Marriage On The Edge

by Sandra Marton

  Last night had been wonderful, but it was already a memory and nothing more.

  Natalie felt a suspicious tingling in her eyes. Don't cry, she told herself fiercely. Whatever you do, don't cry. So she blinked hard, forced a smile to her lips, and clumsily patted Gage's shoulder.

  "Good," she said briskly. "That's-that's good. I'll tell the nurse."

  He sighed. "The Dragon Lady, you mean."

  She smiled again. "I'll tell her you're staying. And I'll, I'll see you in the morning."

  In the morning? Gage struggled up against the pillows, gritting his teeth against the pain in his body and the wooziness in his head.

  "Natalie? Don't go. Babe, wait... " But she already had.

  The afternoon dragged by.

  Gage was grateful when darkness fell, but the night didn't bring him any peace. Every time he dozed off, the Dragon Lady popped in to wake him and ask him if he felt all right. ''I'd feel better if you'd let me get some sleep," he said grumpily.

  "We want to make sure you aren't suffering serious concussion," the Dragon Lady said.

  He knew that. It was only that staying awake made the night seem endless, and gave him more time to think about how quickly Natalie had left, without a kiss, without a touch-because that pat on the shoulder hadn’t been a touch ...

  Did she regret the night they'd shared?

  Had he imagined the stuff after the accident? The kisses, the soft words?

  By dawn, he was starting to wonder if she'd even show up to drive him home.

  The Dragon Lady threw up her hands when she came in at eight and found him seated on the edge of the bed, dressed in his street clothes as well as a man could be dressed when he only had one hand to work with.

  "The doctor will be here soon," she sniffed, and Gage growled and said he'd damned well better be.

  The doctor took one look at him and frowned.

  "I take it we're feeling better this morning," he said.

  "I don't know how we feel," Gage snapped. "I only know that I feel like hell. But I'm not seeing double, I'm not nauseous, and I'm not dizzy. So do us both a favour, sign my release papers and let me out of here."

  "Your wife isn't here yet, Mr. Baron."

  "She will be," Gage said, even though he didn't really believe it. But just at that moment the door opened and Natalie stepped into the room.

  "Hi," she said, and his heart swelled at the sight of her. "Hi. I wasn't sure you'd make it."

  Natalie licked her lips. "I said I'd be here, didn't I?" Her tone was falsely cheerful, as was her smile. "Ready to go?"

  "More than ready," Gage said, and he didn't even argue when the Dragon Lady showed up with a wheelchair.

  All he wanted was to get out of the hospital and be alone, with Natalie-and to work up the courage to ask her about yesterday, what was real and what wasn't. To tell her that he loved her and always would, and that she had to come back to him because, God, he didn't want to go on without her.

  Most of all-most of all, he wanted to ask her where she was taking him. Home, to Miami Beach? Or home, with her? Because that was where "home" was. Where Natalie was ...

  "I brought my car. Well, Crista's car."

  He nodded. "Good," he said, and cleared his throat. 'T d probably never be able to crawl into the Vette."

  He got into the car. She turned 'on the ignition. Ask her where she's taking you, Gage told himself ...

  But he didn't.

  "How do you feel?" she said as they pulled away from the curb.

  Terrible, but he wouldn't tell her that because it would only upset her. That was the way awful little scenes like theirs were played out. He knew that firsthand, courtesy of Natalie's miscarriage. Funny, how they were playing this in reverse. Last time around, he'd been the one driving her home from the hospital. He hadn't taken her there: he'd been in Thailand or Togo or some damned place instead of being at home, with her, when she'd lost their baby ...

  ''I'm fine," he said brightly. "Just fine."

  Natalie nodded. He wasn't fine; his face was chalky, his mouth compressed against the pain she knew he must be feeling, but he was going to tough it out. That was so typically masculine ... and yet, she knew how sweet and gentle Gage could be. For no good reason, she suddenly thought of the day after her miscarriage, when he'd brought her home from the hospital. He'd insisted on lifting her from the wheelchair into the car, on buckling her seat belt, on giving her the most tender of kisses.

  "Are you all right, babe' he'd kept asking and she, with a hole in her heart that felt as empty as her womb and blaming him-unfairly, she knew-for not having been there when she'd lost the baby ... she'd finally told him that she was just fine, dammit, and she’d, appreciate it if he'd stop asking.

  "Nat!'

  She blinked. Gage was looking at her.

  "What?"

  Where are we going? He thought. "You okay?" he said. "Me?" She gave a forced laugh. "Of course. I'm not the one who fell off that roof."

  "I didn't fall," he said with great dignity. "I slipped." Natalie raised her eyebrows. "There's a difference?" "Sure." He flashed a lopsided grin. "If a guy falls, he made a dumb move. If he slips ... " "Yes?"

  "Well, he could have tripped over a fallen tree branch. Or stepped on a patch of ice."

  "Ice, huh? In Palm Beach, in midsummer?"

  "Okay, forget the ice. A pile of wet leaves, maybe. Wet palm leaves."

  Natalie smiled. "So, which was it? Wet leaves or a branch?"

  Gage laughed, winced, and carefully touched his hand to his head. "Your choice, babe. I'll settle for either one when I have to tell people what happened."

  Natalie laughed, too. "In other words, you fell. And here I was, all these years, never thinking I had such a clumsy hus ... " Her teasing words faded away. She frowned, cleared her throat, and swung the car towards the curb. "Almost forgot," she said briskly. "The nurse gave me a prescription to fill."

  "Nat," Gage said, and reached for her hand, but she was as quick as she'd been last night.

  ''I'll just be a minute," she said, and slammed the car door shut behind her.

  "So," she said in that same brisk tone when she slid behind the wheel again, "you never did tell me what you were doing on that roof."

  A muscle knotted in Gage's jaw. She didn't want to talk about anything that really mattered. Well, okay. If that was the way she wanted it, neither did he. One thing for certain. Maybe 'he didn't know his way around Palm Beach, maybe he didn't recognize these streets, but it was a good bet she was taking him back to Miami. She was making it pretty clear that even carrying on a conversation was more than she wanted.

  "A sound woke me, someplace around dawn. Grant had mentioned that the roof leaked, and-" "You talked to Grant?"

  "Yeah. I phoned him a couple of weeks ago." Natalie looked at him. "You phoned Grant?"

  "About the house. Was it okay? Would you be okay, staying in it? That kind of thing. And he said yeah, it was fine. Well, aside from it being about as cheerful as a mausoleum. He said there was an occasional problem with the roof, so when I heard something ... "

  Natalie nodded in all the right places but she wasn't really paying attention. She'd thought Gage hadn't cared, because he hadn't called her. But he'd called Grant about her. In some ways, that meant even more.

  Her heart constricted. She didn't want it to but it happened anyway, the same as when she'd first seen him this morning.

  " Figured it might be the sound of tiles shifting on the roof."

  Natalie put on her turn signal. "Tiles shifting," she said, and nodded, as if she'd taken in every word.

  "Yeah. The storm must have loosened them." Gage's voice turned husky. "You remember that storm, don't you, babe?"

  Color flooded her face, but she didn't look at him. "I'll have you home in a little while, Gage. Why don't you put your head back and rest?"

  A bitter taste filled his mouth. "Good idea." He lay his head back and closed his eyes.

  Natalie slowed for a stop
sign. She glanced at Gage, seated beside her. His eyes were shut. From the even rise and fall of his chest, she thought that he might be asleep.

  His colour was better today but there was a pinched look around his mouth. He had to be hurting, even if he wouldn't admit it. The nurse had tried to give him some pills before they left but he'd refused.

  He'd always been stubborn about stuff like that. Even getting him to take aspirin, if he had a headache, had always been a battle.

  He was impossible.

  "Impossible," she said softly as she looked over at him again.

  Not that she was any better. How else did you describe a woman who took her almost-ex-husband's request that she take him home so literally?

  Natalie made a turn onto Ocean Boulevard.

  She hadn't even asked Gage if he wanted to stay with her.

  She'd just made the decision on the spur of the moment, as she stood in the doorway of his hospital room this morning. He'd looked so happy to see her. And she-she'd been so happy to see him.

  How could she leave him, when he needed her?

  It wasn't as if driving him back to Miami Beach would have constituted ~me sort of abandonment. She could have telephoned Luz and asked her to move into the house with Gage for a few days, even for a couple of weeks. Luz would have done it, gladly.

  Natalie pulled into the driveway that led to the big pink stucco mansion.

  And, just in case that hadn't worked, there were other alternatives. Housekeeping agencies. Temporary employment services. Places where she could have arranged to hire an aide, or a nurse.

  And wouldn't Gage have loved that? She smiled at the thought. A nurse, marching into his bedroom, waving a thermometer in one hand and a vial of pills in the other.

  That would have been worth seeing.

  She sighed, shut off the engine, stepped out and went around to the passenger side of the car.

  She could have done a lot of things, anything but what she was doing now, but it was too late to have second thoughts.

  Besides, this would work out fine.

  There was a den on the first floor, with a fold-out sofa, a television set and sliding doors that led onto the patio. It

  wasn't particularly cheerful but there weren't any cheerful rooms in this house. But she could make Gage comfortable there for a couple of days. When he was feeling better, she'd call Luz and make other arrangements.

  Certainly, there'd be no reason to keep him with her longer than that.

  She looked at him. What a bad day he'd had. She reached out a hand and gently swept back the dark, silky hair that had fallen over his forehead. The line of stitches stood out in stark contrast to his skin. Ten stitches that would come out in a week.

  Well, okay. Maybe she'd let him stay with her until the stitches were out.

  But not a moment longer.

  Her gaze swept over her husband's face again. There were shadows under his eyes and little lines along the sides of his mouth. And there was stubble on his chin and jaw. Sexy stubble, she'd always called it, when he'd offered to shave on the weekends.

  Don't, she'd say, just leave it. Then she'd put her lips to his ear and whisper to him, tell him how that sexy stubble felt, against her breasts, her belly, her thighs.

  "Shameless woman," Gage would growl, and then he'd swing her into his arms. "There's only one way to deal with a wanton like you," he'd say, and she'd say, well, she certainly hoped there was more than one way, and he'd flash that wonderfully wicked grin, and then-and then ...

  Natalie blanked her mind to the memories. Thinking like that would get her nowhere except back into Gage's bed, and that wasn't going to happen again. His injuries guaranteed that, his injuries and her determination. She had faced her moment of truth when she'd awakened yesterday morning.

  There was no going back, or denying it. "Gage?"

  "Mmm."

  She touched his shoulder. "Gage, wake up." Slowly, his lashes lifted. "Nat?"

  We're-we're home. Let me help you into the

  "Yes. house."

  "Home?" he said, his eyes dark with confusion. He sat up straight, winced at the sudden, sharp pain in his head, and rubbed his hand over his face. "I guess I dozed off’, "Come on. I'll get you inside."

  "You drove me ... home."

  "Of course."

  Gage nodded. Home, to Miami. Well, hell, what had he expected? That she'd take him back with her, to that big, ugly house on the ocean? To her sweet-smelling bedroom, her soft bed? That she'd want to hold him in her arms as she'd done the night before last? No way. Natalie had done everything she could to make it clear she regretted that. He'd seen it in her face, heard it in her voice.

  "Easy does it," she said, and leaned in the open door of the car. She held out her hand, and he took it. "Put your weight on me."

  He nodded, stepped from the car, leaned on her. .. and looked up, to see the pink stucco, ugly monstrosity of a house looming above them.

  Right now, it looked magnificent.

  Gage looked down at his wife. Her arm was tucked under his shoulder. Her face-her beloved, beautiful face-was turned up to his.

  "You took me home," he said in wonder. "Home, with you."

  A flush rose in her cheeks. "Yes. I thought-I figured it would be the best way to--"

  Natalie never had the chance to finish the sentence. Gage lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE kiss might have lasted forever.

  Gage was lost in it, and so was Natalie. He drew her into the curve of his arm. She sighed, leaned into his embrace, and a muffled groan escaped his lips.

  "Oh!" Natalie sprang back. "Did I hurt you?"

  "It's nothing," he said, and bared his teeth in a smile he suspected wouldn't fool anyone. He was right. Natalie was looking at him as if she'd damn near killed him when the truth was that kiss-her kiss-had almost made him feel whole again. It was just that he was starting to feel like one giant bruise, from the top of his head straight down to his toes.

  "Here." She wrapped her arm around his waist. "Let me help you up the steps."

  Okay, he thought, gritting his teeth against the pain, maybe he wasn't whole again. By the time they reached the front door, he was breathing hard.

  Natalie looked worried. "Are you all right?" "Fine."

  It was a lie, and she knew it. His eyes were glassy with pain. Carefully, she led him into the foyer.

  "Can you make it just a little bit farther?"

  "Sure." He mustered up a smile. "Lead the way."

  She steered him down a hall. His head felt as if it might explode at every step, which wasn't such a bad idea. Then, at least, the little man drilling through his skull would go away.

  The room she led him to was big enough to host a small convention-if the convention were held in Transylvania. The walls were dark mahogany, the ceiling was panelled, and the furniture was covered in cracked oxblood-red leather, with enough decorative tacks to start a small hardware store. Moth-eaten animal heads stared down glassily as Natalie eased him onto an enormous sofa.

  "Cheerful," he said.

  Natalie smiled. "The first week or so, I kept waiting for Count Dracula to appear."

  She spoiled the atmosphere by first opening the damask draperies that covered the windows, then the blinds. Sunlight, and the sound of the sea, came pouring in. Gage tried not to wince, but he couldn't quite manage to pull it off.

  "Too bright?"

  He nodded. "Just a little."

  "Sorry." She closed the drapes, angled the blinds. "Is that better?"

  Darkness would have been better, but then he'd have had to admit he ached all over. Natalie would want him to take the pills she'd bought, and they'd probably put him to sleep. And sleep was the last thing he wanted, just now.

  What he wanted was his wife, back in his arms. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine."

  "Good. I'll just go get you a blanket and a pillow." "Nat-"

  "You stay put, Gage. You know what t
he doctor said." He looked at her blankly. "No. What?"

  "You're to take it easy. Stay off your feet."

  "When did you talk to the doctor?"

  "I didn't." She smiled. "But doctors always say that." God, her smile was wonderful. So wonderful, that he managed a smile in return.