Not Quite Married (21 page)

“What? Where did that come from? Move out? Dalton—”

“Answer the damn question.”

“I... No. I don’t want you to move out. Did I say that I wanted you to move out?”

“Who knows what you said, what you meant? I can’t tell what you’re working up to. So I asked you, all right? I just asked you directly. Are you trying to get me to go?”

Oh, dear Lord. How had this all gone so wrong, so fast?

She took a step toward him. He eyed her with fury and suspicion. “Stay,” she said softly, coaxingly. “I do
not
want you to go. I love what we have, love living with you.” She took another step. And another. And finally, she was close enough to reach for him. “I love—”

“Don’t.” He shifted back, jerking away from her touch.

She dropped her reaching hand, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying—again—to make him see. “Please, Dalton. I love you and I love having you here.”

There was a moment. Endless and awful. It was painfully clear to her that her refusal had wounded him. She hadn’t meant to do that. The last thing she ever wanted was to hurt him. She only wanted to love him. She only needed more time.

Finally, he spoke in a low voice with careful, tightly held control. “I’m going out.”

She cast about madly for a way to hold him there, a way to get him to stick with this, stick with her, until they somehow came out on the same page. But she had nothing. She ended up mumbling miserably, “Well, okay.”

“If you need me...” He seemed not to know how to finish.

Perfect. He didn’t know how to finish. She didn’t know where to start. “Look. It’s okay. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. I’ll just...” The words ran out as he took her by the shoulders.

Hope flared and her heart started galloping. Oh, if he would only pull her close, kiss her, say something wry and patient—something to reassure her that he understood her need to wait, to be absolutely certain the time was right before they went ahead with such a life-altering step as marriage.

But of course, he didn’t understand. And he didn’t pull her close. He only guided her gently to the side, clearing his path so that he could leave.

Clara turned to watch him go, pressing her lips together to keep herself from begging him to stay. A sad little moan of frustration escaped her. But if he heard it, he pretended not to. He walked away and he kept going.

She stood there, staring at the spot where he’d been, until she heard the front door open and then close behind him.

Chapter Twelve

D
alton left the house with fury in his heart and a vague plan to head for Prime Fitness. He would punch a bag until his hands bled and the muscles in his shoulders gave out.

But somehow he found himself stopping in front of McKellan’s, of all places.

The windows were dark. The bar wasn’t even open yet. And he certainly had no interest in meeting Ryan.

Still, Dalton stood there on the sidewalk, first staring at the Closed sign inside the front door, then slowly tipping his head back until he was looking at the top floor of the building and the big windows up there.

What do you know? Ryan stood in of those windows, wearing a CU T-shirt and sweatpants, holding a mug of coffee, looking down while Dalton looked up. Several seconds ticked by. And then Ryan raised an index finger.

Dalton nodded. The other man disappeared from sight.

Two minutes later, the door of the bar swung open. “Want some coffee?”

“Coffee would be good,” Dalton heard himself say.

“Come on up.”

Dalton went in. Ryan locked the door again and then led the way through the empty bar and up some stairs in back.

The apartment was a large one, with good views of the mountains all around. At the counter in the roomy, chef-worthy kitchen, Dalton took the seat Ryan offered. A cup of really good coffee from a pod machine was ready in no time.

Ryan leaned on the counter across from him. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“Pissed off. Dumped.”

“Pissed off, yes. Dumped, no—well, not exactly.” He glanced around vacantly, noted the high-end stove and fridge, and the splendid view of the mountains framed by the wide window over the nearby butcher block table. “I can’t believe I came here.”

Ryan gave a short laugh. “Why wouldn’t you come here? Who knows what goes on with her better than me?”

Dalton sipped more coffee. “I’ve got this delusion that you might be on my side now.”

Ryan shrugged. “I might be.”

“Will you give it to me straight? You are, or you aren’t.”

Ryan refilled his own mug and came around the counter to take the stool next to Dalton’s. “She’s had a baby with you. She wants to be with you. I want her to have what she wants.”

“So, then, what you’re telling me is you’re on my side.”

The other man finally gave it up. “Yeah. I’m on your side. I think she’s in love with you.”

“Right. She told me that this morning.”

One of Ryan’s eyebrows inched toward his hairline. “She said she’s in love with you and that pissed you off? You are seriously weird, dude.”

“Before she told me she loved me, I asked her to marry me—for the second time.”

“The light dawns. She said no again.”

“Not no. Just not right now.”

“And
that
pissed you off.”

“Oh, yes, it did. I asked her to marry me for the second time. I said I was willing to live here, where she wants to be. I essentially said I’d do anything. Which is true. I would. Anything. If she would just marry me.” He drained the mug. “Apparently, for Clara, anything and everything isn’t enough.”

Ryan got up and made more coffee. This time, he pulled a bottle of Crown Black from the cupboard and added a double shot to both of their mugs.

It was too early for liquor, but Dalton didn’t refuse. He took his mug back and sipped. It went down hot and smooth.

Ryan said, “She’s afraid to get married.”

“I know.”

“Afraid she’ll get it wrong.”

“I know.”

“So you have to wait, man. You just have to hold steady. And wait.”

Dalton knocked back more whiskey-laced coffee. “I need things settled.”

“Well, right now you’re not going to get what you need.”

Dalton shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“Got that.”

“I’m a banker. I’m an Ames. An Ames is a pillar of the community. An Ames does not have a living-together arrangement with the mother of his child. When an Ames has children, he has the good sense and integrity to take that all-important walk down the aisle.”

“I hear you. But you have to hold steady.”

“There’s something very...slipshod about what’s happening here. I don’t like it one damn bit.”

“Hold steady.”

Dalton set his mug down harder than necessary. “Hold steady. Is that all you’ve got?”

“Sorry to break it to you, man. But right now, for you, that’s all there is.”

* * *

When he left Ryan’s place, Dalton went to Prime Fitness. He changed into workout clothes and went at it for two solid hours. Then he grabbed a shower and returned to Clara’s house.

She came hurrying through the dining room to meet him in the front hall. “Dalton.” She hesitated, a worried frown drawn between her smooth eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

Hold steady
. “I’ll live.”

She let out a little cry and ran to him. He opened his arms and took her in. “Dalton...” And she kissed him.

He kissed her back. Hard and deep. “Kiera?”

“Asleep.”

“Good.” He bent enough to get her under the knees and hoisted her high against his chest.

“Dalton, what in the—?”

“When’s Mrs. Scruggs coming?”

“After lunch sometime.”

“Good.”

“Dalton, what are you do—?”

He shut her up with a kiss and he carried her, still kissing her, into the great room. “Baby monitor?”

She pointed at the kitchen counter.

He carried her over there. “Grab it.”

She did. He kissed her some more as he carried her back through the dining room and up the stairs to the spare bedroom, where he took off all her clothes and then all his clothes and made love to her until Kiera needed her again.

The sex helped, more than the talk with Ryan and the two hours at the gym. He figured as long as he could have her in his arms every night and make love to her often, he could do it.

He could hold steady. He could wait her out. He could be there for her the way she needed him to, the way Kiera needed him—until Clara finally saw the light, got over whatever was holding her back and said yes, she would marry him. That yes, she would finally be his wife.

In the days that followed, he gave himself a lot of pep talks. He reminded himself that he was part of her life now. A big part. He was in her house and in her bed and she wanted him to stay there. He reminded himself of how much he liked it there. In her bed, of course. But also her house. Clara’s house was more like a real home than the giant Georgian mausoleum where he’d grown up, more like a home than any of the big, expensive houses he’d owned—because Clara and Kiera were in it.

Two weeks after he proposed at the breakfast table and she turned him down, he tried again to explain to her that to him, being married to her was a necessity, that it was how he’d been raised and what he believed. That he and she and Kiera were a family and they deserved all the rights and benefits of being a family. And the only way to get those rights and benefits was to stand up before a judge or a preacher, to say, “I do” and to sign a marriage license that would be filed at the courthouse, a legally binding document. They needed that kind of commitment. They needed to be bound together in every way, for all the world to see.

Clara didn’t disagree with him. She listened patiently to his excellent, thoroughly reasoned arguments.

And then she said that she loved him and she needed more time.

He went straight to the gym and worked out until he couldn’t lift his arms and the muscles in his legs twitched and quivered. Then he returned to the house and went upstairs to his makeshift office and didn’t come down until eight that night.

They made up in bed. A very sweet reunion. He buried himself in her softness and she cried out that she loved him as she came.

Hold steady
, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time.

More days passed. Clara established a regular routine for working at the café. She managed to put in six or seven hours daily, starting around ten. Every few hours she would duck out of the restaurant, come home and feed Kiera, then head back to work. Dalton watched Kiera while she was gone. He was even able to do his work while she slept. On the days he went to the local branch of the bank or to Denver, Mrs. Scruggs filled in.

It was all working out fine.

Or that was what he tried to tell himself.

But inside, he was going more than a little crazy. Because he wanted to make things right and they wouldn’t be right until Clara had his ring on her finger, until she finally said yes.

* * *

Clara knew Dalton was suffering.

She saw how hard he tried, how it got to him, not being able to do the right thing as he saw it.

And she loved him. Loved him so much.

She really did wonder at herself, at her own stubbornness, her deep-rooted fear that she would somehow mess it all up if she said yes. Strangely, that fear helped her to better understand why he’d called it off with her when they left the island. He’d been afraid, too, then, afraid and trying to protect himself.

At the time, the pain of his rejection had kept her from considering what might be driving him. If only she’d known then what she knew now, she could have forgiven him so much more quickly. She could have sought him out earlier, gotten past her silly assumptions about him and Astrid sooner.

If she’d gone to him sooner, she never would have put poor Rye through their almost-wedding. That whole sad little disaster wouldn’t even have happened. Because Dalton would have stepped right up and stuck by her.

And that would have given them more time together. Time for her to learn to trust her own instincts, to put her faith in her love.

Instead now
she
was the one with the fear. And
he
was the one ready to move forward.

For a while, she self-righteously told herself that it was
his
fault, that he didn’t really love her the way she wanted and needed to be loved. That if he really loved her, he would be able to say so, with feeling.

But as the weeks went by, she began to see that reasoning as the total garbage it was. With everything he did, Dalton proved that he loved her. Just to see him with Kiera in his arms was enough to convince any woman with a heart that the man would make an excellent husband.

She knew that she needed to get over this weird impasse within her, to shove her fear aside, to stand tall and say yes.

But she didn’t. Her fear held her captive, suspended, unable to act.

And a full month after that morning he proposed at the breakfast table, she had yet to agree to be his wife.

Dalton stayed with her, in her house and her bed. He took care of their baby. He didn’t make threats or stage any scenes. He made love to her often with a passion and intensity that left her limp and satisfied.

But he did withdraw from her in subtle ways. His dry sense of humor was less evident. He worked a little later in the evenings. He spent more time at the branch of his bank there in town. And he went to Denver more often.

She knew he was only doing his best, only trying to cope with his frustration at her continued refusal to take the next step. She did understand, even sympathize. And she didn’t blame him.

But his careful, polite withdrawal did nothing to help her decide to say yes.

She needed to get it all out with someone she trusted. She needed reassuring hugs and good advice. She needed a pep talk, something to break the impasse in her mind and heart. Unfortunately, Rory and her fiancé, Walker, were off in Montedoro for the birthday gala of Rory’s mother, the sovereign princess.