A Wife by Accident

by Victoria Ashe

  In silence, the five of them made their way down the hall back to Gary’s big corner office with its enormous glass view of the city stretched out far below. They gathered around a small, oval table and pulled their chairs up tightly against it. No one said a word until a young woman with a red suit and pleasant smile set a pitcher of water with several clear glasses on the table and closed the door with a click behind her. All at once, everyone around the table exhaled and sat up taller.

  “I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just get straight to the point, my boy. I’m not going to sell you the children’s home.” Mr. Bellmark drew in a ragged breath and poured himself a shaky glass of water.

  Hayely watched Gary’s face as the words slowly registered their grim meaning. Though he didn’t move a muscle, it seemed to her that some spark of life drained from his expression. More even than her own hurt, she hated to sense his. Arrogance and unsociable behavior she could handle—but not Gary’s pain, never that. He didn’t deserve it.

  “But why?” she asked firmly when no one else spoke.

  Gary simply sat at the table and watched the Bellmarks with a piercing stare, awaiting the answer to his wife’s question.

  Mr. Bellmark met Gary’s eyes squarely. “Because you made a promise to me as a boy that only your pride forced you to keep all these years. We honestly hoped you’d forget it one day, but you never did. So, I release you from that promise, son. It’s one I don’t wish for you to keep.”

  Gary’s straight nose flared slightly. “But I wish to keep it. It’s the thing that drove me all these years.”

  “Listen to me. And really hear me this time. It’s too great a burden, and one that you should have never placed on your shoulders. Think for a moment why you wish to keep it. Think and tell me.”

  Gary sat silent for a minute and answered, “First because I made a vow—”

  “—and I’ve released you from it, so that can no longer be a factor. Next reason.”

  “Second, I want to pass on what you taught me. I want to give those kids the chances I had or even greater chances. It’s a matter of honor.” He was relying strictly on his business-bred negotiation skills. His emotions were too twisted around Mr. Bellmark’s answer to do otherwise reasonably.

  Mr. Bellmark smiled sadly. “But don’t you see? You’re already doing just that. You don’t need to buy our old children’s home. You’ve set up scholarships. And whatever nonsense I taught you, I’m sure you’ll teach to your children in turn. Nothing you were given will be lost. You honor us just by doing what you are now—by being Gary Tarleton.”

  Charlie found his voice. “If this was your intent all along—I mean, if you never wanted to let Gary buy our old home from you, then why did you infer it? Why did you let us think that you would?”

  “I don’t understand, Charles.” The old man took a long sip of water to clear his dry throat. “I did no such thing.”

  “You did. You said Gary could buy it if he were in the position to. If he made a stable home life for himself and was a family man. You hinted at those things broadly. Hell, it was more than hinting.”

  Mrs. Bellmark nodded in sudden understanding. “No swearing, Charles,” she warned. “I know what you mean now. Though I’ll admit, I didn’t at first. You all misunderstand. Yes, we wanted desperately for Gary to marry. We didn’t want to see him grow old with only his work as a companion. We wanted nothing less than the greatest love for him and for a stable marriage full of laughter and children. By the way, it’s no less than we want for you, Charles.”

  “Well of course we said Gary needed those things,” Mr. Bellmark added, “and it may have been in a discussion just before the topic shifted back to where Gary usually shifted it. But those words had nothing whatsoever to do with the home. They had everything to do with his happiness. All we ever wanted was for him to be a happy, honorable person.”

  Mrs. Bellmark said to Hayely, “Now really, can you imagine being happy separated half the time with Gary traveling to Maine every week to oversee one thing or another there.” She turned her gaze back to Gary. “You would be divided between two things and would end up doing neither very well, I’m afraid. You would always have one eye on your past and never both on all the possibilities ahead of you.”

  Gary’s head spun as he thought back years in the past to recall the conversations he’d had about the home. Had he been so intent on the boys’ home and the promise of a ten-year-old boy that he hadn’t really heard the lesson they were trying to teach him even then?

  “But you said you’d rather see it burned to the ground than see the state take it over,” Gary said quietly. “Or something to that effect.”

  “That was a long, long time ago, Gary. Options were fewer back then. With your help, I’m hoping to do something a little different.”

  “You want me to light the match?” he said dismally.

  Mr. Bellmark set down his water glass. “I’m not certain, but I think I want to set up a nonprofit organization, but I’m not even sure how. That nice couple you mentioned before and some experts I plan to steal from some state-run programs can operate it locally. Of course, you and I will have veto power over any decisions they botch. We just won’t be involved day-to-day. What do you think?”

  Gary wanted to grab something hard and crumble it in his fist. He’d lived under the weight of that promise for so many years that he wasn’t sure how to live otherwise. He’d tailored his entire existence around the day—this day—when he would sit with Mr. Bellmark and take up the torch. He looked numbly at Hayely, not sure what to do for the first time in his life. This must be how Hayely felt all those times she talked about finding a career, he thought.

  “I’ve wasted everything,” Gary said. “My entire life wasted chasing something that didn’t exist.”

  Mrs. Bellmark looked at him sternly. “No. You were chasing something before the idea to buy the home ever entered your mind. If it weren’t that, it would have been something else you’d have fought for.”

  Hayely looked from face to face and set her hand delicately over Gary’s on top of the table. She knew reason when she heard it and she understood how sometimes wishes were refused out of kindness.

  “I think they’re making sense. You need to let the ten-year-old orphan and his promise go,” Hayely said in a near whisper.

  “Really?” His hazel eyes looked intently into her glassy ones. “Really?” he repeated.

  She nodded. “I really don’t think your plan has changed much when you think about it. You can still repair that church down the road. You can still set up more scholarships for the boys there.”

  “That’s true,” Gary agreed.

  “And,” Hayely continued, “the couple you wanted to run it will be running it after all. The Bellmarks have just made sure you’ll be at home starting a family someday—your own brand new children’s home here in Nevada, so to speak.”

  Gary let out a huge breath that shook his big shoulders. After holding so tightly for so many years to what seemed to be the most important business deal of his life, he felt strangely calm that it hadn’t come to pass. For once, there were no fears of instability, no misplaced vows to drive him. All he needed to do was run his company and—what exactly did he need to do with Hayely?

  “Wow,” he said with a laugh. “How did I get all this? I have everything I wanted after all. And I didn’t even see it coming.” Then a fearful thought came to him. If he hadn’t been so driven, so stubborn—if one single event had been altered in his life along the way, he might never have found Hayely Black signing a paper that made her Hayely Tarleton. He would have never even known her. That concept suddenly chilled him more than the change in plans for the children’s home.

  Mrs. Bellmark let out a sigh of relief. “We were so worried about how you might take our news. We hoped you would understand.”

  All at once, everyone rose from the table and went from one person to the next with hugs and kisses. There was more laughter tha
n Hayely had heard in years, and again she noticed a light creeping back into Gary’s face.

  With words of regret, the Bellmarks had to leave for the airport at last. They couldn’t stay later; the flight to Maine was a long one and a taxi already awaited them in the parking lot below. All too quickly, the lively gathering narrowed down to only two as Charlie also left to pick up Carla for a lunch date. When Gary and Hayely at last sat alone and exhausted in his office, they simply looked outside at the view.

  Hayely stretched out on Gary’s leather executive sofa while he leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto his desk.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I am,” he answered. “You know, I’m not going to work weekends anymore. I’ve worked them my whole life. I’m just not going to do that anymore.” He put his hands behind his neck and watched an airplane with its hundreds of passengers sail by noiselessly in the distant blue sky.

  “A lighter workload would be good,” she said as softly as possible. “You’d have more time for a personal life.”

  “What do you want to do during the day after all the interior design is done? It almost is, you know. I could set up something for you here?”

  Lord above, was she still an employee first and foremost to him? She frowned and would have thrown a pillow at his head if she’d had more than one with her on the sofa.

  “I want to do something for myself, thank you very much. I just don’t know what it is yet,” she said at length.

  Gary’s eyes followed the trail of the plane. “If you could fly away anywhere right now, where would it be?”

  “Way to change the subject. Don’t you think dinner and a movie would be a better place to start getting to know each other better?”

  “We’ve already done dinner. Several times.” His voice grew low and gentle as he looked at her.

  Hayely spun around on her bottom on the slick sofa and sat up straight. Frustrating, that’s what he was. “Okay. I’ll play. I’ve always wanted to see Pompeii.”

  “You want to see a bunch of dead people covered in ash?”

  “Not the most romantic?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “How about a safari in Africa? We could sleep in tents under the stars.”

  We? She pondered the idea. “I’m not big on sunburns or being lion bait. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  He laughed in defeat. “It’s settled then. For our fantasy trip, Italy it is, all the way to Pompeii. For now, want to come down with me to one of the sites? I’ll introduce you to the crew.”

  “You know, I think I’d rather just go back to the house. I’m a little tired of make-believe and fantasy.”

  “You want something real?” He leaned in close, so close she could feel the heat of his body warming her.

  “Real?” She pressed her hands against his chest. “Try having to figure out how to tell my parents that I went and got married months ago and couldn’t seem to find the time to tell them. Doesn’t get much more real than that.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said.

  She lowered her eyes. “What exactly did you mean, Gary?”

  He leaned away from her when the answer wouldn’t come. He ran his hand across his chin. The right words just wouldn’t come when he needed them.

  “Do you want me to talk to them?” he finally offered.

  Hayely sighed when he sidestepped the loaded question.

  “Maybe I should just tell them I’m married but it’s only a business deal, that I sold myself to pay for a watch.”

  Gary grimaced visibly. “Look, I—”

  She put her hand up as if to stop his words. “Or maybe you could just kiss me,” she whispered.

  As he pulled her into his arms, all Hayely could think was that the Bellmarks were gone and there was really no more need for the charade. And soon all the painting would be finished. The fairy tale was ending just as soon as it started, and she was half scared and half filled with hope to think where reality might lead.

  Chapter Nine

  A day or two passed while Hayely summoned the courage to call her family. She felt slightly sick to her stomach that morning and it didn’t help that when she dialed her parents’ phone number off and on all morning, she connected with nothing but an annoying answering machine on the other end.

  A gnawing anxiety twirled around inside her. All but once in her life, her father’s decisions had somehow wound up being hers. Then she’d taken a stand against him and it had nearly severed their relationship entirely. Her decision had taken her across the country to Nevada and now into … this.

  “Time to stand on your own two feet and be an adult, Hayely,” she whispered to herself. “And live with your own decisions.” She stared at the telephone and hoped it would ring in spite of the tense conversation she knew would follow.

  Her interior design duties for the mansion were finished for the most part, and she’d be moving out soon. She’d hoped Gary might say something—anything. But the fact was, she’d scarcely seen him alone since the Bellmarks left. He seemed distant and deep in thought, yet he still hadn’t explained what he’d meant by “something real.”

  Dressed in sweatpants and a color-splattered shirt, Hayely finished painting the last unfinished room that morning. The place was definitely opposite what it had been only a few months before. The light from the stained glass windows fell on ferns and plants with dark green leaves. Candles, chandeliers, and firelight bathed the living room whenever possible, and the richly colored walls and decadent fabrics had turned the cold marble and stone into a haven of comfort.

  Hayely dropped her brush back into the near-empty paint bucket when she heard Gary coming down the hall to find her. She’d seen a lightness come over him since his meeting with the Bellmarks. She still had to nudge him to get him to speak nicely to anyone he didn’t know well, but she had to admit that she’d even grown to enjoy his standoffish qualities. Now she knew it; when she moved out, his loss would cut.

  His lush voice rolled toward her before she saw him. “Hayely, the strangest thing happened this morning.” He walked around the corner and leaned in the doorway with his loose jeans shifting in just the right places. “I tried to call the lawyer’s office and get our file back from them today.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought we could shred all the copies of that ridiculous contract into a thousand pieces together.”

  “I would love that. So what was strange?” She pushed a strand of hair back. How she’d gotten paint the color of tomato soup in it, she could only imagine.

  “Their office was broken into last week. The only thing stolen was our file.”

  Hayely set the paint bucket down on the floor and her hand fluttered up to rest over her heart. “Are you sure it isn’t just missing? Misfiled?”

  Gary crossed his denim-covered arms over his chest, looking sterner that ever. “Gone. Stolen.” He paused for a moment. “Can you think of anyone who would have known I used that particular lawyer to draw up our agreement?”

  Hayely sank down into a nearby chair and didn’t even seem to notice as the white drop cloth slid off and bunched around her. I’m going to fire some idiot today. I just don’t know who yet. Maybe it’ll be someone who receives personal deliveries on company time.

  “Oh no,” she whispered and then looked up at Gary’s piercing hazel eyes. “The courier. You had the package sent to me at the office and it had a label from your lawyer’s office on it.”

  “Who saw that package?”

  Hayely’s grey eyes hardened. “Kathy.”

  Gary’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “I’m tired of dealing with that witch. She’s gone past unethical and flown on her broomstick straight into illegal. I ought to turn her in to the police.”

  “How could you prove it? You know she probably didn’t break into the office herself anyway. She probably planted the seed in what’s his name—Darryl’s head and had him do it after an all-night bender anyway.” />
  Gary struck his hand in anger against the doorframe. “She can’t use it. If she tries, I’ll have her bony behind tossed behind bars so fast—”

  The melodious chimes of the doorbell sang through the house and interrupted Gary’s sentence. “Don’t tell me Charlie forgot his keys again,” he muttered with eyes still furious and filled with a livid glint.

  He turned and stomped toward the entryway with Hayely following on his heels.

  Gary turned the bolt on the door and as he did, yelled out, “You don’t have to keeping ringing the thing. We heard you.” With a final twist, he flung open the door as wide as it would go.

  Hayely jumped back as Gary moved almost casually away from the impact of the heavy door. With his arm stretched high against the side of the wood, he said to her, “I think it’s for you.”

  All at once a tight red fist appeared in the house from whoever stood outside, and it was aimed at Gary’s stomach through the open door. He stepped back just in time to avoid the blow.

  “What have you done to my daughter?” A pair of flashing grey eyes that looked much like Hayely’s glared up at Gary.

  Gary looked down at the shorter, stockier man on his doorstep. His visitor was round-faced and determined as the sunlight bounced off his nearly bald head. He still had both of his reddened hands clenched tightly at his sides, a bunch of papers clutched in the one he hadn’t swung at Gary.

  Gary hadn’t noticed the slender woman standing there next to her husband at first. She was about the same height as her daughter, but seemed so thoroughly engrossed in the pavement at her feet that Gary couldn’t yet see the similarities in her face.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Black,” he said with confidence. “Come in.”

  “I most certainly will not,” Hayely’s father declared with a great huff. “I’ve come to take my daughter back home with us and away from you—you, scoundrel!” he shouted and shook the wad of papers in Gary’s face. “I know what you’ve done to her. I’ve read all about it.”