The Bachelor Takes a Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  The only thing Andrea knew for sure was that she couldn’t tell anyone anything. Her friends were good people, wonderful people, but Andrea did not feel close enough to any one of them to let go of her natural reticence and tell all. After all, there’d been nothing to confide for years and years. Her life had been an open book until Keith had manipulated his way back into it, and what could she say about that? “Oh, by the way, I made love with Keith Owens in the back of his SUV, and now I’m pregnant.” The mere thought of such a confession gave her cold chills.

  Andrea’s fury finally diminished enough to permit her to wonder about Keith. While she pondered her teaching career and a summer break versus retirement, something in the back of her mind urged her to locate him. Just knowing where he was and what he was doing would relieve a lot of her tension. And if by some small miracle she actually got to speak to him, she could coldly and calmly tell him what a louse he was and then hang up. Why it would be so satisfying to lambaste him with dignity and then be the one to hang up, she didn’t know, especially when she considered the situation. But she was just so darned hurt by his ongoing silence. How dared he treat her so shabbily?

  She finally did it. Nervous and rattled, she dialed Keith’s home number. His phone rang twice before a female voice said, “Owens residence.”

  Andrea asked for Mr. Owens and heard, “Mr. Owens is not at home. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Uh, no. No, thank you. I’ll call again, uh, later.” Andrea hung up and weakly fell into a chair to recoup her courage, for now that she’d made one call, she had to make a second.

  It took about five minutes to gather enough courage to dial Keith’s computer software business. A woman answered again. “Owens Techware. How may I direct your call?”

  “I need to speak to Mr. Owens, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Owens is not in.”

  “Oh. Well, do you know when he will be in?”

  “I’m sorry, I do not. Would you care to leave your name and number?”

  “No, thank you.” Again Andrea hung up. He wasn’t home and he wasn’t at his place of business. Could he possibly be hanging out at the Cattleman’s Club today?

  She looked up the number and dialed it. “Cattleman’s Club,” a male voice said in her ear.

  “Hello. I’m trying to locate Keith Owens. It’s not an emergency but it is important that I speak to him. Is he there, by any chance?”

  “Nope. Sorry. Do you wanna leave a message in case he comes in? We got a bulletin board, you know. I could post your call.”

  “No…no, thank you.” Shuddering at the thought of her name and phone number being posted for all to see on a bulletin board in the Cattleman’s Club, Andrea hung up for the third and final time. Either Keith was out of town or in hiding.

  She opted for “in hiding,” the big jerk.

  Even with the consistent use of sunscreen, Keith’s skin had darkened to its usual summer mahogany. He’d driven non-stop from Royal to the house he owned just south of the border in Mexico, a long drive but worth it. His flat-roof, southwestern-style house was situated within a stone’s throw from the lapping waves of the Gulf of Mexico and had been his private getaway since his divorce. A small fishing village was within walking distance, and he took the walk every day to purchase fresh fish, shrimp, locally grown vegetables and homemade bread baked by some of the ladies of the town. He also bought Mexican beer and ice, and he spent most of his time on the verandah of his house sipping ice-cold beer and watching seagulls and the water.

  After two weeks he still had no answers. Or at least not the definitive answer he wanted, the one that satisfied the restlessness of his mind and body. Thus, the question remained to haunt him: Why had he so fervently chased Andrea and then gotten confused when he caught her? Good Lord, he’d even had thoughts of babies and Andrea as his wife before everything went weird on him.

  Yes, everything, he told himself. Andrea hadn’t been at all thrilled over his successful breach of her personal ethics, which she’d conveyed very effectively by refusing his request to go in with her after he’d driven her home. That night with Andrea, she’d been hotter than live coals in the back of his SUV and then, for no reason he could give logic to, she’d reverted back to pure ice. Strange woman, no doubt about it.

  At any rate, the only conclusion Keith had reached in two weeks of soul-searching was that he and Andrea probably weren’t destined to be together. Wasted time, he thought, wasted effort. He might as well go home.

  But the next morning was so incredibly beautiful, with a cool breeze off the Gulf and that perfect view from his verandah of the water and small fishing craft that he never tired of looking at, he decided to stay for one more day.

  It was that afternoon that he thought of asking Andrea to join him. Maybe they still had a chance of making things work for them. She might very well refuse for legitimate reasons, or she could simply cut him cold, but he really did want to figure the two of them out and why shouldn’t she be here going through the stress of the inquisition with him? Besides, she might enjoy the view as much as he did.

  After debating the issue until long after the sun had set, he finally placed the call.

  Andrea was reading—or trying to read—in bed that night while gentle, soft music wafted from the concealed speakers of her CD system. She’d seen an obstetrician that day, been given the ultimate medical test for suspected pregnancy and a thorough physical exam, been told she was definitely pregnant and in excellent health and part of her was quietly thrilled.

  But that other part, the one that mightily resented Keith Owens, wouldn’t relent and let her retain one word she read. Soothing music generally relaxed her, but it wasn’t working tonight and neither was the book. The text kept getting lost among the uncountable questions about Keith that felt like rodents gnawing great gaping holes in her brain. Questions about herself, as well. She could hardly classify herself as unaccountable for letting Keith seduce her, after all.

  Who was she now? Certainly not the same well-adjusted, clean-living Texas widow she’d been before the Cattleman’s Club charity ball. That woman would never have succumbed to a man’s desire in the back of his vehicle!

  Sighing, Andrea closed her book; there was little point in staring at it. She was reaching to turn off the lamp on the nightstand when the phone rang. It was a bit startling, for her friends rarely called after eight at night and it was now after ten. Still, it did happen occasionally, and so she unsuspectingly picked up the receiver and said a calm, quiet, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Andy. How are you?”

  It was Keith. Her pulse went crazy and she suddenly couldn’t breathe. “Hold on a second,” she gasped. “I…I have something on the stove.” She held the receiver against her chest, cursed her stupid lie and wondered frantically how to deal with this. He hadn’t called for…well, it was over two weeks…and now he expected…what?

  Wait a minute, she thought. Did it matter what he expected from this call? She had herself to think of, her trampled-in-the-mud pride to resurrect, her child to protect from the unmitigated selfishness of its own father. Yes, this was an opportunity to call Keith foul names at full volume and let him know how much she loathed him, but would that really make her feel better? Probably not. One thing might, though.

  Raising the phone to her ear, she spoke with studied calm. “Sorry, my pot of gravy runneth over.”

  “You’re cooking gravy at this time of night?”

  “A lovely brown sauce, really. It’s for a late supper with a…friend. Oh, excuse me for another second, Keith.” This time she laid the receiver on the bed, got up and walked around the room, murmuring as she went. “Do have more wine. Supper’s almost ready and feel free to turn up the music, if you wish.” She had a volume control in her bedroom and she gave it a twist so Keith would be sure to hear the music.

  Then she returned to the bed and retrieved the phone. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “I wasn’t sa
ying anything.” Keith was trying to keep his wits intact, but what he was hearing over the telephone was damned confounding. Andrea was obviously entertaining a man with wine, a late supper and some extremely sensual music. She had never invited him to a late supper, damn it, and dining alone together late at night conveyed a special intimacy. “I was trying, but I wasn’t getting very far,” he added, sounding very much like a sullen child.

  His tone of voice truly gladdened Andrea’s heart. Gladdened her entire system, for that matter, her wounded female pride, especially. “I can only apologize again,” she said without the slightest inflection in her voice. He would get nothing from her tone, not so much as a hint of her true state of mind. This was much better, much more gratifying. “You must have had a reason for calling,” she said.

  “What about your lovely brown sauce?” he asked sarcastically.

  “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Now, why did you call?”

  “Because I had the misguided notion that you might enjoy a few days in Mexico.”

  Andrea’s eyes widened in surprise, but she had to play out the hand she’d dealt herself. “When are you going?”

  “When am I going? I’m here!” he shouted. Andrea had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter bubbling up in her throat. “I’ve been here for two weeks! Didn’t you notice I wasn’t around?”

  “Well…no, actually. You’ve really been out of town for two weeks? Time goes so quickly, doesn’t it?”

  “Are you putting me on?”

  “Now Keith, why would I do that?”

  “I have no idea. Anyhow, would you like to come down here for the weekend? I have a nice house on the Gulf, and it’s peaceful and quiet and a great place to unwind.”

  “It sounds marvelous, but I’ve made all sorts of plans for the weekend and I couldn’t possibly disappoint my friends, especially on such short notice.”

  “But you don’t care if you disappoint me.”

  “Why on earth would that disappoint you? You’ve obviously been enjoying yourself for all this time without my company. I’m sure the weekend will be equally enjoyable. Keith, I really must sign off. It was very nice of you to call.”

  “Wait! Don’t hang up yet! Andrea, please come down. You could fly to Corpus Christi and I would pick you up there. Andy…we could…” He stopped to clear his throat. “…talk. I think we need to talk. I do, anyway. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, but the problem with looking for answers by yourself is that everything’s one-sided.”

  Recalling her own long hours and days of probing for answers, she could only agree. “That’s true,” she said, still speaking without inflection, although there was a noticeable ache in the vicinity of her heart and she honestly felt like crying. “But when one lives alone…for myself I wouldn’t have it any other way…but I know that living alone makes for some very solitary conversations. I’m sorry, Keith, I simply cannot get away this weekend. I have to say good-night now. Pleasant dreams.” She hung up.

  But instead of feeling great over finally besting Keith at his own double-dealing game, she buried her face in her pillow and bawled like a baby.

  In Mexico, watching the reflections of moonlight on the Gulf waters, Keith scowled and pondered the phone call. He hadn’t known Andrea was seeing other men, although he was aware that her circle of friends included men. She had never seemed unhappy, he mused with a sinking sensation. They hadn’t run into each other that often through the years, but when it had happened he’d never seen signs of unhappiness on her beautiful face. She didn’t sound unhappy tonight, either, not when she was cooking and entertaining a male guest at this hour.

  Then the full impact of what he’d discovered with that phone call hit Keith. Andrea was serving one special guy a candlelit supper, and that was so painful it was physically jarring. Jealousy ripped through his guts like a hot knife through butter. Unable just to sit there and take it, Keith jumped up from his chair on the verandah and headed for the beach.

  His mind ran faster than his legs, torturing him with another spate of questions without logical answers. Whatever was going on in Royal, did he have the power to do anything about it? For that matter, regardless of that painful burst of jealousy that still hadn’t completely disappeared, did he really want to do anything about it?

  Maybe he should have stayed in Royal and figured everything out there. Fat lot of good running away had done. He’d been in Mexico for weeks, and did he know his own feelings any better tonight than he had during that long drive from Royal?

  Realizing that he was now looking at his departure from Royal as running away—the night he left he wouldn’t even consider that possibility—caused him to grimace.

  “You are one sorry piece of humanity,” he muttered.

  Andrea could not remember a time when her emotions had been so jumbled. She’d had her bouts with love before, and with sorrow and grief, of course; losing loved ones—her parents and Jerry—had put her through an emotional wringer three different times. But she was discovering a new type of misery that seemed to spring from within her very own self. Thinking of the baby helped, but even that joy didn’t cure her malady.

  Finally she unearthed and faced what was really at the core of her melancholy. She’d been applauding herself for putting Keith in his place when he called, and she deserved no applause. She’d been unkind and deceitful with that stupid charade and she regretted her playacting.

  Why was there so much pushing and pulling between them? Right now they should both be thrilled and happy about their baby. Instead she couldn’t even tell him about it. Nothing would ever convince her that he hadn’t gotten all unnerved over their passionate interlude and run away to nurse his wounds…or his imagined wounds. He’d begun his campaign the night of the ball and hadn’t let up for a minute. And he’d won the trophy, too, hadn’t he?

  No, she thought then. Keith hadn’t won the trophy, she had!

  When she looked at the wide-screen perspective of this whole affair, she was astonished that Keith ran off to Mexico instead of swaggering all over Royal crowing about how his irresistible machismo had finally overcome Andrea O’Rourke’s defenses against men in general and him in particular.

  And now he believed there was another man in her life. How could he believe anything else after her dramatic rendering of “The Widow and the Late-Night-Supper Lothario?” It disgusted Andrea that she’d resorted to such cruel tactics. If she’d been so bent on giving Keith some attitude and even on letting him know what a low-down dirty dog she considered him to be, she hadn’t had to make a run for the best-actress-in-Texas award like some melodramatic teenager. She was a mature adult, after all. And a mother-to-be!

  If Keith hadn’t relentlessly pursued her she would not be a mother-to-be. She supposed he deserved thanks, not censure. Besides, maybe a woman needed a man like Keith to lean on during bad times and to rejoice with during the good times.

  But that of course would involve telling Keith everything, and she really didn’t know how he would take the news of impending fatherhood resulting from one belated sexual conquest. Somehow, given what she remembered about him, she really couldn’t see him jumping up and down for joy.

  By Friday afternoon Andrea had gotten herself into such a state that when a woman friend, Linda Vartan, called with a casual invitation to drop by her house on Saturday for grilled steaks and ribs, to be cooked by her husband at pool-side, Andrea couldn’t say yes fast enough. Sitting around and wallowing in all sorts of emotionally dark dungeons for two days was an unbearable prospect. Thus, on Saturday she tried on her two new bathing suits—purchased during a shopping trip to Dallas in April—and took her time in deciding which one to wear to the Vartans’ today.

  It was gratifying to be firm and fit enough for a two-piece suit—all that running really paid off—but she’d also bought a stunning one-piece in jewel-tone colors and she decided on it. After taking it off and slipping into a comfortable cotton wrapper to do her makeup, she sat at he
r dressing table. She had just applied a glossy light-coral lipstick when the front doorbell rang.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she mumbled. She wasn’t dressed for company, nor was she expecting any. She had to leave for Linda’s in less than an hour and she didn’t want to get hung up with some inconsiderate caller and arrive late.

  Rising from the dressing-table stool, she tied the sash of the wrapper and took a look at her reflection in the mirror. She was not appropriately clad for this time of day, but she was decently covered. Sliding her bare feet into terry slippers, she hurried to the front door. Whoever was out there was an impatient soul, because he or she was practically leaning on the bell. Terribly annoyed over that alone, Andrea jerked open the door. Then she stood with her mouth open and stared at Keith, who sported the most incredible tan and looked positively devastating in white duck pants, sneakers and a white-and-blue polo shirt.

  Keith stared, too. Andrea was wearing a rose, teal and royal blue something or other. It looked to him like some kind of robe, or maybe a bathing suit cover-up. Hell, he didn’t know what it was, other than damned sexy, which sort of ticked him off. She hadn’t known he was coming by, so she was obviously dressed for that late-supper jerk.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked gruffly.

  “I…I’m getting ready to…go out.” Andrea felt hot all over and wished she could free her overheated body from the wrapper and get some air on her feverish skin. He was much too handsome with that tan. Damn it, he was much too handsome without a tan! And all she could think of was how he’d made her feel in the back of his SUV.

  “I’m sure you can spare a few minutes.”

  “Uh, no, I really can’t. Not if I’m going to be on time.”

  Her flushed face said more to Keith than the words formed by her full luscious lips. She was afraid of inviting him in! She knew what could happen…and just might…if they were alone in her house. And that robe or casual dress or whatever it was she was wearing looked pretty darned flimsy. In fact, it looked to him as though she had nothing on under it.