Texas! Lucky (24 page)

"Loathsome three?"

"A brain, a conscience, and a husband."

Lucky glowered at her. "You know, the day Mother and Dad brought you home from the hospital, Chase and I considered tying you up in a gunnysack and tossing it into the stock pond. Too bad we didn't."

* * *

"Lucky looked ready to kill Sage when they came in," Tanya remarked.

Chase and she were driving home in their car. He'd left the truck at the house, unwilling to subject his wife to its rankness, rattles, and rough ride.

"Sage has always been a pain," he said, but with a grudgingly affectionate smile. "She must've said something to him about their houseguest."

"I like her."

"Sage?"

"No." Tanya corrected him indulgently, knowing he had intentionally misunderstood her. "Their house guest."

"Hmm. She's okay, I guess. She pulled through for us today. Didn't crack under pressure, and stayed as cool as a cucumber. I believed every word she said. A jury will, too."

"Do you think she's attractive?"

Hearing the uncertainty in his wife's voice, Chase parked in their designated space at the apartment complex and turned to face her. "I think you are attractive," he avowed softly, stretching across the seat to gently kiss her forehead.

"But Devon's so smart and sophisticated."

"And you're so pregnant with my baby." Working his way inside her clothing, Chase laid his hand on her bare abdomen. "When did you first suspect?"

"Last week. My period was more than two weeks late. I took a home pregnancy test yesterday, but didn't want to trust it entirely, no matter how reliable the guarantee on the box claimed it was. So I called the doctor and made an appointment for this morning. He confirmed it."

"You don't feel any different," he whispered as he caressed her.

Laughing, she ran her fingers through his hair. "I hope not. Not yet."

His caresses increased in intensity. Their kisses became prolonged. Finally Tanya pushed him away. "Maybe we had better go inside."

"Maybe we'd better," he agreed on a suggestive growl.

As soon as they had cleared the door to their apartment, he pulled her toward the living-room sofa. "Chase," she protested, "it's only a few more steps to the bedroom."

"That's too many."

He had already stripped off his shirt. Easing his zipper over his swollen sex, he pulled off his pants and underwear. Impatiently he removed Tanya's clothes, too. It wasn't until he was poised between her thighs that reason penetrated his passion.

"I won't hurt you, will I?"

"No."

"You'll tell me, won't you?"

"Yes, Chase."

"Promise?"

"Promise," she groaned, urging him forward and receiving him fully.

"God, I love you," he whispered into her hair several minutes later as they held each other in the sultry afterglow of their lovemaking.

"I love you too." Snuggling closer to him, she pressed her mouth against his chest. "I feel sorry for anybody who isn't as happy as we are. Especially Devon and Lucky."

Tanya didn't have an envious bone in her body. She was unselfish and generous to a fault. However, she harbored insecurities the same as any other human being. Hers stemmed from her background.

She came from a large, hardworking, but always poor farming family. Schooling beyond high school graduation had been out of the question, and she regarded anyone who had earned a college degree with disproportionate admiration.

It had been Tanya's sweet nature and unpretentiousness that had first attracted Chase. He recognized her insecurities and found them endearing, though he never discussed them with her. It was characteristic of her nature that while being awed by Devon Haines's panache, she could still feel sorry for her.

He said, "You link their names as though they're a pair."

"I think they would be if they could be," she said softly.

"Tanya," he said gruffly, smoothing back her fair hair, "you're going to make a wonderful mother."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you have such a huge capacity for loving."

Her eyes grew misty as her fingers glided over the strong features of his face. "What a lovely thing to say, Chase."

"It's true."

Before they became too maudlin, she smiled. "You know, one thing that has limited capacity is this apartment. I spoke with a realtor a few weeks ago, before Lucky's troubles started. She said when we were ready to start looking for a house to contact her."

"She?"

"An old friend of yours. Marcie Johns."

"Goosey Johns!" he exclaimed on a laugh.

"Goosey?"

"That's what we used to call her."

"How awful."

"Naw. It was all in fun."

"She's very nice."

"Oh, I know that," he agreed. "She always was. We just goaded her because she was tall and skinny, wore glasses and braces, and studied all the time."

"Apparently she's getting the last laugh. She's a very successful businesswoman."

"So I've heard. She's got her own realty company now, doesn't she?"

"Mm-hmm. And even after robbing the kitty to pay Lucky's bail, I believe we'll have enough for a down payment. Know what?" Tanya said, propping herself up to look down at him. "I think Marcie had a crush on you when you were in school."

"Really?" No longer listening, he cupped one of her breasts and fanned the crest with his thumb. "Lord, that's beautiful."

"She asked a lot of questions about you, was curious to know how you were, that kind of thing."

"Goosey Johns was interested in books, not boys. Especially horny boys like me," he added, pulling Tanya astride his middle. Her body sheathed his hardness again. Breathlessly he asked, "Now can we talk about something else?"

They didn't talk about anything at all.

Chapter 15

I
t had a tennis court, a nine-hole golf course, a weight room, a jogging track, a library stocked with current best-sellers. For all its amenities, however, it was still a prison. Using her telephone credit card, Devon had called the warden's office from the Tylers' home the day before and scheduled a meeting with her husband for 9:00 A.M.

She had got up early, dressed, and gone downstairs. Laurie had insisted that she drink a cup of coffee before leaving. Sage was still asleep. She was told, without having asked, that Lucky had left early to return the company truck to headquarters in case it was needed.

A morning drive through the East Texas countryside in early summer should have been a pleasurable experience. Wildflowers dotted the pastures in which dairy and beef cattle grazed. She'd driven with the car windows rolled down. The south wind carried the scent of pine and honeysuckle. The peaceful hour it had required to arrive at those iron gates should have calmed her nerves and prepared her for the dreaded forthcoming visit with her husband. It hadn't.

Her palms were slick with perspiration as she was led into the room where inmates were allowed to greet their visitors. It was a large, airy room, having unadorned windows that overlooked the flower and vegetable gardens tended by the inmates themselves.

The easy chairs and sofas were functional but comfortable. Current magazines were scattered around the various accent tables. There was a coffee maker with a freshly brewed carafe and, this morning, a box of doughnuts nearby.

"He'll be right here," she was told by the prison guard. "Help yourself to coffee and doughnuts while you wait."

"Thank you."

She wanted neither. Her stomach was roiling. Resting her purse on one of the chairs, she clasped her damp hands together and moved toward the windows.

What to say?

Greg, I've had an affair.

It hadn't been an affair. It had been a single night.

Greg, I had a one-night stand.

No, that sounded worse.

Greg, I was swept up in the passion of the moment.

Passion?

Passion.

Whatever else it had been, it had been passionate. How else could it have happened? Reason hadn't entered into it. Not even romance. Common sense had played no part. Morality hadn't been considered. She'd been governed strictly by her passions.

And it had been glorious.

Ever since her night with Lucky, that traitorous thought had been throwing itself against the doors of her consciousness like a deranged beast trying to break down the barriers and get out to celebrate the event. That's why she felt compelled to confess it to Greg. Whether he was likely to find out or not, she would have eventually told him. If her emotions hadn't got as tangled up as the sheets of the bed she had shared with Lucky Tyler, she might have kept the secret for the rest of her life, never divulging it to anyone. But her emotions had become involved.

Because they were, her conscience was. She felt guilty about it; therefore, she had to discuss it with Greg.

Her marriage to Greg was certainly unorthodox, but the legal document still decreed them husband and wife. She'd freely recited the vows to him, and just as freely she had broken those vows.

What Greg had done or hadn't done, whether or not he was innocent or guilty, whether or not he had used her and her newspaper column—none of that mattered. She was an adulterous wife.

Perhaps if he had given her a wedding night as she had wanted and expected him to…

Perhaps if her body hadn't been so starved for the loving attention he had withheld…

Perhaps if he hadn't declined his conjugal visits…

That had been the crushing blow. Only hours before she had met Lucky, she had discovered that Greg had been refusing conjugal visits with her. When asked why, he couldn't give her a satisfactory answer.

"Why, Greg, why?" He provided no answers, and only became angry when she persisted.

More than her father's self-absorption, more than her mother's neglect, more than anything in her life, that had been the ultimate rejection. Her self-confidence had been shattered, her self-esteem crushed. Was she so undesirable that even her prisoner husband wouldn't avail himself of her?