by Leanne Banks
“I’ll never sleep if I think about Ms. Hatcher.”
“I can make her go away,” he said in a voice liquid with sensual promise.
Amy felt something inside her shift and quiver. That last statement was the most seductive offer she’d had in ages. Talk about a dream come true. Make Ms. Hatcher go away. “I’ll think about it,” she told him.
“Name the date,” he said as if they could have been meeting for bagels and coffee. “And I’ll get it done.”
His casual tone belied the formidable look in his eyes, letting Amy know he would accomplish anything he set out to do.
“G’night,” he said, and brushed his fingers over her cheek before he walked out the door.
Her cheek burning from his touch, she lifted her hand to cradle it as she watched him walk to his car. A swirl of emotions spun her head round and round. She had joked about needing a husband to pass muster with Ms. Hatcher, but it had been strictly a joke. Or so she’d thought.
All her experiences with Justin had been odd from the beginning. He’d proposed marriage when she had thought a date with him would be nice. Her head began to throb. How could he be so calm? Surely he must be insane.
Pushing away from the doorjamb, she pinched the bridge of her nose. She had never pictured herself married. Then again, she hadn’t pictured herself mothering her sister’s three children either. Locking the door, she walked down the hall and peeked in on the twins. Jeremy’s covers were already kicked off and his thumb was tucked in his mouth. Nick slept on his tummy with his mouth open.
In sleep their rowdiness quieted and they looked so sweetly vulnerable. Amy’s heart caught. They’d lost so much at such a young age, she thought, feeling the grief from her sister’s death wash over her.
Amy tiptoed to Jeremy’s bed and pulled up the covers. She leaned down and gave him the softest breath of a kiss. He sighed, and she smiled.
Leaving the room, she closed the door behind her to check on Emily. Everything inside her tightened at the sight of the little girl. Emily clutched an old stuffed teddy bear in her hands. She was old enough to have a better idea of what she’d lost. Amy could tell Emily wanted so badly to please. Emily tried very hard to act like an adult, as if she could handle anything. It was almost as if she was afraid to cry, Amy thought, as if she didn’t trust the security of her situation enough to relax.
Amy kneeled beside Emily’s bed and gently stroked the little girl’s forehead. Although the idea chafed at her feminist conscience, Amy suspected Emily would benefit from a man around the house. The solidity and security offered by the right man could work wonders. But was Justin the right man? Amy wondered.
An image of Ms. Hatcher flashed through her mind, sending a cold chill through her. Amy frowned. These children needed her. They needed her love and stability, and they needed to belong to her.
Amy thought again of Justin’s proposal.
A long, long time ago, when she was much younger, she had dreamed of finding a man to love, a man who would provide a safe harbor from the bad stuff life threw at her or him. Then she grew up and realized she had to make her own safe harbor, her own security; and needing a man could actually make her more vulnerable instead of less.
Long before Amy became an adult, she’d preferred to pilot her own ship. The idea of sharing the helm unsettled her. It wouldn’t be her top choice.
She glanced again at Emily as she lay sweetly sleeping. Emily hadn’t gotten her top choice either, Amy thought, her sister’s death weighing heavily on her shoulders. Justin’s proposal dangled before her, alternately seducing and repelling her.
Justin’s phone rang at 6:00 a.m. Amy wanted to meet him after the kids left. She had called the school and arranged to go in late. Justin pulled into her driveway behind her Volkswagen and threaded his way through the obstacle course of Big Wheel toys on the walkway to her porch. Glancing at his watch, he rang the doorbell. He hoped to make it back to his house in time for the opening of the market. If he was going to bear some responsibility for three children, he was going to need to continue to make money.
Three children. His stomach turned. Heaven help him. Heaven had better help him, he thought, because this sure as hell hadn’t been his idea.
Amy greeted him at the door, her gaze wary, her smile absent. The thought struck him that he would have liked to see her smile. She led him into the den and waved her hand at the sofa.
Justin sat. She didn’t. She paced, the hem of her flippy skirt emphasizing the length of her bare legs.
“There are too many unanswered questions about your pro—” She faltered. “—suggestion that we marry.”
He noticed she couldn’t cough up the word proposal. If he’d had any secret romantic fantasies about marriage, he supposed he would have had a tough time with it, too. The only fantasy Justin had ever had about marriage was avoiding it. But since this was the deal from the big guy upstairs, Justin had no choice.
“What questions?”
“Where we’ll live, how long we’ll remain married, if you like children,” she said, looking at him sideways. “I have a feeling you don’t.”
Justin shifted in his seat. “I don’t dislike children. I haven’t spent much time around them. As to where we’ll live—”
“We need to live here,” she said. “The kids don’t need any further disruption in their lives. They’ve been through enough.”
He nodded slowly. “I’ll need a room for an office.”
“I have an extra bedroom,” she said and took a deep breath. “If we decide to get mar—” She stumbled over the words and shook her head. “If we decide to do this, I think we should do it for two years, then decide if we want to go our separate ways.”
Justin turned the terms over in his head. “That’s fine. I can get a prenup worked up to provide for you and the kids.”
Amy looked at him in horror. “Oh, no! I wouldn’t expect alimony or child support once this was over.”
He shrugged. “I think that would be best.”
She stared at him a long moment and realization crossed her face. “Oh, because it’s your mission?”
Her choice of words grated on him. Amy had the kind of voice that could bring men age three to ninety-three to their knees. And her body—Justin wasn’t on his knees, but he damn well wouldn’t deny she aroused a distinctly unmission-like response in him. “One of the reasons I was put on earth,” he corrected.
She nodded. “Okay. I think we need to keep the surprises to a minimum, so you need to know that I’m very independent and I don’t take orders or interference well at all.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, thinking of Amy’s interplay with Ms. Hatcher. “I’m not interested in interfering or giving orders. I’m here to provide you with a vehicle to get custody of your sister’s children and financial assistance.”
She gave a quick nod and looked at him uneasily.
“What else?” Justin asked, impatient.
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “We need to discuss sex.”
Four
Justin went completely silent. In odd random moments when he hadn’t been fighting the idea that this marriage would likely kill him financially, if not mentally, he’d thought about taking Amy to bed. It was no hardship to imagine her lithe legs wrapped around his hips and her full breasts massaging his chest while he thrust inside her. She lived her life so passionately he’d like to see how that passion translated in the bedroom.
Her brown eyes wide with a mixture of uncertainty and a sliver of forbidden curiosity, she twisted her fingers together. Despite her bravado, Justin saw the vulnerability underneath. “You’ve thought about sex?” he asked, rising to his feet. It occurred to him that his sanity could well be pushed to the brink living in such close proximity to Amy and not taking her for his own.
She bit her lip. “Uh, kinda, well, not really,” she quickly amended. “You can sleep in the extra bedroom. It can double as your office.”
Just
in studied her for a long moment. “We can change that later.”
Relief washed over her face. “Yes. Right, later. I mean, we haven’t even gone out on a date. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. We may not want each other,” she finished in an uncharacteristically breathless voice. She looked at him as if she’d just told the biggest whopper of a lie and prayed he wouldn’t call her on it.
Amy looked as if she’d just offered the biggest dare in the world and wanted to call it back. Justin wondered if the seductive images of sharing a bed with him ever danced across her mind. He knew from her covert, fleeting glances at his body that she was aware of him as a man. If she hadn’t felt she needed to save her sister’s children and then save the rest of the world, he suspected she might just let herself go. Even Amy must struggle with her needs.
He walked toward her and touched her chin. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he told her. “I want you. You want me.”
Her eyes widened and she swallowed audibly. “That’s a little arrogant, don’t you think?”
He shook his head. “It’s not arrogance when it’s the truth. You have a body that could stop and rewind the clock of every man in St. Albans.”
Amy felt the tiniest ripple of pleasure, but told herself not to be flattered. “There are lots of bodies.”
“Yes, but not all move like yours,” he said.
He’d noticed the way she walked. By the look in his green gaze, he’d noticed quite a bit more. Her heart skipped.
“You have a fire inside you. It shows in your eyes, in your voice, in lots of ways. Men have always liked to play with fire.”
The visual of Justin, naked, touching her, made her feel suddenly hot. Before she knew it, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth over hers. He rubbed his lips from side to side, then slid his tongue inside. She was both shocked and mesmerized by his boldness. He kissed her as if he were opening the doors and windows to a house that had been shut for months. For years?
Amy felt a dangerous delicious temptation to lean closer, to feel the sensation of his hard chest against her breasts, to feel more of him. Her heart hammered. Her mind scrambled. This was crazy. Too crazy for today. She had more important things to do, she told herself. The motivation for his proposal to marry washed over her like a cool spray from Nick’s water gun. She pushed away.
“This is not the reason you want to marry me,” she said. “Technically, you don’t even want to marry me,” she reminded him and herself. “You want to marry me because you think it’s your mission.”
“One of the reasons I was put on the earth,” he corrected in a curt voice, his eyes as turbulent as her emotions.
“Whatever,” she said. “You didn’t suggest we marry because of your overwhelming love and passion for me. I won’t pretend that you did.”
“Just as your agreement to marry me is not based on your feeling that you can’t live without me,” he said.
“I haven’t agreed.”
“You haven’t? Who’s pretending now?”
Amy scowled. At the moment, she didn’t like him. She didn’t like him at all for being right. “All right, dammit, I’ll marry you. For the children. I may be a little attracted to you, but that doesn’t mean I’m interested in going to bed with you,” she said, and tamped down her loud protesting inner voice of truth. “I have my priorities straight here. I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. I’m not marrying you to save me or take care of me. I learned a long time ago to do that for myself.”
His eyes darkened. “Then we’re well-matched. I learned the same lesson.”
A dozen questions flitted through her mind. What had forced Justin to learn the same hard lesson she had? She burned to ask.
Justin glanced at his watch. “Speaking of priorities, I need to go. The market opens in fifteen minutes. When do you want to get married?”
Her head spun with his businesslike tone. “I’m not sure. Friday or Saturday,” she said. “Or next week,” she added at the same time she knew the sooner she did the deed, the sooner she would gain custody.
“I’d rather not do it during market hours,” Justin said.
Amy nodded. She may never have envisioned herself as Cinderella, but this was a little chilly for even her. “Saturday, then,” she said, grimly reminding herself this was for two years. She would do just about anything for two years to keep her sister’s children safe.
“Saturday. I’ll be in touch,” he said and walked out the door.
Amy could have sworn she felt the weight of a noose settle around her neck.
Amy and Justin met downtown for blood tests and to make application for the marriage license. Before she knew it, Saturday arrived. Amy broke into a sweat. What was she doing!
Emily knocked on Amy’s bedroom door and bounded into the room. She jumped onto Amy’s bed, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “We’re getting married today!”
Amy gulped and mustered a smile. “Yes, we are.”
“Do you want me to make pancakes for breakfast?”
Amy’s stomach shrank at the thought. “Oh, that’s a lovely offer, but I’m so excited I don’t think I could eat.” Excited wasn’t the most accurate word choice, but Amy refused to quibble with herself this morning. “Could you make pancakes another time?”
Emily dimpled. “Yeah, when Justin moves in.”
Amy’s stomach twisted. “Right. Great idea,” she said and rose from the bed. “You chose your dress last night and the boys’ clothes are laid out on their beds. How would you like your hair?”
“Ponytail,” Emily said. “With a ribbon?”
“Can do,” Amy said, grabbing a brush from the bureau.
Emily stood in front of her staring into the mirror as Amy brushed her hair. “Are you going to wear a long white dress like my Barbie doll has?”
What to wear had been the last thing on her mind. “Uh, no, sweetie. People who wear long dresses have usually planned their weddings a long time in advance.”
“Longer than a week?” Amy said.
Try four days, Amy thought. “Exactly.”
“Then what are you going to wear?”
Amy still didn’t know. Her brain felt as if it were playing hopscotch. Guessing at Justin’s ring size, she’d bought his gold band yesterday. She’d ordered a few flowers from the florist which she planned to pick up on her way to the judge’s chambers. She hoped ice cream and the sheet cake she’d bought from the bakery would distract the children from the lack of true emotion surrounding the occasion.
Emily tugged on her sleeve. “What are you going to wear?”
Still at a loss, Amy smiled. “A surprise,” she said, and it would be a surprise to herself, too.
“This is what you call a family emergency?” Dylan asked as he entered the hall outside the judge’s chambers.
“Any wedding would be to me,” Justin said. He’d spent most of the night arguing with the Almighty, trying to convince Him that Justin was not a good choice for this job. It was the strangest coincidence. The thunderstorm had gotten louder and louder the more Justin had argued. When he finally shut up in defeat, so had the storm.
Coincidence, he told himself again, but he knew what he had to do. Marry Amy Monroe.
“I still don’t understand this. You made a deal with God.” Dylan shook his head. “Are you sure they didn’t mess up your anesthesia during your emergency surgery? Maybe your brain was affected—”
“You’re here to be a witness,” Justin said. “If there’s one thing I don’t need right now, it’s a psychoanalysis from St. Albans’s numero uno babe magnet.”
“Okay, but I have to ask, are you sure she isn’t marrying you for your money?”
“I told you. This is not about money. It’s about custody.” He glanced up and felt a slight easing at the sight of Michael and his wife, Kate.
Michael wore an expression of subdued admiration. “You sure know how to take the fuss out of a wedding. No church, no reception.”
“Cheap,”
Kate added with disapproval.
“Expedient,” Justin said, grinding his teeth. “Thank you for coming.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Kate said as Amy rounded the corner balancing a bouquet, and holding a hand of each twin. Dressed in a pink frilly dress with a slightly lopsided ponytail, Emily brought up the rear with a miniature bouquet.
Justin’s heart stopped. Amy was dressed in a cream-colored lace dress that whispered and sighed over her curves with a hem that kissed her shapely calves. Her hair was pulled up in a topknot with a spray of baby’s breath, but a few unruly curls escaped. Her cheeks flushed, she gnawed on her bottom lip in nervousness. She was his bride. The knowledge filled him with surprising warmth.
“The children are adorable,” Kate whispered.
Dylan cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me she was—”
Justin blinked. “Was what?”
Dylan shrugged. “Well, hell, she’s stacked better than the City Library. I gotta tell you,” he said with a nudge. “This marriage may not be such a hardship after all.”
He had no idea, Justin thought. Amy’s gaze finally landed on him, skimming over him from head to toe, then returning to his eyes. If her eyes could talk, they would have said “Are we insane?”
He walked toward her. “You look beautiful,” he said, instinctively taking her chilled hand in his.
“Thank you,” she said, her gaze dropping to his shirt collar. “You look very nice, too.”
He sensed she was trying to hide her apprehension.
“Emily helped,” she said.
“You look pretty, too,” he said to the little girl.
Emily grinned hugely. “Do you like our flowers?”
“They’re almost as pretty as you.”
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Nicholas said, shifting from one foot to the other.
Jeremy tugged at his collar. “Aunt Amy says we get cake and ice cream when we get home.”
Amy gave a pained smile. “The reward system at work.”