“Aren’t you married?” the young woman, Randi, asked. She’d introduced herself just like that, “Randi, with an i.”
He stiffened his elbows so she couldn’t step closer. “It didn’t work out,” he said shortly. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure thing.” Randi, who had proudly claimed being a cheerleader at the local university, had a mouth that seemed perfect for chewing bubble gum. “Like what?”
What Mischa’s doing today. How my wedding ring seems cemented to my finger.
Michael sighed. “How maybe I’m tired of dancing.”
She went back to the booth willingly enough. He tried leaving Elijah, Randi and her friend there for a game of pool, but Elijah clamped a hand on his forearm and forced him to sit.
“These ladies were nice enough to agree to join us,” Elijah said. “The least you can do is be sociable.”
Sociable. God, he’d always been a sociable man. The golden, glowing younger son of the Wentworth family. Skating the surface of relationships. Never even close to putting a ring on a woman’s finger. Always walking away before things got too serious.
This time, he knew that being left behind was hell.
He took a long pull at his draft beer. The women started chattering, comparing the looks of the band’s drummer to actor Val Kilmer. Michael tried imagining either one of them pregnant, alone, driving across country and then supporting herself at the bakery. Not fair, he thought. No one was Beth.
To divert the direction of his mind, he turned toward Elijah and slammed down his mug. “Enough of my hiding out. I’m coming over tomorrow and we’ll get going on our plans for expansion of the ranch. Don’t we have another meeting with that banker next week?”
Elijah’s eyebrows rose over his own frosty glass. He swallowed. “I thought you told me Beth tore up your prenup.”
“Yeah.” Michael ignored a quick stab. “So what?”
“So I told you this a few days ago. Joseph was trying to get her to spill about your fake marriage.”
Michael heard the echo of Beth’s voice. What about this marriage isn’t real? “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what?”
Elijah waved his hand in front of Michael’s face. “Hello in there. Don’t you think this means she’s told Joseph? Spilled the beans? As in, see you later all that pretty money your grandfather was going to release to you?”
Michael blinked. He’d heard what Elijah had said the other night about Joseph’s bribe, but it hadn’t sunk in. He’d been reeling from the ego blow of losing Beth. “What are you getting at?” he said slowly.
Elijah slid a sidelong look toward the two women in their booth, still caught up in their own conversation. “That Beth sold you out.”
Michael laughed.
Elijah raised his brows. “Don’t fool yourself, Michael. You chose to marry her because she needed the security, the money you offered. Why wouldn’t she go for the main chance?”
Michael laughed again. “You don’t get it at all. Get her at all.”
Elijah sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, tell me.”
“She made me feel protective as hell from the first moment I met her,” he said. “I don’t know if it was that ratty coat of hers, or what.”
He remembered her delivering her baby, her hands wrapped around his. “And for some reason I felt responsible for her, and Mischa too, almost instantly.”
And then he thought of her in his bed, her pale skin gleaming, her pale hair mussed by his hands. “And, God, I lust after her.”
“What does that have to do with the price of potatoes and Beth accepting Joseph’s bribe?” Elijah said drily.
“I’m telling you I know her,” Michael said flatly. “She wouldn’t do it, Elijah. I know Beth. And I trust her.”
The last four words fell into a well of silence.
Then the words swam around in Michael’s mind, bumping into the others he’d just told Elijah. Protectiveness, responsibility, lust.
Trust.
The two women were looking at him, including Randi with an i, her cheerleader-smile fixed on her face. He imagined her perched on the top of a human pyramid. Give me a P. Give me an R. Give me an L. Give me a T. What’s that spell?
Protectiveness. Responsibility. Lust. Trust.
What did that spell?
Love.
Well, he’d always been a lousy speller. And obviously slow at realizing some other stuff, too. He hadn’t recognized what his wanting of Beth was. Or, when she was gone, what the urge to drink beers and listen to George Strait at his most melancholy meant.
“I’m in love with her, Elijah,” he said.
The other man was grinning. “I knew you’d figure it out.”
* * *
Evelyn met Michael at the door of his grandfather’s house. While technically she should be off duty at this time of the evening, he wasn’t surprised to see her and she didn’t seem surprised to see him.
“Mr. Wentworth is upstairs in his office,” she said.
Michael climbed the staircase, his steps muffled by the plush runner. But his grandfather would expect him anyway. Evelyn would buzz him with news of the visitor from her own office off the kitchen.
He knocked on the paneled office door.
“Come in, Michael.”
Michael smiled to himself. He never crossed this threshold without a little I-didn’t-mean-to-bashthe-fender nervousness. But it was time to confront his grandfather man to man.
The old guy looked as stern as ever across the polished expanse of his desk. Michael shook his head ruefully. “That frown almost makes my knees quake.”
Joseph snorted. “Almost?” he asked in a near roar. “I must be losing my touch.”
Michael shook his head again. “Nah. Never that, Grandfather.”
With his foot, he hooked the leg of the nearby chair and dragged it closer to his grandfather’s desk. The leather seat squealed as he sat down. No wonder this room engendered memories of pain.
He took a breath. “I don’t want to work at Wentworth Oil Works, Grandfather. I married to weasel out of it, but that was—”
“A boy’s trick.”
He had been going to say cowardly, but a boy’s trick sounded a lot better. And maybe more of the truth.
“I want you in the business, son.”
“Yeah, I know you do, Grandfather—”
“And with Jack gone, who—”
“You, Grandfather. You and then the next person you find who loves the business like you do.”
“But with Jack—”
Michael slammed his hand on the arm of the chair. “But with Jack, nothing! This is about me and my life! I’ve been mad as hell at him for dying, but now I think I can let that part go.” He found himself on his feet, pacing around his grandfather’s office. “Because at least Jack’s death taught me something. Better not wait around for the right time to start living!”
And what he’d been doing before this was just playing. At work. At women. Even after Jack died, he’d been so determined to avoid his own problems, and feelings, that he hadn’t recognized what he’d felt for Beth was love.
“So, you think you’ve grown up, then?” his grandfather asked gruffly.
Michael thought of his commitment to Elijah and their ranch. The depth of his feelings for Mischa and Beth. “Marriage will do that to a guy,” he said quietly.
“Maybe it will,” his grandfather agreed. His mouth didn’t smile, of course, but Michael swore he saw one all the same.
So, how do you find a runaway wife?
You start with the place you found her. That was technically his grandfather’s house, but Michael figured the bakery was the most logical place to start. Beth had been with Bea and Millie before their marriage and might have gone back to them once she’d left it.
Of course, Valentine’s Day was the big time in the bakery business. Through the plate glass window, Michael couldn’t even see either of the proprietors over the crowd of customers.
Inside the store was not any different. Hell, Michael thought, I won’t even be able to get close enough to shout a question at Bea or Millie. Just as he prepared to back out of the shop, the sea of people parted for a large valentine cake with the frosted message: To Little Bill, from your eversmoochin’ Big Mama. Behind the cake, holding the edges of the untopped box, was a woman about four feet high.
Michael nearly swallowed his tongue. The mouse nurse!
To avoid meeting her eyes, he scanned over the crowd. There was another movement in the wall of people, and then he saw her. The most beautiful sight. Blond hair, sweet smile. Beth.
The wall reclosed. Michael drew in a fast breath. What to do? Pole-vaulting over the crowd seemed out of the question. Shouting to her across the customers equally ridiculous.
Customers. That way he’d be assured a few moments of her time. Michael hastily pulled a slip of paper from the tongue of a number-dispenser. Eighty-eight.
“Number twenty-six!” he heard Beth call from the direction of the counter.
Michael groaned.
An overcoated man slanted him a sympathetic look. “I’m sixty-two,” he said.
Michael grimaced, not sure if that was the guy’s age or the number on his slip. Either way, they’d both be ready for retirement by the time they were called.
Somebody crowded behind Michael to get to the number dispenser. He stepped away, knocking into the Kiwanis Club’s candy machine. A lady shrieked as it tipped her way. Michael pulled the damn thing into his arms before it wreaked any damage. The lady stared at him frostily.
Michael smiled at her. “What number slip do you have?” he asked politely.
“Thirty,” she said through her nose.
Michael grabbed for his wallet. “I’ll give you fifty bucks for it.”
“You won’t,” she responded, shocked.
A teenager with a puce T-shirt and an earring turned toward him. “I have twenty-seven.”
Michael held out a hundred-dollar bill. The kid snatched it and dashed out the door, maybe worried that Michael would change his mind.
No way, he thought. I’m getting you back, Beth.
“Number twenty-seven!” Michael pushed his way toward the counter to face—
Bea.
She beamed. “What can I do for you today, Michael?”
Standing to her side, helping another customer— lucky number twenty-six—was his wife.
“I’m here to talk to Beth,” he said.
She looked at him, then looked at Bea and shook her head frantically.
“If you want something, I’ll be the one to help you, Michael,” Bea said firmly.
Michael planted his feet. “That’s fine. I’d like my wife and my son back.”
Beth blushed as she wound twine around a pink box for customer twenty-six. Bea frowned. “Some baked goods, young man.”
“I just want to talk to her, Bea. And where’s Mischa?”
Bea softened. “Right over there, sleeping like a lamb.”
Through a glass case two trays deep with frosted heart cookies he could see Mischa, snoozing in his stroller. One wheel of the contraption still listed, giving the little boy a slightly rakish look.
Michael’s heart twisted like a horse’s tail in the breeze. My son.
He looked over at Beth. “I was an idiot, okay? Come back to me.”
She shook her head. “Not now, Michael.” The customer she was helping started speaking to her.
“Then when?” he said. “When?”
Bea harrumphed. “Did you want some baked goods or not?”
Michael ran his hand through his hair. “A pie— no, a cake. With an inscription.”
“Those must be ordered twenty-four hours in advance.” Bea appeared delighted to tell him the news.
Michael spoke through clenched teeth. “Give me a break here, will you? Don’t you like happy endings?”
Bea smiled primly. “As long as you work for them.” Her expression eased. “What do you want the cake to say, Michael? I’m sure I can convince Millie to do it up for you quick.”
He thought fast. “For Beth. Maybe it started out as something convenient. Maybe I didn’t know anything about being a husband or father, but—”
“Wait!” Bea was laughing. “I think our biggest sheet cake is twenty inches by fourteen. We can fit ‘Beth’ and the stuff about you knowing dog doo about being a husband. Do you want roses or confetti on that?”
Michael wanted to hold his head in his hands. None of this was going right. Roses or confetti? He wanted his wife in his arms and his son in a stroller with a wheel he should have repaired weeks ago.
“Have pity on me, Bea.”
“Michael.” Beth’s voice.
He turned quickly, hoping it was all going to be right. “Yes?”
She gestured over the counter to the woman beside him, customer twenty-six. Beneath her unbuttoned overcoat he could see hospital scrubs. Storks on them. A compadre of the mouse.
“This is Jenny Campbell,” she said.
Michael blinked. Introductions at a time like this?
“She was my Lamaze instructor,” Beth added.
Yeah? Michael looked hard at Beth and noticed something new, a sheen of excitement in her eyes.
“My Lamaze instructor,” she said again.
Lamaze.
Beth nodded at him. “And she just told me an old pal of mine has been admitted to the hospital in labor.”
It took Michael’s mind a moment to catch up. And then he got it. Sabrina. In labor. He grabbed Beth’s hand, ready to pull her over or under the counter, whatever it took. “You gotta come with me.”
He looked over at Bea, grinning. “And we’ll need another cake,” he said. “This one needs to say ‘Welcome to the world, Baby Wentworth!’”
Beth’s hands were clammy on the steering wheel of her car. Michael sat in the passenger seat beside her, fiddling with the heater controls. Mischa lay quietly in his car seat, the entire reason they’d taken her vehicle instead of Michael’s truck.
Of course she should have stayed at the bakery. But Michael’s hand on hers, his excitment over finding Sabrina was infectious. Before leaving Bea and Millie’s, he’d reached his grandfather and Josie, who was still in town. They planned to rendezvous at the hospital.
A tepid blast of warmth coughed through the heater vents. Michael swore. “You need a new car. You need a new coat. You’ve got to let me fix Mischa’s stroller. Or, heck, we’ll get a new one.”
Beth’s heart jumped into her throat. Michael the rescuer again. This is who she had to resist. “We’re fine with what we have,” she said.
He ran a hand through his hair. It sprang back over his forehead and she remembered how it felt against her hands. How she stroked it when she drew him against her breast. Goose bumps went crazy over her skin.
“Look!” He pointed to the small amount of flesh between her ears and the collar of her parka. “You’re freezing.” He put his hand on her thigh and rubbed briskly.
Beth gulped a deep breath. Only Michael had ever looked at her so closely—to see chills on four square inches of skin—or cared for her so sweetly. But he didn’t love her. She had to hold out for love.
His palm still rubbed her jeaned thigh. Oh, but he could warm her and it would be so easy to succumb.
In the hospital parking lot she braked the car, but didn’t turn off the ignition. “I don’t belong here,” she said, not looking at him. “I’ll go back to the bakery. You can get a ride, can’t you?”
He reached over and twisted the key. “You belong with me.”
She had to look at him then. She had to notice he still wore his wedding band—she still wore hers, too—and that his dark eyes still had that transfixing, mesmerizing band of gold around their edges.
Her hands started to tremble, and she gripped the steering wheel to hide the movement. “Michael, we’ve been through this already.”
He shoved both hands through his hair.
“Damn. I thought we could do this later. After we checked on Sabrina.”
“Do what?”
Mischa started whimpering. Beth moved, but Michael put his hand on her arm. “Let me,” he said. “He’s probably just cold.”
Twisting in his seat, he plucked Mischa out of his car seat. He brought them nose to nose. “Hey, little guy,” he said, smiling. Then he drew the infant inside his overcoat so that only the baby’s eyes and nose peeked out between the buttons.
Beth thought her heart would break.
Little League. Car engines. Boy stuff.
But she couldn’t return to Michael for the wrong reasons.
He must have seen the pain on her face, because he reached out and chucked her under the chin. “I’m sorry I’ve made you unhappy.”
“‘Leave a log in the water as long as you like. It will never be an alligator,’” she murmured.
Michael’s jaw tightened. “You know, I’m beginning to thoroughly dislike this old-world wisdom of yours. What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “That I shouldn’t have expected you to become something you’re not.”
He breathed in sharply. “The playboy can’t become a husband and father.”
She nodded.
He took another quick breath. “And what if the playboy grows up? What if he knows he’s been skating the surface of life but now realizes he better start living it instead?”
Mischa was staring at her with the same serious intensity as Michael. Beth’s heart lurched.
Michael’s voice was hoarse. “What if the playboy’s brother died at thirty-five and then he witnessed a baby being born and at the same time found a woman- who had courage, beauty and strength? Wouldn’t that change him?”
Beth swallowed. Her voice was hoarse, too, when she spoke. “It would change him. Of course, it would. But he still might not believe in love.”
“Because he’d never experienced it.” Michael snatched her hand from her lap and held it between his hard, warm palms. “Beth, I’ve been an idiot. All the things I felt…all the things you make me feel…I didn’t know—”
The Millionaire and the Pregnant Pauper Page 13