Just Between Friends (O'Rourke Family 4) (8 page)

Obviously it was the dress.

The thing was designed to drive a man off his rocker.

Kate must have spent a fortune on the gown, which ought to infuriate him since he was certain she hadn’t used his credit card or checking account to buy it. Yet all he could think about was discovering if she
really
wasn’t wearing underwear or covering her up so he wasn’t tempted by so much skin and innocent sensuality…and no other man was, either.

“Mmm.” Kate drew back and smiled, the picture of a starry-eyed bride. “Are you okay?” she asked when he didn’t respond.

“Yeah.” He was okay except for the agony in his groin and the way he still wanted to be kissing her.

It was a problem that worsened as the evening progressed.

They ate from a buffet of expensive finger food, when he would have preferred a decent steak. The only good part about the food was seeing Kate eat strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, then lick her lips with delicate swipes of her tongue.

She also stuck to him like glue, leaning into him, brushing his face with the tips of her fingers, and wiping away tiny smears of lipstick from his mouth whenever they kissed. Which was often. His body churned with sensual whiplash, and he had to keep reminding himself it was all an act. He kept trying to fix in his mind the way she’d looked the day they met, the sweet and shy and charming four-year-old, but the mental picture kept dissolving into an adult Kate, with undeniable adult curves.

“It’s too bad Kane and Beth couldn’t come,” she said after they’d visited with the director of the children’s hospital and she’d promised to arrange for a local mime troupe to entertain the kids.

“They’re not going anywhere for a while,” Dylan murmured. “Beth won’t leave the baby, and Kane won’t leave Beth.”

Kate’s smile wavered for some reason, then she kissed the corner of his mouth again. His blood surged with predictable speed. “She’s very lucky.”

“Jeez, Kate.” He took a step backward and she followed in perfect tandem. “Maybe you should be more restrained.”

Her green eyes blinked. “But if I’m not affectionate, people will wonder if there’s something wrong with our marriage,” she said. “At least anyone who really knows me.”

She was right.

She was just being Kate, but that was the problem—loving, naturally affectionate Katydid, acting the way she’d always acted with anyone who’d let her. It must have been hell for her growing up in the Douglas family; they were the least demonstrative people he’d ever seen.

Dylan glanced around the large room—feeling more trapped than ever—and saw the last person he wanted to see.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Kate turned the same direction and wrinkled her nose as the stately, silver-haired Richard Carter approached them. That’s all she needed. He’d asked a number of questions when she’d brought her marriage certificate into the office, watching her with his shrewd eyes. It wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat.

She leaned against Dylan for both warmth and comfort, and his arm slid around her waist. Richard Carter couldn’t know about their arrangement. He might suspect
the truth, but what could he do? They hadn’t broken the law and she had every intention of making her marriage real; she just needed time to convince her husband.
That’s
why the lawyer scared her, because he could take away her last chance to be with Dylan.

“Buck up, Katydid. It’s going to be all right,” Dylan whispered in her ear.

The warmth of his breath made her shiver and she looked up. He was strong and sure and everything she’d ever wanted. She forgot all about Richard Carter and her grandmother’s will with its unpleasant codicil.

“Have I ever mentioned how great you look?” she asked.

“You mean I clean up okay in a tux.”

Kate smoothed the lapel of his tuxedo. “I mean you’re a great looking guy. Your brothers can’t hold a candle to you, in a tux or anything else. But you’re particularly sexy in jeans.”

“Hah.” He grinned down at her. “You must be blind. I’m the ordinary O’Rourke. Remember?”

“There is nothing ordinary about you,” she said. “Why do you think Tilly Haviland is so jealous of me? She knows she’ll never have anything a hundredth as good.”

A chuckle rumbled through his chest. “I thought you were going to scratch her eyes out earlier.”

“Not quite that bad.” She shrugged. “But dumping strawberries down that silicone cleavage would have been satisfying.”

“Silicone?” His eyebrows shot upward.

“You don’t actually think her bustline is real, do you?”

Another shiver went through her as Dylan traced her collarbone, his gaze drifting lower to her own more
modest cleavage. “I wouldn’t know, I was too busy catching my breath over your dress, sweetheart. I keep wondering what keeps it…up.”

Kate swallowed, her breasts tightening. She remembered how it felt to be touched there, Dylan’s fingers and mouth flooding her with heat and anticipation. Yet even as she remembered, she thought about what he’d just called her.

Sweetheart?

The only time Dylan called her sweetheart was when he was playing his role as an adoring fiancé turned husband.

Disappointment filled her at the same moment she heard Richard Carter discreetly clear his throat. “Mr. and Mrs. O’Rourke, how nice to see you.”

“Mr. Carter, I didn’t realize you were a patron of the children’s hospital,” she said politely.

“I have a variety of interests.”

Yeah, and one of those interests was nosing into her marriage. Kate was tempted to point out that her grandmother’s will had only said she was to live with her husband on the Douglas estate for a year—
sex
wasn’t specified. Grandmother would never have been that vulgar. Boy, Nanna Jane must have been a real fun date. She’d probably considered the marriage bed to be a necessary, but unpleasant, duty.

Still, the conditions in the will were an excuse to be affectionate with Dylan. It was the first time Kate had been able to touch him so freely, and she planned to take advantage of every opportunity.

The three of them chatted for a few minutes, then Dylan’s arm tightened around her waist. “I’m sorry to
rush off, sir, but I’m anxious to get Kate home. She had an accident in the kitchen this morning and should get some rest.”

Mr. Carter looked concerned. “Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No,” Kate said quickly, then tipped her head up at her husband. “Really, I’m fine, Dylan.”

“Then we’ll just…rest.”

His suggestive tone was unmistakable and heat instantly rose in her face. If only she could believe he was sincere and that the sensual promise in his voice and eyes was real.

But it wasn’t, and she knew she’d be spending the night alone.

Again.

Much later Dylan lay in bed, his body so primed he couldn’t sleep. He’d never been this way before. If there was a woman he couldn’t have, either because of circumstance or her own choice, then it was fine.

So why was he going crazy over Kate?

Maybe it was that forbidden fruit thing. They were living in cramped quarters and he’d promised not to kiss her again. Unfortunately she wasn’t held to the same promise. Her act as a loving bride was damned convincing…at least it was convincing his body.

Stop, he ordered. Katydid was a sweetheart, but she wasn’t permanent.

He raised his arm and tucked it beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. When he’d originally built the carriage house apartment, Kate had asked him to leave as much of the original structure intact as possible. Because of
that, natural wood beams ran through the ceilings, and richly colored braided rugs were scattered across hard-wood floors more than a century old.

At least he’d convinced her to enlarge the windows, styling them after the old ones.

God, Dylan thought, the
hours
he’d spent on those windows, finding matching antique glass, working forever to get them just right. But it had been worth it when Kate smiled and flung her arms around him.

“Stop,” he growled to the silent room.

He was blowing it.

Kate was a friend, not a lover. She’d asked him for help because she trusted him. Her defense of him to the Haviland woman had rung with sincerity and given him a great ego boost, but he couldn’t read too much into it.

Dylan turned over in the bed for the hundredth time. Kate was in bed as well, less than thirty feet away. She’d taken off that expensive, seductive dress and was wearing one of those expensive, seductive nightshirts. Nightshirts that shouldn’t be seductive at all, but on her, they were.

He groaned and punched his pillow a couple of times.

His response to Kate’s public kisses was difficult to ignore, no matter how he tried to keep cool in private. Maybe he should spend an occasional night on the couch at the office, to calm things down. Besides, the way things were going it was the only way he’d ever get some sleep.

Right.

He had a plan.

Monday afternoon he’d call and say he couldn’t make it home. Clean and simple. With any luck he could just leave a message on the answering machine and not
have to explain. Explaining would be hard, especially since he didn’t want Kate to get worried or uncomfortable about him living with her and he wasn’t certain he could lie to her.

In the meantime he’d just have to remember his cuddly bride was putting on an act worthy of the greatest actress ever born…even though his body was too dumb to know it.

O
n Monday Kate typed away on her computer, lost in her tale about an intrepid girl called Little Stuff. Little Stuff had shown up in previous stories and was so popular Kate’s editor had asked for a new series with her as the lead character.

The story was rolling along, so when the telephone began ringing Kate decided to let the machine pick it up…then heard Dylan’s voice.

“Kate, it’s me. You’re probably not in…”

She ran for the phone.

“…but I needed to let you know I won’t be home tonight.”

Kate snatched up the receiver and was stunned to hear a dial tone. He hadn’t even said goodbye, or see you in the morning, or explained
why
he was spending the night someplace else.

A sick feeling hit her tummy, and she sank onto a chair. Was it another woman?

Surely not.

Dylan knew it had to appear they were happily married. He wouldn’t just casually go out with another woman when he thought so much was at stake. Would he?

Her heart instantly denied the possibility, but her head kept chewing on the question. Dylan was a man who had needs,
physical
needs. Of course, they’d only been married for a few weeks, so it wasn’t as if he’d been deprived of sex for ages. She’d gone her entire life without sex, so she knew it was possible, if not comfortable.

Talking to someone else would help.

Kate tried to think of who she could confide in and was more depressed than ever. The social circle she’d grown up in didn’t lend itself to close friendships, and most of her college friends had moved away in search of bigger and better jobs. As for her parents, they’d have heart failure if she tried to discuss something more important than the weather.

Dylan was her best friend.

He wasn’t good at opening up to her, but he’d always been there when she needed someone. Over the years she’d talked to him, laughed with him, and cried on his shoulder, which didn’t leave many options when it was Dylan she needed to talk about.

With an effort Kate dragged herself back to the computer, her story no longer the least bit interesting. Little Stuff might be able to solve any problem, but Little Stuff’s creator was swimming in the dark.

When Kate heard Dylan put his key in the door the next evening, a feeling of both relief and despair swept over her. At least he wasn’t spending
two
nights away, but that didn’t explain why he’d stayed away in the first place.

Well, she wouldn’t ask.

If she started acting like a jealous shrew he’d never want to stay married.

Yet a recurring thought nagged at her…did she want to stay married with things like this? Even if Dylan decided to make their marriage real, could she spend the rest of her life in a limbo where the man she loved was as close as the sun’s warmth and more distant than the stars?

Ice condensed in Kate’s stomach and she bent over the sink, washing her salad makings and trying not to cry. Trying not to think about the years of wishing and hoping and wanting.

“Hey, Kate,” Dylan called.

She swallowed, plastered a noncommittal expression on her face, and turned around. “Hi.”

“Looks like you’re fixing dinner.”

“Yeah.” She’d taken care to dress in slacks and a blouse, nothing he could call inappropriate for cooking, though she hadn’t been sure he would be back for dinner or anything else.

“If you’ve fixed enough, I’m hungry.” He gave her an inscrutable look that reminded her they weren’t really married and didn’t answer to each other. She didn’t have any business asking where he’d been, because they were just roommates with a complicated legal situation.

“No problem, I’ll just put on a steak. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

“Great, I’ll go wash up.”

Kate pulled a steak from the refrigerator and seasoned it with garlic and cracked pepper, the way Dylan liked. She’d fixed fettuccine Alfredo and broccoli, but it was easy enough to add a steak for Dylan. It was a vain hope that he’d eat much of the broccoli and salad, though maybe if she kept putting vegetables on the table he’d eventually add something healthier to his diet.

In the bathroom Dylan wadded up his soiled work shirt and threw it against the wall, bothered beyond belief that Kate hadn’t said a single word about him being gone the night before.

Didn’t she care?

She was a woman. Women were naturally curious. She should have asked why he’d called like that and where he’d been. She should have said something that would have made him feel self-righteous and smug about his decision to cool things down by staying out all night. It wasn’t as if he’d enjoyed sleeping on the office couch.

“I’m a damned jackass,” he muttered as he got in the shower.

It wasn’t Kate’s fault he was having trouble keeping things calm. She’d tried to be helpful. No matter how often he said she didn’t need to cook for him, she got up early every day and made breakfast and a packed lunch. She fixed dinner, except when they attended a social function, and didn’t ask anything else of him except that in public they appear to be normal, loving newlyweds.

Hell, she wouldn’t even use his money, something that was making him nuts. And he really didn’t see why it was such a big deal. The money wouldn’t be more
than what he’d have spent on his own apartment, so it was like paying rent. He paid his dues and didn’t take anything from anyone. He’d even repaid Kane’s loan for starting his construction business at twice the usual interest rate. Of course, Kane had been upset about it, but that was too bad.

A man stood on his own two feet.

He’d accepted the responsibility of marrying Kate for a year so she could get her inheritance, and it was a pleasure to thwart Jane Douglas’s attempt to put a strangle-hold on her granddaughter’s future.

Pleasure?

Right.

Dylan twisted the shower faucet and let cold water stream over him. He missed the way things used to be with Kate—the comfortable teasing, the occasional charity event, the nights he brought over a pizza and a movie for the VCR. She’d given him an electronic key to the gate when he converted the carriage house and insisted he keep it afterward. He’d liked that, liked knowing she trusted him and that she counted on him when she was in trouble.

But why hadn’t she asked where he’d spent the night?

Why wasn’t she pouting and upset?

Maybe she’d ask when they were eating dinner. Yes, that’s when she’d start pushing for an answer.

Dylan pulled on his clothes and walked out, rubbing his hair dry with a towel, strangely cheered by the conviction that sooner or later Kate would start asking nosy questions.

“Smells good,” he said, watching as she pulled out a perfectly seared steak from the broiler.

She flashed him a casual smile and forked the meat onto his plate. “Take that while I get the salad.”

A creamy pasta dish sat on the table, along with the inevitable vegetable bowl. Kate never tried to make him eat anything he didn’t want, though she always made enough for two. Maybe he’d eat some salad tonight to make her happy.

“How did you…sleep?” he asked once they were seated.

“Fine.”

The calm, composed way she said it irritated Dylan all over again. He’d given her an opening, a chance to ask him about
his
night, and all she’d said was
fine
.

“I almost forgot,” Kate murmured after a long moment. “Your mother called.” She got up, fetched a piece of paper, then sat down again and served a small portion of pasta, vegetables and salad onto her own plate.

A phone message?

That was it?

“Er…when did she call?”

“About nine.” She twirled a long swirl of noodles around her fork and ate it with evident pleasure. “It’s a good thing we’re not going anywhere together for a couple days. I loaded the sauce with fresh garlic, so you won’t want me kissing you for a while.”

Since Kate’s kisses had never been anything but sweet, Dylan couldn’t imagine a little garlic would change them. That was the problem. Even after a cold shower he was getting worked up, watching her lick Alfredo sauce from silverware. Obviously her appetite hadn’t been affected by curiosity, or by his absence.

“My bid was accepted on the Hansmeir building complex,” he said finally.

She smiled. “That’s terrific.”

“We’re going to be awfully busy on it for the next year, at the very least. You didn’t…?” he hesitated.

“Didn’t what?”

“I know J. R. Hansmeir is acquainted with your father. You didn’t say anything to your father about my bid, did you? That is, nothing that might have influenced J.R.’s decision?”

Kate stuck her fork into a piece of broccoli. Here she was, trying not to fall apart, and Dylan was asking if she’d used her influence with someone her father barely knew.

“No, I didn’t. Did you want me to?”

“Of course not,” Dylan said harshly. “I just wanted to be sure
you
hadn’t. It’s important to me to win contracts without any undue influence because of you or my family.”

Technically she
was
family, because technically she was his wife. But apparently that didn’t figure into his thinking. “I wouldn’t do that without talking to you first,” she asked. “Don’t you know that?”

“Uh…yeah.”

She blinked rapidly and swallowed the last bite of her salad. More than anything she wanted Dylan to kiss her and sweep her away to the bedroom, but not because she’d blackmailed him into it with tears. It wasn’t just wanting sex, it was the idea of being held—the kind of holding that sank into the center of your being and made the rest of the world go away.

At least she thought it would be that way.

Sometimes she thought she needed Dylan more than she needed to breathe.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said carefully. “Mr. Hansmeir might know my father, but
they aren’t friends. My father is the kind of dilettante that irritates real working men.”

“You don’t think much of him, do you?”

“Mr. Hansmeir?”

“No, your dad.”

Kate shrugged, losing what little appetite she’d had. “I don’t really know him, except that he likes to travel and buy expensive art. It’s not as if we’ve ever sat down and talked.”

Dylan was silent for so long she was convinced she’d shocked him, but her poor relationship with her parents shouldn’t be a surprise. He’d watched her grow up, and he knew they’d been too busy with their travels and social life for a child. In some ways Dylan’s father had been a better parent to her than Chad Douglas. She still remembered Keenan O’Rourke’s warm, wise eyes that seemed to see more than most people and his strong, capable hands that could fix anything.

“Don’t misunderstand,” she murmured. “I love my parents, but we’re not close.”

She’d give anything to be more important in her mother and father’s lives. But it wasn’t likely to happen. They certainly hadn’t rushed home to meet her husband, or do anything except make her feel vaguely guilty for not arranging her wedding at a more convenient time for them.

“I know,” Dylan said finally. “Well, anyway. I’m going to get more measurements on the new rooms.”

He left without asking if he could help with the dishes, though he usually did, and Kate sat for a long while at the table, her heart aching.

If the entire upper floor of the carriage house was remodeled
it would make a spacious home, ideal for a growing family. The original conversion had used the center space, which had originally belonged to her great-great-grandfather’s head groom. She wouldn’t care if Dylan was knocking out walls for their children, but he was knocking out walls so he wouldn’t have to be close to her.

That hurt so much she could hardly bear it.

And she didn’t know how to change his mind. The plan that had seemed so clear and possible a few weeks ago now seemed like the height of folly. She wanted Dylan, but she also wanted her friend back—the friend that would never have spent the night away from their home, leaving her to wonder what he was doing. But the worst part was, she now had to wonder if
that
Dylan had ever existed at all.

The old servant’s quarters were warm and dusty, and Dylan scowled as he wrote down precise figures. He didn’t need the measurements. He’d already planned and figured the additions and knew exactly what had to be done.

But he also needed to get away from the way Kate tugged at his heart. No one could ever call Katydid a “poor little rich girl.” She was too alive and full of fun, but she was alone in a way he didn’t like to think about. No wonder she’d turned to her parents’ employees when she was in trouble—she certainly couldn’t turn to
them.

But if he and Katydid were such great pals, why hadn’t she asked him about last night?

It was a question that gnawed at him over the next two days. Kate kept busy on her computer, at the same
time making arrangements for a wine and cheese tasting party to raise funds for a child care center. She seemed to be involved in everything from soup kitchens to the historical society, and he discovered there were serious people listening to her when it came to raising money and managing resources.

By Thursday afternoon his head was splitting and his foul temper had alienated three of his crew chiefs.

“Can I get you anything?” asked his secretary with a nervous expression on her face.

He drew a breath, trying to keep from offending yet another undeserving person. “No, Janice. I’m fine.”

But he wasn’t fine, and his hand hovered over the phone. Maybe he should call Kate and tell her he was sleeping at the office again. Yet his hand dropped and he stared dully at the calendar. Something was bothering him, as if he’d forgotten something important.

All at once he groaned and jumped out of his chair.

Kate’s birthday.

Dylan rushed out to his truck, fishing his keys from his pocket. He’d never forgotten Kate’s birthday; not even when he was seven and could only afford a candy bar and wildflowers as a gift.

His week was going from bad to worse.

Kate leaned down and painted her toenails a pale shade of pink, then stuck her foot out and wiggled it. She usually didn’t give herself a pedicure, but she felt like pampering herself. It was her birthday and she’d gotten into the habit of making the day special for herself.