His 1-800 Wife (23 page)

He was a virile man. Why had he married her and agreed to her rule? And now that she'd broken it once, and he'd broken it once, did either of them really want it to hold?

She stood up. Water sluiced down her arms and legs. Catherine got out of the huge tub much more easily than she'd gotten into it. She dried herself quickly—at least the parts she could reach—and dressed in the clothes Jarrod provided. She took a few practice steps in the bathroom to make sure she could walk, then opened the door and went into the bedroom.

Jenny came through the open door at the same time. She carried one tray. Christian followed her with a second one. Jarrod sat propped against the pillows on the side of the bed, a newspaper in his hands. He'd obviously spent the night there. He held the rose in his hand.

"Where would you like them?"

They had eaten on the small table before, but Jarrod indicated the bed. Three pairs of eyes looked at her, waiting for her to take her place.

"I'm not spending the day in bed," Catherine declared. She smoothed the covers in place and pushed her pillow against the headboard, removing the message Jarrod had left her earlier. She climbed up without help and settled herself. Jenny set the tray in front of her. Christian set his in front of Jarrod on the opposite side. Then the two of them left.

"They probably wonder why we sleep in separate rooms," Catherine said as the door closed.

"I wonder that myself."

"Jarrod!"

"Eat, Catherine. It was a joke."

She didn't think so. She poured her coffee and added jelly to her toast. Nothing about Jarrod was a joke anymore. She knew the tension between them was escalating. Each time they talked or stayed together for any period of time the need to be in each other's arms grew more and more intense. No matter how she tried to lighten the mood, he'd touch her in some way and all thought processes, logic syn­apses and convictions would be shot all to hell.

Jarrod ate silently. He drank his juice but didn't touch the coffee or eggs. He was asleep before he finished. Catherine moved her tray to the center of the bed. Then she got up and set it on the floor. There was only a twinge in her shoulder. Going around to Jarrod's side, she took his tray and put it on the table where they'd eaten their first night home. She removed his shoes and loosened his clothing, even unsnapping his jeans, but went no further. Jarrod stirred, turning into his pillow. He was on top of the comforter.

Going back to her side, she climbed onto the bed again. She didn't intend to go to sleep. She was serious about not spending the day in bed, but watching him sleep seemed like a good way to pass the time. Jarrod had said he wondered why they didn't share a room, but it was really the bed he wanted to share. This was as close as she could come. She looked at his relaxed face. He'd been worried about her. He'd stayed awake all last night, checking on her.

She inched closer to him, putting her right arm around him and sliding down under the covers.

They were sharing, she thought.

***

Jarrod was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming. He could smell the rose fragrance from Catherine's bath. And he had her in his arms. She felt real and warm. He gathered her closer, burying his face in her hair. He had to be dreaming. He opened his eyes. Blinked. She
was
real. He'd fallen asleep in her bed. And he had his arms around her.

"Jarrod?" Catherine looked up at him. "You fell asleep."

Her voice was the sexy, bedroom voice that woke the blood inside him, draining it from his brain and pooling it between his legs. Her eyes were dark. She licked her lips, making them wet and shiny and beg­ging to be kissed.

Jarrod threaded his fingers through her hair, smoothing it off her face. He heard her breath catch in her throat. Dark eyes, fringed with long lashes, stared up at him. He'd kissed her briefly at the con­struction site yesterday, but he hadn't touched her in weeks. It felt like months. He needed daily doses of her; he knew that now. He moved closer to her, shadowing her face with his own. Parts of her face blurred, but they were printed on his brain. He con­centrated on her mouth. His eyes saw her lips, the small pouting movement as her head raised to meet his.

"Catherine, I know this is against the rules, but it'll take two jumbo jets to stop me."

He kissed her, tenderly gathering her close to him, his arms completely around the part of her not cov­ered by the blankets. Her one arm closed around him. She opened her mouth, and Jarrod's tongue mated with hers. He held her gently, as if she was precious. She
was
precious, more than she knew, more than he had ever told her. He was telling her now, holding her like a mountain flower, one that appears rarely and then recedes for decades. Cather­ine was his mountain flower, his beautiful, blooming bud. She needed his care to survive and he needed her to breathe, to go on living. He needed her softness to contrast the hardness in him. He needed her sooth­ing bud of warmth to counter the winter in him. She was his opposite and his equal. Where he stopped, she started. Where he ended, she began.

Jarrod had to stop. His body was hot and erect. He wanted Catherine, more than he'd ever wanted anyone. It wouldn't take much. He was already hold­ing her. She was ready for him too. Her arms squeezed him, her body pressed against his, even through the covers. If he didn't stop soon, he'd pull those covers away from her and join his body with hers.

"Catherine," he breathed, biting at her lower lip. He could still call her Catherine. He wasn't over the hill yet, but he was almost to the top of it. "We need to stop."

Catherine groaned, continuing to kiss him. He heard the sounds in her throat. His body strained against his clothes. Then Catherine rolled over on top of him. The covers still separated them, but the pleasure that shot through him as her body settled onto his had him reeling. Jarrod reached up and cupped her face. He pushed her hair back and ran his hands over her shoulders.

He stopped. He remembered. Catherine hadn't shown any sign of pain, but Jarrod knew he could hurt her. He'd done it yesterday to save her life, but today it would be willful. Like falling suddenly into a cold lake, Jarrod stopped. He laid her down on the bed.

"Catherine, your shoulder."

"My shoulder is fine," she said. To prove it, she put her arms around his neck.

Jarrod wanted to pull her close. He wanted to bury himself inside her, find the release that only she could provide, but the outcome would be further hurt, both physically and mentally. He wouldn't do it again.

He pulled her hands from his neck and leveled himself off the bed.

"I want you, Catherine; I can't tell you how much. But you're hurt and it's my hand that caused it."

"Jarrod—"

"However unintentional." He cut her off. "You need to heal first."

She stared at him. The dark promise in her eyes nearly killed him. For a long moment neither spoke. The room was noisy with silence. Electricity snapped as loudly as unspoken vows.

"Will you stay and hold me?" she asked.

It was impossible, Jarrod thought. She was asking the impossible. She stared at him with her hair falling over her shoulders, her eyes pleading, her body hot and her mouth swollen from shared kisses. Jarrod stifled a groan of surrender. He was a man, not a machine, and not a
god.
His stomach curled into knots, nerves screaming for release, his mind conjur­ing images of them joined, bewitched by sexual need, making love so fulfilling, so satisfying that he'd never experienced anything like it before. Yet he acted on none of these images.

He moved back to the bed, gathered Catherine to him and lay down. He put his arms around her and prayed for the strength of Superman.

***

Rain pelted the windows. It had showered off and on for the past hour. The sky was dark, and its gloom cast no shadows in the room. Catherine slept comfort­ably beside him. Jarrod listened to her breathing. The medication made her drowsy, and she'd fallen asleep shortly after she'd settled in his arms. Catherine said she wasn't going to spend the day in bed, but that was exactly where she and Jarrod were, and although they were together, they really weren't together.

She stirred. Jarrod saw the pain on her face and knew the medication was wearing off. She was about to wake up. He got up and went into the bathroom to find the pills the doctor had given her. He didn't find them in the obvious place. The medicine cabinet had aspirin and cold tablets, but no prescription med­icine. He opened one drawer on the right of the sink. Inside was a curling iron, hairpins and other paraphernalia for grooming the hair.

He opened the left-side drawer and his heart stopped, then started again with a thud. the pink and white box with Accuracy Pregnancy Kit written on it jumped out at him like a sleeping snake. Catherine had a home pregnancy test kit. Why? He picked up the box and stared at it. His heart pounded, but he forced himself to calm down. She could have had the kit for months, he rationalized. Because he found it didn't mean she'd bought it recently. Looking down, he spied the slip of paper lying in the bottom of the drawer. It was a receipt. He looked at the date. She hadn't had it for months, only a few weeks. She'd bought it the day after they returned from Montana, the day after they'd made love. Was Catherine preg­nant? Why hadn't she told him?

He heard something and turned around. Catherine stood in the doorway. She looked from his face to the box in his hand and back.

"Are you pregnant?" he asked. His voice was calm, controlled, in no way betraying the turmoil that raged inside him. She looked frightened.

"No."

The single word was all she offered. "But you thought you were?" He shoved the box toward her.

"Yes." She didn't look down, but bore his stare.

"Were you going to tell me?"

"I hadn't decided."

"What were you going to do? Have an abortion and keep everything to yourself?"

"I would never do that!" The anger flashing in her eyes was genuine.

"How would I know that?" he shouted. Yet, Jarrod thanked God she wouldn't have aborted the preg­nancy. He let out a sigh. Suddenly the small bathroom was too confining. He needed something large and open. Some place he could breathe.

He pushed the box into Catherine's hand and passed her. "I'm going out," he said.

"Jarrod, we need to talk."

"Yes, we do, but we should have talked when you bought that kit. It's a little late now."

He slammed the bedroom door on his way out. Jarrod was angry, beyond angry. He had to leave the house to be alone, and he dared not drive. He left, walking east toward the end of the island, toward the Atlantic and England, six thousand miles away. If he could, he'd surely keep walking, past all the rock walls, through the sand, onto the cliffs and over the water until he was far enough away from Newport that his anger would subside. He estimated that would be somewhere over London's Tower Bridge.

He walked past the new homes on the point, places built with the same style and architecture of the other houses on the island. They appeared to have sat there since the first East India Company ship arrived from England in 1670. Yet they were as new as last year and those under construction, this year.

The rain coated his clothes, falling like a mist to shroud him and distort his view, but Jarrod kept walk­ing. He knew this place well. He could identify it as a surveyor, knowing the line and tilt of the earth. The sky darkened, rolling over the blue areas of the heavens like a giant caterpillar leveling the earth. In seconds, he was soaked to the skin. He didn't care. He pushed forward into the night, a ship taking no heed to the dangers of a rocky coast. Catherine thought she was pregnant and she hadn't mentioned it. In all the nights she'd sat curled in the chair across from him, she'd kept this secret to herself.

Jarrod could see the child in his mind. He walked faster, trying to outrun the image, but it moved with him, slowed when he slowed, ran when he ran.

That was his problem. He stopped, staring at the dark sky, not feeling the rain pounding against his skin. He wanted a child.

With Catherine.

***

"Jarrod!" Catherine shouted. The wind took her voice. She saw him, but he wasn't looking at her. He walked across the grass, heading toward the ocean, head bowed and hands in the pockets of his jacket. The area was deserted and dark in the storm. She got out of the car. Rain drenched her.

"Jarrod." It was no good trying to call him over the wind and the ocean. Everything was against her. Not telling him was a mistake. She had been afraid, and she'd wanted to be sure. There was no reason to say anything before she knew the truth. Her reasons sounded like weak excuses now, as if she'd tried to cover up some terrible secret and, like all cover-ups, the disclosure pointed at much more guilt than was true or intended.

Catherine ran across the marshy grass, holding her dress, which had caught between her legs and tried to trip her. She called Jarrod's name, but he didn't hear her until she got close to him.

"Jarrod, stop."

"What are you doing here?" He turned around to face her.

"I need to talk to you."