The Seduction of His Wife

by Janet Chapman

  “Earth to Sarah,” Alex said, waving his hand in front of her face. “John and Daniel are here with some men from the border patrol,” he told her once he had her attention.

  “Huh? Oh!” she said, jumping up when she saw the four officers standing by the door. “Please, come in and sit down,” she said, moving some of their new possessions off the couch so the men could sit.

  Daniel had to nudge the guy in a border patrol uniform to get him moving, since he seemed unable to when Sarah gave him an apologetic smile.

  “I’m sorry everything is such a mess, but it’s going to take us a while to settle in,” she told her guests as she cleaned off the other chair. “I can at least offer you cake and coffee,” she finished, turning toward the kitchen.

  Alex swept her off her feet and sat down in the chair, then locked his arms around her so she couldn’t leave his lap. “They aren’t staying,” he said as he gave some sort of silent signal to John Tate.

  Sarah pinched his arm out of sight of the men, and Alex merely slid his thumb up her ribs, way too close to her breast. She got the message and immediately quit squirming. She smiled at their guests sitting on the couch and the opposite chair, the border patrol guy and the man in the suit quietly grinning at her.

  “We just stopped by to let you know what we learned about the smuggling ring you two closed down yesterday,” John said. “This is Peter Nadeau from the border patrol and Raymond Smith from Homeland Security.”

  “Homeland Security?” Sarah looked at the man in the three-piece suit, who appeared so out of place next to the three local law officers.

  Raymond Smith nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his expression turning serious. “I’m here because of the explosives the men were smuggling into the country.”

  “Explosives?” Alex said, his arms tightening around Sarah. “They were bringing in explosives?”

  Smith nodded. “We’ve been hearing chatter for over a year that something was in the works, but we couldn’t get anything specific—until John Tate called our office last night and told us we might want to see what he’d found in the caves on Whistler’s Mountain.”

  Sarah frowned. “But why stash them up there? Why not just bring them to where the snowmobile trail crossed a road and load them into a car to take them to wherever they were going?”

  “Because the explosives weren’t going to be used until next summer, we’ve learned, and the people bringing them in wanted a remote site to stash them on their route. Next summer, they were going to bring in some men by the same route, pick up the explosives, and head to their targets.” Smith looked at Alex. “What they hadn’t counted on was for you to start cutting on Whistler’s Mountain this winter.”

  “Then why not just move the explosives?” Alex asked.

  Smith shrugged. “They’d been planning this for a couple of years, near as we can tell, and they probably thought they were dealing with a bunch of backwood nobodies they could scare off, rather than change their plans. You two are heroes. We’ll never know how many lives you saved by stopping this pipeline of explosives and terrorists coming into the country. A lot of people likely owe you their lives, and your government owes you its gratitude.”

  “There was nothing altruistic about what we did. We were only protecting ourselves,” Alex said.

  “And to set the record straight,” John Tate interjected, looking at Alex, “the guy who died actually shot himself. Near as we can tell, his finger jerked on the trigger when your bullet caught him in the leg, and he shot himself with his own gun.” John leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “The man at the bottom of the rock-slide likely won’t ever walk again, but he’ll live. And we life-flighted out the other guy you shot in the leg.”

  Alex stood up. “I appreciate your driving out here to fill us in,” he said to the four gentlemen, who rose and put on their coats.

  After the men drove off, Alex pounced like a hungry lion, sweeping Sarah into his arms and striding down the porch steps to the short path leading toward the cabins.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “As soon as I got rid of Paul and Grady and the kids this morning, I came over and built a fire in the stove,” he said, leaping onto the porch of Cabin One.

  “Why?”

  He opened the door and stepped inside. “Because I need to get you naked and in bed in the next ten minutes,” he said, covering her mouth with his own to kiss her quite thoroughly. “As much fun as it was sleeping in front of the hearth with everyone else last night, it was a little crowded. Tell me again that you love me.”

  “I love you.”

  “And that I’m your real, live hero.”

  “You’re my only hero.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, laying her on the bed and pinning her down with his weight as he started to tell her exactly what he intended to do with her for the next two hours.

  Sarah’s eyes widened with each salacious and provocative description, wondering if some of them were even possible, as he ignited a bonfire deep inside her. She started to squirm beneath him, running her feet up his legs and twisting to free her hands to touch him.

  “Feeling a bit hot and bothered, are we?” he whispered, sending an even stronger wave of desire crashing through Sarah when she felt his own desire pushing against her. “Well, Sunshine, let’s see if we can’t compose our own memorable love scene.”

  Alex stared down at his thoroughly exhausted and utterly satisfied wife with the smile of a very contented man. He softly kissed her forehead, then gazed up at the ceiling of the quaintly decorated cabin.

  Sarah was determined to open the sporting camps come spring, and he intended to back her one hundred percent, even if it meant moving his kids three miles deeper into the woods. Grady and Ethan and Paul could rebuild on their old site, but Alex was keeping his expanding family right here so they could help Sarah realize her dream.

  Besides, if he didn’t get his brothers weaned off her cooking, they would never find wives of their own. Maybe they could even find Grady a woman.

  Holy hell, he had to stop reading romance novels, or he’d be trying to marry off John and Daniel next!

  A truck came skidding to a halt in the lodge yard, and Alex climbed out of bed with a sigh and started dressing. “Wake up, Sunshine,” he told Sarah. “It’s time to return to the real world.”

  “Who’s home?” she asked, sitting up with a yawn and brushing the hair off her face just as a truck door slammed.

  Alex put on his boots and looked out the window. “Dammit, Ethan’s back,” he said, checking his watch. “And it’s only one o’clock. He didn’t even last half a day at the sawmill!”

  Alex opened the door and strode onto the porch of the cabin, buttoning his shirt as he gave a sharp whistle at Ethan. “What are you doing home?”

  Ethan glared across the yard with his hands on his hips. “I was fired.”

  “Your first day?” Alex asked in disbelief as he tucked in his shirt. “How in hell can you screw up bucketing sawdust?”

  “I never got to the sawdust,” Ethan said, striding across the yard and up onto the cabin porch. “In fact, I never even set foot inside the mill. I’d just come out of the office and was walking across the yard when I got fired.”

  “Bishop wouldn’t fire you; he set it up for you to work there. And what happened to your face?” Alex asked, looking at Ethan’s swollen left eye.

  His brother gently touched the darkening bruise. “Bishop didn’t fire me, his foreman did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hit her.”

  “You what? Wait a minute. You hit a woman?”

  Sarah stormed out of the cabin. “You did what?” she asked, her face flushed with anger.

  Ethan shook his head. “I didn’t know she was a woman. She was wearing a hard hat and coming at me with a tire iron; I just defended myself. It wasn’t until she fell down and her hat fell off that I realized she was a woman.” He looked at Sarah besee
chingly. “I thought she was a short man.”

  “Why was she coming at you with a tire iron?” Alex asked.

  “I—uh—stepped in front of the loader she was driving. It was carrying a load of logs at the time, and she had to ditch the machine to avoid hitting me. It rolled over, dumping the logs and landing on its side.” Ethan closed his eyes. “She came climbing out of that rig cursing and waving a tire iron. I just reacted.”

  “Bishop has a woman foreman?” Alex asked.

  Ethan nodded. “And from what I can tell, the crew respects her.” He touched his battered face again. “I thought they were going to kill me.”

  “Ethan would cut off his right arm before he’d knowingly hit a woman,” Alex told Sarah, heading back into the cabin. “So let’s just keep this to ourselves.”

  Ethan snorted. “The whole county probably knows by now.” He looked around the cabin in surprise. “Wow, you’ve fixed this place up real nice, Sarah.”

  Sarah merely scowled at him. “You apologized, I hope.”

  “I was sort of busy fighting for my life.” He suddenly grinned. “But I’ll apologize in two months, when I return to Loon Cove as her boss,” he said, anticipation lighting his one good eye. “So, what needs to be done to whip the lodge into shape?” he asked, rubbing his hands together as he looked at Alex. “I seem to be free for the next two months.”

  “You’re going back,” Alex said.

  Ethan shook his head. “In two months,” he repeated, turning and walking out the door.

  Alex grinned at Sarah. “Do you think there’s any chance that Dad didn’t know Bishop had a woman foreman or that he simply forgot to mention that interesting little fact to Ethan?”

  Sarah leaned back in surprise. “You think Grady set him up?”

  Alex nodded.

  She made a sound of disgust. “We really have to do something about that scheming man. He’s been running unchecked for too long.”

  “Spoken like a true Knight, considering I had that same thought.” He kicked the door shut with his foot, reached out and turned the lock, then lowered his mouth to within inches of hers. “You up for another driving lesson, Sunshine?”

  Sarah twined her arms around his neck and touched her lips to his. “You’d better fasten your seat belt, because I have every intention of redlining your tachometor. And this time, there won’t be a block of wood taped under my gas pedal.”

  Alex leaned away. “Who told?”

  “Delaney,” Sarah said sweetly. “She knows we women have to stick together.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Alex groaned, sweeping Sarah into his arms and carrying her to the bed. “I just aged a hundred years, thinking about Delaney at sixteen.”

  “Don’t worry, hero man.” Sarah pulled him down onto the bed, then straddled his hips. “You’ll have me backing you up.” She gave him a thousand-watt smile and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  Letter from Lake Watch

  Dear Readers,

  Not long after I met my husband—more years ago than I care to acknowledge—I found myself wondering what mysterious force could make a man sit on an ice-covered lake in below-freezing temperatures, and spend hours patiently waiting for a flag to signal that a fish had just taken the bait. Summer fishing I could understand; who wouldn’t enjoy spending a sunny day in a boat on a beautiful lake, having nothing to do but read, snooze, snack, and jump in the water to cool off? But when my future husband grabbed his ice-fishing traps and bait pail, and offered to take me with him one surprisingly bright winter morning, sheer curiosity had me trudging beside him onto the frozen lake. And that was the day I not only became hooked on winter fishing, but saw the entire world through new eyes.

  The magic began with the sound of a gasoline-powered ice auger as it bore through the frozen shroud of ice to suddenly well up a gusher of slush-laden water. I distinctly remember peering down into that dark, seemingly bottomless hole, trying to imagine the watery world a mere ten inches beneath my feet. How could any ecosystem survive five months of numbingly cold, sunless living? Or was the ice really a cleverly designed shield, protecting the lake’s inhabitants from the harsh winter weather? But even more bothersome to me at the time, had my husband-to-be just opened a painful wound by drilling ten holes in the lake’s protective mantle? (On our lake, each fisherman is allowed five traps—which is why, I inadvertently learned, lots of men encourage their wives or girlfriends to go fishing with them; the more traps set, the better the chances of catching supper. And here I thought my guy just wanted to spend some quality time with me!)

  The regulation book that came with my fishing license that long-ago Christmas stated that I must tend my own traps; so I was taught how to bait my hooks with tiny minnows, feed the thick lines down those dark holes, then set the flags. (A big fish comes along and eats the little fish, the flag shoots up, and—hopefully—I pull up the line with the big fish still attached.) But instead of five traps, I was told only to set four. Then I was handed a very short rod as well as a plastic bucket to sit on, and shown how to jig over the fifth hole. (Jigging is actually bobbing the line up and down to attract a hungry big fish with the movement of the little fish. I jigged slowly, afraid of making my poor little minnow seasick.)

  But here’s the really magical part. I was sitting in patient bliss on that bucket in the middle of that frozen lake for maybe an hour, munching down a perfectly cooked hotdog (I still can’t figure out why food tastes better if it’s cooked and eaten outdoors), when something suddenly tugged on my line! I don’t mean a sharp jerk, but a barely perceptible tug that hardly moved the tip of my tiny rod. I didn’t jump to my feet in excitement, but sat staring down that dark hole in awe. Some unseen creature (hopefully a large trout or salmon and not a cousin to the Loc Ness Monster) tugged again, and with a smile of delight I gently returned the gesture. A subtle tug-of-war ensued, and I can’t begin to describe how sparring with something unseen, a mere ten inches below me but an entire world away, made me feel. Words conveying my heart-thumping joy, anticipation, and up until then, dormant desire to do battle—and win!—seem inadequate.

  I was coached on how to pull up the line without jerking the bait out of the big fish’s mouth, only to find myself suddenly scrambling back with a yelp of surprise when a huge landlocked salmon shot free of the hole and angrily began flopping on the ice. My delighted fishing partner palmed the beautiful salmon, gauged its size, and proudly (as if he had battled the beast himself) declared it a keeper.

  I immediately began pleading for him to throw it back.

  I don’t know who gaped more, my future hubby or that displaced fish, but with a sigh of resignation the wonderful man bent down and let the salmon slide free, its tail giving a happy splash as it disappeared back into the dark watery depths with its belly filled with my bait. (I’ve been ice fishing for nigh on thirty years now, and though I’ve had many fine meals of freshwater fish, I still more often than not plead that my catch be released. Which is why my husband always packs hotdogs in our cooler, or simply refuses to take me with him when he has a hankering for baked salmon.)

  But I still remember my first experience on the ice as a day of many lessons: about ice fishing, about how my then future husband’s mind worked, and about my own mind-set. How does that old adage go? Before you judge a man, you should probably walk a mile in his shoes? Well, I spent that day seeing winter fishing through another’s eyes. And I learned that in their own way, men are just as spiritual, inspired, and compassionate as we women. But instead of a suit and tie and wing tips, some men might prefer to dress in long johns, a bomber hat and warm boots, and connect with the universe in the ultimate cathedral.

  This was quite an epiphany for me. I learned not to assume that people are weird simply because they have a passion for living each day as it’s given, rain or shine, thunderstorm or blizzard, forty degrees above or twenty degrees below freezing, with nothing more than a gently rocking boat or a plastic bucket to fish from. (I’ve never admitted this to him,
but when Robbie released that beautiful fish just to appease my soft soul, I knew I had found the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But please keep this our little secret, because he still thinks it was his manly charm that captured my heart.)

  So how does one magical day of ice fishing become a romance novel almost thirty years later, appropriately titled The Seduction of His Wife? Each of my stories begins with some tiny insight on my part, that somehow lends itself to a whole host of questions. (And Lord knows, I have more questions about life and love and the human spirit than is healthy!) So…if spending one simple day with my guy can give me a glimpse into his mind while teaching me something about myself, how might a man attempt to get into a woman’s head, and therefore learn more about himself?

  And being not only a writer but an avid reader, this train of thought eventually led me to wonder what men think about romance novels. Do larger-than-life, tough, sexy heroes threaten men? Intrigue them? Or are guys just plain curious about why we women stay up until the wee hours of the night reading romances? Then again, do men think that if they were to read a romance novel, they might come to understand us women better?

  Another consideration I had when penning this book (see how the questions keep multiplying?): Do romance novels ever influence a woman’s everyday life? Do they make us see things differently as we experience the world through our fictional female characters? If not, then what happens to all those romantic tales after we’ve read them? Do they simply evaporate into the ether, never to be thought of again, or do they ruminate someplace deep inside us, giving us a sense of…oh, I don’t know, hope maybe? Anticipation?

  Every romance author’s dream is that our work will strike a chord and tug a few heartstrings. I like to call it the “aahhh” factor, where a reader closes one of my books and softly sighs, knowing all is well in that fictional world, so surely there’s hope for the real world.

  The heroine of The Seduction of His Wife, Sarah Knight, certainly feels this way. In fact, she lives in constant hope that one day she will become a feisty, confident woman just like the heroines in the books she reads. Sarah’s only problem though is that she’s so caught up in her fictional worlds she probably wouldn’t recognize happily ever after if it walked up to her and kissed her on the nose.