Truly Married (27 page)

“I’d better warn you, I’m going to do my damnedest to seduce you,” he said huskily. “Please, give me a fighting chance and listen to what I have to say.”

The muscles under his hand clenched and unclenched, and the coffee in her mug splashed back and forth as she fought to retain some semblance of resistance to his overwhelming nearness and appeal. This handsome Scotsman could charm the plaid out of her kilt! “Fergus, I—”

He squeezed her knee. “No, don’t say anything until you’ve heard me out. There’s a flight to Chicago later this afternoon and I’m going to be on it. I want you to come with me.”

That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say, and her coffee not only sloshed, but spilled a few drops on her thigh. She took a large swallow, then leaned forward and set the mug on the low table in front of them. In the process she managed to free her knee from Fergus’s disturbing caress.

He didn’t protest, but put his own mug down and sighed. “I love you, sweetheart, and I can’t let you slip away from me again.”

Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but he put a finger across it. “I’m not trying to seduce you for an afternoon, or a weekend, or even for a few months. I’m asking you to marry me, Sharon.”

“We already did that!” The bitter words slipped out before she could stop them.

An expression of deep sadness settled over Fergus’s face. “I know. What can I say? I’m sorry? I am, deeply so. I made a mistake? I did. I handled the situation badly, but I never wanted to lose you. I should have contested the divorce, but you were so insistent and I felt so guilty. I’d already hurt you so badly....”

He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “How can I make you believe me?”

It was a cry of desperation that nearly broke Sharon’s heart. If only...if only... But there were too many “if onlys” that weighed too heavily on her.

She turned to him, and this time she wouldn’t be hushed. “I do believe you, Fergus,” she said timidly, then hurried on when she saw both surprise and hope in his expression. “That is, I believe you love me as much as you are capable of loving, but it always comes back to the same dilemma. How can I trust that love, when it wasn’t strong enough before to keep you from being attracted to another woman?”

He winced, but she had to make him understand. “I know we’ve had this conversation many times lately, but it always comes back to that one insurmountable stumbling block.

“It’s not that I don’t love you—I do. It’s not even that I can’t forgive you. The problem is that I can no longer trust your love. I know pride is a lonely bedfellow, and I’ve certainly had enough experience with loneliness these past five years, but I just can’t come to terms with being second best with you. I’d always know that you’d rather have Elaine—”

“Dammit to hell, Sharon, that’s not true!” Fergus thundered. “I told you then and I’m telling you now, I never wanted our marriage to break up.”

He stood and turned away from her. “In spite of my unwanted and unwelcome feelings for Elaine, I never wanted a divorce. Elaine knew that. I told her so, and she was in the process of moving to the West Coast, when you...when you...”

“When I caught you together,” Sharon said for him.

Fergus sighed wearily. “You didn’t
catch us together.
I was kissing her goodbye before taking her to the airport. I was never unfaithful to you, I swear it.”

“I believe you,” Sharon said. “At least, I believe you never slept with her, but you were unfaithful in your heart. You were infatuated with her. And if you and I had stayed together you’d always have wanted her. She’s the one you would have missed, the one you’d have wanted in your bed—”

“Sharon!” His tone was a mixture of outrage and disbelief as he whirled around to face her. “My God, you don’t really know me at all, do you?”

She felt the hot flush of shame, but didn’t know why. She truly believed what she’d said, but she hadn’t meant it as an accusation of some unforgivable sin, just a regrettable fact of human frailty that could happen to anybody under the same circumstances.

“I... I’m sorry,” she said, anxious to make him understand. “I didn’t mean to imply that...that you’d deliberately be, well, lusting after her.”

“Than just what in hell were you implying?” he demanded.

“I wasn’t implying anything. I was just trying to explain why I can’t be content to be second best with you.”

His expression softened, and he sat back down beside her and rubbed his face with his hands. “You were never second best with me. Look, honey, let me try to explain to you how I felt about Elaine. She and I came into the law firm at about the same time. We were the same age, similar backgrounds, and both brand-new law school graduates and members of the bar. We worked well together and after a while we started dating.”

He cleared his throat. “We had a lot in common, and enjoyed each other’s company. There was no formal commitment. It was a comfortable arrangement, but I suppose you could say we were drifting toward marriage.”

Sharon blinked. He’d never told her he’d been involved with Elaine before they met. In fact, he’d never discussed any of the women in his past. That wasn’t his style. He was a very private person.

He turned to look at her. “Then I met you.”

He paused as though trying to gather his thoughts. “You caught me off guard and changed the whole course of my life. You were so cute, and so sexy, and so...so persistent.”

Sharon felt the warm blush and lowered her head. “I know I chased after you shamelessly—”

He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face. “No, don’t apologize,” he said softly. “You were a delight. I was perilously close to becoming a pompous ass, taking myself too seriously and forgetting how to just enjoy life. You changed all that. You made me laugh, and eventually you made me cry, but the emotions you aroused in me were strong and sharp. They forced me to feel joy in just being alive and in control of my destiny.”

He ran his fingers through her hair. “The only reason you had to chase me instead of the other way around was because I was so conscious of the ten years’ difference in our ages. You were so very young and carefree, and we had almost nothing in common.”

He dropped his hand and turned to face forward again. “It seems I was right to worry about that. It’s what finally came between us,” he said sadly.

Sharon was startled. “Don’t blame that on the age difference,” she snapped. “You just discovered after it was too late that it was Elaine you wanted instead of me.”

“I know you’ve always believed that, but it’s not true. From the first time we met until now I’ve never stopped wanting you, but living together wasn’t easy for either of us. I was totally immersed in my law practice, and the subject bored you.”

She opened her mouth to object, but he stopped her. “Your main interests were rock bands and the college activities you were involved in. I’d outgrown that sort of thing years before. Mostly we spent our time quarreling and making love.”

She scowled at him. “I thought you enjoyed making love with me. You were the one who usually initiated it.”

“Damn right I did. All I had to do to get turned on was come home and find you there. Even quarreling with you aroused me, but it takes more than just good sex to make a marriage. We didn’t have anything to talk about once we got out of bed.”

Sharon opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when she realized he was right. She’d been in college most of the time they were married, and her interests had all been shallow ones: the football games, the rock concerts and the myriad of campus activities she was involved in.

She must have bored Fergus to death with all her inconsequential chatter, just as she’d been easily bored when he’d tried to discuss his problems and concerns with her.

She hung her head. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t the kind of wife you wanted. You should have told me—”

“You
were
the wife I wanted,” he interrupted, “but neither of us was perfect. We were too close to our problems to see them clearly. I started discussing my work with Elaine because she was interested and understood all the intricacies of the law. We were able to help each other, and we sort of got in the habit of having lunch together. That progressed to sometimes staying late at the office, or stopping off for a drink after work to talk. I swear I didn’t realize how much I was depending on her until we were more emotionally involved than we should have been.”

Sharon’s mind was in turmoil. If he’d been so dissatisfied with their marriage, why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he made her listen?

But on the other hand, why had she been so blind to his discontent? If he’d really been unhappy she should have known without being told.

“You lied to me on those nights when you said you had to work late,” she said. “Didn’t that bother you at all?”

He shook his head. “Not at first because we were discussing our cases, but as time went on and our conversations became more personal I knew you’d be angry. I knew I’d be mad as hell if you were doing the same thing with another man, so yes, I did lie about it, and it bothered the hell out of me. That’s when I told Elaine we had to stop meeting.”

He hesitated. “She confessed that she was in love with me, and the next day she applied for the position in California. There was never anything physical between us while I was married to you except a few kisses.”

Sharon winced. The very thought of him kissing Elaine was agony. She understood more clearly now that she had been equally to blame for the breakup of her marriage, but she couldn’t escape the certainty that he could have made her see the problem and change her ways if he’d really wanted to. She may have been immature back then, but she hadn’t been stupid.

“I’m sorry, Fergus,” she said reluctantly, “but it still boils down to the simple fact that you just didn’t love me enough to fight for our happiness, to
cleave unto me, forsaking all others,
when we were married.”

He shook his head and started to say something, but she continued on. “I no longer blamed you. You didn’t go looking for another woman, but nevertheless it happened and I have no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again if we got back together. I’ve never been much of a gambler, and this time the stakes are too high. I’d make us both miserable by always wondering if you were seeing another woman when you said you had to work late, or attend a weekend conference...”

Her voice broke, and she stood up before she could seek the comfort of his arms, his lips, his hands.

Fergus felt leaden with sorrow and disappointment. In his gut he’d known she wouldn’t give him another chance. She was right, he had betrayed her trust, even though he hadn’t meant to.

Still, in his heart he’d nursed the hope that he could somehow make her understand that she’d always been the most important person in his life. He’d said and done all he could to persuade her that his love for her was strong enough to last a lifetime and beyond.

He knew that to be true, but he’d failed miserably in his effort to convince her, and now all he could do was give up and try to learn to live without her. If she couldn’t take him on faith then there was no hope for them.

He rose slowly, painfully, from the couch, like an old man burdened with the weight of years. Was this what life was going to be like for him from now on?

“I’m sorry, love,” he murmured. “Sorrier than you can ever know. I’d hoped we could work something out, but I can see that I was wrong. I’ll pack up my things, and then I have to go down to the police station. You can come with me if you’d like.”

In spite of her total rejection of Fergus’s proposal of marriage, Sharon felt a wave of disappointment at his non-resisting acceptance. She’d expected him to argue, try to change her mind, maybe even plead with her...

Quickly she wrenched her thoughts away from that quagmire. Dear Lord, was she still trying to punish Fergus? Or was she punishing herself? Was it possible that she was trying to wring an admission out of him that would allow her to go back to him and still keep her pride intact?

But what could he confess to that would do that? He wouldn’t lie, not even to get something he badly wanted, and Sharon knew she wouldn’t be the woman he wanted if she was playing brutal and deceptive games with his feelings for her.

Fergus’s voice brought her out of her reverie. “Sharon? Do you want to go to police headquarters with me or not?”

She blinked and shoved her dismaying thoughts aside. “Yes, please. May I help you pack?”

* * *

Fergus and Sharon spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon straightening out the legal morass surrounding Sharon and Helen Vancleave. Fergus arranged to have the charges against Sharon dropped while at the same time delaying the filing of any against Helen.

“I’m hoping the police will agree that she was acting in self-defense and not indict her,” he told Sharon. “Ray’s not available today, but I’ll be in touch with him by phone from Chicago. He’s an excellent attorney. He’ll know how to proceed.”

When they arrived back home Fergus looked at his watch. “I’m going to have to hurry,” he said as he unlocked the door and let them in. “I have to be at the airport early enough to turn in my rental car and pick up my ticket before flight time.”

He headed toward the stairway, but Sharon stood immobilized. This was it. Fergus was leaving and this time he wasn’t coming back! She’d probably never see him again.

Would he take her to the airport with him?

Probably not. He’d be busy checking in once he got there, and she’d just be a distraction.

Would he kiss her goodbye? That was doubtful. She hadn’t given him any encouragement lately. He’d think she didn’t want him to.

If he didn’t initiate a kiss should she?

The very idea of it made her heart speed up and her stomach flutter, but the cold, accusing voice of her conscience nipped that tempting thought:
There’s a name for women like you who tease their men but don’t put out, and it’s not a pretty one. If you don’t want him to think that’s what you’re doing, then don’t make any moves on him.