Sultry

by Mary Lynn Baxter

  A gun.

  A bolt of terror shot through her as she stared at the lethal weapon lying next to a package of tissues. At first she recoiled; then she did something that was totally foreign to her. She reached out and touched the cold metal. With increasing boldness, she carefully lifted it from its hiding place.

  Shuddering, she dropped it on the bed beside her and waited, her heart pounding in her ears.

  “Now, where were we?” Mitch asked in a husky voice after opening the bedroom door and striding in.

  “Not where we left off, that’s for sure,” Lindsay said, her voice tight.

  Mitch halted, the sudden change in her obvious. His gaze flickered over her before settling on the weapon. He made no effort to hide how he felt. Fury twisted his features.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, sounding as if he were strangling.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” he said, his tone now coated in ice.

  Lindsay flinched as though he’d slapped her. “Why, you…you bastard!”

  Mitch’s eyes reflected his tone. “I may be, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Well, it does for me,” Lindsay lashed back, lunging off the bed and grabbing her robe.

  “Running away won’t solve anything. If you’ll just calm down—”

  “No! I don’t want to calm down.” She was trembling as if a tiny tornado had just struck her system. “I want to go home.”

  “Back to Daddy.” His words were wrapped in sarcasm.

  Lindsay’s eyes flared. “That’s right. That’s obviously where I belong.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  With that, Lindsay dashed out of the room and out of the house, but not before a string of Mitch’s expletives assaulted her ears.

  He shouldn’t have talked to her that way. After all, she was his wife, for God’s sake. She deserved to know about his past. She had asked a fair question and deserved a fair answer. But he hadn’t given her one.

  He’d acted like an ass.

  And he had paid for that reaction ever since. He couldn’t sleep, nor could he eat. It was as if his emotional self had shut down. His physical body, however, had remained in top condition. He’d worked long, backbreaking hours, refusing to quit until sweat covered every inch of him and his muscles jumped convulsively.

  Yet even when he fell exhausted into bed, thoughts of Lindsay continued to burn through his mind, until he got a painful erection and began to tremble.

  He had to make things right between them. But he was so damn confused. Had he fallen in love? Or was he still confusing lust with love? He didn’t think so—not anymore. His soul was involved.

  However, as long as she insisted on keeping their marriage a secret, he could not be one hundred percent sure. Any kind of normal life they might have together would remain out of reach.

  No matter. He couldn’t bear this rift between them, knowing it was his fault. He wasn’t sure he was ready to spill his guts to her. But he had to do something so that he could see her again, touch her again, even if they had to sneak around to do it.

  It was as if he were having a clandestine affair with his own wife.

  Nonetheless, he was hopeful he would run into Lindsay when he went to see Cooper, who had demanded his presence in the inner sanctum.

  A smirk toyed with Mitch’s mouth as he knocked on the side door, guessing Cooper wanted to talk about remodeling the south wing again. He would do the work, all right, but Lindsay and that lowlife Peter wouldn’t be living in it together.

  A part of him dreaded the day the old man found out about him and Lindsay, but he wasn’t going to take on that worry now. His main thought was patching things up with his wife.

  Once Dolly answered the door and they exchanged pleasantries, he made his way toward Cooper’s study, all the while keeping an eye out for Lindsay.

  She was nowhere in sight.

  Forcing his disappointment aside, he knocked on the heavy door.

  Moments later he was facing his boss from across his desk. “Mornin’.”

  Cooper didn’t return his greeting. Instead, he raked his eyes over him, his lips curled. “You’re through here, Rawlins.”

  Mitch forced himself not to react, though his insides were a cauldron of fear and anxiety. “As in fired, you mean?”

  Cooper’s features turned into a sneer. “What do you think?”

  Mitch shrugged, still keeping his emotions under wraps. So the old man had found out. How? It didn’t matter. What mattered was how he was going to fix something that was obviously broken.

  “Pack your shit, then get out.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mitch drawled, deciding to call his hand.

  Cooper stood, his face purple with rage. “You’ll do like you’re told!”

  “I’ll leave, but not without Lindsay.”

  “You’re not taking my daughter anywhere, you hear? Just because you took advantage of her and got her pregnant doesn’t give you homestead privileges.”

  So he didn’t know the rest of the story, after all. Well, he was about to. “But a marriage license does.”

  “You’re lying!” Cooper said in a choked voice.

  Mitch looked him over with contempt. “You know better than that.”

  “No way would my daughter marry the likes of you!”

  “If you don’t believe me, ask her,” Mitch said with a nonchalant shrug.

  Cooper was quiet for a long moment, then asked, “How much?”

  “This is not about money, Cooper.”

  Cooper laughed an ugly laugh, as if the devil had invaded his system. “Everything’s about money.”

  “Not with me it isn’t.”

  As if Mitch hadn’t spoken, Cooper went on. “So how much will it take for you to walk away from my daughter and the…baby?”

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “I ought to have you horsewhipped for taking advantage of my daughter.”

  “You probably should.”

  “So why don’t you do what’s right and leave them be?”

  “I can’t. Where I go, they go.”

  “By God, that’s not going to happen!”

  “Daddy! What on earth is going on?”

  At the unexpected sound of Lindsay’s voice, Mitch swung around. But her gaze was on her father, not him.

  “Tell me you’re not married to this man.”

  Mitch met Lindsay’s stunned gaze. With the silence beating around them, they simply stared at each other.

  “Lindsay!” Cooper raged on. “Answer me!”

  “We are married, Daddy.”

  Mitch heard the tremor in her voice and drew a harsh breath, aching to knock Cooper on his ass for his behavior as well as his archaic attitude. He didn’t care about himself; he could handle his father-in-law. But obviously Lindsay couldn’t. Cooper could still intimidate the hell out of her.

  “How could you?” Cooper gasped. “How could you do this to me?”

  “Let her be,” Mitch said tersely.

  “You stay out of this, Rawlins. She’s my daughter.”

  That tore it. Mitch leaned across the desk and got in the older man’s face. “She’s my wife.”

  “Stop it!” Lindsay cried. “Both of you. Right now.”

  Both men’s eyes swung in her direction.

  “I won’t have you bickering over me like two dogs over a bone.”

  Mitch stepped toward her. “Lindsay—”

  She held up her hand, her face ravaged by tears. He wanted to hold her and make all this go away. But he couldn’t. He feared he might never hold her again.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Just go. I can’t handle anything else right now.”

  Her words cut him to the quick, and he reacted accordingly, speaking to her alone. “There’s nothing to handle, Lindsay. When you make up your mind whether you want
to be my wife or Daddy’s princess, you can let me know.”

  Somehow Lindsay managed to get through the next few days without running into Mitch. She figured he was avoiding her, as well. Yet she knew something had to give. She couldn’t continue to live like this. She missed him terribly, but she was also angry at him—angry at his penchant for privacy, and angry that he had divulged their secret.

  When she had walked in on him arguing with her father in the study, she’d panicked. Once Mitch had stomped out, she had headed toward the door herself, though Cooper had done his best to stop her.

  “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” he’d demanded, his color still high.

  “To my room.”

  “I refuse to condone this marriage. You have to know that.”

  “I do know that, Daddy. But if Mitch goes, I go with him.”

  “I’ll never believe that,” he sneered. “You’ll come to your senses. Until then, I’ll allow him to stay.”

  “I’m sick to my stomach. I’m going to my room.”

  “Then go,” he snapped, turning his back on her. “We’ll talk later.”

  That “later” hadn’t come as yet, but she knew it would. She told herself that when it did, she could handle it, handle him.

  Now, Lindsay shivered as she made her way downstairs toward the kitchen for a cup of tea. It was late afternoon, and she’d been in her room most of the day, working on the project. She hadn’t felt well, either. Her stomach had been on the warpath. Being pregnant and stressed made for a lethal combination.

  Maybe that was all the more reason to seek Mitch out. Perhaps she had been too hard on him concerning his desire for privacy. Maybe if she hadn’t come on like gangbusters, he might have confided in her. But she didn’t think so. There was something about the way he’d looked when he’d walked back into the room, even before he saw the gun, that made her think he was upset.

  His facade had slipped for one second, and what she’d glimpsed in those eyes had frightened her. His visitor, whoever it had been, had gotten him riled to the point that he’d become more of a stranger than he was before.

  As for that fiasco with her daddy—well, Mitch shouldn’t have blurted out that they were married. Maybe it was his defense against getting fired. Whatever Mitch’s reasoning, his high-handedness still smarted.

  Now, as she made her way past Cooper’s study, she heard voices—Cooper’s and Peter’s. Oh dear, she thought, Peter was the last person she wanted to see. She would not have lingered so much as a second—especially since the door was cracked and she could have been seen—except that she heard her name mentioned.

  She paused, out of harm’s way, and listened. Although she couldn’t hear all the conversation, she heard enough.

  Her hands flew to her mouth, covering it so she wouldn’t cry out loud. Instead, she cried silently, Why, Daddy? How could you? How could you do this to me?

  For a moment Lindsay was tempted to barge into the room and confront him on the spot—only she didn’t. Two against one weren’t odds she liked. And when she finally spoke her mind, she wanted to be geared for battle, to be at her fighting best. Right now, she wasn’t geared for anything.

  Heartsick, she turned and made her way back upstairs.

  Twenty-Seven

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Lindsay gave Dolly a wan smile. “I’m just tired.”

  “That’s why I brought you this pot of hot tea and this plate of tea cakes.”

  “You’re a dear, Dolly. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Dolly snorted. “I don’t, either. You look so thin a good hard wind could pick you up and blow you clean away.”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “I didn’t say ‘bad,’ honey. I said ‘thin.’”

  “I’m pregnant, Dolly.”

  The beloved housekeeper’s eyes widened, and her jaw went slack. “You’re…what?” The maid sputtered as if she had run plumb out of steam.

  “‘Pregnant’ is the word.” Lindsay mustered up another smile. “You can say it. It’s no longer a secret.”

  Dolly snorted again, then said, “Lordy mercy, child, how did that happen?”

  Lindsay laughed outright this time, and it felt good. These past few days had been a living hell for her as she tried to figure a way to work things out between the two men she loved. It had been like knocking her head against a brick wall, especially since her daddy had left before dawn on a fishing trip with Tim.

  “Honey?”

  Lindsay gave Dolly a startled look. “Sorry. I was woolgathering.”

  Dolly’s expression was soft and warm. “Is there anything else you want to tell me? You don’t have to. I mean, if I’m overstepping—”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Dolly, you’re family. Of course I want to confide in you.”

  “Well, no matter what, I love you,” Dolly said with a bit of defiance. “And I’ll always love you.”

  Lindsay left her desk chair and gave the housekeeper a great big hug. “The same goes for me.”

  Dolly dropped her arms, stepped back, then pointed her finger at Lindsay. “From now on, you’re going to eat right—and a lot of it, too.”

  “Now, Dolly, don’t start.”

  Dolly placed her ample hands on her hips and glared at Lindsay. “I refuse to let you have a puny baby.”

  Lindsay chuckled. “All right, all right. I give up.”

  “Good. I’ll pour you some tea.”

  Lindsay let go of a sigh as she watched Dolly putter. “Mitch Rawlins is the father.”

  Dolly straightened as if she’d been shot, then whipped around. “Lordy, if you don’t stop shocking me, I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

  “And we’re married. So you can rest easy on that score.” What Lindsay didn’t add, but wanted to, was that she hoped they would stay married. The way the situation was now, she had no idea what to expect.

  Dolly sat down in the nearest chair and started fanning herself with her right hand. This time Lindsay hid her smile, though she knew Dolly was putting on a show. What she had just been told was heavy stuff, especially because it was unexpected.

  “Then why isn’t Mr. Mitch living here with you?”

  Lindsay put a trembling hand to her head. “Daddy just found out himself and went berserk.”

  “Lordy me. What did he have to say?”

  “You can imagine. He fired Mitch, then backed down when I told him I would leave with him.”

  Too bad Mitch hadn’t been around to hear that part of the conversation, she thought. He had already stormed out of the house when she’d told Cooper that, so he didn’t know she’d defended him. Anger and pride had kept her from telling him.

  Dolly made a clucking sound. “My, my, what a mess.”

  “That it is, especially when I’m trying to keep peace between two hardheaded men.”

  “You’ve taken on an impossible task, my dear.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” Lindsay wailed. “I have to work this out. I just have to. I don’t want to live without either of them, though I’m not happy with either at the moment, especially Daddy.”

  Her mind suddenly turned back to what she’d overheard between him and Peter—an issue that hadn’t been resolved as yet. But it would be. As soon as Cooper returned home.

  “You just take care of yourself,” Dolly was saying.

  “I plan on it.” Lindsay put her hand on her stomach. “I want this baby, Dolly. I didn’t know how I felt at first, but now I’ve never been more sure of anything.” Her features took on a pinched look. “Though I’m worried that it won’t be normal, that it’ll be—”

  “Don’t you dare say that,” Dolly warned in a huff. “What’s more, don’t even think it. Just because your mamma was sick, don’t mean your baby will be.”

  “What about me, Dolly? I was sick like her.”

  “It’s what you saw that made you sick. You have to believe that.”

  Lindsay hugged he
r again.

  “You just think on being happy with Mr. Mitch, you hear?” Dolly grinned. “He’s a real nice man.”

  “I kinda think so, too.”

  Dolly’s grin faded. “But it’s not right, you two not living together. You’d best get that straightened out.” She paused, her gaze shifting to the clock. “Lordy, I gotta get out of here and get back to work.”

  Once Lindsay was alone, she sampled one of the tea cakes and took a sip of tea, thinking it tasted good, which was a plus. Since her stomach had been so queasy, food was not tops on her priority list.

  For some unexplainable reason, her eyes drifted to her mother’s trunk, and she wondered what Mother would have thought about her having married Mitch. Would Emily have encouraged or discouraged such a relationship?

  Lindsay sighed, got up and walked over to the chest, then eased onto the floor in front of it. Once the lid was raised, she stared at the contents and touched several of the items, her eyes misting over.

  Would she ever get over having lost her mother?

  Her gaze finally settled on the small stack of letters. She picked them up, untied the ribbon holding them together, then began flipping through them.

  It was when she came to an unopened envelope that she paused. The letter was one Emily had written to a friend—a letter she obviously hadn’t mailed. Lindsay’s curiosity getting the better of her, she slid a finger under the tab, pulled out the flimsy paper and began reading.

  Moments later, she sat rigid, a feeling of anger and hopelessness washing over her. She wished now that she hadn’t read the letter, hadn’t experienced her mother’s heartache and pain through the written words. If only her daddy… No. She wouldn’t do this to herself. She couldn’t stand any more jolts to the heart. Besides, what was done was done.

  Staving off the tears, Lindsay stuffed the letter back in the envelope, closed the lid of the chest and scrambled upright. Maybe if she ate another tea cake it would quiet her stomach. But the treats no longer appealed to her, suddenly looking like lumps of sawdust.

  Making a face, Lindsay walked out onto the balcony, hoping for a glimpse of Mitch, certain his presence would be a balm to her sagging spirits. He was nowhere in sight, though she knew he was still working somewhere on the estate. She had seen him yesterday, without him seeing her.