Husband: Some Assembly Required

by Marie Ferrarella

  “You haven’t heard which home yet.”

  Why did she find the fact that he never stopped pitching at her endearing? It was supposed to be irritating, the way it had been before.

  “Mine,” she told him. With effort, she opened the door and got out. The cool breeze helped wake her up. “I can drive myself home. It’s only a few blocks from here.”

  Getting out, he came around to stand beside her. “I could follow you and let myself be invited in for a nightcap.” He stood over her for a moment, just a man and a woman in a deserted parking lot. For lack of a desert island, it would have to do. “You know, the damsel in distress thanking her knight.”

  She knew where he wanted it to lead. Where she wanted it to lead. And where she wasn’t ready to let it lead. “I’ll give you a rain check.”

  He spread his hands wide before him. “Knights rust in the rain.”

  “I’ll keep a can of oil handy.” She rounded the hood, then stopped at the driver’s side. She bit her lip uncertainly as she looked at his car, thinking of the potential time bomb he insisted on walking around with. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Other than a deflated ego.” He gave a perfunctory nod, then stopped midway. The sensation of pins and needles being jabbed around the region of his eye wouldn’t abate. “I’m fine.”

  Something in his expression alerted her. “You’re lying.”

  “Lawyers never lie. They just find different ways to approach the truth.” He sighed, unwilling to call an end to the night. “Certainly can’t say that you’re a dull date.”

  Amusement quirked her mouth before she could stifle it. “Was that what this was? A date?”

  “Yeah.” The look that washed over her was warm, compelling. It reeled her in as surely as if she were a nickel goldfish on the end of a line. “And I’d like to say painless, but...” He let the word slip into the darkness as he drew closer to her. “You’re going to have bruises of your own tomorrow.”

  He touched her throat lightly and silently cursed her attacker. He’d never wanted to kill anyone before. Had he had half the chance, he wasn’t able to say what the outcome would have been.

  She shrugged a little too carelessly. The bruises on her throat were the least of it. “I have this new scarf I’ve been meaning to wear.”

  He had an early meeting to get to tomorrow. Murphy moved to his car and unlocked the door. He looked over his shoulder at her before getting in. “Slip into a hot tub tonight and think of me.”

  The problem was, she knew she would. “Go home, Murphy, and get some rest.”

  “You should talk.” He was almost inside the car when he remembered. “See you Saturday at eleven?”

  “Saturday?” she echoed. Had she told him that she would see him in her office on a weekend?

  She’d forgotten. Murphy was amazed. There was no space for anything in that woman’s head but work. “Harmony’s birthday party,” he prompted. Even in the moonlight he could see the protests multiplying in her mind. “After tonight, meeting my relatives should be a snap.”

  Unconsciously she ran her hand along her throat. It felt raw. “I guess I owe you something.”

  That wasn’t why he wanted her to come. “Not me—yourself, Shawna. You owe yourself something.”

  He came to her side and kissed her lightly. Then he got into his car before he was tempted to deepen the kiss, to show her the error of her ways. He might ache from the struggle at the clinic, but that wasn’t the most persistent ache that was battering his body.

  Murphy waited until Shawna pulled out of the parking lot before he started his own car. And began to wonder all over again where this was leading. He hadn’t the faintest clue. All he knew was that he was bound to follow the path.

  He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t like it, but it didn’t change what was.

  Shaking his head, he pulled out of the lot.

  * * *

  She didn’t know about this.

  Shawna looked at her reflection in the closet mirror. She just didn’t know.

  It was one thing to have Murphy dog her tracks. To have him pop up unannounced and unappointmented at her office and follow her to the clinic. She had no control over his behavior. It was another thing entirely to dress up with the intention of going out with him. Anywhere. It changed the game plan.

  And the game was going over the falls in a barrel.

  She wasn’t cut out for this.

  She hadn’t had even so much as one date in high school. No one had asked her. In college, she and Doug had met in the first class she had ever walked into. They hadn’t dated as much as just been around each other. Their relationship had begun with their studying together. Only later did it work its way up into something that had nothing to do with their grades or their future careers.

  And it all seemed light-years away now. Able to perform complex eye surgeries with enviable ease, Shawna hadn’t the slightest idea how to behave on a so-called date. Nerves threatened to swallow her whole. She could very easily get to hate this, she thought as she slipped on her shoes.

  “You look lovely.”

  Startled, Shawna looked up and saw her mother’s reflection in the mirror. She was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking at her.

  Sally crossed to Shawna in small, graceful steps, as if she were playing to some invisible audience. “What a lovely girl you are.”

  The label hardly seemed to fit. In all likelihood her mother had forgotten how old she was. Birthdays, both her own and her mother’s, were forgotten with regularity when she was growing up.

  Shawna turned to face her. “I’m thirty.”

  “I’m older,” Sally responded whimsically. “You’re a girl.” The discussion ended there. Sally ran her hand lightly along her daughter’s hair. Shawna sensed ambivalent feelings in the way her mother looked at her. “Why didn’t you ever dress up like this when you were in high school?”

  It was an old song, with an old refrain to match. “I was too busy studying.”

  That made no sense to Sally. She had always preferred the company of people to that of books. She always needed to see herself admired in someone else’s eyes. With a sigh, Sally supposed Shawna was luckier that way. She didn’t seem to need that sort of thing.

  “You could have found a whole new way to study anatomy.”

  Shawna raised a brow. One of them playing house while she was growing up had been enough. Her mother had had four husbands and Shawna had lost count of the number of boyfriends who had been potential husbands until they fell into her mother’s disfavor. “Mother.”

  Sally frowned. “Oh, don’t tell me that you’re still a prude.”

  Shawna took exception to the term. She’d never been a prude. She just didn’t believe that a woman always had to have a man at her side to be complete. There had been a great many men in her mother’s life and she had never seemed complete.

  “No, but—”

  “Good.” Sally moved around the room like a butterfly looking for somewhere to light. “You had me worried for a minute.” Her eyes shifted toward her daughter. There were lost opportunities here, hers and Shawna’s. “I had hopes that you’d open up a little. You can’t live if you don’t.”

  Shawna didn’t want to get into this now. She was having difficulty taming the upheavals in her stomach. Why had she agreed to this party? She didn’t know anyone who was going to be there, not really.

  “I’m doing fine, Mother.” The words were ground out between teeth that hardly moved.

  “Are you?” Sally hesitated before plunging onward. “Look, I know I wasn’t exactly like Carol Brady when you were growing up...”

  The reference to the fictional perfect mother of six made Shawna smile despite the jumbo jets waiting for clearance in her abdomen. Her mother couldn’t raise one child—what in the world would she have done with six? “More like Auntie Mame.” Her tone was devoid of censure. Her mother was what she was.

  Sally’s eyes darted to look
at Shawna’s face. There was a hopeful look in her own. She had done a great many things wrong, probably more than she was aware of, she estimated. “It was fun, wasn’t it, honey? A little?”

  “A little,” Shawna agreed.

  What was the point in saying otherwise? Nothing would be changed, and she didn’t want to cause her mother any grief or remorse. She was confident that somewhere, deep down, the woman was aware of her own shortcomings.

  With absolution in hand, Sally brightened visibly. She placed her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, one sorority sister to another.

  “Anyway, I might not have the right to tell you what to do now—to suggest what you do now,” she amended quickly when she saw a glint enter Shawna’s eyes. If nothing else, Sally was versed in the art of survival and saying the right things. “But if someone’s interested in you, don’t turn your back on that.”

  “You don’t even know him,” Shawna observed.

  The smile on Sally’s face bloomed and spread like a sped-up video of a budding morning glory. “That’s easily fixed. He’s coming to pick you up, isn’t he?”

  Alarms went off in Shawna’s head. “Leave him alone, Mother.”

  “Protective.” Sally nodded her head, pleased. Shawna had no idea what her mother was going on about. “Good sign. You always were a good protector, honey. There were times I thought of you as the mother and me as the kid, even when you were small.”

  “That makes two of us,” Shawna murmured under her breath as she went to answer the doorbell, which had mercifully chosen this moment to peal.

  It was the first time she’d been relieved to see Murphy standing in a doorway. But the relief faded, absorbed like a spill by a paper towel as her nerves reemerged. She could almost feel his eyes slide over her.

  She shrugged self-consciously. “I didn’t know what to wear.”

  It was his opinion that she probably would have looked good in anything. As long as he hung on to the fact that this was just physical between them, he’d be all right. It was admitting anything else that would undermine him.

  “Cellophane comes to mind, but there will be children there.” He brushed a kiss quickly over her lips before she had a chance to protest his comment or his action. “Anything you’re comfortable in would be my second recommendation.” She was wearing a light pink dress that fluttered about her body like a spring breeze when she moved. The halter top made him want to slide his hand along her bare back. “Like that.”

  She’d changed three times. Nothing felt right. Or looked it. “I’m comfortable in my lab coat.”

  “Given the right accessories that would work.” He didn’t mention that the accessories he had in mind ran into sheer black lace. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?” He laughed at the scowl on her face.

  He stopped when he saw the woman on the other side of the small living room. There was more than a passing resemblance. Given a guess, he would have said that she was Shawna’s older sister, except that he knew Shawna was an only child.

  Murphy felt Shawna tense slightly at his side. He laced his hand through Shawna’s, then nodded toward the other woman. “Mrs. Rowen?”

  When her daughter finally picked them, she really picked them. Sally’s smile was wide and appreciative. If he hadn’t belonged to Shawna, she would have been tempted to flirt with him herself.

  “Sally,” she corrected as she floated across the small space to stand next to him. She extended her hand to Murphy, employing the same mannerisms a queen might when she offered her ring to be kissed.

  Mother always knew how to make an entrance, Shawna thought. Even in a tiny apartment like this one. She saw the light of approval in her mother’s eyes and for a moment wondered if she would attempt to make a play for Murphy. Murphy Pendleton was just the type of man Sally Rowen gravitated to. Young, virile and exciting.

  Her other hand now wrapped around Murphy’s, Sally looked at her daughter. “Shawna, you never said he was this gorgeous.”

  “What did she say about me?” Murphy asked, amused. Shawna’s makeup didn’t hide the flush of pink that rose to her cheeks.

  Sally shook her head. “Nothing.”

  He grinned as he casually broke the connection between them. Murphy hooked his arm through Shawna’s. “That’s what I thought.”

  Sally noticed the faint trace of a bruise beneath his eye. A brute. How wonderful. “Did you get into a fight?”

  Shawna shot Murphy a warning glance. She’d said nothing to her mother about the incident at the clinic. There was no point in worrying the woman or in opening herself up to lectures. “He raced into a burning building to save a little girl.”

  Sally clapped her hands together, delighted. “A hero.”

  “Not exactly,” Murphy interjected, then turned and looked at Shawna. “Why don’t you take a few lessons from your mother?” he asked teasingly.

  Sally needed no more to set her on course. “I’m afraid she’s hopeless when it comes to simple appreciation. Lord knows I’ve tried.” She gestured at Shawna, talking as if she wasn’t even in the room. “I’ve never seen her this dressed up before.” Like a tennis ball that had been lobbed back across the net, Sally turned her attention to Murphy. “You seem to have more of an influence on her than I do. Do you think you could—”

  Murphy had a feeling that the woman could probably talk nonstop all day and all night if she was allowed to. He had no intention of allowing her to. “I’m supposed to be in charge of the pony, so we’d better go.”

  Sally stared and wondered what he was up to. It sounded interesting. “Pony?”

  He was already steering Shawna out the door. “It’s a long story,” he told Sally over his shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Mrs. Rowen.”

  “Sally,” she called after them. “Mrs. Rowen makes me feel too old.”

  “We could bring her along,” Murphy offered, amusement playing along his lips as he closed the door behind them.

  Shawna shook her head. “You could bring her along.”

  He grinned. “Need a respite?”

  She felt a little overwhelmed by it all. “What do you think?”

  He brought her to his car. “I think it’s nice to be the cavalry once in a while. One respite coming up.”

  She had her doubts about that, she thought as she got into his car. She sincerely had her doubts about that.

  Chapter Ten

  Murphy was aware of the tension sharing the car with them as soon as he got behind the steering wheel. He wondered if it was the party she was going to or the woman she had left behind that was responsible for the rigid set of her shoulders.

  He took a stab at exploring the latter. “I like your mother.”

  Her mother had all but handed Shawna to Murphy on a silver platter, as if she were an hors d’oeuvre that had just been whipped up in the kitchen. Embarrassment and annoyance were vying for the center stage within her.

  “Most men do.” Shawna stopped, then looked at Murphy. “Did that sound a little bitter?”

  “Maybe a touch.”

  She saw the smile that lightly curved his mouth. Was he amused by it? Maybe he had a right to be. To him it seemed like a typical mother-daughter tug-of-war. How could he know that there was so much more to it?

  “I guess it was.” She didn’t want him getting the wrong impression. Shawna looked through the car window. They were headed toward a somewhat more rural section of town. The peaceful scenery calmed her.

  “I didn’t mind her getting attention when I was growing up. I just minded it cutting into our time. Our time.” She repeated the phrase with a deprecating laugh. It sounded foreign to her ear. Foreign to her life. Sally Rowen had always been too preoccupied with the next date, the next man, to make time for her daughter. “As if we had any.” She sighed. Shawna was long past recriminations. But the hurt had a way of lingering. “She was always going out, or getting ready to go out. Between that and her job, I hardly saw her.”

  The road from Bedford to Kelly’s hom
e was a long, winding one, with trees on either side of the narrow, ribbonlike path. Though he was more than familiar with the way, Murphy still had to remain alert in order not to miss the turnoff that led to her neighborhood.

  But the wistful note in Shawna’s voice was interfering with his concentration. His life had been a complete contrast to hers. Growing up, he’d never known what it was like not to trip over someone at home. It had been a full house, and his family had always been there for him.

  “Sounds lonely.” He glanced at her, maintaining one eye on the road. “What about your father?”

  Shawna lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I have no idea who he is.” Her voice was distant, flat, as if she were deliberately keeping her emotions out of it. “She never mentioned him.”

  “Didn’t you ever ask?” He knew he would have.

  “Once.”

  If she let herself, Shawna could vividly recall the scene. It had been her tenth birthday, and her mother was going out. In typical careless fashion, she’d completely forgotten what day it was. Hurt, Shawna had lashed out the only way she knew how. She’d demanded to know who her father was, confident in her ignorance that he would remember what day it was. She’d never received an answer.

  “My mother became very quiet, very pale. She looked as if I’d just run a jagged glass bottle over a gaping wound.” It had shaken her into silence. “So I never brought him up again.”

  It seemed inconceivable that curiosity hadn’t motivated her when she had become a grown woman. “But you wondered, didn’t you?”

  She shrugged again as she saw the path ahead of them widen. Large, single-story houses began appearing in the distance. “What good would it do? He’d left a long time ago and I managed.”

  He thought she’d phrased it rather oddly. “You mean you both managed.”

  She had no idea why she was telling him all this, only that somehow, once again, he was drawing things out of her, things that hurt like nettles being pulled across the tender flesh of her palm.

  “From a very early age I discovered that my mother needed a mother.” Shawna watched as the sun hopscotched through openings in the nearby trees, shining intensely whenever it was able. It made her think of her mother, bright, sunny at the least hint of affection being bestowed on her. “She was an orphan. Maybe that was what created her endless quest for love.”