A Wife for One Year

by Brenda Harlen

  “I was talking to Josh,” he said.

  “I figured as much.”

  “So why are you annoyed about the phone call?”

  “Because he felt sorry for me,” she said again. “Because it was obvious to him—probably to everyone—that our marriage is a sham.”

  “I’ve got a piece of paper that says otherwise.”

  “The fact that it’s legal doesn’t make it real,” she countered.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve gone to a family wedding with me.”

  “It’s the first time with your ring on my finger.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  She shook her head. “You really don’t get it.”

  “Apparently not,” he acknowledged.

  “The difference is that there should be a difference...but there isn’t.”

  He’d always appreciated that Kenna didn’t tiptoe around issues or sugarcoat the truth. But right now, he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “Huh?”

  She sighed, clearly exasperated. Then she nodded toward the edge of the dance floor. “Look at Matt and Georgia,” she suggested. “They’ve been married for almost a year, but they can hardly keep their hands off one another.”

  He couldn’t deny that the couple were totally wrapped up in one another and oblivious to everyone else.

  “And Jack and Kelly,” Kenna said. “They exchanged vows more than six months ago and they’re expecting a baby in only a few weeks, but they’re still acting like newlyweds.

  “Then there’s Lukas and Julie,” she continued. “Of course, they are newlyweds, but they generate heat just looking at each other.

  “You and I, on the other hand? We’ve been married two weeks and have hardly spent ten minutes in the same room tonight.”

  He thought he finally got what she was saying. “You think I’ve been neglecting you?”

  “Everyone thinks you’ve been neglecting me.”

  “Since when do you care what anyone else thinks?”

  “Since the ‘anyone else’ is your family,” she said.

  As he glanced around, he saw that there were a lot of eyes focused in their direction. Because he and Kenna had been friends for so long, everyone knew who she was. But for most of them, this was the first time they’d seen her as his wife. And she was right—he was treating her the same way he’d always treated her, as if she was his best friend.

  Determined to compensate for his apparent neglect—and to answer some of the unspoken questions—he drew Kenna closer, so that her body was intimately aligned with his.

  Her breath caught. “What are you doing?”

  He lowered his head and her scent, something soft and feminine, teased his nostrils and stirred his blood. “Trying to apologize for being a neglectful husband.”

  “I doubt two minutes on the dance floor will fool anyone.”

  He brushed his lips over the shell of her ear. “I think it’s a good start.”

  She shivered, the involuntary response causing her breasts to brush against his chest. Looking down, he found himself staring into the shadow between them. Earlier he’d been too preoccupied admiring her long, shapely legs to notice that the low vee at the front of her dress provided a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage. He was definitely noticing now, and his blood began to pound, hot and heavy, in his veins.

  He’d decided he could play the part of the doting husband to satisfy his nosy family; he hadn’t expected that just holding Kenna close would wreak havoc on his body. He’d always thought of her as a friend first and a woman second. As a result, he’d sometimes forgotten the woman part—but with her soft, feminine curves pressed against him, he was definitely reminded now.

  He remembered the first time he’d looked into her eyes, how mesmerized he’d been to discover they were as clear and blue as the summer sky. And then there were those lips. She hadn’t bothered with makeup in high school, but she hadn’t needed any artificial enhancement to draw attention to the tempting shape of her mouth. The first time she’d smiled at him, he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

  At some point over the past ten years, she’d gone from being a beautiful girl to a stunning woman—and it was only recently that he’d finally noticed the full extent of her transformation.

  “I’ve taken you for granted, haven’t I?”

  “Probably.”

  “I don’t know that I really thought about what this marriage would mean for you, that you were putting your life on hold for me.”

  “For my sister,” she reminded him.

  “Becca was the reason you agreed so readily,” he acknowledged. “But you would have done it anyway, because you knew how important this opportunity was to me.”

  “Maybe.”

  He just looked at her for a long moment.

  “Probably,” she acknowledged.

  The last notes of the song were fading as she started to pull away. But he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. “People are still watching us.”

  “I think we’ve satisfied at least some of their curiosity.”

  A classic Bob Seger tune had more guests moving toward the dance floor, but Daniel still didn’t release her.

  “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “But I have to admit to having some curiosity of my own.”

  She eyed him warily. “About what?”

  “Kissing my wife,” he said, then lowered his mouth to hers.

  Too late, Daniel remembered the saying about curiosity killing the cat.

  For just a moment, she held herself completely still, not moving, not even breathing. Obviously she hadn’t anticipated his move and didn’t know how—or if—to respond. But then her lips softened beneath his, and in the very instant that Kenna began to kiss him back, he knew that one kiss wouldn’t be nearly enough. What he’d accepted as a simple and innocent curiosity was immediately swept away on the wave of desire that flooded his system. He thought he’d wanted only to kiss her; now he only wanted.

  He drew her closer, wanting to feel the press of her body against his. She didn’t resist. In fact, she all but melted against him. And when he touched his tongue to her lips, they parted willingly to grant him entry. He dipped inside, testing, tasting. She responded eagerly, her tongue dancing and dallying with his.

  His hand slid up her back, tracing the ridges of her spine through the thin fabric of her dress. His fingers sifted through the silky strands of hair to cup the back of her head as his mouth continued to plunder hers and his mind struggled to make sense of this new development.

  After more than ten years of being just friends, he was as shocked as he was aroused by this abrupt shift in his feelings. Or maybe it wasn’t so abrupt. Maybe the attraction had always been there, simmering beneath the surface but deliberately ignored.

  Certainly he’d noticed her the first day she arrived at Hillfield. Partly because she was new, and new kids were a rarity, especially in the upper grades. But mostly because she was female and hot and he’d been sixteen years old—a hormonally driven age when no one with breasts had been overlooked.

  His friends had noticed her, too. As unassuming as she tried to be, there was no way she could walk through the halls unseen. But she did a pretty good job of freezing everyone out and shooting down awkward advances.

  For the first few days, Daniel had mostly just watched her. But when Mr. Taylor had put them together as lab partners, he’d finally had a legitimate excuse to talk to her. He’d sensed that she was more wary than aloof, and he decided to bide his time before making a move.

  The day he’d finally managed to convince her to go out with him for pizza, he’d thought about trying to steal a kiss. But fate—in the form of Blake Mackie—had intervened, and he lost his chance.

 
Then they became friends, and he’d never had a female friend before. Aside from the fact that talking to a girl without mentally calculating the odds of getting her naked was a novelty, he found that he could talk to Kenna about things he didn’t talk to his male friends—or anyone else—about. After a while, it was just too weird to think about kissing her. In his mind, she had transitioned from a potential girlfriend to a real friend, which meant not only that he couldn’t make a move on her, but he wouldn’t let any of his friends, either.

  Right now, however, he wasn’t thinking about any of that old history. He was thinking only about the softness of her lips, the sweetness of her mouth and the unexpected passion of her response.

  He didn’t want to stop kissing her, except maybe long enough to peel away the dress she was wearing so that he could kiss her all over—down the smooth column of her throat, along the sexy slope of her shoulders, over the sweet curve of her breasts. He wanted to lick her nipples with his tongue and make her gasp, then suckle deeply and hear her moan. He wanted to part those mile-long legs and bury himself deep inside her; he wanted her arching and straining to meet him, thrust for thrust.

  And the wanting was so vivid and real, he almost forgot they were at his cousin’s wedding, still standing on the edge of the dance floor as people moved around them.

  Thankfully they were staying in the same hotel in which the reception was being held, which meant they could be in their room in about three minutes and naked in less than half that time again. And the prospect of getting naked with Kenna was irresistible.

  He eased his mouth from hers but continued to hold her close. “Why don’t we take this upstairs?”

  She looked up at him, those beautiful blue eyes dark and unfocused, proof that she was as turned on right now as he was. She touched her tongue to her bottom lip. “Upstairs?”

  “We have a king-size bed on the tenth floor,” he reminded her.

  Before she could respond to that, his phone vibrated inside his jacket pocket.

  * * *

  Kenna could feel the silent ringing of his cell against her hip. It was like a soundless alarm, awakening her from an erotic dream, and she was grateful for the interruption. Because while being in Daniel’s arms had felt like heaven, she couldn’t expect one kiss—as fabulous as it was—to exorcise all of her demons. And the prospect of sharing more than one kiss was both tempting and terrifying.

  Tempting because she wanted to explore the feelings he stirred inside her, and terrifying because she was afraid that going any further would lead only to disappointment and heartache.

  Daniel knew her better than anyone else in the world, and she trusted him more than she trusted anyone else. But there were still things he didn’t know about her, secrets she hadn’t shared with anyone and that she didn’t intend to reveal even to the man who was now her husband. Not because of any fault on his part, but because she wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to lay her soul bare. And so she could want and wonder about making love with Daniel Garrett until the sun came up, but it wasn’t going to happen outside of her fantasies.

  His phone hummed again.

  She drew in a deep breath and, silently praying that her wobbly knees would support her, took a step back, out of his arms. “You should get that.”

  “I won’t be long,” he promised.

  “It’s okay. I have to—” Several options raced through her scrambled brain: go to the ladies’ room, get a drink, jump off a bridge—preferably into a very cold lake—and definitely not think about the fact that locking lips with her best friend had totally shaken her world, but she finally seized upon “—go to the ladies’ room.”

  He nodded, his phone already in his hand, and she made her escape.

  She found the nearest facility and slipped inside, hopeful for a quiet, dark corner where she could catch her breath and get her suddenly rampant hormones under control.

  What she found instead was the bride and one of her sisters-in-law hanging out in the lounge area. Any hope that she might be able to sneak past and hide in a stall was dashed when Jackson’s wife—settled on one end of a velvet-covered settee and rubbing her swollen belly—caught her eye.

  “I didn’t have a chance to say more than a quick ‘hi’ when you passed through the receiving line,” Kelly said, “but you’re Daniel’s wife, aren’t you?”

  Kenna managed a smile as she nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  “Congratulations.” The bride offered her hand. “I hear you surprised the whole family with the Vegas elopement.”

  “Surprised is probably an understatement,” Kenna confided. “But we wanted to be married more than we wanted a wedding.” Then, realizing that she may have offended the bride, she hastened to add, “Although your wedding today was beautiful.”

  Julie’s chuckle proved she wasn’t insulted by the comment. “Lukas didn’t want a big wedding, either.”

  “Lukas would have got married in the middle of a three-ring circus if it was what you wanted,” Kelly interjected.

  The slow smile that curved the bride’s lips confirmed she knew this was true. “But it wouldn’t have been his first choice,” she clarified. “And while all I wanted was to become Mrs. Lukas Garrett, there was no way my mother was going to let me get married without all the bells and whistles, especially when I’d already committed the unforgivable sin of having a baby before she even knew that I was pregnant.”

  “I don’t think I heard that part of the story,” Kenna admitted, her curiosity piqued.

  “Another time,” the bride said, as her other sister-in-law—Matthew’s wife—lowered herself onto the seat beside Kelly.

  “Are you okay?” Julie asked.

  Georgia nodded. “My stomach’s just been a little unsettled lately.”

  The expectant mother looked wary. “Are you contagious?”

  “Maybe I should have asked you that question a few months back.”

  “You’re pregnant,” Kelly immediately realized.

  She nodded again, and the confirmation was met with squeals of joy and hugs all around.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Do the kids know?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Georgia explained, when they finally let her speak, “because we wanted to wait a little while longer before sharing the news. I’m only about eight weeks along, and no, the kids don’t know yet.”

  “Did you have morning sickness with your other pregnancies?” Julie asked.

  “With the twins, but not with Pippa.”

  “Maybe that means you’re having another boy,” Kelly said.

  “Or another set of twins,” Julie suggested.

  “Bite your tongue,” Georgia admonished.

  The bride grinned unrepentantly.

  “I thought morning sickness only happened in the morning,” Kenna said.

  “Unfortunately not,” Georgia said. “In fact, I’m usually fine in the morning and it’s not until later in the day that the nausea strikes.” She opened her purse to take out a package of dry crackers and a bottle of water.

  “I’m in awe,” Julie said. “I feel like I’m over my head with Caden sometimes, and you have twins just finishing kindergarten, a not-yet-two-year-old and now another baby on the way.”

  “We thought four was a good number,” Georgia said. “I know Matt couldn’t possibly love Quinn and Shane and Pippa any more than he already does—and his eagerness to formally adopt them and share his name proved that to me. But I wanted to have a baby with him, to share the connection of a biological child.

  “Of course, we were thinking we would wait until Pippa was a couple of years older, but fate obviously had other ideas.”

  “I want to have a baby with Lukas,” Julie confided. “I know Caden’s no
t even a year old and we’ve only been married a few hours, but I want a baby with my husband.”

  “Lukas would be a great father,” Kelly assured her.

  “He already is,” the bride said, before turning to Kenna to ask, “How about you?”

  “Me?” she squeaked, taken aback by the shift of the conversation in her direction.

  “I know you’ve only been married a couple of weeks,” Julie said. “But have you and Daniel talked about having kids?”

  She shook her head, immediately and vehemently.

  The other women chuckled.

  “Jackson and I planned to wait, too,” Kelly told her, continuing to rub gentle circles over her belly. “But things don’t always work out the way we plan.”

  The truth was, Kenna and Daniel had no plans for kids at all. Their only plan was a quiet and civilized divorce following their one-year anniversary.

  Two weeks down, only fifty more to go.

  “You know the saying ‘life is what happens when you’re making other plans’?” Georgia asked.

  At Kenna’s nod, she continued, “My twist on that would be ‘kids are what happen when they’re not anywhere in your plans.’”

  “I can attest to that,” Kelly agreed. “Twice now.”

  “Caden was an unexpected surprise, too,” Julie chimed in.

  Kenna smiled and ignored the longing that tugged at her heart. As much as she wanted a child of her own someday, she knew the chances of her and Daniel having a baby together were somewhere between nil and zero. Because babies weren’t born of platonic relationships.

  And one mind-numbing kiss on the dance floor aside, she didn’t see the nature of their relationship changing anytime soon.

  * * *

  Daniel ended his phone call and surveyed the reception area, looking for Kenna. Josh had given him some promising news and he was eager to share it with her.

  For the past ten years, she’d been the first person he wanted to call when he had good news, the one person he knew would always be in his corner when it seemed as if no one else was, and the only woman he’d considered proposing marriage to when he’d decided that was what he had to do. In fact, he hadn’t really considered marriage an option until he’d considered marriage to Kenna. Which made him wonder if he’d really married her because he wanted to get his hands on the money...or because he wanted to get his hands on Kenna.