Paper Marriage Proposition (10 page)

Two weeks later, Beth found herself in the shooting range again.

Squinting her eyes under the glowing sun as a shock of adrenaline rushed through her veins, she lowered her rifle and drew in a calming breath. She’d started to adore her mother-in-law and their weekly visits to the shooting range. “Well, I didn’t quite hit it just yet, Eleanor.”

“Oh, but twenty or thirty more tries, we both know that haystack is dead.”

Within three seconds, Eleanor aimed her rifle, shot and reloaded.

“Landon’s my eldest.”

She shot and reloaded.

“He’s been alone too long.”

She shot and reloaded.

“I hope that doesn’t impair his ability to interact with a woman.”

She shot. Then lowered her rifle to give Beth a turn.

Beth aimed, lips pursed with effort, her hands weighed by the long, sleek weapon. “He’s very nice, Mrs. Gage.”

“Nice.” She humphed. “I don’t think he’d like to be called that by you.”

“Well, we’re not staying married forever,” Beth said, peering through the hole as she sighted one fat haystack. “This was a mutual understanding. Spurred by our mutual hate for the same man.”

“Yes yes yes. But I saw the way my son looked at you. And I saw no hate in those eyes.” Even through a set of thick goggles, Beth felt Eleanor’s dark eyes scrutinize her profile, as though all the answers to the woman’s questions were written on Beth’s cheek. “And when you look at him, I see no hate in yours, either. Nor indifference, for that matter. I’m an old goat, and I know a couple of things when I see them.”

Beth blushed, gritted her teeth and pressed her finger into the trigger. Pop! The bullet flew—Lord knows where it landed. It did not hit a single target.

“Your mother and I chatted yesterday.” Eleanor winked at Beth before she aimed once more, rendered positively feral by those goggles and with that secretive smile she wore. “We’re playing canasta today. And…other games. Games like matchmaking my son with her daughter. Isn’t that fun?”

Beth’s eyebrows furrowed as she watched the woman take a perfect shot. Bam! “If your matchmaking is as good as your shooting,” Beth grumbled, “then no, it’s not going to be fun at all.”

Matchmaking among mothers, the last thing Beth needed at this point. Specifically, because her husband seemed to be the sexiest thing walking the planet. And because apparently Beth wasn’t as frigid as her ex-husband had led her to believe.

The frustration of waiting for a hearing had been riding on her nerves. Every day when Landon arrived from work Beth asked the same question over dinner: Do we have a hearing yet?

I’m on it, he’d say.

She was beginning to wonder if they would ever reach that day. And in the meantime she was suffering, totally, wretchedly suffering. True, Kate’s website launch so far had been a moderate success. A few inquiries in the form of emails had already trickled in, and on a burst of inspiration, Kate and Beth had decided to add a “Share your Recipe” section to the website. But even those fun plans and little satisfactions failed to quell the internal turmoil in her.

Landon Gage had her sleeping in her bed alone at night for the past two weeks imagining things like sliding into his bed and smoothing her hands up his chest and into his hair and…

Shaking off the thoughts, Beth stormed into his room when she heard him come into the house. “Landon, our mothers are playing canasta.”

“And?”

Her heart tripped—in a white buttoned shirt, without a belt and in his black slacks, Landon looked rumpled, ruffled, gorgeous. “And…and, and I think they’re conspiring against us.”

“In what sense?”

Bethany watched wide-eyed as he began to unbutton his shirt, then couldn’t remember what she planned to say. When she did, she realized she sounded ridiculous. As if there was the remote possibility that either of them would fall, which there wasn’t. No matter how much matchmaking. Was there? “Oh, forget it. How was your day?”

“Tiring.” And in that instant, a thought teased her:
What if he were really my husband? What if he’d come home from work and David would jump on him like his dogs did and he’d smile and rumple his hair…

Landon produced something from his pockets. “Here. I brought you something.”

She stared in interest down at a book. It was a cookbook, and even better, it was one she’d never read before. Her chest squeezed as she stroked her fingers along the glossy surface. It was such a nice gesture on his part. A gesture which told her he didn’t mind finding his kitchen in a mess while she explored new recipes. And which told her, in a way, that at least a couple of minutes today, he’d thought about her, too. “Thank you, I don’t know what to say. Thanks from me and…thanks from Catering, Canapés and Curry.”

“Nice name. I’m guessing you came up with it since Kate had failed to find one for over a year?”

She nodded, still so touched she felt stroked all over.

Landon crossed the room toward her, and Beth nervously licked her lips when he raised one bronzed big hand to cup her cheek. His thumb, gentle and warm, wiped a smudge of dirt off the tip of her nose. “You went shooting today?”

That touch alone felt like an electric current that started in her nose and ended with a jolt in Beth’s toes. “Y-yes. I love it. I always feel so…powerful.”

Her cheeks flamed as he disappeared into his bathroom, turned on the shower, then came back out and pulled his unbuttoned shirt out of his pants. Her gaze felt glued to his, she couldn’t seem to pull free of his quiet stare.

“Your mother insinuated that my mom and she think…They’re trying to get us together. They’re crazy. A marriage based on nothing but common hatred,” she said.

He nodded indulgently, all bronzed skin and gleaming muscles as he shrugged off the garment, and his hands went to his pants. Beth watched, wide-eyed, as he began to unzip. Her breasts tingled. A prick of awareness danced across her skin.

“What else do we have in common other than Hector, I mean…” She trailed off when he stripped to his underwear. Her lungs closed off all air.

He stood before her for a moment, as sexy and comfortable in his skin as an underwear model, while a prominent bulge pushed against the stark white cotton of his trunks. Even down there, Landon Gage was bigger than Hector.

He was more man, more everything.

In other words, too much for Beth.

She became aware of how fast her chest heaved when he gave her a sardonic smile. “Are you staying here and watching or are you letting me take a bath?”

Beth stumbled back a step, a trembling hand reaching for the doorknob. “I’m leaving.”

“Close the door, Beth.”

She turned to go, but then spun around. “Landon…”

He kicked off his trunks, his back to her, and when she saw his nakedness all of her blood seemed to rush to the center of her being, where it gathered into a burning pool of desire. Her breath left her completely, and the book slid from her fingers and landed with a thud on the floor.

Landon’s buttocks were so muscled, they clenched as he stepped out of his underwear—every small and large muscle of his body taut and rock-like under his skin. He glanced past his shoulder. “Yeah?”

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. But oh.
Oooh.
She’d been wondering for days, had been aching for a peek of him, she was so bad, and suddenly this was so embarrassing.

“I’m no good at this. Landon, I…” She clung to the door handle behind her, her knuckles white as she squeezed it for support. “I’m sorry about our wedding night. My life was shattered when I left him,” she hurriedly whispered, “and I know that I will be leaving you and I really want to…be prepared, you know? I guess I just worry if I make others believe it, a part of me will believe it, too, and I don’t want to, it’s not
real.
Nothing’s real to me but David.”

He reached into the bathroom for a towel, and wrapped it easily around his narrow hips. “But we expect nothing.” Even half covered she could hardly think. His chest was so beautiful, all of him making her mouth water, especially the smoldering proposal in his eyes. “I don’t expect anything from you, Beth, nor you from me, except to trample Hector. Neither of us is hoping the other will love us like we love or be with us forever.”

“But our mothers hope.”

He started forward. “Mothers will always hope.”

He caught her shoulders and she squeaked and flattened back against the door. “No, please no, no kissing!”

He let his arms drop at his sides and cursed low in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Fine.” He stepped away, jaw clenched taut. “Fine. If you change your mind, you let me know.”

“Landon, are you angry?”

He didn’t answer.

“Landon!”

“I’m not angry, Beth, just get out of my room.” He grabbed the cookbook and shoved it into her chest before he stalked away.

“Wait…” she called him, and he turned at the bathroom door. Their gazes locked.

He was dark and tall and looking very much a husband, while she stood there by the opposite door, with a new dress she’d bought on sale that he hadn’t even noticed, a huge knot in her stomach and a horrible sense of loss. She clutched the book to her chest. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“No,” he said, tersely. “It’s him.”

He closed the bathroom door, and for a minute, Beth stood there frozen and confused. Then she charged into her room, tossed herself on the bed and buried her face under the pillow. She screamed into the down, a scream of total and wretched frustration.

What had he meant by that? If Landon thought this had anything to do with Hector, he was
wrong.

It was David who worried her, David who kept her locked in her room at night, David and how he deserved a stable future, not living through another heartbreaking divorce.

She clenched her eyes shut and tried to shut down the images that tormented her.

Landon in the shower.
Naked.
Landon naked with all that thick muscle. Landon giving her a mere book and making her feel like he’d given her a piece of the moon.

She groaned. She went under, yanked the covers up to her head and tried not to think of his hot kisses, his surprising smiles, his penetrating stares.

Impossible. Vivid, mushy and sweaty thoughts of her husband made her hot, and squirmy, and it made her ashamed.

She couldn’t do this. Sure, she could do
this
—pretend marriage. But she couldn’t do the rest.

Her and Landon’s relationship was just a convenient business arrangement that would open beautiful possibilities for her future—her son, specifically.

But even as she reminded herself to keep Landon’s and her expectations in line, in her mind she pictured being coiled so tightly around Landon neither of them could breathe.

Beth!
she chastised herself.
Remember what happens when they want what you can’t give. What happens when you let
yourself fall in love with a man who doesn’t really want or need you.

Sighing, she rolled to her side, and an ache settled around her chest as she thought of David. She closed her eyes and imagined him sleeping, always cherubic—like her very own angel. And she prayed he dreamt of gumdrops and licorice sticks, of puppies and kittens, of anything but the hell going on between his mother and father. “Good night, David. Sleep tight.”

Beth knew for sure that she would not.

Because just down the hall in his big room, in his big shower, bare-chested and most definitely alone, was Landon.

“Where are we going?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from the scenery and meeting his sharp silver gaze.

Landon lounged in the backseat of the Navigator this Saturday morning, carefree and relaxed in tan slacks and a white polo, but his gaze shone with interesting secrets. One corner of his lips kicked up a notch. “I’ve arranged for you to see David.”

Beth’s every muscle jerked at that, and her heart went bonkers in her chest. “You have? How? When?”

“I spoke to a mother of one of his school friends. He’s over for a play date today and I thought—”

“You did not!” she gasped, then covered her mouth with trembling hands.
“Ohmigod!”

“Breathe, Beth,” he said, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “It’s a bit risky. We’re violating the custody arrangement, but we’re compensating your friend with a generous amount in exchange for her silence—and nobody will know as long as David understands he needs to keep quiet. Do you think we can pull this off?”

Her chest moved. “Yes, God, yes! David and I have been keeping secrets from his father for forever—he’ll never tell!”

It depressed her to think that David was too old for his years, but it was true. Ever since he was three, he’d seemed to notice how easily his father angered. He’d loathed the fact that every time his dad felt displeased he’d issue a silent treatment that made both David and Beth want to hide.

But how had Landon managed to set this up? Her mind whizzed with questions, but they all ended with one simple fact, one unerring truth: no matter why, or where, or how Landon had managed to schedule a meeting with her son, the only important thing was that he
had.

She would see her son today.

She felt so big all of a sudden it was a wonder she fit inside the car.

As they rounded a corner, Beth’s attention became riveted on a familiar redbrick house. The fenced front lawn was green and trimmed, and a set of bicycles were tossed over on their sides in the driveway. She spotted two kids playing by the rosebushes and her heart soared at the sight of the blond little boy—
her
little boy. She almost heard music in the background, could practically see his aura shine like an angel’s.

Barely a second after the car halted, Beth shoved the door open and ran across the asphalt to the fence. “David!” she shouted, as she entered the yard and closed the gate behind her.

He pivoted instantly, a baseball in his hand. “Mom?”

His fingers tightened around the ball, but he didn’t run to her. He stayed frozen in place, in loose jeans and a striped T-shirt. He eyed his good friend Jonas first, as if asking for his permission, but all Jonas did was stick his hand out for the ball.

“Sweetie, oh, darling baby,” Beth choked as she dropped to her knees and stretched out her arms. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He crashed into her and Beth’s eyes welled up as they clutched each other. He smelled of shampoo and grass and little boy, and for a moment Beth inhaled as much as she could.

When her pulse calmed, she began asking him what he’d been doing, reminded him his father could not know about this if they wanted to be together again, and then she remembered Landon, now leaning against the car, and she seized David’s little hand and rose to face her husband. The sun made his dark hair gleam and glazed his tanned skin like warmed honey.

His expression was inscrutable, but there was emotion in his eyes. The silver in them had intensified to a sharp polished metal.

She brought David over to the fence. “Landon, this is my son, David. David, this is Mr. Gage.”

Landon’s son would be his age, she realized. Had he wanted to be a dad? He seemed to be ruthlessly suppressing the urge to go back into the car.

“Is he my new daddy?” David asked, blinking.

Her motherly instinct didn’t take long to kick in. Beth quickly began to arrange his shirt, comb his hair, and out of habit, checked his temperature. “He’s mommy’s special friend, my love. And he’s doing everything he can to bring you home with us. With me. Do you want that?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

Both man and boy continued regarding each other warily. Landon with a hand in his pocket, the other restless at his side.

David kicked the grass. “Does he like horses?”

Smiling because that’s just the thing that her David, the animal lover, would say, she hugged him again. Tight. Had he grown? He’d grown an inch, she was sure of it! “He has two big dogs,” she told him excitedly. “They’re as big as lions. You would like them.”

“Jonas’s mother said you would come. I didn’t believe her but I wanted you to. She said I could make you something and I made you this.” From the back pocket of his jeans, he retrieved a paper and gradually unfolded it to show her a drawing of spaceships and stars that read, “David+Mom.”

“Oh, my! Well, there, Commander, that is one dangerous aircraft, and is that big heart mine?”

He nodded, his grin already showing a missing tooth. Beth thought of how they would play astronauts and cowboys and anything else they could conjure when they got back together. She’d deepen her voice to sound like the villain so David could trap her and be the hero.

She rumpled his hair and stole a peek back at the house to find Mary Wilson standing by the kitchen window with little Jonas now at her side, watching their reunion with a smile.

Beth nodded at her and mouthed, “Thank you.”

As though having at last convinced his legs to move, Landon approached the fence, still so quiet. He reached over the top of the pickets. “Hi, David.” He offered his knuckled fist, as Beth supposed he might do with his brothers, and said, “If you bump it, it means we’re friends.”

David frowned, not easily sold. “Can I see your dogs?”

Landon didn’t seem to know what to say. He kept staring down at her son with a mixture of confusion and pain.

Beth blurted, “You can ride them like ponies if you’d like to!”

That did it. Her son’s entire face changed from wariness to full adoration. “Okay.”

And he lifted his balled little hand and bumped it against Landon’s big one.