Wanted: Wife (27 page)

The moonlight was on his face, his lips a breath from mine. “You have no idea what you mean to me—what you’ll always mean to me, what you’ve done for me, and for that, I adore you.” He kissed me, moving achingly slow within me, his heart beating against mine.

I slid my arms around him, Andy’s kissing so passionate yet so ephemeral I couldn’t decipher it and wouldn’t try. I loved him, and whether he loved me back didn’t matter. A happiness spread through me I never thought I’d feel. Maybe it was selfish. If it was, I didn’t care.

That night he held me in his arms, our bodies so entwined we didn’t need a blanket, waking before the light crept through the windows. Once more we made love, Andy against the headboard as I straddled him, his head nuzzling my neck, murmuring nothing and everything. “No one’s ever made me feel as I do with you,” he said. “You’re my heart, my life.” He kissed a trail down my breast, taking a nipple in his mouth, his tongue encircling it as jolt wracked through me. “If I could climb inside you, I would,” he whispered, pressing me back against the mattress.

“Julie . . .” he murmured, like a man deep in fever, “I do care for you, you do realize that, don’t you? But I’m . . .” He clenched his eyes, opening them with a quiet desperation. “Julie, you’ve changed everything. Please stay with me, make a life with me. How I’d want my child—
our
child—to have a piece everything we’ve had together. Would you want that?” He raised up, dropping his hand to my belly, almost reverently. “Would you do that with me?”

Why was he saying this? Wasn’t it everything we were about? Or did he know? Had he somehow found out? Didn’t matter. Because if he could read my mind now he wouldn’t bother to ask.

“Yes,” I said, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything in my life. “Yes.” I grasped his hips, rising up to meet each thrust, drunk on the possibility. He bore down and throwing his head back, buried his seed deep inside me. I closed my eyes, keeping everything, so much in love. So ridiculously in love.

B
EFORE WE LEFT
we shut off the water and drained the pipes in case we didn’t make it back before the first freeze. As if autumn had moved in overnight, it was suddenly sweater weather, punctuated by Bucky’s head out the car window, his tongue lolling in the breeze. I slipped one over my shoulders as we pulled out of the driveway.

I laid my head against Andy, feeling a little sad. “I couldn’t have asked for a better honeymoon,” I said. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

He kissed my temple. “Thank you for coming with me. I’m afraid the farm’s going to be a little dull for you after this.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “I don’t think anything could be dull as long as you’re around.” Then I laughed. “Jesus, listen to us. We sound like a bad ‘B’ movie.”

Andy grinned. “After acting like an ‘X’ for the past two days, I suppose we could use the change of pace.”

We stopped for lunch at a diner on the way home, lingering over coffee and a shared lemon meringue, neither of us wanting to break the spell. But in the same sense I couldn’t help feeling a bit excited, like a page had turned and I was beginning a whole new phase of my life. I had left the farm literally choking on what it once had been, and now I felt alive with anticipation. For the first time in years I had a place where I belonged, and no one was going to take that away from me. I looked across the table to Andy: strong, virile, my protector. Nothing could happen to us now.

The effects of the fire became more apparent the deeper we drove into the Pines. Because of all the smoke and darkness we hadn’t really noticed how much of it had burned, my skin prickling when we hit the charred patch we had driven though when the fire jumped the road. By the time we closed in on the farm the evidence had all but disappeared, the scent of smoke tamped down considerably by rain and three days distance, but still drifting through the air like an aftertaste. As we pulled into the yard we could see the ruts left by the pumper truck, deep digs into the mud now dried and molded into place by the sun, the firefighters’ muddy footprints trailing up the porch to the front door.

“Can’t wait to see what the inside looks like,” I said.

Thankfully, it appeared they had shed their boots before they went in. Everything looked fine until I noticed a water ring and a bit of sagging seam tape on the kitchen ceiling. I dragged a chair over to it and climbed up to look.

“Andy!” I called, poking the damp spot. “It looks like the roof is leaking into the kitchen!”

“The fire hose must’ve loosened some shingles when they wet down the house!” he called back. I could hear his inspection had already led him into our bathroom. “It leaked in here, too!” he added, over the sound of something scraping across the floor.

I looked down to where the leak led, right atop the kitchen counter and not two inches from the sink. “Would you believe this?” I called out. “It couldn’t leak just two more inches to the right? It would’ve landed in the sink! That’s our luck, isn’t it? Is it leaking above the bathtub?” I ripped off a piece of dangling tape. “Andy?” Then all at once a cold awareness washed over me. I jumped off the chair, scrambling from the kitchen.

The first thing I saw as I tore into our bedroom was one drawer, then the other, lined up like little soldiers outside the bathroom.
Oh no, please don’t let him find them—not after last night.
I turned toward the doorway, my heart jumping into my throat.

“Looking for these?” Andy said from atop of the shell of the linens dresser, my next month’s supply of birth control pills between his fingers.

Chapter Nineteen

Double Indemnity

“W
ELL, ARE YOU?”
Andy said evenly.

I stared at the birth control pills in his hand, a blatant display of my own recklessness. “Is that a rhetorical question?” I asked, sarcasm always my first refuge. “Because if it is, you’d know by now they’re a little beyond the point.”

He tossed them to the sink, coming toward me. “Just tell me the truth. Just tell me you considered the ‘starting a family’ part of our contract optional.”

I couldn’t lie to him, not with that hurt in his eyes. “You know it’s not that simple. Not with how much that’s changed over that last few days. Plus with the fire and everything else I forgot to start the new month, so there’s an excellent chance I might already be pregnant. And you know what?” I laid my hand on his arm. “I honest to God hope I am.”

He stared at me, that little muscle in his face twitching like it always did when his emotions got the best of him, as he struggled for control. “Really?” he said, moving past me to the window.

I went to his side; he didn’t look at me. “Andy, we were strangers. Until I got to know you, could you really expect me to get pregnant? If I did, well . . .” I searched for the words. “I wouldn’t be anything more than an incubator for your issue.”

“Yet you signed an agreement with this stranger to do just that.”

“I did. But even you said I was pretty desperate at the time.”

“Which is why I spelled everything out,” he said, finally looking at me. “Tossing in every protection so you wouldn’t be taken advantage of by me or anyone else. You’re forgetting you were as much a stranger to me as I was to you, but I still gave you every advantage. The risk was all mine.”

“I’m no threat to you,” I said, affronted.

“Except to make me look like a fool. Didn’t I start out as one of your silly little stories for TV? Aren’t I and our contract still the topic of your book?”

“But I already told you—the book’s mainly about me.”

“Especially now with those pills guaranteeing you a $50,000 exit.”

“I never intended to take a nickel of your money.”
God, this hurt
. “Or to fall in love with you.”

He looked away. “That’s your misfortune.”

“You
bastard,
” I cried, pushing at him.

He caught my wrists, pressing me back against the wall. “You’re right, maybe the biggest bastard there is. I tried to warn you, but you still have no idea what I’m capable of. Julie . . .” His eyes softened. “It’s not the pills. Trust me, it’s a minor infraction. And that’s why loving me
is
a misfortune. Once you learn how much of a bastard I really am, I doubt you’ll want me.”

I blinked, fighting tears; who was the fool now? I struggled against his hold, wanting to touch him so badly it ached. “You’re wrong, I’ll always want you. It doesn’t even matter what you did, as long as you keep on wanting me.”

He leaned in so close I could feel his breathing. “So you do love me after all?”

Love?
I was out of my mind with loving him. “Please forgive me for lying to you. Whatever I was thinking at first, I don’t feel that way now. I just want to be with you.”

He growled something decidedly feral and pulled me to him, crushing his lips to mine, and for the first time since this horrible conversation began my Andy returned to me, the Andy I knew, the Andy I loved. He let go, hanging onto my hand like a lifeline.

“Julie,” he said, very quietly, “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay. I placed my palm on his cheek.

He turned into it, his eyes closing as he kissed it slowly, almost reluctantly, returning it to his grasp. “I’m not who you think I am.”

“I don’t care,” I said, meaning it. “I know who you are now.”

“No. You have no idea.” He opened his eyes. “For one thing, I was sick when I was a young man. They told me then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to father a child. The proof being, well . . .” He looked to me, a bit of the rake in his eyes. “I haven’t exactly lived the life of a monk. And after twenty-five rather vigorous years, there should’ve been at least one or two . . . accidents.”

Now I was confused. “Then why did you include that clause in your contract?”

“Because if a woman was willing to risk even her fertility, I’d know she’d be taking this seriously.”

“So in other words . . .” I slipped my hand from his. “You lied, too.”

“Yes. But not about wanting you. I’ve wanted you more and more every day.” He kissed me again, and my mind went blank.

What was this hold he had on me, this ability to make me lose all common sense? Again I was falling down the well, the lies we told each other so tangled, neither of us could claim the moral upper hand. But he needed to keep talking; I knew there was more.

I pulled away from him. “But why go through all the trouble with exit clauses and $50,000 payments if you knew what’d happen in the end? It’s almost like you didn’t
want
to stay married.”

“Because I didn’t,” he said. “Until I married you.”

It was what I wanted to hear, and yet . . . “Then why—”

Outside, Bucky began to bark and we looked toward the living room window; a car pulled into the yard. Before we could make it to the front door there were footsteps on the porch, followed by an insistent banging.

“
Bonjour!
André
—Est-ce que tu là-dedans?!
André!
Bonjour
!”

He instantly paled.

“Who is it?” I said.

He put his hand on my arm.
“Julie.”

The door swung open.

“Mon frérot! Comment ça va?” In strode a man who could’ve been Andy fifteen years earlier, tall but even darker, his hair slicked back, a cigarette in his hand. He grasped Andy by the shoulders and kissed him on each cheek.
“Chao
!”

“Marcel,” Andy said. He looked to me. “Julie—”

“Ah!
Est-ce la femme
?
Brava
!” He looked from me to Andy, grinning wide as he dragged on his cigarette. He raked me up and down, eyes hooded.
“Ravi de vous rencontrer, madame,”
he said with every measure of Andy’s charm, his head bowed slightly as he threw out his arms. “André,
tu devrais me présente
!”

“Julie,” Andy said, “this is Marcel. My brother.”

I instantly assumed—
but to hear it!

“Marcel,” he continued, his color high, “this is Julie, my wife.”

As Marcel kissed my cheek I caught Andy’s eyes.
I’m sorry
, he mouthed, and a dread washed over me. This, I knew, was how it would end.

“Enchanté,
Julie. Marcel Mercier, à votre service,” he said, kissing my other cheek.
“Tu es belle
. . . André
est un homme chanceux—
ah!
”
He tapped his head. “You have no
français
,
n’est-ce pas? Je suis désolé
. I said you’re very beautiful, which makes my brother a very lucky man.

“And a lazy one!” He opened the door, flicking his cigarette butt into the yard. “Why haven’t you answered your phone? I’ve been calling for three days! How many messages do I have to leave?”

Mercier?
“We were away,” I said. “On an island.”

“Where you can’t even get sat phone reception?” He looked to Andy and laughed. “Jesus, this
is
America, isn’t it? I mean, I didn’t take a wrong turn at Mexico, did I?”

“To what do we owe this pleasure, Marcel?” Andy said tightly. “Where’s Lisette?”

“Hm, yes . . . Lisette. Well,
mon frérot
, that’s why I’m here.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You won.”

Andy’s eyes narrowed. “Marcel—”

“No—really, I’ll accept defeat. You said it wouldn’t last six weeks, but it didn’t last half that. She left with the first boat sailing. Where you . . .” He glanced at me. “You do have an exquisite wife. I suppose you can take a few more weeks before you have to pay her off and get back to work. After all . . .” He eyed me lasciviously. “You still have six weeks left—”

“Ta gueule, gamin!”
Andy cried.
“Elle ne sait pas.”
He looked to me. “Not yet anyway.”

“What?” Marcel glanced at me. “You never told her about our bet? Why
Andy
. . .” he spun the name. “Aren’t you
le palourd peu
. . .”

“Trou du cul . . .”
Andy growled.
“Ta gueule.”
He looked to me. “Julie, don’t listen to him. He’s a spoiled little shit and—”