Beloved (21 page)

286

Beloved

Diana Palmer

287

"Wheels?"

He cleared his throat. "I phoned
my brothers."
She sat straight up in bed with eyes
like an owl's.
"Them?
You
didn't! Simon, you couldn't!"

"There, there," he soothed her, "it won't
be so bad. They're
old hands at weddings. Look what a
wonderful one they arranged
for Corrigan. You
went. So did I. It was great."

"They arranged Corrigan's wedding without any
encourage
ment from Dorie at all! They kidnapped
her and wrapped her in
ribbons and carried
her home to Corrigan for Christmas, for
heaven's sake! I know all about those hooligans, and I can arrange
my own wedding!" she burst out.

Just as she said that, the back door—the one they'd
forgotten
to lock—opened and they heard
footsteps along with voices in the
corridor.

The bedroom door flew open, and there they were, all of
them
except Corrigan. They stopped dead at the
sight that met their
eyes.

Cag
glared at Simon. "You cad!" he snarled. "No wonder you
needed us to arrange a wedding! How could you do that to a nice
girl like her?"

"Disgraceful," Leopold added, with a rakish
grin. "Doesn't
she look pretty like that?"

"Don't leer at your future sister-in-law,"
Rey
muttered, hitting
him with his Stetson. He put half a hand over his eyes. "Simon,
we'd better do this quick."

"All we need is a dress size," Leopold said.

"I am not giving you my dress size, you
hooligans!"
Tira
raged, embarrassed.

"Better get it one size larger,
she's pregnant," Simon offered.

"Oh, thank you very much!"
Tira
exclaimed, horrified.

"You're welcome." He grinned,
unrepentant.

"Pregnant?"
three voices echoed.

The insults were even worse now, and Leopold began
flogging
Simon with that huge white Stetson.

"Oh, Lord!"
Tira
groaned, hiding her head in the hands
propped on
her
upbent
knees.

"It's a size ten,"
Rey
called from the closet, where he'd been
inspecting
Tira's
dresses. "We'd better
make it a twelve. Lots of
lace, too. We can
get the same minister that married Corrigan and
Dorie. And it had better be no later than three weeks," he added
with a black glare at Simon. "Considering her
condition!"

"It isn't a condition," Simon informed him
curtly, "it's a
baby!"

"And we thought they weren't
speaking." Leopold grinned.

"We don't know yet that it's a
baby,"
Tira
said with a glare. "She was
having a milk shake for Christmas dinner," Simon
told them.

"We saw it. Goes well with the cabinets, I
thought,"
Rey
com
mented.

"Don't worry, the mouse will eat
it,"
Tira
muttered.
"Mouse?"
Cag
asked.

"He can't be trapped or run out or baited," she
sighed. "I've
had three exterminators in. They've
all given up. The mouse is still here."

  
"I'll bring Herman over,"
Cag
said.
The others looked at him wide-eyed.

  
"No!" they chorused.

  
"About the service," Simon diverted them, "we need to
invite
the governor and his staff—Wally said he'd
give her away," he
added, glancing at
Tira
.

"The governor is going to give me away? Our
governor? The
governor of our state?"
Tira
asked, aghast.

   
"Well, we've only got one." He grimaced. "Forgot to tell
you,
didn't I? I've accepted the attorney general
slot. I hope you won't mind living in Austin."

   
"Austin."

She
looked confused. Simon glanced at his brothers and waved
his hand toward them. "Get busy, we haven't
got a lot of time,"
he said.
"And don't forget the media. It never hurts any political
party to have coverage of a sentimental
event."

288

Beloved

Diana Palmer

289

"There he goes again, being a
politician,"
Cag
muttered.

"Well,
he is, isn't he?"
Rey
chuckled. "Okay,
boys, let's go.
We've got a busy day ahead
of us tomorrow. See you."

Cag
hesitated as they went out the door. "This wasn't done
properly," he told his brother. "Shame on
you."

Simon actually blushed. "One day," he told the
other man,
"you'll understand."

"Don't count on it."

Cag
closed the door, leaving two quiet people behind.

"He's never been in love," Simon murmured,
staring at his
feet. "He doesn't have a clue what
it's like to want someone so
bad that it makes
you sick."

She stared at him curiously. "Is that how it was for
you, to
day?"

"Today, and the first time," he said, turning
his face to her.
He searched her eyes quietly. "But in case you've been
wonder
ing, I'm not marrying you for
sex."

"Oh."

He
glowered. "Or for the baby. I want him very much, but I
would have married you if there wasn't going to be
one."

She was really confused now. Did this mean what it
sounded
like? No, it had to have something to
do with politics. It certainly
wouldn't hurt his
standing in the political arena to have a pregnant,
pretty, capable wife beside him, especially when there was con
troversy.

That was when the reality of their situation hit her. She
was
going to marry a public official, not a
local attorney. He was going
to be appointed
attorney general to fill the present
unexpired
term,
but he'd have to run for the office the following year.
They'd live
in a goldfish bowl.

She stared at him with horror in every single line of her
face
as the implications hit her like a ton of
bricks. She sat straight up
in bed, with the
sheet clutched to her breasts, and stared at Simon
horrified. He didn't know about John. Despite the enlightened
times, some revelations could be extremely damaging, and
not

only to her and, consequently, Simon. There was John's father, a
successful businessman. How in the world would it affect
him to
have the whole state know that John had been
gay?

The fear was a living, breathing thing. Simon had no
idea about
all this. He hadn't spoken of John or
what he thought now that
he knew
Tira
wasn't a murderess, but the truth could hurt him
badly. It might hurt the governor as well; the whole
political party,
in fact.

She bit her lip almost through and lowered her eyes to
the bed.
"Simon, I can't marry you,"
she whispered in a ghostly tone.

"You what?"

"You heard me. I can't marry you. I'm sorry."

He moved closer, and tilted her face up to his quiet
eyes. "Why
not?"

"Because..." She hesitated. She didn't want to
ever have to
tell him the truth about his best friend. "Because I
don't want to
live in a goldfish bowl,"
she lied.

He knew her now. He knew her right down to her soul. He
sighed and smiled at her warmly. "You mean, you
don't want to marry me because you're afraid the truth about John will come to
light and hurt me when I run for office next year."

Diand
Palmer

291

Chapter 11

She was so astonished that she couldn't
even speak. "You...
know?" she
whispered.

He nodded. 'I've known since that night at the gallery,
when I spoke to your ex-father-in-law," he replied quietly. "He told
me everything…" His face hardened. "That was
when I knew what
I'd done to you, and to myself. That
was when I hit rock bottom."

"But you never said a word..." Things came
flying back into
her mind. "Yes, you did," she
contradicted herself. "You said
that you
were glad John couldn't have me...you knew then!"

He nodded. "It must have been
sheer hell for you."

"I was fond of him," she said. "I would
have tried to be a
good wife. But I married him because I
couldn't have you and it didn't really matter anymore." Her eyes were sad
as they met his.
"You loved
Melia
."

"I thought I did," he replied. "I loved an
illusion, a woman
who only existed in my imagination.
The reality was horrible."
He reached out and
touched her belly lightly, and she knew he
was remembering.

Her fingers covered his. "You
don't even have to ask how I
feel about the
baby, do you?"

He chuckled. "I never would have.
You love kids." He
gri
-

maced
.
"I hated missing the Christmas Eve party. I watched you
on television. I even knew why you kept your back
to the camera.
It was eloquent."

"Jill has been a pain," she muttered.

"Not only for you," he agreed. He sighed
softly. "
Tira
, I hope
you know that there hasn't been anyone else."

"It
would have been hard to miss today," she said, and flushed
a little.

He drew her across him and into the crook of his arm,
studying
her pretty face. "It doesn't
bother you at all that I'm crippled,
does
it?"

"Crippled?" she asked, as if the thought had
never occurred to
her.

That surprise was genuine. He leaned closer.
"Sweetheart, I'm
missing half my left
arm," he said pointedly.

"Are you, really?" She drew his head down to
hers and kissed him warmly on his hard mouth. "You didn't need the
prosthesis,
either, did you?"

He chuckled against her lips. "Apparently not."
His eyes shone
warmly into hers. "How can you
still love me after all I've put
you through?"
he asked solemnly.

She let the sheet fall away from her high, pretty breasts
and
laid back against his arm to let him look.
"Because you make
love so
nicely?"

He shook his head. "No, that's not it." He
touched her breasts,
enjoying their
immediate reaction. "Habit, perhaps. God knows,
I don't deserve you."

She searched his face quietly. “I never knew you were
vulner
able at all," she said, "that you
could be tender, that you could
laugh without being
cynical. I never knew you at all."

"I didn't know you, either." He bent and kissed
her softly.
"What a lot of secrets we kept
from each other."

She snuggled close. "What about John?" she
asked worriedly.
“If it comes out, it can hurt you and
the party, it could even hurt
John's father."

292

Beloved

Diana Palmer

293

"You worry entirely too much," he said.
"So what if it does?
It's ancient
history. I expect to be an exemplary attorney general—
again—and what sort of pond scum would attack a beautiful preg
nant woman?"

"I won't always be pregnant."

He lifted his head and gave her a wicked look.
"No?"

She hit his chest. "I don't want to be the mother
of a football
team!"

"You'd love it," he returned, smiling at the
radiance of her
face. He chuckled. “I can see you
already, letting them tackle you
in mud
puddles."

"They can tackle you. I'll carry
the ball."

He glanced ruefully at the arm that was supporting her.
"You
might have to."

She touched his shoulder gently. "Does it really
worry you so
much?"

"It used to," he said honestly. "Until
the first time you let me
make love to
you." He drew in a long breath. "You can't imagine
how afraid I was to let you see the prosthesis. Then I
was afraid
to take it off, because I thought I
might not be able to function
as a man without using
it for balance."

"We'd have found a way," she
said simply. "People do."

He frowned slightly. "You make
everything so easy."
She lifted her
fingers and smoothed away the frown. "Not ev
erything. You don't feel trapped?"

He caught her hand and pulled the
soft palm to his lips, kissing
it with breathless
tenderness. "I feel as if I've got the world in
my arms," he returned huskily.

She smiled. "So do I."

He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but he
brought her close and wrapped her up against him instead.

The arrangements were complicated. Instead of a wedding,
they
seemed to be planning a political coup as
well. The governor sent
his private
secretary and the brothers ended up in a furious fight

with her over control of the event. It almost came to blows before
Simon stepped in and reminded them that they couldn't
plan the
wedding without assistance. They
informed him haughtily that
they'd done it
before. He threw up his hand and left them to it.

Tira
had coffee with him in her living room
in the midst of
wedding invitations that she
was hand signing. There must have been five hundred.

"I'm being buried," she said pointedly,
gesturing toward the overflowing coffee table. "And that mouse is getting
to me," she
added. "I found
him
under one of the envelopes
earlier!"

"
Cag
will take care of him
while we're on our honeymoon.
We can stay here
until we find a house in Austin in a neighbor
hood you like."

"One you like, too," she
said.

"If you like it, so will I."

It bothered her that he was letting her make all these
decisions.
She knew she was being cosseted, but
she wasn't sure why.

"The brothers haven't been by
today."

"They're
in a meeting with Miss Chase, slugging it out," he
replied. "When I left, she was reaching for a vase."

"Oh, dear."

"She's a tough little bird. She's not going to let
them turn our
wedding into a circus."

"They have fairly good
taste," she admitted.

"They
called Nashville to see how many country music stars
they could hire to appear at the reception."

"Oh, good Lord!" she burst
out.

"That isn't what Miss Chase said. She really needs to
watch
her language," he murmured. "
Rey
was turning red in the face
when I ran for my life."

"You don't run."

"Only on occasion.
Rey
has the worst temper of the lot."

"I'd put five dollars on Miss Chase,"
she giggled.

He watched her lift the cup to her lips. "Should
you be drinking
coffee?"