Anything for Her Marriage

But he did owe her the truth. “Nancy, listen to me. Please. I just can’t get involved with anyone. I’ve been married twice, and both times I failed miserably.”

“You failed?”

He hadn’t expected the oblique defense. “My ex-wives would say so, yes.”

Nancy snorted, then clutched the cat more tightly, burying her face in its fur. After a moment, she said, “Tell me something. And I’m only asking for a simple yes or no answer, not the gory details—you ever have a night like we just had with either of your wives? Or anyone, for that matter?”

She’d backed him into a corner. He pushed his way out again, convinced this was one time telling the truth would serve no purpose.

“Last night was spectacular, Nancy. But not unique.”

He’d hit home, watched what he knew was a fragile ego shatter. “I see. Well…guess that puts me in my place.”

“Honey—” desperate, now “—I’d think you’d be the last person to consider basing a relationship on sex.”

“And if that’s all that was,” she retorted, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Or I wouldn’t be, at least. I’ve had sex, Rod. Maybe not as much as some women my age, but enough to know that what we had last night went so far beyond the physical that I can’t even remember exactly what happened.”

To hear his thoughts echoed nearly did him in. But to admit he felt the same way would only undermine his resolve to save her from far worse pain down the road. “Then you were the only one.” He crossed his arms, cringing at the hurt in those deep, dark eyes. But he dug himself in deeper, hoping like hell he’d come out on the other side in more or less one piece. “I remember every detail, plain as day. And there were some great details, granted. But what you’re talking about, if I understand you, is not something I’ll ever experience.”

Not again in this lifetime, at least.

“And how do you know that? You think, because you’ve never felt that way—and, by the way, neither had I before last night—you never will? Or can? So we’re not on the same rung of the ladder, yet. That’s not unusual, you know. I mean, given time—”

“Nancy! I can’t love you.” He’d practically bellowed the words, then immediately pulled back, reclaimed control. “Or anyone. I don’t want to get married again, don’t want more children—”

“Whoa, wait a minute—who’s talking about having children?”

“No one has to, honey. I saw the look on your face when you held Guy’s little boy on your lap, the way you baby these damn cats—”

“Leave the cats out of this.”

“Tell me you don’t want babies of your own, Nancy.”

He could see the tremors racking her from where he stood. After a long moment, she looked away.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Honey, I’ve got my hands full with the two kids I’ve got. And I’m past forty. The last thing I want is to start all over again. I simply can’t give you what you want. And deserve.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

By now, a veritable ravine had worked its way between her brows. He tried to take her hand; she snatched it away. “You need to be worshipped,” he said gently. “To be the center of some guy’s universe, and a mommy to an adoring batch of children.” He pressed one hand to his chest. “You’ve glommed on to the wrong guy, sweetheart. I’m incredibly attracted to you, yes. And, yes, it appears we’re sexually compatible. But I can’t love you. Cliché number thirty-two—you’re better off without me.”

Nancy turned her gaze to the window, her fingers continually stroking the cat’s fur. For several seconds, she didn’t speak. “Well,” she let out at last, “if you get to be honest, so do I.” She faced him, a damn-the-torpedoes look in her eyes. “I’ve fantasized about having you in my bed for a long, long time, Rod Braden. Not that I ever thought it would happen. But whaddya know? It did.” Her lips curved in a little smile. “And boy, you really know how to make those fantasies seem pale by comparison.”

She dropped the cat, faced him, her arms folded across her chest. “Okay, so I’m ticked you’re being so…whatever it is you’re being. But you know what? One night was more than I had two nights ago, more than I ever thought I’d have. It was a whole lot of fun, and for sure I wouldn’t mind a repeat performance sometime before I die. But since you just pulled the plug, I guess that’s that. However, I have not ‘glommed’ on to you. Once you walk out that door, that’s it. I won’t call you, or bug you or insinuate myself into your life. I’d’ve been more than happy to give this thing its head, see where it went…” She shrugged again. “But I’m not Lady Liberty. I don’t do torches. You’re right—if you can’t see and appreciate what we had, then I am better off without you.”

Surely there was something else to say, another cliché that would magically salve the wounds he’d just inflicted. Her eyes told him otherwise, however. Just as they told him he needed to get his sorry hide out of there, and fast.

With a nod, he left the kitchen, disentangling his coat from hers from where she’d left them on the sofa, before letting himself out into the bitterly cold morning.

Rod told himself he’d taken three hours out of his life to keep this doctor’s appointment more from his long-standing friendship with Arlen James, who’d been a family friend for as long as Rod could remember, than because of any serious concerns about his health. After all, he ate well, exercised, had never smoked, and hadn’t even consumed any alcohol since that glass of wine at the Sanfords’ party more than a week ago. Discipline and moderation had always been his by-words. Besides, losing control was not his idea of fun.

Neither was having a wretched blood pressure cuff cut off his circulation. At least this time Arlen’s grunt wasn’t accompanied by a pair of dipped, wiry gray brows. Not quite as dipped, anyway. “Good,” the doctor said with a nod, wratching open the cuff. “It’s down. Country air must be doing you some good.”

“Well, that should make you happy.” With a halfhearted smile, Rod rolled down his sleeve. “It’s been a calm week or so.” Notwithstanding his inability to eradicate Nancy’s face from his thoughts, the feel of her against his skin, the scent of her, still in his nostrils. “Of course, there’s no guarantee it’ll stay that way.” He reinserted the cuff link in place, snapped it locked. “I’ve got the kids every weekend this month.”

Arlen hitched his trousers up at the knees and dropped into the chair behind the metal desk in the examining room. The swivel chair creaked as he scooted it closer to the desk, the sound abnormally loud in the artificial silence made possible by triple-glazing and an impressive address. “Been sleeping well?”

Rod hesitated just long enough to make the doctor glance up at him. “Well enough.”

“Work going okay?”

He shrugged. “Keeps me off the streets.”

Arlen stared at him for a moment, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, then abruptly rose. White coat flapping around his long thighs, he gestured toward the door leading out to his office. “Come out here. I want to talk to you.”

“Actually, I’ve got an appointment in forty-five minutes—”

A smile. “This won’t take long.”

Rod’s stomach clenched unpleasantly as he slipped his jacket back on, tweaked each cuff. “Sounds menacing,” he said, trying for upbeat.

Arlen paused at the door, then chuckled, carving a pair of gullies on either side of his mouth. “Oh, hell, Rod, I’m sorry. No dire news, nothing like that,” he threw over his shoulder as he strode out of the room, clearly expecting Rod to follow. “Sit.” He nodded at the mushroom-colored upholstered armchair that sat in front of an ornate mahogany desk, settling his lanky frame into the black leather chair behind it.

Rod sat, crossing his ankle at his knee, cautiously regarding the tanned, white-haired man in front of him, trying to calculate his age these days. He had to be easily seventy-five, yet looked no more than sixty. Arlen’s ties to Rod’s family went back further than Rod’s memory, that was for sure. And after his grandparents’ deaths, he remembered many times when Arlen and Molly James’s presence in his life had been the only thing that seemed to make sense in a world that by rights should have been downright idyllic. After Rod’s parents moved to Bloomfield Hills when he was ten, however, Rod had begun to sense an uneasiness between Arlen and his father he didn’t understand for some time, about things they hadn’t discussed for nearly twenty years, by mutual consent. Things that were behind him now. And he had no desire to resurrect ghosts.

The uneasiness humming in his veins at the moment, however, made him wonder if Arlen wasn’t about to. “Why do I feel like a kid who’s been called into the principal’s office?”

Arlen’s thin, sharply defined lips pulled up into a placating smile as he leaned forward, lacing together the consummate doctor’s hands. “I don’t know if this makes me old-fashioned or cutting-edge, but I’m not the kind of physician who treats the symptoms without addressing the cause. Yes, your blood pressure’s down, but not where it should be for a man in your condition.” He took a deep breath. “You’re stressed, Rod. And no, I don’t mean by the divorce, or the kids, or the new business, though they haven’t helped. This has been building up for years.”

And there they were. The ghosts. Some of them, at least. Well, two didn’t necessarily have to play this game.

His hands tented in front of him, Rod tapped one index finger on his lips, trying not to feel like a trapped animal. “Meaning?” he asked quietly.

“Meaning…I’ve been keeping track of your life since you were, what? Five or six, something like that. And I’d hoped, for your sake, after you got out of Claire’s clutches—well, I’ve never made it a secret what I think of her, although you got two great kids out of the deal—you’d finally get your head on straight. Work through some things. Apparently, I was wrong.”

Rod lowered his hands to his lap. Remained silent. The last thing he needed was a lecture, but Arlen was one of the few people in the world to whom he’d extend that privilege.

“I’d hoped,” Arlen continued, “that at least, you’d learn your lesson with Claire, make a better choice the second time. Instead, I’m wondering why you married Myrna to begin with.”

Admitting he’d often wondered the same thing would probably serve no useful purpose. Myrna had been perfect, on the surface—beautiful, monied, even-keeled, an ideal way to keep predators at bay without putting himself on the line. “I thought it would work,” was all he said. “But she…couldn’t deal with the kids, which I should have realized.”

The doctor made a move that was half nod, half shrug, then scratched behind one ear. “Be that as it may. But then there’s your work. Here I think you’ve taken some steps to get out of the rat race, but far as I can tell, all you’ve done is switch mazes. Now why is that, Rod?” Heavy brows formed a V behind his glasses. “Wasn’t it just a year ago you sat at my table and admitted how bored you’d grown with Star, how you were actually relieved when they decided to—what’s that term they used? Ah, yes—make your position redundant. Even I know you don’t need the money. If you still wanted to work, you could have done anything at all. Yet here you are, doing virtually the same thing you’ve been doing for fifteen years. Maybe I’m missing something here, but that sure as hell makes no sense to me.”

Rod shifted in his chair, caught himself. “Marketing’s what I do.”

“What you do, huh? Not…what you love?”

A beat, then: “You don’t have to love something to be good at it.”

“Fine. Then come on board with the foundation, put your skills to good use for something you actually believe in. Something close to your heart.”

“They get my money, Arlen,” he said quietly. “That’s enough.”

The ghosts hovered on the edges of the conversation, taunting. After a moment, Arlen let out a sigh. “Dammit, Rod. For years, I watched you bust your butt to please your father—”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Arlen—”

“Then we won’t. But growing up in that house…” He shook his head, his mouth taut with disgust. “That you turned out as well as you did is a testament to the human spirit.” He hooked Rod’s gaze in his own, obviously expecting a reply. When there was none, he rose from his chair, circled around to ease one hip up on the front edge of his desk. “Your parents have been gone for twenty years, Rod. You don’t have to play it safe anymore, you know.”

Rod stood, slipping his hands in his pant pockets. Breezy. Nonchalant. Far more shaken than he dared let on. “I really do need to be going—”

Arlen stood as well. Eye to eye, he thrust one finger in Rod’s face. “You don’t want to talk, I can’t make you. But let me tell you something—keep up this pretense of everything being fine, ignoring the fact that you’re one of the most miserable bastards I’ve ever met, and you’re headed straight to cardiovascular hell. You have no life, Rod.” He backed up a millimeter, crossed his arms. Grinned. “For that matter, when’s the last time you had sex?”

Shards of tension shot up the back of his neck, as Nancy’s laughter and tenderness and sweet, lush scent slammed into his consciousness. “None of your business.”

Arlen grinned more widely, misinterpreting. “That’s what I thought. Well, here’s a news flash, son—unless you want to shrivel up into something putrid and unrecognizable, you need female companionship from time to time.” He pointed that damned finger at him again. “In your case, more than from time to time. And next time, I suggest you try marrying a woman you love.”

That got a hollow laugh. “Oh, no. Not after—”

“Screwing up twice already? So what? Took me four trips to the altar to work the bugs out. But work out they did.” His eyes narrowed. “Might for you, too, if you stopped trying to choose the kind of woman you think you’re supposed to marry and pick one you want to marry.”

“No such woman exists, Arlen,” he said mildly, ignoring the hair bristling on the back of his neck, “because I’m not getting married again. And if you value our friendship, you’ll kindly remove that nose of yours from my business.”

He turned to leave, but Arlen grabbed him before he’d gone three feet. Concern simmered in those blue eyes, concern Rod had seen many times before. “You don’t have to listen to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Not this time. Not like I did before.”

“Your concern is duly noted,” Rod said through the ghosts. Through the ever-present pain. “But I’m fine, Arlen. Really. Everything’s under control, okay?”

Out in the hall, the polished steel elevator doors shushed open as he heard from ten feet away, “And who the hell d’you think you’re kidding?”

Without answering, Rod stepped inside the elevator, let the doors close.

Chapter 4

Nancy knew it was crazy to still be ruminating about her whatever-it-was with Rod after nearly three weeks. You’d think, with all the practice she’d had at getting over men, this would have been a piece of cake.

Work, she told herself, forcing bleary eyes back to the Sheldons’ contract. Selling one house and buying another concurrently was always a pain. Now that they’d gotten a decent offer on their old one, she had to find them new living space as quickly as possible. God, she was tired….

Okay, girl—listen up: One cup of coffee and one night of hot sex do not a relationship make, got it? Except that one night of sex put the dribs and drabs of her previous experiences to shame. Maybe Rod wasn’t burned into her soul or anything romantic and profound like that, but he sure was burned into her body. Yowsa—she twirled her string of garnet beads around one finger—a week with the man would probably hold her for the next forty years.

Again, she stared at the paperwork in front of her, grabbing a handful of hair and tugging at it, as if trying to let more air into her brain. He’d done her a kindness, she told herself. Man had more baggage than an airline.

Her stomach growled, as if she needed reminding. What was with this, anyway? She’d been hungrier than a bear all this week—

“Oooh, don’t we look serious this morning.”

Nancy looked up, forced the muscles between her brows to relax, then waved Guy into her office while she filled in three more lines in the contract. Elizabeth’s husband plopped himself in the gray upholstered chair in front of her desk, munching onion rings from a cardboard container.

She glanced up, chuckled. Salivated at the onion rings. “Mmm…nice tie.”

Brilliant blue eyes sparkled in the clear winter light pouring from the shadeless window behind her, thanks to a truckers’ strike that had delayed delivery of the miniblinds for Millennium Realty’s new offices. Guy plucked the tie, festooned with Mickey Mouses, off his plaid-shirted chest, and grinned. “Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” He let it drop, held out the onion rings. “Kids gave it to me. Want one?”

She started. Oh. An onion ring. Not a kid. She gratefully accepted, then flipped the page, fighting a slight wave of dizziness. “Didn’t figure Elizabeth had. So,” she said as she munched, “what’s up?”

Her peripheral vision caught the nervous shift in the chair before he laced his hands over his stomach, almost immediately lifting one to scratch behind a gold-studded ear. He wore his hair shorter than when Nancy had first met him, longish in back but neatly layered on top and front. On Guy, it worked. “Actually, I—we—need a favor. See, Elizabeth’s been a little cranky lately—”

“Our Elizabeth?” Nancy said in mock amazement, sparing him a smile as she wrote. “Cranky?”

“Well, that’s the kindest word I can think of at the moment. In any case, I got tickets to the Detroit Symphony concert tonight, aaand…” his face scrunched up into a please-don’t-hit-me grimace “I wondered if you could sit?”

Nancy leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed over her velour tunic. “It’s Saturday, Guy. What if I had plans?”

His face fell. “Do you?”

She sighed. “I wish. Yeah, I suppose I can sit tonight—”

“And I’ve made reservations to spend the night someplace fancy, expensive and childless,” he added in a rush.

Look at that face, wouldja? No wonder he had Elizabeth eating out of his hand. “Anybody ever tell you you’re devious?”

“Most of my clients, actually, but let’s not go there.”

She laughed. “Fine. I can spend the night, no problem. But I assume I was second choice?” Elizabeth’s mother was besotted with her new step-grandchildren, ready to baby-sit at a moment’s notice.

Guy got up, peered out the office door, then came back, leaning over Nancy’s desk. “Maureen backed out on us,” he whispered. “Hugh asked her to go away for the weekend.”

Nancy’s brows shot up. “Really?” For several months, Nancy’s widowed mother had been dating Hugh Farentino, the developer of the planned community that had been primarily responsible for the agency’s sudden boom in business. “You think things are getting serious, then?”

“Let’s just say Elizabeth and I are taking bets on whether we have a baby or a wedding first.”

Nancy fixed a smile to her face, refusing to let this good news get to her. It really did seem at times as if she was the only woman in the world destined to remain single.

“Hey, baby!” Cora Jenkins swept into the office, her bright purple cape in full sail, plunked a white bag reeking of something gloriously greasy on Nancy’s desk, then turned to Guy. “There you are,” she said to Guy. “The Reinharts are here, honey. Said you were supposed to show them houses this afternoon. Whoa, Nancy—you okay?”

She’d stood to walk to her file, found herself clutching the open drawer to keep from losing her balance. The dizziness passed in a second, but she looked up to find two pairs of eyes trained on her like bird dogs.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” She straightened up, brushed a curl off her cheek.

Guy tossed the empty onion-ring container in her garbage can. “There’s that nasty flu going around,” he said to whoever was listening as he made his way to the door. “All three kids had it last week. My mom even came down to help out, otherwise Elizabeth might have gotten it, too.”

Nancy smiled at the love in Guy’s voice. She didn’t know all the details of why his first marriage had failed, but Elizabeth had confided that Guy sometimes still had to fend off vestiges of guilt about his wife’s walking out on him and their three children when the youngest was barely six months old.

His first wife had been one clueless woman, that was for sure.

“It’s not the flu,” she reassured him, her gaze lighting on the bag on her desk. “Oh, Cora—please, please, please tell me some of that’s for me!”

“It’s all for you, baby,” Cora said as Guy left.

“Oh, bless you!” Nancy tore into the bag. “How’d you know I wasn’t going to get lunch today?”

“You still weren’t back from your morning appointment when I left, and I know you’ve got that one o’clock. Lucky guess.”

Groaning in sweet anticipation, Nancy attacked the turkey club before she’d even gotten the wrapping completely off. “I don’t know ’ut’s wrong wi’ me,” she forced out around the bite, then swallowed. “I used to be able to skip lunch all the time without any problem.”

“Which probably accounts for why you weigh less than a good-size chicken.”

Nancy swatted at her, crammed a French fry into her mouth. “It’s weird, though—the past few days, I’ve been eating constantly.”

A big grin split Cora’s face. “And at the rate you’re going, that’s going to be gone before the grease has had a chance to set on the fries. Lord, I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone eat like that.” A laugh thundered from her chest. “Save when Elizabeth got pregnant and didn’t know it for two weeks. Oh, there’s the phone—”

Nancy never saw Cora leave.

Dizziness. Exhaustion. Ravenousness. Oh, no no no no no…

Oh, hell.

The sandwich abandoned, she frantically pawed backward through her calendar, only to realize—duh!—it didn’t go past January 1. But surely it wasn’t that late, she thought as she lugged her shoulder bag up onto her desk, hauled out her checkbook and the handy-dandy calendar inside it. Okay, okay…God, they could probably hear her heartbeat in Toronto. There it was. December 17, which made her due on the…she counted forward…fourteenth.

Which was five days ago.

But…but…she’d used a diaphragm. And the stuff. That should have been fine, right? It had always been fine before….

Barely two minutes later, she burst into her house, racing to the bathroom without even removing her down coat. Her heart thudded against her chest as she yanked open the vanity drawer, rummaged through the contents. She found the spermicide first, flipped it over to read the expiration date. See? See? February, it said. February… She looked closer, squinting.

Nineteen-something.

Uh-oh.

Unable to shake the feeling that life as she knew it was about to end, she plucked the diaphragm case out of the drawer, her hands shaking so hard it took three tries before she could unsnap it. She snatched the rubber cylinder from its little plastic bed, then waded through a sea of cats to the living room, where the southern exposure-lit windows were brightest. The animals writhed around her feet as she held the diaphragm up to the light, having to clamp one hand on her wrist to stop the trembling. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered, as the sunlight clearly defined, like a microcosmic constellation, a series of tiny holes in the rubber.

Her mother would have a field day with this one.

Arms tightly twisted together over her suede jacket, Hannah Braden hunched in the passenger seat of her mother’s Cadillac, as far away from Claire’s overpowering perfume—and her cigarette smoke—as possible. Outside her window, which she wished she could open without freezing to death, tree after boring tree whipped past, a charcoal blur against an overcast sky. She’d forgotten to bring her Walkman, which meant she’d been subjugated for the past hour to that New Age crap her mother loved. If she’d been younger, she would have been sorely tempted to cry. Or pitch a fit. But over the past several years, the edges of her emotions had worn down. Oh, yeah, she was seriously pissed off. She just no longer had the energy or enthusiasm to act on it.