The Seduction of His Wife

by Janet Chapman

  “Go back to your reading,

  but read out loud,” Alex said.

  He closed his eyes as he settled deeper into the mattress with another sigh. “I like your voice.”

  Sarah would have enjoyed the compliment if she hadn’t been so horrified by the thought of reading the scene he had just interrupted. She couldn’t possibly continue from where she’d left off. Rachel and Kee had been doing it.

  “I—ah—I’ll just read you the first chapter, since I only started this book this evening,” she said, marking her page and quickly leafing back to chapter one.

  “What kind of book is it?”

  “A…it’s sort of a mystery,” she whispered. “Written by a woman who lives right here in Maine. It’s set on the coast. There’s a bit of romance in it, too.”

  His mouth slashed into a grin, and his eyes opened when he lifted an eyebrow. “Any good stuff? Any heavy breathing and groping?”

  Praise for Janet Chapman

  and her passionate novels

  ONLY WITH A HIGHLANDER

  “An excellent addition to her entertaining Highlander series.”

  —Booklist

  “A mystical, magical book if there ever was one, Only with a Highlander has the power to enchant, to rouse deep feelings, and to make one ponder the place of love in the universe. A perfect 10!”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A powerful entry in a fine romantic fantasy series.”

  —TheBestReviews.com

  CHARMING THE HIGHLANDER

  “Splendid. We can expect great things from Janet Chapman.”

  —The Oakland Press

  “Time travel, tragedy, temptation, along with desire, destiny, devotion, and, of course, true love, are all woven into Janet Chapman’s romance.”

  —Bangor Daily News

  “Terrific…. A real gem of a story!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Dazzling…one of the best books you will ever read. Charming the Highlander is just magnificent.”

  —ReaderToReader.com

  LOVING THE HIGHLANDER

  “Janet Chapman has hit another home run with Loving the Highlander. It’s a fresh take on time travel, with both humor and drama. She’s a keeper.”

  —Linda Howard

  WEDDING THE HIGHLANDER

  “Her most emotional, touching, and powerful novel to date.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Exciting…. Jane Chapman writes a refreshingly entertaining novel.”

  —TheBestReviews.com

  TEMPTING THE HIGHLANDER

  “A wonderful addition to Chapman’s Highlander trilogy.”

  —Booklist

  “Chapman breathes such life and warmth into her characters, each story is impossible to put down.”

  —Romantic Times

  THE SEDUCTIVE IMPOSTER

  “One of the best books I’ve read in a long time…. A fun, sexy read!”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  “Janet Chapman has created magnificent characters that sizzle.”

  —ReaderToReader.com

  “Engaging romantic suspense…surprising twists…Janet Chapman seduces her audience.”

  —TheBestReviews.com

  Also by Janet Chapman

  Only with a Highlander

  The Dangerous Protector

  Tempting the Highlander

  The Seductive Impostor

  Wedding the Highlander

  Loving the Highlander

  Charming the Highlander

  Available from Pocket Books

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Janet Chapman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 1-4165-2521-1

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophons are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  To Esther Rauch,

  for your generous spirit

  and much cherished friendship.

  Chapter One

  A lex Knight fought the fatigue weighing on his eyelids and brushed an unsteady hand through his hair in an attempt to wipe the fog from his brain. He needed to stay focused on the road ahead, to avoid the final irony of cheating death in the jungles of Brazil only to die in a car wreck less than ten miles from home. He rolled down the window of the rented sedan and sucked in the crisp November air, hoping the scent of fir and spruce and pine would perk him up. Not three days ago, he’d thought the rotting jungle would be the last thing he smelled and screaming monkeys the last thing he heard.

  But he was home now, thanks to a healthy amount of luck and the determination not to die in that stinking jungle at the hands of some crazy rebel bastards. Well, luck and the thought of his father and brothers who needed him, and his two would-be orphaned children who needed him even more.

  Alex came fully awake the moment he turned onto the Knights’ private logging road, anticipation quickening his pulse and making his foot heavy on the gas as he passed the sign that said he was entering NorthWoods Timber land. Only eight miles of blessedly familiar gravel road, and he would be back in the bosom of his family.

  Alex dodged frozen puddles as he picked up speed, guiding the car around a sweeping curve and thumping over the solid wooden bridge that crossed Oak Creek. He’d rebuilt that bridge two summers ago with Ethan and Paul, and he remembered the arguments he’d had with his brothers over the bridge’s design. Ethan had wanted to use steel beams, Paul had wanted to make it single-laned, and Grady, their father and patriarch of their little clan, hadn’t cared how it was built as long as it got done before a loaded logging truck ended up in the creek.

  Alex frowned as he pushed the car recklessly faster. Where in hell was everyone, anyway? He had called home countless times from the U.S. embassy in Brazil three days ago; he’d tried again from Mexico yesterday, and yet again this morning when he’d landed in Maine. No one had answered, and this morning all he’d gotten was a mechanical voice saying the message machine was full.

  Some homecoming this was going to be. He was back from the dead, dammit, and nobody knew it! The company he’d been working for in Brazil had told Alex they’d sent two men to Oak Grove eleven days ago, to tell his family he had been killed and that his body had likely been swept downriver when a murdering band of rebels had attacked the dam site where he’d been working as a road engineer. Which meant everyone should be home mourning their loss instead of running around the countryside, but it appeared that the five people he loved were about to miss his miraculous resurrection.

  Alex slammed on the brakes when the dense forest suddenly opened to reveal a spectacular view of the lake, then waited for the frozen dust to settle as he stared out the open window. He sighed long and painfully hard, emotion welling in his chest at the sight of Frost Lake’s northernmost cove stretching deep into the densely forested mountains. The view never failed to move him, and this morning it was especially sweet.

  Completely unbidden, Alex remembered another homecoming ten years ago, when he’d brought home his bride. He’d stopped in this same spot, and they’d talked about their fut
ure—Charlotte about her plans to update the lodge’s kitchen and Alex about his hope to expand their landholdings by another hundred thousand acres within two years.

  He shook his head at how naive he’d been at twenty-two. Or, rather, how blinded he’d been by Charlotte’s beauty that he hadn’t seen the dollar signs in her eyes. She’d left him and their two children five years later, once she had finally understood that profits went into land and equipment purchases and that redecorating meant only a new stove. Four months later Charlotte had died in a car wreck, leaving Alex a widower and the sole parent of Delaney and Tucker. Delaney was ten now, and Tucker had turned seven only three months ago.

  Yes, marriage was one mistake he was in no hurry to repeat. He had his kids, his father and brothers, and their logging business; he had everything a man could hope for in life. A life he was getting a second chance at and would never take for granted again, Alex vowed as he stared at the Knight homestead, snuggled in a stand of old-growth pines three miles up the rocky shoreline.

  He could just make out the dock jutting off the south side of the peninsula, and he noticed that the floatplane was gone. But there was smoke rising from the chimney of the seventy-year-old lodge, which meant someone was home. So why weren’t they answering the phone?

  Alex heard the 22-wheeler coming toward him just moments before he saw it, and he stepped on the gas and spun the sedan to the side of the road. He rolled up the window to avoid the dust storm that arrived along with the deafening blast of an air horn as the tractor-trailer loaded with sawlogs went speeding by.

  It was Wednesday, Alex realized, so the crew was hauling today. And tomorrow was Thanksgiving, which meant Delaney and Tucker had this week off from school and that his father had likely taken them to Portland in the floatplane as he did every year. Grady must be trying to give his grieving grandchildren some sense of normality, hoping to get their minds off their loss for a little while. Ethan would have gone in Alex’s place as their pilot, and Paul was likely taking advantage of having the house to himself, dealing with his own grief by sitting in front of a crackling fire with a lady friend.

  Alex headed home with a grin, thinking about the little tryst he was about to walk in on. He soon turned off the main hauling artery and onto a narrow lane for the last mile of his fantastical journey, which had begun with the sound of gunshots thirteen days ago in the mountainous jungles of Brazil. He’d spent the next eleven days in that hellhole of a rain forest, trying to make his way down to civilization while hiding from the murdering rebels hunting for foreign hostages to fund their personal war. Then there’d been two days of embassy red tape and unanswered calls home, and all day yesterday and last night spent in a succession of airports as he made his way back to Maine.

  Alex finally pulled into the yard at the back of the lodge, shut off the engine, and unfolded his aching six-foot-two body out of the rented sedan. He absently brushed down the front of the jacket he’d bought at the Cincinnati airport and scanned the dooryard with a frown. All four pickups were parked beside the machine shed, which meant the loggers working farther up the road were on their own. That wasn’t unusual, as the experienced crew was more than capable of cutting and loading the pulp and timber onto the trucks without supervision.

  So he must have guessed right: Grady and Ethan and the kids were gone in the floatplane, and Paul had shut off the phones to hide out with his girlfriend. Alex leapt over the single step onto the back porch but stopped with his hand on the screen door handle. Should he just barge in on them? He’d likely give his baby brother a heart attack.

  Hell, Paul deserved a good scare for drowning his sorrow in the arms of a woman while he thought his brother was floating facedown in some jungle backwater. Alex opened the screen door with a grin of expectancy and twisted the doorknob to burst inside with all the drama of a returning ghost.

  But his shout of hello ended with a grunt when he came to a halt against the solid wood door. Alex stepped back and rubbed his forehead as he twisted the knob again, only to realize that the damn thing was locked.

  They never locked their doors! It was an unwritten code of the woods never to lock a house with a telephone inside in case of an emergency. Alex pounded on the door so hard he rattled its frame. “Paul!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of bed, Casanova! It’s past noon! Paul!”

  His only answer was silence.

  “Paul, open up!”

  Still silence.

  “Dammit, don’t make be break down this door!”

  “Paul’s not here,” came a soft, barely audible reply.

  It took Alex a good five seconds to realize the voice he’d heard was female, and several more seconds to notice the face peeking from a crack in the curtain of a nearby window.

  He stepped over and grinned down at the unfamiliar brown eyes staring up at him. “Where’s Paul?” he asked in a more civil tone.

  “He’s in Augusta, lobbying against a tree-harvesting bill.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Mrs. Knight.”

  “Mrs.?” Alex repeated, straightening in surprise. “You’re married to Paul?”

  She gave a small shake of her head.

  “Ethan?” he whispered. “Ethan got married?”

  She shook her head again.

  He took another step back. “You married Grady!”

  Her eyes widened at his shout, and she violently shook her head with a yelped “No!”

  Alex stepped up to the window and bent at the waist to put his eyes level with hers, finding a perverse pleasure in seeing her lean away and the curtain close. “Then who in hell did you marry, lady? There are no more Knights.”

  “I married Grady’s oldest son, Alex. I—I’m his widow.”

  Alex reared back with a frown, momentarily wondering if he was still in the jungle and this was some sort of delirious nightmare. Either that, or he had hadn’t heard right.

  Alex scrubbed his face and sucked in a calming breath. “Lady,” he said evenly, “Alex Knight left here five months ago to work in Brazil, and he was not married when he got on the plane.”

  A tiny crack appeared in the curtain again, just enough for him to see one large brown eye. “We were married a week ago this past Monday by proxy, by Judge Elroy Rogers,” she said, her stilted voice sounding as if she were repeating a well-rehearsed line. “But then last Thursday, his father was told that Alex had been killed. Paul will be back tomorrow. If you want to talk to him, you’ll have to come back then.”

  The curtain closed, and Alex saw the shadow of a small body move away from the window. He could only stand there in utter disbelief. He’d been married by proxy nine days ago? Then declared dead three days later?

  But the men from the company he worked for had come here eleven days ago, they’d told Alex at the embassy, and his father had known Saturday that he was dead. So how in hell had Alexander Knight gotten married the following Monday? And by proxy. That wasn’t even legal, was it?

  The hell he was married! The little impostor was lying. Alex stepped back to the door and pounded on it again. “Open up!” he shouted, this time making even the windows rattle. “I swear I’ll call the sheriff if you don’t open this door.”

  “I already called him,” she said from the window. “So you better leave right now.”

  Alex immediately moved back to the window, but instead of a pair of frightened eyes looking out, he found the business end of a shotgun pointing through the curtain. He choked on a laugh. He must be lying facedown in the rotting jungle, raging with fever. He was not standing on the back porch of his own damn house, having his own damn shotgun pointed at him by a woman he had married by proxy two days after he was supposed to have died.

  The gun barrel clinked against the glass. “You better leave if you don’t want Sheriff Tate to haul you off in handcuffs,” she warned, her suggestion sounding more desperate than threatening.

  “It’ll take John an hour to get here,” Alex snapped, placing his hands on his hips a
s he faced the window. He recognized his old shotgun by the missing sight on the tip of the barrel and knew the damn thing didn’t have a firing pin. “And when John does show up, you’ll be the one leaving in handcuffs.” A thought suddenly struck him.

  “Hey, what’s your first name?”

  “It—it’s Sarah.”

  “Sarah,” he repeated. “Sarah Banks, the housekeeper Grady hired this summer? You came back from the coast with him at the end of their vacation.” Alex dropped his hands to his sides, his indignation evaporating on a relieved sigh. “Sarah, it’s okay. I’m Alex Knight, Delaney and Tucker’s dad. They told me all about you in their letters and phone calls. How you ran the bed-and-breakfast they stayed at on Crag Island last August, and how my father talked you into coming back with them to keep house for us. It’s okay, Sarah. I know all about you, because it’s me, Alex.”

  The shotgun barrel lowered only inches. “You’re not Alex Knight!” she denied. “Alex died in Brazil six days ago.”

  “Go get my picture off the mantel,” he said, stepping back and unzipping his jacket. “Go on, get it so you can see for yourself.”

  The curtain closed, and Alex saw her shadow disappear into the kitchen. He took off his jacket and smoothed down the front of his rumpled shirt, combed his fingers through his overlong brown hair, then straightened his shoulders and waited. The curtain finally opened again, this time with a small picture frame appearing against the glass, and Alex realized that Sarah was comparing him to his photo.

  “I’ve lost a good twenty pounds, and I haven’t shaved in three days,” he pointed out. “But look past the cuts and bruises on my face. My eyes, Sarah. They’re the same. And my nose and jaw,” he said, lifting his hand to rub his stubbled cheek. “It’s me, Alexander James Knight. And I’m not dead.”

  The curtain closed, the shadow disappeared again, and Alex was left standing for what seemed like several minutes before he finally heard the dead bolt softly click. He stepped back to the door, opened the screen, and turned the knob to step inside.