“Of course. She knew me well. We’re doing exactly what would have pleased her.”
“But the marriage is meaningless, and we’ll end it.”
“If Elnora were here, she would be willing to gamble that we fall in love before we reach the end of the year.”
“Oh!” Juliana stared at him in surprise. She hadn’t thought about Elnora’s intentions, but she knew he was right, Elnora would expect them to fall in love with each other. “I don’t think the prospects are hopeful for falling in love when you marry only for an inheritance.”
She opened the jeweler’s box and her breath caught. The emerald-cut diamond flashed brilliantly in the morning sunlight that streamed through the windows. She looked up, wondering if she would ever understand this stranger who was far more complicated than she had first surmised. “You give me this beautiful ring, yet it holds no love. You’ll pay for the wedding, yet it is merely a ruse. You are well-fixed, yet you would marry a complete stranger with three chil- dren to get Elnora’s inheritance. I don’t understand you.”
He shrugged and ran his finger along her cheek. “I can afford the wedding and the ring easily now. Elnora’s inher- itance is too big for anyone to pass up. Especially when it involves only a year.” He moved a step closer and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re an attractive woman, so that makes it very easy to go into this marriage.”
She didn’t know whether to thank him or be aggravated. “Thank you,” she answered politely and then looked at the ring, sparkling against the dark velvet. Cal reached out to remove it from the box. He took her fingers in his and she drew a deep breath. Each touch seemed more volatile than the one before. All of them were casual, even the slight kiss of the night before, yet they increased the tension she felt when she was with him. As he slid the ring onto her finger, she looked up at him. When his gaze lowered to her mouth, her heart thudded.
“We should be able to get along,” he said quietly, and then he turned to walk away.
Would he always keep her off balance? She had expected him to kiss her. Wanted him to. The realization of how she had been holding her breath, of how her pulse had raced, startled her and wariness filled her. He would walk away with her heart, so she had better keep up her defenses from this moment on, she told herself. One thing she was certain about him—when the year was up, he would be gone and the marriage would be over.
She caught up with him and they walked through doors at the south end of the room into a library lined with leather- bound books.
“We need to buy another desk to go in here so we can both bring work home,” Cal said, running his hands along a fruitwood desk.
“You take that one. There are probably more desks in this house and you’ll have more work to bring home than I do,” she answered, only half-interested in the house now. Her thoughts were still on him and the dazzling ring he had pre- sented her with. She glanced again at her hand and looked at the flash of fire on her finger as she raised her hand slightly.
He strolled to the back family-room and she followed. The room was far less formal than the front living area, with chintz-covered furniture, another piano, a brick fireplace.
“With all the boys’ activities and my work, I don’t have time for socializing, so a lot of this house, I’ll never use.”
“You can socialize all you want now,” he said as they entered the glass-enclosed solarium that had once been part of the porch and had been closed in. An oak and two tall poplars shaded the room. For several hundred yards be- hind the house the grass was clipped, and then the rest of the grounds had been left to nature with a tangle of under- growth and tall trees. “You’ll keep your preschool?”
“For now. I have wonderful help there, so I may turn it over to my assistant, Kathy Newton. What I’ve always wanted to do is write books about teaching children to read.”
“Then go ahead and do it.”
“I’m thinking about it. Right now, I’m not ready to sell the preschool. I’ve worked hard to get it established. I have people who bring their children to the school from Green- ville and Sulphur Springs.”
“All the way here? Do they work in Colby?”
“No,” she replied. “They drive over here because they want their children in my preschool. If you checked my background, you should know.”
“You’re not going to forgive me for that, are you?”
“I’m trying. I’m surprised you live in Colby instead of Dallas,” she said as they entered a small downstairs bed- room.
“I started in Dallas and moved here. I still keep an office in Dallas and I’m there two days a week or when I have to be in court there. It’s not that bad a drive and I like living away from the city.”
When Juliana started into the kitchen, she heard a loud meow. The boys yelled from upstairs, and she heard run- ning feet. Brushing past Cal, she hurried into the hall to see Snookums scampering along the upstairs hall and the boys chasing him.
“There he goes!” Chris yelled.
“Hey, guys!” she called and all three stopped.
Chris waved his hand. “There goes the cat. We’ll never get him.”
“Chris, don’t chase him. You’ll scare him to pieces. Leave him alone, and he’ll come to you and get to know you.”
“Now he’s gone,” Chris complained. He disappeared
