Читать книгу Midnight Promises - Eileen Wilks - Страница 11

She had crumbled, Annie thought, giving the porch swing another desultory push. As humiliating as it might be, that was the truth. One hint that Jack needed her—one more long, passionate kiss—and all her good sense had been burned away. She had agreed to fly to Las Vegas with him that same night.

Another creak joined the one from the porch swing as the front door opened, spilling light across the darkness for a moment. The door closed again, renewing the darkness.

“You hiding out here, or holding a one-woman pity party?” Her next-oldest brother’s voice was deep, but not the bass rumble of Ben’s; Charlie was lighter than their oldest brother in every way.

“Neither one. I’m brooding over my sins.”

“Ben wants to know if you’ve got your jacket on. The wind’s starting to pick up again.”

She sighed. Ben might not be speaking to her, but he was still looking out for her in his own overbearing way. “Yes, I’m wearing a jacket. Have you come out here to yell at me some more?”

“Maybe.” He moved toward her, a lean, rangy shape in the darkness. “Scoot over.”

“It’s wet,” she warned him, sliding to one side.

“I’m tough. I can take it.” His weight added another creak to the quiet night as the wooden swing settled under him. “That was quite a bombshell Jack dropped.”

“Wasn’t it, though.” Jack hadn’t hung around to deal with the aftermath of his revelation. He’d given Annie one more quick kiss and announced that he’d be seeing her soon. Ben, who’d had that “pound now, talk later” look showing in his eyes, had grabbed Jack. Fortunately, Charlie had shown up then and had stepped between the other two men.

Jack had told Charlie to keep an eye on her, and left.

“So,” Charlie said. “Which of your sins are you brooding over?”

“The sin of silence.”

“Ah. You know, I think I understand why you didn’t tell us you’d married Jack. It’s a stupid reason, mind you, and I’m still mad. But I can understand.”

“Really?” Annie gave a small, mirthless laugh. “Tell me, then, because I don’t understand myself anymore.”

“You hate to make mistakes. Either marrying Jack was a mistake, in which case you didn’t want to tell anyone until you fixed it by getting divorced. Or letting him go was the mistake, and you didn’t know how to fix that.” He pushed off with his foot, and they swayed gently. “Which was it?”

“Both. Neither.”

“You still don’t know, huh? Okay. How about telling me how you ended up marrying Jack Merriman in the first place, then?” He slanted her a glance. “According to that lame excuse for an explanation you gave us, Jack showed up unexpectedly at your Denver apartment one afternoon, and that night the two of you flew to Vegas and got married. He got a call from his boss about an emergency with some project of his, you panicked, the two of you argued, and the next day he flew to some godforsaken corner of the world and you flew back to Denver, where you finished packing and then came home to Highpoint.”

“That about sums it up.”

“I think you’re leaving a few things out,” he said dryly. “I can picture Jack deciding to get married at five o’clock and tying the knot at midnight, but you aren’t exactly the impetuous type.”

“If you think that’s funny, try this—it was more or less my idea.”

He dragged his foot on the porch, stopping the swing. “You’re kidding.”

She shrugged. “I was the one who mentioned rings. I just didn’t expect him to jump on the idea.” Annie had always found it easier to talk to Charlie than to Ben, but she couldn’t imagine explaining exactly how the subject of marriage had come up—with Jack’s hand on her breast and her mouth wet from his. “I wasn’t myself. I was still shaken from the assault, I’d just turned in my resignation, and when Jack showed up I was packing.”

“That’s another thing I don’t understand. Why aren’t you teaching?”

How could she explain what she didn’t understand herself? “I am teaching. The evening classes at the community college are enough while I figure out what I want to do. I don’t want to make another mistake.”

“So…you were confused when Jack showed up, and being confused naturally made you propose?”

She had to smile. “Not exactly. I indulged myself with the idea of fate. The timing seemed so…I mean, Jack wasn’t supposed to be back in the country for another two or three weeks, but suddenly, on almost my last day in the city, there he was. And there I was, newly unemployed.” She shook her head. “Fate seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time.”

“Seems like you’re still leaving out something pretty important. Like your feelings, and why you would jump to the conclusion that Jack Merriman was your fate.”

“Sheer, unadulterated stupidity?”

“You were infatuated with him when you were fifteen.”

“I’m not fifteen anymore.”

“No, you’re old enough to know the difference between infatuation and love. Which is it you feel for Jack?”

She didn’t want to say it. Not to Charlie, not to herself. So she pushed against the wooden floor of the porch with her toes, getting the swing moving again, and didn’t answer directly. “Did I mention that we were married by an Elvis impersonator?”

Charlie gave a bark of laughter. “An Elvis impersonator? Was he wearing one of those glittery costumes?”

“Complete with a cape and jet-black hair falling in a little curl on his forehead. And a potbelly.”

“How did you wind up getting married by Elvis?”

“It was Jack’s idea, of course. We landed in Vegas about nine, and it took a while to get the license.” Long enough for Annie’s common sense to wake from the sensual daze caused by Jack’s kisses, but every time she’d been about to change her mind, he’d kissed her again. Jack had swept her to the altar—or in front of a caped Elvis—on a tide of hormones, humor and muddled misgivings. “We drove around a long time, arguing about where to do the deed. It was nearly midnight when he spotted the Elvis chapel and that was it for him—the perfect place to tie the knot.”

It had been so tacky. And so much fun. In spite of the nerves that had made her half-sick by the time they spoke their vows, she’d giggled when the King’s look-alike had drawled out the ceremony. “My favorite part was when ‘Elvis’ crooned, ‘Do you promise to love this man tender, love him true, in sickness and in health…”’ She grinned, remembering.

“But you stopped laughing at some point.”

Not long after the promises she’d made that midnight, in fact. Annie looked away, turning her face into the wind. The cold air made her eyes sting. “We were in the hotel elevator on our way up to the honeymoon suite when I found the courage to ask what I should have asked before we left Denver.”

“What was that?”

“I asked him if he loved me.” She closed her eyes. She could see the expression on his face as clearly as if it had happened only seconds ago. “He looked at me as if I’d suddenly started speaking Martian. Then he gave me one of those lopsided grins and said, ‘Sure. Of course I do.”’

That’s when Annie had known herself for a fool. It would have hurt less if he had been upset or angry, because then she would have known that the words meant something to him. Instead, it had been painfully obvious that he’d said what he thought she wanted to hear.

Charlie spoke quietly. “A man couldn’t ask for a better friend than Jack. But for a woman…well, he doesn’t mean to be hard on the women in his life, but he often is.” He paused. “Do you remember his senior prom? He had three dates that year.”

She sighed. “He ended up going with Ellen Baxter.”

“The weird thing is that none of them hated him afterward.”

“Weird, but not surprising.” Part of Jack’s charm was his kindness. He could be impulsive, thickheaded, careless enough to end up with three dates to the senior prom—yet he hated to 1 hurt a woman’s feelings. He’d taken Ellen because he’d known that the other two girls would be able to replace him easily—and they had. But Ellen had been new in town, and shy. Jack had worried aloud to Annie that Ellen would end up staying home if he didn’t take her. That was why he’d asked her, in spite of the fact that he was slightly overbooked for the occasion. He hadn’t treated Ellen like a pity date that night, either. He’d done everything he could to make her feel special.

Then he’d never asked her out again.

Annie doubted that Jack had any idea how much poor Ellen had hoped that he would want to see her again. And because she knew Jack, she couldn’t help wondering…had he had married Annie because he’d guessed how she felt about him? Because he’d felt sorry for her?

It was possible. Oh, yes, it was only too possible. You want to feel safe, he had said, and I want to make you safe.

Charlie stood. The swing groaned, swaying from the sudden loss of his weight. “You’ve gotten yourself in one hell of a mess, half pint. I don’t think you’ll be able to straighten it out until you figure out what you want.” His footsteps were quiet as he headed for the door.

“I know what I want. I just don’t think I can have it.”

Charlie’s voice was gentle. “What, then?”

“I want to have Jack back.” She swallowed the quick stab of pain. “I want things to be easy and comfortable between us the way they used to be. I want us to be friends again.”

“Then why are you still married to him? Seems like you would have changed that at some point in the last two months if you really wanted to just be friends.” Her brother opened the door without waiting for an answer. Light spilled onto the porch, then was swallowed up by the night once more as the door closed behind him.

It was the third thud that did it.

Normally Jack could sleep anywhere. He’d slept in shacks, sheds, hotels, tents and palaces; on feather beds, cots, couches and a pile of smelly hides tossed on the earthen floor of a herder’s hut. But he’d had trouble falling asleep last night.

Seeing Annie again had been part of the problem. Being in his aunt’s house was the rest of it. Memories that were gentled by daylight often came out to prowl at night, and he had felt trapped from the moment he’d lain down on the bed he’d slept in as a teenager. After tossing and turning, even getting up to pace a couple of times, he’d abandoned his old bedroom and gone downstairs with a pillow and a blanket.

Jack had never been allowed to lie down on the long sofa in the parlor; it was for sitting, his aunt had always said, and for company. He liked to think it was the novelty of stretching out there that had made it possible for him to finally fall asleep, rather than some lingering trace of adolescent rebellion.

Once he had dozed off, though, he’d slept like the dead. So the first series of knocks didn’t rouse him. He just worked the sound into his dream.

Whoever was there knocked again. This time he managed to get his eyes open and glance at the clock on the wall. Good God. It was barely 6:00 a.m. Who could be so blasted eager to see him at this hour?

But he didn’t respond until a single loud, forceful thud landed on the front door.

He flung back the blanket, dragged himself upright and limped to the entry hall.

There he zipped up his jeans, opened the door and frowned at the man who had been his friend since the sixth grade. “I figured it had to be either you or Ben. I hope you haven’t come here to beat me up. I’m not awake yet.”

“I haven’t decided if you need beating up or not. Here.” Charlie handed him a foam cup.

Belatedly Jack’s nose caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee. He took the cup, pulled off the plastic lid and stepped back, inhaling the aroma and watching warily as Charlie came inside. “You’re not going to punch me while I’m distracted by caffeine, are you?”

“Spoken like a man with a guilty conscience.” Charlie hadn’t been here as often as Jack had been at his house when they were younger, but he knew his way around. He headed for the living room, flipped on the light and glanced at the couch. “Camping out?”

“Something like that.” Jack sipped at his coffee and watched his friend.

Charlie had been a tall, lanky teen, a forward on the basketball team in high school. He’d added muscle to his inches as he got older, but he was still long and lean, standing three inches over Jack’s six feet. He didn’t look much like his sister. His hair was redder, and he had a craggy face with a nose that would have done a Roman emperor proud. “I’ve got some questions to ask you.”

“Figures.” Jack took another sip of coffee. It was hot and bitter and just might be strong enough to jump-start his brain. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any doughnuts to go with this coffee?”

“I ate them on the way here.”

Jack grimaced. “That figures, too.” He took another sip. He needed to be alert in case Charlie changed his mind about pounding him. “You might as well go ahead and ask whatever you came here to ask.”

“Did you marry Annie because she’s pregnant?”

Jack choked, coughed and managed to clear the coffee from his windpipe. “What kind of question is that?”

“A pretty obvious one, I’d say.” Charlie set his cup down on the coffee table and moved restlessly over to the window. “This marriage happened awfully damned quick.”

Jack sipped his coffee and watched Charlie pace as if the floor were covered in hot coals instead of bland beige carpet. Charlie was certainly uncomfortable with the idea of his little sister having had sex. “I don’t know why you woke me up to ask such a stupid question. Even you aren’t dumb enough to believe Annie would lie to you about something like that.”

“I, uh…I didn’t ask her.”

“You didn’t ask her. You thought your sister might be pregnant and had somehow forgotten to mention it, and you didn’t ask her.” Jack shook his head. “You’re an idiot, you know that? I hate to be the one to break this to you, Charlie, but Annie is twenty-six years old. I don’t think she’s a virgin anymore.”

Charlie stopped moving. “No, she’s married. To you. And if I find out that she had to get married—”

“Calm down. I didn’t touch her. Well, no, I did touch her, but not enough to get her pregnant.”

Charlie glowered at him. “And just when did this touching take place—before the wedding, or afterward?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said we’ve never been to bed together?”

“No. That would be downright weird. You are married.”

Jack took a healthy swallow of coffee. Obviously he needed more caffeine, or he was going to say something stupid and mess up an important friendship. Jack didn’t fool himself that he came first with Charlie—or anyone else, for that matter. Including Annie. With the McClains, family came first. Always. And however many hours Jack might have spent in the McClain kitchen when he was younger, he wasn’t really family.

Though he was Charlie’s brother-in-law now. Funny. That hadn’t occurred to him before. He liked the idea.

“Okay, so I’m acting like an idiot.” Charlie scraped his hair back from his face. “I didn’t really think you’d gotten her pregnant. You’ve got your flaws, but you wouldn’t have left her to handle things alone if she’d been carrying your child, no matter what kind of emergency came up with your job.”

“Thanks for that much.”

“She might have gotten pregnant by someone else, though. Someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t marry her. I thought maybe she told you about it, and you married her to give her child a father.”

A peculiar feeling stole over Jack when he thought about Annie being pregnant by another man. It wasn’t jealousy. At least, he didn’t think it was, since it was nothing like the nasty twist of anger he’d felt when he’d heard that Annie might be interested in Toby Randall. No, this was a quiet feeling—quiet, but not gentle. Not soft. A stinging gray feeling, like an acid fog. “Have you taken to watching soap operas? That’s the screwiest idea you’ve come up with yet.”

“But it’s just the sort of thing you would do, Jack. Or are you going to tell me that if Annie were pregnant and unmarried you wouldn’t offer to marry her?”

“Well…” Jack rubbed a hand over his face. Charlie was right. He’d do just about anything for Annie. “That wasn’t how it happened, though. Annie wasn’t—isn’t—pregnant.” And his reasons for marrying her had been wholly selfish.

“Yeah? So why did you two get married, then?”

Jack didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to lie to Charlie. He’d already lied to Charlie’s sister, and that had felt bad enough.

When the inspiration to get married had first hit Jack, it hadn’t occurred to him that Annie might want the empty trappings of romance slicked over the very real friendship they shared and the passion they’d just discovered. He’d thought she was too sensible to buy into all those pleasant lies about love that so many women wasted their lives on. On their wedding night he’d found out he’d been wrong.

They had been alone in the elevator, on their way up to the honeymoon suite, and Jack had been skimming his mouth across hers, teasing himself with a taste of the feast waiting for them. All of a sudden she’d pulled back, her eyes serious and scared. She’d asked him if he loved her.

Jack had felt sucker punched. He’d taken a couple of seconds too long to answer. Oh, he’d managed to smile and say what she wanted to hear, but his hesitation had hurt her. He hated that as much as he’d hated lying to her.

“Well?” Charlie demanded. “Is it that hard to come up with a reason?”

“I was hoping to think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t make you want to punch me.” Jack rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. It felt odd. He was used to having hair there. Annie had accused him of having let the barber scalp him. He smiled. At least she noticed him. She didn’t want to admit it, and she would have liked to push him back into his not-quite-a-brother place in her life, but she did notice him. And not as a brother.

Charlie eyed him for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe I don’t want to know. If it has something to do with sex—”

“You don’t want to know.”

Charlie scowled and moved over to where he’d left his coffee. He took a sip, grimaced and set it down. “Damned stuff is cold.”

“Serves you right for eating all the doughnuts. Why did you come hassle me so early, anyway?”

“I’ve got a load of pipe that’s supposed to be in California tomorrow and I wanted to talk to you before I hit the road. Which reminds me—why did you tell me to keep an eye on Annie until I talked to you?”

Jack frowned. “Damn. I wish you didn’t have to leave town right now.”

“Curiouser and curiouser. If you’re looking for me to play matchmaker—”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” Jack ran a hand over the top of his head. No way to lead into this gradually, he decided. “I think someone tried to kill me. There’s a chance that Annie is in danger, too.”

The sun was up, but Annie wasn’t. Normally she was out of bed as soon as she was awake, which was always early. But today she didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to sing with the radio or talk to her brothers. She didn’t want to face the decisions this day was likely to bring. Most of all, she didn’t want to face Jack.

Pulling the covers over her head and staying in bed for the next few weeks sounded like a great plan, she thought wistfully as she watched dawn chase the shadows from her room. But she’d played the coward too long already. With a sigh, she threw back the covers and left the warmth of her bed.

Charlie’s car was gone, she noticed when she glanced out the window, but Ben’s pickup was still in the driveway. No doubt she had an uncomfortable discussion waiting for her.

Annie showered quickly and dressed in jeans and an old beige sweatshirt. To bolster her spirits she pulled on yellow socks—yellow turned up on high, a blindingly cheerful color she hoped would give her a visual punch of optimism whenever she glanced at her feet. Then she gritted her teeth and went downstairs.

Her big brother sat at the kitchen table, scowling at his coffee.

Ben was the oldest, the largest and the darkest of her brothers, both in appearance and outlook. He was a seriously stubborn man with a passion for the outdoors, a quick temper and a huge heart. Some people were intimidated by him. Many underestimated him, thinking a man as big and gruff as he was had to be all brawn and no brain.

Annie knew better. She mentally girded up her loins for battle and stepped into the kitchen. “Good morning,” she said brightly, heading for the coffeepot. “Why aren’t you down at the yard making your secretary’s life miserable, or out browbeating a flunky or two at one of the sites? It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Maybe you could yell at me instead. It usually makes you feel better.” Ben’s temper didn’t bother her. His brooding did. It meant he was blaming himself for something.

“You’re not having breakfast?” he said when she sat down across from him.

She shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it.”

He studied her over the rim of his cup as he sipped his coffee. “One of my crew on the Baker job called in sick. If you’re not already booked up, I could use you. I want to get the drywall finished today.”

Was that all he’d wanted to talk about? “Sure,” she said, relieved, though hanging Sheetrock was one of her least favorite construction jobs. The only one she liked less was laying insulation. She always itched for days after handling that, no matter how careful she was. With Sheetrock she just sneezed a lot from the dust.

“All right, then.” He set his cup down, squaring his shoulders as if he were about to heft some unpleasant burden. “Annie, I think you should move out.”

Hurt jolted through her. Her hand jerked, and coffee spilled. “I—I thought things were working out okay, but if there’s a problem…” Her voice twisted into silence before she could get control of it. “If that’s what you want, then, sure. I’ll move out. It may take me a little while to find a place…you know what that’s like around here, especially with skiing season coming up, but—”

“Hold on. I didn’t mean it that way. The house is yours as much as it’s mine. Hell, I’m not doing this right.” He scowled. It was the expression Ben used for almost any strong emotion. “I’ve been selfish. I like having you around, but it isn’t right. You should be living your own life.”

“But I am! Maybe you try to interfere with that from time to time, but I don’t let you. So there’s no problem.”

He shook his head. “You’re married, but you’re living at home with your brothers. That doesn’t sound to me like living your own life.”

Uh-oh. She’d bumped into one of Ben’s walls. He was usually fairly reasonable in a pigheaded sort of way, but there were a few subjects on which he was stone-hard, granite-solid. Rigid, in other words.

Marriage was one of them. “I realize my situation is unusual, Ben, but this marriage isn’t—” Real, she almost said, but she remembered the way Jack had reacted when she’d said that yesterday. “This isn’t exactly a normal marriage. We haven’t lived together. We haven’t…” No, she didn’t want to tell him what else she and Jack hadn’t done. “It’s complicated.”

“Either you’re married or you aren’t. If you are, your place is with your husband.”

That had certainly been what their mother had believed. She’d followed her husband all over the world, leaving her children with their grandmother—until she’d left them in the most permanent way possible. Annie’s mouth tightened. “This isn’t the nineteenth century, and even you aren’t that black-and-white. There are all sorts of reasons that a woman might not stay with her husband…infidelity, cruelty, abandonment—”

Ben’s hand fisted on the table. “If he’s hit you—”

“No. Oh, no! I didn’t mean that! Good grief, Ben, you know Jack. You might not like him, but you know he would never hit me. Or any other woman.”

“Was he unfaithful?”

She opened her mouth—then closed it again. She had no idea. It was something she’d tried not to think about. Logically she knew that if Jack hadn’t been faithful to their hasty, unconsummated marriage, she couldn’t blame him. All they had really shared was a few kisses and some impulsive promises spoken in front of an Elvis impersonator. But she felt absolutely wild at the thought of Jack being with another woman.

Annie licked her lips and answered with careful honesty. “Not as far as I know.”

“Then you should be with him. Not here.” He leaned back in his chair. “And I don’t dislike Jack. It may take me a while to get used to the idea of having him as a brother-in-law, but I don’t dislike him.”

“You hit the ceiling yesterday when you heard he was in town.”

“That was a knee-jerk reaction. I thought you were keeping something from me the way you used to when you and Jack and Charlie were up to something.” His eyebrows drew down. “As it turned out, I was right.”

The ringing of the doorbell was a welcome interruption. “I’ll get it,” she said quickly, pushing her chair back and standing.

“Wait a minute.” Ben’s hand clamped around her wrist. “You should know that I’m going to send a notice to the paper today, announcing your marriage.”

“You’re what?”

“You heard me.”

“It isn’t up to you to make a decision like that!”

“Now that I know that you’re married, it would be lying for me to pretend otherwise. I don’t like lies. A notice to the paper is the simplest way to handle things.”

“It must be nice to be so perfect,” she said bitterly. “So sure of yourself and what’s right.”

“I’m not sure of much this morning. Obviously I made some major mistakes when you were younger, if you didn’t think you could tell me that you’d gotten married.”

More than lectures, more than scowls or yelling, she hated it when Ben started blaming himself for her mistakes. That was one of the reasons she hated making mistakes so much.

The doorbell rang again. She jerked her hand free, hurried through the living room to the front door, flung it open…and groaned.

Jack’s grin came slow and packed with wicked suggestions. “Good morning.”

She slammed the door shut.