Marriage By Necessity Read online

  Meggie pulled the covers a little closer around her. She considered herself an honest person. Yet, in a day or two, she’d be flying home with some trumped-up story about how things hadn’t worked out between her and Nate. Nate would look like the bad guy. And Farrah and Sonny would feel sorry for poor Meggie, pregnant and deserted by the man who, they believed, had promised to stand beside her until death.

  “Meggie, are you all right?” Farrah asked after the silence went on too long.

  “Fine. And yes, I’ll be glad when we get home for good.” That was the truth, more or less. Meggie slid her hand under the covers and laid it on her stomach, which was beginning to round out the tiniest bit. She would be part of a “we” when she went home, because Nate’s baby would be with her.

  “You need some kind of project,” Farrah said briskly. “You know how you are.”

  Meggie smiled and relaxed a little. “No, how am I?”

  “A doer. So don’t let yourself sit around just because you’re in the big city. Find something to keep yourself busy.”

  Meggie heard herself agreeing before she stopped to think that she didn’t really have time for a project; in a day or so, she’d be out of there. Right then, from Farrah’s end of the line, Meggie heard a loud, outraged wail.

  “Oops,” said Farrah. “Davey wants Mommy. Gotta go.”

  Meggie told Farrah to kiss the crying toddler for her, said goodbye and headed for the kitchen to rustle up some breakfast.

  Meggie ate to the sounds of L.A.: horns honking, someone shouting out on the street, a siren in the distance, coming closer and then fading off again. She watched the sun come up over the carports, spilling its hot orange light in the kitchen window, over the yellow lilies and across the wall to the black and white tile. As she stared at the lilies, with the sun on their freckled petals, a wave of longing moved through her. She wanted Nate—and dreaded his return at the same time.

  Somehow, she got through the endless day, reading a little, walking down to Pahlavi’s with Edie around noon. In the afternoon, to keep busy, she baked cookies, lots of cookies. The smell of them baking soothed her; it was something she would have done at home, this time of year, with a blizzard blowing outside and a roaring fire in the stove.

  Once the cookies were done, she took them around to the other tenants in the building. Everyone was sweetly appreciative. Even Peg, who said she couldn’t eat them, seemed pleased at the effort Meggie had put in.

  “Well, honey, this is real nice. But a fat exotic dancer is an unemployed exotic dancer, you hear what I’m saying?” She thought a minute, tapping a long crimson nail against her front teeth. “You know, though, a lot of men got a yen for a little home cookin’. So how about if I take these babies to work with me tonight and pass them around?”

  “Good idea,” Meggie agreed, trying her best not to gape at Peg’s breasts, which besides being huge, were very high and rounded. They seemed to float out from her chest, hard, perfect spheres, totally defiant of gravity.

  That night, Meggie hardly slept at all. Every slightest sound had her eyes popping open. Then she’d stare into the darkness, straining her ears to hear if it was Nate coming home.

  But it wasn’t. She woke before dawn, still alone, and decided she’d had enough of trying to sleep.

  She ate a light breakfast and tried to think of something to do with herself to make the time pass. Since her meager wardrobe needed washing, she put on a pair of Nate’s black sweats and an old L.A. Lakers T-shirt that she found in one of his drawers and carried her own clothes next door to the laundry room. The sky beyond the carports had just started to pinken when she got the wash cycle going.

  Someone had left a tattered copy of People magazine on one of the chairs, so Meggie settled in to read about Julia Roberts. She was studying the photos that accompanied the article, trying to decide whether the actress looked better with her hair short or long, when Meggie heard strange noises coming through the wall behind her—bumps and grunts and the sound of furniture toppling. Meggie tried not to listen, tried to concentrate harder on the news about Julia and how she was overcoming divorce and career difficulties.

  A sharp, pained cry from the other side of the wall mobilized her. Someone in there was getting beat up. Bad.

  Meggie dropped the magazine and jumped from her chair, which she took in both hands and hurled against the wall. Then she shouted, at the top of her lungs, “Help! Police! Fire! Police!” She grabbed a second chair and hurled it, too. “Fire! Police! Help!”

  She waited. There was dead silence from the other side of the wall. Meggie shouted again, “I know who you are, and I’ve called the police!”

  That did it. She heard a door slam, and footsteps pounding away. She ran out in time to see a thin male figure in jeans and a mesh shirt disappear around the front of the building. A door stood open a few feet away—the door to the apartment that shared a wall with the laundry room.

  Meggie peered inside, through a tiny hall. The living room beyond the hall was chaos, a welter of overturned furniture, broken lamps and ripped cushions. Meggie heard a pitiful moan.

  Her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her over the threshold and down the short length of the hall. A slender man, who might have been anywhere from forty to sixty, lay on the floor in the corner. He seemed to be covered in blood.

  “Please,” he whimpered. “Take the money. Take the money and go....”

  Meggie spotted the phone on the floor beneath a broken chair. She picked it up: still working. She dialed 911. When she’d completed the call, she knelt beside the bleeding man to see if there was anything she could do for him.

  A cursory examination led her to suspect that all the blood had come from a couple of scalp wounds and a number of minor cuts, many of them on the poor man’s face. But it didn’t look as if any major artery had been sliced. She tried to make him comfortable, sliding a pillow under his head and a blanket over him, since he’d already started shaking with shock.

  She was sponging his face with a moist cloth, trying to wipe off a little of the blood without disturbing any of the cuts, when the paramedics arrived. They drove the white ambulance van down the driveway between the buildings and into the parking lot by the carports.

  All the commotion brought Dolores and Benny. Edie came, too, toddling along with her oxygen tank, and Peg, still in her bathrobe, as well as Bob, the screenwriter, and a few other people Meggie didn’t know. Dolores let out a stream of frantic Spanish at the sight of one of her tenants so badly used. She clung to Benny.

  “Ah, Dios mio, it is a bad world sometimes! Poor Senor Leverson. A quiet man, muy amable. Did he ever hurt a fly? No, never. But the bad ones, they come and do the bad things to him anyway....”

  It was full daylight and the paramedics were loading the injured man into the ambulance when the police car turned into the driveway. The two patrolmen inside took one look at all the blood on the Lakers T-shirt Meggie wore and decided to take her statement first.

  She explained who she was, what she had heard, what she had done and what she had seen. The ambulance drove away. The tall, blond patrolman who had questioned her began congratulating her on her cool head and quick response in a crisis.

  Right then, a black sports car turned into the driveway and rolled toward them. It was Nate.

  Chapter Seven

  Nate swung the sports car into the space next to the blue Volvo. Then he jumped out and slammed the door.

  Meggie’s heart lifted as she. watched him stride toward her. He looked so handsome, in rumpled khakis and a midnight-blue polo shirt. There were circles under his eyes, though. He’d probably been going without sleep—on a stakeout, or something.

  Just as Nate reached Meggie’s side, the older of the two patrolmen, Officer Rinkley, came out of Mr. Leverson’s apartment. He strolled over and stood next to his young partner, folding his arms across his chest. “Hello, Bravo.”

  “Rinkley.” Nate dipped his head in a brief, ironic nod.
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  It surprised Meggie that they knew each other. But then she realized that in Nate’s line of work, he probably crossed paths with a lot of policemen.

  Nate turned to Meggie, his dark eyes running a quick, ruthless inventory of the sweats and T-shirt she’d borrowed from him—and the blood all over them. “What the hell’s going on?”

  The younger officer launched into a glowing account of Meggie’s bravery in rescuing a helpless man from assault by a burglar. Nate cut him off in midsentence by turning to Meggie. “Are you hurt?”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine. Really, I just—”

  He grabbed her hand. His touch felt wonderful. But his scowl worried her a little. “So you’re done with her, then?” he said to the officers.

  Rinkley shrugged. “Sure. We know how to reach her if we need her for anything more.”

  “Good.” He cast Meggie another dark look. “Let’s go.”

  “But, Nate, I—”

  “Meggie. Inside. Now.”

  “But I’ve got laundry. I need to—”

  Nate turned to Dolores, who still stood with Benny and the others, not far away. “Dolores, will you take care of her damn laundry? Please.”

  Dolores drew herself up. “I would be honored to care for her laundry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “De nada.”

  Nate yanked on Meggie’s hand. She stumbled after him, feeling a little foolish and a lot bewildered,. across the parking lot to the stairs that led up to Nate’s door.

  Terrified and furious, Nate dragged Meggie in the door, shoved it closed and turned the dead bolt. Then he backed her up against the wall, took her sweet face in his hands and demanded, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Her brows drew together. “Nothing. Nate, I—”

  “You’ve got blood on your chin.” He scrubbed at it with his thumb, frantic, scared to death at what might have happened to her.

  She shook her head, trying to escape his hold. “Nate—”

  But he wasn’t letting her go. “Meggie. This isn’t Medicine Creek. You can’t just jump into the middle of things here, understand? You could get yourself killed.”

  “That poor man needed help.”

  “Meggie—”

  “I’m not going to apologize for what I did, Nate. I would do it again. In a heartbeat.” She gave him one of those hard, level looks that seared right through him. “And so would you.”

  “I’m different.”

  “How?”

  “I’m—”

  “A man,” she sneered.

  “Meggie, listen to me—”

  She put a hand on his chest, firmly, to hold his attention on what she was about to say. “No. You listen. I’ve been doing a man’s work since I was a kid. I know how to handle myself. And I am not a fool. All I did was scare the guy off.”

  “Meggie—”

  “I’m not done. When someone’s in trouble, I help them if I can. Whether I’m in L.A. or Timbuktu.”

  He knew that look in her eye, knew she wouldn’t budge on this. He drew in a long, steadying breath and let it out slowly. Then he released her, stepped back and slumped against the wall opposite her. They regarded each other across the width of the narrow hall.

  “You were scared for me,” she said after a moment. “That’s nice.”

  “It is not nice. Not nice at all.”

  “You look tired,” she said softly.

  “It was a grim job.”

  “Tell me all about it.”

  “Maybe later.” He looked her up and down, wondering how it was possible to be so damn glad to see someone. “You’re a bloody mess.”

  She lifted her chin and grinned. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Monday.”

  Four days. For four days she’d been here, waiting for him. If he’d called on his private line, she probably would have answered. The idea pleased him. Too much.

  He asked, “Other than having to prevent a murder, how have you been getting along?”

  “Just fine. Dolores is great. And everyone—all your neighbors—have been sweet to me.”

  “Good.” He reached out and took her hand again, but this time gently. “Come on. You need a bath.”

  She went along, as docile as a lamb, into the bathroom with him. He ran the water and removed her bloodstained clothes and guided her down into the big tub. When all the blood was washed away, he bundled her in a towel and carried her to his bed, where he laid her down and peeled the towel from her.

  He looked at her, lying on his own bed, where he had never dared to dream he would have her. Her still-damp hair was spread out across his pillows. He loved the full, womanly curves of her body, the deep breasts and the slightly rounded belly, the soft, thick triangle of curls between her long, strong legs.

  She reached up her arms. “Nate. Come here to me.”

  He went on looking at her—as he quickly removed every stitch he was wearing. She sighed when at last he bent down to her. Her arms twined around his neck and he stretched out along the soft, waiting length of her.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” he confessed against her lips.

  “I’m here.” She kissed him through the words.

  “Yeah. I can feel it.”

  She shifted slightly, parting her thighs, lifting her body in clear invitation. He slid between them—and home.

  She moaned into his mouth.

  He took the sound, tasted it, found it satisfying in a way no other woman’s moans had ever been. She wrapped her legs around him. They began the long, slow dance that he always wished might never end.

  At the end, he pressed in deep and she held him. So close. So complete. So exactly as lovemaking always should be.

  Afterward, they just lay there, talking, filling each other in on the past few days. He told her a little about the divorce case he’d been working on, a surveillance deal down in Baja, where he had to hide in the hibiscus bushes outside a bungalow love nest, taking pictures of a certain wealthy, famous woman and her cabana-boy lover. The whole thing had depressed him. He had to turn in the pictures and the report at the Bel Air mansion of the woman’s husband that afternoon.

  Meggie talked about Dolores and the other tenants in his building. He had to smile when he learned that she knew all of them already. He’d lived there for five years and had done no more than exchange perfunctory greetings with a few of them.

  She fell silent, lying there so peacefully, with her head on his chest. She stroked his arm in an idle, affectionate way and he thought it wouldn’t be half-bad to just lie there with her like that for about a century.

  “Nate?”

  “Um?”

  “The paramedics said that Mr. Leverson will probably be all right.”

  “Leverson?”

  “The man from the building next door, the one who got beat up.”

  “Right. Well, good.”

  “They were taking him to Cedars Sinai Hospital. They said it’s not far from here. I think I’ll...go visit him, tomorrow.”

  Something in her tone bothered him, a hesitation, as if she had another issue entirely on her mind, beyond the injured man and a visit to Cedars.

  “Okay?” she asked, still hesitant.

  Maybe she thought he might tell her no and they’d end up in another argument. Well, she didn’t have to worry on that score. If he couldn’t talk her out of playing hero, he certainly wouldn’t waste his time trying to convince her not to visit some beat-up burglary victim.

  “Nate? Is that okay with you?”

  He shrugged. “Fine. If that’s what you want to do.”

  “It is.” She lifted her head enough to plant a kiss on his chest, then lay back down again. “And Nate, I’ve been thinking...”

  He chuckled. “Oh, no.”

  She slid off his chest and scooted up onto the pillow, bracing her head on her hand so she could meet his eyes. “What does that mean, ‘Oh, no’?”

 
“Forget I said it. Think all you want.”

  “Thank you very much.” Her thick, dark hair, shot with strands of gold and red, tumbled around her face; her wide eyes gleamed with humor.

  He kissed the nose she’d wrinkled up at him. “All right. What have you been thinking?”

  “I read an article a few months ago—in Newsweek or Time, I think. I can’t remember where for sure, really. Anyway, it was an article about neighbors in big cities banding together, organizing themselves to look out for each other.”

  He knew what she was talking about. “You mean Community Watch?”

  “Right. That’s it. They had an eight-hundred number you could call, to have someone come and explain how to go about it.”

  “Why am I picturing meetings in my living room?”

  “Maybe because there are going to be meetings in your living room.” She reached out, pulled him close against her soft breasts. He went without reluctance, sucker that he was for her. She held him in her arms and stroked his hair. “Nate, I’d like to call that number. I’d like to get everybody in this building and the one next door organized. I’d like to know they can look out for each other. Is that all right with you?”

  He made a low sound of agreement.

  She went on stroking his hair. “I’d like to help them be safe, before I leave here.”

  There it was again, that strange tone. He pulled back and met her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  She bit her lip, shook her head. “Nothing. I just...I really like all the people here. I don’t want to see them hurt.”

  He swore low. “Meggie. It’s okay. If you want Community Watch, you can have Community Watch.”

  She grabbed him then and hugged him hard. He felt like a million bucks. When she let him go, he realized he was starving. “What’s in the kitchen?”

  She laughed. “A stove. A refrigerator. A sink. Counters.”

  “I mean in the way of food.”

  “Eggs. Milk. Bread. The usual.”

  He was already tossing back the covers, reaching for his slacks. He looked around at her. She hadn’t budged from the bed. “Come on. Get dressed. I want some breakfast.”