by Jody Kaye
She’d witnessed a good man pass a bribe, and then look at her as if she hung the moon. When they sealed their union he’d acted like he’d never put his hands on her before. Like no man had. It was all for show. Their wedding day wasn’t real. It was an affront. Rose would suffer her day of atonement for this.
“So, uh, what do I call you now? Mrs. Cavanaugh? Ms. Kingsbrier-Cavanaugh?”
“I’m still good with just Rose,” she said, curtly.
“Okay, Rose. We need to fill up the car. Then maybe get something to eat. I figure that we can make it at least halfway back by tonight unless you want to push through and sleep at home.”
“A hotel is fine. I’m sore from sitting so long.” She pulled a sweater up over her shoulders, arching her back and giving Ross a direct view down her top.
He peered over his shoulder, using the oncoming traffic to distract his thoughts before pulling out of the parking spot.
“I want to see what they have inside,” she said when they pulled up to a pump.
“Tell the cashier five on number two. Be right in.”
Entering the gas station, Rose called to the attendant that Ross was on his way in to pay. She strolled up and down the aisles, stopping every so often to pick up and examine whatever interested her. At the end of the far row was a rack of golden cakes that made Rose’s stomach rumble. She reached out for one and swiftly tucked it into the band of her pants, sucking in her gut so that the Twinkies didn’t get too stuck to the cellophane wrapper before she had a chance to indulge.
The mini-mart door jangled and Ross walked in, focusing on a round mirror mounted to the wall above the beverage cooler.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” Rose called, crossing his path.
“Keep the change,” he remarked, sliding more than necessary over the counter to the clerk. Ross opened the door before it closed. Rose stood with her back to the driver door.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said more amicable than normal.
“Good. You seem to be in a better mood than before.”
What he was about to do would reverse the course. Ross hugged Rose. She heard a loud pop as the cellophane ruptured. He kept patting her back making sure that the icing got everywhere, seeping through her shirt and clinging to the skin of her back.
“Ugh!” She clawed her way out of the embrace.
“Why’d you do that, Rose?”
Ross squared his jaw, glowering at her, mad enough to spit.
“I was hungry and left my purse in the car.”
“How hard is it to come out here and get your wallet? What about asking me for it? Did that not cross your mind? We’re married now and you won’t let me buy you a fifty-cent Twinkie? Stealing is something I won’t abide by. Aren't you the woman who’s been trying to convince me that you're more than a stack of bills? It was stupid to risk what we’ve just done with me bailing your butt out of the county lock-up because you’re too cheap to spend a dollar?” He gritted his teeth. “Get in the car!”
She stomped her foot like a petulant child. The messy wrapper loosened itself, falling to the ground “I’m filthy!”
“And I won’t be married to a thief! This may be in name only, but no wife of mine is going to steal. You got that?”
“I got into this deal to stop myself from being controlled by a man!”
“That may be so, but I thought you went into it with an offer to ensure my company’s reputation. So if you want me to live up to my part then I’m suggesting you do the same.”
Rose stomped around the car, flinging her door open. “What am I supposed to do now? I can’t get this mess all over the leather seat!”
“Perhaps you should have thought about that beforehand!”
“Well, it never occurred to me that you’d smash it into my back!”
“Why did you take it, Rose?” he demanded.
“I wanted something to eat,” she lied.
He’d given the judge money. Rose wasn’t naive. Business got done with backroom handshakes. She thought Ross was above those dealings.
Ross crossed his arms. She mimicked his posture with the door between them.
“Bribery’s no worse than thievery.”
“I get enough ‘sin is sin’ lessons from my Grandy, Rose. I paid the fee because you were scared.”
“Fee? That judge put the money in his pocket.”
“Yes, there’s a fee to waive the waiting period. It’s thirty dollars or we’d have to come back.”
Ross pulled a receipt from his pocket to show her. It was a significant amount to speed things up, but anyone off the street could pay it. Ross hadn’t done anything illegal.
The apology caught in her throat. It was terrifying to consider tearing down walls for someone you didn’t have a chance in hell with, especially since Ross continued to prove he was a better man.
Wordless since their blow up at the gas station, Ross drove for miles navigating them to a single story motel off the highway. It was bright and clean with a newly blacktopped parking lot and a chain-link fence around a small pool to the side of the building.
Rose stayed put while Ross went into the office and booked them a room for the night with two double beds.
“There’s pizza at the deli up the road if you’re hungry and we offer coffee and doughnuts for breakfast. You’ll see everything on the back wall behind the convenience items.” The manager directed Ross’s attention past a rotating key-chain stand, and shelves filled with travel size medicines and single-serve treats. He was glad he’d left his wife in the car and made a mental note that she wasn’t going to set foot in the store. With the way she’d acted today, he’d bring Rose her coffee in the morning and pay for the boatload of pastries she was bound to consume.
He returned his wallet to his back pocket and thanked the manager. Leaving the office, Ross waived Rose out of the car.
“My back is all sticky and it’s smeared onto the seat.”
She pulled her shirt
“Serves you right,” was all Ross replied, twirling the keys in the air.
She hadn’t said she was sorry. He wasn’t ready to forgive and forget. Steam poured off of them. Every glance adding to the unease of sharing a hotel room.
Ross unlocked the door and Rose tossed her purse on one of the beds. At least there were two.
“Are we supposed to consummate this marriage to make it legal?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.” He had, but he wasn’t about to admit it.
“We can. It’s not like I’m a virgin.” So gifting her innocence to Ross was out of the question. Plus he knew enough about her that she shouldn’t have had to even say it.
“Well, I am.”
“You are?”
“No. How am I supposed to respond to that, Rose? You think that I want to hear that you’ve been with other men? Let you cheapen yourself to ensure I believe whatever Lathan did to you was deserved? Maybe I should tell you about my conquests, right? Because that’s what you’ve been to all those other men and it is how you are acting towards me.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are. Have you ever considered treating anyone the way you’d like to be treated, or is it that you enjoy acting like you are worthless?”
Rose marched straight up to Ross, yelling in his face until hers resembled a locomotive whistle with steam pouring out. “Who do you think you are telling me I’m worthless? I’m worth a hell of a lot.”
“I’m not speaking of your daddy’s money.”
“You’re a self-righteous pig. I watched you! It was no better than any other man that throws around his cash.”
“Except for the fact that I threw it around for you, Rose! I did it to give you what you needed… And you know what? I’d do it again because today is the first time you’ve come out of your shell and acted like hellfire, shown any emotion whatsoever. So if you ask me—which everyone knows Rose Kingsbrier won’t because she doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion but her own—
it was money well spent!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, so get your spoiled ass into that bathroom and wash up. I don’t want to listen to complaints that the Twinkies you stole soiled your precious silk.” Ross’s two hands fanned out in the air and he wiggled them emphatically before turning to grasp the doorknob.
“Where are you going?” she squealed. He heard her shoes the carpet chasing him down.
Ross turned “I’m going to buy you a new shirt at the gift shop so that you have something to wear in the meantime. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.”
“Are we going to continue to argue over how each of us spends our own money?”
“No.”
“Then I suggest you go wash your shirt out while I’m gone.”
“Fine. I will.” She barked back sarcastically, acting as if Ross had told her he expected to domineer his wife. She turned from him, putting on a show of taking off her shirt, though she knew Ross couldn’t see her. She’d heard the lock when it snicked closed.
Truth be told, Rose was petrified of how to react if Ross touched her. What if she clammed up and went still, reliving the terror she felt with Lathan’s hands on her. She felt the choking sensation of his belt against her throat as her windpipe constricted.
How would Ross react if she broke down in tears while he was inside of her? Rose might never be able to be the wife he deserved. And what if none of that happened? What if making love to Ross was exactly the way she’d imagined it was like and Rose pulled him closer, held onto him tighter than she had any other man? She wanted to forget those foul few minutes that crept in when she least expected them, eating away at her psyche. If Rose enjoyed Ross’s body intertwined with hers did that make her a whore?
All of the uncertainty was overwhelming. She’d dwelled on it the whole way to Louisiana before her anxiety amped up about the forms and cash and the impetuous decision to steal Hostess baked goods.
The most important unanswerable question was; if Rose gave herself fully to Ross and in that most intimate embrace she let it slip that she loved him how would he react? All she envisioned was Ross pulling away. Her antics and the way Lathan tried to use her were evidence that Rose wasn’t good enough for a Christian heart like Ross’s.
He’d be truthful in his approach to her admission, saying he’d never feel the same for her. But of course, it hadn’t gotten that far. Ross was man enough to have turned down her offer to have sex. He hadn’t finally put his John Hancock on that stupid neon-yellow calendar page agreeing to do anything more than take her off the market.
Rose falling in love with Ross was a horrible affliction that she’d been suffering from for months. No matter how supportive Ross had been in his friendship, the way she felt for him—and what Lathan had tried to do to her—was Rose’s burden to bear.
Ross stopped by the hotel room window and ran a hand through his hair. Trying to find his mental balance when Rose was coming unglued proved hard. He hadn’t expected an afternoon of enlightenment when they pledged themselves to one another. Or for a fairy godmother to come down, bestowing Lily Anne’s grace and manners on his Rose. But dammit. Would it kill his wife to be a little less arrogant and a lot less of a pain in his ass?
He needed to calm down before deciding whether to purchase the cute pink shirt that matched Rose’s complexion or the hideous camouflaged one with the big green and yellow gator on it that would make her more self-conscious. After the week they’d endured his compassion was at its breaking point and, after what had just gone down between them, those negative thoughts crept to the forefront.
And where had that last argument stemmed from? Was she honestly mad at him that he didn’t take her up on an insane offer of sex? How could Rose believe that if he was willing to give himself, his name to her—a name she apparently didn’t want to take—that it was as simple as a handshake? That he’d throw her down on a hotel room bed, becoming as animalistic as the man who’d hurt her, despite Ross showing Rose from the get-go that he wasn’t like that at all?
There’d been no getting past having to kiss Rose in the judge’s chambers. How would she react with a man’s lips on her own when she’d been so hesitant to share what had been done to her?
He’d pecked his wife, on the mouth like he’d never once considered laying Rose down and covering her body with his. That Ross hadn’t been glad that day that she’d played voyeur watching him pulled his Wranglers over his hips. He’d spent many a night in the bed of his truck imaging the way her sun-kissed skin looked when Rose lay by Kingsbrier’s gigantic pool in those itsy-bitsy bikinis. It had taken all of his self-control to pull away from their first kiss. To not tug her closer, press their bodies together, suggest a quiet backroad and finally ignite the flame that he’d kept kicking at the smoldering embers with his work boot.
Rose wasn’t his to take, even when the law stated she absolutely was.
He looked through the window. Rose was unbuttoning her blouse. Pulling it off her shoulders, she revealed a lace bra that matched her skin tone so closely it was as if she was no longer wearing anything at all. She disappeared into the lavatory closing the door part way. Unaware that Ross still saw her reflection in the mirror above the sink.
He thumped his head against the glass pain. Did he want to sleep with her? Hell, yes. With every fiber of his being. And Ross was well within his right as Rose’s husband, but he’d never expect that of her. He couldn’t fathom how Rose wanted him after what she’d endured. Maybe someday when she had the chance to heal. It was unlikely to happen, though, because once she was back on her feet Rose planned on moving on. Her spitfire personality—the one that thrilled him to see it emerge this afternoon, despite her callous behavior and need to take out her grief on Ross to test his limits—would put Rose back in the saddle.
Restoring Rose to the wicked and glorious bloom she’d been was what marrying her was about. Nothing else.
She’d find a way to use their marriage against Eric Kingsbrier before long. Ross understood that, but he’d signed on for this sham anyway because, for how ever long, Rose was his. In the end, he’d know that he’d loved her with everything he had to give.
And that’s how his bride wound up sleeping alone in her bed wearing a pink shirt on their wedding night.
They’d hardly spoken the rest of the evening. He took early to the second bed, scooting underneath the covers with his back to her. Sleep came easy for him. Not for her. He’d turned off the television in the predawn hours. Watching her silhouette from across the room as she jerked fitfully. Ross considered lying next to her and if his attempt at bringing Rose comfort might cause another row.
She’d murmured a polite “thank you,” and shock rattled her bones when Ross brought her coffee, a donut, and a danish that he’d procured from the lobby. Then he took her things out to the trunk while Rose got out of bed and changed back into the expensive slacks she’d worn to the courthouse. It was an odd look of sophisticated-meets-tourist, but they had no place to go but home.
He was as surprised as she’d been about breakfast when Rose came out carrying a damp cloth to wipe the leftover goo from the passenger seat.
The miles got shorter and the silence longer and the distance between them grew like a thicket.
Ross didn’t have a clear definition of which home he was taking Rose to. He had a bed in an apartment that she’d tidied for him. It wasn’t in a bedroom. She had a sofa that she curled up on, using it as a bed. There’d been a moment when his brain juggled moving one or the other, but the conscious thought was fruitless. They still needed separate spaces.
The convertible rolled into the stable yard and Ross set the brake after killing the ignition. In his peripheral vision, Rose picked invisible lint off of the shirt he’d bought her the previous day and then smoothed her unwashed hair back. Rose blinked several times, squaring her already rigid shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” It was the first thing she’d said to him in hours.
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Ross opened his mouth to speak, but Rose held up her hand as she took in his stunned green gaze.
“I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m caught at a crossroads with the wind whipping the signs around so there’s no sense of direction. I shouldn’t have reacted to your paying the judge by treating you the way I did. Those are things I do to my father… He’s never gotten mad. I’m not sure he cares to see anything I do—good or bad,—but you’re not Eric, Ross, and it was wrong of me to act the way I did yesterday. My um, proposition, at the hotel, I’d like you to forgive me for that. It was an embarrassment to both of us.”
“You’re forgiven.”
“Just like that?”
Ross rubbed the rubble on his chin, twitching his tight lips as he did. “I didn’t say I forgot about it yet, but if we’re married it doesn’t do us any good to be hateful, hold grudges. There’s probably going to be a long line of mistakes we make going forward that are complicated by this.” He held up the marriage certificate clipped to the other important paperwork they’d used to prove themselves.
Simultaneously both of them hoped that it wasn’t a gaffe and they might find a way of making a marriage founded on a single lie of omission work. Although, neither could admit that feeling to the other because they weren’t lying to Eric Kingsbrier. They were fibbing to one-another.
“I need to go.” Rose gathered her purse and a plastic bag with her soiled clothes in it.
“Why?”
It seemed like she was rushing to get away from him. For some reason, Ross thought that once Rose apologized she’d be more comfortable with him instead of the rigid hand-wringing she’d done for the last dry and dusty hundred miles.
“I only paid for someone to look in on Lavender for the night. I’m sure she’s past hungry and wanting to get out to stretch her legs.”