Legally Wedded (Legally in Love Book 3)

by Griffith, Jennifer

  “You all are so scared of Bronco and losing his favor and his money that none of you will step up to defend yourselves, let alone your little brother’s decisions. Shame on you all. You’re ridiculous. All of you.” Josh’s cheeks stung as he accused them, anger pricking his skin. “Mom would be appalled.”

  The air, by rights, should have gone out of the room, and everyone should have reacted with shame, but not this family. This was their usual form of communication. They just eyed him for a moment and then looked back down at their plates of catered, cardboard food, saying nothing in his defense. Well, at least they weren’t heckling him, or Morgan. Morgan was a nice girl. She shouldn’t be subjected to this crap. Brielle would have handled it differently, giving back to Bronco just as good as he dished out—which was probably the reason Bronco hated her with such venom.

  “Sit down, Joshua. You’re already holding up the meal. And go put your things in the bedroom upstairs. Don’t come traipsing into the dining room with luggage.”

  “This isn’t luggage.” They’d agreed to drive back that night, rather than stay at Hyatt mansion and go through the whole bed-sharing stress that would inevitably ensue. “It’s our contribution to dinner.” He slid the dish out of its protective container and set it on the table. Everyone eyed it. “Morgan is a good cook.”

  The words let him exhale. Morgan shot him a confused wince, but they sat down by each other. He reached over and took her hand under the table. He wouldn’t let anything worse happen to her than already had, with Bronco’s attacks and his siblings’ cowardly non-defense of him. Ridiculous. Why did he agree to come and put himself and Morgan through this? Oh, yeah. Threats of siccing the police on him if he didn’t. Ridiculous!

  All manner of awkwardness ensued as the meal went forward. No one spoke directly to either him or to Morgan. They just spoke about them, near them. It was rude, and he knew he should never have brought her here. Obviously everyone, including Chip and Heather, had been warned to say nothing to them, and this was all an exercise in public humiliation. Nice. Dysfunction on so many levels abounded in this family.

  Then, something happened, and Josh noticed a sudden thaw toward him and Morgan.

  “This rice stuff is good. Where did it come from?”

  “Josh’s wife made it. He said she was a good cook, but this stuff is ambrosia.”

  Josh waited until the dish was passed to him, and he took a bite. They were right. “What’s in this?”

  Morgan answered sweetly, as if no one around her had been a colossal jerk. “Shiitake mushrooms, bacon, caramelized onions, other things.”

  “Love it.” Josh took another bite, and his eyes rolled heavenward. It was delicious.

  “This is incredible.”

  “It’s part heaven, part butter, which is the same thing.”

  “It’s what I want to drown in if I have to die by drowning.”

  “Where did it go? I need more of that amazing stuff.”

  The wall everyone had built between themselves and Josh and Morgan crumbled a little. Heather was the first to dispense with it.

  “I taste ginger in here. Is there ginger, Morgan?” For the first time, someone else in the room besides Josh uttered her name.

  “There was some fresh ginger in the cupboard, so I grated it. Is it too much?”

  “No. It’s just the right hint of it.”

  Someone else mentioned the allspice, and then it was all over. People were talking about food and the merits of melted butter.

  “Does she cook like this for you every night, Josh? Because if so, you’re the luckiest man alive. And you’re going to be the fattest man alive in six months.”

  “You’ll have matching big round bellies when she’s got your baby in her. Haw!” Bronco guffawed. It was crass, but it was the first (mostly) non-confrontational thing Bronco had said to Josh in three years, or maybe longer.

  The meal and the thaw continued. Somehow, Morgan’s cooking had been a salve. Well, that and the way she’d asked about each family member’s interests, background, dreams. She’d charmed Wyatt by being interested in how he managed to pass the very difficult CPA exam and asking for study tips, which he was anxious to give in far too great abundance, in Josh’s opinion, but hey, he was being normal—and friendly. That was a new thing for when Josh brought a girl home.

  Morgan got Rocky to warm up to her by asking him about what Josh was like as a kid. Rocky couldn’t stop laughing when he told about the time he and Josh put three cases of soda in the freezer and they all exploded and made Orange Fanta stalactites everywhere inside it. Or the time Wyatt shut Josh up inside the hide-a-bed and then went for a bike ride and forgot him for two hours. Or the time… Josh thought Morgan would gag on the nostalgia, but she seemed entertained.

  Chip and Heather already thought Morgan was awesome, and Rocky and Wyatt’s wives were anxious to trade recipes as well as talk about some shopping trips they’d gone on and wanted to invite Morgan along for next time.

  By the time it was over, Josh was the most charmed of all. How had she managed it? Even Bronco didn’t look like he’d spent the meal drinking vinegar. Not that his behavior improved much—he still said the wrongest thing at the wrongest moment, like the fat belly comments—but he looked less caustic in the meantime, and that, for Bronco, was huge.

  Josh looked sidelong at Morgan. She had pulled a small velvet bag from her purse and was handing it to Heather. Heather hugged her. The embrace was warmth and a giant step closer to Josh’s imaginary Family Ideal that he’d conjured up in his mind watching TV as a kid or looking at Norman Rockwell paintings. He’d never seen it even approximated in his own life, not since Mom died, anyway.

  Something had changed, thanks to Morgan and her allspice and ginger.

  As they were leaving, walking down the sidewalk to where he’d parked the Explorer, Josh asked Morgan about the contents of the bag she’d given Heather. In response, she pulled a little handful of something from a side zipper in her purse and extended it to Josh.

  Josh took her hand and slid it open, fingering the contents in her palm. “Agates? Where did you get them?” She looked up at him, saying nothing. “You collected them on the beach, didn’t you?” It was like a handmade gift. “I bet she loves them. Heather likes blue.” So did Josh, especially when it sparkled up at him in from those huge blue eyes. “You’re kind of amazing, you know that?”

  Morgan let her long eyelashes drop, and Josh touched her chin, lifting it to look at her better. The cold air of the night parted, leaving a little warm pocket around him and Morgan.

  “Thank you.” His heart had sped up, and touching the satin skin at her neck wasn’t helping that at all.

  “For what?” she whispered.

  “For giving me back my family.” He leaned in and kissed her on her forehead, even though he hungered for a taste of her raspberry lip gloss instead. He knew, however, that he wouldn’t be stopping at a mere taste. Not tonight. Not after what this healing goddess had done for him. Her hair smelled so good. Her eyes looked at him with so much innocence, and—he stopped—love. Those eyes looked like love.

  Josh took a step away. He cleared his throat. “We, uh, had better get driving back. It’s late.”

  She blinked, collecting herself. “Yes. Late,” she said and closed her fist around the agates, as he placed her in the car.

  It was all Josh could do to not take that cool hand of hers and warm it on the drive home. But touching her was not on the list of safe behaviors, especially because of how his family was obviously feeling about her. They were enchanted. And Josh knew how important it remained that they have an easy-out from this marriage. For that, annulment was the obvious solution; and the only way to guarantee a simple process for that was for Josh to avoid at all cost (and the cost tonight felt really high) pushing things too far between him and Morgan physically.

  What was his family going to say when that annulment ultimately took place, when Josh came back next time with Brielle instead
?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Morgan twisted the ruby ring around and around her finger. The air was cold this morning in her bedroom, and the ring was loose. She couldn’t stop feeling the ghost of Josh’s hand on hers from last night when he’d held her hand, couldn’t stop wishing he were here to warm it again, instead of all the way down the hall in his own bed, doubtless not wishing for the same physical touch from her she craved from him. She flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  What would have been different between them if he didn’t have that girlfriend? Brielle Dupree, whoever she was, had never even met Morgan Clark Hyatt, but she was wrecking Morgan’s life from seven thousand miles away, or however far away Germany was. She’d have to look that up.

  The other events of last night smashed together in her mind. Bronco Hyatt was at least as bad as Josh made him out to be; possibly Josh had been generous about the guy’s personality. No wonder they came to loggerheads over what Josh should do with his life. That dad needed a personality transplant—or maybe he was only hurting over the loss of his late wife. Who knew? Even though everyone else had seemed pretty much under his thumb when she and Josh first arrived, at least they warmed to her over time and turned out to be not half as bizarre as Josh had made them out to be. Bronco, however, Josh had nailed in his description.

  Maybe Morgan could think of a way to make things better there. Not that you can fix crazy…

  She hoped Heather had liked the agates and didn’t think she was a total dork for giving her what seemed like stupid rocks she’d found, which in essence it was. Maybe she looked like a little kid bringing a favorite rock to his mother and feeling all excited about it, only later to learn that the mother didn’t value it. Or maybe Heather was as nice as she seemed. Josh liked her, that was clear.

  Morgan wasn’t sure about any of the Hyatts—other than Josh, and it was horrible. Truth was, Morgan could see more and more clearly every passing day that Joshua Hyatt was the man of her dreams, that she was married to her dream guy, and that a wall separated them far thicker than the one between the two bedrooms they occupied.

  Maybe she should tell him, just go marching into his room, demand that he listen, and lay it on him that she was falling in love with him and he should choose her—forget that absent girl in Germany who didn’t have the good sense to reel him in when she had him on the hook, and take Morgan for his girl. They were so right for each other; couldn’t he see that? On the way home last night, he’d hesitated to take her hand, avoiding her the first half of the drive. But then, he reached over and seized it, and the way his thumb caressed the back of her hand, Morgan had basked in the energy surging between them. She’d been sure he would kiss her good night, but when the car had been parked, he’d helped her out of it to the kitchen and then made a beeline for the upstairs, leaving her with tingling, un-kissed lips that longed for his.

  She craved him so completely, and not just his touch—his conversation, his thoughts, his company, that smile with those incredible teeth. Okay, and his kiss. It felt like it had been so long since his kiss. Kisses on the forehead didn’t count—not enough, anyway. At this moment, Josh Hyatt was just a few feet away, beyond the wall from her. She put the flat of her hand up against the wall, imagining his hand pressed against the other side—almost touching but always separated.

  What, exactly, was this game they were playing? She was his wife, but only in name. Did that make her a Wife In Name Only? A WINO? Was that the way a marriage was supposed to be? Obviously not, and she’d known that from the get-go, but she hadn’t realized that her heart would be so much on the line here. She didn’t know how much it would be tugged toward him like a rope strung taut, wishing she dared to grip it and pull him closer to her in every way. If Morgan were a hundred percent honest with herself, she’d admit she wanted to be Mrs. Joshua Hyatt in every sense of the word—to have him and to hold him, to cherish him, and to call him her own.

  And despite all evidence to the contrary, meaning their shared address, their shared last name, and the beautiful ruby ring on her finger, none of that could be hers.

  Maybe not ever.

  Tears started stinging her eyes, and she knew she had to stop thinking about this mockery of sacredness they were perpetrating, this farce of something eminently good, ordained of God in the Garden of Eden and meant for the blessing of two lives and the creation of a family—none of which she’d ever be able to enjoy with the man she had grown to love and ached for with every ounce of her flesh.

  Quick, she sniffled, think of something else.

  She cast a fleeting glance at her pile of textbooks. She’d have to get to work on those any minute now if she was going to be ready for her three tests next week. Midterms were almost upon her, and she had to pass every single class or this whole stressful semester would be a waste of time, and she might as well have left her skates strapped on.

  But her stomach growled, demanding she head down to make breakfast. Maybe Josh would like some, too. She got the batter going for some waffles and found a restocked supply of fresh strawberries and a can of that good squirt-whipped-cream in the magic fridge that never ran low on anything Morgan could possibly dream of wanting to eat. Thanks, Svetlana.

  In no time, the house smelled of baking waffles. That should wake him. He’d come stumbling down the staircase in his robe, hair all rumpled, looking like a well-rested god, but unable to resist what she offered him.

  She placed the plates on the table, hoping for his appearance. Nothing.

  She dug through the fridge and found orange juice. Still no Josh.

  Finally, she went upstairs and knocked lightly on his bedroom door. “Josh? You awake?” Clearly he wasn’t, but she wanted him to be, and she needed his company whether he wanted hers in the same way or not. “Josh, do you want some breakfast? There were fresh strawberries in the fridge and—” Morgan pressed the door open, and saw his bed was empty, un-rumpled. He hadn’t slept here.

  He was gone.

  ***

  Josh carefully lifted the eyedropper of sulfuric acid and squeezed exactly three milligrams of it into the beaker. This time had to be the ticket. He’d been so close in the last few days that he could almost taste it. Well, not taste it, since it was garbage he was working with here. He didn’t care what disparaging comments Bronco made about it, he knew he was onto something. Ha! Bronco Hyatt had flunked high school chemistry, and he hadn’t gone to college. How could the old git understand any of it? He couldn’t. Period.

  Josh scrawled his measurements onto the notepad where he was keeping track of everything he’d tried. Last time it’d been two milligrams, and it hadn’t reacted. The time before it was four, and there’d been a nasty, smoke-filled result. It was a good thing he did all this out in the garage, away from the posh house. Morgan would be gagging at the smell, and she’d probably make him quit.

  Morgan.

  Would she make him quit if she came out and saw (and smelled) all this?

  He let that question float out to the stars over Starry Point.

  Maybe the stars were gone by now, though. He checked his watch. He’d been out here all night working on this. During the drive home, while he’d had his hand on Morgan’s, the idea came to him to adjust the sulfuric acid in his formula—and to make another adjustment: double the amount of live culture super-bacteria. As soon as he changed from the business suit he’d worn to the party into his work clothes, he shot out here to the garage and made the adjustments. And then, as soon as he added the super-bacteria (which he’d procured on-line and not told a soul about because they’d call him some kind of bio-terrorist), the reaction began to take place. But he knew they’d falter unless the sulfuric acid went in next, so after putting together three separate dishes of the concoction, he mixed them and checked his timer.

  This time it would work, he was sure. He took a photo of it to give himself documented proof, and he made more notes in his notebook. Hope buzzed in him.

  Or
was that hunger? He’d been out here all night, with nothing in his stomach but that cardboard food from his dad’s dinner last night, plus a little of that fantastic rice Morgan had made that had turned everyone at Hyatt Place into putty in her hand. Miracle rice.

  Maybe some was left in the fridge.

  “Josh?” a woman’s voice floated out to him. “Are you out here?” The door pressed open, and there stood Morgan, with the sunlight streaming in from behind her. Her hair was all backlit like an angel’s halo. She had on a short nightgown and a sweet smile on her face—not the grimace he’d expect based on the smell of the compost. “Oh, good. I found you. Ooh, what are you working on?” She came over and stood beside him, her hands behind her back. She leaned over the first dish, eyeing it closely. “Is this the project you’ve been working on for your patent? I heard you mention it to your father last night.”

  She tilted her head to look up at him, and her fresh face had a sheen and a blush. He had to swallow hard to bring himself back to what she’d asked.

  “I’m, uh, yeah. This is what I’m working on.”

  “You never really told me what it is. It’s so amazing you know what you’re doing with all this.” She looked around the room, her white nightgown tied at her waist, cinching it to accentuate her curves. He liked seeing her in the morning. “Sometimes I think you might be the smartest man I know.”

  Really? Her blue eyes looked so sincere as she said it.

  “You need to get out more.” He brushed off the compliment, but it made a place somewhere behind his ribcage glow warm. “Actually, I think I might have just figured out another step in my process. It took all night, but I finally made it work—I’ll know in—” he checked the timer— “exactly twenty-eight minutes and fifteen seconds.”

  “That’s amazing, Josh.” She smiled at him. “How exciting!” She looked genuinely excited for him, which was something new. He hadn’t ever met anyone willing to muster enthusiasm for his compost experiments. Morgan really was a cool chick—with sinuses of iron. The stench didn’t seem to faze her one iota. “And, if you’ve got that long, do you want to come inside and eat? I just finished making a stack of waffles.”