WIFE FOR HIRE

by Amy J. Fetzer

  "A Rayburn kept it during the revolution and the Civil War by lending horses to the army."

  She met his gaze. "I admire that, Nash. Not many people can put a finger on their roots and say, this is where it began, where I come from." She scarcely remembered her grandfather, and even her mother's face was a faded image in her mind.

  Nash looked down at the cup, the bourbon separating the coffee with its strength, and thought about how little she'd had in her life to comfort her. And when the opportunity was near, he'd snatched it away. It had been duty, he reminded himself. His honor had been at stake.

  He drained the cup and crossed to his desk. He stared to pour more, then set the bottle down. The only thing that had saved him in the past years were his daughters. They'd needed him and he'd had to force himself to focus on their needs, instead of his own.

  Until Hayley walked back into his life.

  He watched her as she continued to move around the room. When she came to a small butler tucked in the corner, she froze. Nash felt it from across the room, the stillness in her, fragile, as if one touch would make her crumble to dust. His brows drew down as he moved to her. He stopped a few feet away. His gaze snapped to her, then slid to the photo on the butler.

  It was a picture of his wedding day.

  Hayley drained the rest of the bourbon, still staring. "She looks … lovely."

  "On that day she was."

  Hayley couldn't look at him. It hurt too much. "You say that as if it was the only time."

  He scoffed and went to the desk, sloshing more liquor into the coffee mug. "She's dead. I'd rather not talk about it."

  Hayley felt her throat close tight. "You loved her."

  He stilled, the mug halfway to his mouth. "Don't ask, Hayley. Please."

  The agony in his voice was clear enough. "I never understood."

  He twisted to look at her. Her finger grazed the crystal frame. An invisible fist wrapped around his heart, squeezing the life from him. "Understood what?"

  "Why you left me without a word and went to her."

  "And you think you do now?"

  Her nod was so miniscule he almost didn't catch it.

  "You loved her," she said again.

  The tears in her voice slayed him where he stood. He clenched his fists.

  "You loved her and you used me."

  "That's not true."

  She snapped a look at him, venom in her bright eyes. "Then what is, Nash? I have a right to know after all this time how you could say you loved me and wanted me to give up my dreams for a life with you, then betray me!"

  His features went taut with his own misery, and he rubbed his hand over his face.

  "I never even got the chance to show you my anger. Do you know how humiliating it was to learn from Michelle I was tossed aside? Everyone knew we'd been together. Everyone." She shuddered with the force of holding back her tears. "You made me look like the campus tramp, good enough to take to bed, but not good enough to marry into the rich and powerful Rayburn family."

  "Aw, Hayley, darlin', no, that's not it."

  "It is! Your fiancée flashed an engagement ring in my face and in front of my sorority sisters and said I was just white trash and should have known the only thing I could get from you was crumbs." She bit her lip, years of anger and hurt and shame sweeping through her. "I can't do this. I can't stay here anymore." She rushed toward the door.

  Panic seized him. "Hayley, no!"

  She put up a hand, the other on the knob.

  "She was pregnant."

  She stopped and spun around, sucking in a great gulp of air. Her gaze searched his. "You bastard! You slept with her!"

  * * *

  Four

  « ^ »

  Her devastated expression carved a wound on his soul. Finally he nodded.

  "While you were seeing me?"

  He held her gaze and she read the truth.

  If she could have crumbled even more, she did. Shame sluiced through him like hot oil, burning a hole deep into his heart.

  Hayley immediately stormed across the room, stopping inches from him. Then she slapped his cheek. His head whipped to the side with the force, and he worked his jaw for a second before looking at her.

  She made to slap him again and he snagged her wrists, wrestling with her until she crumbled in his arms.

  She sobbed into his shirtfront, sorrow-filled cries as if her heart were shattering into a million pieces. "I loved you," she moaned, twisting out of his grasp and pounding his chest. "I loved you!"

  "I know, honey, I know." He sighed wearily and wanted nothing more than to cradle her in his arms, but knew she wouldn't have it. "That night we argued about our future I thought I'd already lost you to your career. I went home and drank." He held her back enough to look her in the eye. "A little too much. Around midnight, Michelle was on my doorstep and throwing herself into my arms."

  She shoved away. "I don't think I want to hear this." He caught her elbow and spun around to face him. "Oh, yes, you will. You wanted to know the truth and you'll listen to all of it. About how I woke up the next morning and she was lying beside me, naked, and I didn't even remember letting her into the apartment. I don't even remember having sex with her."

  She searched his eyes, wanting to believe him. "But you and I went to Jekyll Island the weekend after that fight, Nash." Her brows drew tight. They'd almost worked out their problems then. "So that's why you were so quiet."

  Seeing the accusation in her eyes made his survival skills rear up. He had to make her understand, no matter what came later. "I couldn't tell you because I didn't remember it."

  She wrenched off his touch as if it stained her clothes. "A man doesn't forget making love to a woman, Nash."

  "He does when there's nothing to remember."

  Her head was pounding with confusion. "But you said she was pregnant."

  "She said she was. I had to believe her. Especially when I calculated the weeks. So I did what I had to do."

  "You married her to give the children your name."

  "I made the mistake and I had to make it right. It was a matter of duty, Hayley."

  "What about your duty to me?" she cried, angry again. "And I might believe this pile of horse dung, Nash, if your daughters weren't a year too young for this story." Disgusted, she headed for the door. She'd leave tonight and head to Kat's in Savannah.

  "That's because she lied."

  Hayley spun around, her breath lodged in her throat. "Oh, you better talk fast, Rayburn."

  "She wasn't pregnant, but I didn't realize the truth till after the wedding. Weeks after." Nash pushed his fingers through his hair and held on to the back of his neck, feeling drained and alone. "She played us both for fools. And after I learned that, she admitted we'd never had sex." He let his arms fall to his sides, remembering his outrage, the hurt and, worse, knowing he'd abandoned Hayley for nothing. Nothing.

  He met her gaze and for a moment, they stared in silence.

  Nash kept his features impassive, waiting to see what she'd do; if she'd leave now and never look back, or if she'd stay and at least talk to him.

  Crossing the room, Hayley sank into the sofa, her heart numb. Nash's shoulders slumped and he moved to the sideboard and poured her a small splash of bourbon, adding some water. He started to move away, then stopped to fold the wedding picture facedown.

  He went to her, holding the glass in her line of vision.

  She tipped her head back. "Pawns."

  Nash released a long slow breath. "Yeah."

  She took the drink, but didn't taste it. "What did you do?"

  He shrugged. "What could I do? I'd lost you and I was married. We were living closer to town then. She wanted to live here, but when my parents learned the truth, my mother didn't want her at River Willow."

  "That must have been hard for you."

  He dropped into a chair. How like Hayley to think of him at a time like this. "It was, but Michelle didn't seem to care. But when Dad died, we ha
d to move in to help. After a while Mom decided she couldn't stand it and got a house about thirty miles from here."

  "Michelle forced her out?"

  Nash shook his head. "Michelle hardly spoke to her. But it was me Mom couldn't stand to look at."

  Tapered brows rose. "Your own mother?"

  "She knew I was unhappy." He held her gaze. "And she knew I'd loved you and what I'd done." Her features tightened and she looked down. Nash kept to himself that his mother had always been Hayley's champion, though they'd never met. Hayley didn't need to hear that right now, especially when he'd ignored his mother's advice and paid dearly.

  "I tried to make the marriage work, but when the twins came along, Michelle couldn't handle them. She wasn't exactly prepared for the demands of motherhood on her social schedule." His lips twisted with bitterness. "She expected me to hire a nanny for the girls so she could go off playing rich man's wife. This is a working plantation, but she didn't feel it was necessary for her to work it. However, she liked the money. She was hoping I'd turn the work all over to Jake and go traveling around the world."

  Hayley curled into the couch, pulling her feet up with her. That certainly sounded like Michelle. "I guess I shouldn't complain, then."

  Nash was slumped in the chair, his hands folded on his stomach. "You have every right to hate the Rayburns, Hayley. Me especially."

  That just wasn't possible, but she didn't mention that. This was all too much to take in.

  "The day of the accident, she'd packed her things, asked for a divorce, and when I said I would fight her for the girls, she said don't bother and walked out, abandoning me, her babies and this life she'd manipulated to get." The hurt in his eyes was like a bleeding wound.

  "Thank God she didn't take the girls with her."

  His gaze swung to hers. "Oh, I do. Every day."

  "How could she walk away from her babies?" She shook her head. It was unthinkable to her. "The girls don't know a thing about this, do they?"

  "No, just my mother. She got caught in the middle of it when we moved in after Dad died."

  Hayley dipped her finger into the glass, then sucked the tip. Finally she looked up.

  Nash's features pulled taut at the sorrow on her face.

  "Why didn't you come tell me this, instead of letting me think the worst? You just stopped calling, stopped coming by, stopped everything."

  He straightened in the chair. "I couldn't see you again. I loved you so much and I knew if I saw you or heard your voice, I wouldn't do the honorable thing. I had a duty to take care of my mistakes, Hayley. My family's reputation rode on it."

  It was a quiet moment before she said very softly, "And if you had seen me?"

  He rubbed his face again. "I would have run away with you to some deserted spot and never looked back."

  Her throat burned. Tears filled her eyes and rolled slowly down her flushed cheeks. "Damn you for not coming to me," she said in a broken whisper. "Damn your Rayburn pride."

  Nash listened to her suffering, to the quiet pain-filled sobs of a woman robbed of her heart's desire. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms and soothe her.

  Then in a tiny voice she said, "I could have been their mother."

  He nodded, his heart aching for her. "You should have been."

  She stared at him. Regret shaped her features, reaching out to him, washing over him. He felt it, shared it, reliving the torment of having to give her up for a woman he didn't love.

  His eyes burned and over the stone in his throat he whispered, "I … I'm so sorry, sprite."

  She lowered her gaze, as if looking at him caused her more pain. Then she unfolded from the couch and crossed to the door. Nash frowned, following her as she walked down the hall. She went into her room, slipping silently into bed.

  He stood in the doorway, his body a black shadow haloed in yellow light. "Hayley?"

  "I can't talk about this anymore. It's too much."

  He stepped into the room and pulled the quilt over her, kneeling beside the bed. Her eyes fluttered open, brown eyes bleary from tears, from the pain she'd suffered at the hands of people she'd trusted. "I'm sorry, baby. If I could change the past—"

  She worked her hand out from under the quilt and laid two fingers over his lips. "It's done, Nash. Now we go on."

  Nash took heart in that and leaned forward to press a kiss to her hair.

  Hayley closed her eyes, absorbing the sensation of his touch. He left, closing the door behind him, and she prayed the bourbon did its job and let her sleep without dreams of everything that might have been.

  The air was damp and breezy. Her skin simmered with sensual heat. His hands slid down her body, shaping her breasts, and he paused to suckle wetly on one tight pink tip, then continued his quest downward, his hand and lips and tongue leaving her writhing mindlessly with desire. Not an inch of her skin escaped his attention. He caressed her waist, her hips, smoothed his hands down her thighs and up the inside. Then he spread her, hovering over her pulsing body as he parted her flesh and stroked the fire to a raging inferno. She gasped, arching her body in a lover's call for more, to deepen his touch, then to fill her. He crawled up over her body, his thighs rasping against hers, then again he opened her for him, to plunge and—

  Hayley sat up, gasping for air. She blinked in the darkened room, then threw off the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Bending over, she cupped her face in her hands and took several deep breaths. The dream was so real. She could almost feel his hands on her, the hardness of him pressing into her. Her body screamed for him, unfulfilled desire throbbing through every pore. Perspiration clung and she stood, fluffing her pajama top, then shucking the bottoms. Despite the air-conditioning, her skin was hot and tingling. This is so not fair, she thought.

  He hurts me and I still want him. She tried deciphering whether or not it was old feelings coming back or the hurt and the need to be soothed shadowing her dreams. It didn't make any difference, she thought tiredly. She couldn't consider starting up with him again, not in any shape or form. It just wouldn't be wise to fall back into a relationship when it had nowhere to go. She was leaving. For good. She had to do her residency. People were depending on her to be at the hospital.

  Glancing at the clock, she realized she had to be up in half an hour, anyway, so going back to bed was not an option. Raking her fingers through her hair, she sighed gustily, then threw on some clothes. She left her room, heading to the kitchen for some ice water and maybe a clearer perspective before everyone else awoke.

  Especially Nash.

  Nash rolled onto his back and jammed a pillow under his head. He gave up on trying to sleep and stared at the drape of fabric flowing over the four poster bed. Last night he'd sat alone in the darkened study and nursed a drink he didn't want, thinking of the woman he couldn't have. Everything was out on the table before them. At least they had that. But she still hadn't forgiven him. He needed to hear the words. For seven years he'd held the guilt inside, done what was expected. So why didn't he feel free of it?

  Because she'll never trust you again.

  He was looking for trust when she might not forgive him. It would be just penance. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. What if she'd left in the middle of the night? Throwing back the covers, he pulled on his jeans before leaving his bedroom. He paused outside her door, then pushed it open. The bed was made and the room looked vacant.

  The sight made his heart leap to his throat and stay there.

  Then he heard the clang of pots and caught the scent of bacon. His relief was overwhelming and he strode quickly down the hall, crossing the foyer and padding on bare feet through the dining room to the kitchen. He saw her shuffling around the kitchen, preparing breakfast. She didn't look any better than he felt.

  With a quick glance around, he realized they were alone. The girls would sleep late, but the ranch hands would be coming in for coffee in a few minutes. He watched her for a second, wondering what to say.

  "It
's impolite to stare, Nash."

  "Then put more clothes on."

  Hayley glanced down at her shorts and T-shirt, then lifted her gaze to his. "You need to address this problem you have with my clothes, and you shouldn't talk." He was wearing jeans, only jeans, and he looked so vulnerable standing in the doorway. But he wasn't. Even with the shadow of a beard and finger-combed hair, even with the hard-muscled chest shouting to be touched, he was still invincible to her.

  Except the dark smudges under his eyes told her that while she'd slept, he hadn't.

  She turned her gaze away, a dozen feelings running through her at once. She didn't think she could handle a single one right now. She'd spent the past hour trying to line them up in neat little rows only to have one look at his wary expression and experience the domino effect. Feelings fell all over themselves, confusing her more. She didn't want him to suffer any more than she had. He'd paid a higher price for that one night with Michelle. And seeing people suffer and wanting to do something about it was why she'd become a doctor. It was inbred, natural.

  She cut a cube of butter into the frying pan, then began cracking eggs into a bowl.

  Nash crossed to her and she lifted her gaze.

  He took an uncracked egg from her hand and put it back in the carton. She just stood there, staring, wondering what he was up to and knowing exactly what by the look in his eyes.

  "No." She stepped away, but he caught her around the waist, dragging her back like a child trying to escape punishment. Then he pulled her warmly against him. All the sensations of her dream rocketed to the surface.

  "Yes." Nash wrapped his arms more firmly around her, the contact making his blood flow heavy in his groin. Yet he held her gaze and saw wariness, doubt.

  "The men are going to be here any second." Her hands on his bare chest, she tried pushing. It was like trying to move the earth off its axis. "It wouldn't be wise for them to find their boss with the nanny in his arms."

  "Let them get their own nanny."