Sarah stood across the kitchen near the swinging door leading into the great room, her large doe eyes framed by a porcelain face as white as new-fallen snow. She was still holding the shotgun, though it was pointed at the floor now instead of him, and Alex knew he really was in the jungle, delirious with fever and having a dream beyond his wildest fantasy. If this was what the angel of death looked like, he would follow her into hell itself.
She was beautiful. Utterly, stunningly perfect. From her long, lustrous hair the color of sunshine framing her china-doll face, down every inch of her petite but definitely well-endowed body, the woman was a vision of feminine perfection.
He should probably say something instead of just staring like an awestruck teenager, but for the life of him, Alex couldn’t find his voice. For one insane but vividly imaginative moment, he wished he really were married to her. What in hell had his father been thinking, bringing this package of female perfection home to three bachelors?
“You can set down the shotgun,” he said softly. “It doesn’t have a firing pin.” He frowned. “Don’t you know that pointing a useless gun at someone is the best way to get yourself shot? If I had been an intruder, I could have been armed.”
He hadn’t thought it was possible, but Sarah paled even more. Alex set his jacket on the bench by the door, ran his hands through his hair with a calming sigh, and stepped all the way into the kitchen.
“Sarah,” he said when she stepped back against the swinging door to the great room, making it open. “I really am Alex Knight, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. I just want to take a long hot shower, eat most of whatever that is I smell cooking, and sleep until my kids get home.”
“They don’t know you’re alive,” she whispered. She leaned the shotgun against the wall without taking her gaze off his, her face flushing with color as she raised her hands to her cheeks. “Delaney and Tucker don’t know you’re alive! And Grady! Oh, my God, you’ve got to call them!” She rushed to the kitchen table and picked up a piece of paper that she held toward him. “This is the hotel they’re staying at in Portland. You need to let them know you’re not dead!”
He was finally getting somewhere. Her concern for Delaney and Tucker had overridden her shock, and she slid the portable phone across the table to him, tossing the paper down beside it when the stove timer started buzzing.
“Call them,” she said, rushing to the stove and picking up a pair of oven mitts. She was bent over to lift something from the oven—and Alex was admiring the view—when the wail of a siren suddenly pierced the air. “Oh, no,” she squeaked, turning with a pie in her hands, her stricken gaze darting to Alex. “That’s Sheriff Tate.”
Alex also turned as the sheriff’s cruiser came to a stop mere inches from the porch in a cloud of spitting gravel. John Tate was out of the car before it finished rocking, one hand on his holster and his eyes pinned on the screen door.
“Step out of the house, mister,” John ordered, drawing his weapon. “Now!”
Alex used his toe to push open the screen door, stepped onto the porch with his hands raised, and smiled at his friend.
“Sarah!” John hollered. “Sarah, where are you?”
“She’s taking pies out of the oven, John,” Alex told him. “And this, my friend, is not the welcome home I was expecting.”
John straightened from his threatening stance and squinted through the sun reflecting off the settling dust. “A-Alex?” he whispered.
Alex nodded but kept his hands raised. “How many of our trucks did you run off the road?” he asked. “You must have set a speed record getting out here—unless you were hunting deer at one of our old cuttings again.”
“Alex?” John repeated, a bit stronger this time, lowering his gun. “But Grady said you were dead!”
Alex dropped his hands and shook his head. “Almost. But it’ll take more than a few crazy bastards to finish me off.” He touched a cut on his forehead. “Though the jungle nearly did me in.”
John holstered his gun, leapt onto the porch, and gave Alex a hug that would have strangled a bear. “My God, man, it’s good to see you,” he said, his voice raw with emotion as he slapped Alex’s back. John suddenly stepped away and looked toward the kitchen. “Sarah?” he asked, moving his gaze back to Alex.
“She’s fine, though I think I scared two years off her life.” Alex broke into a grin. “You been trying to work up the nerve to ask out our housekeeper, Tate?” Alex threw his arm over John’s shoulder to guide him inside. “Don’t wait too long, my friend, or I just might beat you to it,” he added softly as they walked into the kitchen. “Sarah, was that an apple pie you pulled out of the oven?”
But before Sarah could answer, John moved to stand between them, facing Alex with a look of confusion. “You okay, Sarah?” he asked without looking at her. “The dispatcher said you sounded frightened and that someone was trying to break in.”
“I’m okay, Officer Tate,” she said, going to the cupboard and taking down two plates. “I just didn’t recognize Mr.—ah—Alex at first.” She pulled two forks from a drawer, set them on the counter, then started cutting the pie. “It’s going to be messy because it’s still hot,” she warned with her back to them, her long blond hair hiding her face.
What in hell was going on here? Officer Tate? Was Sarah trying to pretend there was nothing going on between her and John? “Have a seat, John,” Alex said, pulling a chair from the table and sitting down, then using his foot to shove another chair out for his friend. “And tell me how many people showed up for my funeral.” He gave John a guileless smile. “I did have a service, didn’t I?”
His old high-school buddy paled and slowly shook his head. “Grady scheduled it for next Wednesday.”
Alex kicked out the chair a little farther and motioned for John to sit down. “Good,” he said. “I didn’t miss it, then. You suppose Clay Porter will show up?”
John finally sat at the table with a relieved grin. “Porter will likely be the first one there, and not leave until after he spits on your grave.”
Sarah brought over two heaping plates of pie, set them in front of the men, then rushed back to the stove when a different timer started buzzing on the counter. She shut it off, opened the oven door with her mitts, and pulled out a large covered pan from the bottom rack—this time while both men enjoyed the view, Alex noticed.
But the smell tickling his nose finally got the best of him, and Alex picked up his fork and looked at his plate. Honest to God, he hadn’t known so many apples could fit in one piece of pie. Dispensing with manners, Alex drove his fork into the center, leaned down to meet his hand halfway, and shoveled the dripping, crust-covered apple into his mouth. He didn’t even wait until he was done chewing to repeat the process, and only after his third mouthful did he notice John staring at him.
“It’s been five months since I’ve had apple pie,” Alex defended while chewing. He patted his belly with his free hand. “And I’ve got twenty pounds to gain back.”
“Where have you been for the last six days?” John asked. “Grady said your work site was attacked by rebels last Thursday and that you were killed.”
“Thirteen days,” Alex corrected after swallowing another mouthful. “They attacked thirteen days ago, and I spent the next eleven days trying to get back to civilization without getting captured or eaten by jungle beasts.”
“Thirteen?” John repeated, glancing over his shoulder at Sarah, whose back stiffened.
What in hell was going on here? John was acting more confounded than a teenager in a whorehouse.
A sense of dread suddenly shot through Alex, making the pie he’d eaten settle like lead. “Sarah?” he said, then waited until she looked at him. “How come you called yourself Mrs. Knight when I showed up? Did Grady tell you to say that to strangers to give you some security when you’re alone here?”
Her large brown eyes just stared at him.
“She is Mrs. Knight,” John interjected, drawing Alex’s attention. “
You were married a week ago this past Monday.”
“I was running for my life a week ago Monday.”
“By proxy,” John clarified. “Grady told everyone in town that Judge Rogers married you and Sarah in his chambers the same day Sarah adopted Delaney and Tucker.”
“She what?” Alex bolted up from his chair, sending it skidding across the floor as he turned to Sarah.
John also stood and moved to stand between them again, his expression even more confounded. His eyes suddenly narrowed. “You didn’t know,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder at Sarah, who was now pressed against the counter, her hands gripping her apron and her eyes as big as silver dollars. John looked back at Alex. “That wily old bastard,” he said, shaking his head. “Grady told everyone that you met Sarah last spring when you went to check out Crag Island for their summer vacation. And that you decided not to wait until you got home from Brazil and married her by proxy last Monday.”
“I spent two weeks in Brazil last spring, looking over the dam site,” Alex said evenly, glaring at Sarah before turning his glare on John. “I had never even heard of Crag Island until Dad told me where he was taking the family this past summer.”
John rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. “Then he must have been trying to protect Delaney and Tucker,” he thought out loud. “You said he’d been told you were dead on Saturday?” John asked, and Alex nodded. “So he didn’t say anything until after he got Sarah married to you, so she could adopt the kids. Then he waited three days to announce your death.”
“Protect them from what? I made a will before I left, giving custody of Delaney and Tucker to Ethan if anything happened to me.”
John cocked his head, his expression speculative. “To protect them from your in-laws, maybe?” he offered. “We all know Charlotte’s parents would have contested your will and come after those kids. Hell, they tried to get custody of them when Charlotte died. Grady must have talked Rogers into fudging the paperwork, to marry you to Sarah before word of your death got out. That would have given your in-laws less of a chance in a custody battle.”
Both men looked at Sarah, who was clutching her stomach, her face blanched with worry.
“Y-you can’t tell anyone, Mr. Tate,” she said, her gaze darting to Alex, then back to John. “If the truth gets out, Grady will get in trouble for forging all those papers. And it could end Judge Rogers’s career.” She stepped closer, looking directly at Alex. “We thought you were dead, and Sheriff Tate is right. Grady was afraid your late wife’s parents would come after your children, and he didn’t want Delaney and Tucker to be put through any more upset.”
“So he married me to you and then had you adopt them?” Alex whispered, unable to believe what he was hearing. The terror of the jungle was nothing compared to the mess he’d just walked into.
His father, along with their good friend Judge Elroy Rogers, not to mention their equally guilty housekeeper, would be brought up on charges if he didn’t go along with this insane—though amazingly inventive—conspiracy. And his kids would be dragged through even more trauma.
“Grady was desperate,” Sarah said, taking another step closer. “He was only thinking of the children.”
“And you?” Alex asked ever so softly, as anger born of desperation tightened his chest. “Were you thinking about my children, Sarah? Or were you picturing a real nice future here as my widow?”
“That’s uncalled for,” John said, stepping between them again. “She’s not Charlotte, Alex.”
Alex turned on John. “No? Then exactly who is she?”
“Your wife,” John snapped, tucking his thumbs into his belt and glaring right back at him. “At least until Grady gets home and you can decide what to do about this…this…” John’s defenses suddenly crumbled, and he shot Alex one last confounded look before he turned to Sarah. “I won’t say a word to anyone, I promise,” he told her. “The way I see it, this is a personal matter, and no one’s business but your own.”
“Thank you,” she said with a nod, turning back to the counter. “I’m going for a walk,” she suddenly said, taking off her apron as she changed direction. And with her head down so that her hair hid her face, she scurried past John and Alex and onto the porch and ran into the yard.
Both men were left standing in silence, staring out the screen door as it banged shut.
John softly whistled through his teeth, looked over at Alex, and shrugged. “Well, my friend,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I’m damn glad you’re home safe and sound, though I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or envious.”
Alex stepped up to the screen door to watch Sarah run down a narrow path into the woods. “Neither do I, Tate. Dammit to hell, what has Dad gotten me into?” he asked, staring at the spot where his wife had disappeared.
Chapter Two
T alk about good deeds coming back to bite her! Holy smokes, she had a husband! A very-much-alive husband, who apparently wasn’t any happier to find himself married than she was.
Sarah ran down the forest path as if the demons of hell were nipping at her heels, then picked her way along the lakeshore until she came to her thinking rock. Trembling uncontrollably, she climbed up the huge boulder and sat down in the deep bowl sculpted into its side facing the lake. Only then, once she was settled in her private little hidey-hole, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her face buried in her hands, did she finally break into gut-wrenching sobs.
A husband. What in the world was she supposed to do with a towering, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed husband? Alex Knight was even taller than his equally imposing brother Ethan and as forebodingly scary as Paul was boyishly charming.
This was Grady’s fault, dammit, for talking her into marrying his dead son. What had looked like a perfect way to get the children she’d always wanted without the usually requisite husband had turned into her worst nightmare when Alex Knight had come back from the dead. Actually, he looked as if he’d crawled his way back; his face and hands were covered with cuts and bruises, he was as gaunt as a ghost, and his eyes—though they definitely matched the eyes in his photo—looked downright hunted.
Sarah was honestly happy that Delaney and Tucker had their dad back, and sincerely glad for Grady and Ethan and Paul. The Knights had been devastated by the loss of what Sarah had come to realize was the foundation of their family. Alex Knight seemed to have been the anchor that held them all together, and his death had cast them adrift with nothing to cling to but their mutual grief. But that would change tomorrow, when they arrived home to a Thanksgiving feast that truly would be a celebration.
Yet she was now in an extremely awkward position. She knew exactly what Alex was feeling—arriving home to a wife he’d never met much less wanted—because she was feeling just as angry, frustrated, and confused. But most especially angry.
She had subtly probed her new employers—mostly Paul—in the two and a half months she’d been here and had learned that Alex’s marriage to Charlotte hadn’t exactly been wedded bliss and that he’d been quite content being a single father for the last five years. Just as Sarah had been happily widowed for four years, since her marriage to Roland Banks had been no picnic.
Sarah wiped away her tears, then hugged her knees to her chest to hold in what warmth she could to her shivering body. She couldn’t believe how quickly John Tate had figured out Grady’s plan to protect Delaney and Tucker. Grady had warned her that people in town might question her marriage, but if they all stuck to their story, there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. John had visited enough for her to realize he was a close family friend, and she believed he would keep his promise not to tell anyone. And knowing what a close-knit family the Knights were, Sarah didn’t think Alex was about to run around town denouncing his marriage, either. Which meant that for the time being, she was stuck with another husband she didn’t want.
Roland Banks had been quite full of himself, and quite convinced that a naive seventeen-year-old bride had been the perf
ect solution to his problem, as well as a good way to keep his dragon of a mother off his back. Sarah had spent the next twelve years with Martha Banks hanging on her back instead, while being ignored by her husband for the eight years before he’d drowned at sea. Well, ignored except when Roland needed a pretty wife to show off.
Youthful ignorance, misplaced gratitude, and a warped sense of duty had locked Sarah into a terrible mess at seventeen, and it had taken her twelve years to get free. And what had she done with her newfound freedom? She’d placed herself right back in another heart-wrenching trap. How could she just walk away from Delaney and Tucker? She couldn’t love those kids more if she had given birth to them herself. But she couldn’t stay married to a stranger, either.
Maybe she could quietly divorce Alex and go back to being their housekeeper until she got her sporting camps up and running in the spring. Yes—she could keep to her original plan to reopen the lodge and eight cabins, three miles down the shoreline, which Grady had offered to lease to her when he’d stayed at her bed-and-breakfast on Crag Island in August.
But she couldn’t live in the same house with her ex-husband until spring; that would be much too awkward. Dammit! Grady had better come up with a solution when he got home tomorrow. He’d made this mess, and he needed to fix it!
“Sarah! Sarah, where are you?”
Uh-oh. Her ghost-husband had come looking for her. Sarah scrunched into a ball to make herself as tiny as possible. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not yet—preferably not ever.
“Sarah, you didn’t take a jacket, and it’s getting cold out here. Sarah! Show yourself!”
The man sure did love to shout. First he’d yelled at Paul to open the door, then he’d yelled at her when he’d found out Paul wasn’t home, and he was still shouting. Sarah slid deeper into her seat. She’d rather freeze to death than face him right now, and she’d go home when she was good and ready, dammit.
The Seduction of His Wife Page 2