For Richer or Poorer

by JoAnn Ross

  Then, blessedly, it had happened.

  The massive, upward jolt beneath her feet had hurled Blythe into Gage. They were both thrown violently to the ground. The strange, suspended moment had been shattered.

  But not forgotten.

  “You have dirt on your face,” Gage said now. The hand that had tangled in her hair brushed against her cheek. It was a rough hand, calluses on calluses, that felt like the finest grade sandpaper against her suddenly hot skin.

  “It probably happened when I landed in the flower bed.”

  “Probably.” His fingers slowly trailed down the slanted line of her cheekbone, around her jaw, creating an ache that went all the way to the bone.

  “I can still feel you,” he said on a rough voice that thrilled Blythe far too much for safety. “Lying beneath me, all soft and warm.” His hand moved down her neck, his thumb measuring the rapid jump of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. “You felt good, Blythe.” Too good, a vague little voice of conscience reminded him.

  “You shouldn’t talk to me that way.”

  She fisted her hand against the front of the dress shirt that had, only hours earlier, been as pristinely white as her wedding gown and was now filthy. Whether she was fighting herself or him, Blythe did not know.

  “Do you know,” he murmured, ignoring the soft protest they both knew she did not mean, “that I’ve been wanting to kiss you since that first day you showed up at my boat.” Gage realized he should be heartsick about the loss of the sloop. Formerly owned by a drug kingpin, he’d bought the boat for a just barely affordable price at DEA auction. It was mortgaged to the top of its mast and even if the insurance company did pay up, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover his losses.

  But how could he complain when the same quake that had scuttled his home had also thrown Blythe Fielding into his arms?

  “I didn’t know you felt that way,” she lied, recalling all too well that stunning moment on his deck, when their eyes had first met and they’d both suffered that same strange jolt of recognition.

  “Of course you did.” His tone, as he called her on the blatant falsehood, was as reasonable as it had been when he’d been arguing with Cait earlier in the hospital. But it was ever so much warmer. More intimate. “I’ve been working for you for what, a month now?”

  “Twenty-eight days.” Heaven help her, she’d actually counted. And not just to keep track of daily expense payments.

  “That long.” His lips quirked. “I’ve always been known for my patience,” Gage said, telling Blythe nothing she didn’t already know. She’d come to admire the way he methodically combed through dusty old file clippings and microfiche archives. “But the way I see it, twenty-eight days thinking about a kiss is about twenty-seven days too long.”

  The pull was irresistible. With only the faintest touch, he drew her closer, until they were touching—thighs to chests. “I think it’s past time I got this out of my system.” His dark head slowly lowered. “Out of our systems.”

  5

  BLYTHE TRIED TO THINK of all the reasons why she should back away, now, while she still could. First and foremost being that she was engaged to another man. That if the earthquake hadn’t happened, she’d be on her way to Maui right now.

  But even knowing that what she was about to allow was terribly wrong, Blythe stayed where she was, watching, transfixed, as Gage’s firmly cut mouth lowered toward hers.

  He nipped lightly at her lips. Once. Twice. Then again, giving her ample time to back away. She should stop him, Blythe told herself as a slow, sweet ache curled through her. She would stop him. Soon.

  Her mouth was everything he’d known it would be. Warm. Generous. And so painfully sweet. Gage cupped his fingers on the back of her neck, holding her to the kiss he had no right to steal. But there was no need. Blythe’s soft lips parted on a tiny moan of pleasure, inviting him to deepen this wicked, wonderful kiss that both knew to be as inevitable as it was forbidden.

  They kept their eyes open—him watching her, her watching him. His pale blue eyes were fierce, revealing a dark, dangerous side of him Blythe had never seen before. Hers were wide, so dark as to be nearly black, and laced with a reckless passion that, although she’d never—ever—felt it before, seemed strangely familiar.

  Her breathing quickened. Her hands crept up his chest to link together around his neck. Displaying that inordinate patience she’d come to expect, he began driving her slowly crazy.

  His lips teased. Tantalized. Tormented. She’d kill him for this, Blythe vowed as she finally allowed her eyelids to drift shut. If she didn’t die first from unrequited need.

  “Dammit,” she complained shakily, wanting—needing!—him to relieve the tension that was building up inside her like a pressure cooker, “if you’re going to kiss me, do it.”

  She pressed closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest. “Stop torturing me this way.”

  Gage needed no second invitation. As her mouth turned hot and avid, his turned rough and ruthless, taking what he wanted, then demanding more.

  His lips crushed hers, his teeth nipped at the tender skin, his greedy tongue invaded the dark recesses of her mouth in a way that had her meeting him, primal demand for primal demand, heat for heat. A host of wildly primitive urges were beating hotly in her bloodstream, causing her to dive headlong into the kiss.

  Although she’d never been a publicly demonstrative person, if Gage wanted to drag her down onto the floating wooden dock and take her right here, right now, Blythe knew that she would not do a single thing to stop him.

  As his heart pounded painfully in his chest, as heat pooled thickly, achingly in his loins, Gage wondered what it was about Blythe Fielding that stimulated such mindless, uncontrollable passion.

  He wanted to rip those ugly green hospital scrubs off her, he wanted to touch, to taste, every fragrant inch of her hot, moist flesh. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her and take them both to some dark, secret place where reason disintegrated and passion ruled.

  Gage knew it was dangerous to want a woman like he wanted Blythe. He knew it was madness to need a woman like he needed Blythe. The problem was, he had never feared danger. And, if this was madness, Gage would take it over reason any day.

  Another aftershock sent the dock swaying. Caught up in the power and fury of the shared kiss, neither Gage nor Blythe noticed. She opened her mouth and tasted his hunger. It thrilled her. She opened her heart and felt his need. It almost made her weep.

  As his hands moved roughly up and down her sides, from her shoulders to her thighs, caressing her full curves, gripping her hips as if wanting to pull her inside him, Gage realized she was everything he’d been dreaming of, without having realized he’d been dreaming.

  As he feasted hungrily on the sweetness of her parted lips, he knew she was everything he’d been hungering for, without having realized he was starving. She was all he’d ever craved.

  And she was taken.

  Although it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, Gage dragged his mouth from hers.

  She murmured a faint, incoherent protest.

  This time they both felt the unstable earth beneath the marina tremble. If Gage’s legs hadn’t already been widely braced—the better to pull her into his heat—if he hadn’t been holding onto her, they’d have fallen into the water.

  Which might, Gage considered with a saving burst of self-directed humor, cool them off. Or, more likely, set the harbor boiling. He reluctantly broke away, more for his sake than hers.

  Shaken by internal forces even more powerful than the mightily external ones that were wreaking havoc on the city, Blythe stared up at Gage. What had she been thinking of, passionately kissing another man while her fiancé labored to put broken bodies back together again?

  Gage viewed the guilt flooding into her eyes and realized he’d been the one to put it there. “I didn’t force that kiss on you.” He cursed inwardly as he heard how stupidly defensive he’d sounded.

  Although
she was inexplicably near tears, Blythe used every ounce of her acting skills to portray a calm she was a very long way from feeling.

  “I didn’t say you did,” she reminded him with a toss of her dark head.

  “I’m not going to apologize.”

  Blythe welcomed the burst of irritation caused by the way he was rejecting what they’d just shared. “I wouldn’t think of asking you to.” She lifted her chin. “It’s been an extremely emotional day. I suppose it’s inevitable for people under such stress to behave irrationally.”

  The way he was standing there, inches away, staring down at her, was making her increasingly uneasy. She wondered if he’d used that strong silent treatment on criminals back in the days when he’d been a cop. It was definitely proving more effective than bright lights and rubber hoses.

  “I mean—” she, who’d never babbled in her life, began to talk too much and too fast, “—during your days on the police force, you undoubtedly observed similar behavior. During the riots, perhaps. Or the wildfires.”

  She combed her hand through her tangled hair in a gesture he’d come to recognize as nerves. “And surely during the ‘94 earthquakes you witnessed several—”

  “Blythe.” He caught her hand as it took another sweep through the dark waves. “I get the point.”

  “Oh.”

  Watching the color rise in those incredible, knife-edged cheekbones, Gage found himself struck with a need to comfort. “Things have changed.”

  She knew he was not talking about the earthquake. “Not really,” she protested weakly. “As I was saying—”

  Before she could finish what they both knew would be a lie, his head swooped down and he gave her a brief, hard kiss that rocked her.

  “Things have changed,” he repeated. “And we’re going to have to deal with those changes.”

  “I can’t.” Although she’d always been known for her composure, the complaint came out on a ragged wail. “Not now. My house has been reduced to a pile of bricks and broken glass and twisted water lines. I have to deal with the insurance company, not to mention having my film to worry about, and I’m going to have to plan another wedding—”

  This time he cut her off with a dark finger against her mouth. Gage didn’t want to hear about her marriage. He didn’t want to think of her going off to Hawaii, drinking Mai Tais decorated with little paper umbrellas and making love on the sand beside a tropical lagoon with that stuffed shirt doctor.

  What the hell did she see in the guy, anyway? Gage wondered, even as he reminded himself that it was none of his business.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to interfere with all your important plans. Not from Florida.”

  “Florida?”

  “I told you, I have a lead on Alexandra.” Was that alarm he viewed in those expressive dark eyes? Regret? “Remember?”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  His gaze skimmed over her, remembering all too painfully, how good, how right, she’d felt in his arms. Because he wanted to take her to the nearest hotel and finish this, Gage decided the time had come to distance himself from his dangerous attraction. For now.

  “We’d better get over to your house,” he said in that level, no-nonsense tone favored by cops all over the world. “And see if we can salvage any of your things. Before the inspectors slap a red tag on the place.”

  “What about you?” At least Blythe had her clothing. And her cosmetics. And hopefully, in the wall safe behind the Robert Reid impressionist painting of a young woman in a field of flowers, what few papers she had concerning Alexandra and Patrick remained safe and sound. Gage had lost everything he owned.

  “It’s only stuff,” he said with a careless shrug.

  She tried to imagine how it must feel to be bereft of everything but the clothes on your back and failed.

  “At least let me give you an advance,” she protested. “So you can replace some of the more important items right away,” she explained at his suddenly sharp look. “You’ll need things for your trip. Clothes, toiletries, spending money...”

  He stared at her for a long time, giving Blythe the impression that he was silently comparing their lifestyles. He was.

  Prepared for some acid comment, or worse yet, an accusation about the spending habits of wealthy women, he surprised her yet again by throwing back his head and laughing.

  “I hadn’t realized I’d said anything so humorous,” she said stiffly, feeling like a fool even as she didn’t exactly understand why.

  Gage couldn’t decide which Blythe Fielding he was more attracted to. The lush, hot-blooded siren who could match him passion for passion, or this cool, remote ice goddess whose acute business mind belied a body built for sin.

  “You didn’t.” Knowing it was a mistake, he caught her stiff chin between his fingers and held it to a soft, strangely tender kiss that sent streamers of silvery heat through her. “Not really. It’s just that you’re kind of cute when you’re being earnest.”

  No one had called her cute since her body had turned into that of a woman the summer of her thirteenth year. Even as she tried to be insulted by his chauvinistic behavior, Blythe found her lips curving upward.

  “Should I be insulted?”

  “Hey, I may just be an ex-cop turned P.I., but I do know enough not to insult a client.” The smile reached his eyes. He traced her lips with his index finger. “For the record, I don’t keep my money—what little there is of it—in a shoe box beneath my bunk, Blythe.

  “Except for fifty dollars in my wallet, the rest of my cash is sitting in an interest-bearing checking account at the Marina del Rey Citibank branch.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, meaning it.

  “I know,” he said, encouraged that she cared.

  Because he could not be this close to her without touching her, Gage reached out and linked their fingers together. And although it didn’t make a lick of sense, the easy, casual gesture felt both right and familiar.

  “This isn’t right,” she murmured, looking down at their hands and revealing that once again they were sharing the same thought.

  “Perhaps not.” His jaw firmed, the smile vanished from his eyes, turning them as hard as pale blue stones. “But right or wrong, when I get back from Florida, we’re going to finish it.”

  Still shaken by the passion that the reckless kiss had ignited, and confused by these feelings Gage Remington inspired, Blythe refused to answer.

  Extricating her hand from his larger, darker one, she returned to the waiting limo.

  As the car inched along, searching out detours on the drive to Beverly Hills, Blythe turned her attention out the window and reminded herself firmly that she was an engaged woman. These strange, unruly feelings for Gage would pass, Blythe assured herself. She would make them pass.

  * * *

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m doing this.”

  In the past twenty-four hours, not only had she experienced her first earthquake, she’d also further shaken up her life by allowing Blythe and Cait to talk her into cashing in her return ticket. Not that it took all that much convincing.

  “Name one good reason to go back east,” Cait argued after she and Lily exited her cherry red Mustang in front of Bachelor Arms. Blythe, who’d driven her own car from the hospital, had arrived seconds earlier and was waiting for them on the sidewalk. “And Bloomingdale’s doesn’t count.”

  “Since I don’t have any money to go shopping, Bloomingdale’s is a moot point.” Although she’d tried to keep her problems to herself, under Cait’s relentless interrogation, her tale of woe had finally come spilling out of her last night.

  “I didn’t like those snooty old Van Cortlandts when I first met them at your wedding rehearsal,” Cait muttered.

  “They’re only doing what they think is best,” Lily said, trying to find some reason for her in-laws’ behavior.

  “You’re overdoing the Mary Sunshine routine, Lily,” Blythe surprised both women by snapping. “If the Van Cortlandts were so damn go
od at raising a child, their son wouldn’t have turned out to have been a philandering son of a bitch and you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

  Both Lily and Cait stared at Blythe, surprised by her uncharacteristic flash of anger. She was usually far more tolerant.

  “It’s not that I don’t agree with you, because I do,” Cait said. “But you sound as if you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Blythe.”

  “In order to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, I would have had to have been there in the first place.” Blythe shook her head with lingering frustration. “I was up most of the night making lists for the insurance company.” That wasn’t exactly the entire truth. Blythe had returned home to discover that her house did, as she’d feared, have a red condemned tag on the front door. Fortunately, Gage, who knew the officers securing the area, had talked them into letting her inside to retrieve a few essential items.

  From there, Blythe had checked into a bungalow at the famed Château Marmont Hotel. The hotel had been offering privacy to its celebrity guests since 1929; the fact that Alexandra Romanov had stayed there when she’d first arrived in Hollywood made it even more appealing.

  What Blythe wasn’t prepared to admit was that she’d spent much of her first night in the bungalow staring down at the yellow legal pad, thinking of Gage Remington, remembering that strange moment when she’d been walking down the aisle, and as impossible as it seemed, their minds had melded.

  As disturbing as that memory had proven, she’d also spent far too many dark lonely hours, reliving, in agonizing detail, that wicked, wonderful kiss.

  And if all that hadn’t been upsetting enough, during those predawn hours when she’d actually managed to drift off, Blythe had been plagued by terrifying nightmares about Alexandra Romanov’s life. And death.

  She shook off a faint, lingering depression. “Moving here, away from those horrible Van Cortlandts, where you have people to support you is the right thing to do, Lily,” she repeated what she’d said when Cait had first told her of their friend’s untenable situation. “I only wish you could stay with me at the house.”