Impossible Dreams (24 page)

She set aside a paperback with a single rose on the front
and wiped her eyes. She’d been crying over a novel, and he wondered if it
was one of Angela’s romance books.

“You don’t have to marry me just to have sex,”
she announced, but her voice was whispery and not at all as firm as she
probably would have liked.

Dropping his briefcase, Axell collapsed on the sofa beside
her. “Why not just hit me upside the head with a bat when I come
in?”

She sniffed, and he handed her his handkerchief.

Rubbing her nose, she attempted a glare. “I’m a
pacifist. I don’t believe in violence.”

Axell’s shoulders shook with laughter. He
couldn’t believe he was laughing after a day like this. He wanted to howl
and roll on the floor, but she’d probably think him insane. Besides,
he’d wake the kids. Chuckling anew at the thought of the chaos that could
ensue, he shook his head.

“What’s so funny about that?” she
demanded.

“Passivity.” He bit back another chuckle and
leaned his head against the sofa. It was kind of nice sitting here in the
semi-dark, hearing a human voice instead of the dead emptiness he’d lived
through these last few years. “Pacifists are rarely passive, or even
peaceful.” He turned his head and sought her face in the dim glow of the
lamp. His unholy curiosity inspired his next question. “Are you saying
you’d go to bed with me without marriage?”

She glowered and tucked the handkerchief somewhere in her
lap. She was wearing the lacy blue nightgown Selene had given her, but the cotton
throw covered most of it. He’d have to buy her a regular robe. Something
green to go with that glorious sunburst of red hair. And a gown to match.
Something short and seductive.

“As if you have to ask,” she sniffed. “You
probably have women waiting in line.”

A surge of lust shot Axell’s already aroused hormones
into overdrive. He really did want to howl over her jealousy, but the chuckles
died in his throat. He looked back over the lonely nights of the past two
years, the few furtive couplings, the awkward undressings and whispered
questions, and he wondered why the hell he’d bothered at all. His
laughter emerged more as a curt bark. “Not so I’ve noticed.”

“Well, there’s your problem. You don’t
notice.” She sounded more sure of herself now. “You walk right by
women as if they’re hat racks. You don’t pick up on signals.”

His chuckle was a little more real this time. She looked
like an outraged gypsy princess wrapped in that shawllike thing with the light
illuminating her hair. His gaze fastened on her slender, unadorned fingers.
Rings. He’d have to buy rings. He looked up and caught her fascinated
gaze. Fascinated. By him. That shot another lightning bolt straight to his
groin. He’d need a lap robe of his own.

Something in her narrowing gaze warned this wasn’t the
time to shrug off her observations, and it was definitely not the time to
indulge in
Playboy
fantasies. A challenge, he remembered. Dealing with
Maya would be a challenge.

“I don’t want to have to pick up on
signals,” he answered carefully. “I want to know precisely where I
stand without interpreting sign language.”

She cocked her head like a little bird, studied him
carefully, then broke into her beaming gypsy smile. “You’re
marrying me because I have a mouth and use it?”

His gaze dropped to strawberry-luscious lips and he nodded
without thinking. “I sure hope so.”

She laughed with clear bell-like chimes that took on a note
of wickedness as she finally understood the direction of his tired mind.
Leaning over, she kissed his cheek, then boldly, she licked his ear.

His flagpole shot straight up.

“You don’t need marriage, you just need a
teacher,” she whispered tauntingly.

Before Axell could grab her, she twisted away and stood up,
leaving him with a handful of cotton throw.

“I’ve found the teacher,” he threw after
her departing sway. “I’m just waiting for the lessons.”

She shot him an upraised-eyebrow look over her shoulder
before disappearing into the darkness of the hall.

Axell remained lying there against the sofa cushions with
the cotton throw over his pleasantly throbbing lap and a smile on his face.
Definitely a challenge, he decided.

He could spend the next two months planning her seduction.
That should certainly give him an incentive to survive the chaos.

***

“I was managing,” Maya whispered as Axell
grasped her elbow and nearly dragged her out of the church pew after the Sunday
service. He’d trapped her into this, damn the man. The instant
they’d applied for a marriage license, the whole town heard about it.
He’d known she wouldn’t fight the whole town.

“So was I,” Axell agreed, steering her
determinedly toward the church office. “But ‘managing’
isn’t the same as living. What are you afraid of?” he demanded.
“We’re two intelligent adults perfectly capable of rationally
talking out any problems. When the kids get older, if it isn’t working
out, we can get divorced. What do you have to lose?”

He said that so firmly and logically, Maya couldn’t
help but stare at him with incredulity. She wanted to ask him what the hell
kind of household he’d grown up in. She met only curiosity and a glimmer
of impatience in his square-jawed expression as he waited for her to follow
him. She wondered what he would do if she licked that delicious cleft in his
chin or blew in his perfectly symmetrical ears, and bit back a nervous giggle
at the thought. He really had absolutely no idea of the devastation the
emotional tornado of divorce could wreak. To him, it was just a tactical
retreat.

His gray gaze heated as she bit back her disbelieving smirk.
All right, so under that logical Virgo mind lurked a boiling cauldron of
Scorpio testosterone — she’d got his birthdate from the marriage license
and drawn his chart. Definitely Scorpio moon. So, maybe dark, brooding,
artistic men didn’t have a corner on heat. Maybe security was more
rational than love. Maybe she’d just gone without sex too long.

Maya dropped her gaze to Axell’s deliriously amazing
chest. His shirt was so freshly laundered, she could smell the starch. He wore
a three-piece gray suit elegant enough to be a tuxedo. She brushed an imaginary
speck from his lapel and straightened his white carnation and absorbed his
intoxicating presence. He might be stiff, but he definitely wasn’t cold.

His question, “What do you have to lose?” still
hung in the air. She knew the answer — her heart. Her stupid, illogical,
breakable heart.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she sighed. And
he really wouldn’t. She was just a means to an end for him. Men
understood possession and convenience, but they really didn’t grasp the
frailty of female emotion. So, this man was more careful than most. What more
could she ask?

“You really can’t fix my life, Axell,” she
offered in one final protest before he dragged her back to the waiting preacher
and made everything final. “It isn’t broken.”

“Mine is,” he whispered.

She shouldn’t feel his pain, but she did. He had
everything she’d never had, he merely wanted to add her to his
collection, but that broken plea wiped out all argument.

Surrendering, she followed the familiar path of the current
rather than fighting against it. “All right, let’s get this over.
The kids will be bouncing off the walls by now.”

Axell cast her an uncertain look, then offered his hand. He
didn’t know how to take her lack of enthusiasm for their marriage.
He’d walked Maya all through fashionable SouthPark Mall yesterday,
offering her any gown she’d like for the wedding.

Instead of excitedly running up his credit cards,
she’d spurned all the designer dresses and silk suits and lavish
accessories in favor of a simple cream eyelet summer gown from the White House.
Admittedly, the fitted bodice and long, flowing skirt looked elegant on her
newly slender figure, but it had cost nothing in comparison to what he’d
been prepared to pay.

Above the scoop-necked gown, Maya wore her thick frizzy
curls pinned into an unruly twist. Despite the simple elegance, the soft
tendrils spilling down her nape and ears aroused the image of a woman who had
just climbed from a tumble in bed, producing an uncomfortable urge Axell
couldn’t assuage for weeks.

Firmly clasping Maya’s fingers, he led her toward the
preacher’s office and the small gathering of friends and family waiting
for them. They’d both agreed on a small ceremony. At least they’d
found common ground in that.

He didn’t like admitting it, but he was as nervous as
she was. He knew her credentials as a teacher, had watched her at work and knew
she was an ideal mother. He’d spent the better part of his life honing
his people observation skills, and he didn’t doubt his instincts. Maya
Alyssum was a free spirit completely alien to his nature, but she possessed the
pure goodness of heart of a child. He was the villain in this piece.

He was terrified he would destroy her, or that she would
leave and destroy him.

Axell shoved his intended bride toward the preacher’s
office.

This time, it would be different. This time, only his head
was involved.

***

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

Maya held her breath as Axell slid the delicately braided
gold band on the third finger of her left hand. They’d chosen the rings
when they’d bought her gown. Axell’s ring was thicker and more
imposing, but they’d both admired the identical gold braiding.
She’d wanted no diamonds, no ludicrously expensive platinum, nothing
extravagant, but she’d still been appalled at the cost of the simple bands.
Axell hadn’t blinked an eyelash.

The ring fit solidly on her finger, its weight a reminder of
all the responsibilities she assumed with the vows she repeated now. Constance
in her shining patent leather, frilled anklets, and rapidly deteriorating curls
stood solemnly to one side of Axell. Matty bounced at Selene’s side.
Garbed in an extravagantly silly lace and eyelet gown that neither of them
could resist, Alexa squirmed sleepily in the arms of a motherly Sunday-school
teacher who had turned out to be an aunt of Axell’s. Maya hadn’t
even considered the possibility of her husband having relatives.

Her husband. He stood there in the sophisticated gray of his
three-piece suit, his shoulders no less rugged for their civilized confines.
Her heart dived to her stomach as the preacher pronounced them man and wife,
and she made the mistake of meeting Axell’s gaze. He wore that solemn
businessman’s expression she knew so well, but she could swear she could
see the impish gleam of professorial curiosity lurking behind his eyes as he
leaned over to claim his kiss.

Matty emitted “Ooo, yuck” sounds and Constance
abandoned her pretense of obedience to leap between them, yet Axell located
Maya’s mouth with unerring accuracy, and the explosive shock of his kiss
shot clear to her toes before Constance succeeded in pushing them apart.

“Can I hold Alexa now, can I?” she demanded.

Maya could read the amusement dancing in Axell’s eyes
as he silently handed the responsibility of answering to her. She didn’t
know whether to smack him for his abdication of duty or love him for trusting
her with his daughter.

“I think there are people waiting for us in the
reception hall,” Maya told her gently, taking Constance’s hand.
“Don’t you want some cake and punch first?”

Satisfied that she’d accomplished what she’d set
out to do — separate the two most important adults in her life and focus their
attention on her — Constance nodded, loosening a few more limp strands of hair.

Maya tucked a curl behind her stepdaughter’s ear and
glanced at Axell to see how he took this. He offered a masculine shrug of
indifference, but she could see something smoldering behind his eyes that
warned it wouldn’t always be this simple. He was a patient man, but every
man had his limits.

Well, he wanted her to mother his daughter. Now he had what
he wanted — let’s see how he liked it.

Smiling as their small audience surged forward to offer
congratulations, Maya hung onto Constance as Axell grabbed Matty. Gradually,
they pushed their way out of the office and into the reception hall.

For the first time in her life, Maya felt the spotlight of
an entire community’s attention focused on her as she and Axell entered
the room.

She would have panicked and run if Axell hadn’t firmly
draped his arm across her shoulders and held her at his side, introducing her
to one and all as his wife.

When she stumbled in her low-heeled sandals, Axell held her
steady.

As the crush of the crowd pressed around them and her heart
steadied to an hysterical tattoo, Maya felt the ironclad shackles of Axell’s
control lock around her, and she finally grasped the term “ball and
chain.”

She’d sworn to provide her daughter a real home. Now
she had one, and the walls were already closing in on her.

Did she have any idea what happened to a fish out of water?

We are Microsoft. Resistance is Futile. You Will Be
Assimilated.

“If you’ll sign these papers, my lawyer will
start work on your adoption of Constance.” Axell shoved another sheet of
paper across the broad expanse of his desk. “If you think you can get
your sister’s agreement, this one will begin proceedings for you to
assume legal guardianship of Matty. Once that’s done, he’ll no
longer be a ward of the state, and Social Services will have no more control
over him.”

Maya stared in dismay at the stack of papers collecting on
Axell’s desk as he pushed still another legal document in front of her.

“Here’s the partnership agreement for The
Curiosity Shoppe. I’ve had it drawn up between us and your sister, since
the inventory is hers, and as a married couple, we’re assuming joint
responsibility. I think the threat of a lawsuit will have the building released
by next week.”