"But think of this, Lucky," she said, her smile gradually fading. "Now that Chase is home, maybe we should put off making an announcement for a while longer."
"Hmm." His eyebrows drew together. "I
see what you mean. It's going to be tough on him to hear that we're going to have the first Tyler offspring."
Taking his hand, Devon kissed the palm.
"You know how much I want our baby. But my happiness is clouded whenever I think of the child that died with Tanya."
"Don't think about it," Lucky whispered.
He drew her up, turned her around, and kissed her while he rid her of the peignoir.
After stepping out of his briefs, he pulled her against him, letting her feel the strength of his erection. She sighed against his lips and suggested that he not waste any more time before taking her to bed.
Reclining together, he opened her thighs and kissed her there, testing her moisture with the tip of his tongue. Then he kissed his way up her body, pausing first to lay kisses across the slight mound of her abdomen, then lightly sucking the tips of her breasts, darkened and enlarged from pregnancy. At last he reached the welcome heat of her mouth and sent his tongue deep even as his sex delved into hers.
Marriage hadn't dimmed their physical passion for each other. It burned hotter than ever. Within minutes they both lay replete and satisfied.
Holding her close, Lucky gently stroked the area of her body where his child was nestled.
He whispered, "In light of what he lost, how can I blame Chase for anything he does or doesn't do?"
"You can't," she answered, patting his hand.
"You can only be patient until he finds a solution to his heartache."
"If there is a solution." He didn't sound too optimistic.
Devon stirred and said in that stubborn way of hers he found so endearing, "Oh, I have to believe there is."
Chase finally recovered his voice. His disbelieving stare was still fixed on his hostess.
"What?"
"Are you going to make me repeat it?"
Marcie asked. "All right. I said that you could save your business and keep it in the family if you married me. Because then, whatever I
had would be yours."
He returned his unfinished cookie to the plate, dusted the crumbs off his fingers, and stood up. Quickly retrieving his coat, he pulled it on and started making his way toward the front door.
"Don't you think it warrants some discussion?"
Marcie asked, following him.
No.
She caught up with him before he could pull open the front door, placing her slim body between it and him. "Chase, please. If I
had enough gumption to suggest it, the least you could do is have enough gumption to talk about it."
"Why waste my time and yours?"
"I don't feel like a discussion of my future is a waste of time."
He slapped the pair of chamois gloves against his other palm, trying to figure out how he was going to get away from there without hurting her feelings.
"Marcie, I don't know what prompted you to say such an outlandish thing. I can't imagine what was going through your mind. I'd like to think you were joking."
"I wasn't. I was serious."
"Then you leave me no choice but to say no thanks."
"Without even discussing it?"
"Without anything. It doesn't bear talking about."
"I disagree. I don't go around whimsically proposing marriage to eligible men. If I hadn't thought it was a workable idea, I would never have mentioned it."
"It isn't a workable idea."
"Why not?"
"Damn," he muttered with supreme exasperation.
"You're forcing me to be unkind."
"If you have something to say, don't worry about sparing my feelings. I told you yesterday that I have a tough veneer when it comes to insults. They bounce right off me."
"Okay," he said, shifting from one foot to
the other, but keeping his eyes on hers, "I'll be blunt. I don't want to get married again.
Ever."
"Why?"
"Because I had a wife. I had a child. They're lost to me. No one can take Tanya's place.
And besides all that, I don't love you."
"I couldn't possibly hope to take Tanya's place. In any event, I wouldn't want to. We are two entirely different individuals. And I
certainly never imagined that you love me,
Chase. People get married for a variety of reasons, the least of which, I believe, is love."
He stared at her, dumbfounded. "Why in hell would you want that, though? Knowing that I don't love you, that I'm still in love with my wife, why would you make such an offer?"
"Because, as you've pointed out numerous times just over the course of the last couple days, I'm an old maid. And even in this day and age, no matter how progressive our thinking, if you're a single person, you're odd man out. It's still a couples' world. People move through life in pairs. I'm tired of being a party of one."
"That argument doesn't wash, Marcie. You told me yesterday that you almost got married but backed out at the last minute because you didn't love the guy."
"That's true. But that was several years ago. I was still in my twenties."
"So?"
"So now I'm thirty-five. A thirty-five-year-
old single who is either divorced or widowed isn't that much of a rarity. Even a thirty-five year-old bachelor doesn't attract much attention.
But a woman who is still unmarried at thirty-five is an old maid, especially if she lives alone and rarely goes out." She cast her eyes downward and added softly, "Especially if she's Goosey Johns."
Chase mumbled another curse. He regretted ever calling her that. He could argue now that the nickname no longer applied, but she would think he was just being kind.
"I know I'm not a raving beauty. Chase. My figure isn't the stuff fantasies and centerfolds are made of.
But I can give you what you need most."
"Money?" he asked scathingly.
Companionship.''
"Get a dog."
"I'm allergic to them. Besides, we're talking about what you need, not what I need." she said. "We're friends, aren't we? We always got along. I believe we'd make a good team."
"If you want to be part of a team, join a bowling league."
His sarcasm didn't faze her. "You've had a year and a half of wandering, and though you haven't admitted it, I think you're sick of being a nomad. I can give you stability. I have a home," she said, spreading her arms to encompass the house. "I love it, but it would be so much nicer if I were sharing it with someone."
"Get a roommate."
"I'm trying."
"I meant another woman."
"I would hate living with another woman."
She laughed without humor. "Besides, God only knows what the gossips of Milton Point would say about me if another woman moved in here."
He awarded her that point because she was right. Generally speaking, people were small-minded and always looking for scandal even where there wasn't any. But that was Marcie's problem and he wasn't the solution to it.
Still, chivalry required him to let her down easy. If nothing else, he respected her for having the courage to broach the subject of marriage with him. It couldn't have been an easy thing for her to do. She had had to swallow a hell of a lot of pride.
"Look, Marcie—"
"You're going to say no, aren't you?"
He blew out a gust of air. "Yeah. I'm going to say no."
She lowered her head, but raised it almost immediately. There was challenge in her eyes.
"Think about it, Chase."
"There's nothing to think about."
"Tyler Drilling."
He placed his hands on his hips and leaned in close. "Don't you realize what you're doing?
You're trying to buy a husband!"
"If I'm not worried about that, why should you be? I've got lots of money. More than I need. What am I going to do with it? Who am
I going to leave it to? What good has it done me to work hard and achieve success if I can't share the dividends with someone who needs them?"
Jerking on his gloves, he said, "You won't have to look hard to find somebody. I'm sure there are plenty of men around who'd love a free ride."
She laid her hand on his arm. "Is that what you think this is about? Do you think I'd want you under my roof if you were content to be a kept man? Not on your life, Chase Tyler! I know you'll continue to work as hard as you ever have. I'm not trying to rob you of your masculinity or your pride. I don't want to be the man of the house. If I did, I would be satisfied to leave things as they are."
She softened her tone. "I don't want to grow old alone, Chase. I don't think you want to either.'And since you can't marry for love, you'd just as well marry for money."
He contemplated her earnest face for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not your man, Marcie."
"You are. You're exactly what I want."
"Me? A broken, beaten man? Bad tempered?
Bereaved? What could you possibly want me for? I'd make your life miserable."
"You didn't make me miserable tonight. I
liked having you here."
She just wasn't going to let him do this gracefully, was she? The only alternative she had left him was to say an abrupt no and get
the hell out. "Sorry, Marcie. The answer is no."
He yanked open the door and went out into the storm. After hours of sitting idle, the truck was more reluctant than ever to start. It finally came to life and chugged home. The apartment was dark and cold.
Chase undressed, brushed his teeth, took a pain pill, and climbed between frigid sheets.
"Marry Goosey Johns!" he muttered as he socked his pillow several times. It was the craziest notion he'd ever heard of, a ludicrous idea.
Then why wasn't he doubled over laughing?
His brother arrived at his apartment close on the heels of dawn. "Hi. You all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Chase replied crossly.
"No reason. I just wondered how your ribs were feeling this morning."
"Better. Want to come in?"
"Thanks."
Lucky stepped inside. Chase shut the door.
He could tell, though Lucky tried to pretend otherwise, that he was under close scrutiny.
Stubbornly Chase refused to make it easy on his brother. After a lengthy silence Lucky finally got to the point of the early visit.
"I called here several times last night, but never got an answer."
"Checking up on me?"
Lucky looked chagrined.
"I was out."
"I gathered that much."
"I had dinner out."
"Oh, dinner."
Chase quickly lost patience with their beating around the bush. "Why don't you come right out and ask, Lucky?"
"Okay, where the hell were you?"
"Over at Marcie's."
"Marcie's?"
"I drove out to repay her for the hospital bill and she invited me to stay for supper."
"Well, if that's all it was, why didn't you just say so?"
"Because it wasn't any of your damn business."
"We were worried about your being out last night."
"I don't need a keeper!"
"Oh, yeah?"
By now they were shouting. Each brother's temper was as short as the other's. Yelling at each other was nothing new. Nor was it uncommon for them to reconcile just as quickly.
Chase shook his head, chuckling. "Maybe I
do need a keeper."
"Maybe you did. Not any longer."
"Sit down."
Lucky plopped down in a living room easy chair across from his brother and immediately directed the conversation to their common worry. "How'd your meeting at the bank go yesterday?"
"George Young is a son of a bitch."
"Are you just now realizing that?" Lucky asked.
"I don't blame him or the bank for wanting their money. It's that sympathetic expression on his sanctimonious puss that I can't stomach.
I think he's actually enjoying our situation."
"I know what you mean. He puts on this woeful, gee-I'm-sorry act, but he's laughing up his sleeve."
"Know what I'd like to do?" Chase said, leaning forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "I'd like to take a big box of cash in the full amount we owe him and dump it on top of his desk."
"Hell, so would I." Ruefully Lucky smacked his lips. "When pigs fly, huh?"
Nervously, Chase's fingers did pushups against each other. "You said yesterday it would take a miracle to get us out of this fix."
"Something straight from heaven."
"Well, uh…" He loudly cleared his throat.
"What if, uh, the angel of mercy looked like, uh, Marcie Johns?" Lucky said nothing. Finally Chase lifted his wary gaze to his brother.
"Did you hear me?"
"I heard you. What does it mean?"
"Say, do you want some coffee?" Chase came halfway out of his chair.
"No."
He sat back down.
"What has Marcie got to do with our predicament?"