Wedding at King’s Convenience (9 page)

“He moved.”

“Aye, she did.” Still caught up in the enchantment of
that moment, Maura took a second to notice the change in Jefferson’s eyes. They’d gone from amused to aroused and now, they were filled with a dark determination.

“I won’t lose this, Maura. Make up your mind to it.” He gave her belly a possessive pat, then pulled his hand back. “Whatever it takes. That baby is a King and he’ll grow up as one. Whether his mother likes it or not.”

“The problem is,” Cara was saying, “you’re going about this in all the wrong ways.”

Jefferson nodded, sat back in his chair and let his gaze scan the interior of the pub. Dark, noisy, with soft lamplight and a dark red glow of the peat fire in the hearth, the place smelled like beer and wet wool. It was raining again, so the Lion’s Den was busy. Locals gathered there to have a beer with friends and listen to music. To get out of their own homes for a while. And Jefferson was surrounded by a group of them who were now, it seemed, completely on his side of the situation. All it had taken was for them to find out that he’d proposed and Maura had turned him down.

Just remembering her refusal was enough to churn his guts and have him gritting his teeth. Not once had he imagined that she would say
no.
Should have known Maura would do the unexpected.

“Maura ever was a stubborn girl,” Michael said thoughtfully, waving away a customer clamoring for another beer.

“Nonsense,” Frances Boyle put in, taking a sip of her tea. “She’s a strong little thing is all and knows her own mind.”

“She does,” Cara said, “but she’s also one to take a stand and then not move from it whether or not she should.”

“True, true,” Michael agreed, with a sad shake of his head. Then he pointed his index finger at Jefferson. “She’s a fine woman though, mind, no matter what we who love her say.”

“I know.” Jefferson was still working on his first beer as advice swarmed around him like ants at a picnic.

It seemed everyone in the village had a theory on how he should be handling the situation with Maura. Not that he was listening to any of them. Since when did a King need help getting a woman?

Since now?
a sneaky, annoying voice in the back of his mind whispered to him and Jefferson grumbled under his breath in response. He’d never had to work this hard for anything. Always, when Jefferson King set out to do a thing, it got done. He’d never before run into a solid wall like the one Maura had erected between them and damned if he could figure out how to knock it down.

An ancient-looking man on one of the bar stools offered, “Buy her a ram. That’ll do it. A sheep farmer will appreciate fine stock.”

Jefferson snorted. Was the way to this woman’s heart through her sheep? He didn’t think so. Yet as he considered it, he felt a quick stir of something remarkably like anxiety flicker through him. He wasn’t trying to get to Maura’s heart, was he? No. This wasn’t about love. This was about the baby they’d made together, plain and simple. Telling himself that eased him a bit. “I don’t see how buying her a new ram for her flock will win me any points.”

“It’ll win you lots of points with the ewes,” someone shouted from the back of the pub.

Laughter erupted at that and Jefferson could only scowl at the whole damn room. Good to know that everyone in the village was having such an entertaining time.

“Great, that’s great.” What the hell was he doing here? Thousands of miles from home, from family, from sanity. He was sitting in the middle of an Irish Briga-doon trying to make sense of a woman who defied logic at every turn.

What woman in her right mind would turn down a proposal that offered her luxury? Every wish granted? He’d offered her a life of comfort and ease and she’d tossed it back in his face as if he’d insulted her.

Money and power,
that’s what she’d said, he reminded himself. As if having contacts and financial independence were a bad thing. He didn’t understand
real people.
He
was
real people. His brothers were real. What, did she think just because a man had money, he was less than worthy?

“She’s the snob,” he muttered as the crowd around him continued the argument without his input, “not me.”

He’d never judged anyone on the size of their bank balance. He had friends who were mechanics as well as friends who were movie stars. And though his family had money, he hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’d had to work, just as his brothers had. They’d worked the ranch as kids and as they got older, their parents had told them if they wanted something, they’d have to earn it. So they’d each worked part-time jobs so they could afford secondhand cars and the gas and insurance that went with it.

Hell, he had friends who weren’t nearly as well off as his family had been and their parents had paid for everything. The more Jefferson thought about Maura’s accusations and generalizations, the angrier he became. He didn’t need to excuse his life or make apologies for the way he lived it just because she was being self-righteous.

“You could buy her a new house,” someone shouted.

“Or a new roof for the old house. It leaks something fierce in the winter,” Frances said.

“Pay them no mind,” Cara told him, and drew her chair closer to his. Leaning her forearms on the table, she said, “I can tell you how to win my sister.”

He glanced at her and caught the brilliant smile she had aimed at him. Cara, he thought, was the reasonable Donohue sister. She knew what she wanted—to be rich and famous doing what she loved doing—and went after it. She didn’t sneer at him for having money. Why would she? It’s what she wanted for herself.

With an inward sigh, he asked himself why it hadn’t been Cara who made his blood heat. Life would have been a hell of a lot easier.

Instead, he’d become involved with a woman whose head was as hard as the stones in her fields. Just thinking about it irritated him. Damned if he’d take it. Maura thought he was an arrogant, rich American. So he’d prove her right. If she was going to damn him for his money, he might as well make it worth her while.

His mind raced with possibilities. With ideas, notions and plans. And he liked every one of them. Time to pull off the gloves, he told himself. He’d never yet lost an
acquisition he was determined to have and this wouldn’t be the first time.

“Jefferson? Are you listening?” Cara gave his arm a nudge. “I said, I’ve a way for you to win my sister round.”

“Thanks,” he said and stood up. Digging into his pocket, he came up with a sheaf of bills and tossed a few of them onto the table, paying not only for his and Cara’s drinks, but for most of those in the bar. “I appreciate it. But this is between me and Maura. And I’ve got a few ideas of my own.”

He left then and never saw Cara shake her head and murmur, “Luck to you, then. I’ve a feeling you’re going to need it.”

B
right and early the next morning, Maura stepped outside, braced for the next confrontation with Jefferson. She glanced around and blew out a breath that misted in front of her face in the cold damp. Dawn was just painting the sky with the first of a palette of colors. Gray clouds rolled in from the sea and she smelled another storm on the air.

“Maybe the coming storm will keep him in the trailer,” she told herself, even though she didn’t believe it for a moment, and truth be told, she didn’t wish for it, either. Even as annoying as the man could become, she liked having him about. Which only went to prove she really was a madwoman.

What woman in her right mind would torture herself so willingly by being around a man she couldn’t have?

But what choice did she have? It wasn’t as if asking him to leave her be had gotten her anywhere. Jefferson would stay until he left. Period. Nothing she could say would move him along any faster.

He’d made that clear enough.

There would be no way to escape his company and as long as that were true, she could admit, if only to herself, that she was storing this time up in her memories. Etching each moment with him on her brain so that she could draw the images out later, when he really was gone from her.

So she was prepared to have him riding as a passenger in her battered old lorry as she drove up to the high pasture. She’d even thought of a few things to tell him during the long, sleepless night. She was going to be reasonable, patient and firm. The only way to handle a man like Jefferson King. Temper wouldn’t do it as the man was immune to her shouts and curses. So she’d use practicality as it was his normal weapon of choice. She could explain to him simply and deliberately that he was wasting his time staying on at the farm. She wouldn’t be coerced or convinced to do something she’d no intention of doing.

She smiled to herself, called for King and stepped out of the way when the big dog raced down the hallway and out the back door.

The film crew was already busy in the front, according to the low rumbles of conversation and the sounds of engines and generators. Maura had become so accustomed to the sounds of the film crew that she had the oddest feeling she might actually miss all of the clatter
and din they created each day. As she would soon be missing Jefferson, as well.

Her heart ached at the thought, but what else could she do? She couldn’t marry him knowing he had no interest in loving her. She couldn’t be a man’s duty. His
penance.
Her blood ran cold at the thought. What kind of life would that be? For any of them?

King was barking from the far side of the barn where she’d been parking her lorry since the arrival of the film crew. Musings shattered, Maura quickened her steps, wondering what it was that had set her dog off.

She rounded the corner of the barn and stopped dead. Her battered lorry was gone. In its place sat a gloriously new and shiny truck, bright red in color, boasting a massive white bow on its roof. “What? How? When?”

“All very good questions,” a deep voice rumbled from nearby.

Maura shot a look at Jefferson, leaning back against the side wall of the barn like a man well pleased with himself. The broad smile on his face told her he was responsible for this—as if she hadn’t been able to guess.

“What’ve you done?”

“I should think that’s fairly obvious.”

“Where’s my lorry?”

“You mean that chunk of rust with wheels?” He shrugged. “I had it towed away an hour or so ago. Surprised you didn’t hear it.”

She had heard more general clatter than usual this morning to be sure, but she’d become so accustomed to disregarding the hubbub caused by the film crew that she’d paid it no mind at all.

“You—” Maura looked at the new truck and felt herself being seduced by the shining paint and the large, sturdy tires—and even as her heart yearned, she closed herself off to it. “You’d no right.”

“I’ve every right, Maura.” He pushed away from the wall and walked toward her. When he was close enough, he ran the flat of his hand over the roof of the new truck and smiled, satisfied. “You weren’t just trusting your own life to that accident waiting to happen, remember. You’re carrying my baby. No way do I let you ride around in that old truck.”

“Let me?” She gasped, pulled in air and prepared for battle. “You don’t
let
me do anything, Jefferson King. I don’t want your shiny new toy here—”

He smiled knowingly. “Yes, you do.”

Oh, it was a hard thing to know that he could read her so easily.

“The nerve you have,” she muttered darkly and stepped around him. Her gaze raked the area, hoping that he’d lied and that she’d find her old truck still here, worn and weary from too many years of work. But it wasn’t. All that remained was the shiny, tempting lorry, complete with unpatched tires, uncracked windshield and—she peered in the window surreptitiously—lovely black leather seats. Wasn’t it a lovely thing?

Not that it mattered, she thought as she straightened up to glare at him again. “What made you think I would be happy about this?”

“Oh, believe me,” he said, opening the driver’s-side door for her, “I never once thought you’d be
happy.
In
fact, I knew you’d look daggers at me. You’ll notice it didn’t stop me.”

He dangled the keys before her as he would a cookie in front of a recalcitrant toddler. “But you’re too intelligent to not admit that you needed this truck, Maura.”

She glared at him, then the keys and back again. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Clever, aren’t you? Flatter me so that to turn you down makes me seem like a complete fool.”

Clearly pleased with himself, he grinned. “Bottom line is, Maura,” he said, “I’m going to take care of you and the baby with your approval or not. So you might as well get used to it.”

Was it so wrong, she wondered, to allow him to take care of her? Was it wrong to wish for more? She’d wanted him to acknowledge their child. But she now wanted something she couldn’t have. She wanted love. The fantasy.

“And if I don’t?”

“You will.” He cupped her cheek in his palm.

Maura shivered right down to her toes. How was it that the simple touch of his skin to hers could cause so many different sensations to course through her? And how was it that he didn’t share them? That he could shut himself off from the threads of connection that bound them?

He bent his head to hers until his mouth was just a breath away. “You might be stubborn, but you’re an intelligent woman and you’ll eventually see that I’m right about this.”

She sighed and gave him a resigned smile. “So, I’m
intelligent to agree with you and foolish to have my own opinion.”

“Pretty much.”

That slight curve of his mouth was a weapon, she thought. One he wielded expertly. And she was a willing victim. For heaven’s sake, the man had purchased her a lorry and tied a huge bow to it. How was she to argue or stand up against a man who surprised her, not with diamonds or fancy clothes, but with the one thing he knew she not only wanted, but needed?

“You’re making this difficult for me.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, do you want to take her out for a spin?”

Those keys dangled in front of her face and this time, Maura snatched them. Who was she to fight the inevitable? Besides, if she was to admit the truth, at least to herself, she could say how grateful she was to have a vehicle she felt confident driving. “If you’re coming,” she told him with a grin, “get in and buckle up.”

He did, managing to tear the white bow off the roof as he went and once they were settled, Maura fired the truck up and hooted with glee at the pantherlike snarl of a well-tuned engine. “Isn’t she a beauty, then?”

“Yeah,” Jefferson said, and when she glanced at him, saw that he was staring right at her as he said, “she really is a beauty.”

Jefferson had the marriage license. Now all he needed was the bride. But Maura was showing no signs of weakening. He’d even moved to a hotel in Westport, to give her some space. To prove that he could be as sensitive
as the next guy. But did she appreciate it? Hell no. The only thing being “sensitive” had gotten him was three days of missing the woman more than he would have thought possible.

He even missed her damn dog.

Something had to break and it had to happen soon. He couldn’t stay in Ireland indefinitely. He had a life, work, waiting for him.

“Which is the only reason I was willing to try Cara’s plan,” he said into the phone.

“Cara,” his brother Justice asked. “Who is she again?”

Jefferson gave an impatient sigh. “Maura’s sister. I told you.”

“You’ve been rattling off names of everyone in the village for the last half hour, how’m I supposed to keep them all straight? So Cara is Maura’s sister and Maura’s the one who turned you down.”

Jefferson scowled both at the phone
and
at his younger brother on the other end. “Yes, thanks for reminding me.”

Justice laughed and he sounded as if he were in the next room, not sitting at his ranch in California. “Pardon me for enjoying this, but I seem to remember you getting a charge out of watching Maggie make me miserable not so long ago.”

“That was different,” Jefferson said and walked to the balcony of his suite. Looking out over the river, glistening like quicksilver in the moonlight, he only half listened to the jumble of music drifting to him from a nearby pub. This harbor city, though it was nowhere near as big as L.A., was a far cry from the village of
Craic and the otherworldly quiet that he’d become so used to. Realizing that didn’t put him in a better frame of mind. “That was you being miserable. This is
me.”

“Right,” Justice said, still laughing, then to someone else added, “He says he
did
propose the right way.” He sighed, then said to Jefferson, “Maggie doesn’t believe you.”

“Tell her thanks for the support.” Naturally his sister-in-law would come down on Maura’s side. Female solidarity at work again. He’d about had his fill of strong women lately. Especially strong women who were currently making him insane.

“So tell me again,” his brother said, “what was Cara’s plan?”

Jefferson frowned out at the city. Westport was awake and partying. Lovers walked along the Carrowberg River, pausing now and then for a desperate kiss beneath old-fashioned streetlamps.

It was a great view, he admitted silently. But it wasn’t the one he wanted. He preferred the view of the lake out Maura’s bedroom window.

Damn it.

Months, he thought, since he’d touched her. Except for that one kiss interrupted by the movement of his child. And that kiss haunted him, waking and sleeping. Need was a clawing, vicious beast crouched inside him, tearing at him constantly. The only way to assuage the beast was to be with her and the only way to be with her was to promise her something he couldn’t.

He was a man caught in a web that twisted more tightly about him every time he tried to escape it.

“You still there?” Justice demanded.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Jefferson turned his back on the view and said, “What were we talking about? Oh, right. Cara’s plan. Well, right about now, she’s telling Maura that I’m going to fire her from the movie unless Maura agrees to marry me.”

“Are you nuts?”

Since he’d just thought the same thing himself, that was a statement hard to argue with. Jefferson muttered a curse and dropped onto the edge of the bed. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Let me get this straight,” Justice said in his slow, thoughtful style, “you’re planning to use extortion to get the mother of your child to marry you. That about cover it?”

Somehow, this idea sounded worse when Justice said it. “Yeah. That’s the plan.”

“And you think this move is going to endear you to her?”

He stood up again, feeling a swirl of something that he might have thought was panic if he’d been the kind of man to feel that particular emotion. “I never said that’s what I was going for. This isn’t about that at all.”

“Good thing,” Justice murmured.

Jefferson had thought that Justice, of all of his brothers, would understand because of his well-developed sense of honor and loyalty. “This is about marrying the mother of my baby. It’s the right thing to do and you know it.”

“Sure, if you love her.”

Exasperated now, he demanded, “Who said anything about love?”

“I think I just did.”

“Well, knock it off.” Jefferson paced his bedroom and when he didn’t have enough room, left to stride back and forth across the living area. “This isn’t about love, Justice, and since when did you become the touchy-feely brother?”

A laugh barked into the phone. “I’m not. I’m only saying that marrying someone
just
because of a baby is a bad idea.”

“That’s what Maura keeps saying.”

“Smart woman.” Then to his own wife, Justice added, “Not smarter than you, honey.” Then he was back and saying, “Jeff, don’t dig yourself a hole you’re not gonna be able to climb out of. You can be a part of your kid’s life without being married to his mother.”

Yeah, he could. Logically, Jefferson knew his brother was right. But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be a part-time father. Be one of the weekend dads that he saw all over Los Angeles. He wanted the same kind of relationship with his own kid that Jefferson himself had had with his father. He wanted a damn family for his child. That made him a bad guy? In whose book?

What was so wrong with wanting to be with his child’s mother?

“That’s not how it’s going to be,” he said firmly, feeling his resolve settle in. He’d outmaneuvered studio heads, business moguls and financial wizards. He had no doubt that he could outdo one beautiful sheep farmer.

“Your call,” Justice said, “but I’ve gotta say, I think you’re asking for trouble.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he answered ruefully.

Maura was going to be furious. But he’d had to get her here. To talk to him. And Cara’s plan had been the only way.

There was a knock at the door and Jefferson’s head snapped up like a wolf picking up the scent of its prey. Had to be Maura. No one else would be coming here to see him. And knowing she would show up, he’d left her name at the desk, clearing her for the elevator to his floor. “Can’t talk now,” he said softly. “She’s here.”