“Thank you for being here,” he whispered, lifting her hand and kissing her fingers, breathing warmth onto her palm. “I don’t know if I could do this without you.”
She kissed his ear. “I’m glad to be here,” she said, pushing the doubts aside. “Should I go in with you?”
He shook his head. “You can wait at the end of the hallway,” he said. “There’s a faculty lounge there. Coffee and stuff.”
She nodded, wishing she could make a joke or something, anything to lighten the mood, but she felt so illequipped. It was tough not to wish they were back on the ranch.
He kissed her hard on the mouth and then opened the door.
Sunlight flooded the hallway from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the conference room, and she got a quick look at a bunch of men in suits before Jack slipped in, shutting the door behind him.
Well, she thought, staring at the dark wood door. I guess now I wait.
But she sure as hell wasn’t going to wait in the killer shoes she was wearing. She slipped them off with a sigh of ecstatic relief before heading down the hallway toward the lounge.
The room was cheerful, with yellow walls, a stainless-steel fridge and large windows that looked out over the mountains and the busy quad in the center of campus. A white counter crowded with small appliances ran along a far wall and the rest of the room was filled with an old couch and a couple of empty chairs and tables.
The coffee smelled old but strong, and she walked across the cool tile toward a cupboard looking for a mug.
She found about thirty of them and chose one with a horse on it. The coffee was as bad as it smelled, but she took the full cup and headed over to the fridge looking for milk.
Beside the fridge was a bulletin board filled with press clippings. All about Jack.
Pictures of Jack and Oliver shaking hands with the president. And Matt Damon. Surrounded by the smiling faces of a dozen children.
Headlines screamed: Professor Brings Water And New Life To Village. Scientists Changing the World One Well At A Time. Cal Poly Faculty Shortlisted For Humanitarian Award. President Obama Asks To Meet Faculty.
Two people walked in and Mia jumped, coffee splashing down the front of her dress.
“Crap,” she muttered, pulling the soaked fabric away from her chest.
“Are you…lost?” the woman asked, and Mia looked down at herself, barefoot and wearing a cocktail dress.
On a Monday morning.
Mia scrambled into her shoes.
“No, no, I’m Mia Alatore—I’m Jack McKibbon’s wife.”
“Oh!” The woman smiled and reached out to shake her hand. “Sorry, we don’t get a lot of women in fancy dresses hanging out in the engineering lounge.”
Mia laughed, but it was awkward and after the man and woman got coffee they were out of there pretty quick. Leaving her alone, feeling foolish and even more out of place.
She looked up at those headlines, all those pictures of Jack smiling, looking worn-out but satisfied.
Was he really going to give up all that to work the Rocky M?
She looked sideways at her reflection in the stainless-steel fridge.
He’s going to give up all that for me? she wondered. She didn’t even come close to fitting into his world.
But it doesn’t matter, she told herself, closing her eyes and turning away from the clippings. It’s a world Jack is leaving behind.
But she was having more and more difficulty believing that.
Mia wasn’t sure how long this meeting was going to take, so she kept her shoes on and sat down with her coffee and an ancient People magazine she found in the couch cushions, determined to keep her chin up.
More people came and went. Lots of men in suits and she tried to be invisible and for the most part it seemed to work. But one crowd seemed to linger and she couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.
They were talking about Jack.
“If he would accept the research position, we could keep him in the field for years at a time,” one man said, taking a sip of coffee and then making a face before set ting the cup down on the counter. “We just need to get to him before MIT does.” He turned to a woman at his left.
“And I heard Matt Damon was kicking around, hoping to talk to him about contract positions with NGOs.”
Mia slumped down in the couch, her heart turning to lead.
The small group of people kept talking about Jack, discussing the possibilities they could offer him, but she tuned them out. Her head was buzzing.
She’d been right to doubt. Jack’s world was going to come calling again. It was going to find him and he could only hide out on the Rocky M for so long.
So whether it was now or five years from now, Mia had no doubt that he’d leave. Again.
But he’d said he loved her, she reminded herself, carrying the words like a talisman.
Mia set aside her coffee cup, doubt like rocks weighing her down. And she waited. She waited long past when Jack said he would be done. The sun shifted across the sky, sending long shadows across the quad below.
She took off her shoes again.
Still she waited.
She crept back down the hallway. The conference room doors were shut, but she heard rumblings from inside. Male voices laughing.
Not a reckoning, then, she thought, her stomach slip ping down to her feet. Mia looked down at her coffee-splattered dress, her bare feet covered in blisters and felt like a fool.
Hope, foolish and misguided, had led her far from where she belonged and it was time to go back.
She was an afterthought again.
Mia was done waiting.
JACK HURRIED across campus towards his condo, and even though he was only a few minutes away he dialed Mia’s cell.
“I’m so sorry,” he said when she answered. “I had no idea the meeting would go that long and then…when it was over, there were all these people, you are not going to believe what I’ve been offered—”
“It’s okay,” she said, and Jack paused as a bicycle whizzed across the bike path in front of him.
“There’s no way it’s okay,” he said. “I’ve been gone eight hours.”
“Just come to the condo,” she said, the cool level-headedness in her voice making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “We need to talk.”
Now he was really worried.
Five minutes later he was back at the condo and it was worse than he thought. The black dress was gone; instead, Mia wore a baggy long-sleeved T-shirt, the sexy heels replaced with cowboy boots.
Her duffel bag sat beside the couch, her denim jacket tossed over it.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, looking at all the signs of her immediate departure and feeling panicked.
“It’s okay,” she said, standing up from the couch.
“Clearly it’s not,” he said, pointing to her bag. “What’s going on, Mia?”
“I think I’m going to end this now,” she said, the shaking in her voice resonating through his chest. “Coming here was a mistake.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Come on, Jack, it’s been a disaster. You’ve been tense, I’ve been awkward.”
Anger ignited in his chest. “Did you think it would be easy?” he asked. “This is the end of my career here—”
“No, of course not.” She took a deep breath. “I just don’t know how to help you. How to make it better.”
“It’s already better because you’re here,” he told her. “Mia, without you, I don’t think I could have gotten through dinner last night, much less today.”
She was shaking her head, his words falling on deaf ears. He wasn’t blind to her awkwardness or to the tension between them, but those were caused by more than this trip. And he’d own up to his part of it, but she needed to do the same.
“You came up here believing the worst,” he said, knowing it was true because he’d seen it a hundred times in her eyes, in the sad set to her mouth. “You never beli
eved this would work. We were doomed from the start.”
“I’m…” She bit her lip. “This is your world—”
“Not anymore. I quit.”
“But there are twenty people here, right now, ready to offer you other jobs.”
He blinked, taken aback. “How the hell did you know that?”
“I heard them in the lounge.”
“Oh, come on, Mia, you’re upset over something you overheard?”
“No, Jack. I’m upset because it’s the truth. The ranch is my world. I belong there. I’m happy there.”
“I’m happy there, too,” he said quickly. Because he was. He truly was. He was happy with her. Wherever she was, that was home.
“Then what was the offer?” she asked. “The one you were excited about on the phone.”
He licked his lips, feeling like a man being taken to the mat for something he didn’t do. But if Mia was ready to give up on them, it only made him ready to fight harder.
“Water Summit is in Copenhagen this year. In two months,” he said, fishing the pamphlet out of his pocket.
“Oliver was going to be the keynote speaker and they’ve asked if I’d do it in his memory.”
She looked at the pamphlet. “A week long?” she asked.
“Four days.”
“And then…what? You’ll come back?” She looked up at him, her eyes open wounds. She started to shake her head, denying him before he even had a chance.
“I want you to come with me,” he said, quickly.
“We’ll go early, take a trip up to Edinburgh. I’ll show you that castle. I’ll show you everything you ever wanted to see.”
He waited, his stomach in his throat, wishing, hoping and praying that the ballsy woman he loved would break through the fear and trust him. Really trust him.
Her silence killed him.
He grabbed her hands, crushing the pamphlet, but still she didn’t look at him.
“I thought we were done being scared,” he whispered.
“You’re going to miss your old life,” she cried. “It starts like this, a trip to Copenhagen, but soon you’re going to wish you never said these things—”
“Never, Mia.”
“No, let me finish. Your life…you should be able to go back to your life when you’re ready.”
“Listen to me,” he said, gripping her head in his hands, wishing he could push the words through her thick skull and make her believe him.
“You saved my life.”
“No, Jack, you would have been fine. You just needed rest and time.”
“I’m not talking about after the bombing. I’m talking about when we were kids. You gave me something to be happy about. Something real. The rest of my life was crap and you gave me joy. Your faith in me made me believe I could do whatever I wanted. Without that…I don’t even know who I would be, much less what I would have done with my life.”
She was silent. Big, hot, wet tears fell onto his hands from her eyes. “And then…when you told me I needed to talk to my dad, sort out my past, it’s like you did it again. You gave me a chance to reclaim some of what I’d always thought had been taken from me.”
“I’m glad, Jack. I really am. But gratitude isn’t enough to make our marriage work. We’re from two different worlds.”
He took a few deep breaths, his back against the wall.
All these years, all the pain between them, the missed chances, and she was going to continue to rob them of a shot at real happiness.
“There is no ‘my world,’” he said, tears building in his throat. “No ‘my life.’ It’s our life. Our world. Maybe you’re right, in a few years I might miss fieldwork, but you could come with me. See those places in your notebook.”
She jerked away from him, but he held tight. He wasn’t about to let her go. Wasn’t about to give her the chance to run. Not anymore.
“But the ranch—”
“The ranch will always be there. It’s our home. Ours.”
She blinked as those words registered, and for a second Jack held his breath, waiting, hoping that she’d see it his way, but the silence continued and his heart dipped under a heavy weight of grief.
“Is this what our love is going to be like?” he asked, wanting it to be different, but committed to taking her any way he could get her. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do to prove how much I want you in my life. I’ll call the Water Summit organizers and tell them I can’t do it, but will you ever believe me?”
FEAR SHOT THROUGH MIA like a bucket of cold water being dumped over her head. She shook at the sensation. Her head spun and she couldn’t…she couldn’t keep her emotions straight. Jack loved her. Was staying with her. So why was she sad?
What was worse? she wondered, her heart an empty vacuum.
Being left over and over again?
Or being left once and for all?
Was that the choice? A slow death from a thousand small wounds, or a quick one that was brutal and traumatic?
“I’m going to go call the organizers,” he said, the fire in him banked. “Maybe it’s just too soon to even talk about this.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, long and sweet, and she wanted to die right there. In that kiss. Hold on to it, so nothing could get between her and that second of bliss. Of truth.
You’re a coward, she told herself, hating herself for her fear. And you’re turning Jack into something he’s not. Something tame.
How long could he keep sublimating his wants to make her happy? How long would she like him if he did?
She heard him in the other room, shrugging out of his jacket. The bed squeaked slightly under his weight and she knew him so well she could tell what he was doing without looking at him.
She saw the curve of his neck, the resigned hang of his head.
But then the bed squeaked again and she heard him come back into the room. She spun to face him and her breath caught in her throat. Something hot pooled in her belly.
Jack was…different. Angry. His eyes sharp. His intent clear.
“This is bullshit,” he said, stepping up to her. He searched her face and she felt naked under his scorching regard. “You’re not this person, Mia.”
She opened her mouth, but he kissed her. He kissed her so hard she fell backward onto the couch and he was right there, on top of her. Hot and heavy and perfect.
“You’re not scared. You’re the toughest girl I know and that’s what I love about you,” he said, pressing kisses along her jaw. Her neck.
“Love isn’t going to turn me into something I’m not and fear isn’t going to turn you into something you’re not.”
Bells went off in her head, the truth something she couldn’t run from.
“I won’t be brought to heel, Mia. Not because you’re too scared to share my life.”
“What are you going to do?” she breathed.
“Drag you kicking and screaming around the world. Show you everything you’ve ever wanted to see. I’m going to run that ranch with you. Give you babies—”
He stopped for a second and her eyes burned with tears she saw reflected in his eyes.
Jack was crying. Her heart broke with love.
“Lots of them,” he whispered.
The moment was too tender, too fragile, and he blinked away the tears, but she saw the truth. Had known it all along, even when she was too scared to believe it.
Jack loved her. Only her. And it was forever.
His hands slid up under her shirt, pushing aside her bra until he cupped her breasts in his hands.
He growled under his breath, up against her throat, the vibrations hitting all the right notes between her legs.
“I love your breasts,” he said. “I never said that because I wanted to respect you, but I’m done.” He looked into her eyes, and she wanted to laugh at the desire in his face. He was a man transformed. Barely in control.
“You’re done respecting me?” she asked.
He stretched his body out over h
ers. “Yep,” he said, “no more pussyfooting around.”
It took a moment, but joy and love broke through the fear, destroyed the doubt. This man in her arms, her husband, her husband, made her whole.
Laughter, healing and true, real and beautiful, bubbled out through the cracks in her fear, annihilating what was left of it.
He glanced up at her, wariness and hope all over his beloved face.
“Promise?” she whispered.
“That I love your breasts?” He palmed the heavy weight in his hands, teasing the nipples with his thumbs. “Yes.”
“No, that thing about dragging me kicking and screaming around the world. About the ranch. About…about the babies.”
He rested his head against her neck and she felt her heart grow, doubling and then tripling in size until he was enclosed. Never to be let out.
“I promise,” he said, kissing the tears that leaked from her eyes.
“I’m sorry I was scared,” she breathed, lifting her lips to kiss away his tears. They were the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
He leaned up to look at her, his hair in wild disarray.
“You need a boss, Mia.”
She smiled; she knew what he was really offering, what he was asking for—a partnership. Equality. “You think you’re the man?”
“I know I am.”
“You know what you need?”
He chuckled deep in his throat and arched his hips into her. She wiggled under him, delight soaring through her body.
“What you need more than that,” she said, laughing.
“I need a wife,” he said, looking into her heart. “I need you, Mia. I’ve always needed you.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8518-1
HIS WIFE FOR ONE NIGHT
Copyright © 2011 by Molly Fader
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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