Читать книгу Adopt-A-Dad - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 10

AS A conversation stopper it took some beating. Jenny sat with her mouth open for all of two minutes. There was not a single word she could think of to say.

It was Michael who finally broke the silence. Jenny looked as if she’d still be goggling in half an hour. “Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked, half amused.

“I don’t think I can,” she said breathlessly. She sounded as if it took a real effort to make her voice work. “I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face by a wet fish.”

“Gee.” He chuckled again, the second time in one day. Amazing! He smiled at her stunned expression. “As a romantic, maidenly reply to a proposal of marriage, that takes some beating. Slapped in the face by a wet fish. Good grief!”

She smiled, but her face was worried—humoring-a-lunatic worried.

“Michael, this is just plain crazy. You don’t want to marry me.”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t.”

“Well…”

“But that’s just it,” he continued smoothly. “I don’t want to marry anyone. So it might as well be you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He sighed, and his face tightened. He didn’t discuss his private life with anyone, but there was no getting out of this. Not if she was to take his proposal seriously.

“Jenny, let me tell you something. Like you, I’ve done the love thing.”

“I don’t…”

“Just shut up and hear me out.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he was no longer seeing her. He was seeing events of two years ago, and he was seeing them as though they’d been yesterday. “You know I’ve been a cop?”

“Yes.” Her frown deepened. What on earth was he talking about?

“And I left the force when my partner was killed?”

“I’ve heard that, too,” she admitted. Gossip among the staff at Maitland Maternity had told her that much about him, though Michael’s private life was very much a closed book. He kept himself to himself—absolutely.

“What people don’t know,” he said heavily, “was that my mind wasn’t on my job the night my partner died.” He hesitated, then went on, but he sounded as if it hurt to say every word. The pain was real and terrible. “I’d gotten myself into a relationship,” he confessed. “My first. I’d never had much time for women. But Barbara… Well, she seemed different—special—and I thought I could get involved.” He shrugged. “Okay, so I got involved, and I was stupid.”

“But what happened?” This wasn’t making any sense.

“Dan and I were on night duty, but we’d just attended a call near Barbara’s place. It was quiet, we were due for a meal break, so Dan went for a hamburger while I dropped in to see Barbara.”

“And?” She didn’t want to ask, but she knew he had to tell. The words were being torn out of him.

“She was with another guy. In bed. Stupid, sordid, the sort of thing that happens every day—but to others, not to me. I was so damned angry, so hurt that I slammed out of the house without a word—and then Dan got killed.”

He still wasn’t making any sense. “Would you mind telling me,” Jenny said carefully, “how you getting two-timed by some woman with no taste in men could get your partner killed? I don’t see it.”

Part of his mind registered the compliment, and a weary smile curved the corners of his mouth, but the story was too black for humor. The smile died.

“It was easy,” he said bleakly. “My mind wasn’t where it should have been, and I needed every scrap of attention that night.” His words were savage, and she could tell the night was still nightmare fresh. “We had a call to say there’d been an armed robbery. What they didn’t say was that the owner had shot one of the intruders. So we got to the store and the owner was out on the pavement yelling about a carload of kids that had got away. As I said, I wasn’t on the ball. I radioed in details of the car, and while I did that, Dan went into the store to check damage.”

“Oh, Michael…”

“The kid was lying on the floor, wounded, out of sight of the doorway, and he shot Dan from almost point-blank range,” Michael said bleakly. “And then he died himself. It was a stupid, stupid waste.” He shook his head. “So when backup arrived, I was blubbering like a baby, and I left the force soon after. To this job.” He compressed his lips and squared his shoulders.

“That was the first time in my life I’ve ever tried having a relationship,” he went on bleakly. “My sisters and brother—they’re the emotional hotheads. I’ve always had a sense that I should stand apart. Be alone. Maybe it’s because our birth mother dumped us—who knows? I only know the feeling’s deep-seated and real. And then, the one time I cracked and let Barbara close, the world exploded around me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So you see, I’m not in the market for any sort of relationship. Ever.”

Jenny shook her head. What on earth…? His birth mother dumped him? There was so much she didn’t understand about this man, but maybe it needed to be put aside for now. He was holding himself responsible for another man’s death, and who could believe that of Michael?

“Michael, Dan’s death couldn’t have been your fault,” she whispered. “Even if your mind was a hundred percent focused, it might have happened anyway. Dan must have assessed the risks, too. You won’t always feel like this.”

“Yes, I will,” he said flatly. “I’ve never felt emotional. I told you—my brother and sisters have enough emotion for the four of us combined. I’ve never seen the sense of this love bit, and when Barbara betrayed me and Dan was killed—well, that was the first and last time I’ll ever feel like that. Giving yourself to someone…”

He shrugged again and gave a self-conscious grin. “Enough. We’re not talking about me. All I’m saying is that I intend to stay a bachelor, which means there’s no reason I shouldn’t marry you to get you immigrant status.”

“A green card marriage.” Her mind switched to her problems, but a part of her stayed with his.

“It’s been done before.”

“It’s not legal.”

“Legal enough.” He gave a bitter smile. “We’ll be married. I have a huge town house.”

She gasped and almost visibly withdrew. “You’re saying you want me to live with you?”

“No, but we’ll need to for a bit.” He gave one of his characteristic self-mocking grins. “Call it self-preservation. This way I’ll get myself a decent secretary again.”

“You’d want me to keep working for you?” Her voice was rising to squeak level.

“Not right away,” he said, considering. He’d gone into the efficient mode she knew so well—the Michael Lord she worked with every day of the week. “I mean, I guess the baby will keep you busy for a while, and if you need me to, then I’m happy to support you while you do that.” He gave a slight shrug. “My adoptive parents were wealthy, and I have a good income. And apart from that…”

“Apart from that?” She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

But Michael was totally believable—honest through and through. He gave another wry smile. “Yeah, well, I’m not all that proud of it, but after Dan was killed I took to gambling for a bit. Stupid. The only problem was, I won, and it started getting addictive. Luckily, reality hit home somewhere along the line, or maybe it was my sisters and brother worrying themselves into a white-hot melt, but I was smart enough to get out while I was ahead. It well and truly bankrolled me, so there’s no rush for you to head back to work. When you want to, well, that’s okay, too, and if there’s one thing Maitland Maternity is good at, it’s child care. So there’s your permanent status fixed up.”

“But, Michael…” She was staring at him as if he’d arrived from another planet.

“Yes?”

“There’s no way you’re supporting me,” she said flatly. “No way in the wide world. Thank you for the offer, but no, thanks. I’ve saved. I can support me and my baby until I can go back to work.”

“Okay, then.” He spread his hands as if surrendering. “Fine by me. I’m offering marriage, though, Jenny. If it’ll help.”

She gazed at him for a long, long moment. “Do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?” she asked. “Marrying a pregnant woman, offering to support her, even offering to share your apartment—with a baby?”

“The guest room is on the other side of my living quarters and downstairs from my room,” he told her, still in efficient mode. “I don’t expect I’d hear it. I only use the place to crash at night.”

This was like a business proposition. Calm. Considered. Crazy!

“You think we could run separate lives?”

“I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t offer. I mean…you loved your husband, right?”

“Right.”

“Then you don’t want another relationship yet, either. It could suit us both.” He grinned. “Hey, and it’d get my family off my back. My sisters are always trying to set me up with some woman.”

“But I can’t…” She closed her eyes, and her fingers touched the band of gold on her left hand. “I don’t…” For the life of her she couldn’t stop her fingers trembling.

He reached out and closed his fingers over hers, stopping her shaking. For the first time a hint of tenderness came through the efficiency. “You can. It would work.”

“You don’t want to marry me.”

“I don’t mind. Honest.” He tilted her chin so she was forced to look at him, and the smile in his eyes was infinitely gentle. It gave her a massive jolt.

On one level this Michael was just as calm and in control as the man she worked for—but on another level he was about a zillion miles from the aloof Michael Lord she knew at Maitland Maternity.

“It could work, Jenny,” he told her. “And don’t look too worried. It’s not forever, so let’s not push this too far. In time you’ll be over Peter and want to be free, and maybe…well, maybe I’m wrong and maybe I’ll want a life, too. So then we divorce. But as long as we can stick it for a couple of years and your baby’s born into our marriage, then you’ll have a little U.S. citizen as a baby and you’ll be safe. Meanwhile, tell me what your options are. Run? I don’t think so.”

“I can.”

“You can’t.” He lowered his broad hand to the rising bulge of her pregnancy and placed it there almost unconsciously. It was a gesture of comfort and warmth, nothing more, but it set every fiber in Jenny’s body tingling in response. “You have a baby to think about. I have a stupidly gained fortune I don’t mind supporting you with. It’d take the edge off my guilt a bit. And once you’re married to me, your dreaded Gloria can’t touch you.”

His smile faded, and the look in his eyes was suddenly dangerous. “The worst she could do is give us a bit of unwanted publicity, but it’ll fade. There’s no way she can touch you if you’re my wife,” he repeated. “I’d like to see her try.”

“But…” Jenny’s eyes searched his, troubled. “Michael, I don’t want to be beholden.”

“Can you cook?”

“I…yes.”

“Then there’s our deal,” he said triumphantly. “Let’s leave the beholden bit out of it. I hate eating out, but I do it all the time because I’ve been known to burn baked beans. You cook for me, and we’ll live happily ever after.”

“I’m not living with you.” There was an edge of panic in her voice.

“No?”

“No! No way. Not in a million years.”

“Jenny, this is not for a million years,” he said as he watched the confusion in her eyes mount to panic. “It’s just until we have your immigration legalized, this baby safely born and Gloria off your back. It’s just until you have a breathing space to figure out what you want to do with your life. If you raise this baby in the U.S. there’s not a lot Gloria can do to control you. You can raise him the way you want, and then when he’s old enough, he can make his own decisions about his inheritance. But you’ll be the one who’s influenced him.”

She took a deep breath. She couldn’t think. She was so confused….

The temptation to let this man take charge was irresistible, but to be so indebted… The thought was unbearable.

“Michael, are you sure? I mean…”

“I’m sure.” He wasn’t. He was as confused as she was, but he wasn’t letting on. Somehow he made his voice firm, and he looked down and saw the bulge beneath her dress move all on its own. His eyes widened, and he grinned.

“I’m guessing your son’s in agreement, too,” he said. “Will you look at that?”

Jenny wasn’t looking at her bulge. She was looking straight at Michael. “You realize if we’re married—if people found out that you’ve married me, and they will—then people might assume you’re his father. I mean, why else would you marry me? And the immigration people… I don’t know what we’d tell them. But you’ll have a pregnant wife. Even the person who marries us will assume it’s a shotgun affair. That this is your baby. That’s why he’d be a U.S. citizen. I don’t want you to face that. It isn’t fair.”

Michael’s eyes widened.

Hey, things were happening too quickly here, he realized, doubts surfacing thick and fast. He hadn’t thought this through.

But an image, insidious in its strength, slid into his mind and stayed—an image that had been with him all his life. A woman walking toward Maitland Maternity and leaving four babies on the steps.

And then walking away.

Jenny was fighting every way she knew to keep this baby. She wasn’t walking away, and by marrying her, he’d give her the only chance she had.

“I can handle that,” he said, and if his voice didn’t sound so sure to himself, it was convincing enough to cause a flood of gratitude and absolute relief to wash across Jenny’s face.

“You really mean it?”

“I mean it.” He grinned, lessening the tension. “Hey, there’s a few things we should clear up before we make a final pact.” He thought hard. “Like, I hate custard.”

“We’re not living together!”

“Maybe we have to, for a while at least. Tell me you won’t make me eat custard.”

She choked. “Hey, it’s good for you.”

“You make custard, and the deal’s off.”

She managed a wavering smile. “You drive a hard bargain. But okay. As long as I don’t have to eat pumpkin.”

“No pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving?” He sounded shocked, and she chuckled.

“I’ll make you Spotted Dick instead,” she promised, and his brows rose.

“Spotted Dick?”

“My very favorite dessert. England’s soul food.”

“You eat something called Spotted Dick?”

“Sure do.” She chuckled. “And so will you.”

“What am I letting myself in for? Aagh!” He clutched his stomach in mock horror and then managed a shaken grin. “Okay. I guess I can live with that. What else should we work out? You don’t snore too loud?”

“Nope.”

“Or watch WWF wrestling on TV?”

“Nope again.” She smiled. “You?”

“Nope. Promise.”

“And you don’t decorate your apartment with Playboy centerfolds?”

“I’ll move ’em all into my bedroom,” he said magnanimously, and she laughed again. Then her smile died.

“Michael, you won’t expect… I mean…”

He knew what she was asking, even though she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “No, Jenny,” he said. “No way. This marriage is in name only. I promise you that.”

She believed him. Maybe she was being a fool, but she looked into his deep green eyes and she trusted him. Absolutely.

But she’d been down that road before. Trusting a man whose reasons for marrying her weren’t what they seemed.

“You don’t fly aerolites?” she asked, and there was a faint tremor in her voice.

“No, Jenny, I don’t fly aerolites. Do you?”

“What do you think?” She grinned, her good humor flooding back. Okay, this was crazy, but it was better than the alternative—getting on a bus and heading for Mexico alone. A million miles better. “I’d weigh down any aerolite so much it wouldn’t make it two feet off the ground.”

“Only for a little bit,” he said. “Until the ninth earl is born.”

“Not the ninth earl,” she said sharply. “Baby Morrow. That’s all.”

“How about Baby Lord?” he asked. “Does that make sense?”

“I…” She stared at him in confusion. “I don’t know.”

“We have heaps of time to think about that,” he said, and turned on the ignition. “Meanwhile, if we’re getting married today—”

“Today?”

“Can you think of a good reason why not?”

“I…”

“Didn’t think you could,” he said smugly. “Okay, Jenny, let’s go find us a preacher.”

THEY HEADED for the border.

“El Paso,” Michael said as he turned his car onto the highway. He was thinking as he moved, discarding plan after plan and coming up with the one that made most sense. “It’s the only place we can get everything done.”

“I thought… Can’t we marry here? In Austin? Or even Las Vegas? It’d be simpler.”

She was still afraid, Michael thought as he turned the car toward the border. She was expecting any minute that the men in suits would come at them with sirens blazing and cart her forcibly away to the dreaded Gloria.

“By the time you see any immigration official—or Gloria—we’ll be married,” he said softly. “The advantages of El Paso are twofold. First, there’s a judge near there I know from my days on the force. If it’s for me personally and I tell him the baby’s on the way, he’ll waive the three-day license period so we can marry right away. He’d even enjoy it. Second, it’s a border town, so we can fill out all the immigration forms and get the rubber stamps and signatures you need to make you legal. By the time you get back to Austin we’ll be so legally correct, officialdom won’t have a chance.”

“But…” Her voice faltered. She still looked pale, and he couldn’t help noticing how many times she glanced behind them.

“Jenny, don’t worry,” he told her gently. “They’re not after us, guns blazing. This is not a bad movie. Sure, Gloria will have told them you intend overstaying, but you’re not illegal yet. No matter how much money and influence she has, she can’t bribe the department to throw the entire weight of the law into finding someone who hasn’t broken the law yet. Even if they found us—”

“They’d deport me.”

“They wouldn’t.” He put a hand out to touch hers. “You’re my intended bride, and we’re heading off to get ourselves married before our son in born. There’s not a way in the world they can stop us.”

“Then why aren’t you stopping off to collect your toothbrush?” she asked, and he grimaced.

“Sharp, aren’t you?”

“I have a lot hanging on this,” she told him. “And I need honesty here.”

“Okay.” He put his hands on the steering wheel and focused on the road. He still had the top down. The sun was on their faces, and they were heading toward the border for all the world like a married couple on vacation.

“It’s just that I don’t know Gloria,” he confessed. His brow was furrowed, his red eyebrows beetling in concentration. It was a gesture that was peculiarly Michael, and Jen was discovering how much she liked it. And the sound of his voice…

“Gloria sounds like an elderly, aristocratic nutcase, and my first reaction is to discount a heap of your fear,” he said. “I can’t figure her intentions, but I’m trained never to underestimate an enemy I don’t know. So I’m assuming the worst—that she has the resources to fight for what she wants.”

“But—”

“Once we’re safely married, there’s no way she can touch you,” Michael said, cutting across her protest. “I know how to look after my own. But let’s get married before we go taking any chances.”

THEY ARRIVED at El Paso late, far too late to get married that night. They’d stopped briefly to eat, but Jenny was so nervous Michael had barely time to bolt a burger before she was edging him back to the car.

“I told you, Jenny. There are no blazing guns.”

“I just don’t trust her. She’s known all along what I was doing. Now she’ll be thrown right off track, and I don’t know what she’ll do.”

Her nervousness was infectious, and by the time they reached the decent, plain hotel Michael knew, it was as much as he could do not to look over his shoulder.

He felt crazy to be worrying about an elderly aristocratic female half a world away.

Never underestimate an enemy you don’t know.

“Do you have a suite with two bedrooms?” he asked the woman at the hotel desk, and Jenny looked at him, startled.

“No, sir,” the woman said primly. “We have adjoining rooms with a communication door.”

He thought about that for all of two seconds and rejected it absolutely. “Nope. A twin room, then.”

“Certainly, sir.” She cast a curious glance at Jenny. Married couple having a fight, the clerk’s face said, and the tension in Jenny’s eyes confirmed it.

“You sleep well, then,” she told them as she handed over the key. “And…” She took a deep breath and beamed at the pair of them. “If I can butt in here… You’re such a lovely couple and with the baby so close, well, whatever’s bothering you, you try real hard to sort it out. Those twin beds are on rollers. If you want, they roll together real quick.”

“GREAT!”

“What’s the problem?”

Jenny had plunked herself on the farthest bed and was glaring at her intended husband as if her life depended on it. “She thinks we’re married,” she snapped.

“Get used to it, Jenny,” he said lightly, but there was an underlying seriousness beneath his words that had her staring. “We’re going to have to play this as if we mean it.”

“Why?”

“The immigration officials won’t give you a green card unless they think this marriage is real. The judge we see tomorrow has to waive the three-day license period. He won’t do that unless he thinks this is a real marriage and we’re only rushing it because of the baby. So we convince everyone we’ve been falling in love over the last few months, and the day before you were due to walk out of my life, I proposed and you fell into my arms.”

“But—”

“And we don’t convince them by sharing separate bedrooms.”

“We’re not married yet, Michael Lord,” she said with asperity. “I don’t see why we have to share tonight.”

He paused, but there was no room for dishonesty between them. This was too important.

“You’re afraid of what Gloria can do,” he said. “I don’t know Gloria and I don’t know what her resources are, but I don’t trust what I don’t know, and I want you where I can look out for you. I don’t want you down the hall.”

“You think…”

“I don’t think anything,” he said wearily, “but I’m taking no chances. We’re a couple, Jenny. Get used to it.”

EASIER SAID than done. Jenny was so tired she should be asleep on her feet, but she was so aware of Michael that every nerve in her body was still wide awake and screaming that there was a man in her bedroom—a very large, very…well, very male man.

A man who for the past few months had been her boss and was now to be her husband.

It was too unnerving for words. She went into the bathroom, washed, changed into her pajamas and made a dive for the bed. Safely there, she hauled the bedclothes up to her neck and then glanced over to see Michael sitting on the other bed laughing at her.

“Very sexy,” he approved, his eyes dancing. “Baggy pajamas wide enough to hide a small house. Just what I’d always dreamed my bride would wear.”

“Yeah, well, you try being eight months pregnant and figure how to be sexy,” she snapped, glowering. “Go get your own pajamas on.”

“I don’t have pajamas,” he said soulfully. “The drugstore only carried toothbrushes and razors—not pajamas.”

“That’s your problem.” Her voice was breathless. “I’m going to sleep.”

“You do that, Jenny,” he said, his voice gentling. “You must be beat.”

She was, at that. Why else would the sound of the concern in his voice make her want to weep?

It was too strange for words. She lay with her eyes closed as she listened to him head for bed—listened to him wash and use his brand-new toothbrush and then secure the room.

He didn’t just lock the door. He was taking no chances. He hauled his bed across the doorway so no one could enter without stepping right over him. Surely the precautions were unnecessary, Jenny thought sleepily, but she felt safer all the same.

She lay still until she heard him slide beneath the sheets, pummel his pillows, then settle down. The sound of his deep, even breathing was infinitely reassuring.

She shouldn’t let him do this, she thought, but there was no way she’d stop him. Not now.

“Michael?”

“Mmm.” He sounded half-asleep already.

“I—I appreciate this,” she stammered. “You don’t know how much.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said sleepily. “You wanted rescuing and I rescued you. You have no idea how satisfying it is. Maybe I always knew I wanted to be Sir Lancelot and rescue a few damsels in distress.”

She furrowed through her memory bank. “I thought Lancelot was taken up with Guinevere—the king’s wife.” She frowned. “Did Sir Lancelot rescue damsels, as well?”

“Sure he did,” Michael said easily into the dark. “In his pre-Guinevere days he was quite a boy. He dashed around on his white charger rescuing maidens all over the place.”

“What, lots of maidens?”

“Yep.”

She smiled into the dark. “Didn’t it get a bit crowded? Up on his horse, I mean?”

“It might have,” he agreed reflectively. “I guess he must have had some sort of system. You know, when the horse got crowded, the damsel on the back fell off, the dragon got her and he had to rescue her all over again.”

Silence.

“I don’t think, then,” she said at last, staring at the darkened ceiling, “that I want to fall off. Not quite yet.”

“Then you just hang on for all you’re worth, Jenny,” he said, and he chuckled into the darkness. “And let’s see where this dratted horse takes us.”

THEY WERE married at eleven the next morning.

It was the strangest wedding Jenny had ever attended, though in fairness she’d only been to the formal white weddings the British were so good at. Although her wedding to Peter had been quiet, they’d done it in a church, she’d worn white, and a vicar had married them in his crimson robes.

The man who married Michael and Jenny was a portly little judge in a too-shiny suit. He’d known Michael from way back and greeted him like a long-lost friend.

“I never thought I’d see you facing a shotgun marriage,” he said jovially, and Michael grinned.

“Have you any idea how hard it is to persuade a girl to marry you these days? Independent, single-minded females—”

“Hey, she sounds just like the sort of wife you need.” The judge beamed at Jenny. “Step right up, girl, before he changes his mind. If there’s one thing I’d like to see this boy do, it’s marry.”

So they married, exchanging rings bought half an hour before at a cheap jeweler’s in the next block. A secretary witnessed their signatures, and the entire process took just fifteen minutes.

“And not a moment too soon, by the look of it.” The judge inspected the last of the documents and nodded his satisfaction. “That’s that, then, and I’m glad to make your little one legal.” He fixed Michael with his sternest look. “You look after them, you hear?”

Michael smiled and took Jenny’s hand, for all the world as if he was a real-life husband.

“Yes, sir,” he said softly. “I intend to do just that.”

“Then there’s only one thing left.” The judge grinned.

“What’s that?” Michael asked.

“You may now kiss the bride, boy.” He chuckled. “My favorite part. My wife says it’s the only reason I aimed to be a judge. Go ahead, boy. Kiss her like you intend to kiss her five times a day for the rest of your lives. Or more.”

He had no choice. Michael looked into Jenny’s confused eyes, and he knew this was what he must do. He must kiss her.

But for an obligation, it didn’t hurt one bit. He gathered her into his arms, and his mouth met hers, and what was meant to have been a formal kiss of acquiescence suddenly became much more than that.

He felt her softly yielding to him—but he sensed the tremor running through her and tried to kiss away the doubts and the fears and the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

And somewhere in that kiss, something changed between them—something that would stay changed for all time. Because when he pulled away—finally—after a kiss that had gone on forever and must have satisfied any onlooking judge, it felt as if he was tearing himself apart to let her go.

It was as if in her touch, he was where he needed to be, he thought dazed. Forever.

That was crazy. He needed emotional attachment like a hole in the head!

And Jenny… She looked at him while their hands were still linked. He could see the faint indentation where his mouth had pressed against hers—like a shadow—and he could see matching shadows of doubt and fear in her eyes.

And the fear had deepened.

IT DIDN’T END there. There was a day of legal formalities in front of them. “One of the reasons I brought you to El Paso is that we can do everything at once,” Michael told her. “We’ll get your immigration forms filled in here and take the first steps to get you legalized. That way if immigration officials are waiting when we get back to Austin, they won’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Or Gloria.”

“Or Gloria,” he agreed gravely.

“She’ll be so angry. She seems so demure, so ladylike, but she has such power.” Jenny shivered in the warm sunshine, and Michael’s hold on her arm tightened. She’d been subdued since they’d left the judge’s office.

“There’s nothing she can do to touch you now, Jenny. Nothing.”

“I know that.” But still she shivered.

MARRYING WAS EASY compared to immigrating. The forms Jenny filled in were endless.

She and Michael went from one bureaucratic counter to another, and her guilt deepened all the while.

“You shouldn’t be here. You should be at work. You know you had appointments today,” she told him.

“You sound like my secretary,” he teased, and she glared at him.

“That’s what I am underneath all this pregnancy-bride stuff. Ellie won’t know where you are. She’ll be worried.”

“I called this morning and told her secretary I wouldn’t be in.”

“Did you tell her why?”

“I didn’t give her a reason, no.”

“But you’re always in,” Jenny said, alarmed. “She’ll be worried sick, especially if you’re not at home if she tries to contact you. You call her right away.”

“I don’t need—”

“Michael, people care about you,” she said sternly, finding a shadow of her old autocratic self. “Even if you don’t believe in emotional attachment, they do. Call.”

His eyebrows rose, but the look on her face told him she wasn’t kidding. It was her best schoolmarm look, and he answered accordingly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

HE DIDN’T leave her. Michael wasn’t letting Jenny out of his sight, not until the last of the legal documents had been signed. Instead, as she sat with head bent, plowing through questionnaire after questionnaire, he sat at the back of the office and used his cell phone.

Ellie answered on the first ring.

“Michael!” He could hear relief echoing in her voice, and he felt a twinge of guilt. Okay, he should have phoned earlier, he acknowledged. Jenny was right. It never occurred to him that anyone worried about him—it never had, which was a side of his personality that drove his sisters nuts. “Where on earth are you?” Ellie demanded. “I’ve been calling everywhere and you’ve had your phone turned off.”

“I’m not in Austin,” he told her obscurely. “I’m out of town on business.”

“And would this business have anything to do with Jenny Morrow?”

“It might.”

“Then don’t tell me,” she said hastily. “I don’t need to know. What I don’t know I can’t be forced to tell.”

“We’re not talking torture here, I hope, Ellie,” he said, startled, and she gave a reluctant chuckle.

“Not quite. But the people asking questions…they have all the right authority and they’re very insistent. They say Jenny’s taken off and plans to stay in the country illegally.”

“Ellie, how many illegal immigrants do you guess are in the U.S.?” Michael asked slowly. “Rough guess? Ballpark figure?”

“I don’t know. Thousands?”

“That’d be my guess.” He frowned into the phone. “So why do you think there’s all this interest in our Jenny?”

“Our Jenny?”

“She’s my secretary,” Michael said, stifling the impulse to lay claim to a closer relationship. That could wait. “I’d like to know what the heck is going on.”

“I thought you might know,” Ellie said thoughtfully. “Being away from work and all.”

“Ellie, when did I last have time off work?”

“Beats me,” she said. “I don’t think you have. Not since you started here two years ago.”

“Permission to take the rest of the day off, then? With that and the weekend… That should do it. I’ll be back at work on Monday.”

“Should do what?” Her voice rose. “No. Don’t hang up. I take back what I said about not wanting to know. I do. Michael, what’s going on?”

“I want you to find out. You’re closer to the action than I am.”

“There’s a strange woman here,” Ellie said suddenly, as if she was looking around reception as she spoke and her gaze had rested on someone. “Not a bureaucrat. English, upper crust. Mid-sixties. Looks like Wallace Simpson on a good day. Not a hair out of place. Expensively dressed and smooth as silk. You know the type—or maybe you don’t. It’s a female thing—on the surface polite and sweet and a little bit helpless, and underneath as tough as nails. She’s questioning all the staff about where Jenny might be—says she’s Jenny’s mother-in-law, and she’s worried sick.”

“Is she now?” Michael turned away so Jenny couldn’t hear him. “What’s she saying?”

“She thinks Jenny’s run away because the immigration officers have come. She says Jenny’s pregnant and alone, with practically no money. She told me the immigration officials are trying to deport Jenny, and she’s desperate to help her daughter-in-law and her poor little unborn grandchild. So do I know anything I’m not telling the immigration people?”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Ellie said frankly. “When she asked the staff in accounts where Jenny might be and they didn’t know, she offered them money. A heap of money. To be honest, she gives me the creeps. So no, she has nothing from me except blank stares. I can be a real dope when I try.”

“Good girl.”

“Don’t patronize me, you toad. Just tell me—”

“Watch her, Ellie,” Michael interrupted. “You’re right not to trust her. I don’t understand yet if there’s just cause, but Jenny’s frightened of her, and Jen doesn’t scare easily. And don’t worry. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

“Michael!” Ellie’s voice rose in a wail, and Michael grinned and disconnected.

For a change, it wouldn’t hurt Ellie not to know what he’d eaten for breakfast that morning.