by Gina Wilkins
The water closed over her head as she fell backward, arms flailing.
Cody was there in an instant, his strong arms pulling her upward, supporting her as she regained her balance. “Are you all right?”
Swiping at her streaming face, she coughed from the mouthful of lake water she’d swallowed and nodded. “Fine,” she managed. “I slipped.”
He smiled, relieved. “That’s one way of getting into the water, I guess. Most people dive face forward, of course, but my wife seems to have her own style of doing things.”
She wondered if he was making a deliberate attempt to remind her of their marital status that afternoon. That made the third or fourth time he’d mentioned it.
Did he really think she’d forget?
She pushed away from him. “The water does feel good once you get used to it,” she said casually. “I haven’t been swimming in ages.”
“Are you having fun now?” he asked, idly splashing water at her.
She smiled and splashed him back. “Yes,” she admitted.
“I’m having fun now.”
His grin was almost blinding. “Glad to hear it,” he said, and then initiated a no-holds-barred water fight that almost drowned both of them.
* * *
By the time they dried off, packed up their picnic supplies and went home to shower and change, Cody was late leaving for the club that evening.
“Jake’s going to dissolve your partnership if you keep showing up late like this,” Dana commented, watching as he collected his wallet and keys and prepared to leave.
“Jake understands that I’m a man who’s still basically on his honeymoon,” Cody replied with a shrug. “And he knows that I’ll fill in for him whenever he needs me to. That’s why we make such good partners. Neither of us likes to be rigidly tied to a schedule.”
Dana had gulped at his mention of the word honeymoon. She wasn’t at all sure that term applied to their present circumstances—but she supposed it was close enough for lack of a better word.
“You’ll be home at the usual time?” she asked unnecessarily, finding herself oddly reluctant to see him go.
“Yeah. Around midnight, I guess. Don’t wait up, you have an early class tomorrow.”
“I know. I guess I’ll spend the evening studying. I have a test tomorrow.”
“Good luck with it.”
“Thanks.”
Cody swept a hand through his hair, which was still slightly damp from his shower. He wore a black western shirt with white mother-of-pearl snaps, and tight black jeans that were sure to attract more than a bit of feminine attention during the evening. Dana frowned, suddenly aware that she didn’t at all like the idea of other women drooling over Cody while she sat at home alone!
“Guess I’d better be going,” he said, moving toward the door.
She detained him by putting a hand on his arm. “Thank you for the picnic,” she said, looking up at him. “I really had a good time.”
“You’re welcome,” he murmured, touching her cheek. “And I had a good time, too.”
She waited for him to kiss her. When he didn’t, she was flooded with disappointment. He started to move away. She thought of those women waiting at the club and tightened her grip on his arm. “Cody?”
He looked at her, and she saw the hunger in his eyes. It gave her the courage to stand on tiptoe and press her mouth shyly to his. “See you later,” she murmured as she stepped away.
He swept her into a hard embrace that threatened to crush her ribs. His mouth slammed against hers in a kiss that made the first one seem like nothing more than a friendly peck. They were both gasping for air when they broke apart.
“See you later,” Cody said, his voice ragged.
And then he was gone, leaving Dana alone in his house, fanning her flaming face with one unsteady hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Three more weeks passed, so quickly Dana was amazed. Though her schoolwork had grown more difficult as the semester progressed, she hadn’t felt so well rested in months.
She couldn’t believe what a difference it made not having to study in snatches between class time and after work hours. Having time to eat regular meals, to get enough sleep—even to do her nails occasionally. It had been months since she’d had time for a decent manicure.
Barbara was still holding her own, her condition basically unchanged. The doctor told Dana the situation could worsen at any time, but Dana refused to dwell on the possibilities, choosing to enjoy the respite instead. She and Cody still made the drive to Memphis once a week, and it pleased her to see that Cody and Andy grew closer with each visit.
They spent a little time with Cody’s sister Rachel and her family, and Dana was surprised at how warmly she’d been accepted into their midst. Cody’s family seemed to understand the necessity for them to spend most of their spare time in Memphis, but Dana had talked to several of them on the telephone and they had all expressed their personal welcome to the clan.
She’d been touched by their willingness to accept her without question, merely because Cody had chosen her to be his wife. She thought it said a great deal about their love for Cody.
As for Cody, he had been going out of his way to make Dana comfortable. He was inexhaustibly cheerful, conscientious at helping with housework, never failed to ask if there was anything she needed or wanted. He was trying so hard to be the perfect husband that it set Dana’s teeth on edge at times.
She found that she wanted him to be himself, not a mildmannered clone of the exasperating and fascinating Cody Carson she’d married.
She wanted him to kiss her again. He hadn’t since the night of the picnic, the night he’d left for work after kissing her until her ears had buzzed and her head had spun.
She wasn’t quite sure why he was keeping such a distance between them now. There were times when she caught him looking at her, and she was sure she saw that familiar hunger in his bright blue eyes. But each time she spotted it, he quickly looked away, pulling an invisible barrier between them.
What was holding him back? An understandable reluctance to further complicate this already complex situation? A fear of making an even more lasting commitment than he’d already stumbled into?
Or was he keeping his distance out of deference to her, uncertain that she would welcome his advances when she’d made it clear that she’d married him only as a necessary convenience?
Puzzled by his behavior, Dana found herself hiding her own emotions from him, pasting on smiles as bright and artificial as his own, laughing politely at his jokes, pretending she was perfectly content the way things were.
Only during the long evenings at home by herself, while Cody was at the club and Dana had nothing but her textbooks and a radio for company, did she allow herself to privately acknowledge that she missed him when he wasn’t with her. That she’d grown to like having him around. That she wanted more from this marriage than an amiable roommate.
She wanted Cody. When had that happened?
And what was she going to do about it?
She was waiting for Cody in the living room on Tuesday evening, her hands clasped nervously in front of her, the tip of her tongue darting out to moisten her dry lips. She heard his car pull into the driveway, heard his door slam, heard his footsteps on the porch as he hurried toward the front door.
It was 8:00 p.m., exactly the time Jake had promised to send Cody home. She sent Cody’s partner a mental thankyou, then followed it with a silent prayer that nothing would go wrong this evening.
“Dana?” Cody came through the front door in a rush, his expression worried. “What is it? Jake said you needed me to come home—is it Barbara?”
She managed a reassuring smile. “Jake was supposed to tell you that it wasn’t an emergency.”
Cody looked only marginally relieved by her composure. “He told me not to worry, but I couldn’t help it. Why did you need me to come home? Is something wrong here?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I have a
surprise for you.”
He cocked his head, looking confused and intrigued. “A surprise?”
She smiled and motioned for him to follow her into the dining room. “Jake promised he wouldn’t give you a chance to eat this evening,” she said, her throat tight with nerves.
“I hope you didn’t fill up on barbecue or anything behind his back.”
Cody paused in the doorway, studying the beautifully set table, the crystal and silver and candles and flowers.
Unable to read his expression, Dana twined her fingers together so tightly they ached. “It’s our one-month wedding anniversary,” she reminded him. “I wanted to surprise you with a celebration this time.”
He looked at her then, and he began to smile. And Dana felt her muscles slowly relax. “Consider me surprised,” he said gravely.
“I had to borrow some things from Rachel,” she said, motioning toward the table. “We’re a little short on fancy table service.”
“Then we should see about getting some,” he replied easily.
She saw that he was as aware as she was of their use of the word we. Oddly enough, it felt as though they’d just strengthened their commitment to each other by the seemingly casual decision to buy more tableware.
Dana smiled. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“I’m starving,” he assured her, his voice deep. Husky.
A tremor ran through her in response, and something warm and liquid began to bubble deep inside her. It felt surprisingly like…happiness.
“Sit down,” she said, her own voice a bit unsteady. “I’ll serve dinner.”
The meal was delicious, each dish prepared with exquisite care. Cody wouldn’t have minded if she’d served him sawdust with a side order of scrap metal.
Nothing had ever touched him more deeply than Dana’s shy smile when she’d told him why she’d summoned him home tonight.
“You must have worked on this dinner all day,” he said in awe when she set dessert in front of him, a rich, fruit-andcream-filled, chocolate-drizzled confection she must have known would appeal to his well-documented sweet tooth.
“I started most of it after you left for the club this afternoon,” she replied. “It took only a couple of hours.”
“It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he told her sincerely.
He was rather amused when she blushed to the roots of her hair. Had she been standing, he suspected she would have scuffed her toe on the carpet like an embarrassed schoolboy. “It wasn’t all that much,” she murmured, toying with her own dessert. “I just made dinner.”
And then her eyes suddenly widened. She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, no! I forgot something.”
What could she have possibly forgotten? Cody wondered as she leapt to her feet and bolted from the room. He couldn’t have eaten another bite—it had been all he could do to manage dessert. As far as he could tell, absolutely nothing had been missing.
Dana came back into the room wearing a sheepish expression and carrying a bottle of chilled champagne.
Cody’s heart sank to his shoes.
“I meant to have you open this before we ate, so we could make a toast to our anniversary,” she said. “I got so flustered, I forgot. Sorry.”
“Dana—”
She produced two delicate champagne flutes and set them on the table in front of him. “These didn’t come from Rachel,” she explained. “They were my mother’s. I’ve had them packed in a box for years, but this seemed like a nice time to get them out and put them to use.”
f“Dana,” Cody said again, covering her hand with his when she would have opened the champagne. “Wait.”
She looked at him in question. “Would you like to open it?”
He sighed. “I can’t.”
She frowned, not understanding. “Why can’t you?”
“The champagne-I can’t drink it. I guess I should have told you this before, but. I’m an alcoholic.”
He made the admission with a set jaw and steady eyes, the words bitter in his mouth. It was the first time he’d said them—to anyone—in years.
Dana’s eyes widened. Her face paled.
“Oh, Cody, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I…I didn’t know.”
“I should have told you before,” he repeated, hating himself for spoiling her lovely evening. “This wasn’t the way for you to find out.”
She set the bottle on the table with a thump. “I should have known,” she said, her voice heavy with self-recrimination. “I’ve noticed that you usually drink juice or cola when everyone else has beer or whatever, but I didn’t realize. and’when we had champagne at the club the night we were married…”
“I had mineral water,” he explained. “Jake poured it into a champagne glass for me. I guess you didn’t notice.”
“So Jake knows.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, looking stricken.
Standing close in front of her, Cody placed his hands on her shoulders. “No. Don’t apologize. You couldn’t have known. I don’t exactly publicize it. I haven’t even told my family. Only my dad. The others-well, they just think I grew up and quit drinking after an accident I had on my twenty-first birthday. They don’t know how hard it was for me to quit, or how many times I’ve had to fight the desire in the years since,” he added bitterly. “Jake’s the only one I’ve talked to about that—and only because he recognized the symptoms.”
“Tell me about it;” she urged, looking up at him in encouragement.
He searched her eyes for the distaste or condemnation he might have expected. He saw only sympathy.
He swallowed hard. “I started drinking when I was in high school. You know, hanging out with the guys after football games or whatever. It was our way of showing off, having a good time, proving our manhood. It was stupid. I was in college when I realized that I couldn’t get through a day without it. I tried a few times then to quit, but I always let myself get pulled back into it by my fraternity buddies who didn’t think a party was a real party without booze.”
“Seth was one of your friends in college, wasn’t he?” Dana asked, obviously wondering if the upstanding young attorney was one of the ones who’d encouraged Cody’s weakness.
“Yeah, but he was younger and more ambitious than the rest of my crowd. He managed to pull back before he got in too deeply, to his credit. I flunked out. He went on and got his degree. I’ve always admired him for that.”
“You admitted your weakness and conquered it,” Dana said, loyally defending him. “You own a successful business, live a very productive life. I find that just as admirable as getting a law degree.”
Cody winced and dropped his hands, unable to accept her rationalization. She didn’t know the whole story. And, as his wife, she had a right to hear it.
“I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to straighten out my life,” he said heavily, turning away from her. “A man and a woman and their two small children almost had to die before I came to my senses.”
“What…what do you mean?”
She sounded shocked. And so she should be, Cody thought grimly. “I celebrated my twenty-first birthday with a group of friends and a fifth of whiskey,” he said, his words curt, unembellished. “And then I got behind the wheel of a car. I hit a van’that was carrying a nice young family of four. It was only by the grace of God that no one was killed. They were all badly hurt-I’m sure some of them still carry the scars.”
“You were hurt, too.”
He shrugged. “A broken leg, a shattered arm. Not much punishment, considering the crime. The court gave me probation, since it was my first offense and I had a loyal, loving family to vouch for me. I got off easy.”
Dana touched his arm. “And you’ve been punishing yourself ever since. Wearing the guilt like a crown of thorns. I don’t think you got off so easy, at all.”
“It wasn’t enough,” he said, his voice barely audible, even to him.
�
�Have you had a drink since?”
“No.”
“Will you ever drink again?”
“I—no,” he said, his fists clenched at his sides. “No.”
“You’ve paid for your mistakes, Cody. Let it go.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“I didn’t say it was easy,” she corrected him. “I know it isn’t. But it’s time.”
He looked at her then, his jaw aching from holding it so tightly, his chest tight with guilt.
“I didn’t want to spoil your party,” he said regretfully. “I guess you know the man you’ve married is no bargain. But I swear to you, Dana, I’ll never give you cause to regret it. I’ll take care of you, and of Andy. I—”
“Cody.” She put a hand over his mouth, firmly, her eyes glinting with what might have been temper. “Stop it,” she said fiercely. “Stop apologizing for being who you are. Don’t you know you don’t have to apologize to me, of all people? After all you’ve done for me, all you still plan to do, how could you possibly imagine I could think any less of you because you aren’t perfect?”
He gripped her forearms so tightly he knew he must be hurting her, but he couldn’t seem to ease up. “I don’t want your gratitude, damn it!”
“And I don’t want you using me or Andy to assuage your guilt about your past!” she shouted back at him.
His grip loosened then, in shock. “You think that’s why I married you?”
“Isn’t it?” she challenged him.
“No!”
“Then why?”
“This is why.” He crushed her mouth beneath his.
Dana melted into his arms like the warm chocolate she’d served him for dessert. Her arms locked around his neck, her slender body pressing tightly to his. Her lips parted eagerly beneath his, an invitation he didn’t even try to resist.
He’d tried to back off the past few weeks, tried to control the hunger for her—the need for her—that had only grown stronger with each passing day. He hadn’t wanted her to come to him out of gratitude, or a sense of obligation, or for any other reason than a desire that equaled his own.