Ryan pursed his lips and scratched just below the edge of his hat, which he wore cocked low over his eyes. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself? You’ve been a little self-focused, sure, but you haven’t mistreated her.”
“Hell, yes, I have, and you damned well know it. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Well, now. There’s a question. I guess because I don’t like getting my ass kicked.”
Rafe took another long look at his brother’s shoulder. “Yeah, right. I need a month to pack on weight before I take you on.”
Ryan ran a finger under the loose collar of his shirt. “You aren’t exactly puny.” He studied Rafe for a moment. “You’ve changed since you left. There’s a hard edge to you.” His lips twitched. “I’d just as soon keep my face the way it is, thanks. And I try to stay out of other people’s business when I can, my brother’s included. I warned you, and I figured, enough said.”
“I wish I’d listened.”
“That bad, huh? Damn. I was only gone a few minutes. She seemed all right enough when I left.”
“‘All right enough?’” Rafe considered that. “I guess that describes it, not exactly leaping for joy, but not hysterical.” He laughed bitterly.
“Maggie’ll be okay. She’s had a rough time, but she’ll come through this.”
“I don’t know what to say to her when I go back in there.”
“What in hell did you do, leap on her?”
“Of course not. I was just gearing up.”
“I knew you’d come to your senses before you went through with it.” Ryan closed the distance between them, his boot heels thudding on the plank floor. “Move over. If I’ve got to play counselor, I’m gonna sit.”
Rafe slid over to make room. “On second thought, why am I even talking to you? You’ve never been married. You’ll probably screw up your wedding night worse than I have.”
“I won’t have the same set of problems. I’ll sample the merchandise before I buy the goods. Trembling brides are passé. These days the girls give us boys instructions, and I like it that way. Born to please the ladies, that’s me.”
Right then, an experienced woman with decided preferences in lovemaking techniques sounded damned good to Rafe. “Maggie isn’t like that.”
“Go to the head of the class. You’re just now noticing?”
“Lay off. I feel bad enough, all right?”
Ryan leaned forward, resting his bent arms on his knees. He joined Rafe in staring down at the hay scattered over the floor. “So…now that you realize what a jerk you’ve been, what are you going to do?”
“I have been a jerk, haven’t I?”
“Class A.”
Rafe scuffed his heel through the hay. “If I don’t consummate the marriage, it isn’t binding. She can still get an annulment.”
“You’re incurable.” Ryan shoved his hat back to fix an incredulous gaze on his brother. “Would you listen to yourself?”
Rafe shook his head. “I am incurable, aren’t I? Now that I’ve found her, I’m so afraid of losing her I’m paranoid. And not just about her deciding to leave me. This kidney thing, knowing it can go sour if the antibiotics stop working. I had Dr. Kirsch check her over. He says she’s doing well. But it worries me, and I can’t seem to stop hovering.”
“We tend to worry about the people we love, Rafe. It’s normal. You’ve just carried it a little too far.” He shrugged. “Hell, a doctor knows his orders won’t be followed to the letter once a patient goes home. If it were a life-and-death situation, don’t you think patients would be kept in the hospital?”
“Probably,” Rafe admitted.
“I’m sure it won’t kill her if she goes to the kitchen and makes a sandwich. You’ve kept her chained to that bed since she got here, and there have been times I was afraid you might drown the poor girl.” Ryan laughed. “All the clocks in the house being set to go off at pill time is another nice touch. I was having lunch with Becca today, and at precisely twelve-thirty, alarm clocks and radios started going off everywhere. It reminded me of living in the dorms. Like her kidneys will go bad if you’re thirty minutes off schedule with her medication?”
Rafe winced. “Have I been that bad?”
“Not bad, exactly. I think everyone knows you mean well, even Maggie. It’s just so—” He frowned and tipped his hat back. “You can relax a little, you know? She’s going to be fine—if your idea of in-home care doesn’t kill her.”
Rafe laughed. It was true, he realized. He’d been behaving as if Maggie were terminally ill, and that was only the half of it. He considered his actions over the last few days and tried to see himself as others must. The picture that formed wasn’t a pleasant one to face. “I’ve really messed up, Rye. I shouldn’t have pushed her into this marriage.”
“Well, you have pushed her into it. Now you have to make the best of it. It isn’t just Jaimie’s welfare you have to think about now, but Heidi’s, too. If you call it off at this late date and let Boyle take that girl back to Idaho, you’ll have more problems than you can handle, and they’ll have my initials on them.”
“She’s a cute kid, isn’t she?”
Ryan smiled and nodded. “She asked me today if I’ve got a girlfriend. I think I’m the target of a serious case of puppy love.” He rubbed beside his nose again. “She sure looks a lot like Maggie. It’s good to know she’ll be able to grow up here and not have all the same heartaches.”
“Yeah, it is. And that tells me exactly what? That the road to hell is paved with good intentions?”
“You can work this out, brother. You just need to sit down and hash it out with Maggie, that’s all. The results of the arrangement are great. Now instead of bulldozing, move forward slowly, taking one thing at a time.”
Rafe heaved a weary sigh laced with self-disgust. “I thought I could make it all up to her later, you know? Work past her reluctance, make her—well, you know—enjoy the intimacies. And once that was done, I wouldn’t lose either of them because she’d be married to me.”
Ryan nodded. “I know that, and I understand—sort of.” He gestured with his hand. “Don’t get mad, all right? But I’m gonna be flat-out honest here for a minute. You’re an emotional mess, and your feelings for Maggie have you so mixed up, you don’t seem to be thinking straight.”
“What are you saying? That I don’t really love her?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I think you do love her, and, knowing you, probably deeply. You never have done anything slowly or gone into it half-ass. It was love at first sight for you with Susan, too, if you’ll remember back. You’re one of those lucky people who somehow just knows when things feel right. It’s just—oh, hell, I don’t know. You aren’t yourself. You seem almost—well, sort of frantic. Maybe even a little grasping.”
Rafe’s guts balled into a cold knot in the pit of his belly. “Grasping?” It was an ugly word, one that he’d never dreamed might be used to describe him.
“You lost the three people you loved most in the world, Rafe. When we’ve been hurt like that, I think we all have a fear of it happening again. It’s like you saw Maggie, fell for her hard and fast, and saw a way to grab hold. Do you know what I’m saying? That’s no way to treat a woman.” He shrugged again. “Deep down, you know that. Especially not someone like Maggie. She has her own past history and her own set of fears. She needs a slow hand.”
Rafe knew that. It had just escaped him for a while. Thinking back to those long-ago days when he’d first met Susan, he could remember all the hours they’d spent simply talking and laughing together, falling more and more in love with each passing second. Long before they’d ever become lovers, they had been best friends, double-dating, studying together, and talking endlessly on the telephone, sharing their innermost thoughts and secrets.
Rafe closed his eyes, thinking about what he knew of Maggie’s teen years. School, work, and then home at night to do even more work. Had she ever steamed up the windows of a car parked on Lo
vers’ Loop? Or fended off the advances of a horny boy at the movies? Probably not. Hell, no. When would there have been time for her to date? Unlike Susan, who’d been pampered, indulged by her daddy, and sheltered from the harsh realities, Maggie had jumped into adulthood and responsibility when she was little more than a child herself. There had been no one to watch out for her, no one to protect her, and absolutely no one to indulge her.
Instead, she’d fallen into that bastard Lonnie’s clutches, and, unless Rafe missed his guess, he’d put a halt to any semblance of normalcy in her life after that.
Rafe sighed again and rubbed his forehead. His brother was right. Instead of courting Maggie and winning her heart, he had laid siege, fashioning a velvet-lined trap, leading her into it, and snapping the teeth closed.
“Thank you, Ryan.”
“For what? All I’ve done is try to point out the problem.”
Rafe pushed wearily to his feet. “Sometimes just recognizing the problem is half the solution.”
Chapter Thirteen
Maggie’s heart leaped when she heard the doorknob turn. An instant later, Rafe stood in the doorway. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see in his expression. Anger, perhaps? Instead the set of his chiseled features was impossible to read, shadows darkening his smoke-blue eyes to a somber slate that reminded her of the summer sky right before a storm.
“Hi,” he said huskily, his gaze moving slowly over her as he stepped into the room. After closing the door, he leaned against it, the breadth of his shoulders spanning a large share of its width. His black hair lay in wind-tousled waves across his high forehead. His blue chambray shirt was open at the collar to reveal a patch of burnished chest that Maggie knew would feel as hard as a granite slab.
“Hi,” she said weakly. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back.”
He folded his arms. “An exercise in wishful thinking?”
She felt heat flood into her face. Since it was obvious she was less than enthusiastic about their wedding night, she saw no point in making denials. “I’m sorry I ruined the little celebration you planned. Especially about breaking Susan’s crystal. I accidentally set the goblet on an olive. Stupid of me. I should have looked before I turned it loose.”
“I really don’t give a hang about the crystal, and it’s yours now, not Susan’s.”
“Oh.” She wished he would stop staring at her like that. It made her nerves jangle. “Well, for ruining the party then. If you’d like to try again, I’ll do my best not to spoil it.”
“I don’t care much about that, either. It was bad timing.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve heard of being saved by the bell. But by an olive?”
He straightened and moved toward her, his stride slow and unhurried. As he drew nearer, her heart skittered madly.
He came to a stop near the nightstand and rested his hands on his lean hips, the very picture of a rugged male, his long, denim-clad legs braced apart, his firm mouth tipping into a crooked grin. Maggie tried to meet his gaze and return his smile. A twinkle came into his eyes.
“Maggie, you look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers. I’m not going to attack you. I just want to talk to you. I think we’ll both feel a whole lot better once I do.”
She lowered her gaze to her hands, realized she was toying with her wedding ring, and began picking fuzz from the blanket instead. He resumed his seat on the edge of the bed and rested his arms on his knees.
“There won’t be much blanket left if you keep that up,” he observed dryly. “I’ll have to go hunt up a quilt so we don’t freeze to death during the night.”
She didn’t miss the fact that he had made clear his intention to sleep with her.
“Maggie,” he said softly, “can you look at me, please?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze again.
“This has all been pretty hard for you, hasn’t it?”
“All what?”
He sighed and looked away. “Everything, from start to finish. Here you are, apologizing to me about making a mess of things? I’m the one who needs to apologize.” He gave a low laugh. “The hell of it is, I don’t know where to start.”
He dug the heel of his boot into the rug. Maggie watched him, her heart pounding for an entirely different reason now. She had an awful feeling he was about to tell her this had all been a disastrous mistake.
“You’re going to send us away, aren’t you?”
He looked startled. “Away? Hell, no. What gave you that idea?”
Maggie tried to moisten her lips. Her tongue felt as rough and parched as a line-dried washcloth. “I, um…” She gestured limply with one hand. “I’m not unwilling to hold up my end of the bargain. Honestly, I’m not. I was just nervous earlier, that’s all. I’ll—” She couldn’t bear to look at him as she said it, so she went back to picking at the blanket. “I’ll be fine now—and do whatever you want—if you’ll just give me another chance to hold up my end of the bargain.”
“I’m the one who wants to ask for another chance.”
That brought her head up. “You?”
“Yes, me.” He laced his fingers and bent them backward, making his knuckles pop. “I went through everything I wanted to say to you while I was walking back to the house. Do you think I can remember one damned thing? Hell, no.” He shook his head. “Why is it, do you think, that when it’s really important to say all the right things, a person usually says all the wrong ones?”
He looked so genuinely distressed that Maggie momentarily forgot her own concerns. “What is it you want to say?”
He closed his eyes, the muscle along his jaw rippling under coppery skin as he clenched his teeth. “That I’m sorry for being such a jerk, for starters.”
A jerk? A picture flashed in her mind of him pacing the floor during the night with her baby. This man had been controlling. She secretly felt like a commodity he’d purchased to replace something he’d lost. But in spite of that, she couldn’t recall a single instance when he’d been what she would term a jerk. “You’ve actually been very kind to us.”
The smile that crept over his firm mouth was pained. “Kind? On the surface, maybe.” He pushed suddenly to his feet and started stepping off the distance to the fireplace with long strides, the tendons in his legs bunching under the denim of his jeans with every movement. As he pivoted back toward her, he hooked his thumbs over his belt. “I’m no good at this kind of thing, so I’m just going to jump into it with both feet. Bear with me, okay?”
Maggie nodded.
“First off, you’re afraid I’m going to hit you. We have to talk about that.” His eyes went dark with shadows again. “Call it a quirk, but I don’t want a wife who feels afraid every time I scratch my head.”
Maggie’s lungs hitched, and an airless pounding reverberated in her temples. She had flinched away from him. She couldn’t deny it. Oh, God. It was her turn to close her eyes. Despite his denial, she felt certain he was about to tell her this wasn’t going to work, and she didn’t know what she was going to do.
He cleared his throat and muttered under his breath. “I have a bad habit of talking with my hands. Rubbing my jaw, shoving my fingers through my hair. My dad does it. I think it’s something Rye and I picked up from him. I seriously doubt it’s a trait I can overcome because I do it unconsciously.”
“I’m sorry for throwing my arm up like that,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I didn’t think you were going to hit me. Really I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
His words cut sharply through the air and seemed to echo. “No,” she assured him hoarsely. “Maybe it looked that way. But it was only a reflex reaction. You’ve never struck me, and I’ve no reason to think you might.”
“Maggie, I’m not scolding you. All right? You do have reason to believe I might hit you. More reason than I probably know about. And like I just said, reflexes or unconscious gestures are something none of us can control. I’m not asking that of you. I jus
t need for us to come to an understanding about it. I want you to know that I’ll never hurt you.
“I wish I could tell you that I’ve never in my life struck a female, but the honest-to-God truth is that I did once.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I doubled up my fist and let her have it, square in the face. Bloodied her nose, busted her lip, and knocked her flat on her ass.”
Nausea rolled through Maggie’s stomach. She was fairly certain that she’d have no nose left if Rafe Kendrick punched her. “Wh-what did she do to make you so mad?”
“You plan to take notes so you never make the same mistake? Probably not a bad plan.” His eyes took on a distant expression. “What did she do?” He seemed to mull that over. “Well, she scratched me, to start with. And then she hit me. I might’ve let both those things slide, but then she smashed my Twinkie. That pissed me off.”
Maggie blinked and refocused on his face. “Pardon?”
He narrowed an eye at her. “You heard me.” That narrowed eye closed in a slow, teasing wink. “Don’t screw with my Twinkies. I tend to react violently.”
“Twinkies. The kind you eat?”
“Is there another kind?” He got a contented look on his face. “You know, the ones with the creamy centers? I used to be crazy about them. Still am.”
Maggie was still thinking of that poor woman’s smashed nose.
“Anyway, when my Twinkie got smashed, I lost my temper and let her have it. My first-grade teacher called my dad and told on me.”
“You were a first-grader?”
His lips twitched. “That afternoon when I got home, my father escorted me to the tack room where he wore out the seat of my jeans with his belt, giving me one of the few spankings I ever got.” He held up a finger. “Rule number one in the Kendrick family: men never, under any circumstances, hit women. My dad is absolute death on that. I always kind of thought he overreacted, since I was only six and the girl was bigger than I was. But I think it was a lesson he wanted to drive home to me early on.” He shrugged. “He did, and with a vengeance. The lesson took.” He frowned, but his eyes still twinkled with mischief. “I think it’s branded on my ass. I don’t have it in me to strike a woman, Maggie, and I have no respect for any man who does. It goes against everything I was raised to believe in. When I get pissed at you, I may fantasize about wringing your neck, but when push comes to shove, I’ll never retaliate physically. It’s not in my nature.”