Million Dollar Marriage

by Maggie Shayne

  It was an intimate dinner, not the whole clan tonight, and that was good. Uncle Ryan and Lily were there, along with Matthew and Claudia, and Dallas, Ryan’s youngest son, and Vanessa, one half of the Fortune twins.

  “I’m so sorry we’re late,” Lucy said the second they entered the room. “It was my fault. I got tied up at the hospital.”

  “Don’t apologize, Lucy,” Lily said quickly. “We’re all aware how important your work is. And while dinners can wait, babies can’t.”

  “That’s true enough.” Lucy smiled, and the others, who’d been milling around snacking on hors d’oeuvres, took their seats. Holden pulled out Lucy’s chair for her, and then took the one beside her.

  The first thing Lucy did was reach across the table to cover Claudia’s hand with her own. “How are you holding up?”

  Claudia lowered her eyes. “Just getting through one hour at a time, though they seem endless.”

  “I know.”

  “Any new developments since I spoke to you last?” Holden asked his cousin.

  Matthew shrugged. “No, nothing.”

  “Actually,” his father said, clearing his throat, “there is one bit of news to report. I had a call from the FBI today.” Everyone looked toward Ryan, and Holden could almost feel Matthew and Claudia holding their breath. “They’re sending in a top-notch special agent to take over the investigation. Fellow by the name of Devin Kincaid.”

  “And that’s good news?” Vanessa asked, her voice as soft as always.

  Ryan looked at her, frowning. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Shrugging, Vanessa sighed. “I just think we’re going about this all wrong. Everyone’s looking for clues and evidence, looking at dollars and cents, waiting for the kidnappers to make a move.” She shook her head. “What we ought to be doing is getting inside the kidnappers’ heads, figuring out why they took Bryan away, what’s motivating them.”

  “Money is what’s motivating them, little sister,” Dallas said softly.

  “Maybe not. Maybe there’s something more.”

  “And maybe your being a shrink is influencing your thinking,” Dallas chided, his tone teasing, but with an underlying seriousness.

  “I’m not a shrink, big brother, I’m a psychologist studying for my Ph.D. And I’ve worked in the field of criminal psychology enough to know what I’m talking about. You get some by-the-book, hard-nosed, federal type in here, and God only knows how far back he’ll set things.”

  “Vanessa…” Dallas began.

  “I think she might have a valid point,” Lucy said. “So, Vanessa, maybe you should just ride herd on this Fed, make sure he covers all the bases.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” she said, not sounding at all like her usual soft-spoken self. Holden guessed where her precious nephew was concerned, Vanessa could be a real lioness. He almost pitied the poor FBI fellow, whoever he was.

  “I don’t care whose methods work, so long as we find my son,” Matthew said, sighing.

  “I know.” Holden met his cousin’s eyes. “I never realized just how precious a child is, until now. Seeing both of you makes me think how I’d feel if I had a baby of my own and someone tried to take it from me.” He closed his eyes, gave his head a shake. “But it won’t be for much longer. Hell, the world isn’t big enough for them to hide Bryan from us for long.”

  “You got that right,” Matthew said, and he reached across the table to clasp Holden’s hand, looking as if he was challenging him to arm wrestle. When he let his hand go again, Matthew said, “I never thanked you for what you did that night at the party. I was…I was over the edge.”

  “No big deal,” Holden said.

  “You, too, Lucy,” Matthew added, nodding toward her. “You really came through.” He smiled a little. “I think you’re good for this family. You’ve got steel in your spine.”

  “She’d have to have, wouldn’t she?” Dallas asked, sending Lucy a wink.

  Everyone laughed, though there remained an uneasy tension just below the surface. Rosita brought the food then, and the family settled into eating. Holden noticed Lucy’s sharp gaze on Claudia and Matthew, and knew she was watching to see if they ate, or just made a pretense of it.

  After dessert, while they all sat in the great room sipping coffee, Holden said, “Dallas, I’d like to take Lucy riding tonight. Show her around the spread. Is that okay?”

  “Fine by me. You an experienced rider, Lucy?”

  She shrugged. “I have ridden. But I’m no expert.”

  Dallas nodded. “I’ll call down to the stable and have a pair saddled up and ready for you. A nice gentle mare for Lucy. And something a little more challenging for my cousin, I think.”

  “No, Dallas. I’ll take a gentle mount, too,” Holden said. “This ride is for relaxation, not adventure.”

  Dallas’s brows went up, but he shrugged. “Calming down in your old age, are you?”

  “That’s what marriage does to you, little cousin,” Holden replied as he smiled wickedly and winked at Lucy.

  Twelve

  Lucy looked just as good on the back of one of the finest quarter horses in all of Texas as she did anywhere else. In diamonds or denim, his bride looked at home, comfortable, as if she belonged.

  Maybe that was because she did.

  “So, how big is this place, really?” she asked, her head turning one way then another as she scanned the horizon. The rolling green fields, dotted with longhorns in one direction, horses in another, crisscrossed by lush hedgerows and smooth, clean fence lines.

  “The Double Crown? Five hundred thousand acres, give or take.”

  “Good God, that must be half of Texas.”

  Holden smiled at her. “Damn near. Double Crown longhorns are known as the best Texas beef to be had, and the horses have a reputation all their own that’s growing every day.” He patted the sleek neck of the horse he rode as he spoke. “Don’t you, girl? Yeah, worth your weight in gold.”

  Lucy laughed. “You like them. The horses.”

  “Grew up with ’em. Oh, I don’t have the knack for running the ranching end of things that Dallas has, which is why I’m head honcho at the corporate offices of Fortune TX, and he’s in charge here.”

  “But you miss it, I’ll bet.”

  “Didn’t think so, until recently. I thought I was pretty content with life in the fast lane. But I’m gonna start spending a lot more time here. Hell, what good is being the boss if you can’t knock off early and go riding when you feel like it?”

  “Healthy outlook.”

  “It feels right.”

  They rode alongside a field where longhorns grazed. Each movement like something done in slow motion, the big, lazy animals emitted a sense of peace, of calm.

  “Here’s a good spot,” he said after a time of riding in comfortable silence.

  “A good spot for what?”

  He sent her a smile. “Don’t worry. I didn’t bring you up here to ravage you.” She averted her eyes when he said that. “Is that a look of relief or…disappointment, Doc?”

  Now she looked alarmed. “Holden, I—”

  “No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that.” He slid down from the saddle, looped the reins over a low-hanging limb, walked to Lucy’s mount, and reached up a hand. “Come down for a minute. I want you to see something.”

  “All right.” She let him help her down. His hands clasped her waist, and remained there for a long moment after her feet touched the ground. He looked down into her eyes, before he forced himself to let her go. But he couldn’t resist taking her hand in his as he led her around to the far side of the little knoll where they’d stopped.

  When he sat down in the grass, she sat down beside him. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted a woman the way he wanted her. But he wasn’t going to push her.

  “Look,” he said, and he pointed to where the sun rested on the horizon in the distance. “The sunsets are incredible from here.”

  “Wow.” She leaned
back on her hands, and watched the brilliant ball of fire slowly dip lower, and lower, sinking deeper behind the distant hills with every passing moment.

  The sky around them turned from blue to dusky purple by gradual degrees, and she said nothing the whole time. Just sat there watching it all, and he sat there, watching her.

  After a long while, when the sky was almost dark, and the sun gone from sight, she said, “I ought to tell you something, I think.”

  He waited, wondering what was on her mind.

  “I know you must be pretty confused by my behavior since we got married.”

  Holden shrugged. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Lucy.”

  “No, I think I do. At the cabin I was… And since we got back, I’ve been…” She gave her head a shake. “Sex is…well, it’s a complicated issue for me.”

  “I know that. I’m largely to blame for that, in fact. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you,” she blurted all at once.

  When he didn’t answer, she looked at him, searching his face in the gathering twilight. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said slowly. “Because I want you pretty badly, you know. Not pushing here, just wanted to be sure we were clear on that.”

  She bit her lip, lowering her eyes. “I’m glad you told me.”

  “There’s no hurry, Lucy. Whenever you’re ready. To tell you the truth, I’ve got a few puzzles of my own to work out.”

  “Do you?”

  He nodded, reached out and smoothed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. I do. See, I always thought I knew exactly what I wanted out of life. Thought I knew who I was, what I could be, and what I couldn’t. But all of that is mixed up now. Like I took all the components I thought were me, and tossed ’em in a sack and shook the hell out of them. And there are some new ones in there that I can’t even identify yet.” He shrugged. “I do know I’m changing the way I see a lot of things. And I think I like myself a little better now than I ever did before.”

  She smiled quickly, and averted her eyes to hide her grin.

  “What?” he asked her. He caught her chin and gently turned her to face him again. “What’s that grin about?”

  She shrugged. “I was just thinking I like you better now than I ever did before, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. But then her smile died. “I’m changing, too, Holden.”

  “Not too much, I hope.”

  Drawing a breath, she sighed. “You’re always going on about what a—a good person you think I am. But I haven’t been. Not really. Holden, I’ve done some things that would make you change your mind about me in a hurry.”

  He frowned, certain she was imagining things. “I don’t believe that’s possible.”

  “Well, it is. I’m far from perfect.”

  He shrugged. “Perfection is overrated.”

  “Anyway, it’s over now. Holden, I don’t know what sort of marriage this is going to become over the next twelve months. But I do know this. It’s going to be honest. From now on, okay?”

  He frowned more deeply at her, a tiny ball of worry forming in his stomach. “Are you saying it hasn’t been up to this point?”

  “No. Not entirely.”

  He took a deep breath, stiffened his spine. “You want to tell me what it is you’ve kept from me, then?”

  She shook her head. “Not tonight, Holden. But I will. Soon. I promise.”

  He studied her for a long time, finally sighing and giving in. How bad could this secret of hers be? This was Lucinda in the Sky, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t have a bad or dishonest bone in her body.

  “I can’t make love to you tonight, Holden. I want to…I really want to, but I can’t. I need to take care of some things first. But I’d really like it if…if you could just hold me. Will you do that?”

  She didn’t need to ask him twice. Holden’s heart flip-flopped, and his bones seemed to melt, and he pulled her gently into his arms. When she rested her head on his chest, he stroked her hair. “I’ll hold you all night long, if you want me to, Doc,” he whispered.

  And that was exactly what he ended up doing. Sharing his bed with her, holding her close, aching for more but knowing she wasn’t ready. Trusting in her goodness enough to know she’d tell him whatever secrets she’d been keeping in her own time. And enough to know, too, that they wouldn’t be as bad as she thought they were.

  He was pretty certain he wanted to keep her with him forever, if she’d have him. He was pretty certain, too, that with Lucy at his side, he could be the kind of man she deserved. Maybe he had been all along, and just hadn’t seen his true self. When he looked into a mirror, he’d seen only his father’s reflection. Cameron’s son.

  Now, he saw Lucy’s husband. And he liked the man.

  Lucy didn’t want to think that maybe Holden had changed his mind about the nature of their marriage. But that was what she was thinking, in spite of herself. Maybe he’d realized the same things she had. That he was a good, decent man, capable of anything he set his mind to. Including a long-term commitment to one woman.

  To her.

  Maybe she was a fool to get her hopes up. She only knew she’d be an even greater fool to go on with her initial plan. She had to give this relationship a chance, and tricking the man into getting her pregnant was killing any chance it might have.

  So all her plans were on hold, and if things worked out with Holden then she’d tell him she wanted a child, and about her limited window of opportunity to make that happen. And if things didn’t work out with him, then they’d go their separate ways and she would look into artificial insemination and hope she hadn’t waited too long. All she knew was, right now, she needed to step back from this plan. Slow down.

  She still wanted Holden, and he wanted her, and that was so thrilling to her that she could barely contain it. But she was going to do this right. Get on some birth control first. She would pick up some condoms on the way home to use in the meantime, but she wanted something more reliable.

  Which was why she’d come into the hospital a bit early this morning, and why she stood now outside the door of her friend, Susan Martinez’s, office. She couldn’t go to Karen Flemming for this. Knowing how badly Lucy wanted a child, Karen would have too many questions. Susan Martinez wasn’t a gynecologist, but a general practitioner. Still, she’d help her out. Lucy was sure of it. Straightening her spine, Lucy knocked.

  “Come in,” Sue called.

  Lucy stepped inside, offered her colleague a smile, and decided to plunge ahead without preamble. “I need a favor.”

  “Name it.” Susan got up from her desk and crossed the room. “How’s the new marriage going?”

  “Amazingly well,” Lucy said, which made Sue send her a quizzical glance. “Never mind that. Look, I need to get on birth control, Sue, but I don’t want to get anybody up in arms over me writing my own prescriptions. It’s been a sore subject ever since that physician’s assistant got busted for selling all that Methadone.”

  “Not to mention strictly against hospital policy,” Sue added. “And it’s probably not a bad policy, at that.”

  “So, will you help me out?”

  Sue tilted her head. “What about Karen? Isn’t she your regular gynecologist?”

  “She’s got a full schedule today,” Lucy said quickly, averting her eyes to conceal the lie. “And I’m in a bit of a hurry. Will you do it?”

  Sue just shrugged and smiled. “Of course I will. What have you been using so far?”

  “Nothing.”

  Sue blinked three times, opened her mouth, closed it again, and finally gave her head a shake. “You’re a newlywed and you haven’t been using any birth control?”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “I’ve only been married less than a week. Just give me a prescription and I’ll—”

  “No way. You know better, Lucy. Not without a physical first.”

  “Sue, you don’t understand—”

  “You’re a doctor, Lucy. You
should know better than to even ask. Look, let’s do this right now. It’ll be quick, I promise. Ten minutes, and you’re out of here. Okay?”

  Sighing, Lucy said, “Fine. If that’s the only way.”

  “It is, and you’d be telling me the same thing if our situations were reversed. Come on across the hall to an exam room.”

  “Let’s just make it fast, all right? I have rounds.”

  Sue smiled, and held the door open.

  Lucy put her clothes back on a few minutes later, while Sue quickly scribbled on her prescription pad. “Like I said, just a formality. But you know, better safe than sorry.” As she spoke, she glanced up at the test tube with the urine sample in it…and then she went very still.

  “Sue?”

  “Uh…well. That’s interesting.”

  “What’s interesting? Give me the prescription, so I can get out of here, will you?”

  Licking her lips, Sue tore the sheet off the pad, held it up, and ripped it slowly in half. “Afraid not.”

  “Sue! What the heck are you doing that for?” Lucy jumped off the table, and bent to pick up the fallen, ruined prescription. “Is this supposed to be funny?”

  Sue looked at Lucy, took a deep breath, and then pointed. “Maybe you’d like to take a look at this for yourself?”

  “At what?” Lucy turned to look at the test kit that lay on the counter, and then she blinked and looked again. “No.”

  “Well, actually, that would be a yes.”

  “But I… That can’t be right.”

  “No, must be a mistake. Having unprotected sex for a solid week couldn’t possibly result in pregnancy. Where did you say you went to med school, Lucy?”

  Lucy put her head in her hands, shaking it slowly, her mind whirling.

  “We can do blood work to confirm, hon. But, uh, I’d say you’re in no need whatsoever of any birth control pills.” Sue put both hands on Lucy’s shoulders. “Are you okay with this?”

  “I…hell, I don’t know.”