Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Politely, Cinda waited. But in vain. There was no break in the action, no response. Now what? Only too aware of the crowd’s hushed whisperings, Cinda tapped a little harder on the woman’s arm and said softly, “Excuse me.” Bitch. “But I need to break in here, if you don’t mind.”

  Again, nothing. The kiss went on. But now that she was this close, Cinda was encouraged to realize that what had looked from afar like him returning the woman’s embrace was now revealed to be him trying to push the trashy woman off him. Cinda’s heart melted. What a sweetheart. The poor guy was trying to break Bobby Jean’s lip-lock and the death grip she had on his neck and waist. But his efforts were in vain as Cinda personally believed a fire department’s jaws-of-life couldn’t separate the two.

  What chance, then, did she stand? Cinda looked around sheepishly at the interested bystanders. Her gaze lit on her “mother-in-law” who stood on the fringes of the crowd with Chelsi still on her hip. Dorinda Sue Cooper flapped her free hand at Cinda, urging her into the fray. Great. Cinda squared her shoulders, wondering just what the heck else she was supposed to do here. Maybe she should try the arm-tapping thing again. Maybe the third time really was the charm.

  So, she tapped, being sure to use a good bit of fingernail this time. She also decided to include a loud speech. “Pardon me, Bobby Jean, I know you’re busy. I mean I can see you’re busy. So can the whole town. Which brings me to my point. You don’t know me, but the man stuck to your face happens to be mine. And I would appreciate it if you would not continue to kiss him and rub yourself all over him.”

  Cinda waited. No response. Nothing. She exhaled her frustration. Clearly, something drastic was called for. Maybe if she spoke louder and issued a warning. “Okay, stop it right now, lady,” Cinda barked. “You don’t want to make me angry here.”

  Finally, at long last, Bobby Jean broke off kissing Cinda’s man, who gasped and looked wild-eyed as the redhead unpeeled herself from his body and turned to face Cinda, who gulped. Bobby Jean was tall. Almost as tall as Trey, who was being steadied on his feet by two guys who held onto his arms.

  Bobby Jean got in Cinda’s face and poked one of those long-fingered hands with the orange-painted nails at Cinda’s chest.

  “Honey,” Bobby Jean said, her voice magnolia-sweet and husky as her green eyes sparked serious warnings Cinda’s way, “I’m only going to say this once, so you listen up real good, you hear? Married or not, this man is not yours, sugar. He’s mine. He always has been. And he always will be. So you just back off right now and we’ll call it all a big mistake.”

  The crowd oohed. Cinda felt her cheeks flame. Then…she lost it. “Oh, it’s a mistake all right,” she said. “But you made it, sister.”

  Lost to the moment, Cinda—the wealthy and demure alleged charm school graduate who despised violence of any kind—pulled her fist back, bunched her muscles, and, hard as she could, socked Bobby Jean Diamante right in the kisser.

  9

  IT TOOK TREY AND HIS MOTHER and baby Chelsi a good two hours to bail Cinda out of Bubba Mahaffey’s shiny new jail. The police chief had abandoned his earlier sympathy for Trey’s dilemma. Utter joy in having an actual prisoner had replaced it. And what a notorious prisoner she was, too. It just didn’t get any better than this: A female incarcerated on charges of assault and battery, a crime committed in front of no less than two hundred witnesses, himself included.

  Yes, sir, an open-and-shut case of violence by an outsider against a favorite daughter of Southwood. Yessir, blood had been shed and charges had been brought, all by Bobby Jean Diamante—the injured party with the fat lip and the bruised pride. While Chief Mahaffey personally deemed the events that had transpired in the veterans’ hall one helluva show, he told Trey that officially he could not allow his personal feelings to intervene with his duties as a sworn officer of the law.

  Trey’s response had been a roll of his eyes and an “Oh, criminy. Give me a break here, Bubba. Cinda was obviously provoked.”

  Bubba’s expression had become pugnacious and Trey had given up any hope of reasoning his high-school friend out of his precious prisoner. So he’d resorted to threatening to take the police chief out back of the station, if he didn’t release Cinda, and, just for old times’ sake, personally stomp Bubba into a mud hole. When Bubba threatened to oblige and began coming out of his uniform, Trey had quickly reminded his friend that he was a father who was holding his baby. The police chief wouldn’t hit a man who was holding a baby, would he?

  Well, that had stopped Bubba—and given Trey the idea to inform the chief that Cinda’s incarceration constituted cruel and unusual punishment for her baby—her nursing baby, who Trey had held up as Exhibit A.

  As if on cue, baby Chelsi caught sight of her mother peering forlornly at her from behind the iron bars of a jail cell, just visible through the open doorway behind Bubba. The baby wailed like a siren and fought Trey’s hold on her. Over Chelsi’s heart-wrenching shrieks for her mother—or for her next meal, who knew?—Trey had told Bubba either to release Cinda to his custody or to stick the baby in the cell with her mother.

  That is, unless the police chief thought he could feed the child himself. Wouldn’t that make a great picture in the Southwood Tattler? Trey had pointedly added. He’d assured Bubba that he wasn’t above calling reporter Gerrie Ann Fenwick right now and telling her to bring her camera to the police station.

  Worked like a charm. Though clearly despondent over losing his prize, Bubba had agreed to release Cinda into Trey’s custody with a warning that she was not to leave town. The legal system would have to work before she could take off for Atlanta. Fine. Whatever. They’d worry about it tomorrow.

  Right now tomorrow seemed a long way off to Trey because he finally had Cinda at his childhood home with him. His mother, though inordinately proud of her daughter-in-law, had called herself winded and had already gone to bed. And Chelsi, after Trey helped bathe her, had been fed and laid down for the night. Life was again good.

  Or would be if he and Cinda could get the sleeping arrangements ironed out. On the surface, it was easy. They could simply adjourn to the double bed in Trey’s old bedroom that his mother had designated as theirs. “Theirs” as in a married couple’s. Which of course they weren’t. Only his mother still wouldn’t believe that. And besides, the baby was sleeping in the crib in there. So, what if things—please, God was Trey’s prayer—progressed between him and Cinda and got a little warm? Come on, not with a baby in the room, one who could wake up at any moment, his conscience railed.

  So, okay, even if things didn’t or weren’t going to heat up, the two of them still couldn’t just nonchalantly go to bed. Hell, they’d barely hugged or kissed yet. So it would be too awkward to undress in front of each other, climb into the same bed, say good-night, and then lie there next to each other. Two wide-awake and sensually aware adults who wanted each other but couldn’t find their way across a narrow bed to the other one. How stupid was that?

  Pretty damned. But effective in keeping them up half the night in the low-lit living room because neither one wanted to call it. Trey gave up thinking about it as he sprawled at one end of the couch and eyed Cinda sitting primly at the other end. Only the width of the middle cushion separated them from each other. But the distance, though measurable in inches, yawned like a chasm.

  Exhaling his amorous frustrations and his tiredness, Trey watched Cinda, his favorite thing to do. Her hair—so soft-looking, so blond—had fallen forward, effectively shielding most of her face from him. But it didn’t matter. In his mind’s eye, he could see her features. High forehead. Amber eyes. Prominent cheekbones. The perfect nose. A pink and sensual rosebud mouth that he wanted more than anything in this world to fully kiss. And he didn’t mean the pecks like they’d had up to now.

  As he watched, Cinda flexed her right hand and rubbed it. Though still totally entranced by her, Trey couldn’t help his chuckle. She was such a mixture of everything he liked and admired. Intelligent. Educated. Fu
nny. Brave. And a complete surprise around every emotional turn. “Your hand hurting you, champ?” he teased.

  She flipped her hair over her shoulder and showed him her narrowed eyes. “Yes. It hurts like crazy.”

  “Want me to get some ice for it?”

  “No. I deserve for it to hurt.”

  “Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “I need to be. Trey, I am appalled at myself. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never hit anybody before. I mean I’m a mother. And Chelsi witnessed me attacking someone. What am I teaching my daughter?”

  “She’s six months old. She won’t remember any of this. But since you asked me, couldn’t you be teaching her to stand up for herself?”

  She pursed her lips. “I wasn’t standing up for myself. I was standing up for you.”

  “And may I just thank you right now for doing so? I really thought I was going to die. Doesn’t that count for something? You know…fight if the cause is right?”

  “Maybe,” Cinda grumbled. “But still, it was an awful thing to do. I had no idea I was capable of punching someone out like that.”

  “We’re all capable, Cinda, under the right circumstances. And you found what they are for you. Namely, me.” He couldn’t help the grin that followed his words.

  “You’re just full of yourself, aren’t you?” She fought a grin, he could see that. She returned her attention to her hand, rubbing it and shaking it.

  Trey couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She was so damned funny. Here she was, this petite blond woman…the embodiment of a lady, the object of his burgeoning desire, the one who made his heart go pita-pat…and she was talking about punching someone’s lights out. The world had gone crazy. But maybe in a good way.

  Trey had thought before tonight that she was such a refined person that his blue-collar ways and rowdy friends might put her off, might show her their two worlds would collide. Well, they had in a way, he supposed. But it hadn’t been his doing, and she’d hung right in there. He could respect that. But could he afford a relationship with her? Oh, the hell with it, he decided. Tonight he refused to overthink things. All it did was make his head and his stomach hurt. Couldn’t the simple truth be that when the right one came along, nothing else mattered? That was what his teammates told him. Nothing else mattered.

  “Trey, quit staring at me. I said I’m sorry if I embarrassed you tonight in front of your friends.”

  “Embarrass me? Hell, you made me a legend. I can now tell everybody that my wife can beat up your wife. But I could tell you’d never hit anyone before. The way you came around with that roundhouse punch? All wrong.” He shook his head as if at a serious no-no and sat up to give his “wife” a boxing lesson. “See? This is what you did.” He put his fists up. “Like this. And it left you wide open. Bobby Jean could have sucker punched you in the belly. You want to avoid that. It hurts like hell.”

  Cinda batted at his fists. “Stop that. Are you making fun of me?”

  “Making fun of you—Sugar Ray Cavanaugh? Uhuh. Not now, not ever. I’ve seen you in action. You’re a contender, baby.”

  “Quit saying things like that.” She held her right hand out to him. “Look at my knuckles. They’re skinned and swollen.”

  Jumping at this opportunity to hold on to any part of her, Trey took her fingers in his and rubbed them gently. He didn’t even try to deny that a nervy tingle was running up his arm. He could only wonder if she felt it, too. “Yeah, I see that. The skinned places would be from Bobby Jean’s teeth. Hey, you’ve had a recent tetanus shot, right?”

  Cinda’s expression blanked. She slid her fingers out of his grasp. “Ohmigod, I never thought of that. But yes, I have.” A second’s silence followed, then her features showed her escalating panic. “Bobby Jean’s brought me up on charges of assault and battery. Not that I blame her. But what am I going to do? I can’t go to jail. What about Chelsi? I just don’t know what came over me—”

  “Hey, hold on.” Trey rubbed her arm sympathetically. It was soft yet firm, warm yet cooled by the airconditioning. “Come on, it’s not as if you’re locked away in the big house.” Then he couldn’t resist. “Well, not yet.”

  Cinda’s posture crumpled. “You are so not helping here.”

  “Aw, I’m sorry. Come here.” Trey pulled her into his embrace and held her close. God, she felt good against him. His pulse picked up…and it wasn’t the only thing. “I was trying to tease you out of your fears, and I should know better.” Encouraging to him was that she didn’t resist him or try to pull away. Trey rested his cheek against her hair. “I wouldn’t be teasing you if I didn’t think that by tomorrow Bobby Jean will cool down and drop the charges.”

  With her head still against his chest, Cinda nodded. Hopefully she was considering what he’d said. But all he could think about was now nice she smelled, how warm she was, how right she felt in his arms.

  Cinda suddenly looked up at him. Trey met her gaze, saw her frown. He wanted so much at this moment to kiss her. A scant few inches away from his, her soft, pink lips were parted, showing a glimpse of white teeth. She tilted her head. A perfect invitation. Trey leaned toward her….

  “No,” Cinda said sharply.

  Shot down, Trey sat back, embarrassed and self-conscious.

  “No, I don’t think she’ll drop the charges,” Cinda said. “I pulled out a hunk of her hair and gave her a fat lip. In front of the whole town. I think she’ll prosecute me to the fullest extent of the law. I would if the situation was reversed.”

  Trey didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or just give up. Here it was late at night, they were the only two awake, and they were as good as cuddling on the couch. Add to that, they were two healthy adults attracted to each other. Then he berated himself. What kind of a jerk am I to be thinking about the bedroom when she’s so scared about the courtroom? What he needed to do here was help her past her fears. At least, maybe then they could get some sleep.

  “Cinda, don’t worry about tomorrow. Really. For one thing, it’s Saturday and the Fourth of July. No one will be sending you up the river on a national holiday. What I can do is call Tommy Milton. He’s a lawyer here in Southwood, and I trust him. We’ll get him on the case. Or better yet, I’ll go around first thing in the morning and talk to Bobby Jean myself, see if I can’t get her to drop the charges.”

  Frowning, Cinda abruptly sat up. “You are not going over there alone. I mean it. And drop the charges? Ha. She’d be more likely to try to get you to drop your pants. And then I’d have to hit her again.”

  Trey stared in wonderment at Cinda. She was jealous. He grinned and took complete advantage of the fact that her feminine hackles were up. “Hey, how about giving me some credit here, okay? So what if she wants me to drop my pants? That doesn’t mean I will.” Then, because he had a devilish spirit that wanted to get a further rise out of Cinda, Trey added, “Although, I would be willing to put my body on the line for you, if that’s what it took.”

  Her eyebrows arched dangerously. “Oh, you poor brave man, I just bet you would.”

  Grinning, Trey wanted nothing more than to grab her up and make love to her. She was so damned cute and desirable. She made him want to laugh and sing and shout. Could it be worse?

  “I haven’t thanked you for threatening to beat up your friend Bubba if he didn’t let me out of that jail cell, Trey. That was sweet.”

  Mugging a face, Trey shrugged. “Sweet, hell. I was just trying to keep up. You’d already beaten up my ex-girlfriend. I thought pounding Bubba was the least I could do to save face. Oh, and thank you again for defending my honor in front of the whole town. You know, a boy’s reputation is all he has and once that’s gone—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Cinda said, grinning, looking a bit embarrassed. “You will never let me live that down, will you?”

  “No. Come on, it was great. There you were, this tiny little blond thing, all lace and ladyhood. And there Bobby Jean was, some tall overgrown showgirl-looking thing. And yo
u just haul off and pow! You made me proud, girl. ‘That’s my woman,’ I was thinking.”

  Cinda tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You were thinking of me as…your woman? Really?”

  Her expression could only be called shy. And flattered. And hopeful. Trey knew it was time, right now, to tell her how he felt. “Cinda, I think I have been thinking of you as, well, I hate to say ‘my woman’ in seriousness, but yeah, there it is. Those elevator doors opened last January and, wow, it was you. Like some fabulous prize behind Door Number One that I just had to have.”

  She sent him a sidelong glance. “Fabulous prize? Oh, please, I looked like some huge sheep that day.”

  “Never. You were beautiful and desirable even then. All I could think was ‘Thank you, God.’ I still do. Cinda, I’ve never met anyone I’ve wanted more. Women like you don’t run in my world of grease pits and grinding gears. You’re refined and educated. So smart. And so far above anything I ever thought—”

  Cinda had put a hand over his mouth. “Don’t, Trey. Please don’t put me on a pedestal. I couldn’t take that. I want real life. Intimacy and rumpled sheets and lying close at night. I want someone to hunger for me. Someone I feel the same way about. But more than anything, I want a face I can see in my mind when a love song plays. Do you understand?”

  Trey covered her hand with his and kissed her palm. “I think I do. You want the white picket fence and worrying about what’s for supper and the laundry still to do. And for the first time in my life, Cinda, I’m beginning to think I do, too.”

  Her voice softened. “And don’t you dare tear down yourself or what you do, Trey. Stock car racing is very exciting. And it requires a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge and skill to do what you do. Don’t think I don’t know that. And you—you’re the kindest, most thoughtful man I’ve ever met. And I can tell you’re a good son to your mother. And you’re fabulous with Chelsi—”