WIFE FOR HIRE

by Amy J. Fetzer

  "I didn't mean for it to come out like that, but I also know you're scared out of your mind."

  She lifted her chin, staring him down with eyes gone hard as bottle glass. "I've lived my entire life scared, Nash. Scared when my father went off to work that he'd never come back. Scared that when I was a teenager he wouldn't tell me all I needed to know about being a woman and I'd make terrible mistakes. And when he died, I was numb with fear—I was alone. I had no one who'd cared." Her eyes burned and she couldn't look at him anymore. She didn't want his pity. She wanted him to understand.

  "I cared, baby."

  "Oh, yeah, sure you did," she threw at him bitterly. "You cared so much you walked right out of my life and never looked back."

  His expression filled with pain. No wonder she'd let him get only just so close. He'd reinforced her darkest fears.

  "Michelle's been gone a long time." Her voice was soft and hurt when she said, "If you loved me so much, how come I never heard from you?"

  "I knew you'd gone on with your life, just as I knew you didn't want wounds opened again. Neither did I. We parted badly and I didn't hold out any hope."

  She looked at him. "But you never even tried!" she accused.

  "No. I didn't. I couldn't." His blue eyes hardened with the tone of his voice. "I have my girls to consider in everything I do, Hayley. They can feel tension when I don't even know it's there. And I knew seeing you again would have been hard on us both." If he'd so much as spent an hour thinking about her, the girls would feel it and say something. "You were my deepest regret."

  "And you were mine." She shook her head sadly. "I should have come to you and demanded an explanation. But I thought if you could leave so easily, what we had was only in my imagination."

  "It wasn't. I didn't imagine last night and the days before. I love you and I know you love me."

  "Of course I do."

  "Why are you fighting me, then?"

  "Because I don't have a choice."

  "We all have choices."

  She shook her head, angry with him. "You didn't know a damn thing about who I was years ago and you don't now."

  His temper rose and he reached for her hand. "Now there, you're wrong."

  She jerked free. "How could you know?" She scoffed. "Look at this place. It's a palace!" She threw her arms wide. "You have the American dream. You're good-looking, rich, powerful, respected and adored by all, plus you have two beautiful children. You've lived in the lap of luxury all your life, and I don't hold it against you, but because of it, you know nothing of how I've lived."

  "Dammit, Hayley, my memory isn't that bad."

  "You saw what I wanted you to see, wanted everyone except my sorority sisters to see. Have you ever gone hungry to pay for a class?" His features yanked taut. "I've lived on nothing but popcorn and caffeine because if my grade point dropped, I'd have lost my scholarships. Then in med school, I held three jobs to make the tuition for the next semester. I was scared I'd never finish my graduate studies and wondered if I was going to be cleaning toilets for the rest of my life because working so hard left me barely enough time to study!"

  "But that's over. You did it." He approached her, slowly as if she were a frightened animal and would bolt. "What are you so scared of now?"

  She didn't answer, her throat choking off her air and making her gasp over and over.

  He eased near, touching her chin and tipping her head back. "What, baby?"

  Fat tears rolled down her cheek. "I'm terrified that when I finally get my dream and can legally write MD after my name, that it won't be what I'd wanted all along."

  His brow knitted. "How come?"

  "To see you again, to love you and love your babies—" she gripped his upper arms "—it's all I'd wanted with you, everything I lost thrown in my face … and it's still out of my reach."

  Her anguish was a part of him, making him hurt for her, with her, and when he was trying to be patient and let her see what he could offer her, all she saw was what she could have had. Before he'd taken it away from both of them.

  "My God, Nash—" she searched his features "—don't you know if I could, I would stay?"

  His heart soared with hope. That was all he needed to hear. "Then I'll find a way, baby." His fingers trailed over her cheek, wiping away her tears before sliding into her hair. "I will. I swear it."

  At his touch a little whimper escaped her and she closed her eyes, trembling.

  "Shh." He bent, his lips near. "I will. Trust me."

  She kissed him, a tender trembling kiss filled with want and sorrow.

  "I have to go. No. I do, Nash. I do. Don't make me fight for you and my career, please." Oh, how easily she could give up ten years of work when he looked at her like that. "I need you, Nash, but I need this, too. I know I can't have both."

  Then he stepped back suddenly, his gaze narrowing. "I'd never stop you, Hayley. And I'm not sure I want a woman who is working all the time and whose career comes before love and family."

  Her chin lifted. "I thought family stood by you no matter what. I guess I was wrong."

  He paled.

  "This is who I am, who I need to be to like myself. I've made the sacrifices, Nash. I'm the one who loses every time. If you can't accept this much, then we can never be together."

  She swept past him, picked up her suitcase and walked out of his life.

  Nash stared at the empty kitchen, then dropped his head and closed his eyes.

  His chest burned so badly he could feel his heart breaking.

  Kate and Kim sat on the sofa and stared blankly at the TV, their eyes red from crying. They wouldn't speak to Nash. They blamed him for Hayley leaving and he couldn't fault them.

  "Hungry?"

  They glared at him.

  He sighed and grabbed his hat, striding toward the door when he heard Kate say, "She forgot about my tooth."

  The hurt in his daughter's voice brought him back into the room. "What?"

  "Miss Hayley said the tooth fairy would come twice. Since I live here but lost it at Grandma's."

  Nash took a risk and said, "Did you look?"

  Kate lifted her gaze.

  Nash's heart shattered again at the hurt in her eyes, her curled-down lip so like her sister's. She shook her head. He arched a brow, and when she took off for her room, stomping up the stairs, Nash swore he didn't move a muscle till she came back down. She showed him the silver dollar, and something twisted inside Nash.

  Leave it to Hayley not to forget anyone else but herself, he thought.

  "I'm never going to spend it."

  Nash sighed and knelt, aware of his mother and Mrs. Winslow standing in the dining-room doorway. "Honey, Hayley is a doctor and she has to do this for three years."

  "Did you make her go, Daddy?"

  His throat closed. "I wanted her to stay, honey, but she had to leave. You knew that from the start." And so did he, he realized.

  Kim walked up beside her sister. "Do something, Daddy. Make her come back." Her blue eyes filled with tears.

  "I can't." He hugged them and they sobbed in his arms. Nash picked them up and sat down on the couch with them. He cursed Hayley and her stubborn pride, and cursed himself for not seeing a way to fix this.

  The girls, having cried through the night, fell asleep, and he covered them and stood, walking into the kitchen. Mrs. Winslow stepped into the laundry room, closing the door behind her as Nash lifted his gaze to his mother.

  "I thought I raised a smarter son."

  "What do you want me to do, Mom? Leave the ranch to Jake and go live in Savannah?"

  "Hayley is so far in debt, Nash, she can't even think of stopping for anything, even love. She needs you more now."

  "I need her."

  "Then do something about it, for pity's sake."

  "What?"

  "Get her home."

  Nash dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and sighed. "Don't you think I've tried? I did everything but lay a red carpet before her."


  "Money isn't everything. Telling her what you can offer her is different from making it happen. And you're a fool to think she should put her residency on hold, especially when she's still paying for that tuition. She's honor bound to those obligations first. And your time with Michelle ought to tell you that honor and duty can make a person do some stupid things."

  His features tightened.

  "She's sacrificed more than you and I could ever imagine to get where she is. A life together isn't always fifty-fifty. You need to give a little more."

  I've made the sacrifices, Nash, she'd said. I'm the one who loses every time.

  Nash stared without really seeing, then grabbed his hat, jamming it on as he strode out the front door.

  Grace raced after him. "What are going to do?"

  "Bring my woman home," he said, and climbed into his truck.

  Grace smiled. "That's my boy," she whispered as he drove away in a cloud of dust.

  Nash found her on the maternity ward, wearing blue scrubs and looking every inch the doctor she was. A nurse stood near, waiting for her to finish writing on a chart.

  "Hayley." Her head jerked up, her gaze slamming into his. The chart faltered in her grip.

  "Nash." She swallowed, absently handing the chart to the nurse. "What are you doing here?"

  He glanced at the people lingering, then walked to her. He stopped a few feet from her, his arms fairly throbbing to hold her. "Can we talk?"

  Hayley gazed up at him, the pain of being apart filling with her love for him. She nodded and gestured to the empty waiting room. Then she faced him.

  "You don't look so hot," he said. She looked sad and exhausted, dark circles beneath her eyes, and she was thinner.

  "Neither do you." She was about to sweep his hair off his brow, then decided it was best not to touch him. But, oh, how she missed him.

  He took a step closer and tossed his hat on a chair. When he spoke his voice was low and raspy. "I can't go on like this."

  "Nash—"

  "No, let me just say what I have to say." He drew a breath. "The girls are miserable. I'm no good to anyone and the plantation isn't the same, honey."

  "I can't come back. You know it." Her eyes stung and she blinked. "What do you want from me? To give up my career that I've worked for all these years to have? You said yourself you need someone there for you and the girls. I can't give you that."

  Tears filled her eyes and spilled.

  "I can give it all to you, honey."

  She shook her head. "It's my debt and my problem."

  He reached out and brushed her hair off her forehead. "Baby, you've been on your own for so long you don't know how to let someone else take part of the burden. Let me show you. Let me be the one. Trust me not to hurt you and to do what we have to so we can be together."

  Hayley felt as if she was teetering on the edge. Do it, let him, a voice chanted. Share with him. She'd been utterly miserable for the past few days and could barely concentrate for the sound of her breaking heart. She'd never given anyone her troubles. She'd never had the chance, and it just wasn't in her to spread her problems or ask another to take them.

  "I've made some changes so you don't have to give up a thing."

  Her brows tightened. "What did you do?"

  "I paid off your loans. No," he said when she tried to speak, "just listen. Let me do this. It puts us a step closer. Or don't you love me?"

  "Yes, I do," she whispered. "I love you so much it's killing me to look at you."

  He sighed, his lips curving for an instant. "That's one thing out of the way. Now I know you have to do your residency, but who says it has to be here?"

  "What do you mean?" Her heart started to pound.

  "I spoke to the head of this hospital and chief of medicine at the County Hospital in Aiken. They agreed. You can do your residency there. They have the best OB/GYN in the state, if that's what you need. And you can work with Dr. Swanson at his practice. He's retiring in two years and he wants you to think seriously about taking over his patients then."

  Hayley couldn't speak. She could be a country doctor and be with Nash. She had the urge to suddenly pinch herself. He'd said to trust him, that he'd find a way, and until this moment, she didn't think anyone could move so many mountains. And never for her.

  When she didn't say anything, Nash moved within an inch of her, his tall form crowding her. "I'm not doing this for control or for any other reason than I love you and I need you. I lost you once because I couldn't see how important being a doctor was to you. And all you wanted was a little time. I'm not about to make the same mistake again. I love you, Hayley. I have since I met you. I'm doing this because I can't survive without you." He took her hand, pulling it to his lips. "Marry me."

  "Marry us, Miss Hayley."

  She turned sharply and found the twins standing near the glass doors.

  Nash still held her hand, and when she looked back, he slid a diamond ring on her finger.

  The water-clear stones took her breath away.

  "You belong with us. Marry us poor lonely Rayburns, sprite. Make us a family."

  Nash stared, waiting, his breath locked in his lungs.

  Hayley choked out a sob, then another, throwing her arms around his neck and whispering, "Yes, yes!"

  The girls cheered and flew to them, their little arms wrapping around Nash and Hayley's legs.

  Nash crushed her, squeezing his eyes shut, relief and rapture enveloping him. "Oh, honey," he rasped. "You don't know how you saved me."

  Hayley smiled against the curve of his throat, her happy sobs mixing with the sweet joy spinning through her. She did know. His love rescued her, kept her hope alive, and when she let her fingers sink into Kim and Kate's hair, her heart swelled tenfold. Oh, yes. She had it all, every dream she'd had as a kid, as a grown woman trying to find a spot where she belonged. Here it was, in Nash's arms, in Nash's heart.

  She was truly a happy woman. How could she not be?

  Her family was here.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  « ^

  Five years later

  Nash strode down the hospital corridor, his son tucked under his arm and squirming to be let down. His daughters trailed behind him, their heels clicking on the quiet ward floor like the tap of a small hammer. He paused, glanced back and let his gaze drop meaningfully to their boots. They tiptoed the rest of the way down the hall.

  He stopped before an office door, knocking, then swinging Alexander across his shoulder. The boy giggled and kicked his feet, nearly catching Nash in the jaw.

  Hayley swung around as Nash strode in and dropped Alexander into the patient chair before her desk.

  "You're not ready," he said as if he'd known. He crossed to kiss her, a deep kiss of strong love as he slipped his arm around her waist.

  "Oh, I needed that," she said on a moan.

  "There's more where that came from," he murmured, giving her a devilish smile.

  She glanced past him to their children. Alexander was investigating the desk drawer, and Kate caught him before he made it to the supply cabinets. "Do I have to make a date to get some privacy with you?"

  "Let's wear 'em out," he said.

  She smiled. "Deal. I just have to get these notes down." He let her go, and turning away, she spoke into the Dictaphone as she shrugged out of her lab coat, then opened her closet and pulled out something to wear.

  "Mom, come on. We'll be late!"

  Hayley glanced at the twins. They looked so cute in their riding outfits. So adult. "I'm hurrying. Close the door." The girls stepped inside and Hayley finished her dictation, switched off the machine, then slipped behind the patient screen.

  "Are you ready for this?" he asked, peering around the screen and watching her slip out of her dress. Nash admired her body and wanted to get his hands on all that skin. Her breasts were fuller, her hips a little rounder, but she still turned him on like a floodlight.

  "No." She pulled on jeans and a blouse.
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br />   "Me, neither. Alexander, simmer down," Nash said with a stern look at his son when the child bounced in Hayley's desk chair. Alexander settled and smiled at him, and Nash's heart overflowed with love for his son.

  "I tell myself that they are trained and ready, but I just keep remembering the grown men I've put back together after a rodeo."

  "Don't worry, Mom," Kate said, and Hayley's heart jerked just as it did every time the twins called her that.

  Hayley pulled on her boots. "Not in the mom manual. If fact, it's required." She swiped on some lipstick and ran a brush through her hair before stuffing her clothes in a duffel. She slipped around the screen.

  "We promise not to get hurt," Kim said.

  Hayley smiled. "That's what you said the last time. Just do your best and you'll be fine."

  Handing Nash the duffel, she lifted Alex in her arms, kissed him noisily, then grabbed the black medical bag from the high shelf before heading to the door.

  The family filed out, trotting down the hall. Hayley paused to give last-minute instructions to the nurse on duty, then signed out, hoping tomorrow at her offices' would be less hectic than at the hospital.

  "Got your beeper? Your cell phone?" Nash asked, and she smiled. She could never survive without him. He was truly her partner.

  "Good luck, girls," the staff called, and the twins thanked them, then took their little brother from their mother and raced toward the elevators.

  Hayley sagged against Nash.

  He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Tired?"

  "No, not really." She tipped her head to look at him. "How can I live in the same house with you and still miss you?"

  "Auction season, baby, and—" he lowered his voice "—I plan to change that tonight."

  Hayley smiled and paused at the elevator doors to kiss him.

  "Mom," Kim called, hitching Alexander on her hip. "Put a fire under it."

  Hayley grinned, and she and Nash dashed into the elevator before the doors closed.

  "Oh, you're hired, sir," she moaned as his hands massaged over her naked spine, fingers digging deep.

  Nash chuckled. Didn't she know how much pleasure it gave him to see her relaxed and happy?