He lifted a brow, challenging, “Or ever will be for that matter?”
Ginger didn’t know what to say to that.
In the end it didn’t matter.
Rand simply looked at her, a world of hurt and disappointment in his eyes. “Point made,” he said quietly.
And then he walked out.
Chapter Fourteen
“And that’s it?” Michelle asked from across the law firm conference table two days later, her expression inscrutable. “Rand just grabbed his laptop and left?”
Ginger nodded and settled even deeper into her chair, aware she hadn’t felt this miserable in her entire life. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since. Hence, I wanted to let you know we would be coming to you for a marriage dissolution instead of a marriage contract.”
Suddenly she paused. “You don’t look surprised.” Ginger had half expected the happily married attorney to give her a lecture on sticking with it and seeing the problems through. Instead, Michelle was calmly making notes on the yellow legal pad in front of her.
“So what was it like before the big blow-up the two of you had?” Michelle asked.
“Great, actually,” Ginger admitted, a little mystified about that, too. How was it that things had gone from so wonderful, to so bad, that quickly?
Calmly, Michelle continued to take notes. “You were working on the terms of your marriage contract?”
Ginger nodded. “Trying to anticipate—and solve—any problems that could possibly come up in the future. Not that there were many in the present. We just naturally seemed to click as roommates. And lovers.”
Wow, had they ever clicked as lovers, she amended silently.
“But then what happened in the bedroom had never been the issue between us,” she continued, aware she needed a sounding board, and the quietly analytical attorney in front of her was as good as any. “That was good from start to finish.”
Michelle looked up. “And Rand seemed happy then, too?”
“Very. I mean, I’d never seen him so relaxed and...content, I guess. Before we hooked up, he was always using his passion to fight for one environmental issue or another. Then, when we realized the baby was on the way, everything sort of changed.” She sighed. “Our focus shifted more to each other and making things work than on either of our business goals. And once that happened...everything just seemed to fall into place.”
“Even when you had small differences of opinion on the actual terms of the marriage contract, the two of you were trying to hammer out?”
“That’s correct.” Ginger exhaled. “As furious as I was with him over not telling me that our mothers knew we were expecting a baby, I never thought he’d decide to end things just like that.” Ginger studied the levelheaded family law lawyer. “But you’re not at all surprised, are you?”
Michelle put her pen down. “You want me to be frank?”
“I do.”
“You and Rand were and are the exception to the rule.”
“In what way?”
“Most people enter into marriage thinking it’s going to be some fantastic fairytale. They don’t understand—or want to understand—what you and Rand intuited from the get-go. That marriage is a business, albeit a very personal one.”
Ginger blinked, still listening intently.
“In either situation, you first decide to throw in together. Then you draw up the contract. When, how, where you’re going to proceed. The day you get married compares to the day you go to the secretary of state to actually register your new business.”
Ginger reflected on the official legal start to their new venture. “That was an incredibly happy moment.”
Michelle smiled. “It is for everyone because it’s the beginning of the honeymoon period.”
That had been wonderful, too.
“But then the real work begins.” Michelle sobered. “Bylaws for the business—or in your case, the actual terms of the postnup and marriage contract—are drawn up. And let me tell you, no one ever agrees about those. It’s always a difficult process. There are always subtle but significant differences of opinion. In business, quarrels concern how much to spend on advertising or how much staff to hire...”
She cleared her throat. “However, in marriage, it’s usually an emotional issue, such as whether or not you should quit pretending to be in love and tell your families the real reason you got married when you did. Or whether Rand should have told you the moms had guessed you were pregnant, instead of moving to protect you the way he thought was right in that moment.”
It was clear Ginger and Rand had serious disagreements about those issues. But also true that their quarrel didn’t seem as significant today as it had when it had occurred.
Ginger studied the happily married woman opposite her. “You’re saying I should cut Rand some slack?”
Because Rand’s gallantry is one of the things I love best about him? One of the things I’ve come to count on the most?
The savvy attorney smiled knowledgeably. “I’m saying that whether in business or marriage, everyone always plans for when things go wrong.” She paused to let her words sink in. “No one ever plans for what happens when everything goes right.”
* * *
“SO IT’S TRUE?” Josie said to Rand when he tracked her down at the Boerne ranch two days after her visit to the cottage. He could see that surveying and staking was already under way. “You’re ending another marriage?”
Rand scowled at his mother. “I was hoping you’d give me some tender loving care.”
“Nope. Fresh out of that.”
“Seriously?” he quipped.
Josie looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, son. You’re being an idiot.”
Rand followed his mother over to her pickup. “She’s not ever going to love me, Mom.”
Josie grabbed a couple of bottles of electrolyte drinks from the cooler, and handed one to him. “Do you love her?”
What difference did it make? Rand wondered as he worked the cap off and took a long, thirsty swallow.
His mom quenched her thirst, too, then continued looking at him the way she had when he’d brought home a note from school saying he had misbehaved in some fashion. She had always wanted an explanation from him first, before passing judgment. She wanted one now, too.
Rand exhaled in frustration. “We were supposed to see our family law attorney today to hammer out the final details of our postnup and marriage contract. The appointment was made weeks ago.”
“Okay. And...?”
“Ginger sent me a text saying she was planning to attend without me, and that when she was there she was going to let Michelle know where things stood.”
“Which is where?”
“I don’t know. Over?”
Josie arched a brow. “Shouldn’t you be asking her that instead of me?”
“As you know, she’s pregnant.”
“So?” his mom asked.
“I don’t want to argue with her. Or upset her.”
Josie rolled her eyes. “And she couldn’t possibly be upset now, with the two of you not speaking to each other.”
Rand returned the sarcasm with equal vigor. “Is there a point to this cockeyed lecture?”
An indignant sniff. “I want to know why you aren’t at that meeting, too.”
“Because I do not want to go over there and be put in a position where I have to defend myself for doing what was right in the first place.”
“I see. So, bottom line, you’re afraid Ginger might disagree with you in front of the attorney, and hurt your feelings?”
Why did his mother persist in misunderstanding the entire situation, as well as his motives? “Because I’m—”
“Afraid?”
&n
bsp; “—pretty damn sure that Ginger is going to want to continue our marriage only as a means to an end. And while I might have thought it was an acceptable idea in the first place, I don’t anymore. Hence, I’m not going to pretend everything is right as rain, and drag out a union that is bound to end in another colossal failure.” Sighing roughly, he raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not like you and Dad and my brothers. I’m not good at figuring out who to spend the rest of my life with, Mom.”
His outburst was met with thoughtful silence. Finally his mom tilted her head and probed gently. “I’m interested. How did you come to that particular conclusion?”
Rand grimaced. “Easy. I married one woman who wanted me to give her everything money could buy.”
“And when you didn’t, that marriage ended, rightly so. Although had you asked me, I would have told you from the get-go she was a fortune-hunter.”
Rand turned a glance skyward and pleaded for patience. When he finally had it, he looked back at his mother. “Then I married a second woman—”
“Who doesn’t want your money or even any sort of family nepotism when it comes to her career, either.”
Rand paused to decipher that. “Ginger turned you down?”
Josie nodded. “In an email. She said as much as she would love to work with and learn from me, she couldn’t in good conscience accept a job offered her only because of family connections that were going to end anyway.”
His spirits plummeted yet again. “Did you disagree with her? Try to get her to change her mind?”
“No.”
He squinted. “Why not, if you believe in her?”
His mother let out a reluctant breath. “Because Ginger is right. If you two don’t work this out, she would never be happy working with me.”
So much for the pep talk he’d wanted, even if it had been as off-base as the rest of his life. He folded his arms in front of him. “Well, we’re not going to work it out.”
Another contemplative pause. “What makes you so sure of that?”
Same reason as always. “Because Ginger’s elusive to the core.”
“Independent to a fault.” Josie helped heap on the criticism.
“She’s never going to let me give her anything,” Rand railed. “Not commitment or security or—” He stopped.
His mother smiled and, guessing exactly where he’d been going with that rant, delivered her final blow.
“Love?”
* * *
GINGER WAS BACK at the cottage, trying to figure out what her next step was going to be, when a knock sounded at the door.
Rand stood on the other side of the screen door.
He looked resolute. Handsome. Serious.
Her heart turned over in her chest at the sight of him standing there, clad in one of the button-down Oxford-cloth shirts she had once enjoyed wearing so much.
“Hey,” she said softly before she could stop herself or think of a better opening to what she wanted and needed to say.
He smiled at her and, lips set stubbornly, opened the door and strode inside the honeymoon cottage where they’d begun their married life. Languorously, he crossed to her side. “How did your appointment with Michelle go?”
It was a simple question. Packed with emotion, beneath the masculine reserve.
She let her glance caress the long muscular legs, encased in soft faded denim, his equally worn boots. Remembering how much she loved every part of his strong, tall body, she returned her gaze upward, over the hard musculature of his chest and neck, to his face.
She took a bolstering breath. “I wanted to talk to you about that.” Wanted to do a lot of things, in fact.
Another flicker of indiscernible emotion appeared in his midnight-blue eyes. He came closer, wrapped an arm around her waist, then put a silencing finger to her lips and said gruffly, “First, I need to say a few things.”
Ginger splayed her hands across his chest. “Okay.”
He looked at her with sincerity and regret. “I haven’t been honest with you. So in a way, you’re right. I have disrespected you this whole time by not leveling with you.”
It helped to have him admit that, even as the knowledge filled her with fear. Ignoring the sudden wobbliness of her knees, Ginger urged, “Go on.”
“I know what I said about it being only a temporary, heat-of-the-moment kind of thing the first time we landed in bed together.”
She had pretended the same.
“But the truth is,” Rand confided hoarsely, gazing into her eyes, “I never wanted a no-strings, easygoing affair with you. I was just humoring you, and telling you what I thought you wanted to hear.”
Her heart clenched. “As a means to an end.”
“Maybe.” He paused, reflecting. A mixture of mischief and irony turned up the corners of his lips. “Because I did want to see you again and I figured downplaying what had happened between us was the only way that was going to happen.”
His deadpan humor was infectious. “You’re probably right about that,” Ginger returned dryly. She’d been shaken to the core by the intensity of the passion they’d felt. Still was.
Rand tenderly cupped her face in his large hands. “But mostly it was because I let my pride and my fear of failing at another relationship get in the way.”
Ginger tipped her head up to his. “I’ve been apprehensive about putting myself out there again, too. Which is,” she explained, “the only reason I ever considered a continuous string of one-night stands with you. Because I was afraid to look any more forward than the moment we were in.”
“But the truth is—” he admitted, his voice a sexy rumble “—from the very first time I set eyes on you, I knew in my gut that I was never going to be satisfied with that. I’m a one-and-only-one-woman kind of a man. And the one woman I want in my life is you, Ginger Rollins-McCabe.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks as she thought about how much time they had lost, how abandoned she’d felt the past couple of days. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He searched her face with quiet intensity. “Because I knew how much you prized your independence.”
“Maybe not so much anymore.”
He shushed her again. “I’m not finished.” His voice caught. “You’ve got to let me get this out.”
Her throat aching with pent-up emotion, she nodded.
“I don’t want to end our marriage,” he said, flattening a hand on her spine and bringing her closer. “And it’s not because we’re likely to be taken more seriously in business if we stay hitched, or because it’s what our families want, or even more importantly, because a two-parent home will be good for our baby...or any other children we may also choose to have—”
She grinned at the realization he was thinking ahead, again.
“It’s because there is no other woman in the entire world for me. It’s because,” he continued in a gruffly tender tone that lit her soul on fire, “you bring a joy and a contentment and an excitement to my life in a way that no one ever has before. I love you, Ginger Rollins, with all my heart.” He bent his head and kissed her sweetly. “And I have from the first moment we hooked up.”
The last few pieces of her broken heart mended at the realization they’d been on the same track all this time, they’d just been too stubborn and too wary to admit it.
Ginger kissed him back. “That’s good to hear.” She was crying in earnest now, so happy she felt she would burst. She wreathed her arms about his neck and went up on tiptoe, getting closer yet. She slid her fingers through his hair, wanting, needing, so much. But needing to give back, too. Her breath caught in a little hiccup. “Because I’ve learned a lot the past couple days, too.”
Rand listened intently, seeming to know that she had a lot to get off her chest, too. Bolstered, she told him with quiet
honesty, “I thought if we ran our marriage with the levelheaded efficiency a good business utilizes, that we could somehow protect ourselves from any future disappointments. But I know now, that’s not true. Every facet of life is messy and emotional.” Her lips trembled. “In the end, all the ups and downs and working things out, is what makes a relationship so strong. The struggle to get it right is what makes us grow, and I very much want to grow old with you.”
She tilted her face upward and kissed him again; he returned the caress just as lovingly. Then, with a contented laugh, she pulled back long enough to admit, “Which is why, I’ve now realized, I could never quite bring myself to finish that darn marriage contract. Because I sensed our life together was always going to be a work in progress. That we’d always be able to find a better, fairer, more loving way to do things. And that the day we ever declared ourselves ‘perfect’—”
“Was probably the day to go back to the drawing board?” he teased.
Ginger’s low chuckle mingled with his. “I haven’t said it, up till now, but I’m saying it today with all my heart and soul. I love you, Rand McCabe.” And to prove it, she kissed him yet again, even more passionately this time.
“I love you, too.” Rand hugged her fiercely, then buried his face in her hair. “So much.”
They clung together, bound by so much more than marriage vows and a baby on the way. “So we’re good?” Ginger murmured as the gladness in her heart grew by leaps and bounds.
“More than good,” he decreed firmly. “Ecstatic.”
Epilogue
Six months later...
“So what do you think?” Ginger asked, scrutinizing the newly hung sign. “Did it turn out the way you imagined?”
Rand appraised the bronze placard hanging from the curlicued metal arm just above the door: Rollins & McCabe, Environmentally Sound Oil Exploration. He turned to her and grinned. “It’s exactly the way I imagined it. No,” he corrected, pausing to kiss her tenderly, “it’s even better than I thought it ever could be.”
THE TEXAS WILDCATTER'S BABY Page 19