Michael’s spare room into a nursery because that’s where I sleep. Michael and I don’t sleep together! We’re not a proper husband and wife.”
It would have been hard to say it in the face of their enthusiasm, he acknowledged, but maybe she could have tried. It was important.
And what would she have done if she’d been faced with the Maitland clan’s attention? The two of them made their escape while most of the Maitlands were still with the photographer, so Jenny had been spared Megan’s welcome, Ellie’s shock and Abby’s concern.
That was to come. Now that they’d heard the news, their curiosity would be aroused.
Even Garrett seemed to assume things had changed, Michael thought as he drove his wife toward town. Sunday nights Michael usually spent at the ranch, and he and Garrett played pool on their dad’s old pool table. After the wedding celebrations that’s ordinarily what would have happened. But Garrett hadn’t even raised the possibility. He’d helped Jenny into the Corvette and waved a hand in farewell, as if he wouldn’t be seeing his brother for a while.
“See you around, Mike.” Then he’d looked sideways at Jenny. “I’m sorry you need to go, but I understand you must be tired, Jenny. You take care of the lady, now, Mike. She’s quite something.”
She was, Michael thought bitterly, glancing sideways at Jenny.
But she wasn’t really his wife!
“I’m sorry, Michael.” She sounded tired, and when he checked her out again, he saw that her face had sagged. “It wasn’t meant…”
“What wasn’t meant?”
“Everything,” she whispered. “I mean, when I saw those little girls this morning, I felt so sorry for their grandma that I just offered without thinking. You’d think I’d have learned not to be so darned impetuous by now. And then, when it ended up with me having to go to the wedding with you and all your family being so welcoming… You’ve hated it, and I don’t blame you.”
“I didn’t hate it.”
“You did. I can see that you did.” She sighed. “You mightn’t know it, but you get a sort of look-the same one you get when some sales rep comes in with a security system that bores you to snores, yet you still have to listen. That’s what you looked like today.”
“What, all of today?” He was shocked. Surely not.
“No,” she said. “Not all. Most of the time you tried not to. You were truly wonderful with the children this morning. It was mostly this afternoon, and maybe…maybe it’s only because I know you well.” Her voice faded to a whisper. “Anyway, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry you’re stuck with driving me home. Don’t you and Garrett normally spend time together on Sunday night?”
“How do you know that?”
“You’ve told me,” she said. “Lots of times. When I’ve asked you about your weekends.”
Had he? Michael frowned. He couldn’t remember telling her about his weekends.
But maybe he had. In the past few months, Jenny had become part of the furniture around his office. He could very well have talked to her, he decided. He’d never had to watch his tongue when she was around. He’d learned fast that anything he told her went no further, and he’d relaxed in her presence.
But he wasn’t relaxed now. He was edgy. Chafed by the ties he’d never expected.
But she was untying them. “There’s no need to stay home tonight on my account,” she told him. “Just drop me off and go on back out to the ranch. Say I need to sleep. It’s a family celebration. You should be there.”
“Garrett won’t expect me.”
Jenny took a deep breath. “Then maybe Garrett should. He knows this is just a formality.”
“Our marriage?”
“Yes. Our marriage.”
“I hope he does,” Michael said, and he couldn’t keep the note of bitterness from his voice. “It’s obvious my sisters don’t.”
She hesitated, thinking. “I wasn’t sure what you’d told them,” she said after a pause. “I didn’t like to…”
“To dispel the romance?”
“Michael, I wouldn’t presume…” She hesitated and cast a nervous look at him. “I don’t want this, you know.”
“Don’t want this marriage?” The strain of the afternoon was still with him. “You’re not making that very clear.”
There was another silence, longer this time. She fingered the rings on her right hand-the rings she’d moved the day she wed Michael.
“I don’t… Michael, Peter’s only been dead for seven months. There’s no way…” She took a ragged breath. “If you think I’m…”
Damn, now he had to feel guilty as well as trapped. “I don’t think anything,” he said wearily. “I don’t think a darned thing. It’s what my sisters think.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m finally domesticated. Trapped.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it the minute he let the words leave his mouth, but it was too late to retract them. They hung in the silence between them like a threat.
“Then that’s just stupid.” Her voice rose a notch, anger filtering through it. Her anger matched his. “I didn’t trap you into marriage, Michael Lord. That would have been unfair. You offered. You came into this with your eyes wide open. I was amazingly, incredulously grateful for your offer, but if I’d thought for a moment that you believed I’d engineered this…”
“I don’t think that.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” she said.
“Then I’m sorry.” But he couldn’t get rid of the edge of anger in his voice, no matter how unfair he knew he was being.
More constrained silence. Michael glanced at her. Damn, she did look tired.
“Jenny…”
“Michael, let’s just leave this,” she said wearily. “I feel so guilty anyway that I can’t bear it. At least not tonight.”
“There’s no need for you to feel guilty,” he told her, his own guilt still there. “You’re right. I offered. What my family does to me is no fault of yours.”
“Any family would do just what they’re doing. They’re right. And I should never have agreed to marry you. I need to-we need to do something.” She sighed. “But for now, heaven knows what the answer is. I seem to be getting deeper and deeper into a quagmire. Just drop me off at your house and go out to celebrate with your family. Please, Michael?”
“I don’t want-”
“If you weren’t married, would you ever stay home for dinner on a Sunday night?”
“No, but-”
“Then there’s your answer,” she said flatly. “You’re not married, not really. So do what you always have done.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE WENT OUT, but he didn’t return to the wedding. He’d be grilled within an inch of his life if he did. The look in Ellie’s eyes as she’d headed for the family portrait session warned him he was in for it. But the interrogation could wait.
Besides, he was convinced his brother and sisters would give him a hard time if they thought he’d left Jenny alone. Garrett and Lana had seemed far too fond of Jenny, and even Shelby seemed to be coming around.
So…
So he drove to his friend Harvey’s, drank a few beers, watched a ball game on TV and tried to keep his hand
