tasted the naked softness of her lips.

  Unless he did something-and quickly-he suspected she was either going to injure or permanently maim him. Enthusiasm could be a dangerous thing, yet severing the kiss didn’t seem to be an option.

  In a thousand years he’d never expected Emma to jump him. She wasn’t the jumping type. Yet more evocative than being jumped by Emma was her lack of finesse. She really couldn’t have done this much. If ever.

  And her lack of experience seemed to make his blood rush like a hot, wild river. Still latched onto her, he used one hand to snug down her spine, to lean her down, down, until she was lying on the mat. He still had a leg hooked under her, a knee threatening to break, but he managed to pull that loose and then he could lie with her. Length to length. Still latched together. And with both hands free now to hold her still, to frame her face, to invest pressure and emotion and promise into the next set of kisses.

  He took her tongue. Heard her heave a sigh, a breathy, artless groan. A miserable groan of longing and wanting.

  Her gown was held up by a swath of silk on one shoulder. That was all. Her other shoulder was bare, softer than a baby’s butt, and when his lips trailed down, he found the soft thudding pulse in her throat, the fragile line of her collarbone. And that naked shoulder had him so damned mesmerized that he had to taste and nuzzle.

  Her knee shot up as if she wanted to wind a leg around him, yet nearly connected with his family jewels again.

  Control slipped. Garrett never let control slip. Not in life, not in work, not in sex. But hell, she was just so wild. For him. As impossible as it seemed, she was wild for him.

  His emotional timbers were already shaken, he knew that. He’d been up all night. No rest, no sleep. It bothered him fiercely that he’d seen that private scene between her and Reed. It bothered him that Reed hadn’t fought for her the way a man should have fought for an unforgettable woman like Emma. It bothered him that she’d looked so bowed and cowed after Kelly left her.

  For hours he’d told himself to stay out of it; her relationship with Reed was none of his business. Besides which, he was afraid it would embarrass Emma if he said anything. No one wanted scenes like that witnessed by anyone. Who was ever happy with how they broke up or fought with someone? Those scenes were always horrible.

  But damn, it was so obvious that she’d felt terrible. And when he’d finally escaped the dance and hightailed it home, he’d found himself standing in his upstairs window, watching for lights at Color. Hell, he didn’t even know if that’s where she’d land that night. But then he’d seen the lights go on, a trail from the front of the gallery leading toward the back…and then nothing.

  He’d paced. And paced. Naturally there wasn’t much he could see from the second-story window two houses down from hers. When he’d gotten around to realizing that he was downright spying on her, he’d wanted to whack himself upside the head. He didn’t do things like that. But finally he just couldn’t stand it. He had to know she was all right.

  And now he knew.

  She wasn’t all right.

  Clearly she wasn’t remotely all right.

  She twisted from beneath him, knelt and tugged folds on folds up of the silky gown over her head. Beneath, she wore a satin thong. Her hair came down in a cloud around her cheeks, and before his brain had time to register how dazzling she was, how exquisite, she’d come back to him.

  “Love me, Gar,” she whispered. “We missed this last time around. I don’t want to miss it again. I want to know-I’ve needed to know, all this time. What we are together. What we could have been.”

  Her voice, so like velvet, caressed him almost as evocatively as her hands. He dredged up some sanity from God knew where. “Emma, I didn’t come here for this. I swear. I understand, you’re upset-”

  “Didn’t you wonder how it would be between us?” she whispered.

  “Yes.” No way to deny it. No way to deny anything with her fingers, pleated open, skimming up, his ribs, his chest, to his neck…her lips only a breath away.

  “I regretted it a million times. That we didn’t make love back then.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m tired of regrets, Gar. I’ve lived by the rules every which way I know how. They’re not working. I want you. I’ve wanted you forever. Are you going to say no?”

  As if he could. Maybe a while back-a few minutes back-he might have still had a brain and some principles, but now any thinking power he’d ever had was pressing thick and hard against her belly. He’d label it lust, except this was a helluva lot more lethal than lust.

  When he took her mouth this time, it was different. When he leveled her onto the mat, everything was different. He told himself that he’d turned into the seducer, yet it wasn’t true. They were both on fire, both in a frenzy-to touch everywhere, to cherish, to claim.

  He had no idea what happened to that satin thong, but there was nothing between them when it mattered. When he thrust inside her, he felt as if something shattered inside him, as if some part of him had been protected by a shell all his life, and with her that protective shell was lost.

  He wanted her. Needed her. Like air, like fire, like earth. Her scent, her sounds, her taste…he wanted all of her, every which way from Sunday, now, immediately, completely.

  She called his name, gripping him tightly with her inner muscles, inciting him higher, faster, harder. “Love me,” she kept whispering softly, fiercely, as if there were ever a time when he hadn’t.

  When the first spasm of release shuddered through her, he could no longer hold back. Violent with need, relentless at driving her higher than she’d ever been, he rode them both to the edge…and then tipped over.

  By the time he sank against her, burying his face in her hair, he couldn’t have roused for a fire.

  Nothing could have made him leave her.

  Garrett had no idea how long he’d been asleep, but when his eyes suddenly opened, the sun was poking its head over the horizon. A soft, smoky light seeped through the porch screens. Robins were having an orgy in the dew-drenched grass, plucking worms. Someone’s cat prowled the white picket fence line. And he was stroking Emma’s back while she was stroking his. Side by side, both of their heads on the same jacquard pillow.

  The mat beneath them was as comfortable and yielding as bamboo spikes. Still, he didn’t move. He had the craziest feeling that he’d been looking into her eyes just like this, exactly like this, right before he’d completely crashed.

  “Am I the only one who slept?” he murmured.

  “No. I dropped off like a stone. Better than I’ve slept in weeks and weeks.”

  “But short.” One of them must have pulled her Grecian gown over them. The morning was warm enough, yet the gown hardly made an adequate blanket. And still neither moved. “What time do you open the gallery?”

  “Not until ten. But Josh’ll be here by nine-thirty, latest.”

  “So we need all traces of crime erased by then?”

  “The only crime I can think of,” she murmured, “is that I never tried seducing you back when we were teenagers.”

  “You were pretty straight back then.”

  “Still am,” she confessed.

  “Not with me.”

  “Not with you,” she whispered and kissed him. They couldn’t have caught more than a couple hours’ sleep, yet he was suddenly aroused again.

  More than aroused. On fire. For her, only for her.

  She closed her eyes and just seemed to lose herself in
him. She responded blindly, fiercely, to every touch, every kiss, every sound, as if no man had ever seeped through her defenses the way he did, as if she’d never wanted before, never needed before.

  Or maybe that was just him. Feeling that way about her. Even as a teenager, he couldn’t recall feeling this crazy. He wanted to be with her more than he wanted life or breath. He didn’t care about tomorrow. Didn’t care about anything but having her, taking her and being taken.

  As he tugged her beneath him, he hadn’t forgotten his sister’s grave problems…or the public complications of Emma’s called-off engagement. In a matter of hours, they both had to face the reality of heavy problems in their lives.

  Maybe that propelled him to be a better lover than he was. A better lover than he thought he could be. But when Emma’s legs were wrapped around him, her throat arched as she surrendered to release, he felt a wild, crazy rush that was far more than orgasmic.

  All these years, he’d never married. In that instant he knew it was because he’d never really trusted anyone. In his world, he only trusted himself… Yet he’d already trusted Emma with his fears about his sister, about his life. And now, irrevocably, he was trusting her with his heart.

  With her, all his secrets were coming out of the woodwork.

  He was in love with her.

  Realizing it was the most terrifying sensation he could remember. But damn, it was beyond wonderful.

  Emma left him sleeping, knowing how little rest he’d had. She took a few seconds to restore the gallery to order, turning off lights and turning on the phones, before hustling into the shower.

  As she should have expected, the phone started ringing the instant she stepped under the spray. Her hair was foamed up with shampoo when she heard a second round of ringing. And she was drying off and tiptoeing around her bedroom off the porch when she heard it ring yet again.

  Damn. Soon she had to start taking those calls. It didn’t matter how exhausted she was, she knew she couldn’t escape a full schedule today. She twisted her still damp hair into a chignon, pulled on a light linen skirt and T-shirt, pushed her feet into sandals, took a breath and then aimed back for the porch to find her lover.

  It was in her heart, that beat. That find-her-lover beat. It wasn’t familiar, the song, the music, yet in spite of everything-and God knows she knew she was facing Armageddon today-her heart couldn’t seem to stop singing.

  On the back porch she found Garrett, looking groggy-eyed and wild-haired, wearing undershorts…and making her want to laugh, because his cell phone looked glued to his ear. He couldn’t escape his business life any more than she could escape hers.

  For a moment she just savored the look of him. In high school, kids had pegged him as a brain more than a jock. But she’d gotten to know that bare chest back then, had always known his shoulders were like marble, his chest tightly muscled.

  She hadn’t known what a creative lover he’d be. And when he suddenly noticed her in the doorway, she realized she’d never known how vulnerable those wicked deep brown eyes could be, either. Emotion hung between them. Something warmer than the sultry morning, something magical. He lifted a hand in a gesture inviting her closer and immediately cut short the call.

  “Hey, beauty,” he murmured.

  “Hey, you,” she murmured right back. “I thought I heard your phone ringing several times, because your ringer sound is so different than mine. But I knew I was in for personal calls today. What’s this for you-work calls start bugging you even before seven in the morning?”

  “Hey, you don’t get the plaque for being a workaholic if you get off the treadmill.”

  “But you get calls this early all the time?”

  “Just the nature of the work, Emma.” It was just idle conversation. He was looking at her. She was looking at him.

  All she wanted was to climb back on that impossibly hard mat with him and make love all day. She’d never thought of herself as a fragile woman, but right now she felt more fragile than a single silk thread in the sunlight. It was Garrett’s doing. When he’d found her last night, she’d been so, so low. Yet he’d made her feel like a woman, the way she’d never felt about herself as a woman.

  She wanted to tell him. To show him.

  But a long day was waiting for her. And she was unsure what last night had meant to him. Besides which, the circles under his eyes tattled how hard he’d been pushing it since he’d come home.

  She shook her head. “Garrett, you were always that way. Driven. Committed. Never-say-die.”

  “I know. They’re on the heavy lists of faults.”

  “They’re wonderful qualities, you doofus. But for the next hour and a half you’re turning off the phone and coming with me.”

  “Going where? And does the where have coffee?”

  “You’re going finger painting. And yes, I’ll get you coffee first.”

  “Finger painting. Yeah, right,” he said with a laugh.

  Naturally he thought she was joking. She bribed him-if he turned off his cell phone for an hour, she’d tell him the truth. By the time she’d successfully confiscated his phone, they were in her white van, carting mugs of almond-toffee java as she drove. And told.

  It was one of her secrets. Not a big one, but nevertheless, not public knowledge. Garrett knew Lily Cartright but not that Lily used to be a social worker for Eastwick Cares or that she’d hooked Emma up with the grief-counseling center.

  “I still don’t get it. How do you get from grief counseling to finger painting?”

  She showed him. The building was new, built in a shady cul-de-sac with a water garden and ducks-although the ducks, she admitted, were strictly volunteer. When they walked inside, four children were sitting on candy-colored beanbags.

  “Sheesh, you guys are early,” she told the squirts, who swarmed them both. Martha was three, George was five, and the two four-year-olds were Elisabeth and Pops.

  “Is he gonna paint with us, Ms. Dearborn?”

  “I keeping telling you, you can call me just plain Emma, honest. And yes. His name is Garrett Keating. And believe it or not, he’s never finger painted in his whole life.” Because he looked stunned and scared at the door, she hooked his arm.

  “You’re kidding.” Pops, the pint-size blonde with the twinkly-light tennies, took his other arm. “You’re really old.”

  “Thanks,” Garrett said.

  “What’d you do when you were a kid? Like, if you never finger painted?” Elisabeth wanted to know.

  “He probably doesn’t remember. He’s old,” the pint-size blonde volunteered again.

  Emma steered them past the open kitchen, past the central meeting place. The rooms were constructed in a wagon-wheel fashion.

  Older teenagers were given a room with easy chairs and cuddling blankets. Preteens had a room with games and walls they could write on. The little ones, though, were hers.

  Her room could be hosed down-or that equivalent. Good thing, because the art projects she got the squirts into invariably involved paint or clay or something that got on everything. Before handing out aprons-including one for Garrett that made her babies all laugh-she hid the phones from harm’s way.

  When she set her cell phone next to Garrett’s on a safe top shelf, she noticed immediately that she’d missed a half-dozen calls since last night-three of them from her mother. She gulped. But not for long.

  Later today she’d deal with her mother and all the other realities related to her broken engagement. This morning was about something else. The kids…and Garrett. Garrett, who made tons of money and took tons of responsibility. Garrett, who’d been so tender and passionate with her. Garrett, who never played.

  There wasn’t much she could give back to him, but she could darn well teach him to play. She just wanted these moments of magic to last as long as they could. For her. But for him, too.

  “Now, stop looking at Mr. Garrett. He has to wear my apron because we don’t have one his size. We don’t laugh at other people, do we?”


  “No,” Garrett said pitifully and got the kids laughing again.

  She gathered them around the table as she set out supplies. “Okay. I want everybody to close your eyes. I know you’ve all felt sad lately. But this morning I want you to concentrate. I want you to think about something happy. Something beautiful. And that’s what I want you to paint. Colors that you think are beautiful. Colors that make you happy to look at.”

  “I don’t know. Is he too old to be happy?” Pops cocked her head toward Garrett.

  Emma intervened before Garrett needed to come up with an answer. “No one’s ever too old to be happy. But sometimes things happen that make us sad. We can’t make that feeling go away. But it can help if we remember what makes us happy. So…are you all ready to try?”

  “I’d better help him.” Again Pops cocked her head at Garrett with a sigh, as if the job were so weighty she was tired already.

  A little more than an hour later, the last urchin had been picked up. Another age group was occupying rooms at the center when Emma and Garrett left the building. Emma had to tease him. “I’ve never seen a four-year-old flirt before. What a femme fatale.”

  “Flirt? Flirt? She was a four-year-old curmudgeon. Nothing I did was right. And she laid it on damn thick about my being old, old, old.”

  “She fell in love with you on sight. Couldn’t you tell?”

  “Was that before or after she finger painted a red heart on my sleeve?” He motioned to the eloquent red paint on his sleeve. “Does this come out?”

  “It should. But if it doesn’t, I’ll bet you can afford another shirt.”

  Before they reached her van, she hooked his hand, then lifted up on tiptoe and framed his face with her palms. “I hate to tell you this…”

  “Uh-oh. Nothing good ever follows ‘I hate to tell you this’-”

  “But you’re smiling to beat the band. You’re relaxed. You had a fabulous time with the kids,” she said smugly.

  “I’m not admitting anything. How could I possibly have had a good time finger painting with a bunch of hellions?”