Trouble in Paradise

and Susan wanted.

Absently, Susan popped another marshmallow into her mouth and settled back. “And we’re not going to eat meals like this when your kids are here,” she informed him, clearly expecting him to follow her train of thought.

He didn’t seem to have any problem. “Our kids,” he corrected, bending over to kiss her forehead.

“Our kids,” she agreed, meaning it. She snuggled closer, sleepily half closing her eyes as she surveyed the room and envisioned the rest of the house in her mind’s eye. All her life, she’d been enthusiastic about contemporary architecture. Who would ever have guessed she would turn out to be a pushover for gingerbread?

The house was a Victorian white elephant, set in an older section of St. Paul. Turrets and oddly shaped windows and bathtubs with feet; window seats and chandeliers; huge elms outside; a balcony and a fireplace in their bedroom…and space. Space for Griff’s three offspring, whom she’d taken on with this new marriage of two weeks’ duration.

He’d waved those kids at her like a red flag when he first met her. Look at me. I’m just plain trouble. He’d certainly told the truth, but his kids weren’t the problem; as an only child, Susan cherished the thought of a large family. Her reservations had been about Griff himself, beginning with the fact that he was a divorced man. She’d successfully avoided the breed right up to the age of twenty-eight. Her mother had died when Susan was fourteen, but Susan had been old enough to remember and value that special relationship between two people who were willing to work at a marriage; today’s easy-divorce society offended her. And Griff was not only divorced. he was also eleven years older than she, and his personality wasn’t really her cup of tea. Then, too, his previous marriage made her nervous; with three children, there would inevitably be contact with the ex-wife…

The man had proved irresistible; that was the problem. Lord knew why. Susan hadn’t been looking for love, nor did she appreciate dynamite. Physical men had always put her off. She liked bookworms like herself-men who took off at the speed of light when she said a polite no. Griff didn’t acknowledge the existence of the word.

His hard thigh beneath the nape of her neck spoke for itself, with its tough sinew. Just above that hard thigh was a distinctly masculine appendage that never seemed to tire. Above that were muscular arms and a powerful chest. Yet there was a clever brain beneath all that brawn. Griff had inherited timberland north of Duluth, but he’d built up the two electronic components plants in St. Paul strictly on his own.

Susan’s head tilted sleepily back, and she took a long look at him, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any of the rest of her husband’s features while he’d been at work. She hadn’t. A square chin that no one argued with. Beautiful teeth-her own had cost her father a fortune in orthodontia. A straight nose and shrewd brown eyes that saw far too much. Thick, short, brushed-back hair-Norwegian blond, just like the hidden mat on his chest. And elsewhere. His face was still tanned from summer, weathered from thirty-nine years of living, and at times his eyes could darken with pain. Life’s pain. Griff took so damned much in.

He could explode in temper or be gentle as a sleeping lion, but no one could guess, looking at him, how very hungry the man was for love. He was capable of incredible tenderness… Lazily, Susan stretched, her tired muscles protesting against the hardwood floor. Griff’s thighs were a ton more giving.

Orange flames lapped up the chimney, snapping with enthusiasm. The fire cast elusive shadows on the empty bookcases, on the silver sconces over the fireplace, on the elaborate moldings of the ceiling. The room was starkly empty. There was no furniture-only a single bag of marshmallows and the remains of her favorite take-out dinner rested beside the hearth. The bay windows had yet to be curtained; the shelves were begging to be filled. The house was a beginning, just as their marriage was beginning, and Susan felt a crazy mixture of lush happiness and a strange restlessness of wanting to add substance to the dream, reality to the promise.

“Oriental rugs,” she murmured. “We have to have Oriental rugs, Griff. It isn’t the kind of house for wall-to-wall carpeting.”

“Too hard to keep up.”

“Hmm.”

He knew that velvet little “hmm.” An amused smile crossed his features as his finger touched her cheek. She lifted her face to his, baring her throat like a kitten requesting a stroking. The pads of his thumbs traced the soft lines of her cheekbones, then traveled down to the hollow in her throat. Her gray eyes closed.

Griff savored the curly head in his lap, the sweet serenity that Susan so instinctively offered him. He had an urge to tuck her close and wrap her up. Since his divorce four years ago, no other woman had touched him the way Susan had. After the disintegration of his thirteen-year marriage, he hadn’t wanted or expected another woman in his life, ever. Guilt over his children still preyed on him, and he felt an incredible weariness after the long-term marriage in which he had invested so much of himself had gone bad. He was brutally aware that he had more trials than gifts to offer in a relationship. He was not a man to invite any encounter when coming from weakness.

Susan had informed him he was a fool.

Griff knew better.

Yet he would have sacrificed a limb rather than lose Susan, and had felt that way from the instant he met her. The adjustments she would have to make because of his children-well, he would find a way to make that path smoother. There had been no honeymoon. Her choice. And the justice of the peace had been her choice as well. All she wanted were those first two weeks alone with him, she’d pointed out, and she didn’t want some huge period of time before the children were invited into their lives. He’d heard her real message, that frills were not romance for her, that she derived less excitement from champagne and candlelight than she did than from simply being and loving and doing things together. That, for his lady, was romance…

Absently, he glanced out the darkened window. Ancient elms sprawled in the yard. Their leaves, dark green and turning brittle in the September chill, crackled black against the house by night. A restless wind was gathering force outside. “Hurry, hurry,” the trees seemed to say as they hurled themselves against the gale. Winter was coming.

Not in this house. Susan’s castle, he’d named their rambling monster of a place. She’d brought her special brand of warmth to the fortress, a deep, true warmth he had not thought possible in his life. He stirred, stroking her hair one last time, aware of how tired his bride of two weeks was. Working all day in her store, then too many evenings on the new house, and God knew neither of them had spent much time sleeping once they did get to bed.

He was just as tired. A wee little empire, she teasingly called his multitude of business interests. That, her apartment and his, the new house… “Susan,” he murmured.

Her eyes blinked open, a soft pewter gray. “We have to do Barbara’s room first, Griff. Before she comes in two weeks. The boys might not care, but your daughter… We can completely skip the living room for now.”

He propped her up and then smiled as he uncoiled his long legs and stood up. “For now, we can skip all of it. Let’s get this cleaned up and head back to a nice warm bed at the apartment.”

Susan yawned sleepily. “Powder blue or pale green for Barbara?” She sighed. “Tiger’s so easy. A Minnesota Vikings poster and bunk beds.” She hesitated. “Maybe he won’t want bunk beds…”

He bent over to kiss her forehead before gathering up their dinner debris. “Will you stop worrying about them? They’ve been camping out weekends at my place in sleeping bags for ages. None of them care about furniture.”

“Hmm.” She trailed him absently into the kitchen, snatching up the last contact paper scraps from the floor to toss them in the trash.

“I heard that.”

“Pardon?”

She glanced up to see the grin that was so uniquely Griff. One arched eyebrow and a slash of a smile. “Whenever I hear that little ‘hmm,’ I know you’re going to do whatever the hell you want to, regardless of World War Three.”

Her smile was impish. “I never did believe in wars.”

“You just set up minefields in velvet.” He shook his head ruefully and switched off the kitchen light. “We’ve got to put out the fire in the library-”

“Griff.”

She’d had her mind on his three children for days. She was worried about whether or not they would accept her, desperately aware of how important they were to him, and uniquely conscious that their idyllic twosome