The Bride Came C.O.D. (Bachelor Fathers)

by Barbara Bretton

  She floated off down the hall in a cloud of baby powder and Chanel No. 5, her tiny feet in their Mickey Mouse slippers making soft noises against the bare wood floor.

  "You see why I had to call you," Lexi said, a big smile on her face. "She was so excited--"

  "Don't call me again." The intensity of his words surprised him but there was no denying the way he felt. "You're here to give me the chance to work, not to call me inside over trifles."

  "Trifles? You saw her. She was dancing on air with excitement. Your approval means the world to her."

  "That might be," he said, gut twisting, "but when I'm working, I expect to be left alone."

  The light in her eyes dimmed. "You're a bastard," she said in a flat tone of voice. "A total bastard."

  He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. What had happened between him and Helena was his business. Sharing it with a stranger wasn't his style.

  "Don't you have anything to say?" Lexi demanded.

  "No," he said calmly. "I don't think I do."

  With that, he turned and went back to the lab.

  Lexi stared after him in disbelief. She wanted to run after him, grab him by his biceps, and try to shake some sense into him but she'd have a better chance trying to tame a grizzly bear. In truth she didn't care what he did with his life or how he spent his time, but the fact that he could turn away from a little girl who so obviously adored him made her see red.

  "Louse," she said to the closed door. She looked around the room for something to throw against the wall but it occurred to her that she'd only have to clean up the mess herself. At least back home there had always been someone to cart away the consequences of her bad temper.

  Kelsey's voice drifted toward the kitchen. "Daddy! I want a story!"

  She cast one last dirty look in Kiel's general direction then hurried back to tell Kelsey a bedtime story about a bad-tempered dragon who didn't know when he was well off.

  It was the comb.

  That goddamned cloisonné hair comb.

  The night Helena left he'd found the comb sitting atop her dresser along with her wedding ring, some old love letters, and the phone number of Kelsey's pediatrician. For weeks he walked around in a haze. The last few months of their marriage hadn't been good by any means but when she told him it was over, that it had been over for a long time and that there was another man, he'd felt as if he'd been pole-axed. The only thing that had kept him going was the baby daughter who looked up at him with eyes so like her mother's that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  There was no way Lexi could have known any of this. He doubted if Joanna O'Neal would have supplied the information. It wasn't something you casually dropped into a conversation with a woman you barely knew, even if that woman happened to be your new wife. By the way, in case you're wondering why I'm acting like such a shit, let me tell you a little something about the first Mrs. Brown. Take my wife...please. What was that? Oh yeah. Somebody already did.

  "Son of a bitch." He'd really lost it back there. He didn't believe in letting your emotions get the better of you, especially not when it came to the past. He saw that hairclip on Kelsey's nightstand every single day and he'd managed to keep the memories at bay. But seeing that hairclip holding back his daughter's hair, seeing her so grown up in her silky yellow nightgown, that look of feminine awareness in her dark eyes--it was like seeing Helena again.

  The best of Helena. The girl inside the woman he'd fallen in love with, the woman he'd married, the woman he'd expected to grow old beside.

  It wasn't going to happen again. You could surprise him once but after that his defenses were back up, his armor in place. None of this was any of Alexa Grace's business and he'd make sure it stayed that way.

  The dragon story led into one about a little mermaid and a handsome prince, which was followed by the classic one about Cinderella. Lexi was quickly running out of fairy tales and was afraid she'd have to resort to relating Elizabeth Taylor's eight marriages when Kelsey drifted off to sleep just before the happily-ever-after ending.

  And not a minute too soon.

  She wandered over to the little bookshelf near the window. Four slabs of yellow pine rested on white lacquered brackets. Beautiful volumes of Winnie the Pooh and Charlotte's Web and Disney's versions of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty were neatly stacked side by side. They were all wonderful, but what she needed was a big fat volume of the Brothers Grimm, a refresher course in fairy tales.

  She reached for a picture version of some Hans Christian Andersen favorites and her eye was caught by a piece of paper peeking out from between the shelf and the wall. Stretching, she managed to pluck it out. It was a photograph.

  The nightlight glowed softly from the outlet near the baseboard. Lexi crouched down and held the photo up to the pale pink light. She exhaled on a long breath. The woman in the photo was lovely. Long dark hair piled artlessly on top of her head, held by a cloisonné comb. Lexi looked more closely at the photo. It was the same comb she had used to hold back Kelsey's hair. The woman looked straight at the camera, her full lips curved in a half-smile, the smile of a woman who knew her power and how to use it. It was Kelsey twenty years from now and yet it wasn't.

  There was something cunning about the woman's smile, something sophisticated and knowing and sly. To her surprise, Lexi found herself recoiling.

  "Ridiculous," she whispered, returning the photo to the bookshelf. That was Kelsey's mother. Kiel's first wife. What on earth was the matter with her, reading a thousand dark emotions into the photo of a beautiful woman who was gone.

  At least there was one thing she was sure about: she wasn't jealous.

  Not for a minute.

  Kiel gave up the ghost before dawn.

  He couldn't think, couldn't concentrate, couldn't get last night's scene out of his mind. He'd been a horse's ass to let something as stupid as a hair clip blow him out of the water that way.

  Alexa Grace probably thought he was crazy. Hell, he wouldn't be at all surprised if she'd called Joanna the second he slammed the door behind him and begged the woman for a reassignment. Something easy. Maybe a midnight raid on Iraq.

  He couldn't blame her. Better a certified madman than a suspected one.

  If things didn't improve and fast, it was going to be the longest winter of his life.

  And more than likely the most unproductive one.

  "Okay," he said as he locked up the laboratory and started for the house. He'd give it one more try. He'd shower, change into clean clothes, plug in the coffee maker then extend a metaphorical olive branch.

  He hung up his jacket on the peg near the door and was unbuttoning his shirt when he saw her. She was curled up at the far end of the couch. A bed pillow was tucked under her head; two afghans and a quilt were piled on top of her slender form.

  It was her second night on the sofa. This wasn't going to work. His weight bench was shoved in a corner of the room. Before Kelsey came to live with him, he'd made a habit of pumping iron as a means of cooling off after a marathon session in the lab.

  The dying fire cast a dim, wavering light across her face. Her eyes were deeply shadowed. Between jet lag and their wedding, the wonder was she hadn't fallen asleep on her feet hours ago. Sleep had always seemed a waste of time to him. As a kid he'd trained himself to get by on a minimal amount of sleep. As an adult he'd had so much he wanted to accomplish that he begrudged every second lost to things as minor as exhaustion.

  "Lexi." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go to bed."

  She murmured something and pushed her face more deeply into the pillow.

  He shook her gently. "You'll be more comfortable in the bedroom."

  No response. Just the deep, regular sound of her breathing.

  She couldn't stay on the couch. Once he started pumping iron, the clink of the weights would be bound to wake her up. He didn't much want to have her watching him work out. Besides, he had the feeling she needed more t
han four hours sleep to maintain that cranky disposition.

  Bending down, he gathered her--and her myriad blankets--into his arms. She didn't weigh much more than Kelsey did, he mused as he made his way through the hall to his bedroom. She murmured something low in her throat and pressed her forehead against his throat. A muscle in his jaw worked convulsively in response. He tried to ignore the other responses his body was making.

  The room was dark. He didn't turn on the light. If she woke up and found herself in his arms she'd probably let out a howl of protest that would scare the daylights out of Kelsey, asleep in the next room. Besides, he didn't need to turn on the lights. The room was laid out like a monk's cell. A simple dresser near the window. A large bed against the wall. He could tell one from the other in the dark.

  He laid her down. She protested softly, clinging to him an extra moment as he settled the covers over her. He pushed the pillow closer to her and after a moment she curled up against it like a kitten seeking warmth and comfort.

  He wasn't sure what she was wearing under those covers and considered turning back the blanket to see but decided against it. In old movies the hero always had to help the heroine out of her wet/cold/inappropriate clothes and into the proper sleepwear but he was of the opinion that if a person is tired enough he or she could sleep in a straitjacket.

  No, if he turned back the blanket to see what she was wearing there would be only one reason: to see her naked. She hadn't been expecting him to return to the house so early. And she was wrapped in enough covers to drape a grand piano.

  He remembered that Kelsey was wearing one of her nightgowns or pajamas or something. It wasn't that farfetched an idea to think that there was nothing between him and her naked frame except a few blankets and his waning self-control.

  He pushed a lock of pale blonde hair off her cheek. It felt like raw silk beneath his fingertips. He already knew that it smelled like lilacs in the spring. And that her mouth was sweet as honey. And he somehow knew how she would sound when passion carried her to the edge, low and urgent and unbearably, painfully erotic.

  She mumbled something and stretched languidly. He stepped away, feeling both guilty and intrigued. All things considered he'd rather not want her. Sex would only complicate the already tangled situation in which they found themselves.

  There were only two important issues at stake: his daughter and his work. He and Alexa Grace Marsden and how they felt--or didn't feel about each other--didn't matter a damn in the scheme of things. If he had a choice in the matter he'd rather not want her. If he had a choice, he'd rather she looked like the back end of a bus and had a face to match. But she didn't. She was tiny, delicately made, beautiful--even if her sharp tongue and imperious manner could use some work.

  But hell.

  No one was perfect.

  Definitely not Alexa Grace.

  He grinned ruefully. Not even him.

  Temptation was everywhere in that room. It wouldn't take much to push him over the boundary that he'd set for himself. He'd given into temptation a time or two in his day and for the most part he'd found reality came in a poor second to imagination most of the time.

  Cold comfort, but it was the best he could do at four in the morning.

  Turning, he left the room and went to pump a little iron.

  Lexi woke up to brilliant sunshine.

  "Good grief," she said, sitting up in bed. If all that blasted sunshine was any indication it must be high noon. Or pretty close to it. She had to get Kelsey up, make breakfast, do the--

  She was in bed. She hadn't started out the night in bed. She'd started out on the sofa.

  And, to make matters worse it wasn't just any bed, it was his bed. The scent of soap and spice was everywhere, on her skin, in her hair, burned into her brain. She fell back against the mattress and covered her face with the pillow.

  What on earth was going on? They'd had a wedding yesterday but she was reasonably certain they hadn't enjoyed a wedding night. And a woman wasn't likely to forget her own wedding night, was she?

  She swung her legs out of bed and stood up, gasping at the bite of the cold wood floor. She quickly noted that she was wearing the same lace panties and t-shirt she'd donned before going to sleep. A quick prayer of thanks seemed to be in order.

  Of course, the question still remained, how had she ended up in the bedroom. She wasn't a sleepwalker and she wasn't prone to playing musical beds. Besides, she would have slept in the bathtub quicker than in his bed. Husband or not, there was something too intimate about sharing a mattress, even if they were sharing it at different hours of the day.

  There was only one way she would have ended up in his bed and that was if the Incredible Hunk himself had put her there.

  His hands against her naked flesh. His hot glance searing her skin. His dirty rotten imagination going into overdrive and taking her with it.

  Furious she stormed from the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

  He was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. She could hear Kelsey singing along with Big Bird as she watched television in the living room.

  "How dare you!" she exploded as he looked up at her. "If I'd wanted to sleep in your bed I would have marched in there and done it. You had no right to move me."

  "The hell I didn't." His spoon clattered back into the bowl. Droplets of milk splashed across the tabletop. "You were in my space. I moved you. Case closed."

  "Case closed?" She smothered the urge to hit him over the head with the box of cornflakes. "You have a whole extra house to call your own. You don't have any right to steal the living room too."

  "It's my house."

  "It's mine too."

  "The hell it is."

  "The hell it isn't." She waved her left hand in front of his nose. "We're married, buster, in case you don't remember."

  His expression was far from blissful. "You make it hard to forget."

  "Go ahead," she said. "Insult me all you want. It doesn't change the facts."

  "I was here before you," he said with annoying male logic. "I set up the rules."

  "And that gives you the right to take over the living room?"

  "Yup."

  She stepped closer to him, wagging her finger mere inches from his face. "It doesn't give you the right to pick me up like I'm a sack of potatoes and move me wherever you want."

  "I tried to wake you up. You wouldn't budge."

  She treated him to her most disdainful look. "You couldn't have tried very hard. I happen to be a very light sleeper. The least little thing disturbs me."

  She'd never heard anyone guffaw before. "Better tell it to someone who hasn't heard you snore."

  "I do not snore."

  "No? Then that was a damn good imitation of a freight train you were doing."

  That was the last straw. She swung at him wildly but he was too fast for her. He grabbed her by the wrist, bent her arm behind her back, then pulled her down onto his lap. Hard.

  "Let me go," she ordered, considering the wisdom of kicking him in the shins.

  "So you can take another swing at me? Not on your life."

  "If you'd treat me like a human being instead of a hood ornament, maybe I wouldn't want to take a swing at you."

  The look on his face was priceless. "A hood ornament? Where did you get that idea from?"

  "I--I don't really know but it's the way you make me feel."

  He started to laugh. A deep, full-bodied laugh that she could feel vibrating through his chest.

  She struggled against him. "I'd die happy if you'd let me have one clear shot at you." Death would be a small price to pay for the pleasure of smashing him in the nose.

  He laughed harder. Tears welled in his eyes.

  "You're pushing it," she warned. "If you don't let me in on the joke, I'll--"

  "A hood ornament," he managed, still laughing. "That's what I thought when I first saw you."

  "You louse! What a rotten thing to tell me."

  "It's okay
if I think it as long as I don't tell you."

  She tossed her head. "Something like that. You don't see me telling you what I thought when I first saw you."

  "Go ahead," he said, still holding her fast. "I'm tough. I can take it."

  Good grief, Alexa Grace. Don't you know when to shut up? "Never mind," she said primly.

  "Tell me."

  She considered feigning a swoon but decided he'd never fall for it. Not after she'd threatened to punch him in the nose. "I was disappointed."

  His eyebrows lifted. "In what way?"

  "You weren't what I expected."

  "Not tall enough?"

  "You're tall enough." Any taller and they'd have to raise the ceilings for him.

  "You don't like men with brains."

  She barely restrained an unladylike snicker.

  "I know what it is," he persisted. "You like blonds."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," she burst out. "If you must know, I thought you were too good-looking."

  "You're kidding."

  "No, I'm not kidding. I was expecting a more cerebral type."

  "I'm plenty cerebral," he said. "175 I.Q., three degrees from M.I.T. I can't do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink, but I can spell anti-disestablishmentarianism backwards and with one lobe tied behind my back."

  "You don't look cerebral."

  "Neither do you," he said, "and you don't see me holding that against you."

  "I'm not cerebral," she pointed out, as she struggled to climb off his lap. "I'm instinctual."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning if you don't let me off your lap in the next thirty seconds you'll have fathered your last child."