For her trouble, Marina found herself being hugged again. Hugged, and whirled around the room and then finally, kissed again.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but each time Anderson kissed her, his lips felt even more lethal to her than the last time. Now it wasn’t just her knees but her whole body that felt like it was melting.
She was barely aware of putting her arms around his neck, but she needed to anchor herself to something while the foundation of her very world was rocked down to its bottom layer of concrete.
For the first time in his life, Anderson felt almost giddy. He told himself that the sensation rose out of relief, and not out of the fact that he was going to be marrying a woman who could, just by kissing him, make his mind go completely blank, even while the rest of him craved something far more substantial, far more basic than euphoria.
What she was doing just by kissing him was turning his very world upside down and making him forget every single one of the rules he had laid out for himself. Rules that had brought order to his life and to his very existence.
Those rules did not allow for him to even remotely entertain the idea of falling in love.
He blocked the thought from his mind and focused instead on the pragmatic side of what was happening.
Because of Marina’s sacrifice, he was going to be able to have his son back in his life on a regular basis. He knew that he would always be eternally grateful to her for that.
And because he was trying to be pragmatic, he forced himself to examine everything, to leave nothing to last-minute upheavals.
“You’re sure about this?” he questioned Marina. His eyes all but pinned her down intently. “About marrying me?”
“This would be a terrible time for me to shout, ‘April Fools,’” she replied. Then, in case he was actually harboring any doubts, she quickly added, “Yes, I’m sure.”
It should have satisfied him, he told himself—but it didn’t. Because Lexie had turned on him so abruptly after their one night together, it had left a lasting impression on him. A very sour lasting impression. And that didn’t begin to take into account the way she had kept his only son’s very existence from him, then denied him any access to the boy once he did know about Jake.
It had made Anderson feel very leery and it caused him to be suspicious of everything. Especially something that seemed to be too good to be true. What if he was being set up for some reason? He couldn’t abide something like that. Not again.
He looked at Marina. “What’s in it for you?” he wanted to know.
Because her only thoughts were about Anderson and his son, his question completely threw her. “Excuse me?”
Impatience clawed at him. He hated how suspicious he’d become, but there was no getting away from it. His only recourse was to try to pin her down—and to hope she was as selfless as her actions painted her to be.
“Marrying me, giving up for your freedom so I can get custody of Jake, what’s in it for you?” Anderson asked.
Obviously he didn’t believe she was doing this because she simply cared about the boy. She was going to have to convince him, Marina thought.
“You’re not the only one who loves Jake,” she said. “I’m doing this—offering to marry you—because Jake has every right to be happy. Because he’s a terrific kid and I think he’d make a really good big brother for Sydney.” She took a breath, knowing that she was crossing a line. But this had to be said. “And I’m doing it because, no offense, I think his mother is a witch and I’m afraid of how she might wind up warping his soul if she has sole custody of him.
“Jake is a good, decent, sweet kid who deserves to have a parent who puts his needs first, not a parent who sees him as an impediment to her next tryst.” She stopped and looked at the expression on Anderson’s face. She couldn’t quite read it. Had she said too much? “What? Did I go too far?” she asked him.
Maybe he was still in love with Lexie despite everything the woman had done to him, Marina thought. Maybe he even resented her criticism of Jake’s mother. In that case, she needed to backtrack—but she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “But that’s what I think.”
“Don’t apologize,” he told her, his voice stoic and completely unreadable.
“Okay,” she said slowly, still feeling as if she was standing on ground that could, just like that, turn to quicksand. “But you still have this expression on your face that I can’t quite make out. What are you thinking?” she forced herself to ask, feeling as if she really didn’t have anything to lose at this point.
“What I’m thinking,” he told her in very slow, deliberately measured out words, “is that I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
Marina blinked, certain that she had misheard him. It was just her desperate need to make him understand why she was ready to go through with this for him that had her putting words into Anderson’s mouth.
“Excuse me?” she said in a soft voice.
“I said,” he repeated, speaking louder, “I don’t know how I got this lucky.”
Somehow, his words were not penetrating her head. Maybe her own disbelief was preventing her from absorbing what he was telling her. She took a stab at clarifying things for herself. “You mean to get someone to marry you so that you could get custody of Jake.”
Maybe she didn’t want to put any more emphasis on what was actually happening between them than that, Anderson thought. Maybe admitting that there might be more going on than a simple convenient arrangement was too scary for her.
He could certainly identify with that, Anderson thought, what with the episode with Lexie looming in his past. He’d be willing to bet that Marina had gotten burned herself by the man who’d gotten her pregnant. For that matter, all she really knew about him was that he was Jake’s father and that he desperately wanted custody of the boy.
Not exactly something to build forever on with a man, he thought. Especially when that man had suddenly and abruptly severed all ties with her after a month of some pretty good, not to mention intense weekends, he rationalized. Looking back, he realized that he could have handled that so much better than he had.
He needed to make amends for that, Anderson told himself.
He also told himself that right now, it would be for the best if he just went with the scenario that she had handed him. They were both going to do this—to marry one another—for Jake’s sake, so that he could come back to Rust Creek Falls.
“Yeah,” Anderson agreed. “What you said.”
And then, because Marina made him feel so exuberantly happy, Anderson found himself kissing her again.
And again.
Because each time, it was better than the last and it made him want to sample the next time. And the next.
So, just for this very short interlude in time, he did.
Deepening the kiss, Anderson kissed her as if there was no tomorrow, no moments to follow this one. All there was, was now.
But it was enough.
* * *
“Last chance to change your mind,” Anderson warned her several days later.
They were standing in a room that was right outside a judge’s chambers in Kalispell. Instead of being in a church filled with her friends and her sister, Dawn, and Dawn’s new husband, Marina would soon be facing a middle-aged man who had only a fringe of hair to call his own and a solemn air about him that made her think of her first elementary school principal, Mr. Oshinsky.
But those were just trappings, Marina reminded herself. Just the mere daydreams of an adolescent girl who was given to romanticizing things. They weren’t what was really important here.
All that mattered was Jake—and of course Sydney, both of whom, with this one short act on her part, would be getting a kind, loving man as their father. Jake would be getting him because of course
Anderson was his father, and Sydney would be getting him because both Jake and Anderson were crazy about her. They would make certain that her little girl would be getting a loving home out of this arrangement.
So, if she was sacrificing bells and whistles, as well as a misty dose of romance and all the things that went with it, well, she was a big girl, Marina told herself. The benefits to be gotten out of this union far outweighed what she was giving up.
“Marina?” Anderson softly prodded, obviously waiting for her response to his question.
Embarrassed to be caught mentally adrift this way, Marina flushed and apologized to him quickly. “I’m sorry, what?”
Anderson repeated his question, concerned that maybe she didn’t answer because she didn’t want to go through with this arrangement after all.
“I asked if you’re sure about going through with this.”
Marina raised her chin defensively. “Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she told him with conviction. “My only regret is that you couldn’t get Jake to be here.”
He didn’t want to think about the conversation he’d had with Lexie just yesterday. The memory of the sound of her voice would be enough to put him in a bad mood and Marina deserved better than that for the sacrifice she was making for him.
All he would let himself say was, “Lexie’s not convinced it’s going to happen and she didn’t want to allow Jake to fly out here until after she was sure we’d gone through with it.”
That was one highly suspicious woman, Marina thought. Everything she’d heard about Lexie so far had her thoroughly disliking her.
“Didn’t you tell her that you’d pay for the plane ticket?”
“I did.” It was the first thing he’d said when he called her. The first thing Lexie had said to him was No. “But that didn’t seem to make any difference to her.”
“I was right,” Marina concluded. “Jake’s mother really is a witch. I’m glad we’re saving him.”
“We’re not,” Anderson corrected. When she started to question him, he told her, “You are.”
She was pleased that he thought that, but she’d never been one to take credit as her due. “Not without you, I’m not.”
Just then, the judge’s legal intern peeked into the room where they were waiting. The hint of a smile was on her thin lips.
“Judge Wyatt is ready to marry you now,” the young woman told them.
Anderson rose to his feet, then turned toward Marina and put his hand out to her. When she wrapped her fingers around it, he drew her up so that she was standing right beside him.
Marina could feel her heart pounding. Adrenaline was doing double-time in her veins. It was really happening, she thought.
“I guess this is it,” Marina murmured.
Anderson nodded. “Showtime,” he told her.
The judge’s intern, Josephine Vickers, said, “This way, please,” as she turned on her neatly stacked heel and led the way back into the judge’s chambers.
Tucking Marina’s arm through his, Anderson lowered his head to hers and apologized in a hushed whisper. “I’m sorry this isn’t in a church.” He sensed that she would have preferred the latter.
But if she was disappointed, Marina gave no indication. “We would have had to wait too long and every minute that goes by is another minute that Jake believes that he was abandoned by the people he thought loved him.”
Anderson turned toward her before they crossed the threshold into the chambers. He wanted one more moment in private with Marina.
“You really are a very rare woman,” he told her with admiration.
Marina smiled, her heart warmed by his praise more than she could possibly begin to tell him. Instead, she turned to humor.
“I’m a fifth-grade teacher,” she told him. “It comes with the territory.”
The judge looked somewhat impatient as they entered his chambers. It was obvious that he had somewhere else to be.
“Mr. Dalton, Ms. Laramie,” he said, greeting them each in turn with a nod. “I’m Judge Wyatt and I’m pressed for time, so shall we get on with it?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
He really wasn’t asking a question; he was putting them on notice.
Some very short notice, it turned out, because as he began to officiate the service, his rather monotone cadence seemed to speed up and he said all the words of the ceremony so quickly, they barely had time to register before he uttered the final ones.
“And I now pronounce you husband and wife. Thank you and good luck!”
And just like that, they were married.
Chapter Sixteen
He was grateful to Marina, he really was. Because of her, he felt that he at least had a shot at getting his son back in his life, if only on a part-time basis.
She deserved something better than a quickie wedding ceremony in a brusque judge’s chambers, even if this wasn’t a real love match.
Feeling slightly sheepish, Anderson looked at her as they walked down the steps of the courthouse less than half an hour after they had entered the building. “Not exactly the wedding of your dreams, was it?” he asked Marina.
She wasn’t going to dwell on what it wasn’t, only on what it was. “It got the job done,” she told him brightly.
“That’s not what I asked you,” Anderson pointed out tactfully.
He appreciated the fact that she didn’t carry on about how lacking the ceremony was. In her place, he knew Lexie would have gone on about it for hours, possibly days. But that still didn’t make the actual occurrence any better.
Standing at the bottom step, Marina was forced to admit, “I doubt that any woman dreams of standing in front of a frowning, balding man in a suit with a soup stain just above his breast pocket, listening to him say the words that are meant to bind her forever to someone in the eyes of the law.”
He laughed shortly as he shook his head. “Very pragmatically stated. Soup stain, huh?” On top of everything else, the woman was incredibly observant, he thought.
She nodded. “Just above his breast pocket,” she repeated. “A faint one.” And then she shrugged philosophically. “Like I said, it got the job done. In the eyes of the law, I am your wife and we are a unit.” She began to walk over to his truck. “A family. I’ve got a very good record as a teacher, you’re a good, hardworking man.” Marina got into the vehicle on her side, then closed the door. She waited until he got in on his side before continuing. “There is no reason in the world why you wouldn’t be granted at least partial custody of Jake,” she told him, buckling up.
Anderson paused, listening to the woman he had just made his wife. They had just gotten married for very practical reasons. This was supposed to be more of a covenant, an agreement, than anything else, and yet, he could swear that because of what she said and her gracious behavior in a less than ideal situation, he could feel himself falling in love with her. Falling in love with her selflessness, with the way he’d observed her acting around Jake.
She wasn’t just a good teacher, she was a born mother. And there was no denying the fact that he was attracted to her. When he kissed her—well, all he knew was that he’d never known two friends to kiss this way. As the old expression went, she certainly lit his fire. And yet, all the while, all she seemed to think about or focus on were Jake’s and Sydney’s needs, not her own.
For that matter, she was putting him before herself, as well. It was as if she didn’t count in this grand scheme of things.
He had never met anyone quite like Marina.
“Tell me, how would you feel about going on a honeymoon?” he asked her out of the blue.
Her hand froze midway in securing her seat belt. It took her a couple of seconds to absorb what he was asking her. Her mind had been going in an entirely different direction.
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Marina blinked as she looked at him incredulously. “A what?”
“A honeymoon,” he repeated, amused at the bewildered expression on her face. She looked almost adorable. “You know, what a couple goes on after they get married.”
She couldn’t tell if he was just pulling her leg, or if he was actually serious. How was she going to train herself not to have any feelings for this man if he kept derailing her like this? If he kept throwing out thoughts that teased her and caused havoc with the mind-set she was trying so hard to assume? She would have loved to go on a honeymoon, but that wasn’t what all this was supposed to be about.
“Conventional people,” Marina pointed out. “The kind who are focused on each other and just having fun, not gearing up to do battle over custody issues with the Wicked Witch of the West. Besides,” she gently reminded him, “Sydney is still an infant. I can’t leave her for a week, much less two,” she protested, then, after a moment, she added in a much quieter voice, “No matter how nice the idea of a honeymoon might seem.”
The selfless practicality of the woman astounded him. “All right, then how about an overnight stay at Maverick Manor?” he suggested, not ready to just give up on the idea of doing something to show Marina how grateful he was. “I know someone there who can get us a very nice suite.” He put his key into the ignition, but still held off starting his truck. Instead, he looked at Marina. “It doesn’t seem right for a couple to get married and then just plunge back into their daily lives without at least some sort of an acknowledgment that something different has happened.
“Unless, of course, you don’t want to,” he suddenly qualified, realizing that maybe Marina didn’t want any more attention brought to the fact that they were married.
If you only knew how much I want to go on that honeymoon, Marina thought. You’d be knocked right out of your boots.
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