Long-Lost Bride

by Day Leclaire

  Glancing up from the papers scattered across the oak surface of his desk, she cupped a hand over the phone receiver. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “We need to talk, Shayne—”

  Of course, she ignored him. “The ones I want are all three foot square and labeled FT dash one through twelve. Could you have them crated and shipped to me? Air express the package, if necessary. Yes, I know it’ll be expensive, but send them anyway. See they get through customs yourself, Chelita. Or have Marvin take care of it. He’ll make sure there’s no hang-up. He and I have an understanding.”

  Say, what? “Who are you talking to?” he demanded. And what the hell kind of an understanding did his wife have with a Marvin?

  “Thanks, Chelita. Talk to you soon.”

  He didn’t wait for her to hang up. “Who the hell is Marvin?”

  “A friend. He grew up in the village outside Rafe’s coffee finca.”

  “And what is he bringing through customs?”

  “Some of my artwork.”

  “Oh.” Damn. Here he’d worked up a good bluster and she’d managed to drain it right out of him. He switched to a different subject, one that would allow him to bluster all he wanted. “Now, look. About my floors—”

  The door opened and a man with a tool belt dragging his pants in the general direction of his knees walked in. Swearing beneath his breath, Chaz shifted to block the worst from Shayne’s sight. Dammit all! Here was something else he’d have to take care of before returning to work. Couldn’t have some strange man wandering around like that in full view of his wife. It wasn’t proper. And he’d make sure the fella knew it, too.

  Shayne shifted her chair so she could see around him. “Hi, Tim. What can I do for you?”

  “Punched those holes in the walls you wanted. No problem.” He hitched his pants up. They stayed for a whole two seconds before gravity tugged them downward again. Another inch and serious action would be needed. “But would you mind taking a look before I frame it up?”

  “Wait one damn minute here,” Chaz interrupted. “Not more holes!”

  Shayne gave Tim a smile that Chaz would have killed for, full and natural and tastier than anything Mojo had ever dreamed of serving up. “Thanks, Tim. I’ll be right there.” The door banged closed and she glanced at him, her smile fading. “I thought you put me in charge of the house.”

  “I did. But—”

  She cut him off. “I don’t recall their being a ‘but’ as part of our agreement. You said I was in charge and when you said it, there was a period at the end of your statement.”

  “I’m fairly certain I shoved a ‘but’ in there someplace,” he retorted through gritted teeth. “Along with a comma so I could make amendments should someone put holes in my house!”

  “You’re shouting.”

  “I’m allowed to shout.” He began to pace, needing some outlet for his energy other than snatching his wife out from behind that desk and giving full rein to every physical expression he could think of. Considering how long it had been since he’d physically expressed himself, he could think of a goodly number. “And I’m allowed to swear. And I’m allowed to complain like hell when my wife entertains half-naked men.”

  “You can’t mean Tim.”

  He whipped around to confront her. “Yes, I mean Tim! If his pants drooped any lower you’d know him better than his doctor. You’re supposed to be getting the place ready for my daughter. We only have a couple short weeks before Satan’s sister sweeps in on her broomstick.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Now there’s an interesting image.”

  Chaz slammed his Stetson onto the desk, biting back some of the choicer words burning a strip off his tongue. “You know what I mean. Instead of fixin’ stuff, you’re ripping it down around our—our—”

  His wedding band flashed a warning. Dammit all! Enough was enough. His life wasn’t his own, anymore. His employees had turned traitor, his wife treated him like an annoying little brother, and he couldn’t speak his mind without checking each word before he uttered it. But worse of all, he had an ache that wouldn’t go away.

  Well, there was one thing he could do. He could march out to the barn, oust the dang animals from their dang stalls, and turn it into a cussin’ room. A place for men only and the fouler-mouthed, the better. No women. No holes in the walls. And no watching his language. Hell. He’d stick a refrigerator in there and stock it with beer and have himself more than just a room. He’d have a whole cussing bar. Of course, he’d have to put a lock on the damned place or his spread would be overrun with drunken cowboys.

  Shayne lifted an eyebrow. “You were saying? I’ve been ripping the house down around our...”

  He balled his hands into fists. “Around our ears.”

  “That’s what I thought you were going to say.”

  She stood and circled the desk. To his everlasting disgust, she ended their argument by cheating. She wrapped her arms around his waist and slid every female inch she possessed along every male counterpart she could find. She said something else, but he didn’t have a clue what it was. He was too busy dealing with far more serious problems.

  At her first touch, every piece of hardware in his body went into instant overload. Massive system failure followed. Autonomic systems short-circuited and his brain shut down in an effort to recalibrate. He fought to breathe. Only one system remained on-line and in excellent working order. Her hip bumped it, threatening him with the very real possibility of total annihilation.

  “Don’t. Do. That.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him with a puzzled expression. “Is something wrong?”

  Aside from the fact that he felt like he’d just been poleaxed? His jaw moved in an effort to imitate speech. She waited patiently, blinking wide brown eyes at him which forced him to recalibrate a few more brain cells. Maybe if he didn’t look, he’d summon an answer to her question. It was there somewhere. Just one simple word. All he had to do was force the air from his lungs and the word from his mouth. “No.”

  “Okay.” She gave him another brain-splintering hug and then trotted toward the door. “I’m going to check with Tim. Catch you later.”

  He didn’t know how long he stood there. But when mobility returned, he used it to stagger in the general direction of the barn. The frigid winter temperature knocked him to his knees, but he had the air blistered nice and hot in no time, the curses sliding off his tongue faster than rainwater off a grease-dipped duck. If his wranglers thought his behavior at all strange, they were too smart to say anything. All except Penny, who swaggered over.

  “Gotcha where it hurts, don’t she, boy? Wives sure are good at that. Or so I’ve heard.” He braved Chaz’s wrath with a knowing smirk, then risked his neck further by adding, “Never been stupid enough to find out, myself.”

  “Okay, this is it. This is where I draw the line.”

  Shayne blinked up at Chaz in confusion. From her kneeling position on the office carpet he managed to loom as impressively as Jumbo. “What line?”

  “The one I’m drawing right here, this very minute.” He shoved his Stetson to the back of his head and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, I didn’t fuss about your tearing apart one of our bathrooms, which I think is damned decent of me. I barely said a word about that crazed electrician, even though I should have had him arrested for indecent exposure. And I’ve been the most understanding man in the world about the holes you’ve punched in the walls and in my floor.”

  “You have?”

  “I’ve taken it like a lamb. And honey, that’s saying a lot in cattle country.” He gazed at her with such earnest sincerity, she was forced to accept he truly believed every word he’d uttered. “Why, there’s not another man on this planet who would put up with the general mayhem goin’ on around here the way I have without losin’ his cool and banging a few heads together.”

  “There’s not?”

  “No way.” He turned to scowl at her latest efforts
on his behalf. “But this is going too far.”

  She looked around in bewilderment. “If it’s because I’m using your office floor, it won’t be for much longer.”

  “I can’t get to my desk.”

  “I can.” She half rose. “Is there something you needed? I’d be happy to get it for—”

  “That’s not my point.” She sank back onto her heels as he gestured to indicate the strings of fairy lights gaily twinkling in neat lines on the carpet “This looks suspiciously like Christmas.”

  Her brows drew together. His tone sounded utterly outraged, as though she’d committed some horrible sin. “That’s because it is for Christmas. I thought I’d put up a few lights and decorations before—”

  “Not in my house you’re not.”

  “I’m not?”

  “Not a chance in this world or the next. I don’t do Christmas.”

  She stared at him, nonplussed. “What do you mean you don’t do it?”

  He ticked off on his fingers. “No lights. No tree. No silly ceramic angels or Santas cluttering up the place. No ribbons or bows or anything remotely red or green.” He paused to consider. “Unless it’s eatable. Don’t want to be unreasonable about this. But no Christmas. Got it?”

  “No.”

  Anger crackled in his eyes, intensifying the blue. “Come again?”

  “You heard me.”

  Before matters could escalate further, Jumbo appeared in the doorway carrying an armful of tangled outdoor lights. He looked from Chaz to her and groaned. “Uh-oh.”

  Shayne turned to him for confirmation. “Boss man says he doesn’t do Christmas. What’s going on?”

  His eyes widened and he shuffled his feet, practically tearing the carpet loose at the seams. “I couldn’t say. I just work here, ma’am.”

  “You can’t say...or you won’t?” She gave him her sternest look. “Come on, Jumbo. Spill it. No Christmas? Not ever?”

  His eyebrow began twitching nervously. “’Fraid not. Leastwise, not as long as I’ve known him and that’s going on five years. He usually locks himself in his office with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a stack of writing paper and drinks himself into a stupor.”

  Chaz whipped his Stetson off his head and slammed it to the floor. “Jumbo!”

  The tangle of lights tumbled from his massive arms. “What? What did I say wrong this time?”

  “If I want my wife to know about my little fling with JD, I’ll damn well tell her myself.” He jammed his finger into the Schwarzenegger-like chest. “Don’t forget who signs your paycheck or it’ll be my pleasure to remind you.”

  “Shoot, boss. You keep forgettin’ you assigned me to her. I have to answer her questions.”

  Time to interrupt before blood got spilled, Shayne decided. She rose to stand nose-to-chest with her husband and did a little finger-jabbing of her own. “And my next question is... Why do you dislike Christmas so much? Would you care to respond to that or shall I take it up with Jumbo?”

  He didn’t want to answer, Shayne could tell. The reason escaped her, though she’d get to the bottom of it eventually. He could be darned closemouthed when he chose. But then... She could be darned stubborn. He glared at Jumbo and jerked his head toward the door. Sounding remarkably similar to a herd of cattle in full stampede, Jumbo bolted from the office.

  “Spill it, Chaz. What’s going on?”

  “If you have to know the truth, Christmas holds some bad memories for me,” he confessed.

  At one point in her life, it had for Shayne, too. All the more reason to replace the bad with some good ones. “Is it anything you can tell me about?” she asked sympathetically.

  His jaw set. “I’m sorry, Shayne. I’m not ready to do that.”

  She fought to conceal her hurt, reminding herself that the “why” of his refusal wasn’t as important as getting him to change his mind about the decorations. “Chaz, I can understand your reluctance, but surely you must see that you can’t avoid celebrating Christmas. It’s not fair to Sarita.”

  Lines sank into his face and his gaze turned flat and hard. “Don’t bring my daughter into this.”

  She wouldn’t give up. Even if it meant suffering his wrath, she’d push him on this to the bitter end. “Do you really think you can simply ignore the season into nonexistence?”

  He gave a callous shrug. “Works for me.”

  “Well, it doesn’t work for me. Nor will it work for Sarita. And I guarantee it won’t work for Doña Isabella.”

  “Considering that the Doña won’t be around come Christmas, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  “And me? Will I still be here? Or don’t my wishes count, either?”

  “Whether or not you’re still here hasn’t been determined, yet. Are you pregnant?”

  His hard-edged question took her breath away, the reminder delivered with all the brutality of a backhanded slap. She fought against the tears burning for release. This wasn’t the man she’d married nine years ago, she tried to tell herself. Circumstances had replaced him with the stranger standing before her, one with a heart as frozen as the peaks outside her bedroom window. What in the world had happened? What had caused him to become so cold and remote...and what could she do to coax free the Chaz she’d married all those years ago?

  It took a full minute to regain control enough to speak. “I don’t know whether or not I’m pregnant,” she lied.

  He held onto his coolness for a moment longer, then seemed to thaw ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, Shayne. That was uncalled for.”

  “Is Christmas when Madalena left you?” she asked gently. “Is that why it holds such bad memories?”

  She half expected him to freeze her out again. Instead, he shook his head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Madalena. I don’t like the season. End of subject.”

  “So that’s it? That’s your final word?”

  “That’s my final word.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  To My Long-Lost Bride,

  I can’t even begin to explain why I’m writing to you again this year. Habit? Or am I just a glutton for punishment? I don’t love you. I don’t. I don’t love anyone, anymore. What feelings I had died long ago.

  But still I look at other women and think... They’re not you.

  Shayne... What happened to our Forever Love? Why can’t I get you out of my mind?

  “WHAT part of my final word...as in no Christmas... didn’t you understand?” Chaz roared.

  Shayne sat perched high on a ladder placed dab-smack in the middle of the hallway, clutching streams of ivy to her chest. She blinked down at him with the most innocent expression he’d ever seen. Too bad he didn’t believe any part of it—not the thick, fluttering lashes that surrounded killer fudge-brown eyes, not the lush, moist lips parted with such innocent seduction. And certainly not the spine-tingling, husky way she said, “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You know damn well what I mean.” He swept his arm through the air to indicate the latest changes to his surroundings-dramatic changes that seemed to come faster with each day that passed. “These Christmas decorations. The ones I said you weren’t to bring into my...er...our house.”

  “Our house?”

  His altered phrasing elicited a delicious smile, one that melted him for a whole two seconds before he remembered why he was so flat-out furious with her. “That smile isn’t going to cut it, sweet stuff. Now, I want all these decorations out of here. Pronto.”

  “Don’t be silly, Chaz. These aren’t for Christmas,” those lush lips lied with brazen disregard.

  “You have twinkly lights up! If that’s not—”

  “Oh, that.” She dismissed them with a wave of her hand. “Those aren’t Christmas lights.”

  His jaw worked. “They’re not.”

  “Goodness, no. Would you like to know how I can tell?”

  “Please. Tell me.” Reining in his anger, he folded his arms across his chest and braced his shoulder against the doorway leading to t
he dining room. “This rve gotta hear.”

  With blatant disregard to her personal safety, she wriggled her pert little bottom more firmly onto the top step of the folding ladder, not showing the least concern when the aluminum legs wobbled alarmingly beneath her. “See, Christmas lights are red, green or white. These are blushing tea rose pink.”

  “Blushing tea rose pink.”

  “Exactly. And those bows? The ones holding up the ivy?” To his relief, she stopped squirming around, reducing the ladder’s wobble to a mild shimmy. “Well, they’re not Christmas bows, either.”

  He ground his teeth, amazed they weren’t down to useless stumps by now. “No, of course they aren’t. Let me guess. That’s because they’re purple.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re puce. And I haven’t used any pinecones or greenery or mistletoe or anything remotely Christmaslike.”

  He pointed to the garland of ivy twisting a graceful path around his door frames. “So, what do you call that stuff?”

  “Cosmetic work. You said I was supposed to take care of that, right? Heck, the ivy isn’t even green.”

  “Then what is it? Salamander red?”

  She chuckled. “Now you’re teasing. You know perfectly well it’s blue. Bluegrass pine, to be exact.”

  “Are you trying to tell me the ‘pine’ and ‘grass’ part aren’t green?”

  “Not even a little.” She swiped her arm in an expansive gesture, nearly tipping herself over backward. “The blue overrides any other color.”

  “Uh-huh.” He straightened away from the door frame and approached her ladder. “First, when I said no Christmas decorations, that’s what I meant. And that includes all this stuff. Second, when I asked you to oversee the cosmetic work, I meant for you to slap a coat of paint on the walls, not drape ivy all over the place. And third, if you don’t fill in the holes in the floor soon, someone’s libel to fall in and never be found again.”