Читать книгу Just Say Yes - Mira Lyn Kelly - Страница 19

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR ever-loving mind?” Jeff demanded, his outrage reaching through the phone as clearly as if the man himself had crawled through the line to grab him and shake.

“Would you believe out of my mind, over the moon and totally in love?” Connor asked, shouldering his carry-on as he left the airport newsstand.

“No” was Jeff’s flat, less-than-amused reply.

“Yeah, well, you’re right.” Sidestepping a couple locked in a passionate embrace, he scanned the gates and checked his watch. “I’m perfectly sane. Grounded, with my feet planted firmly in reality, and married to a gorgeous, sexy, intelligent woman who happens to be everything I’m looking for in a wife.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize you were looking for a gold-digging brainwasher, Connor, or I’d have pointed out the throngs of them throwing themselves at your feet for the last decade. What the hell happened, man. Did she drug you?”

Connor’s jaw tightened, his teeth grinding down.

He’d known what people would think. The conclusions they’d draw. And he’d told himself he didn’t care. That neither of them would. Hell, Megan wasn’t afraid to fly in the face of convention any more than he was. But just as at the wedding, that protective instinct had him ready to throw down over those disparaging comments.

“Not even close. In fact, I suppose the case could be made I actually drugged her.”

There she was. Back from the coffee bar, a tray loaded with a couple of roadies and a pastry bag in one hand, a laptop backpack hanging from the other. He slowed his steps, preferring to get this cleared up out of earshot.

“Um...Connor, what are you talking about?”

“I let her drink too much and she ended up blacking out most of the night.”

“Let me guess,” came Jeff’s dry reply. “She remembered the part about getting married, though.”

“Yeah, but unfortunately she didn’t remember why she’d thought it was such a great idea at the time. Took some effort on my part to remind her. Even now, she’s still on the fence, but she’s willing to give it a chance. We’re on our way to Denver to pack her things.”

“You’re serious?”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Jeff’s voice squeak that way, and the sound of it pushed the smile he’d started this call with back to his lips.

“As a heart attack. You’ll have to take my word for it, but, Jeff, I know her. And I like her a hell of a lot.”

Then because he simply couldn’t pass on the opportunity to goad an old friend when the opportunity was right there, he added, “Back on the horse, like you said.”

“Speaking of... Does she know about Caro?”

“She does. I told her the first night.” He cleared his throat and looked out over the tarmac. “Then again yesterday.” He’d been damn lucky she’d asked him about any serious relationships during their refresher course in Know Thy Mate. Caroline had been the dead-last thing on his mind, and something told him it wouldn’t exactly have fostered the trust they were building if he hadn’t gotten that tidbit on the table. And even now, he realized there were details he should fill in. Specifics that didn’t actually change anything, but—hell, Megan’s capitulation in giving this marriage a try had been a close thing. Too close. He wasn’t willing to risk some unfortunate chronology putting her off, at least not until they were on more solid ground.

“Can’t believe you didn’t introduce us yesterday. I want to meet this woman...now that I know she didn’t drag you down the aisle at knifepoint,” Jeff clarified.

Connor grinned and started walking again, raising a hand when Megan turned his way, her too-wide smile doing too many things to him at once.

“Soon. For now, I’m ready to get her home.”

“Good to hear it. But I want details. Start at the beginning.”

“You’d been gone about thirty seconds when the ‘gymnast’ shows up at the table, with this whopper of a line.”

“The gymnast? Dude!”

Megan met him halfway and, apparently having overheard the last bit, arched an amused brow. Leaning toward the phone, she piped in, “I’m not a gymnast.”

Connor ducked and dropped a quick kiss at her temple, relishing the faint blush in her cheeks. “Only, she’s not a gymnast, and it’s not actually a line...”

* * *

Megan woke to the steady thud, thud of Connor’s heart beneath her ear, the constant weight of his arm around her waist and the whirl of a mind anxious to put sleep behind it.

After two nonstop days in Denver, they’d packed the bulk of her apartment, leaving only the barest essentials behind. Laughter and fun like she’d never known had punctuated intense negotiations, strict limits and hard deadlines as a plan for the next three months came together. Sleeping arrangements, travel and social obligations, their respective professional commitments and myriad other details of this life they were embarking on had to be addressed. With so much to do, and so many decisions to make...it had been after midnight when Connor finally carried her over the threshold of his spacious San Diego home and about five minutes after that when they’d collapsed into bed.

Now Megan was blinking the sleep from her eyes, a silly grin curving her lips as the phrase “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” came to mind. Squinting around the unfamiliar room, she located a clock at the far corner and winced at the realization today was beginning at the ungodly hour of four.

Megan made a stealthy escape from the bed and padded down the stairs, flipping on one light after another as she tried to familiarize herself with a house not yet her home, searching for clues about the man she’d married along the way. What she’d discovered was an immaculately decorated showplace, where each room had a central piece of artwork around which everything else flowed. Horses in charcoal tore across an open plain in the massive study, a bronze figurine capturing the essence of a weary rider atop his mount was the central focus in a reading room, and aged leather behind glass in the living room revealed her husband had the heart of a cowboy.

Such a contrast to the clean lines and neat cut of his made-to-measure everything else. At least everything she’d seen so far. But perhaps that had just been Vegas.

There was so much left to learn.

Her mother’s parting words from their previous morning’s conversation whispered to her.

“You’re going to have to step up your game if you want to hang on to this one...”

She shook her head. Some advice.

There was no game. There never had been.

She knew better, thanks to the lessons learned at her mother’s knee.

Turning from the relic of the Old West, her gaze caught on the floor-to-ceiling glass doors making up the southwest wall. The inky black of the early hours had faded to blue and the landscape around them had begun to take shape. Palms stretched like dark cutouts against the morning sky and elusive streaks of white rushed the shores.

Slowly she stepped forward, wanting to put her mother’s words and the memories they spurred behind her. Lose herself in the beauty revealed by the approach of the rising sun. Only, the past had already taken hold. All the “daddies” who’d walked through her life. The great guys Gloria Scott had been willing to do anything—be anyone—to keep ahold of. The wild changes to her mother’s personality and personal goals heralding the arrival of each new man. Megan’s own determination not to let this one get too close—no matter how nice or fun he was—because it wouldn’t last. It never lasted. The tug at her little girl’s nerves once things started to slip. The sidelong looks, the downward pull of a mouth. The hope that maybe she was wrong. That maybe if she was good enough, if she tried hard enough, this one wouldn’t leave.

But they all did.

Eugene, Charlie, Pete, Rubin, Zeke, Jose and Dwayne. Seven husbands come and gone, and still her mom hadn’t figured it out. A person couldn’t make something last if it wasn’t meant to, like a person couldn’t be someone they weren’t. And trying only prolonged the inevitable.

Some were easier to let go. And some—she let out a heavy sigh as the memory of sun-crinkled eyes winking at her from across a worn dock squeezed her heart—the echoes of their absence were so deeply ingrained in her psyche they touched every relationship she’d ever attempted.

Her fingers trailed the wood frame of the sliders as a thread of anxious tension stitched through Megan’s belly. In spite of her determination not to, was she just repeating her mother’s mistakes?

She’d married a man she’d known for less than a day. A man who’d been so sold on the woman he met that first night—a night she couldn’t remember—he was determined not to let her get away. Sure, Connor thought he knew her. But what if he was wrong? What if she hadn’t been herself and he was so caught up in the hard-won victory he was after that he simply hadn’t realized it yet?

How long before he saw past the illusion of who he wanted her to be—and actually saw her?

Would it be within the span of this trial or would it be after she’d finally let herself believe—

“You’re up early.”

Megan spun around to find Connor watching her from the hall, a pair of light cotton gray pajama bottoms hanging dangerously low on his trim hips. The bare expanse of his cut chest was emphasized by the casual way he’d leaned one arm at the edge of the open frame doorway.

“So are you.”

God, he was gorgeous with his mess of silky hair standing every which way and a day’s growth roughing up the perfection of his square-cut jaw, giving him a sort of roguish look to match the smile and eyes.

“My bed got lonely,” he offered with a wink that did something crazy to her insides and reminded her of how impossible it was not to get caught up in this man’s convictions when they were together.

He believed in them. Was so ready to take that headlong dive into their future. Made it seem so simple.

Just jump.

When he looked at her the way he was right then, it made her want to jump too. Made her want everything he was offering. But wanting something didn’t necessarily mean it was right. She had to keep her head.

“Lonely.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well, I also figured you might like a tour of your new home. Some coffee maybe?”

She let out an involuntary moan. “Coffee, yes, please.”

Laughing, he walked over and caught her hand. “My ego’s demanding the next time you make that noise, it’s not going to be because of coffee. Come on.”

In the kitchen, she rifled through the freezer as Connor got the pot brewing.

“I’m not much of a cook, in case I didn’t mention it already, but frozen waffles I can do,” she offered over her shoulder.

Connor closed in behind her, one arm reaching past to swing the freezer door shut. “In a minute.”

Her heart skipped a beat and her belly fluttered.

“Connor,” she warned, taking a step in retreat.

“Relax, sweetheart,” he soothed, catching her hips and backing her to the neat square kitchen table, then popping her up to sit atop. “All I’m after is my previously agreed-upon good-morning kiss.”

Their compromise on physical intimacy.

It had been a point of contention between them, with Megan determined not to let seduction sway her thinking about the marriage, and Connor wanting—well, everything. In the end, neither of them had been interested in the kind of precedent three months of strictly platonic set—trial or not. So they’d settled on a daily kiss count of four, with good-morning, have-a-good-day, welcome-home and good-night kisses to be granted at the corresponding times.

Four. She could totally handle four kisses.

Her body warmed at the knowledge it was time to pay the piper.

Parting her knees, he stepped between them. Leaned in close. Closer. And closer still until he’d braced one hand on the hardwood behind her and wrapped the other around her waist, leaving Megan no choice but to cling to his shoulders.

“One kiss, Connor,” she whispered, already feeling drugged by the sleepy bedroom scent of him.

“One kiss. Any way I want to take it.”

Breathless, she stared up into his eyes. “And you want it on the breakfast table.”

Letting out a low groan, Connor ran the bridge of his nose along the line of her jaw to below her ear. “God, yes. But I’ll settle for the kiss if it’s all you’re ready to give me.”

“Just the kiss.” She’d tried to keep the pleading quality from her tone, but she wanted to be reminded of the chemistry. The magic. What this was leading to if everything worked out. Or maybe all she wanted was Connor’s mouth on hers again.

That cocky smile cranked another notch, Connor’s lids dropping slumberously low. “We’ll see.”

And then she had it. The first soft rub of his lips against hers. The gentle, coaxing hint of the hot demand to come.

God, she wanted this to last.