Married by Accident

by Christine Rimmer

  She nodded a second time. She did know. She did....

  “And maybe, in this time you’re here, you’ll leave that door open. For me.”

  He bent his head down. His lips brushed across hers.

  She whimpered.

  “Say you want me to kiss you. I want to hear you say it. I don’t want you to just...give in to it. I want it to be a choice we both know you made.”

  “Cole, I—”

  “Just say it. Or don’t say it.”

  “I...”

  “Say it.”

  And she did. “Yes. Kiss me, Cole. Please.”

  He raised his hand again, cradled her cheek—and whispered her name on a torn breath.

  She could bear the waiting no longer. With a cry, she surged up, slid her arms over his chest and hooked them behind his neck. His mouth met hers, hard, demanding—then softening, melting, as he pulled her against his body and his tongue mated with hers.

  Oh, so good, she thought wildly. So good, so right...

  His lips moved hungrily on hers, his body burned hers. His arms pressed her close, so close against his heart, which seemed to be pounding every bit as hard and loud as her own. She clutched his shoulders as she kissed him back, thinking disjointedly of matches, of campfires, of sudden and glorious flares of bright heat.

  He lifted his head, his eyes seared into her. And then he slid a hand between them, to cradle h breast. She gasped, tried to capture his lips again.

  But he wouldn’t let her. With a low moan, he dropped his hand, took her shoulders, stared into her eyes. “Wait. We’d better wait, I think. One more night...”

  Confusion made her cry out again. She had felt him, against her, felt his readiness to make love to her. “But...I thought...”

  He looked almost angry. His lips were swlen and soft from the kiss. “Listen. You lie in that bed tonight. On the other side of that wall. You lie there and know that I’m over here. Wanting you. You get up in the morning and you live through the day. Just like I will. And then, tomorrow night, if you still want me more than the trouble doin’ this will likely cause us, you leave that door unlocked.”

  She searched his face, then accused softly, “For a sweet, sincere man, you certainly know how to be cruel.”

  He made a low sound in his throat. “Maybe. But we shouldn’t do this. We both know it. I’m just givin’ you a real chance to back out before it starts.”

  How could he say that, before it starts? As if it hadn’t started weeks ago, as if they both hadn’t been fighting it every time they had to be near each other since the day his pickup had broad-sided her car.

  He seemed to hear the words she hadn’t spoken. “Okay. Before it goes any farther, then.”

  She knew he was right. They shouldn’t be doing this.

  And maybe, once she’d turned from him, once she’d walked across the landing from this room to her room, once he wasn’t so close, once this dangerous, incendiary moment had passed...

  Maybe then, she would find the good sense and the willpower to stay on her own side of the door tomorrow night.

  His hand strayed, slid down to the middle of her back and pulled her in-against him again. She felt his promise, felt her own body answering.

  Then, with a low groan, he grasped her shoulders once more and held her away. “Go now. Go.”

  She turned from him quickly and made for the door, almost tripping over his dog in her hurry to escape.

  The next morning, Annie announced that they needed groceries. So Melinda volunteered to do the shopping. She set off for Fredericksburg after breakfast, armed with a map and a long grocery list.

  The trip was pleasant and uneventful. She found Fredericksburg charming. She admired the wide Main Street of the old German town, as well as the interesting homes made of native limestone—and tried not to think about Cole, about the night to come.

  She pushed her cart down the aisles of a large, wellstocked supermarket, ordering her mind to stay on the task at hand, not to go wandering off into guilty speculation concerning what she should do as opposed to what she wanted to do. In the pharmacy section, she paused by the shelves of contraceptives.

  She thought of the baby she had lost, the baby whose conception had occurred because she hadn’t been as careful as she should have been. Something like that could happen again.

  A baby. Yes. Though what she and Cole might share wouldn’t last, she did long for a child.

  But that would be wrong, to use Cole in that way.

  She might be a woman who didn’t know where she was going. A woman sorely tempted to light dangerous fires. But she wasn’t a cheat. And certain lies actually were beneath her.

  She took a box from the shelf and tossed it into the cart.

  Melinda returned to the house before noon, driving around back to the rear door. She entered the kitchen carrying a grocery bag in each arm—and found Cole sitting at the table just finishing his lunch.

  He looked up and saw her.

  “Hello, Cole,” she said, feeling foolish and tongue-tied, telling herself not to think about what had happened last night—or the choice she would have to make when darkness came. “Um. Where’s Annie?” She set the bags on the counter near the sink.

  “In Dad’s room. I think she’s tryin’ to talk him into comin’ to the table for lunch.”

  “The baby?”

  He indicated the playpen in the corner.

  Melinda glanced over. Brady lay on his back, his soft, round cheek turned toward the wall. “Asleep?”

  Cole nodded. “Need some help?”

  She lowered her voice, so as not to wake the child. “Oh, no. I can manage. You just eat your lunch.” She turned and hurried out the door again.

  Cole ignored her instructions and followed right behind her. He stopped a few feet from the open trunk and saw all the full grocery bags inside. “Where’s the receipt?”

  She just looked at him. She did not want to argue about money right now. She just wanted to get the groceries unloaded. She wanted for him to go back and finish his blasted lunch and return to all the horses and cows that were waiting for him. With him standing here, looking at her, it was virtually impossible to think of anything but that door between their rooms.

  He held out his hand. “Come on. The receipt.”

  She would have given it to him—if she’d had it. “I don’t know. It’s somewhere in one of the bags, I think.” And what would he do now? Start ripping through all the groceries? Thank God she’d had enough sense to ask the clerk to bag the box of contraceptives separately. It was waiting in the glove box, so she could carry it to her room discreetly when no one else was around.

  “Melinda,” he growled. “You’re not payin’ for all this...”

  “Fine. Okay. When I find the receipt, I’ll give it to you. You can write me a check. Or put it on your credit card. Pay me in cash. Whatever. But the important thing is, you can pay, all right? You can pay.” She turned and grabbed two more grocery bags from the trunk.

  “Melinda.”

  She froze.

  He was right behind her. She could feel him there. He didn’t touch her. She did not move. But every molecule in her body seemed to melt backward, toward him.

  He whispered in her left ear. “All right. I’m a little sensitive about money.”

  She made a small, humphing sound. “Get over it.”

  “I’m tryin’.”

  “Try harder.”

  He chuckled at that. “All right. I will.”

  She shifted the bags in her arms, communicating with the slight movement that he should step back, give her some much-needed distance.

  “Wait.”

  She stilled again. “What?”

  “I was too hard on you last night. I’m sorry.”

  She gulped, wanting to turn to him, yet not quite daring to move. She looked down, between the bags she held, into the trunk. “It’s all right.”

  “You’re not acting like it’s all right.”

 
She stared at the top of a box of Ritz crackers, at a bunch of radishes in a plastic bag, at the lid of a jar of applesauce. “Oh, Cole. I don’t...this is all so...” She couldn’t for the life of her decide what to say next.

  He didn’t seem to mind. He whispered, “I wanted you to be certain, that’s all. I was pushin’ kind of hard. And that wasn’t right. And right now, I followed you out here, kind of hopin’ to...reassure you, I guess.”

  A quick, wild laugh escaped her. “Well. Growling at me about money is no way to reassure me.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess it’s not.” She knew he was smiling, a rueful sort of smile, though she still couldn’t bring herself to turn and look at him.

  She confessed, “I’m just not in the mood to listen to you lecture me. I’m feeling a little on edge today, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  She asked, carefully, “Then, do you...think you could step back?”

  A beat, then, “Sure.”

  She heard him move away. But more than that, she felt it. Felt it as a slight easing of the insistent call between his body and hers.

  She moved to the side. He stepped forward, scooped up three more of the bags. “Come on. Let’s get these groceries in. It’s hot out here.”

  It wasn’t, not really. The weather had cooled overnight. There was a nice breeze blowing. She could hear the windmill over by the oak trees, creaking as it turned.

  She shifted the bags a little to get a better grip on them and finally allowed herself to meet his gaze. “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The door will be open.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Preston wouldn’t come to the table for lunch, or for the evening meal, either.

  “And he won’t eat a thing as long as I’m in the room with him,” Annie complained when she, Cole and Melinda were seated around the dinner table at six-thirty that night. “In fact, he is bein’ a big, mean old bear. He’s never been like that with me before. I can just about understand why Mrs. Finster walked out.”

  Cole said, “Annie, he’s been a mean old bear since the stroke. It’s called depression. The sight of you and Brady—and my new ‘wife’—cheered him up temporarily. But now he’s realized he’s still stuck in a body that doesn’t work the way he wants it to.”

  “Well, he’d better get over it. I don’t like his attitude.”

  “You said he was practicing with the walker.”

  “Only when I’m not around. He won’t do anything to get better when I’m around.”

  “He’s like that with me, too. A man has his pride, Annie.”

  “Pride.” Annie snapped her fingers in disgust. “That’s how much I’ll give for a man’s pride.”

  Cole reminded her gently, “It’s only been a couple of days since we got here.”

  “I know, but—”

  “If this is too tough for you, we could start lookin’ for another nurse right now, and probably find one in a day or two.”

  Annie’s face was so easy to read. She knew what that could mean: a chance that the truth would be revealed sooner than she’d agreed to tell it. “No. No, I can handle it.”

  “You sure?”

  She scowled at him. “Yes, I’m sure.” She turned to Melinda, who’d been keeping her attention strictly on her meal. “Melinda, I think you should take him his dinner tonight. And then maybe bring the baby in, after he’s through.”

  Reinforce these ridiculous lies, Melinda thought. But she said, “All right. I’ll do that.”

  The old man was sitting by the window when Melinda entered the room with his tray. He greeted her, then said politely, “Just set it on that little table over there.” She went over and put the tray down.

  He made no move to approach it, but asked very gently, reminding her poignantly of Cole, “Are you settlin’ in all right?”

  “Just fine.”

  “Annie tells me you’re from New York City.” He drawled the words. Absurdly she thought of a picante sauce commercial, where the cowboys read the back of the jar and were outraged to discover that the sauce was made in New York.

  “Yes.” He was looking at her expectantly. Maybe he wanted some reassurance that she was “qualified” to be the wife of a Hill Country vet. “Actually, I have spent some time in the country. My family owns a ranch. In Wyoming.” She carefully didn’t mention how much she’d once loathed the isolation there, not to mention the wind, the dust—and the shortage of decent opportunities to shop.

  “What part of Wyoming?”

  “Northeastern. Not far from the Big Horn Mountains.”

  “Hmm. I hear it’s pretty there. But if you’ve spent most of your life in New York City, this must be a big change for you.”

  “Yes. I’ll manage, though.”

  “My son treatin’ you right?”

  “He is. Yes. Just fine.”

  He chuckled then. “‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.’”

  She gulped. “Uh. Yes. Yes, that’s true.”

  “It’s not only true, it’s poetry. From the Good Book.”

  “The Bible, you mean.”

  “Song of Solomon,” he said proudly. “Chapter eight, verse seven. Maybe I can’t eat my dinner without dribblin’ my soup down my shirt, but I haven’t lost all my—” He strained for a word, the way he sometimes did, and finally found it. “—m-marbles, not by a long shot.”

  “You certainly haven’t—and I guess I’d better just go on. Before your food gets cold...”

  His heavy gray brows drew together. “You scared of me? You’re nervous as a calf in a crowding pen.”

  “No, of course I’m not scared of you.”

  “Long as you don’t try to get me to do things I’m not ready to do, you and I will get along just fine.”

  “Mr. Yuma—”

  “Uh-uh. Father.”

  She made herself say it. “Father.”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “No. No, of course not.” She cleared her throat. “Father. I’m not going to try to force you to do a thing.”

  “Well. That is a fine piece of news, let me tell you.” He sat forward in his chair and studied her intently. Then he grunted. “Go on. It’s time I got to work spillin’ food on myself. And you come back later. You and Cole. Bring the baby.”

  “Yes. All right. I will.”

  Annie went in and collected the dinner tray a half an hour later. When she emerged from her father’s room, she told Melinda, “He’s askin’ for you. Get the baby. And Cole.”

  Preston wanted to see the baby but refused to hold him. “Just let me look at his fine face. Might not be safe, you know, if I hold him. Only one of these arms does what I tell it to.”

  So Melinda brought Brady near and the old man admired him again, declaring for the second time how much he looked like Cole. Then he asked about the veterinary hospital.

  Cole started describing an operation he’d performed that day, out in the middle of a pasture several miles away. It was something called a D.A. Cole had needed the rancher and two of his grown sons to help hold a cow down while Cole sewed one of her six stomachs back in place after it had floated off to one side.

  Melinda stood near the window, listening to Cole, warmed by the humor in his voice as he told the story, and... admiring him. He always stood so tall and proud. And it was clear from the way he talked that he did love his work.

  She wondered what that would be like, to have work that she loved, to know people counted on her to do her work and do it well.

  Right then, Cole said carefully, “Dad. We’d like to see you over at the hospital again soon.”

  Preston’s craggy face seemed to close in on itself. He turned his head away, toward the window.

  Cole didn’t give up. “Dad, we really ought to get in that therapist from—”

  “Don’t,” said the old man. “Annie’s been at me all day.
It’s enough, I tell you. It’s enough.”

  “But we only want—”

  “Enough!” the old man shouted. A stream of nonsense syllables followed. In Melinda’s arms, Brady stirred fitfully in response to the harsh sounds. Cole simply stood there, waiting.

  Finally Preston collected himself. He took several slow, deep breaths. Then he whispered that one word again: “Enough...” He hung his head and his right hand, the one that had been affected by the stroke, twitched fitfully.

  Brady let out a small, questioning cry. Melinda cuddled him closer, smoothing his blanket around his sweet face and rocking him gently against her breast. “There, there. It’s all right... ”

  She looked up to find Preston watching her.

  “I was a strong man once,” he said. Cole might not have been there. Right then, it seemed to Melinda that there was only herself. And the old man. And the slight weight of the child in her arms.

  “You’re still a strong man, Father,” she told him, wondering as she spoke where the words had come from. “Stronger than you know, I think. Stronger than your foolish pride will let you admit. Strong enough to stop thinking about what once was and begin to learn how to live with the way things are now.”

  Preston looked at her for a long time. Then he nodded. “I’ll think on that,” he said.

  Annie was waiting in the kitchen when they left Preston’s room. “I heard him shouting. Is he all right?” She held out her arms and Melinda passed Brady to her.

  Cole said, “It was just the usual. I mentioned bringing in a therapist, and how I’d like to see him back at the hospital again.”

  “And he had a fit, right? Oh, Cole. He is impossible.”

  Cole advised, “Give him time.” Melinda slid him a glance and caught him looking at her, a warm look. “I’m starting to think that eventually, he may just come around.”

  Melinda and Annie walked upstairs together at a little before ten. Brady was already tucked into his crib in the room next to Annie’s. Cole had lingered downstairs, watching a comedy show on the television in the living room.

  When they reached the landing, Annie put her hand on Melinda’s arm. “Do you think Cole is right?”