Wife for a Day

by Patti Berg

  “I got you a welcome-to-Wyoming present,” he said, pulling a pale gold brushed leather coat with the same soft lambswool lining as his over the seat. “Thought you might need this.”

  She touched the leather as if it was priceless. Running her fingers over the off-white stitching, she forced back the tears that threatened. Gifts had been few and far between in her life. A Barbie doll from the Salvation Army. A pink feather boa from Syd. Kisses, hugs, and words of wisdom from her mama. She’d treasured every present, no matter how small.

  The coat overwhelmed her.

  Jack smiled when she looked up at him. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He nodded over the seat. “There’s more in the back.”

  Sam twisted around. Beneath the tattered bag belonging to Tyrone, sat a pile of forest green-and-burgundy paisley suitcases.

  “Those aren’t for me, are they?”

  “I figured you might be traveling a little lighter than the real Arabella, so I bought a few pieces of luggage and filled them with things you might need.”

  “I know I asked you for clothes, but you didn’t have to buy so much. A sweater and a pair of jeans would have been enough.”

  His brow rose. “That might be enough for you, but not for Arabella.”

  “As far as I can tell, no one knows much about Arabella. Couldn’t I just be me, dress like me, talk like me, and only be called Arabella?”

  “You could, but I’d prefer that you start acting like money’s no object. Lauren’s already getting nosy about our relationship.”

  “Why?”

  “She couldn’t understand why you felt so damn uncomfortable spending my money.”

  “It’s your money, Jack. Not mine.”

  “Then pretend it’s your money.”

  “I did pretend, remember? And you got mad when I spent it.”

  “It wasn’t the money that made me mad, and you know it,” he snapped. “I fully expect the woman I marry to spend my money.”

  “Well, you’re not marrying me, so don’t feel obligated to give me another thing.”

  “Fine. I won’t.”

  The sudden tap on the driver’s window brought silence to the inside of the cab.

  “Hey, Jack.” John Atkinson and the woman standing beside him peered into the truck. “Are you having car troubles?”

  “Ah, hell!” Jack sighed in frustration, then rolled the window down a mere three or four inches. “The truck’s fine, John. We’re just waiting for it to warm up.”

  “That’s good,” John stated. “Want to reconsider joining Fay and me at the Holiday Inn?”

  “Not tonight.”

  A moment later, Fay’s eyes came into view. “Hi, Jack.” Her gaze trailed to Sam’s face. “You must be Arabella.”

  Sam nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Fay. Did you have a nice trip to California?”

  “Wonderful. I could show you pictures of my grandchildren if you’d join us for dinner.”

  “Can’t,” Jack barked. “We’ve gotta get home before the storm really kicks up. Seems to me the two of you should get in out of the weather.”

  “S’pose we should,” John said, looking disappointed that his offer had been turned down.

  Jack shoved the truck into drive and popped the emergency brake. “Thanks again for the invitation. We’ll take you up on it some other time.”

  “That would be lovely,” Fay said, and turned her smile from Jack to Sam. “Make sure Jack drives carefully. I’d hate to see him getting into another accident.”

  “That’s enough,” John said, his hand clamping down on Fay’s shoulder, pulling her back. “We’ll see you around.”

  Anger radiated from Jack’s eyes when he pulled on his seat belt, stepped on the gas, and headed away from the small airport. “You still want to go to the bank?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yes, please,” she answered. On the walk from the terminal to the truck, she’d asked Jack if he could take her to the bank and then to FedEx. The sooner she could get a final cashier’s check and send it off to Johnnie, the better she’d feel.

  Of course, she might be getting Johnnie off her back, but now she had Jack to contend with, and their heated words before John and Fay interrupted made her uneasy. “Could we call a truce, Jack?”

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then turned his gaze back to the road. “I didn’t know we were at war.”

  Glossing over the problems between them wasn’t a good idea. She wanted to clear the air, right here and now. Wanted him to know where she stood. “I’m not comfortable with this charade. I haven’t been from the very beginning.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve felt guilty taking every dollar you’ve given me—except the tips.”

  A grin tilted his lips, but he didn’t comment.

  “This is the last time I’m going to come to your rescue, Jack. I’ll do my best to help Lauren get through this crisis with Peter, but I can stay only a few days, and then I have to get back to work. You’ve got to figure out how to tell her the truth because the next time she wants me, I’m not going to be around.”

  She could sense his anger in the way his jaw tightened, the way his eyes narrowed. Let him be mad. She wasn’t about to let him go on thinking that she’d be available at his beck and call—not for his sister, not for anything.

  The studded tires grabbed on to the icy roadway as they left town and headed for the ranch. Sam sat on the farside of the truck, her fingers gripping the edge of the seat, just as she’d done from the airport to the bank to FedEx. Jack sat behind the wheel, staring at the road, concentrating far too much on the words she’d uttered earlier.

  She’d be leaving soon. He’d hated to hear her say it, but he’d known from the very beginning that that was where all of this would end up. The whiskey and flowers hadn’t meant all that much to her. As for the clothes and luggage, hell, she’d been more offended by his purchases than pleased.

  Why he’d ever thought there could be something between them was anybody’s guess.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the flash of a pronghorn dashing across the highway. He touched the brakes lightly, and the truck swerved, then straightened. Sam’s knuckles had turned white as her grip tightened; her shoulders were stiff, her eyes wide.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ve driven this road in worse weather.”

  “The weather gets worse than this?” she asked incredulously.

  “This is mild.”

  She sighed, staring out the window at nothing more than snow. “Maybe we should pull off the road and wait till the weather’s better.”

  “That could be an hour from now, or a week. It’s better if we keep on driving.”

  “Was the weather like this when you had the accident Fay mentioned?”

  “Same time of year, but the morning was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky.”

  Everyone in town knew about the accident.

  He should have known Sam would want to know more.

  “Were you hurt?”

  “A few scrapes and bruises. Nothing more.”

  She looked relieved. “No one else was hurt, I hope.”

  “My girlfriend,” he told her, every single word hurting him inside. “She died because I couldn’t get her out of the car before it…before it blew up.”

  Sam’s eyes were red when he looked at her. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. I don’t talk about it.”

  He stared at the road again. The only person he’d ever talked with about Beth’s death was Mike—and that had been sixteen years ago. He’d never talked to his father, to Lauren, or Arabella. He didn’t think he could ever tell Beau.

  Yet he’d easily told Sam, a woman who planned to be out of his life in a few days, which made no sense to him at all.

  From the farside of the truck, Sam watched the play of emotions on Jack’s face. Anguish, guilt, heartache. His jaw tensed. His Adam’s apple rose and f
ell as he swallowed his grief, and all she could do was sit there and watch, and wish she could take away his pain.

  It seemed as if he stared at the road forever, but finally he tilted his head and looked at her fingers wrapped around the edge of the seat. “We’ve got a good two hours before we reach the ranch. Do you plan on holding on tight all the way?”

  “I did it for nearly six hours on two different planes. I’m getting kind of used to it.”

  “I don’t get into wrecks every day, Sam. I don’t plan on getting into one today.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  He raised his brow. “You might be a good actress, Sam. But I know real fright when I see it.”

  “Okay, so I’m a little nervous. I’m not used to all this snow.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let you get hurt.”

  With that said, he concentrated on the road again, but his words reverberated through her mind. I won’t let you get hurt.

  Unfortunately, he’d already hurt her last night, when he’d asked her to continue the charade.

  She stared at the falling snow, mesmerized by the never-ending flakes crashing into the windshield and the steady swish of the windshield wipers.

  Fifteen minutes must have gone by before she broke the silence. “Fay seems nice.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you see her and John very much?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Have you known them long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to talk in one-word sentences all the way to the ranch?”

  Sam could see a smile just barely form on his lips. “Maybe.”

  She turned in the seat, preferring the view of his handsome, slightly rugged profile to the hypnotizing snow. “Is Fay the local gossip?”

  “One of them. She runs a beauty shop in town. Don’t know why, since John makes more than enough to support them.”

  “Do you think a woman’s place is in the home?”

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. His smile turned to a grin. “I kind of like the idea of a husband and wife working side by side, together, to build a dream. The first Remingtons in Wyoming did it when they home-steaded here. So did every generation after that—until my mom and dad.”

  He was talking, finally. She could listen all day to the deep timbre of his voice, filled with affection when he spoke about his home. “Why did things change with your parents?”

  “They had different dreams. She liked the glamour of Palm Beach, he liked women—too many of them—and they could each have whatever they wanted because there was a plentiful supply of Remington money.”

  “What about you? Are you like your folks, or your ancestors?”

  “There were a few years when I wasn’t content with life on the ranch. I went away to college, learned I had a knack for making money, and spent some time building a business that even today keeps on growing. One day I woke up and decided I wasn’t happy, and realized I could work just as easily from my home in Wyoming as I could in an office in Manhattan. Lauren thinks I’m out of my mind living out here. She says I should at least buy a place in Palm Beach for the winter. But I’ve got my own dream.”

  “What is it?”

  “Taking care of the ranch and my family. Being happy with my lot in life. Simple things like that.”

  He glanced toward her. “What about you, Sam? What’s your dream?”

  “It’s pretty simple, too. I just want to figure out where I belong.”

  Jack spent the next hour navigating mainly by watching the plow markers along the right side of the road, and just when he thought he should follow Sam’s suggestion of pulling over and waiting out the storm, the sun slipped through a hole in the clouds and shone down on the snow.

  Although the prairie was blanketed in white, tomorrow brown grass and dirt would probably peek through the snow, and in a month or two the land would be green again. There’d be wildflowers and blue skies overhead. He looked at the wide-eyed awe on Sam’s face, and wondered if she’d like seeing the changes from day to day, from season to season.

  A hawk soared through the sky, landing atop a wooden post. Jack rarely took nature for granted, but Sam’s delight gave him a newfound appreciation for the country.

  “Is that a bald eagle?” she asked.

  “A red-tailed hawk. Watching for a meal, I imagine.”

  She leaned forward, folding her arms on top the dash as she watched the scenery passing by. She had an endless number of questions about the sprinkler irrigation wheels stretching out across endless fields, a broken-down wagon and a leaning one-room cabin that had been abandoned sixty or seventy years ago. She asked about crops, and feed for the cows, and how deep the snow got in the middle of winter.

  “Is that an Appaloosa?” she asked, her gaze aimed at a leopard-spotted mare.

  He nodded, and pointed out another standing on a distant rise. “The brown one over there with spots only on its rump is an Appaloosa, too.”

  “They’re wonderful.” She leaned back in the seat and smiled. “I can see why you love it here, Jack.”

  “Can you?”

  “Of course. It’s beautiful.”

  “An awful lot of people come to Wyoming thinking they’ll love it, but the winters and the isolation usually drive them away. I’ve heard people complain that it’s too damn flat, that there’s nothing to see.”

  “They’ve got their eyes closed then.”

  “I feel that way, too. Of course, I didn’t always appreciate the wide-open spaces. I remember wondering why no one ever planted trees around our place. When I got a little older I figured it out.”

  “Care to tell me?”

  “All trees do is block your view of the sunrises and sunsets. As for the mountains, they keep you from seeing forever.”

  “You sound like a poet.”

  He laughed. “I just know what I like.”

  She grew quiet once more, but it wasn’t the kind of silence that builds walls between two people. Instead they seemed to grow closer. She smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

  When she shivered, he reached across the seat and turned up the collar on her coat. “You know, Sam, you’d be a lot warmer if you’d sit next to me.”

  “I’m just fine over here.”

  “The wind and snow’s been beating against that side of the truck for the past two hours. Your nose is red and so are your cheeks. I’m not asking you to go to bed with me, Sam. I’m just asking you to sit close and get warm.”

  She bit her lip as if contemplating his offer. Finally, she popped her seat belt, moved her tote bag from the center of the seat, scooted close, and buckled up again. For the longest time she held her hands in her lap or in front of the heater, but when he put an arm around her shoulders, he watched the fingers of her left hand hesitantly inch across his thigh.

  It amazed him how such a simple gesture could make him feel so damn good.

  They weren’t quite half an hour from the house when the wind picked up again, harder and faster than before. Jack could feel it slamming against the truck, trying to take control. The snow lifted from the ground and shifted and swirled across the road.

  Sam’s hand tightened on his thigh. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and let her know everything was going to be all right, but he needed both hands on the wheel.

  “We aren’t going to die, are we?”

  “Not today.”

  “Good, because my life flashed before me on the plane, and there’s some stuff I don’t want to revisit again, not this soon, anyway.”

  He laughed, and tried to take her mind off her fear. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

  “No. I auditioned for a part in a Western once. The casting director told me I didn’t get the job because I tried mounting the horse from the wrong side, but I think he was just being nice.” She turned toward him. “Mind if I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?”

  “You’re gonna tell me a secret?�
�

  She nodded. “I was a lousy actress, Jack. I tried, but too many people told me I tried too hard. I could play a corpse without any trouble because I didn’t have any lines, but stick somebody else’s words in my mouth, and they’d come out all wrong.”

  He glanced quickly at her mouth. It was perfect, and so were the words she spoke. He was glad she wasn’t an actress any longer. Glad she hadn’t been in Hollywood when he’d been in Palm Beach. Glad she’d tried tailoring for a few months, and needed money so desperately that she’d agreed to play along with his foolish charade.

  When he got home, he thought he might send a letter to the airline thanking them for losing his luggage a few weeks ago.

  Right now, he wanted to protect her from harm, and he was so damn afraid he wasn’t going to be able to.

  A wall of solid white slipped in front of the truck without warning, and visibility dropped to zero. Jack touched the brakes slowly, evenly, but he’d already hit black ice and the truck spun out of control. Beside him he heard Sam’s gasp. He felt her fingers dig into the side of his leg. And he threw an arm in front of her, instinctively needing to keep her safe.

  An instant later he felt a jarring impact, and heard Sam’s deafening scream.

  thirteen

  The truck rested at a precarious angle, forcing Sam’s body against Jack’s. He could feel her heart beat, could hear her breathing, and relief flooded through him. “Are you okay?” he asked, dragging her into his arms, feeling her shaking inside.

  “I think so.” She drew in a deep, tremulous breath, and clamped a hand above her breasts. “I feel like something hit me.”

  “My arm. I was afraid you’d fly through the windshield.”

  She smiled softly, gently massaging her chest. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Except for being scared for her safety and mad at himself for attempting the drive home in bad weather, although he kept those thoughts to himself.

  He wiped a gloved hand over the driver’s side window, but all he could see was snow. He saw nothing but white through the other windows, too. “I think we might have run into a ditch, but I’m not sure.”