Contract Bride

Yet he felt nothing for her aside from gratitude—gratitude and guilt. The turmoil of that had nettled him for weeks, but he couldn’t seem to help that gratitude and guilt were the only things Leah stirred in him.

Losing Rachel had left him empty. Any woman who wasn’t her was merely female. No one to wonder about, and certainly no one to get excited about. His hormones had come back to life, his lust still fired over the usual sights and thoughts, he still had powerful male urges that craved satisfaction, but the mysterious allure of tenderness and sweet feelings were gone as completely as Rachel.

In his mind and heart, love and sex were associated exclusively with luxurious red hair, freckle-flecked satin skin and exotic emerald eyes that sparkled with passion and a zest for life.

Suddenly the memories were white hot, and he relived the phantom feeling of Rachel’s lush body pressed against his. His palms ached to slide over her soft skin to tenderly cup and caress, and his fingers tingled with the unforgettable sensation of what it had felt like to lavish pleasure on her.

Pain and bitterness welled up at the torment, and Reece forced the powerful memories to stop. He determinedly fixed his thoughts on the living woman—the wife—he was obligated to crave.

But desire didn’t rise very high over long sable hair that was usually pinned up or worn in a French braid; it didn’t crave the touch and warm feel of lightly tanned almost dusky skin. Eyes that were a deep, quiet blue didn’t suggest anything more enticing or arousing for him than somber mysteries and unhappiness, and his heart was already weighted down by those.

Try as he might, he couldn’t picture Leah’s pretty eyes going slumberous with lust, and he couldn’t imagine her losing her very rigid self-control to clutch at him in the high heat of sexual intimacy. It was as unthinkable of Leah as it would have been of an elderly maiden aunt.

The harsh bite of guilt he felt for the unfair comparison made him finish the second Scotch in another punishing rush.

He didn’t want Bobby to be hurt, and divorce would do a masterful job of hurting the boy. Surely his lack of sexual interest in Leah was a remnant of Rachel’s loss. That and the fact that he’d barely paid attention to her as a potential lover, and he’d never been curious enough to find out what she might really be like when she wasn’t being a mommy or teaching Sunday School.

Rachel and Leah had been closer than sisters. So close that he knew Rachel wouldn’t think much of him for cheating Leah out of a loving home. Particularly when Leah had given up her chance of finding a man whose heart could be all hers so she could come to the aid of her best friend’s husband and infant son.

Feeling gut sick over what Leah had sacrificed and how poorly he’d repaid her, Reece set the tumbler down with a soft thud then made himself walk over to his desk. He picked up the silver-framed photo of Rachel and turned it to study her face.

The flatness of the image impacted him. He tilted the frame slightly, as if to get a better look at the thickness of it, but the photo paper behind the glass suddenly looked as thin and unsubstantial as any other photograph.

For the first time Reece felt detached from the color image, and his heart grabbed futilely to recapture the sense of connection. It was as if he’d known this achingly beautiful woman a long time ago, too long ago, and something in him flinched with surprise at the feeling of distance. It had only been fifteen months since the wreck, and yet it suddenly felt like another lifetime, one that had belonged to some other Reece Waverly.

In the space of mere moments, the memory of Rachel had gone from white hot and all but tangible to something more like a dimly remembered dream.

Which reminded him of the worst part of these past weeks. Rachel had been fading from his mind. A little here, a little there, he was starting to forget the things he’d been convinced were burned on his heart forever. Except for the soul rocking flashes of sudden memory, the everyday details of how Rachel had moved, how she’d smiled—even how she’d touched and taken care of their son that handful of days—had begin to cloud over until he could only rarely summon them at will.

Would her memory fade completely away? Was he man enough to face the bleakness of that second loss if she did? The loneliness he already felt was brutal.

Reece stood there for several minutes more, wondering if he was drunk, wondering whether these strange feelings and impressions meant anything, but eventually realizing how weary he was. What he did next wasn’t so much a decision as it was a necessity.

He didn’t want to ever look at a picture of Rachel and feel this disconnected from her. The clarity of the photo was a reminder that the living image in his brain seemed to be growing more fuzzy and indistinct. Better to never see it again than to feel so eerily detached from both the woman and the life they’d had together.

Once he’d switched off the desk lamp, Reece turned and carried the framed picture to the bedroom end of the dark ranch house. He didn’t need a light to walk through the big house he’d lived in since birth. He went into the first guest bedroom he came to, and moved across the carpet to the dresser by memory. He fumbled for a drawer catch and opened the drawer just enough to put the picture inside.

It was best to ignore the hollow rattle of the silver frame against the wood bottom of the empty drawer as he pushed it closed. Nevertheless he hesitated, as if he might think of a rational reason to change his mind and put the picture back on his desk. Eventually, he left the drawer closed and walked out of the room and into the hall.

The soft glow of the light Leah always left on in Bobby’s room spilled into the hall and drew him, particularly tonight, though it was his usual habit to look in on the child.

Bobby was sleeping peacefully, so he lingered a bit before he backed a step away from the bed then paused to glance toward the partially open door between the baby’s room and Leah’s. It was too dark in her room to see more than a wedge of carpet, though from this angle he hadn’t expected to be able to actually catch a glimpse of her.

The mental picture of what she might look like asleep and his quick curiosity about what she wore to bed came so suddenly that he felt a new kind of jolt. He’d never had a single thought about Leah’s preferences or private habits, so this was a new thing.

But then again, he’d either had just enough booze to inspire a faint spark of curiosity about Leah because he’d been trying to summon some kind of desire for her, or he was drunk enough to have lost a few inhibitions so that the idea of sex without love wasn’t such an empty one.

Either way, he couldn’t take the small spark seriously. It would surely be gone by morning, smothered out by the cold reality of another day.

Reece heard Leah’s soft laugh just before he reached the kitchen that next morning.

“No, no, let’s not put the toast in your cup. It goes in your mouth, silly boy.”

Leah was never late putting a hot breakfast on the table. She might have been up half the night with Bobby or had to deal with the boy waking up earlier than normal, but somehow she handled every complication so competently that Reece could have set his watch by her.

Bobby had awakened early, probably with his usual soaked diaper that required a quick bath, but when Reece stepped into the kitchen his son was clean and dressed and sitting in his high chair with a bib on. He was gnawing on a piece of toast as Leah finished putting food on the table.

Reece felt a nettle of guilt and an equally sharp nettle of resentment. He already owed Leah more than he could repay, yet she just went on being perfect. Relentlessly perfect. Her perfection was a silent indictment of his notable lack of perfection where being a husband was concerned. The mild headache he’d woke up with began to pound.

“Daddeee!”

Bobby’s excitement to see him gave Reece a rush of pleasure and love that somehow soothed the rawness he felt.

The baby had his dark coloring, though Bobby’s features, particularly his green eyes and the way he set his mouth, fairly shouted testimony that he was Rachel’s son. The tender pride Reece felt in the boy might have added to the volatile churn of emotion that was still riding him from last night, but his relief to not only see but also identify the ways Bobby resembled his late mother slowed some of the churn.

Reece crossed to where the high chair sat between his place at the head of the table and Leah’s to his right. He ruffled Bobby’s dark hair before bending to give him a kiss on the forehead.

“Good morning,” Leah said quietly.

“Morning.”

Reece sat down just after Leah did, then automatically took hold of Bobby’s hand as Leah briefly said grace.

Quick and soft, the small prayer was another unintended reminder that Leah was a wonderful mother to his son. No detail of the child’s upbringing was being overlooked by her, while Reece himself had failed to provide him with something as elemental and necessary to a happy childhood as having a daddy and mama who loved each other.

The boy needed to grow up seeing a normal and settled relationship between his parents. How long would it be before he was old enough to note the significance of having a mama and daddy who never touched, who never embraced, and who didn’t even sleep in the same bed? His mood going darker, Reece took the meat plate Leah passed to him and silently served himself.

Leah was so tense that she felt awkward and self-conscious. Should she ask Reece what he’d decided or wait for him to tell her? Now that the big moment was almost here, she realized even more sharply how difficult it would be to actually hear that he would take her up on her offer to divorce.

Be careful what you ask for. How fitting that of all the things she’d asked for in her life and hadn’t gotten, she would actually get the one thing that would hurt the most.

She put Bobby’s plate on his tray and gave him his fork. The thought of what a divorce would mean to this happy child made it nearly impossible to look him full in the face.

“Do you have special plans for today?” Reece asked, and Leah felt her nerves jump. She managed to glance his way briefly, but not to actually make eye contact before she focused on filling her own plate.

“I thought I might go to San Antonio to find something new for Saturday. It could wait till tomorrow if you have something you need done today.”

“Wouldn’t mind ridin’ along,” he said, his low voice oddly gruff. “What time?”

The information was a surprise, but then Leah realized that Reece might have planned for them to consult with their lawyer as soon as possible. Or rather, he would consult with his lawyer while she found one to represent her.

“I’d planned to leave you a cold lunch and start midmorning, but we could go anytime. Just so I have an hour or so to shop.”

At this point, there was no sense in dancing around the subject that had to be dominating his thoughts as strongly as it was hers. And if she had to find a lawyer, she might as well know it now so she could check the Yellow Pages before they set out.

“So you’ve made your decision?” Leah asked, then made the mistake of taking a bite of fluffy eggs before she realized she probably wouldn’t be able to swallow them past the huge lump of dread in her throat.

The charged silence that followed her question increased her self-consciousness. She reached for her coffee cup to try to wash down the eggs.