The Maverick Marriage

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “You spoke the truth.”

  Trace watched the way her lower lip quivered with hurt and fought the urge to simply take her in his arms and kiss her and make love to her until the hurt went away. “So what are you saying, Susannah?” he asked, wanting to get this matter settled as much as she did. “That I have to forget what you told me about Scott in order to be with you.”

  She paled. “Of course not!”

  “Then what?” Trace shut off the water and grabbed a towel. He wrapped it around his waist.

  She sagged against the wall, watching him, keeping her eyes level on his. “I want to feel like we’ve put the past behind us.”

  “We have,” Trace insisted.

  She cleared her throat as she straightened. The damp heat of the shower had her clothes clinging to her as she calmly, coolly disagreed, “No, we haven’t. And, in fact, you don’t know that in here—” Susannah splayed her palms across his bare chest, and pointed to his heart, “—and that scares me.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Trace said gently.

  Before she knew what was happening, he had one hand threaded through her hair, the other on her spine. He was kissing her with a thoroughness and a passion that took her breath away. And she was kissing him back, until she suddenly realized that he was doing it again, using the physical passion they felt for each other to get his way whenever they disagreed.

  Furious, she tore her mouth from his and pulled away. “I can’t do this, Trace.” Tears stung her eyes and clogged her throat. “I can’t pretend everything is okay when it’s not.” She dragged a hand through her hair, pushing the damp, mussed strands off her face. Her throat aching, she shook her head and pushed past him. Opened the door and stepped out of the shower stall.

  Trace followed her into the bedroom. He watched as she perched wearily on the edge of the bed.

  “Look, maybe everything has happened too soon,” he said after a moment. “Maybe we should just acquiesce to Max’s wishes and go to the South Pacific, have that honeymoon we denied ourselves years ago and take it one day at a time.” He wanted this to work with all his heart and soul. He had thought Susannah did, too. It hurt to discover that didn’t appear to be the case, that she was ready to run away again at the first sign of difficulty.

  She turned tormented eyes to his. “Do you really think we’re ready for that?” she asked sadly.

  “I think we were ready years ago,” Trace told her firmly as he closed the distance between them. “We just didn’t know it. And because we didn’t know it, we didn’t try nearly hard enough to hold on to what we had.”

  Susannah ducked her head and didn’t disagree with that. “What if it doesn’t work out this time?”

  With just a matter of hours left until the wedding, Trace knew he had to lay the groundwork for their future before any more time passed. A large part of that was his fault, and his alone. He knew he hadn’t been fair with Susannah in the past, nor had he been fair with her at the beginning of their forty-eight hours together again.

  It was important, he felt, that she realize he was determined to do better in the future. It was important that he reassure her. He knelt in front of her and took her hand in his. “Look, I know I forced you into this arrangement of ours, at least initially. I know today has been a mess from start to finish so far, and that everything is happening awfully fast. But I think our relationship can work, with or without a written marriage contract.”

  A chill went through Susannah. Once again, Trace sounded as if he was negotiating a business deal. One that involved his family instead of timberland. She pushed away from the bed and began to pace. “It’s not just us who stand to be hurt if it doesn’t work out this time, Trace. If we attempt to have a real marriage, and fail, the boys will be hurt, too.” She shook her head, the regret she felt almost overwhelming her. “They already feel like brothers…to give that to them, in a real meaningful sense, then take it away after all they’ve already been through…losing one parent to illness …” She didn’t see how they could do it.

  Trace watched her move to the window and look out at the still, quiet mountain lake. “They won’t get hurt if we don’t let them get hurt.”

  Susannah feared they couldn’t protect them. She began to pace again, her arms folded in front of her. “Once again, you’re not listening to me, Trace. I don’t want them in the middle of our problems,” she told him tautly.

  His expression gentle, he came up behind her and massaged the tension from her shoulders. “They don’t have to be. If we have anything to say, anything that needs hashing out, we’ll do it with each other, and we’ll do it when we’re alone, plain and simple.”

  He made it sound so easy. Susannah knew it wasn’t. The boys had already picked up on the romance between them, they would pick up on the troubles, too. And if their romance could please and elate them, their troubles would depress and devastate them. Struggling not to give in to the gentle ministrations of his hands, she swung around to face him. “If you find you can’t forget what I’ve done…

  Trace spread his hands and shrugged. “Then we’ll give ourselves the necessary space from each other, until we can get along again.”

  Which meant what? she wondered, feeling even more lost and hurt. That he would hide in his office while she seethed in hers? It sounded as if he’d written himself an out-clause, just in case.

  “We have all the components to make this relationship of ours work, Susannah,” Trace continued gently. “Because of Max’s generosity, you’re going to be able to write your cookbooks and I’ll have the biggest logging outfit in the West. Between us, our four boys will have a mom and a dad, and we’ve got the lake house to bring them up in. I know there will be problems getting adjusted to each other again, but in the end it’ll be great, you’ll see. And we’ll know we’ve done what we should have done for Scott, a long time ago.”

  He was talking about duty. But what about love? Susannah wondered, feeling all the more upset by Trace’s careful recitation. Wasn’t a deep and abiding love part of the equation for a successful marriage, too? Or was this Trace’s subtle way of telling her that there was to be no love in their relationship this time around? Only passion and a burning desire to make things work, if only so he could be with the son he had never known he had.

  TRACE WASN’T SURE how or why. He just knew he had failed again. Susannah had awakened happy and ready to face the day. Now she was tense and unhappy again, in the same way she had been during their marriage. Once again, he had failed her, without even knowing how or why, when all he had been trying to do was apologize for what he had said and make things better between them. They were silent as they continued to face off. Finally, he said, “I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I?”

  His question brought another weary sigh. Desperate to save the situation, Trace took her unresisting body into his arms and plunged on, “Look, I know romantic relationships are not my forte,” he told her as he ran his palms up and down her chilled arms, seeking to generate some warmth. “We’ve been over that. But I know from experience that I can make a marriage work on a practical level now, even without a burning romance.”

  His statement had her eyebrows lifting. Realizing too late it had been a mistake alluding to his second wife, Trace cursed himself. Trailing his hands down her arms, to her wrists, he took her hands in his, looked deep into Susannah’s eyes and continued painstakingly, methodically building his case. “Our life together may not be all passion, fun and excitement.” In his view, no marriage was that. “But it can be steady and satisfying. And that should not be discounted.”

  But obviously it wasn’t enough for her, Trace thought, studying her increasingly unhappy expression as she coolly withdrew her hands from his and stepped back and away from him.

  He had never seen her so tense, he thought, as she gave him a taut, troubled smile that did nbt begin to reach her eyes.

  “Nor can we discount the fact that if we try this and fail, we will end up being every bit as mi
serable and unhappy as we were when we were married the first time. Only this time, the boys will be miserable right along with us,” Susannah concluded sadly.

  There was no arguing that; Trace knew to fail again would devastate everyone.

  “What are you saying?” Trace asked, afraid deep in his gut he already knew, as the tightness in her eyes and around her mouth became more pronounced.

  Susannah gazed morosely up at him and drew a deep breath. “That I’ll go through with the wedding ceremony so you can inherit, and allow you unlimited access to Scott because I think I owe you that at the very least. But as for the rest of it, Trace, the marriage is off, it has to be.”

  Chapter Eleven

  1:59

  “It’s our fault Mom has locked herself in her bedroom, isn’t it?” the boys asked as Trace flipped turkey burgers from the griddle onto a serving platter. “She’s mad ‘cause we got stuck in the middle of the river and almost got killed.” “No, guys, she’s mad at me.” “Why? What’d you do besides rescue us?” Trace’s behavior hadn’t been exemplary all along, he reluctantly admitted to himself as he watched the boys liberally apply ketchup, mustard and pickles to their burgers. He had, after all, blackmailed her into the idea of staying married to him, for Scott’s sake. Knowing how independent Susannah had become in their years apart, she couldn’t have taken too kindly to that.

  “It’s complicated,” Trace said finally as he set out pitchers of milk and apple juice.

  “Which really means you don’t know, right?” Mickey said.

  “In that case, don’t you think you should find out?” Scott suggested helpfully.

  “I agree,” Nate added gravely between gulps of juice. “As long as you’re in the doghouse, Dad, you might as well know why.”

  “And right away,” Jason added seriously.

  1:30

  TAKING A CUE from the boys, Trace knocked on the bedroom door. It would have been amusing to find himself taking relationship advice from children, if there hadn’t been quite so much at stake. “Susannah, the guys and I prepared lunch for you.”

  She opened the door, her expression cautious. “Where are the boys?”

  “Downstairs, eating.” Which gave them a few moments alone, anyway.

  She glanced at the tray, looking both surprised and pleased. Score one for his side. “You said they made this?” she asked.

  Trace nodded, then at the skeptical lift on her dark eyebrows, felt compelled to be a little more specific. “They got out the dishes and the tray. I did the actual cooking.”

  Some of the joy left her eyes. “I see,” she said quietly, pulling her silk robe a little tighter around her waist. “Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind—” She started to shut the door.

  Trace palmed it open. “Actually, I think I’ll join you.”

  She sighed but let him in. “Calling all the shots again?”

  He watched the sway of her hips, the hint of bare calves, beneath her below-the-knee robe. Fresh from the shower, she had wrapped her hair in a towel, twisted, turban-style, atop her head. Her face was bare. Her lips soft. She had never looked or smelled sexier. It was all he could do to keep his hands to himself. But knowing they had important things to discuss, he sank onto a corner of the bed, watching as Susannah settled herself and her lunch tray on the window seat. “Somehow, I think there is more going on than what you have already said.”

  “Do you?” Susannah sipped her iced tea.

  “Are you angry because I’m forcing you to marry me?”

  No I’m hurt because you don’t love me, Susannah thought, at least not enough to make our marriage work in any lasting way.

  “What does it matter how I feel?” she countered. The bottom line is our relationship will never work long-term. Life is too precious and too short to spend it tied to someone you don’t love.” And you don’t love me. “But I know you probably have legitimate concerns about our other…situation. So here’s the deal,” she continued with more equilibrium than she felt as she spread mustard on a sesame-seed bun with more than inordinate care. “I’ll live at the hunting lodge here on the Silver Spur, just as Max wanted. You can see Scott as much as you want. You can give him a part-time job at the lumber company. You can take him fly-fishing and camping. Whatever you want in that regard. But no more using Scott as an excuse to punish me. No more forcing us to play out the loving couple.” No more making love to me like you mean it, she finished silently.

  “Is that what our lovemaking felt like to you? Punishment?”

  Susannah recapped the mustard. “Or revenge. Or a means to an end.”

  Already deeply hurt by her misconceptions about him, Trace began to get angry, too. He had sacrificed a lot for her, more than she knew. “What about the boys?” he retorted argumentatively. “We may not have come right out and told them so, but they think we’re in love again. They think what we have been feeling is the real thing.”

  And so, Trace admitted to himself, had he. Instead, his whole world was being turned upside down again by Susannah’s abrupt change of heart. In the same way it had been when his parents had died and he and Cody and Patience had been sent to live with Max. In the way it had been when Susannah had left him the first time. He had worked hard to get his life in order again, to keep everything under control, and to have it all falling apart, so suddenly, and so completely, was almost more than he could bear.

  Without any real energy, Susannah munched on the sandwich the boys had sent up to her. “I do feel guilty about confusing the boys the last couple of days.”

  “But?”

  She lifted her eyes to his. “I’m determined to save us all from a lifetime of martyrdom and misery. I’m not going to turn into a nagging shrew. I am not going to spend the rest of my life, or even the next few years, fighting with you, paying for the past.”

  Trace shoved his hands into his pockets of his trousers and pushed to his feet. Abruptly, his mood turned brooding and dark. “When have we ever fought? Not when we were married, certainly. Things went so smoothly, in fact, that I thought everything was fine. Only to come home late one night, and get up the next morning to find you calmly telling me it was over as you were packing to leave.”

  Susannah flinched at his blunt tone, but did not bend. “It was best for us then, you weren’t ready for a family,” she asserted stubbornly, with another defiant lift of her chin.

  That, Trace thought, was debatable. “Was it the best thing to do?” he challenged.

  She gave him a pitying look. “Don’t you understand?” she asked sadly, her slender shoulders bowed in defeat. “The hurting each other has to be over, Trace. We can’t bring this up every time we have a fight. I can’t marry you knowing you resent me deep down. We’ve got to put the past where it belongs. Otherwise, I won’t survive and neither will you.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you weren’t the one who was betrayed.”

  The past forty-six and a half hours had given her hope things between them would be different. But then, what a fool she had been to think her deception could be so easily forgotten, Susannah thought despairingly.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Trace said abruptly. The past is the past and we’ll just forget it.”

  “You obviously can’t do that and I will not put our children through that,” she told him sternly. “You got your business deal this morning. The boys weren’t hurt, they didn’t hear our argument. That’s great, but the happy outcome of all the calamity doesn’t change a thing. You still resent what I’ve done. And you always will. And I almost can’t blame you.”

  TRACE STARED at Susannah. It hadn’t felt that way to him. “You think what we’ve shared the past two days and nights is a lie?” He held out his hands and tried to take her in his arms. She brushed him away with short, choppy gestures.

  “Realistically, what else was it, Trace? We pretended from the outset of our forty-eight hours to be falling in love so that the boys would accept our decision to stay married after we had collected
our inheritances. As much as we might wish otherwise, pretending something is not the same as feeling it.“

  Trace chalked up that move on his part to yet another mistake. “No, it’s not,” he agreed, planting his legs apart as he prepared to attack and defend. And maybe this served him right, for trying to take shortcuts to a real and fulfilling relationship with her…Of course, at the time he had initiated said agreement, he hadn’t known that was what he really wanted, either. Now that he had finally figured it out, it appeared to be too late, which was always the case with them, it seemed, too little, too late.

  “Yes, we had passion,” Susannah continued heatedly, some of the spark coming back into her eyes. “Wonderful, exhilarating physical passion. I don’t deny that for a minute. But as for anything else-Trace, can’t you see?” she asked, drawing her robe tighter around her slender form. “We’re all wrong for each other. We always have been. We always will be.”

  We’re all wrong for each other. We always have been. We always will be. Trace was devastated at his inability to intuitively do or say the right thing or make Susannah happy in any lasting way, for it was an echo of all his past failures when it came to personal relationships. It seemed all he had ever been able to do in any satisfying way was make love to her. And she was right, that wasn’t enough, for either of them. It hadn’t been before. Much as he was loath to admit it, it wouldn’t be now. That being the case, she was right to call a halt.

  “You’re right,” he said gruffly, almost glad she was sparing them the embarrassment of a second failed attempt at marriage and subsequent divorce. “If our relationship hasn’t come together by now,” he said grimly, “after all the time we spent together the past couple of days…” after the night we spent together, baring our souls and making love. “Then it never will.”

  1:09