Not Quite Married Read online

He almost chuckled. “I have zero doubt that you’ll let me know immediately if it’s not working out for you.”

  “You will have to go if I say so, Dalton. This is my house.”

  “Point taken.”

  “And you definitely can’t stay past the birth. As soon as I’m back on my feet, you have to move out.”

  “How about this? After the baby comes, we’ll discuss what to do next.”

  “Unless I simply want you out. Then you’ll go.”

  “Absolutely.” But she wouldn’t want him out. She needed him. All he had to do was get her to see that. “Now finish your soup.”

  “I’ve had all I want, thank you.”

  He only looked at her patiently.

  She stared back at him, defiant. But not for long. Finally, with a put-upon little scowl, she picked up the container and started spooning it in her mouth.

  * * *

  Dalton slept in the upstairs bedroom that night. Clara lay in her bed downstairs and thought about him up there, in that room that just happened to be directly above hers, sleeping in the old cherrywood sleigh bed that had once belonged to her mother’s mother.

  Life was so strange, really. You could give a man up, totally accept that it wasn’t meant to be. And then six months later, have him sleeping in your spare room, determined to take care of you whether you wanted him to or not.

  In the morning, he cooked oatmeal with raisins and honey for breakfast. She ate a nice, big bowlful.

  Then she camped out on the couch with the TV remote, her phone and her laptop. Renée was under orders to call in and report between the breakfast and lunch rushes, and then a second time once they closed the doors for the day.

  It was during the after-breakfast report that all the stuff Dalton had ordered brought up from Denver started arriving. She heard the front door opening and closing, men’s heavy footsteps going up and down the stairs. They were pretty quiet about it, actually, and that made her smile. She could just picture Dalton scowling at them, ordering them to keep it down because there was a pregnant woman on the couch who was supposed to be resting.

  The men’s footsteps came and went for over an hour. Ryan came by to see how she was doing as Lord knew what all was still being hauled up the stairs.

  He came and sat in the wing chair beside her and said, “I don’t think your new boyfriend likes me very much.”

  She was instantly on full alert. “He’s not my boyfriend. Did he say he was? Tell me the truth. What did he do? I’ll talk to him.”

  Rye gave her his most charming grin. “Leave it alone. It was just a dirty look.”

  “I mean it. If he gives you any grief, you had better come and tell me.”

  For that she got one of those guy looks, a look of simultaneous patience and dismissal. “Come on, Clara. You know damn well I’m not going to do that. We’ll work it out, him and me, in our own way.”

  “As long as there’s no bloodshed involved.”

  “I’m making no promises—and are you even going to tell me why it looks like the guy is moving in?”

  “Because he is moving in. I’m on modified bed rest and Dalton wants to help.”

  “Help.” Another guy look. The kind that said she was a woman and women had no idea what was really going on.

  “Yes, Ryan. Dalton is here to help.”

  “If he wants to help, he should man up and marry you.”

  There it was again. Marriage. Everybody seemed to think it was the only solution when the stick turned blue. “I love you, Ryan. But right now I just want to kill you.”

  “Why kill me? He’s the one who—”

  “I am so tired of having this conversation over and over. He asked me to marry him, okay? I turned him down.”

  Ryan opened his mouth—and then shut it without speaking. And then finally, he said, “You turned down his marriage proposal, but you’re letting him move in?”

  “What’s so hard to understand about that? He wants to help, okay? He wants to be sure that I take care of myself.”

  Ryan frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t have to get it.”

  A one-shouldered shrug. “Whatever you say.”

  Clara suggested, “Let’s just change the subject, okay?”

  So they talked for a little longer about nothing in particular. And when he got up to go, he asked her if she needed anything.

  She said, “Just stop by and cheer me up now and then. It’s looking like I’ll be right here on this couch or in my bed until this baby’s born.”

  He bent over and kissed her on the forehead and said he’d be back soon and she should call him if she needed him. “Anytime, day or night.”

  There was lunch. Earl brought it. Dalton sat in the wing chair and shared the meal with her. She kept waiting for him to make some disparaging remark about Ryan’s coming by.

  But apparently, he had more sense than that. He seemed cheerful and upbeat. And he never mentioned Ryan at all.

  By then, she was getting pretty tired of the couch. She switched to the bedroom, took a long nap and woke up when the phone rang with Renée’s afternoon report.

  After Renée said goodbye, Rory called. She already knew that Dalton was moving in. Clara wasn’t surprised. Rory lived with Ryan’s brother, Walker, after all. And news traveled fast in Justice Creek.

  That night, Earl brought Italian from Romano’s. After they ate, Dalton went back upstairs to work some more. But then he came down around eight when she was starting to feel kind of forlorn and lonely and he asked her if she’d like to stream a movie.

  “Do I get to choose the movie?” she asked.

  And he said, “Anything you want.”

  She picked a romantic comedy. He watched the whole thing with her and didn’t complain once.

  Having Dalton living at her house? Maybe not as bad as she had expected it would be.

  So far, anyway.

  The next morning she woke up at six thirty and grabbed a quick shower. She dressed in yoga pants and a black maternity T-shirt that warned Keep the Oreos Coming and No One Gets Hurt. Then she headed for the kitchen to see what Dalton would be fixing for breakfast today.

  He wasn’t up yet. And the house seemed much too quiet, somehow. She put on water for strawberry leaf tea and sat at the counter to decide whether to wait for him or pour herself a bowl of granola.

  The sound of the front door opening and closing surprised her. She got up and waddled down the hall in time to see Dalton on his way up the stairs in a tank shirt, mesh shorts and cross-trainers. His skin was all shiny with sweat, his shoulders wide and strong, every muscle in his powerful arms and legs sharply defined.

  God. He looked good. So very good...

  He paused in midstep at the sight of her. “Morning.”

  The nights on the island came sharply back to her: the scent of his skin, the feel of those big, strong arms around her, the way he would cradle her with his hard body as they slept...

  She gulped and shoved those memories down into the deepest, darkest corner of her mind, where they would never rise again to torment her. “Hey.”

  He armed sweat from his forehead. “Thought I’d get in an early run.”

  “Um. Great. Keepin’ healthy. Good idea.”

  “I met up with one of your half brothers. Quinn? He was out for a run, too.” At her squeak of acknowledgement, he added, “I might check out that gym he’s opened, Prime Sports and Fitness. He says that beyond the fitness classes and the mixed martial arts he specializes in, there’s a fully equipped workout room.”

  But you won’t be here long enough to join Quinn’s gym. She almost said it out loud, but stopped herself at the last possible second. If he wanted to visit Prime Sports, more power to him. “Sounds good.”

  Twin lines formed between his black eyebrows. “You feeling all right?”

  “Wonderful, why?”

  “You seem a little...strained, maybe?”

  “Uh-uh. No. Not strained at all.” The kett
le whistled. Just in time. “That’s my tea...” She braced a hand under her belly and took off for the kitchen.

  “I’ll grab a quick shower and be down to make breakfast,” he called after her.

  “Sounds good.” She kept going, not pausing, and definitely not glancing back.

  * * *

  In hindsight, as the days went by, Clara marked that moment in the front hall. She began to realize that her feelings for him had started to get really out of hand right then, early on that sunny Thursday morning, when he stood on the stairs in his exercise gear, looking so fit and strong and deliciously sweaty.

  Before that morning, at least she’d felt she had a handle on her emotions when it came to him, that she knew how to control them, how to exercise a little constructive denial.

  But after those few, seemingly innocuous moments in the front hall, control was a much bigger issue for her. Because they just kept happening, over and over again, more and more frequently—“they” meaning inexplicably powerful attacks of...what?

  Longing? Desire?

  Ridiculous for her to feel this way. She should have learned her lesson. She was fat as an old cow with the baby they’d made precisely because of these dangerous yearnings, the ones that she’d pushed way, deep down into darkness, the ones that were not supposed to keep rising to torment her.

  But they did.

  She would glance up when he entered a room and her breath would catch in her throat, her heart contract in her chest. In the evening, when they sat together in the living room watching TV or a movie, she would find herself glancing over at him, feeling that catch in her throat, that stutter in her chest.

  Ridiculous.

  And infuriating.

  But undeniable.

  Because, well, she might have turned her back on any possibility of a future with him. She might have told herself that she’d put him behind her. She had even told him that, repeatedly.

  But as the first days of her modified bed rest went by, she couldn’t help realizing that her heart was not through with him. And neither was her bloated, overburdened body.

  Just the sight of him made her yearn. And beyond the thoroughly inappropriate desire that tormented her, she couldn’t help feeling gratitude toward him, too.

  He was here, after all. Here when she needed him, here for their baby, here when it mattered most.

  How could she help starting to think that maybe she ought to consider giving him a chance again? At the very least, she should take this opportunity to get to know him as she hadn’t gotten to know him on the island.

  Even if it went nowhere and she learned all over again that he was not the man for her, it couldn’t hurt to find out more about him. They might not end up together as a woman and a man, but they could never completely walk away from each other. He’d made it more than clear that he intended to play a major role in his daughter’s life. So for a couple of decades at least, until their child was grown, they would have to deal with each other.

  She started thinking that she really did need to reach out to him, to seek a common ground with him.

  But then Monday morning came. And she got a serious dose of reality as to what a pushy, overbearing SOB Dalton Ames could be.

  * * *

  That morning, Earl had driven Dalton to Denver for a series of meetings that would last all day. Clara was alone in the house, in the bedroom. She’d been going over the accounts for the café, but she must have dozed off.

  She didn’t hear the woman come in.

  Some random sound must have woken her. She opened her eyes and groggily blinked at her laptop, which remained perched on her thighs, exactly where it had been when she dropped off.

  And then she heard something else, faintly. A cupboard closing in the kitchen?

  Rory had a key and so did Ryan. Maybe one of them had come by...

  But no. They would have knocked. They had keys for emergencies and such. Neither of them would just barge in unannounced, and then stay without letting her know they were there.

  Clara put the laptop aside and rolled out of bed.

  What now? Should she arm herself before leaving the bedroom? But arm herself with what?

  The faint noises kept on. Someone was bustling around out there.

  She scanned the room for a makeshift defensive weapon. She could unplug the bedside lamp and use it for a bludgeon. Or grab a pair of hiking boots to throw at the intruder...

  No. Maybe not.

  She decided she would skip the weapon and go with stealth. Just sneak out there, see if it was anyone threatening-looking and then, if necessary, retreat to her room and call the police.

  It wasn’t a great plan. But she didn’t really believe a burglar or home invader would show up at ten in the morning and then bustle around the kitchen.

  So she tiptoed out into the hallway and around the corner into the great room—and found a tall, slim middle-aged woman taking the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away.

  The woman spotted her and beamed. “Ah. There you are, Ms. Bravo.” She frowned. “Did I wake you? I peeked in on you when I got here, and you were sleeping so peacefully...”

  Clara smoothed a sleep-tangled hank of hair out of her eyes. “Uh, I don’t know what woke me, really. But it’s fine. And you are...?”

  “Mrs. Scruggs, your new housekeeper.” The woman lifted a stack of plates from the dishwasher and set them on the counter. “I’m also quite good with children, so I told Mr. Ames I would be happy to step in as your new baby’s nanny when needed.”

  Clara grumbled, “Mr. Ames, huh?”

  Another beaming smile. “I came in Thursday afternoon to interview. And he called me Friday to say I’d been hired. I clean and I cook. I’ll be in five times a week. Full day on Monday. Afternoons on Tuesday through Friday. Those days, I’ll just be cooking.”

  Dalton. Of course. The man had a pair on him for sure.

  “Er...anything wrong, Ms. Bravo?”

  “Not a thing. Call me Clara—and I have a question.”

  “Of course, Clara.”

  “Last Thursday, when Dalton interviewed you, did you come here to the house?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. Around two? I believe you might have been napping then, as well. Now that you’re awake, how about if I put some fresh sheets on your bed, tidy your room and get the vacuuming out of the way?”

  What could she say? The dust bunnies were piling up. No reason to jump all over Mrs. Scruggs, who was only doing what she’d been hired to do. It was Dalton she needed to have a little talk with. “Yes, of course. Carry on.”

  And Mrs. Scruggs did carry on. She vacuumed, made beds, dusted, did laundry and roasted a lovely leg of lamb with new potatoes and glazed carrots. She also whipped up a fresh and tasty-looking asparagus salad and a burnt-almond torte for dessert. Then she bustled on out the door at a little after four with a promise to return the next afternoon to make dinner again.

  Dalton got home at a quarter of six. Clara met him in the front hall. He wore one of his perfectly tailored, impossibly expensive suits and he carried a Lederer alligator briefcase that cost as much as a Subaru. In fact, he looked so handsome and pulled-together she wanted to sidle up nice and close, breathe in the scent of his aftershave—and kiss him hello.

  But of course, she did no such thing. Especially not right now, when she was seriously pissed off at him.

  He smiled at her. “Clara.” And then he sucked in a long breath through his nose. “It smells great in here.”

  “That would be the leg of lamb cooked by the housekeeper you hired on Friday.”

  “The impressive Mrs. Scruggs.”

  “The one and only.”

  “How’s she working out?”

  “She’s fabulous. But Mrs. Scruggs is not the issue.”

  Twin lines formed between his dark eyebrows. “There’s an issue?”

  “Dalton, you do not get to hire someone to take care of my house and to cook my meals—and apparently to play nan
ny to my baby when the time comes—without even mentioning it to me.”

  “Clara...” He said it in a chiding way. It was very attractive, the way he said it. It was fond and also a little bit intimate.

  And that pissed her off even more. “I had no idea she was coming. I woke up from a nap and found her putting the dishes away.”

  “She’s a housekeeper. She’s supposed to put the dishes away.”

  “You hired her without even consulting me. And then you didn’t bother to tell me she was coming.”

  “Even excellent takeout gets old. I’m tired of it. And I’m more than happy to pay someone to do the housework I don’t want to do—and you’re not supposed to do.”

  “Maybe I would be happy about hiring someone, too, if you’d asked me. Which you did not.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “And you did. At first, I thought she was a home invader.”

  That kind of got to him. For a split second, he actually looked a tiny bit regretful. “I had no idea she would frighten you.”

  “She didn’t do it on purpose. She was trying to be quiet. And I got over it. It’s not the real issue. The real issue is that this is my house and I decide who comes to work in it. Also, you gave her a key. You don’t just get to give people keys to my house.”

  “She’s bonded and insured.”

  “Give me the keys to your house. I’ll find some people to give them to and then not bother to mention what I’ve done.”

  “Clara.” Tender. Patient. “I think you may have some issues with control.”

  That had her gaping. “I have issues with control?”

  He took a step toward her. “Clara...”

  “Stop that.”

  One black eyebrow arched. “Stop what?” He took another step.

  “Getting closer.”

  He looked way too pleased with himself. “I like being closer.”

  She almost fell back, but it seemed a bad idea to show weakness. “Um. Mrs. Scruggs?”

  “Yes?”

  “I like her,” she grumbled. “She can stay.”

  “See?” Too smug by half. “I knew she was the right choice.”

  “But don’t do anything like that again. If you want to hire someone or change the way things work around here, you come to me and we discuss it. And I have to give my approval ahead of time if someone’s getting a key.”