Ryder's Wife

by Sharon Sala

  He set a package of raw hamburger meat on the counter then went back to the refrigerator. She didn’t know what angered her most, the fact that he was being deliberately mutinous, or that she was being ignored.

  Smoothing her hands down the front of her blue summer suit, she tossed back her hair and slipped into the sarcastic mode she used to keep Miles and Erica at bay.

  “Are you finished?” she drawled, wanting the bathroom all to herself.

  Ryder straightened, looking at her from across the open refrigerator door. He stared at her, from the top of her hair to the open toes of her sling-back pumps. A slight grin tilted the corner of his mouth as he stepped back and closed the door.

  His thoughts went to the year stretching out before them, considering which one of them would be the first to break. “Finished?” he muttered. “We haven’t even started.”

  With that, he moved toward her.

  Panic came swiftly and Casey wondered if the family would. be able to hear her scream from here. She held up her hand in a warning gesture.

  “Don’t you dare!” she said, and winced at the squeak in her voice.

  She was scared! The fact surprised him. She’d walked into a bar with a roomful of strange men and offered herself up as a golden goat without batting an eye. She’d roused a doctor, a county clerk and a judge out of bed to do her bidding. She’d stared down a roomful of antagonistic relatives and kept a lawyer out of her pants who seemed to have had his own hidden agenda, and she was suddenly scared? And of him? It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t done anything to warrant this. Yet when he might have eased her fears, he found himself letting them grow.

  When he got within inches of her stark, white face, he realized why. This woman, who was his wife, was damned pretty. In fact, if a man didn’t get picky about that little bitty mole at the left corner of her lips, she was beautiful.

  Sexually, he was a starving man and this woman was legally his wife. Although he’d cut himself off from everyone he cared for, he’d been unable to cut off the emotions of a normal, red-blooded man. Keeping her slightly afraid was a safe way of keeping her at arms’ length. Yet when her eyes widened fearfully and her color rose, he relented.

  “Easy,” he said. “All I need to know is how you like it and do you want more than one?”

  She would have sworn that her heart shot straight up her throat and she had to swallow several times to work up enough spit to be able to speak. More than one? Oh my God! “I don’t think you understand the situation here,” she stuttered.

  “What? Don’t tell me you don’t eat metal”

  Her face flushed as she thought of his lean, bare body. “Eat? Meat?”

  “Do you like it hot and red, slightly pink, or hard as a rock?”

  Her eyes widened even more and her voice began to quiver. “I don’t do things like that,” she whispered, and put her hand to her throat, unconsciously stifling that scream she’d been considering.

  He frowned. Things like what? All he needed to know was if she wanted… And then it dawned on him what interpretation she’d put on their conversation. He stifled a grin and pointed back to the counter.

  “Are you telling me you don’t do hamburgers?”

  “Hamburgers?”

  He went straight past her and out a small side door onto the attached deck above the driveway, opened the lid to a smoking barbecue grill, checked the coals, then let the lid drop back down with a clank.

  “The charcoal is ready.” He headed back toward the kitchen, pausing at the package of hamburger. “One last chance. Do you want one hamburger or two, and how do you want it cooked?”

  There was a silly grin on her face as she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

  * * *

  Ryder sat in the room’s only chair, watching as Casey began to regain consciousness. The sofa he’d laid her on was a small, two-cushion affair, and he’d been forced to make the decision as to whether her head would be down and her feet up, or vice versa.

  He’d opted to lay her head on the cushions and let her legs dangle. No sooner had he done so than one of her legs slipped from the arm of the sofa and onto the floor, leaving her in an indelicate, spread-eagled faint.

  Ryder stifled a grin. Waking in such a compromising position would embarrass anyone. For Casey, a woman obviously used to nothing but the best, it would be the height of humiliation. In a considerate move, he removed her shoes, then lifted her leg back in alignment with the other. But when it slipped off again, he decided to leave it, and her, alone.

  As he watched, he couldn’t help but stare at the woman who was now his wife. He was still a little shocked at himself for going along with such a hare-brained scheme. The Justice men were not impulsive. They had always considered the consequences and then lived with their decisions without regrets. Until now. While it was too late to consider anything, it remained to be seen if there would be regrets.

  He kept looking at her, separating her features in his mind. It wasn’t just that she was pretty, though he couldn’t keep his eyes off her thick black hair and those big green eyes. And her skin—it looked like silk, ivory silk.

  And Ryder remembered that when she smiled, her mouth had a tendency to curl at one corner first before the other decided to follow. It gave her an impish expression, which he knew was deceiving. If this woman had an ounce of playfulness in her, he hadn’t seen it. The devil maybe, but nothing so frivolous as an imp.

  While he was watching, she blinked. And when she groaned and reached for the back of her head, he grimaced. It had been thumped pretty good when she’d fainted. He felt bad about that. She might be touchy as hell, and they might not agree on anything, but he didn’t want her hurt.

  Casey opened her eyes. The ceiling didn’t look familiar, and for a moment, she wondered where she was. A whiff of charcoal smoke drifted past her nose and, all too swiftly, her memory returned.

  Seconds later, she became aware of the implications of her less than ladylike sprawl. What had that man done to her while she’d been unconscious? Better yet, where was he?

  She turned her head and caught him staring at her from a chair on the other side of the coffee table. When he grinned and winked, she swiveled to an upright position, grabbing at her skirt and smoothing at her hair. When she could think without the room spinning beneath her, she glared at him.

  “What did you do to me?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Not nearly as much as I wanted,” he replied, and knew he’d scored a hit when she doubled up her fists. He stifled a laugh. “Easy, now. I was just kidding. I’ve been the picture of decorum. I picked you up from the floor, laid you on the sofa, and have been waiting for you to come to.”

  Her southern manners forced her to thank him. “I appreciate your consideration.”

  His grin widened. “Honesty won’t permit me to accept your compliment. I have to admit it was hunger that kept me waiting for you. I was taught that it’s bad manners to eat in front of people without offering them some, too. And, you never did answer my question. How do you want your hamburger?”

  If she’d had a shoe, she would have thrown it. As it was, she had to satisfy herself with a regal, albeit shaky, exit from the room, slamming the door shut between them with a solid thud.

  “Does that mean you don’t want one?” Ryder yelled.

  She yanked the door open long enough to give him what was left of her mind.

  “You’re a swine. A gentleman would have covered my legs and bathed my head with a cold compress.”

  “If you wanted a gentleman, you shouldn’t have gone shopping for a husband down in the Delta.”

  She glared and slammed the door again, this time louder and firmer.

  “I suppose this means no to the hamburgers?”

  The door opened again, but the only thing to come out was the sound of Casey’s voice at its most dignified. The shriek in her tone was gone and she was enunciating each word, as if speaking to someone lacking in mental capacity.

 
“No, it does not. I will have a hamburger, well-done, light on the salt, heavy on the pepper.”

  This time when she closed the door, it was with a ladylike click. The glitter in Ryder’s eyes was sharp, the grin on his face sardonic.

  “So you like it hot, do you, wife? That’s interesting. Very interesting indeed.”

  He reentered the tiny kitchen and began making patties from the hamburger meat before carrying them out to the grill. As he slapped them on the grate, smoke began to rise and the fire began to pop and sizzle as fat dripped onto the burning charcoal.

  Oddly, it reminded him of Casey in the midst of her family, putting up a smoke screen to keep them from knowing how scared she was, and popping wisecracks and issuing orders before anyone could tell her what to do.

  He closed the lid and sighed. He had married a total stranger for the hell of it, but he hadn’t counted on the family that came with her. In fact, they reminded him of snakes, writhing and coiling and biting out at each other in some crazy sort of frenzy.

  He thought of his own family, of how loud and rambunctious-of how close and loving they’d been—of how empty and scattered they now were. And how the world as he’d known it had ended because of something he’d done.

  He went back inside, leaving the hamburgers and his memories behind.

  * * *

  “Want another one?” Ryder asked, indicating the two remaining well-done patties congealing in their own grease on a pea green plate.

  Casey eyed the plate. Besides being an atrocious shade of green, the plate was chipped. She’d never eaten from a chipped plate before. She suspected this night was the beginning of many firsts. Dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a paper towel, she shook her head.

  “No, thank you, I’m quite full.” Grudgingly she added, “It was very good.”

  Ryder nodded and continued to stare at a ketchup stain near his fork. What now? Conversation with this woman had been nearly impossible. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, she jumped. And she watched his every move with those big green eyes, as if she expected to be pounced upon at any moment. Hell, she was beginning to make him antsy, too.

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost nine.”

  She paled.

  He sighed.

  “Easy now, lady.”

  “Casey,” she said. “My name is Casey.”

  His expression darkened. “Yes, and my name is Ryder. Unfortunately, that’s all we know about each other.” When she looked away, his frustration rose.

  “Casey, look at me.”

  She did, but with trepidation.

  “There’s something I think needs to be said. This is going to be a long haul for both of us. I suppose we each had an agenda for even considering this situation, but it’s done, and for your sake, it has to work, right?”

  She thought of Miles and Erica, and then of Lash. “Yes.”

  “Okay, then there’s something I think you should know about me.”

  Her head jerked up and she was suddenly staring at him in a still, waiting manner. Oh dear, what was he about to reveal?

  Again, he sensed her fear. “Dammit, don’t look at me like that. I am not a dangerous man. I do not taunt women. I do not hurt women. I do not force women to do anything they do not want, and that includes the issue of sex.”

  Startled by his bluntness, Casey blushed. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “There won’t be any.”

  Her announcement came as no surprise, but Ryder was unprepared for the sense of disappointment he felt. He chalked it up to several months of denial and let it go at that.

  He shrugged. “I will abide by whatever rules you feel comfortable in setting, but I have a couple of my own. I am not your servant. I don’t take orders… but I will listen to suggestions.”

  He watched her swallow a couple of times, but she remained silent.

  “Well, do you have any?”

  Casey blinked. “Any what?”

  “Suggestions.”

  “Uh…no, I don’t suppose so.”

  “Okay, then that’s settled. Why don’t you start the dishes? I want to make sure the fire is out in the grill.”

  He got up before he had time to see her panic again.

  “Ryder?”

  He turned.

  She waved helplessly over the table and the dirty dishes. “I’ve never done dishes before.”

  “You’ve never… !” Then he muttered beneath his breath.

  “Good grief.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’ve never done dishes.”

  She hated him for that dumbfounded look he was wearing.

  “That’s what I said. I also don’t do windows,” she snapped.

  “And I don’t suppose you can cook, either.”

  She had the grace to flush. “No.”

  He groaned.

  Casey was surprised at her feelings of inadequacy. She hired and fired with the best of them, bought and sold corporations without batting an eye. How dare he consider her lacking in capabilities?

  “It’s not my fault,” she argued.

  “Then whose is it?”

  She had no answer.

  “If you ask me, it’s high time you learned. Soap is under the sink, the dishcloth is in it. You’re a smart lady. Figure the rest out for yourself.”

  “Where are you going?” Casey asked, as he started out the door.

  “To put out a fire then take a shower.”

  “But you already had a shower,” she said, remembering the steam… and the towel… and the bare-naked body.

  “Yeah, so maybe I have more than one fire that needs quenching, okay?”

  It took exactly five seconds for the implication of what he’d suggested to sink in, and another few for her to be able to move. After that, she was glad to have something to do besides think about what he’d said…and why he’d said it.

  * * *

  The air was thick and muggy from the lingering heat of the day. It was that time of the evening just before dusk and right after the sun has passed beyond the horizon. A family of martens swooped grass-high in daring flight then soared heavenward, constantly feeding on the mosquitos in the air.

  Graystone, the home that had been in the Marlow family since before the War of Northern Aggression, loomed large upon the landscape. It was a three-story monolith which had seen better days. Its regal structure and the land upon which it sat was sadly in need of repair, yet at a distance, the charm of the pillared edifice was still imposing.

  Lash reclined in an old wicker chair on the veranda of his family home, nursing his third bourbon and water and surveying all that was his. This was his favorite time of the day. It wasn’t because the workday was over and he was taking a well-earned rest It was because Graystone looked better at half-light.

  He tossed. back the last of his drink, trying to pinpoint exactly where his plans for glory had gone wrong. The liquor burned and he silently cursed the fact that he could no longer afford the best. He was drinking cheap bourbon, living in the servant’s wing while the rest of the mansion was closed off, and down to doing for himself. He didn’t even have the funds to hire a housekeeper and made only enough at his law practice to keep the taxes paid on his home and himself afloat.

  His belly growled. Without conscious thought, he pushed himself up from the chair and entered the house, taking care to lock the door behind him. Just for a moment, he stood in the great hall, staring up at the spiral staircase gracing the entryway, remembering another time when the house had been alive with laughter and people.

  Something moved in the far corner of the hall. He winced as the sound of scurrying feet scratched on the marble flooring, then disappeared behind a breakfront. It wasn’t the first rodent of that size he’d seen inside these walls, but tonight, it would be one too many.

  He started to shake, first with rage, then from despair. It was over! There would be no
more dreams of bringing Graystone back to her former beauty, or of returning dignity to the Marlow name. And it was all because of Casey.

  A red haze blurred his vision. He drew back and threw his glass toward the place where he’d last seen the rat. It shattered against the wall, splintering into minute crystal shards. Only afterward did he remember that it had been part of a set, but regret swiftly faded. What did it matter? His only guests wore long tails and came on four feet…in the dark…in the middle of the night.

  Startled by the sound of breaking glass, the rat that had taken refuge behind the breakfront made a run down the hallway for the deeper shadows beyond. As it did, something inside of Lash snapped. He grabbed at his grandfather’s ivoryhandled walking stick that had been standing in the hall tree for more than forty years, and ran, catching the rat just as it neared safety. He swung down with deadly force and the sound shattered the silence within the old walls as well as what was left of Lash’s reason. Glass splintered on the wall behind him as he drew back the cane, but he didn’t notice.

  Even after the rat was dead, Lash continued to hail it with a barrage of blows until gore began to splatter on his shoes and the cuffs of his pants.

  But in his mind, the rat had been dispatched from the first blow he’d struck. He was oblivious to the overkill, or that he might have lost more than his control. He kept venting his rage on a woman who’d dashed his dreams. And it wasn’t the rodent who was coming apart on the cool marble floor. It was the beautiful and complacent surface of Casey Ruban’s face.

  When he finally stopped, his body was shaking from exertion and the muscles in his arm were burning from the energy he’d spent. He stared in disbelief at what he’d done, then tossed the cane down on the floor, disgusted by its condition.

  Weary in both body and spirit, he turned and then stared at the wall in disbelief. The mirror! The glass in the ornate, goldrimmed mirror that had hung in this hall for as long as he could remember, was shattered. His heart began to pound as he looked at the broken and refracted image of himself—a true reflection of his life.