She lifted her head and stared straight out across the library, yet saw none of it. Her inner eye was imagining Aidan as an uncle, holding a child, remembering times she had seen him playing with the Indian children. Then it went further, picturing him as a father. He could have been a father if Shanna hadn’t ended her pregnancy. Not for the first time did she wish he had fathered a child with her. Her eyes blurred over and she bent her head, shutting the book decisively.
Wishing was pointless. A dose of reality was what she needed now. She had broken things off irretrievably with Clarke. She had given him his walking papers so that he could get on with his life. She had to do the same for herself.
She put Who’s Who back on the shelves and made herself get the phone book again. Then she copied down the address of the lawyer that a friend had recommended. It was time to stop dallying around. If not for Aidan’s sake, then for her own, she had to get the divorce.
She almost didn’t answer the doorbell when it rang again that evening.
The least innocuous person it could be was an encyclopaedia salesman or an Avon lady. More likely though, and worse by far, it might be Clarke, returning to the fray. He’d always been persistent, but she had hoped this time he would give up on her for good.
Presumably he hadn’t, though, for the bell sounded again, loud and insistent, demanding a response.
Sighing, Courtney dried her hands on the tea towel and went to answer it, forming words of rejection as she went.
‘I don’t—’ she began even as she jerked open the door, because it was a start she could use on anyone ‘—believe it.’
Aidan Sawyer stood on her porch.
Her words brought a frown to his face, then a rueful grimace that gave his mouth the faintest quirk at the corner. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he said. His voice was soft, hesitant almost, so unlike him that she was tempted to reach out and touch him to be sure he was real.
She still wasn’t convinced of it. But he looked substantial enough as he lounged against her porch railing wearing a pair of freshly laundered jeans and an open-necked blue sports shirt. He was as darkly tanned as she remembered, but away from the overpowering greens of the jungle his eyes took on an even more startling hue. She looked at him for a long moment, and he looked back at her unflinching until she was the one who turned away, flustered.
What was he doing here?
He rubbed a hand round the back of his shirt collar, kneading the taut muscles in his neck. ‘I don’t suppose you’d invite me in, would you?’
Her lack of manners appalled her. ‘Of… of course. I’m sorry, I—’ But she couldn’t offer any rational excuse. She was quite simply stunned. And Aidan seemed to realise it. His mouth curved a bit more, but he didn’t look confident when she stepped aside to let him in.
She reached out and trailed her fingers lightly against his shirt sleeve when he passed, just to assure herself he was really there.
He was. And so was the bouquet of flowers she hadn’t noticed because they had been behind his back. Now he thrust them into her hands and raked his own through his hair.
She stared at the daisies, nonplussed.
‘They’re for you,’ Aidan said gruffly. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels.
‘Er, thank you.’ She waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.
Aidan was staring around her apartment curiously, glancing back at her every few seconds as if he were trying to understand it in relationship to her and vice versa. When he showed no sign of explaining his presence, Courtney shrugged and went to find a vase for the flowers.
She tried not to let herself speculate. But it was almost impossible. Aidan? Here? Her heart was doing a polka in her chest. She stuffed the daisies into an empty wine decanter and set them on top of the table beneath the bay window. Aware of Aidan watching her, she fussed with them for a moment, straightening this stem, then that one. But too soon she ran out of ways to keep occupied and had to turn to face Aidan and what he wanted with her.
He cleared his throat. ‘You ruined everything, you know,’ he said bitterly, leaning one hip against her kitchen counter.
She stared at him. ‘I what?’
‘That jungle used to be the best place there ever was.’ She found herself reaching for the table-top, gripping it tightly, her knuckles turning white.
‘It had everything I ever wanted after I left Boston. Action. Adventure. Challenge. A new frontier. A new beginning.’ His voice was rough, betraying a tension that seemed to vibrate throughout the room. He stopped and stared hard at her. ‘I thought I was whole.’
A gaggle of skateboarders hooted past in the street. Courtney swallowed, not daring to say a word.
He bent his head and stared at the rug between his feet. ‘Then you showed up.’
The words were barely a whisper, yet she heard them echo as if they had been hauled up from the depths of his soul. One look at him suggested they had been. He was looking at her now with an anguish such as she had never seen. The expression on his face made her take a step towards him, made her want to reach out and comfort him. And yet she didn’t dare.
Because she didn’t know yet what he meant. It sounded awful. But she wasn’t sure. Had he come half-way across the hemisphere to demand an apology?
She waited still, looking at him half in hope, half in trepidation. And at her silence he seemed to become more and more agitated.
‘I didn’t want it, God knows,’ he growled at last, scowling now, pacing the length of her apartment’s tiny sitting-room. ‘I never wanted it again.’
She tilted her head to one side, watching him pace, trying to keep up with his progress and his words at the same time. For a man who had never failed to make himself clear in the past, he was winning an obscurity award tonight.
‘Aidan,’ she said at last, her voice stopping him as if he had been lassoed and jerked to a halt. ‘What are you talking about?’
He glared at her. ‘You,’ he snarled. ‘Me. What the hell did you think I was talking about?’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ she said honestly. She glanced at the bouquet on the table again. ‘Aidan, why did you bring me the flowers?’
His scowl grew, if possible, even fiercer. ‘It’s customary, isn’t it?’ he demanded with bad grace. ‘When you go courting you bring the girl flowers, don’t you? Or chocolates. And I remembered what you said about the daisies.’
Courtney, stuck on the word courting, shook her head in disbelief. ‘Daisies?’
‘You said you’d have liked them for your wedding. So I thought…’ He didn’t finish the sentence. She finished it in her mind. Her heart somersaulted. She couldn’t take everything in.
‘Courting?’ she asked, just to be sure.
A dark flush suffused Aidan’s face, visible even despite his dark tan. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘But—’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he blurted. ‘You got trapped into the marriage. I don’t blame you for not wanting it. I got trapped once myself. But damn it, Courtney, I love you!’
‘You…’ She was about to repeat his words, astonished and disbelieving, but Aidan didn’t give her the chance.
He crossed the room and grabbed her by the arms, hauling her against him, her face only inches from his own. ‘I know I don’t have any right to court you. I know I’m probably the last person on earth you want. And I don’t blame you, but—’
She didn’t let him finish. Instead she erased those few inches and placed her mouth over his, kissing him for all she was worth. She felt a split second’s resistance, then he groaned and kissed her in return. His tongue invaded the warmth of her mouth, his body grew taut and hard against hers, his arms crushed her against his chest. Then, all at once, he thrust her away and said raggedly, ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.’
She shook her head, perplexed and bereft.
‘I came courting,’ he said, ‘not seducing. Not ravishing.’ He sound
ed as if he were trying to convince himself as well as her.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ He virtually yelped the words.
‘If you love me,’ she began reasonably, her hand going out to stroke his arm which jerked under her touch.
‘I’d be trapping you,’ he said miserably. ‘Our whole marriage was a trap.’
‘For you,’ she agreed softly.
‘Not me,’ he corrected irritably. ‘You.’
‘You think I was trapped?’ The notion astounded her.
‘I forced your hand. I told your father we were engaged.’
‘But only because I needed to be engaged to someone.’
‘No.’
‘No?’ She looked up at him curiously. A dull red flush had spread across his cheekbones and he shifted uncomfortably, running a hand through his hair, then shrugging his shoulders and staring at the floor.
‘Ah, hell,’ he muttered. ‘I was in love with you clear back then.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You were?’
‘Damn it, you sound like a bloody parrot.’
‘Sorry.’ But she wasn’t. She was smiling all over her face.
‘But it wasn’t right, what I did,’ he went on doggedly. ‘I shouldn’t have trapped you that way. I should have tried to make you love me first, not married you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t realise…’ He shook his head and she saw flickering pain in his eyes. ‘So I had to let you go.’ He jerked away from her, striding to the far side of the room, rubbing his hand against the knotted muscles of his neck. ‘I tried to, damn it. And I know I don’t have any right to ask it, but… would you… would you let me… court you… now…? The right way?’
She smiled. ‘Courtship is a preliminary to marriage,’ she reminded him softly.
‘I know that,’ he growled. ‘I’m all done being Peter Pan.’
She crossed the room and went up on tiptoes, brushing her lips across his. ‘I’m delighted to hear it. There’s just one problem.’
‘What’s that?’ He scowled fiercely.
‘You can’t really court me when we’re already married.’
‘You’ve applied for a divorce,’ Aidan said sharply.
‘No.’
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Their eyes locked. And Courtney saw her own flare of hope reflected in Aidan’s beautiful eyes.
Then, as if he dared not let himself hope too much, ‘I thought… I mean, I told you…’
She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘You… didn’t…’
‘I never contacted a lawyer.’
‘But…’ He was as reluctant to face his dreams as she had been. ‘But… why?’
‘Because I was selfish. I loved you too much to let you go.’
He simply stared at her. His hands, which clutched her arms, were almost bruising in their sudden strength. And when he finally found his voice it was raw and aching. ‘You love me?’
He still didn’t believe it, she could tell, and so she said it again. ‘I love you. You are irascible and obnoxious, stubborn and opinionated, and I love you so much that when you let me go I thought I’d die.’
A laugh that was closer to a sob shuddered through him. ‘You do love me?’
‘Yes.’
And this time it was Aidan who was kissing her. Strong and intense, his urgency almost overpowered her. Finally, knowing that if they didn’t move soon they would scandalise Fred, she drew him into her small, dimly lit bedroom where she pulled him down on to the bed.
It was different from the hammock, but no less wonderful. More wonderful actually, for this time she was sure of their love, and it was the farthest thing from a trap she could imagine. It was the most freeing, the most liberating feeling she had ever known. And when at last they lay damp and spent in each other’s arms, she had the chance to tell him so.
‘It seems like a dream come true,’ he muttered, still clearly feeling as if he had taken advantage, when he just as clearly, to her, had not.
‘You’re going to have to start believing in happy endings,’ she teased him.
He raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her, one of his hands smoothing over the curve of her hip. ‘I’ll try. But it isn’t always going to be easy.’ He shut his eyes briefly. ‘Marriage scares me. I mean, I want it with you. And you say you want it with me, but… the situation is… just like what happened with Shanna. I forced you.’
‘No one forced me.’ She laid the palm of her hand against his cheek, stroking the rough stubble of day-old beard. ‘I wanted it, too.’
He smiled then, beginning to be convinced. His green eyes sparkled. ‘So long as you’re sure.’
‘Absolutely. Are you?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘My life as one of the Lost Boys is over. The river was my freedom for a time. I needed it. But I don’t need it now. I need you.’
He kissed her again, tenderly this time. The urgency was past, but not the pleasure. Now their lovemaking was relaxed, gentle, secure in the knowledge that they had all the time in the world.
‘When did you know?’ she asked curiously much later when they lay wrapped in each other’s arms again. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before when it was so clear in the light of his eyes now.
He gave a wry grimace. ‘I don’t know exactly. It sort of crept up on me. It probably started when you flipped me into the water.’
She laughed. ‘Am I marrying a masochist?’
‘No. Just a man who’s impressed as hell with a woman who can give as good as she gets.’ His hand moved seductively over her body.
‘Oh, I can do that, all right.’ And her hand moved to find him, stroking him, making him forget what he was about to say. He luxuriated in the tender caresses she gave him until he could stand it no longer. Then he drew her on top of him and framed her face with his hands.
‘But I think it came home to me,’ he said softly, ‘when I listened to your father’s wedding sermon.’
Courtney blinked. ‘How so?’
‘All those things he talked about. Honouring, esteeming, cherishing. I felt those things about you. And when he talked about the joys of marriage—about the fidelity, the constancy, the sharing… well, I wanted them, too. But I couldn’t believe you wanted them. Not with me. That’s why I wouldn’t make love to you. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, believe me.’
‘But you did finally,’ she reminded him.
‘We might have died out there! I couldn’t resist you when I thought of an eternity without you.’
‘Good.’ Then she frowned. ‘But you were so remote afterwards. I thought you were angry.’
‘I was. At myself. I’d taken you when I had no right. And I had destroyed your chances of getting an annulment.’
‘Which I didn’t even want.’ She kissed his nose.
‘Well, I didn’t know that. You didn’t say.’
‘Because I thought I was trapping you.’
He laughed. ‘What an altruistic pair we are, giving each other such freedom.’
She giggled and hugged him. ‘I’d say we were a couple of prize chumps. And we almost blew it.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed soberly. ‘But we didn’t. And that’s what counts. I don’t want a divorce, Courtney. I want you now and for ever. In my arms. In my life.’ He searched her eyes for a similar commitment, a faint smile touching his mouth when he found it. ‘Do you think we can manage all that stuff your father was talking about?’
‘Love? Commitment? Fidelity? That sort of thing?’ she asked him, smiling into his eyes.
‘And a grandchild or two.’
She touched his lips with her own, sealing their fate. ‘I wouldn’t mind working on it,’ she said. ‘But it might take a while.’
He scowled. ‘How long?’
‘Oh,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him and drawing him into the warmth of her life and her love, ‘maybe another fifty or sixty years or so.’
&nb
sp;
The Marriage Trap Page 18