by Abby Gaines
“The doctor also said his blood pressure is the biggest risk to the new kidney. There’s a good chance his lowered pressure is due to less stress—and it turns out I’m the major cause of his stress.” At Lucas’s blank look, she added, “His fears about my future. Dad says that worry has gone now that I’m married to you.”
“We’re not staying married twenty years for the sake of your dad’s blood pressure,” Lucas snapped.
When he put it like that…
But on the other hand… “If our divorce is going to affect his health, then I don’t want to do it.” It was that simple. She folded her arms across her chest.
Lucas’s gaze dropped to her breasts.
She groaned inwardly. Why did I sleep with him? He looked as if he was wondering exactly the same thing about her.
“Waiting is a bad idea,” he said, his voice clipped. “The longer we leave it, the harder it’ll be to tell your father. It could have an even worse effect on his blood pressure, because he’ll be more entrenched in his belief that we’re happily married.” His tone was detached, as if he was listing the pros and cons of a military engagement. And they were all cons.
She’d better do the pros.
“That’s pure conjecture,” she said. “Whereas I know for sure that right now, Dad’s blood pressure is down, the doctor says it’s a stress thing, and Dad says our marriage has got rid of his worries.” One and one and one make three. “If we stay married for a while, it’ll give his new medication regime a chance to kick in, and if necessary be tweaked. As soon as we’re sure his BP is controlled, we can tell him the truth.”
“What about my dad and Stephanie?” Lucas said. “I was going to tell them tonight.”
“We’d have to keep up the pretense with them, too,” she admitted. “I mean, maybe Dwight would agree to lie to Dad, but it’s too risky.” There was still enough of the old, hardheaded admiral in Lucas’s father that she could imagine him snorting with disbelief at the idea of worry being the cause of John’s hypertension. Dwight’s almost religious regard for the truth would have him suggesting it was better to come clean now, rather than risk fallout later.
“See?” Lucas must have read the conflict in her face. “It’s too complicated.”
“Actually,” she said, “it’s simple, because it has a built-in expiration date. You said you’ll need a month to fix your depth perception. Then you’ll be back in the navy. Unless,” she said with just the right amount of challenge, “you don’t think you’ll pass the retest.”
He folded his arms, mirroring her pose. “Of course I’ll pass.”
Merry smiled encouragingly. There were some advantages to knowing him so well. “Great! So I’ll have a few more weeks to make sure Dad’s blood pressure is under control. As soon as you do the test, you’ll be back in the Gulf. After a few months, we file for divorce and it’ll be just like the good old days.” And maybe one day, in about a million years, they’d forget they’d ever slept together.
“A month,” he said, as if he was actually considering it.
She nodded. With Lucas, sometimes less was more.
“We could still file for the divorce now,” he said. “It won’t be final for ninety days.”
“Every divorce petition in the county is listed in the legal notices in the Day. There’s too much risk that one of our parents or one of their friends would see it.”
He muttered something under his breath, not sounding particularly happy. “What about an annulment—did you look into that?”
Merry had spent a lot of time surfing the net from her phone over the past week. She busied herself stacking the Magic Eye books into a neat pile. “The only grounds for annulment are if the man is proved physically incapable of consummating the marriage.”
That ship had well and truly sailed.
“The good thing is, we won’t need to fake being happily married all the time, only when we’re at your parents’ house or with my dad.” She moved quickly along from the issue of consummation. “We’d need to live together—we’d have Dad’s place, while he’s at your parents’. His house has two bedrooms, two beds.”
She shouldn’t have mentioned beds so close to consummation.
“I don’t know.” Lucas was looking wary again. She didn’t blame him—she couldn’t imagine anything worse than ending up back in bed with him.
She cast around for a new tack. “That conversation you want me to have with Dwight about the retest,” she said.
“You can do that anytime, just give Dad a call.”
“Maybe I’ll hold off for a while,” she said thoughtfully.
Lucas waited, correctly sensing there was more to this.
Merry sidelined her scruples. “How about you agree we can stay married until you go away. We’ll wait a week or two to ensure Dad’s recovery. Then I’ll ask Dwight to help you get another physical.”
Lucas leaned forward, elbows on the table. “And if I don’t agree to stay married?” His tone was conversational, but silky menace lurked beneath the words.
She swallowed. “I won’t talk to Dwight.” She should have drunk some water before she left the hospital.
“You plan to blackmail me into pretending this marriage is for real,” he said mildly.
“That’s a simplistic way of looking at it. But there’s more than one way to see it—just like these pictures.” She touched the stack of books. “Behind the, uh, blackmail, it’s about the two of us helping each other out. The way friends do.”
“That sounds reasonable,” he said.
“Really?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. He stood, hands planted on the table, glaring at her. “Your dad’s doing fine, we’re not moving in together, we’re not staying married because you have some fantasy that it might keep his blood pressure down. This is the real world, we’re all adults, we can handle the truth.”
Panic squeezed her heart. “What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m giving you until midday tomorrow, Merry, to tell your dad. At twelve-oh-five—” stupid military timekeeping “—I’ll tell my parents.”
He whisked the Magic Eye books out from under her hand and left.
CHAPTER NINE
MERRY’S CLUMSY ATTEMPT at blackmail had done him a favor, Lucas thought as he floored the gas in his rented Ford Fusion the next morning.
She’d shown him that a plan to resit the physical that relied on her cooperation and his father’s was a bad one. Even when they were kids, she’d had the knack of forcing him to rethink his ideas. Back then, he’d found it infuriating. Now he was grateful.
Lucas flicked the turn signal and hit the I-95 on-ramp. It was 7:00 a.m. He should be in Boston at nine. By ten, he should be free of his reliance on Merry and his dad, and on his way to Norfolk, Virginia, to stay with a buddy. Heather Gunn had been kind enough to set up an appointment with an optometrist there who would help him the way she had, so Lucas would have all the time he needed to focus on getting ready for the test.
He couldn’t wait.
This whole marriage thing had spun out of control—why did I have sex with her?—and prolonging it would only make the situation worse. He liked Merry and her dad, and when the dust settled he didn’t want to have created any lasting rifts. Best way to ensure that: let distance and days work their magic. While at the same time getting what he wanted.
He drove the rest of the way on autopilot, using the solitude to rehearse the arguments he would present to Admiral Tremaine.
He reached the admiral’s house at five to nine.
“Lucas, it’s good to see you.” Admiral Tremaine shook his hand. “It’s been a while.”
Tremaine had been a regular visitor at Dwight’s house until the two admirals had fallen out over the Iraq war. Lucas was counting on the man’s irritation garnering him some sympathy.
“Thanks for making time for me, sir.” In the admiral’s oak-paneled study, Lucas sat in the chair Tremaine indicated.
“I’m hoping to retest,” Lucas said.
Tremaine snorted. “Good luck with that.” He stuffed a generous serving of tobacco into his pipe, struck a match and lit the tobacco. He tamped it down with a cylindrical brass tamper.
Lucas watched without saying anything.
Tremaine looked up. “Ah. That’s why you’re here. The retest.”
“Yes, sir.” Lucas found exploiting his connections as distasteful as his father did. But he’d been trained to make use of every available weapon. So he would.
“Your C.O. says you’re his best pilot,” Tremaine said. “And of course, I pinned that Navy Cross on you myself a couple of years ago.”
Lucas didn’t respond. He’d figured Tremaine wouldn’t have forgotten giving him one of the navy’s highest awards, earned when Lucas had risked his own life—though it hadn’t felt like that at the time—to disable a mine that would have killed the entire crew of a gunboat whose escape routes had been cut off.
“A retest is rare, but not unheard of.” Tremaine puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “Waste of time if you can’t pass it, though.”
“I only failed the depth-perception test,” Lucas said. The man probably knew that. “It’s possible to improve with practice.”
“We don’t want people who can’t see properly piloting our choppers,” Tremaine pointed out.
“I’m asking for another chance to pass the test,” Lucas said. “Not to be cleared with substandard vision. If I pass, it’ll mean I meet the standard. If I was worried I couldn’t pass, say, the running component, you wouldn’t consider it cheating for me to practice and improve my times beforehand.”
Admiral Tremaine nodded. “What does your father think about the retest idea?”
“He thinks I should stay home.” Lucas quashed a twinge of disloyalty toward his father. Dwight’s disapproval was the bait that would secure Tremaine’s cooperation.
The admiral frowned. “You’re currently on leave. How are you filling your days?”
“Practicing my depth perception, sir.” Since the admiral seemed to know everything about him, he decided it was prudent to add, “I also got married recently.”
Tremaine didn’t look surprised. “Your wife’s keeping you busy, then.”
“She’s doing her best, sir.” Resorting to blackmail when necessary. Merry Wyatt had always been full of crazy ideas and romantic notions.
“Marriage is a wonderful thing,” Tremaine said. “I like it so much I’ve done it three times.”
Lucas smiled politely.
“Which puts me one step ahead of your father.” Tremaine was joking, but it fell flat. “Stephanie is delightful, of course,” he said hastily. “I see her every year at the admirals’ dinner in Annapolis. And Michelle, your mother…lovely woman. Dwight has good taste.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lucas said stiffly. He didn’t talk about his mother with anyone except Garrett and, oddly, Stephanie. Talking about Mom, like thinking about her, only served to rake up the question that had tortured him for years after she’d died of a sudden stroke in the grocery store. If I’d been there, could I have saved her?
It was a gross conceit, to imagine a twelve-year-old boy who’d recently learned CPR outperforming his older brother, then the bystander who’d stepped in, then the paramedics. But Garrett hadn’t known CPR, not properly, and the other people hadn’t loved the woman they were trying to save.
That made Lucas think of Merry and her immense love for her father. She was trying to do what Lucas had wanted to do: save her parent. Thankfully, in John’s case, the outcome looked positive.
Unless Merry was right about John’s hypertension being exacerbated by worry about her future. And her marriage to Lucas being, at this stage, the key to his health.
Lucas shook off sudden alarm, which was surely a reaction to thinking about his mother.
He tried to focus on what Admiral Tremaine was saying. Something about the retest. Which is why I’m here.
“I may be able to help you out,” Tremaine said. “I need to talk to…”
Lucas’s mind drifted away again. Back to New London.
What if John’s blood pressure skyrocketed and he had some kind of attack that resulted in irreparable kidney damage? And Lucas could have stopped it?
It would be just like his mom, all over again.
His mouth dried.
John’s not my father. Not my responsibility.
Which wouldn’t matter a damn if he died, and Lucas could have saved him.
It wasn’t that simple, Lucas knew. And yet it was.
“What I’d need from you,” Admiral Tremaine said, “is—”
“Sir, could you excuse me while I make an urgent call?” Without waiting for a reply, Lucas stepped out of the room. He dialed Merry from his cell. Her phone was switched off, or out of range. He tried her home number—no answer.
Could she have told her father about the divorce already? Had he collapsed? You’re being stupid.
Lucas glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. John was due to leave the hospital at twelve. Knowing Merry, she wouldn’t be in a rush to tell him the bad news; she’d wait until the last possible moment.
Lucas stuck his head back around the study door. “Admiral Tremaine, sir, I’m sorry, but I have to leave. Family emergency.”
“Can it wait fifteen minutes?” Tremaine half stood. “I’m still not in a place where I can give unqualified support to your retest.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, I need to go now. It’s life-and-death.” Lucas picked up his notebook. “I’ll call you.”
When he got into the car, he groaned. I’ll call you. What kind of idiot talked to an admiral like that?
* * *
“DWIGHT WILL BE HERE IN HALF an hour,” Merry told her father. Dwight’s roomy Hummer was more suited to transporting a patient than Merry’s Aveo. She just needed to explain that he could now come home with her, instead of needing to stay with his friend. Explain the divorce in such a way her dad wouldn’t worry about her.
She scooted her chair back to allow Nurse Martin access to the patient. The nurse began changing his dressing, working with silent efficiency.
“Is Lucas picking you up, Merry-Berry?” John asked. “Or will Dwight take you home, too?” He smiled at Nurse Martin as she peeled back a piece of surgical tape. She didn’t smile back.
Someone ought to complain about her.
Merry made a noncommittal sound. “Dad, I truly think the familiarity of your own home would be best for you. If we keep the door between the kitchen and the living room closed, we’ll get rid of that draft....”
“I’m not going to play third wheel to you and Lucas,” he said. “You need your privacy.”
She sighed. “Not really.” All roads led to confession of pending divorce, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.
“And I need my privacy,” he said, surprising her. “Merry, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I don’t want life to go back to the way it was before the surgery.”
“You don’t?” Merry said, dismayed. She loved their old life.
“I was lonely,” he stated.
“Dad, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d be happy to spend more—”
“So I plan to start dating.”
For a long moment, the words hovered in the air between them, so foreign to Merry that she didn’t comprehend them. Then they hit.
“You can’t do that!” She grabbed his left hand, which was now completely unfettered. “You always said you could never look at another woman after Mom.”
A clatter startled her. Nurse Martin had dropped a pair of scissors. She scowled as she bent to pick them
up.
Merry realized she’d sounded a bit unreasonable. “I mean, it’s too soon after your surgery,” she said. “You’re not physically healed yet. Besides, decisions made in the aftermath of a traumatic event are often unreliable.” Such as deciding to sleep with Lucas when she’d been told her father was about to die.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “Now, I didn’t hear what you said about Lucas. Is he coming?”
Merry had racked her brain all morning for an explanation for their separation that would reassure her father, one that Lucas could live with and that held enough truth for Dwight not to feel compelled to set the record straight.
So far, she’d come up with big, fat nothing.
Guess it’s going to have to be the truth.
“Lucas isn’t coming, Dad.” She felt the sharp gaze of the nurse on her. “Could my father and I have a few minutes alone, please?” Merry asked.
The woman didn’t answer, just walked out.
It wasn’t any easier without her. Merry clasped her hands in her lap. “Dad, Lucas and I—”
“Excuse me,” Nurse Martin barked from the doorway.
“Yes?” Merry said shortly. What was her problem?
“Your husband is coming down the hallway.”
Was it Merry’s imagination, or did the nurse give the word husband an ironic inflection? It doesn’t matter what she thinks she knows.
Merry darted to the door to see for herself. Yes, Lucas was here. Why?
He walked in as if he owned the place. “Hi, honeybun,” he said, and planted a kiss on Merry’s lips.
“Uh,” she said. Her lips tingled.
Lucas moved to the bed. “Hi, John. You ready to get out of here?”
“You bet.” Her father shook his hand.
“Thanks for letting us stay at your place,” Lucas said. “We appreciate it. Boo will enjoy having a yard to run around in, too.”
Merry felt herself sputtering as he slung an arm across her shoulders. When she tried to move away, his grip tightened.
Lucas had obviously changed his mind about wanting an instant divorce. Why? There’ll be time later to find out. For now, all she had to do was grab his capitulation with both hands.