An Officer And A Millionaire

husband. Thoughtful, caring, loving. How was she supposed to have known that the real man was lightyears away from the image in her mind?

And yet, this Hunter stirred something inside her that made her yearn for things to be different. Which was just a one-way ticket to misery and she knew it. The only way she would ever have a husband like Hunter was this way. A lie.

Still grumbling to herself, she stepped out of the closet to find her “husband” already ensconced in the bed. On her side.

“Move over,” she commanded, waving one hand for emphasis.

“It’s a king-size bed,” he reminded her. “Plenty of room for both of us.”

Oh, she thought, there probably wouldn’t be enough room for her to lie down comfortably beside him if the bed were the size of the county. But she wouldn’t let him know that she was feeling decidedly uneasy about this situation. Besides, she was going to have enough trouble falling asleep tonight, let alone having to sleep on the wrong side of the bed.

“You’re on my side.”

He looked around, then shrugged broad, bare shoulders. “Since I’m the only one lying on it, I figure it’s my side.”

His eyes shone with amusement in the pale wash of light from the bedside lamp. His bare chest gleamed like old gold, and when he shifted higher onto the pillows, the quilt covering him dipped, pooling at his hips.

Margie sucked in a gulp of air but couldn’t quite stop herself from admiring the view. The soft, dark hair on his chest narrowed into a strip that snaked across his abdomen, then disappeared beneath the quilt.

He was naked.

Oh, God. She was never going to get to sleep tonight. Her stomach did a slow roll and pitch, and her mouth went dry. “Don’t you have pajamas?”

He chuckled and she couldn’t help noticing the dimple in his left cheek. Why did he have to have a dimple?

“No,” he said, “I don’t.” Then his gaze swept over her, taking in her knee-length, long-sleeved cotton gown decorated with pale blue flowers. His eyes widened as he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Don’t you have something less…”

Margie felt his disapproval plainly, plopped both hands on her hips and dared him to finish that sentence. “Less what?”

“Less…Little House on the Prairie?”

She smoothed one hand over her comfy nightgown. Didn’t she feel pretty? He couldn’t make it any clearer that he wasn’t experiencing the slightest bit of attraction for her. “There’s nothing wrong with what I’m wearing. It’s very cute.”

One dark eyebrow lifted. “If you say so.”

“And comfortable.”

“Okay.”

Margie huffed out a breath, finished doing up the buttons on the front of her perfectly sweet nightgown, then glared at him again. No doubt he was used to going to bed with women who were either naked or wearing bits of lace and silk. “Are you going to move over or not?”

“Not.”

“You are the most insensitive, arrogant-”

He deliberately closed his eyes and snuggled his head into her pillow. “We’ve been over this already. How about we just put off the insult exchange until morning?”

“Fine.”

“Fine. Now get into bed and go to sleep.”

Muttering darkly under her breath, Margie walked around the wide bed to the absolute wrong side. It didn’t bother him at all to share the bed with her. He’d already closed his eyes to dismiss her. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he was in no way interested in her. So why was she shaking and nervous? This was so not fair.

He’d tossed all of her decorative throw pillows to the floor, and she had to kick them out of her way as she moved. Before she could get into bed, Hunter reached over and flung the quilt back for her, incidentally providing her with yet another look at his long, tanned form just barely hidden by the strategically placed quilt.

And when she was finished admiring his leanly muscled body, she finally noticed the stark white bandage affixed to his left side, just above the hip. Somehow, she’d managed to forget during their argument that he’d been wounded recently, and for some reason she felt bad for harassing him in his condition.

“Are you-do you-” She stopped, blew out a breath and looked into his eyes. “Is your wound all right? I mean, are you all right?”

“I’m touched by your concern,” he said, clearly untouched. “Yes, I’m fine, though not quite up to sexcapades just yet. So like I said, you’re safe.” His gaze dropped over her nightgown again and he shook his head. “Though even if I wasn’t laid up, I’d have to say that your choice of nightgown is the best male-repellant I’ve ever seen.”

Instantly, Margie regretted worrying about him at all. He was insulting, rude and arrogant, and she hoped his side ached like an abscessed tooth. And if she ever again felt those stirrings inside her, she’d squash them like a bug. “You’re-”

“Insults in the morning, remember?”

“Fine.” She swallowed back everything she wanted to say to the completely irritating, totally sexy man in her bed and turned instead to pick up the pillows he’d so carelessly tossed to the floor.

“What’re you doing now?”

She didn’t even look at him, just continued picking up the pillows and stacking them in a line down the center of the bed. When they were all in place, she smiled at a job well done. “I’m building a wall between us,” she said. “As you pointed out, it’s a king-size bed. Plenty of room for us and a wall.”

“You don’t need a wall, babe; you’ve got the nightgown.”

“Maybe you need it,” she told him, sliding onto the sheets and drawing the quilt up to her chin.

“Yeah?” he asked as he turned out the light and plunged the room into darkness. “Afraid you’ll ravish me in your sleep?”

She closed her eyes and turned onto her side, giving him her back. “Afraid I’ll murder you. Sleep tight.”

The next morning Margie was back in the closet getting dressed when Hunter stepped out of the shower. Rummaging through his duffle bag, he pulled out a worn, faded pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt with the words Navy SEAL emblazoned across the front.

“I have to go into town this morning, see to a few details about the dinner dance,” Margie called out from what had become her own private dressing room.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You’re in charge of that, too.”

From what he’d been able to tell, Margie “Cabot” had insinuated herself into everything she could. What was the plan, here? Why would she be bothering with getting involved with the doings in Springville if she was married to him only for the five million dollars Simon had promised her?

Shaking his head, he ruefully admitted that he had even more questions about her than he had the day before. Starting with, why was he so attracted to a woman he probably wouldn’t have noticed under normal circumstances?

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that some people actually like being a part of the community?”

“I just don’t get why you want to do it.” He shot a look at the partially opened door and tried not to think about what she was doing in there. But images of her wet, naked, lush body kept filling his head. Plus there was the memory of her kiss and the soft, open eagerness she’d met him with.

His body went stiff and hard as stone almost instantly and groaning, Hunter adjusted his jeans. It didn’t help much. Damn it, what he needed was a woman, not a wife. It had been a long two months since he’d been with a woman, and right now it felt more like two years.

Hell, it was a good thing he woke up early every morning, because that wall she’d built between them had come tumbling down sometime during the night. Hunter’d been surprised to find that he’d instinctively turned to her in the darkness, pushing those pillows aside and wrapping himself around her. Thankfully, she’d still been sleeping