A Husband Worth Waiting For

Not one word was intelligible.

Oh, this was great. His wife wasn’t speaking to him, and his children were some other man’s.

But now was not the time to ask for explanations; not with Jamie and Emma around. They were already upset enough. He’d wait till he got Sarah on her own.

Turning, he felt a great emptiness in his heart as he made his way to the stairs. He’d thought, when he’d come back to this house, that it was a home. A home, with a wife who loved him. What he had walked into was a situation as bleak as it was depressing: a house with a woman who despised him, and two children who belonged to some other man.

By the time he’d climbed the stairs, he could hardly see straight. He staggered into the first bedroom he came to, and after clumsily stripping to his briefs, he aimed himself toward the bed. It was queen-size, with a puffy hunter-green duvet.

He tugged the duvet aside, fell onto the mattress.

And passed into oblivion.

Sarah sat on the ladder-back chair, with Jamie on her knee and Emma standing in front of her. Emma clutched Girl to her chest as she listened to her mother’s explanation.

“So you see,” Sarah finished, “Mr. Morgan isn’t Daddy, but his older brother. And that’s why he looks like Daddy.”

“I thought Daddy had come down from Heaven,” Emma said sadly.

“Da-da,” pronounced Jamie firmly, “is back.”

Sarah sighed. She believed that Emma now understood the situation; Jamie, obviously, did not.

“He’s your uncle, Jamie. And I don’t want to hear one more word about it.” She got up and set him on his booster seat. “After we have lunch, Emma, I’m going to put Jamie down for a nap. You, too—”

“I don’t want a nap!” Emma protested.

“Yesterday was a long day,” Sarah said. “And you were up till after midnight. No arguments.”

She needed to talk to Jedidiah Morgan. Needed to set him straight about a few things. And she didn’t want the children around when she did.

The man had a nerve, she reflected tautly as she opened a can of tomato soup; to kiss her like that, thinking it would sweeten her up.

She paused, the can momentarily forgotten as her mind flicked back. It had been so unexpected—the last thing in the world she’d thought he had in mind when she joined him at the foot of the stairs. Certainly she hadn’t been thinking about kissing. She’d been thinking how shattered he looked; how exhausted.

Huh!

Lips compressed, she poured the soup into a pan. Not so exhausted that he couldn’t stir up the energy to grab her and give her a bone-melting kiss—

Bone-melting?

A hot blush rose to her cheeks. She’d purposely avoided thinking about that kiss and the effect it had had on her. His lips had been sensual and smooth, his scent musky and male. For a mind-stopping moment she’d been tempted to succumb to his advances. Lord only knew how she’d managed to resist.

But thank heaven she had.

Jedidiah Morgan was, she realized, just like his brother—he could turn on the con man’s charm when it suited him. But she wasn’t about to fall for the Morgan charm again. Not now. Not ever.

She put the pan on the burner and switched the burner on. She’d take him some lunch as soon as she’d fed the children. And once he’d eaten, she’d let him know that if he wanted her to stay and look after him for a few days, first they had to establish some ground rules.

“Mom.” Emma paused with her soup spoon halfway to her mouth. “I think I hear a dog outside.”

“A doggie?” Jamie’s eyes gleamed.

As Jamie spoke, Sarah heard a sharp yelp, followed by a scrabbling sound against the back door.

She sighed. “That’ll be Max—your uncle’s dog.” She’d forgotten all about the black Lab—but she certainly hadn’t forgotten its aggressive reaction to her when they’d met.

“I didn’t know Uncle Jed had a dog. Can I let him in?” Emma asked eagerly.

“Hang on,” Sarah said. “He didn’t take to me when I met him so I must see if I can make friends with him first.”

She opened cupboards, looking for dog food, and under the sink found a red bowl and a bag of dry dog food. After tipping a generous measure into the bowl, she carried the dish to the door.

Then taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

Max started to growl when he saw her, but she said, “Good dog!” in a confident, reassuring tone and held out the bowl.

He immediately ignored her and dove right at the food, almost knocking the bowl from her hand. She stepped back and he followed, his tail wagging like mad, his nose foraging in the bowl.

There, she thought with a chuckle, that wasn’t so hard. Setting the dish on the floor, she leaned back against the counter and glanced at the children.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

“Ooh, he’s cool!” Emma said.

Jamie, who was crazy about dogs, stared at Max in wide-eyed wonder. “Can we pet him?” he asked breathlessly.

“Not while he’s eating,” Sarah said. “Let’s leave him just now, and after your nap we’ll see if he wants to play.”

While searching for blankets the night before, Sarah had found there were five bedrooms upstairs. One was the master bedroom. The room next to it was apparently a guest room. The two across the way were unfurnished. And the fifth, at the end of the corridor, was a large room, decorated in yellow and furnished with twin beds.

It was to this room that she led Jamie and Emma when they went up for their nap. After tucking them in, she drew the curtains and made her way back along the corridor.

She paused at the master bedroom and tapped on the door. There was no response. Opening the door, she peeked in, intending to ask Jedidiah if he was ready for lunch.

He lay sprawled on the bed, out like a light.

And he’d probably remain that way for several hours, she reflected as she closed the door. And despite her distaste for his despicable attitude toward her, she felt a wave of compassion for him. He had, after all, undergone quite an ordeal. Sleep would do him good.

Jedidiah woke slowly.

To darkness.

And the sound of someone breathing.

Someone very close to him.

So close he could feel a warm breath fanning his cheek.

“Da-da?”

He turned his head. As his eyes adjusted, he saw Jamie standing by the bed, his small hands clutching the duvet.

“Hey, kid,” Jedidiah whispered. “How’s it going?”

“I’s lost.”

“Lost, huh?”

“Up!” The child stretched out his arms.

Jedidiah pulled him on board, and a second later the pajamaed figure was cuddled up beside him under the duvet. And in less than a minute, Jamie had drifted off to sleep.

Jedidiah peered at his watch. Almost nine.

Night or morning?

There was only one way to find out.

Easing himself carefully across the bed, he sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the mattress…

And winced.

A wild party had started up inside his head. The stereo beat throbbed against his temple with the insistency of a tom-tom calling a savage tribe to war.

He sat absolutely still till the pain subsided. Then slowly he got up and made his way to the window.

He edged back the curtain and saw that it was dark out.

Night, then.

Hauling on his jeans, he headed for the en suite bathroom—and it was only as he pushed open the door that he found himself wondering how he’d known it was there.

“Mom?”

Sarah looked up from the kitchen table, where she’d just emptied out her bag in a search for her antacid tablets. “Emma, what on earth do you want?”

“Isn’t it morning?”

“No, it’s not morning!”

“I woke up.” The child yawned. “And Jamie was gone so I thought it was morning and I came down for breakfast.”

Sarah frowned. “He’s not in his bed?”

“And he’s not in the bathroom.” Emma yawned again. “Where’s Max?”

“He’s dozing in the sitting room.” Sarah skimmed a glance at the monitor, which was lying on the countertop. She’d set it there after putting the children to bed…but darn it, with everything that had been happening, she’d forgotten to flick it on. She did it now.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “I need to find him before he gets into mischief. I wonder if he went looking for that dog!”

When they reached the landing, Sarah noticed that the door to the master bedroom stood ajar. The room was in darkness, but she could see a pencil of light under the en suite door.

So…Jedidiah was up.

“C’mon, Mom, I want to go back to bed.”

She ushered Emma back to her room, tucked her in, then began a swift search for Jamie. He wasn’t in any of the bedrooms. Could he have wandered downstairs?

She hurried back along the corridor and almost bumped into Jedidiah as he emerged from his room.

He was wearing only jeans, and even in her state of anxiety over Jamie, she couldn’t help noticing what a fantastic body the man had—lean, tanned, muscled, with crisp black hair covering his chest and tapering down…

She sucked in a lungful of air and shot her gaze back to his face. “Excuse me.” Her voice had a Marilyn Monroe breathiness that appalled her. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’ve lost Jamie and—”

“He’s in here—he’s asleep.”

“Oh. I’m sorry if he woke you—”

“No problem.”

She made to walk around him. “I’ll just get him—”

“Why don’t you leave him?” He braced a hand against the door frame, halting her. “He’s okay where he is.”

There was something profoundly intimate about his stance. He wasn’t touching her, but she felt trapped within his space, and he was so close she could smell the salty sweat from his skin. Feel the heat of it.

She cleared her throat and took a step sideways. “He needs to be in the other room. I have the monitor set up so I can hear him.”

“You obviously didn’t hear him this time around!” He dropped his arm and, leaning languidly against the door frame, surveyed her with a gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“I’d forgotten to switch it on.”

She walked around him and crossed to the bed. Scooping Jamie up carefully, she carried him to the door.

“I thought he might have gone looking for Max,” she said. “I don’t know where the dog’s been, but he’s back.”

“He apparently followed the ambulance to the hospital and then hung around waiting for me. Was he hungry?”

“I’ve fed him.”

“Good. Sarah…we need to talk. After you put Jamie down.”

“I agree.” Her eyes had taken on a haughty glitter. “There are certainly things we should discuss!”

Jed watched her stalk off along the corridor. She was a sparky little thing, this wife of his. It was going to be interesting, getting to know her. Kind of like courting her all over again. He found the prospect exhilarating.

After putting on a shirt, he made his way along to the landing. As he descended the stairs, he glanced around and found himself perplexed by what he saw.

Nothing about the interior of this house drew him. The place not only had a sterile quality, it gave a whole new dimension to the word “tidy.” Something deep inside him ached to see a scarf tossed over the oak hall stand; fingerprints on the pristine white walls; even a fractional misalignment of the oil painting hanging sedately above the telephone table.

What kind of woman had he married that she needed such order in her life? Because he was pretty damned sure he wasn’t the one who wanted it to be this way. He knew—he just knew!—that he couldn’t have been comfortable in such barren surroundings.

Sarah Morgan was an enigma.

Shaking his head, he strolled along to the kitchen, but when he opened the door he did a double take. The room looked as if a bomb had hit it.

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