by Liz Lee
The first step went unnoticed. The second gained Grady’s attention. On hindsight he realized that by the time he stood next to Kacie Jo, he should’ve known better. Unfortunately, he was too busy gloating and when he put his hand around her shoulders, she whirled on him. “Don’t you touch me.”
And then she turned back to her brother. “And don’t you ever totally disregard my feelings like this again.”
With that Kacie Jo pushed her brother out her front door and slammed it.
And then Donovan waited. Because he sensed Kacie Jo’s storm of anger was about to descend on him.
As he took that in, he told himself to let her have at it. Get it out of her system. Say whatever crazy thing she wanted to say. None of that mattered. For the first time in over a year, he had hope.
For a few seconds, Kacie Jo stood in her living room and tried to calm herself down.
What she ought to do was toss Donovan out on his ear the same way she had her jerk of a brother.
But as she stood there, alone in her living room with her still packed suitcase mocking her from where it stood beside the door, she couldn’t end it like this.
For one thing, Donovan would never agree. He’d take it as a challenge, a fight, something to be overcome. And that would never do.
No. She needed cool logic. She didn’t want to tread the water of life while he played at a relationship until impulse hit and sent him back to the front lines.
She should’ve never opened the door.
“Listen, Donovan. I understand why you’re here, and I even understand what you’re probably feeling, but I really think you should leave.”
Donovan’s jaw set in stubborn dangerous deliberation. “We need to talk.”
She tried to reason. “I know all this is new to you. I’ve had three months to plan, to get used to the idea of parenthood.”
“Don’t even try to guess how I feel, Kacie Jo. You know what has to happen now.”
Obviously reasoning wasn’t going to work. Donovan brushed away her words as if they meant nothing.
Didn’t it just figure that her fantasy man would sit here talking about her fantasy tale and it did nothing but make her feel like gum on the bottom of a shoe? “No, Donovan, why don’t you fill me in.”
“We have to do what’s right for this child. We need to get married, sooner rather than later.”
He was delusional. “Sure, Donovan. We can get married. We can get married and you can head on off into the wild blue yonder for another six years. Who cares if we know each other?”
Something she didn't understand played out in his eyes. Something sad that reminded her of the way he'd been the night she planned on seducing him.
“I’m not going away again, ever, Kacie Jo. I’ll stay here, in Caldale.”
How was that any better? She could walk around feeling guilty for the next however many years for keeping him from practicing the profession he loved. And speaking of love, that ought to be the foundation of a marriage. “I don’t think so.”
Donovan ran his hand through his hair in frustration. She couldn’t help but try to make it easier on him. “Come on, Donovan. It’s not such a terrible deal these days. I’m perfectly capable of raising this baby. Lots of women raise their children alone. We’ll be fine. I promise.”
Her words did nothing to alleviate his obvious tension. “If you honestly think this is okay, Kacie Jo, you’re crazy. You have no idea what you’re talking about. But I do know. I’ve lived the life you’re talking about, and there’s no way my baby’s going to live it, too.”
She’d thought about that, really she had. But Donovan couldn’t compare her to his mother. She would never allow her bedroom to become the revolving door for every no account guy who paid her a compliment. She was a professional. She could give her baby everything it could ever want.
“Look, Donovan. You’re not thinking straight. The world’s changed in the last three decades. No one’s going to look at this child any differently than others. She’ll be loved and cherished.”
Donovan nodded. “Damn right. That baby will be loved and cherished by both of us. ”
Guilt hit hard again, but Kacie Jo pushed it away.
“This isn’t about you. This is about what’s best for this baby, and I cannot see how us getting married is best for this child. How would we even explain? Oh, yes, dear, I seduced your father, after he tried to warn me away and then made him marry me. I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think. For a few seconds, just listen.” Donovan moved across the room to stand by her side. “I know I’ve been an ass. When I realized I was your target that night at Grady’s, I could’ve turned away. I didn’t. You intrigued me from the moment you walked in that door. When we make love, it’s like magic. We can do this.”
“No we can’t. That magic you’re talking about, Donovan, it’s just sex. That’s it. Nothing more.”
She’d thought about this for months, ever since he disappeared.
His bruised and scraped face and rebel hair looked for all the world like he’d dropped in from a movie set. And that cemented what she’d come to realize. “Look Donovan. I know what you think, or at least what I thought. I was stupid. You were a fantasy. And in that fantasy, you were perfect. In reality, you’re a man of the world, always on the move. Your every decision is on impulse and instinct. We’d hate each other.”
When he looked like he would interrupt, she shook her head refusing to let him speak. “We can’t, Donovan. We really can’t. I know you think we can. But that’s just right now. In a day or a week or a month, you’ll be wondering what the hell you were thinking. And it’ll be too late. You’ll be stuck. Or, worse, you’ll take off again, and then I could never forgive you. Now, at least I have a memory, and I won’t cut you out of the baby’s life. You can be as involved as you’d like. No expectations.”
He shook his head. Jesus, she wasn’t even listening to him. Wasn’t hearing a word he said.
“Look, Kacie Jo. Things have changed. I'm never leaving. And I don’t see me ever being sorry that I gave my baby my name. That I married you to protect you both.”
From the way she moved away with her arms crossed over her chest, he could tell she still didn’t get it. He was marrying her. And he knew enough about her to know he could get her to agree. Even if he had to play on her every weakness, Kacie Jo Jenkins would marry him.
Moving to her, he tilted her chin up so he could see her eyes, could lose himself in their emerald depths, and then he whispered the words he hoped would change her mind.
“Please, Kacie Jo. Please, don’t make me leave here tonight without hearing you say yes. Please, don’t make me hate myself even more than I already do.”
Her eyes changed. She looked at him with a desire to comfort, and he knew he’d spoken the right words. And even though they were spoken to disarm her defenses, they were completely, totally true.
“Please.” He said the one last word before making his most calculated move of the entire conversation. Slowly, making sure she understood his intention, giving her every opportunity to turn away, he lowered his lips to hers and tasted heaven for the second time that day.
And this time it was all the sweeter because he had his answer.
When Donovan finally left, Kacie Jo walked through the motions of her regular life.
She’d known he was guilting her into a yes, and still, she’d let him succeed. She’d looked into his eyes, seen the little boy he’d been, the angry teenager, the devil-may-care man, and he’d simply been irresistible.
She walked to her dresser and picked up the lace scarf he’d given her, wrapped the scarf around her hair and tried to pretend it was a love gift. Then she picked up the only picture on her dresser and took it to her bed.
As she sat, she stared at her mother and wondered what she would say. She and Daddy had married young. They were so happy in that picture. Two kids ready to take on the world.
And they’d been expecting too.
<
br /> Only it wasn’t the same. Grady wasn’t a mistake from what was supposed to be a one-night fling. Grady was the product of true love. The forever kind of love.
She stared at her daddy in the wedding picture standing there in the church in his dress uniform with all his medals. Had he felt anything at all like Donovan? She couldn’t very well walk into her father’s den and say, “So, Daddy, tell me did you ever just want to leave and go see the world the way you did before you met Momma? Because I told Donovan I’d marry him knowing full well he’d eventually go stir crazy if he stayed in Caldale.”
Couldn’t ask him what he’d really felt when he heard about Grady being on the way. Couldn’t because she and her daddy had an unspoken agreement. They talked about any and everything except one thing. They didn’t talk about Momma.
She looked back at her mother and touched the face frozen in a moment behind the glass frame. And for the first time in years, she let herself cry. Not because her mother was dead, not because she’d been stolen from her family by cancer, not because she was tired and pregnant and that’s what tired, pregnant women did according to What to Expect: Month Three. But because she’d agreed to marry a man knowing full well the marriage was on borrowed time. And knowing full well that for all her good intentions, she’d never be able to keep Donovan Nelson.
Chapter Nine
The front office of local Justice of the Peace Vernetta Bagely looked like every legal office Kacie Jo had been in. In fact, if she replaced the degrees on the wall and the nameplate on the desk, the office could be her brother's.
In a few minutes she'd be married. To Donovan Nelson.
This should be the happiest day of her life.
Instead, she felt like she was experiencing some sort of out of body experience. Like the real her was above watching this day play out. Like if she pinched herself she'd wake up.
He didn't love her. This was obligation.
If she had to guess, she figured this marriage might have the six months she had to go until the baby was born. Might. And that would be fine with her.
Really it would.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
She looked around the office again and thanked God she wasn’t in a church. At least here, the fact that she was thinking about how long this disaster of a marriage would last seemed less a sacrilege.
Beside Donovan, Grady and her father stood both sporting worried frowns along with their suits. Grady’d made his feelings on the matter quite clear, and she still hadn’t started talking to him again. Her father hadn’t said a word other than he trusted her to do what was right.
She’d wondered when he spoke those words if he and Donovan had already talked, but Donovan said no.
No.
Two little letters. She could say no now and save them all a lot of grief.
Judge Bagely asked her the question she’d practiced so often as a child. “Do you, Kacie Jo Jenkins, take this man, Donovan Nelson….”
The question echoed in her mind as she looked at Donovan and her father and Grady and Eliza. The only people present at the wedding she’d always dreamed of.
But this wasn’t her dream. This wasn’t the church. This wasn’t the crowd. She didn’t even have on a wedding dress, just some pretty blue dress she’d bought at Target on clearance. And she couldn’t even imagine herself writing the words Mrs. Donovan Nelson.
Her heart raced, a sweat bead formed on her upper lip as she waited to answer.
Oh God, what was she doing?
The word was there, right there on the edge of declaring this whole ridiculous scene over. If her mother hadn’t died all those years ago maybe she would’ve sent her an encouraging sign, would’ve told her it was all right to back out now before it was too late.
Everyone was waiting. She had to speak. But she couldn’t make herself answer. Couldn’t force the word out.
And then, Donovan reached across the space that separated them and took her hand. She met his eyes and saw his surety that what they were about to do was right.
And just like that she knew her answer.
Donovan felt Kacie Jo’s indecision clear to his soul. Heard it in the long pause as Judge Bagely waited, as her family and Eliza waited. As his heart dropped to his stomach.
Love wasn’t part of the equation, and that didn’t bother him a bit. He’d seen lots of people marry for love—love and a lot of other reasons. Reasons that had left Anaj and thousands of women like her dead.
He shook off the memory and reached for Kacie Jo’s hand. Reached to let her know it would be okay. That everything would work out all right. That she could depend on him.
Her hand trembled in his, or maybe it was the other way around. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he’d do if she said no. He needed her to be his anchor.
Behind him, Grady coughed. Eliza exhaled slowly. Ike’s shoes squeaked on the floorboards. But nothing from Kacie Jo. Not a single sound.
He closed his eyes and willed her to say yes. He refused to ask himself why it was so damn important. And then he prayed, even though past prayers proved pointless. God, please, let her say yes.
Still Kacie Jo stood silent for what seemed like a million years. Donovan had been in this place before. In the waiting time when perfect stillness was essential. When it seemed like forever passed in a very few seconds. When life slowed to an almost standstill. Usually, it fell right before all hell broke loose. Sometimes all hell broke loose and you couldn't escape before it burned your soul.
Smoke and explosions and screams echoed in his mind. He tried to ignore them, pretend they weren't there, push them back to the abyss. He couldn't let them know. Couldn't let them see how close to the edge he was. That part of his life was over. Marrying Kacie Jo, making a family, would heal him.
With that realization, he knew what he had to do. Taking a deep breath and pushing the nightmares away, he turned to face Kacie Jo, to look into her eyes. To somehow tell her without saying a word that if she couldn’t do this he understood.
He’d have to figure something else out. It didn’t matter what. He couldn’t force Kacie Jo to go through with this marriage.
When their eyes met all sound, all action stopped except the slight heave of her chest as she took a deep breath. The edges of his reality seemed blurred with only Kacie Jo in focus.
Her green eyes were wide with unspoken questions. What did she want to know?
Maybe she was just searching for a way to escape. Thinking that if he really wanted to protect her, he’d find a way to get them out of this mess now, before it was too late.
Jesus. He didn’t think he could do it.
Again he closed his eyes, and again he prayed. This time for the strength to do the right thing. In this case the right thing was obviously not marrying Kacie Jo.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. No sense worrying about it now. At least they didn’t have a full church of people there to hear him say the wedding was off.
Kacie Jo smiled back, the tension in her eyes gone. Her hand in his no longer trembled. And then with a slight shake of her head, she turned back to Judge Bagely and said the words he’d prayed to hear.
“I do.”
Kacie Jo sat in the passenger seat of her car watching the Texas country side fly by. She’d said yes. He’d given her a chance, and she’d made her choice. And now he was taking her to her family’s lake house. Some place away from Grady’s interference, some place they could try to get to know each other better.
That’s what he’d said jokingly when he’d suggested the trip. But she’d heard Grady say Sam was looking for Donovan. Sam, the man who wanted Donovan back on the front lines somewhere. Donovan called Sam the devil, but he did it with such good humor, Kacie Jo knew better than to think that’s what he really believed.
She was afraid to confront Donovan about what Sam wanted.
Their trip seemed to relax him. That’s what she was calling this. The trip. No connotations of love and honor and forever. Just a b
enign vacation with her brother’s best friend.
She took a deep breath and blew the air out of her lungs slowly while trying to ignore the pain of that thought.
“Tired?”
Kacie Jo shook her head in answer to Donovan’s question. “No. Just thinking.”
She kept her eyes on the passing scenery. The red dirt, the pastures filled with cows, horses and broken down barns. She always wondered who'd lived in those old places, grayed and weathered over time. Left behind when times got tough or people died. Left to simply fall apart.
“What’s on your mind, Kacie Jo?”
She shrugged. Should she answer with the truth? That she was forcing her mind to stay busy with pointless questions about the passing scenery so she wouldn’t think about what they’d just done.
“Oh, you know. When’s it going to rain? What’s the lake house even going to look like now that the water’s down so low from the drought? Stuff like that.”
His laugh sounded full of self-loathing and she turned her head to assure him her answer was the truth.
But when their eyes met, she found she couldn’t say a word.
He looked away first, back to the road, and she was thankful. At least she was until he finally spoke. “So that’s it, huh? We’re going to talk about the weather.”
She knew what he meant, but she didn’t want to acknowledge the fact. “The drought’s the worst it’s ever been.”
He shook his head and his diamond earring sparkled the way her ring now did when it caught the sunlight. “Stop it, Kacie Jo.”
Her ring weighed heavy on her finger and she twisted it so the solitaire wouldn’t show. “Stop what?”
“Stop talking about the damn Texas drought. It’s always dry in the summer. You want to talk about the weather, let me tell you some stories I’ve lived the last couple years. I can tell you all about winds so strong, they whip every bit of moisture from your body. About finding water and knowing as you take a sip, you are truly tasting liquid gold. About the way the sand grains fly into your eyes and ears and nose and you think you might never taste anything without the fine grit of dirt in your mouth again.”