Conquer the Memories

she said softly. “I just…love you. All I wanted was some special time with you, but if we absolutely can’t…”

There was so much tension in his face, a jagged, taut anxiety set in proud lines. And in the layer under that, she could not mistake the searing depth of sheer, rich love in his eyes. “So,” he said quietly, “what time did you say the plane leaves on Sunday?”

***

Craig jerked the pillow behind him and leaned up against it, tossing his trade magazine on the floor. Sonia was in the bathroom. He could hear her brushing her teeth.

He’d come home fully expecting Sonia to strip to the buff from her wanton white dress. She had, but out of sight in the bathroom. She’d appeared moments later in some granny nightgown he’d never seen before, and disappeared again. The next time her head darted around the door, there were gobs of white cream all over her face. Once he’d gotten a good look at that, she’d vanished again.

She’d been chattering about the trip to the Gulf the entire time, but the message that his lady had withdrawn from her irresistible-wench mood was unmistakable. She’d never before put white gunk on her face, and that blasted nightgown had come out of some attic.

In one sense he was amused, and perhaps even relieved she was…out of the mood. In another sense, he felt more restless than a hungry cougar on the prowl. His own problems were not Sonia’s, and he’d had every intention of taking up her sexual challenge. He did not understand her mercurial mood. Her taking off the dress in the bathroom amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and his own head seemed to be in so many confused places at once that, disgusted, he picked up the magazine yet a third time.

Sonia, yawning, stepped out of the bathroom, this time flicking off the light, her hair brushed and her face clean and soft under the lamplight. “Must have been that wine at dinner, but I am unbelievably sleepy. You must be, too, after all the hours you’ve put in this week.”

“A little,” he agreed.

She slipped between the sheets next to him. He immediately turned off the light, tossed aside the magazine and slid down next to her. Automatically, he tucked the sheet around her chin and then, beneath the covers, reached across her side, her signal to turn over and move in closer, the way she always liked to sleep.

She didn’t move.

He didn’t really pay much attention. A silent yawn rumbled from his lips; the week’s exhaustion was taking its toll. Instinctively, his arm slid around her again, but instead of rolling over, she flopped on her stomach, her face turned to the far wall. He stiffened. Sonia never broke her sleep patterns; he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t fallen asleep in the same way. For himself, he could crash anywhere and anytime. It was his wife who couldn’t fall asleep unless she was tucked and curled and cuddled exactly just so.

He listened, hearing the sound of her even breathing. Carefully, silently and a little stubbornly, he shifted both of them. Her body was limp; she murmured something but didn’t stir. It took a few moments, because he really didn’t want to wake her, but in time he had it right again. Her leg was tucked between his, her cheek in his shoulder, his arm protectively curled around her, resting on her thigh. Finally, his eyes closed.

Sonia’s opened, facing the wall of his chest, her body as supple as grass in the wind, her mind racing at full speed. Her husband was finally asleep. He didn’t know what was going on yet, but he would.

We have a marriage here, Mr. Hamilton, which means sacrifices are occasionally required, she told him silently. That goes for both of us. Because if you’re giving up sex, buster, then so am I.

Chapter 11

Mr. Bartholomew grinned at them from the dock. “Have a wonderful time, you two! Any problems, you just give me a little ship-to-shore,” he called over the rising roar of the engine.

He motioned to Sonia and, laughing, she leaned over the side, expecting the precarious buss on the cheek that she got. “Don’t you worry about that husband of yours, honey,” the marina owner told her. “He knows more about boats than probably half the people on the Gulf. You just get yourself a solid honeymoon going there.” He winked lasciviously before ambling his portly body to the dock edge, where he untied the first line and tossed it to her.

She was still coiling the last line as Craig slowly maneuvered the cruiser out of the crowded marina and into open waters. Waving one final time at the distant form of Mr. Bartholomew, Sonia turned toward the sun, and then exuberantly bolted up the five steps to Craig at the wheel.

He didn’t much look like a yacht owner, dressed in cutoffs and sneakers. Sonia perched on the matching captain’s chair next to him, tossing him a happy grin as she slipped her sunglasses down from the top of her head and onto her nose again. From behind that cover she was free to feast on his sun-browned skin and half-naked torso…in between checking out a sky that looked burned-on blue, a grape-winged gull soaring overhead and the endless waters of the Gulf foaming behind them.

“What’d that dirty old man say to you?” Craig demanded.

She chuckled. “That you had more experience on the water than half the people who rent boats around here.”

“That man talks more drivel than a stand-up comedian.” The shore waters by the marina were peppered with sailboats and weekend cruisers. Craig risked only a single glance at his wife.

She could feel the assessment in his eyes as he took in her nautical white short-shorts and T-shirt with anchors. The anchors were strategically placed, to rise and fall with every breath. “You know…” She tried to make her voice mild, which wasn’t that easy over the roar of the engines. “I thought I had everything so perfectly arranged that you wouldn’t have to do a thing. The plane tickets, transportation to the marina, food ordered ahead, insurance, the boat rental…”

“You did.” Craig spared her another quick glance.

“But somehow it never occurred to me that there was a little more involved. Licensing, navigation laws, setting courses, docking facilities.” It hadn’t occurred to her because all she’d had in mind was leaving a dock, throwing out an anchor in the middle of the Gulf somewhere, and having her husband alone at her mercy for four days. She did not, for the moment, mention that. “Engine rooms, fuel tanks, electrical backups,” she droned on. “Amazing how fast you picked it all up.”

Craig shot her an unholy grin. “I listened to Bartholomew for three hours last night.”

“Bull,” Sonia said sweetly. “Who was she?”

“Pardon?”

“I said, Mr. Hamilton-of-landlocked-Wyoming, who was she?”

“Who was who?”

“You didn’t come by all that boat expertise honestly, buster. Now, I always like to think of them as poor substitutes. Not rich yacht owners.”

“Who?” Craig’s brow flexed in a quizzical frown.

“Your former girlfriends.” Sonia slid off the leather seat, peering at him severely over the rims of her sunglasses, and announced, “I’m going below to get a soda. For me. You’re in hot water. So you’re a big fan of rowboats, are you? Isn’t that what you told me at dinner the other night?”

His arm snaked around her ribs before she could take the first step down. Even as his hand again touched the wheel and stayed firmly there, he managed to haul her tight to his chest and take a quick teasing nip out of her neck before he released her again. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I was a virgin when I met you,” he reminded her.

“Send that one to Ripley’s,” Sonia said flatly. “Not once-not once-have you ever told me one good sordid story about your past lovers.”

“Because I didn’t have any.”

Sonia sighed. “The very least you could do is tell me she was ugly,” she insisted.

“Who?”