Vows

by Rochelle Alers

“Sumners!”

  Shane stopped in his tracks when he heard the crisp sound of his name, spoken quietly yet carrying like the crack of a whip. Turning slowly, he saw Joshua Kirkland leaning against the textured wallpaper, arms crossed over his chest. He gave Joshua a long, penetrating glare before retreating to the office he shared with another accountant.

  George walked over to Vanessa, offering her a rare smile. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

  She smiled at the taciturn man with the snow-white crew cut he had affected since the late nineteen fifties. For the first time, she saw George Fender in an entirely different light. She looked past his remote, blue gaze. He was thought of as a dinosaur compared to other GEA employees. They claimed he was a throwback to another era, eschewing everything unless it was work-related. His wife of thirty-six years had passed away the year before, and he withdrew even further. What she saw was a man who did not trust. George glanced at Joshua, nodded, then returned to his office and closed the door.

  Joshua came toward her, his face a mask of scalding fury. “Did Shane hurt you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’ll take care of him tomorrow.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “No, you won’t. I supervise him. Therefore, I’ll take care of him.”

  “Don’t argue with me, Vanessa.”

  “And don’t you undermine my authority. I have to supervise Shane long after your work here is done. And I’m not going to have him in my face because he thinks I can’t stand up for myself.”

  Joshua studied her for a long moment, seeing pride and frustration on her delicate face, and knowing she was right. “I’ll let you handle it, Vanessa,” he conceded quietly. “But if Sumners ever touches you again I swear I’ll kill him.”

  Her breath caught in her throat as if a hand had choked it off. He’d uttered the warning as calmly as he would ask for a glass of water. She’d glimpsed elements of danger in his personality during their stay in Mexico, and now they had surface again.

  “Would you actually kill him?” she whispered.

  He didn’t move or blink. “Yes, I would.”

  She gasped as her knees buckled slightly. Her eyes widened until she reminded Joshua of a deer, startled and hypnotized by a beam of bright light.

  “Who are you?” she mumbled.

  Leaning closer, not touching her, he said softly, “I am your husband.”

  She did not want to acknowledge that she’d married a man who openly admitted that he was capable of murdering another human being.

  “Go on home,” he urged gently. “I’ll come by at seven.”

  “No, Joshua. Please don’t come.”

  “Don’t let what I said upset you.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be upset? You just admitted that you could kill someone.”

  “I was just talking like a jealous husband. If I had to kill someone to protect you I would. Other than that, I would never take a life. It’s too precious. Once it’s gone you can never retrieve it.”

  She forced a nervous smile. She had given him her word that she would share dinner with him. “Would you mind eating in tonight?”

  “No, Angel. Not at all.”

  Vanessa moved away from him, frightened, and down the corridor like someone in a trance. Who is he? she asked herself for the hundredth time, and the resounding answer, as always, was I don’t know!

  She opened the door to Joshua’s ring, her gaze taking in everything about him in one swift glance. He was casually dressed in a pair of lightweight black slacks, matching jacket, and a white silk T-shirt.

  He clutched a large bouquet of wildflowers in one hand, while the other held a decorative silver shopping bag. His smile widened to a full grin when he saw the full bibbed apron tied around her neck and waist over an airy, sleeveless, ankle-length dress dotted with sprigs of lavender blossoms.

  Handing her the flowers, he said, “You look beautiful and very domesticated, Mrs. Kirkland.”

  “I won’t feel like Mrs. Kirkland until whatever it is you’ve been hired to do at GEA is over,” she admitted.

  Stepping into the entry, he closed the door behind him before pulling her against his chest with his free arm. The familiar scent of her perfumed body brought back vivid memories of their passionate lovemaking.

  His eyes lingered on her hair, which was parted off-center and falling to conceal her ears. His gaze inched slowly over her face, noting that the soft, yellow-orange undertones in her brown face had not yet darkened with the intensity of the summer sun. It was apparent that she spent too many hours indoors. What he wanted to do was take her away with him for a week to where they could frolic in the ocean and offer up their bodies to the tropical sun.

  Closing her eyes, Vanessa savored the scent of lime on her husband’s smooth-shaven jaw. It was as if they had never parted. She shivered with vivid recollections of the days and nights she’d spent in his arms.

  “I take it you’ve learned to cook?” he teased, his breath feathering over her ear.

  “Somewhat.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  She extracted herself from his embrace. “Broiled lobster tails, vegetable kabobs, a green field salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing and homemade blackberry ice cream.”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  He set the bag down on the brick-tiled floor and removed his jacket. Vanessa took the jacket and hung it on the wrought-iron coat tree in the spacious entry.

  “We’ll eat on the patio instead of in the dining room. I find it a bit more relaxing.”

  Joshua retrieved the bag and followed her across the living room, staring in awe at the contents of her home. The brick tiles in the entry gave way to terra-cotta floors covered with colorful woven rugs in Native American designs and African mud cloth prints. He admired the sand-beige leather furniture in the living room, and the look of the heavy, dark, Spanish-style dining room furniture. A black, wrought-iron wine rack along a wall in the dining room stood six feet in height and was filled to capacity.

  “I don’t suppose you need wine, do you?”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I suppose you have wine in that bag?”

  “Champagne,” he confirmed.

  She remembered her first date with him when they shared a bottle of champagne. Her intent had been to seduce him, only to have him turn the tables on her and seduce her. She watched Joshua watching her, and a smile of pure satisfaction tipped the corners of her mouth. Mistrust, frustration and loneliness vanished, a deep moving peace taking their place.

  Taking his hand, she led him into the kitchen. “Put the champagne on the countertop and make yourself at home.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “No. I have everything under control. I’ve prepared the salad and skewered the vegetables. We’ll wait for the champagne to chill before grilling the lobster.”

  “Do you mind if I have a look around?”

  “Of course not, Joshua. Mi casa es su casa.”

  He placed the bag with the two bottles of champagne on a marble counter in the stainless steel and black kitchen. The color was repeated in the black and white vinyl flooring and the steel tubing of a table and four chairs positioned in a corner under a skylight.

  Retracing his steps, he returned to the living room and examined the seemingly free-floating staircase leading to the upper level. He pushed his hand into a trouser pocket and withdrew a small disc measuring less than a quarter of an inch in diameter.

  Quickly and methodically, he placed discs under a lamp, a table, and in the mouthpiece of a telephone. He mounted the staircase, his footfall silent as he moved along the carpeted hallway.

  He walked into the first bedroom and froze, knowing instinctively that it was where his wife slept. An enormous room opened out to a more intimate sitting area. Slanting rays of the setting sun filtered over an imposing antique brass bed, firing the metal like pyrite. The bed dressings were also antique: white embroid
ered pillowcases, shams, crocheted coverlets, dust ruffles, and quilts. The only other conspicuous piece of furniture, which dominated the space, was a massive, bleached pine armoire.

  The room beckoned, and he entered it as if he were walking onto a sacred site. This is where she’d lain while he’d spent a month at a military hospital; if he hadn’t been marked for death, this was the bed they would’ve shared as husband and wife. His expression was one of complete detachment as he placed the minute bugs around the bedroom.

  He moved over to the sitting room, his gaze cataloging everything: the floral chaise lounge, a small round table cradling a pile of books, a television, audio system, stacks of DVDs, CDs and a corner filled with lush green plants. Bugs went under clay pots, and on the ledge under a window seat cushion.

  He searched the other two bedrooms. They were also charmingly decorated, claiming wrought-iron beds, antique quilts, Native American rugs used as wall hangings, and hanging plants in large clay pots.

  The large bathroom enchanted him. The scent of Vanessa was everywhere. Glass shelves held bottles and jars of creams, lotions, perfumes, and soaps. Running his fingers along a black silk robe hanging from a wall hook, he held the garment to his nose. Everything that was Vanessa Kirkland seeped into his being, and for an instant he considered removing all of the electronic listening devices.

  A part of him wanted to take her away to Jamaica and never return to the States, while another part—the soldier following orders—said he had to gather evidence for the Pentagon. The last part said that she was innocent.

  With the scent of his wife lingering in his nostrils, Joshua made his way down the hallway to the staircase and back to the kitchen.

  Chapter 24

  Joshua found Vanessa in the enclosed patio. Her back was to him as he watched her position a vase with the wildflowers on a bistro table.

  He smiled. The patio was large, yet intimate. She had elected to decorate it with four bistro tables, with two chairs at each, giving it the look of an outdoor Parisian café. Small, lighted votive candles were on all of the tables, their flickering lights resembling twinkling stars in the encroaching darkness.

  “Everything looks beautiful.”

  Turning quickly, Vanessa smiled at Joshua. He stood in the shadows, making it impossible for her to see his expression clearly.

  “The champagne is chilled, so we can begin with the salad.”

  He didn’t know whether it was the setting or the mood, but it was the first time he’d noticed the rich timbre of her voice. The register was lower than he’d remembered. There were so many things he knew about his wife, yet he did not truly know her.

  He stepped away from the shadows. “I’ll help you.”

  “No. Please sit down. You’re a guest.”

  Moving toward her, he reached out and held her shoulders in a firm grip. “How can I be a guest in my own wife’s home?”

  Vanessa stared up at his angry features, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort. We’re married, Vanessa,” he whispered harshly.

  “Yet we’re not,” she countered. “I can’t live openly with you as your wife, so right now I don’t feel very married.”

  His grip on her shoulders eased. “What is it you want me to do? Kiss you? Taste your body? Do you want me inside you? Say the word, Vanessa. Just say it,” he taunted, “and I’ll have you for dinner right here, on this—this table!”

  She was so turned on by his erotic suggestions that she couldn’t form the words to come back at him for several seconds. “I want that, and more,” she said in a breathless whisper. “I want to be able to come home every night and have you sleep beside me. I don’t want to have to eat alone. I want someone to laugh with me, and someone to comfort me when I hurt. I want to share all of the things a man and his wife plan for. I want a child, Joshua. Your child. Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to want from you as your wife?”

  Lowering his head, he buried his face in her hair. His hands moved down her back to her waist and hips, fusing her body to his. “No, it’s not too much to ask or want, Angel. I can give you all of it, and more. I just can’t do it now.”

  Vanessa drew in a deep breath. She would not become a willing victim to his seduction. Not again. “If that’s the case, then consider yourself a guest in my home until you can openly give me what I want and need.”

  His hands fell away, and she turned and made her way back into the kitchen. Curses—raw and violent—exploded in his head, warring with the frustration he’d carried for more than a year.

  Rage paled his eyes until they lacked all traces of color. If Vanessa wasn’t responsible for selling the components or stealing the two millions dollars, then he rued the one who was, who had unknowingly come between him and his wife.

  He stared at the night sky. Clouds raced swiftly across a full moon; the eerie light from the moon reflected off the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountains, altering their shapes so that they resembled spires rising above a medieval Gothic cathedral.

  Vanessa returned to the patio, carrying an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne and cradling a large salad bowl against her chest.

  Joshua moved quickly and took the ice bucket from her, placing it on the table. “May I have the honor of popping the cork?”

  She glanced up at him, seeing a half-smile softening his mouth. “Yes, you may. You’ll find a towel in the narrow cabinet next to the dishwasher.” Placing the salad bowl on the table, she spooned portions onto two salad plates, then positioned the bowl on a low, wrought-iron table in a corner before returning to the kitchen.

  “Did you find the towel?” she questioned softly. Joshua stood at the cooking island in the center of the kitchen, peering under a foil-covered tray.

  He turned his head slightly, giving her a sidelong glance. The overhead light illuminated his silver hair and sun-browned face. The white silk T-shirt was a startling contrast to his firm brown arms, and she drew in a breath as her gaze moved down the length of his tall, lean frame. His tailored slacks hung with perfect precision from his slim waist to his hips, and down his long legs.

  His luminous eyes twinkled. “I was just checking out dinner,” he explained, wiggling his pale eyebrows.

  Removing her apron and laying it on a tall stool, Vanessa moved closer to where he stood. “Do I get a passing grade?”

  “If it tastes as good as it looks, then you can expect an excellent grade.”

  She turned on the range-top grill, adjusted the temperature, then flicked on the exhaust fan. “I’ll turn on the grill while we eat our salad. It’ll only take minutes for the lobster and kabobs to cook.”

  “What would you say to preparing a meal together?”

  Vanessa gave him a questioning look. “Is that what you want?”

  He nodded. “I’ve dreamed of doing that ever since I met you.”

  Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she nodded. “Okay. When?”

  “Sunday,” he replied without hesitating.

  A frown furrowed her smooth forehead. She had promised Connie she would come to her house for Sunday dinner. The frown vanished as quickly as it had formed.

  “It can’t be this Sunday, because I’m invited to my sister’s house for dinner. Why don’t you come with me?”

  His gaze narrowed. “Does your sister know about us?”

  Vanessa nodded slowly. “I had to tell her.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “Connie’s the only one. I swore her to secrecy. Not even her husband knows.”

  He cocked his head at an angle. “It sounds as if it’s going to be an interesting gathering.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  Nodding, he gave her a reassuring smile. “Of course.”

  “Good. Then we’ll cook together the following Sunday.”

  Flashing a boyish grin, he said, “I think I’d better get that towel.”

  They returned to the patio,
and Joshua seated Vanessa before he quickly and expertly removed the cork from the bottle of champagne. He filled two flutes with the pale, sparkling liquid. Still standing, he stared down at her and raised his glass in a toast.

  “Vanessa, I love you more than you’ll ever know. And may this night signal a beginning of a new life for us in which we’ll learn to trust each other as much as we love each other.”

  Rising to her feet, she raised her own flute, her gaze locked with his. “Joshua Kirkland. I love you,” she stated simply.

  A delicate ring chimed in the stillness as they touched glasses before putting them to their lips. Joshua put down the flute, came around the table, and pulled Vanessa into his arms. He eased the stem of the wineglass from her fingers and placed it on the table beside his.

  Champagne-scented breaths mingled and met when his mouth covered hers. With one hand cradling her face, Joshua took her mouth gently, successfully concealing the turbulent passions racing throughout his body.

  She curved her arms around his neck, rising on tiptoe and fastening her mouth to his, her tongue meeting his demanding one. Her body cried out for his, and he answered the call. His mouth was everywhere—on her jaw, throat, ears, and then moved even lower, to her shoulders.

  Passions she had locked away with his clothes and her wedding ring surfaced, exploding and shaking her from head to toe. She wanted and needed him. She didn’t want to need him, but she did.

  “Tell me to stop, baby. Just tell me and I will,” Joshua pleaded.

  Her breath came in soft, hiccuping gasps. “I can’t. You know I can’t,” she chanted over and over.

  He was seducing her again. She’d promised herself that she would not succumb, but the moment he touched her she knew she’d lied, and had been lying to herself for more than a year. He couldn’t stay away from her, and she couldn’t resist him.

  Swinging her up in his arms, Joshua cradled her to his chest and carried her through the kitchen and up the staircase to her bedroom. Neither of them gave it a thought that this scene was a repeat of the one at his hotel in Mexico City. Their food lay uneaten on a table while they looked to partake of another feast.