Hired by Her Husband (11 page)

“Are you all right?” George demanded. Then, “You’re not all right.” He crouched down in front of her so she was staring again into his beautiful eyes.

“I’m f-fine. Just—” Dazed? Confused? But he’d said it twice. She couldn’t have misheard. Still, even sitting down, she couldn’t make sense of it. Her mind reeled. “You don’t mean that,” she said finally.

“I’m not in the habit of proposing marriage if I don’t mean it,” George said stiffly.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant—why?” It was almost a wail. She couldn’t help it.

“Why? Because it makes sense. You’re alone. You’re having a child—my cousin’s child. He can’t marry you now—”

“He didn’t want to marry me anyway.”

George gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “I do. I can.” So saying, he dropped into a crouch next to her chair and took her hand again, looking at her earnestly, intently. “I can, Sophy,” he repeated in a low tone that spoke more to her than all his words combined.

Sophy could see in his eyes that he was serious. She studied
his gaze, trying to make sense of what he was suggesting. It was outrageous, ridiculous. And terribly, terribly tempting.

She didn’t know George. He didn’t love her. He barely even knew her, so he couldn’t possibly love her. And she didn’t love him.

But she
could,
a tiny voice inside her spoke up.
She could love him.

And heaven help her, she listened.

Maybe it was that her hormones had gone crazy during her pregnancy. Maybe it was how lonely she had been feeling lately. Maybe it was not wanting to raise her baby alone. Maybe it was how intently George was looking at her, how warm and strong his fingers felt as they wrapped around hers.

There were countless reasons. All sane and sensible and logical—reasons that, as he crouched beside her, George spelled out for her.

But Sophy knew that the tipping point had already happened. It had been his tone of voice when he’d said, “I can, Sophy.”

His tone made her believe not just that he could, but that he wanted to.

Call her weak, call her foolish, call her naive. Call her hopelessly hopeful. All of the above.

“I don’t know,” she faltered.

His fingers squeezed hers. “You do know, Sophy,” he said in that same tone. “Say yes.”

She said yes. Holding hard to George’s strong hard hand, she took a chance—on love. She leapt with eyes closed and heart wide open.

Yes. Take me. Take us. Love us. And let us love you in return.

They had married two weeks later. The ceremony was in the judge’s chambers. Obviously not a big wedding. There was
a small reception after at his parents’ house. Mostly family. Mostly his.

Of hers only Natalie’s mother, Laura, had been able to come. It hadn’t mattered to Sophy. She was happy to have George’s family become her family.

When she said her vows, she meant them. And when she looked up into George’s grave handsome face and thought of spending her life with him, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt right.

Almost like a dream come true.

Of course it wasn’t. And Sophy knew better than to expect that.

But she could try to make it come true. She was going to make him so happy, be the perfect wife. And then maybe…Well, a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

After the wedding George had moved into her place because it was near her work. He never said how far it was from his, but the distance didn’t seem to bother him. George really never said much about his work at all. And whenever Sophy had asked about it, his replies were vague.

She took the hint and never pressed, not even when, at his parents’ late summer party, his father happened to mention the job George would have at the University of Uppsala.

“Uppsala?” Sophy had echoed. She hadn’t wanted to say, “Where’s that?” So she looked it up when she got home. It turned out Uppsala was in Sweden.

Sweden. Yet he’d never mentioned it to her.

But then they’d only been married a month by that time. And theirs had hardly been a normal courtship and marriage. So if he hadn’t mentioned it, maybe he’d just been too busy. And she’d been consumed with the last weeks of her pregnancy. Maybe he was saving it for after the baby was born when they could make plans.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t mind where they went. She’d always wanted to visit Sweden.

They did talk about a lot of other things—baseball, art, astronomy, food, music, movies, books—and the baby.

Because to her astonishment, in George Sophy finally found someone besides herself who cared about her baby.

At first she didn’t talk about her pregnancy or the baby. She didn’t think he’d want to know. Besides, she was terribly self-conscious about the way she looked as her body changed and her belly got bigger every day. A major turnoff, she’d have thought.

It wasn’t as if he’d ever seen her naked before the baby. They had never been lovers. And the advanced stage of her pregnancy had precluded that happening any time soon.

Still she caught George’s gaze studying her frequently, and he didn’t seem put off by what he saw. Once when he was looking, the baby had visibly kicked and George’s eyes had widened.

“Is the baby kicking?” he asked. “Does it hurt?”

And impulsively, Sophy had taken his hand and placed it on her belly to let him feel the baby’s kicks. And watched his eyes widen even further, as if he felt something miraculous.

After that he began to ask questions. Then he began to read all her books on pregnancy and childbirth and asked even more questions—so many that she finally suggested, “Why don’t you just come to my appointment with me?”

She’d been kidding, but he’d nodded. “Thanks, I will.”

He’d attended the last few in the series of prenatal classes that she’d been attending. Sophy had been doubtful at first about his interest. But he’d never missed a class. He’d helped her with her exercises and practiced breathing with her. He even massaged her back when it ached and her feet when she’d stood on them too long.

And when she finally went into labor, he was right there with her, holding her hand, letting her strangle his, and when the nurse had put Lily in his arms, there had been a look on
his face that had allowed Sophy to believe he loved Lily as much as she did, that everything would be all right.

Too good to be true?

In retrospect it felt like that.

Not at first, though. At first it had felt wonderful—or as wonderful as it could feel while Lily was colicky and fretful, Sophy was despairing of ever being able to cope and George, though working long hours, was there when she needed him, made her laugh, gave her the support she needed.

One night she was so exhausted, had no milk left, and Lily didn’t want to nurse anyway. Sophy was at her wit’s end when George said, “Let me take her. You get some sleep.”

She hadn’t wanted to be a bother to him, hadn’t wanted to make his life difficult, but bursting into tears, which was the other alternative, wouldn’t improve matters. She handed colicky Lily to George.

He snugged her against his bare chest, bent his head and kissed the top of hers lightly. “Come on, Lil, ol’ girl. Let’s go for a walk.”

“Oh, but—” Sophy began.

“Just around the apartment,” George assured her. “I’m hardly dressed to take her out.” He was wearing pajama bottoms, nothing else.

Sophy knew he wasn’t going anywhere. She just felt so helpless, and so perilously close to tears as Lily wailed on.

“Go to sleep,” George said. “She’ll be fine. I’ll give her a bottle if I have to.”

“But—”

“You’ve expressed milk. I know how to warm a bottle. Sleep, Soph. Sleep.”

He carried Lily out of the room, crooning to her. Sophy watched them go, felt a stray tear slip down her cheek, felt like a failure. Knew she would not sleep.

She listened to Lily’s wails disappearing as George carried her out of the room, then sank back into the pillows, miserable.
Turning onto her side, she drew George’s pillow against her and buried her face into it to breathe deeply of the scent of him that lingered. And against all odds, she slept.

When she woke up it was to silence. No baby crying. No sound of George’s light breathing from the other side of the bed. No George at all.

Lily wasn’t in her cradle, either. A glance at the clock told Sophy that she’d slept two hours—a lifetime in the night of a fretful baby. She threw back the light cover and went to look for them.

They hadn’t gone far. She found them in the living room. George was sprawled in the recliner, his hair tousled, his lips slightly parted, sound asleep. And Lily, fretful no longer, was lying on his bare chest with both of George’s arms wrapped securely around her, fast asleep as well.

Sophy just stood there and stared, awed and in love—deeply in love—with both of them.

They might not have started out the way most families did, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a happy ending. She loved him, after all. And she began to think George loved her, too. But until the night before Lily’s baptism, she hadn’t really dared to believe it was true.

That night, shortly after Lily’s two-month birthday—only a day after the doctor told her they could “resume marital relations”—George and she made love.

She had felt hot and cold and a little panicky at the doctor’s assurance that making love would be fine. Physically, of course, she was sure it would be. Emotionally she hadn’t been nearly as sanguine. What George thought, she didn’t know. He never said. He would talk at length about planets, stars and the immutable laws of nature as well as about baseball and art and Lily, but he didn’t talk about feelings at all.

There was no talk, only actions. It started simply enough—with concern and gentleness. A soothing back rub like many he had given her that soon became neither soothing nor
confined to her back. His hands ventured further that night. They played in her hair at the nape of her neck. They traced the curve of her ear. They ran down her sides and over the swell of her buttocks.

They made her squirm with longing. She wanted more. She wanted him.

And as she turned and touched him, it was clear he wanted her, too. She knew, of course, after Ari, what a man wanted. But as in every other way, George was unlike Ari in the way he made love. Certainly he wanted what Ari wanted in one respect. But his lovemaking wasn’t all about that. He gave as much as he took. And he let Sophy give as well.

It began slowly, but the fire soon burned hot. George’s kisses, formerly gentle, now grew hungry and urgent, his touch compelling. His hands moved over her body, learning her secrets, sharing his own with her. When her legs parted and he slid between them, she knew a sense of rightness. And when he braced himself above her and began to move, she met him eagerly, drew him in.

And when they shattered in each other’s arms, Sophy knew a sense of completion that she’d never felt before. At that moment she’d understood how two separate beings could become one.

She and George were one. She believed it.

Clutching him to her, then running her hands over his sweat-slick back, she shut her eyes tightly against the tears of joy she felt. But she couldn’t quell them and they spilled onto her cheeks. She knew George tasted them when he kissed her.

He didn’t speak, just pulled back enough to look down at her.

She opened her eyes and saw the expression on his face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—” But how could she explain?

George touched her cheek gently, then rolled off onto his back and lay beside her silently. Finally he said, “It’s all right.”
He turned toward her and stroked her hair lightly. “It will be all right. Lily will be awake before we know it. Let’s get some sleep while we still can.” Then he spooned his body around hers and said no more.

It will be all right.
It already
was
all right. More than all right, Sophy thought as she had hugged the words to her heart in the same way she had hugged George’s arm against her breasts.

But it hadn’t been.

The castle of love and happily ever after that she’d dared to believe in that night had crumbled the very next day.

Now nearly four years later, Sophy knew she was in danger again.

All those old feelings were welling up. She had a soft spot for George. He was gorgeous, charming, brilliant and responsible. Everything a woman would desire.

He’d stepped in and helped her when she most needed his help. He’d married her and allowed her to fall in love with him and to believe he might actually love her, too.

It hadn’t been true.

She needed to remember that because discovering the truth had hurt too much the last time. And once was definitely enough.

She wasn’t about to risk her heart again.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
she began building a wall.

Not a literal wall, of course. But a professional wall. All nice and neat and absolutely appropriate. He was the client, she was the “rented wife” for the next two weeks or so. And she was determined to make sure they both remembered that.

So she fixed his breakfast before he came downstairs, set a place for him at the bar in the kitchen and placed a folded copy of the morning’s
Times
next to the place mat.

When he appeared, she was on the phone, which worked out well. She didn’t have to make chitchat with him, didn’t have to even acknowledge their encounter last night. She just gave him a wave and pointed to the kitchen and kept on talking.

When she got off the phone, she went into the kitchen to find him staring into the open oven where she’d left his meal to keep warm.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

“Your breakfast,” she said briskly. “I have a lot of work to do this morning. Fridays I do the billing and fill out all the payroll sheets. I’ll be doing some laundry today, too. Changing sheets. Lily’s coming tomorrow. She can sleep with me.”

He straightened up. “There’s a bedroom at the other end
of the hall from mine that Tallie’s boys use when they’re here.”

She’d seen it, but she didn’t want Lily up there when she was on the floor below. “She’ll be fine with me.”

George’s jaw set. “Maybe you could let her decide.”

Sophy gave him a bright smile. “I’ll do that.” No problem at all. She was quite confident Lily would rather be with her rather than in a strange room in a house she wasn’t familiar with. “Where’s the laundry you need washed?”

He gave her a hard look that told her he knew exactly what she was doing, but he told her where the laundry was and then he limped past her to head for the stairs to his office.

“What about your breakfast?” she said.

“Not hungry.”

She didn’t talk to him the rest of the morning. She vacuumed and dusted and did the breakfast dishes, dumping out the food he didn’t eat and muttering under her breath as she did so. The washing machine and dryer were at the other end of the floor on which he had his office, and when she went past, she could see him in there working at the computer.

She didn’t stop and ask how he was feeling or make any comments at all because that would have undermined her intent to remain professional. George didn’t look her way, either—which suited her fine.

She made his lunch at twelve-thirty and did go downstairs then to tell him it was ready.

He said, “What are we having?”

“You’re having a ham sandwich and some coleslaw. I’ve already eaten.” She folded her arms across her chest.

He tipped back in his chair and regarded her from beneath hooded lids. “What did you have?”

She felt a flush rise to her cheeks. “A sandwich.”

“Ham?”

She pressed her lips together and made an affirmative sound.

He raised a brow. “And a little coleslaw?”

“I’m going to be busy,” she said sharply. “We don’t have to share meals!”

“I’m not paying you enough to share meals with me?”

“Damn it, George! Stop twisting things into meaning what they don’t.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he said mildly. He shoved himself to his feet and started toward the stairs.

Sophy, who was standing between him and them, stepped quickly back into the doorway of the laundry room to give him room to pass.

He paused when he reached her, so close he nearly touched her. But he didn’t. He just looked down at her. “Is it that distasteful, Sophy?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, of course not. I just—”

“You don’t have to explain.” His voice was curiously flat, and he turned and started up the stairs.

Sophy didn’t go after him and when she came upstairs fifteen minutes later with a basket of folded laundry, the plate was empty, the sandwich was gone and so was George.

She felt an unwelcome stab of worry. She checked in the living room, but he wasn’t there. Neither was Gunnar. Surely he hadn’t taken the dog for a walk? He was moving better, but he still wasn’t fit. Annoyed, she checked the back garden. He could have taken Gunnar down the steps from the small TV room behind the living room. He hadn’t. She checked out the front door, too, scanning the entire block for any sign of him.

But he’d obviously got enough of a head start that she didn’t see him at all. Damn him! How was she supposed to keep an eye on him if he didn’t tell her where he was going?

She was still fuming when the phone rang. It was Natalie giving her details about their flight tomorrow, then asking how things were.

“Just peachy,” Sophy muttered.

“George acting up?”

“George is gone.”

“Gone? I thought he hurt his ankle. I thought he had concussion. I thought you were supposed to be watching him.”

“Yes, well—” Sophy hunched her shoulders, feeling guilty “—I was putting laundry in downstairs, and when I got up, he wasn’t here.”

“You’d better find him then,” Natalie said. “Lily is dying to see him.”

“Lily doesn’t even know him,” Sophy protested, though she certainly knew lots about him. “It’s Gunnar she’ll want to take home with us.”

“She’s looking forward to seeing Gunnar, too,” Natalie said. “And you,” she added diplomatically.

“Thanks,” Sophy said drily.

Natalie laughed. “That goes without saying. She’s missed you tons. It’s good she’s coming. Now go find George so he’s there when we get there.”

“I’ll be at the airport to meet you.”

“Not necessary,” Natalie said.

“Yes, it is,” Sophy countered firmly. “I need to prepare Lily.”

Natalie hesitated, as if she might argue, but then simply replied, “Suit yourself.”

When they hung up, George still hadn’t returned. Two hours—and more trips to the door to peer out looking for him than Sophy wanted to admit—and he still wasn’t there.

She was seriously annoyed now. What did he think he was trying to prove? Just because she’d tried to put them on a business footing, he didn’t have to walk out. She was still supposed to be looking after him!

She didn’t know what to do. She could hardly call Sam and say she’d lost his patient. And she refused to call Tallie and ask if George had gone to see her. The last thing she wanted to do was upset his sister in the last weeks of her pregnancy.
She remembered how every little molehill had become Mount Everest when she was due to have Lily. She could just imagine what thoughts of a missing brother with a head injury might induce.

She started dinner because the pulled pork she was fixing had to cook several hours. Once it was in the Crock-Pot, she made herself focus on the weekly billing work she had to do for Rent-a-Wife.

Once every bit of billing and electronic filing had been done, she went back into the kitchen, began to shred the pork, and then made Lily’s favorite chocolate oatmeal cookies, partly because she knew her daughter would be delighted, but mostly to give herself something to do while she gnashed her teeth and muttered out loud about George.

She washed the kitchen floor, folded the laundry, then, still muttering, hoisted the full laundry basket into her arms and trudged upstairs. She put all her things away, then carried George’s laundry up to his room. She could put the clean sheets on his bed while she was here.

Or she could have if George himself hadn’t been sprawled facedown, fast asleep on the mattress pad.

Sophy stopped dead in the doorway, staring in disbelief.

He was
here?
He’d been here the whole afternoon?

She sucked in a sharp breath. Gunnar, lying beside George with his head resting on George’s back, lifted it to look at her and thump his tail once or twice.

The movement of the dog or the sound of her indrawn breath woke George up. He made a groaning, waking sound and she saw him flex his shoulders, then open his eyes. Catching sight of her in the doorway, he rolled over.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t know you were here. I—I thought you’d gone out.”

“Wished?” George asked, his voice still rough with sleep. He didn’t get up, but folded his arms under his head and looked up at her.

Sophy shook her head. “No,” she said truthfully before she could decide if that was a good idea or not. But she was so relieved to see him she couldn’t have dissembled if she’d tried.

“Good.” There was just a quiet satisfaction in his tone that touched her somewhere deep within. “Are we eating dinner together?”

“I didn’t want to presume,” she began.

“We’re eating dinner together,” he decided firmly. He pulled an arm out from behind his head and rubbed his belly in anticipation as he sighed. “It smells great. I’m starving.”

“You had a sandwich—”

“I gave it to Gunnar.”

They ate dinner together while Sophy kept the conversation on neutral impersonal topics—the weather, the Yankees’ chances to win another pennant, the reviews of a new Broadway play.

George let her. It was enough, he told himself, to share a meal and savor both the food and the conversation.

But of course, it wasn’t.

Not even close. He wanted it all.

But he’d jumped the gun four years ago, had manipulated Sophy into a marriage she hadn’t really wanted. And he wasn’t going to do it again. She deserved better. So did he. He had learned his lesson.

Or, damn it, he was trying to.

But it was difficult. Beyond difficult. Next to impossible to sit there and discuss the Yankees—or worse, a play he had no intention of seeing—when he didn’t give a damn about either of them. Only about her.

Patience,
he advised himself. At least they were sharing a meal, even if they weren’t, at the moment, sharing a bed.

It wasn’t just the lack of sharing a bed that bothered him. It was being shut out of her life, being told by her actions
as well as her words, that he didn’t matter, that she didn’t love him.

Because he loved her.

Love.
Whatever that was.

He wasn’t used to dealing in love. He didn’t understand it. He was a scientist, damn it. He dealt in natural laws and forces. Love was not one of those.

And that was why he was grinding his teeth and answering her questions about the Yankees’ pitching rotation—because loving her meant letting her make her own decisions. It ought to have been easier. He was a scientist, after all. He was used to setting up experiments and then keeping his hands off, stepping back to observe the results, not provoke them.

But he was a man, too—a man who knew what he wanted and went after it. Which he’d done last time, he reminded himself. And look how that had turned out.

So he resolutely sat through another twenty minutes of talking about the Yankees before he asked, “Do you want to take Lily to a baseball game?”

Sophy blinked, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Lily? To a baseball game? Why would I want to do that?”

George shrugged. “You seem very gung ho,” he pointed out. “I thought maybe you’d instilled some of that enthusiasm in Lily, too.”

“Not yet,” Sophy said. “She’s a little young.”

“What does she like?”

For a moment George thought she would brush off the question. It was more personal than anything she’d been willing to talk about so far this evening. But then she smiled and got a faraway look in her eyes. “She likes the beach and swimming. She likes books. She loves being read to. She likes going to the park and playing on the swings. She likes dogs,” she said, glancing down beside the table where Gunnar lay sleeping. “She’ll like Gunnar.”

“He’ll like her, too,” George said. “What time will she be here?”

“I’m going to meet them at the airport about three tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to,” he said before he could stop himself. Ah, well. A man could only stand by and watch and wait for so long. Besides, it was the truth.

Sophy looked mutinous, but he didn’t back down. Instead he finished the last of his pulled pork, then stood up and carried his plate to the sink. “Great dinner,” he said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. It’s what I’m here for,” she said brightly.

George knew that.

But, heaven help him, he was still hoping for a whole lot more.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay home?” Sophy said the next afternoon. She was heading out to get into the hired car for the journey to the airport and, true to his word, George was right behind her. “There’s really no sense in your getting worn out.”

“It’ll be good for me,” he said cheerfully.

He wasn’t using the crutches today, and he moved much more easily, though he was still wearing the boot. Still, when he’d come downstairs this morning she had seen increased agility in his movements. He didn’t act as if every move hurt, either.

She was torn between being glad he was recovering and wishing for something that would keep him home so she could spell out the ground rules to Lily.

“It’s really not necessary.” She made one last-ditch attempt to dissuade him as he held the door to the car open for her. “You should rest. You’ve been working all morning.”

He had gone down to his office after breakfast—one she’d prepared, like yesterday, after she’d already eaten her own. George had scowled at her when she said she’d already eaten. But at least he’d eaten it this time.

Now he slid in beside her, shut the door and waited until the car service driver pulled away from the curb to say, “I had some stuff to get done so I could come. I did it. And if I need to rest, I can do it right here. Put my head on your shoulder?” he suggested with a smile.

The words and the smile sent a wave of something that might have been desire washing right over her. Her cheeks burned, but she made herself shrug and say, “Of course. But I must warn you, I have very bony shoulders.”

The way he looked at them induced an even stronger surge of desire. But he only smiled as if he were considering the option for a moment before he settled back against the seat. So she didn’t get his head on her shoulder. But that didn’t stop her being intensely aware of him as he lounged easily beside her in the confined space. It was a long drive out to JFK. She found herself wishing Natalie had chosen to fly into LaGuardia.