Wedding at King’s Convenience (8 page)

He seemed so pleased with himself. Didn’t he hear how empty the life he described sounded? If she didn’t have her farm, her work, who would she be?

“So I’m to give up my home,” she said, her voice low, soft, barely making more than a hush in the quiet. “Sell the land my family’s worked for generations. And then I’m to go off to Hollywood and spend your money. Is that it? Is that the life you’ve planned for me?”

Something in her tone warned him. Wary now, Jefferson watched her as she gently set the lamb down in the pen beside her and just as carefully picked up the last one. Her features were blank, but her eyes were glittering darkly.

Jefferson didn’t see the problem. He was offering her the kind of life thousands of women would kill for. But maybe it would just take her a minute to see the beauty of it. So he gave her an easy smile and painted an even rosier—to his mind—picture than he had before. “Think about it, Maura. Lazy days sitting by a pool. Going out to lunch with your friends. Having time to play with the baby as much as you want. As my wife, you won’t be expected to work every day. You can take it easy for the first time in your life.”

“Take it easy. Just live to serve you, is that it?” she asked, tenderly stroking the head of the lamb suckling at the bottle she held.

In the glare of the lights, her features were in sharp relief. She looked calm, which Jefferson knew was a lie. Her eyes were bright and a flush of color filled her
cheeks. No matter how tranquil she might appear, she was reining in a temper he’d seen in full force before, up close and personal.

“I don’t know what you’re getting all worked up over. You’re not going to be serving me, for God’s sake,” he said, wondering why she couldn’t see the simple beauty in his plan. “Maura, you’re deliberately putting words in my mouth and making this harder than it has to be.”

“Oh, am I? So selling my farm, my
home
should be easy? Leaving the life I love, my friends, my family, my
country,
should be a lark?” She shook her head and kept her voice low, not for his sake, he knew, but for the sake of the baby animal she held in her arms. “I’m sorry to tell you, but I’ve no interest at all in moving to Hollywood, with you or without you. And I can tell you now, you won’t be after changing my mind about this no matter what you have your assistant ‘arrange.’”

He put a lid on the frustration beginning to churn inside him. It wouldn’t help a thing to just hammer back at her. Instead, he had to try to smooth her into seeing things his way. “Just think about it, all right? Before you dismiss it out of hand. You can pick out whichever house you want. It doesn’t have to be in the city. We can buy something in the mountains. With some land. Whatever you want. I’ll even buy you some sheep if you want and you can hire someone to do the work. I can make your life a hell of a lot easier than it’s been so far. What’s so wrong with that?”

Silently, he congratulated himself on being able to lay the facts out so tidily. Surely she’d see now exactly what kind of life he could offer her.

“This is how you think to convince me?” she asked, shaking her head in disappointment as she looked at him. “Am I supposed to be impressed with your station?”

“My what?” Confusion bloomed in his mind.

“You use your money so easily. Are people so eager to be purchased by you that you expect it from everyone?”

“Purchased?” he echoed. “I’m not trying to buy you, Maura, I’m trying to give you—”

“Is your life so much better than mine?” she demanded, interrupting him as she put the lamb back in the pen and stood up. “Is this the prince offering the pauper a peek at the finer things in life? Should I be awed? Grateful? Is that it?”

“Prince? Where’d you get that?” This really wasn’t going at all well and damned if he could figure out how he’d blown it. But looking into dark blue eyes that were flashing with insult and anger, he knew he had.

“You’re speaking to me as you would to a child you’re offering a special treat. You with your money and your fine houses and your jets. Did you really think I’d be pleased to have you swoop in and throw money at me?” She lifted the lamb from his arms, returned it to the pen with the others, then snatched the empty baby bottle from him. “Well, I’m not. My life is just exactly that.
My
life. I don’t care two spits about your money, just so you know. If you put a torch to it, I wouldn’t so much as warm myself by the blaze.”

Completely baffled, he only stared at her. “How did this get to be about money?”

“You started it, with your list of temptations, thinking to seduce me away from the home I love.” Her eyes were
wide and bright and her mouth was set into a furious line. “You with your fine education, pretty suits and private jets. Like all rich men, you wield power however it suits you no matter who is in the way. You’ve no idea at all how real people live, do you?”

“Real people?” That was enough. He stood up and looked down at her. “I don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about. I’m trying to do the right thing here. The right thing for you
and
the baby.”

“And I’m to fall in line, am I?”

“This is crazy,” he said and grabbed her shoulders, holding her still when she would have bolted. “You’re not going to make me feel guilty for offering to give you and my child a better life.”

“And who’s to say which life is better? You, I suppose?”

“Not better,” he corrected. “Easier.”

“The easy way isn’t always the best way. When I marry,
if I
marry, it’ll be for love, Jefferson King—and I’ve not heard
that
word out of you.”

He let her go as if his fingers had been burned. “This isn’t about love.”

“And that’s my point.”

He pushed his hand through his hair, then scrubbed that hand across the back of his neck. Finally, when he’d eased the tension in his own chest, he looked at her and said softly, “We weren’t in love when we made that child. Why do we need to be in love to raise it?”

She pulled in a slow, deep breath then let it slide from her lungs. “What we shared, neither of us thought to be a permanent thing. It was heat and passion and want. Raising a child is more than that, Jefferson, as well you know.”

“There was more to that night than simple desire and you know that.”

A long minute slipped past before she nodded. “I do, yes. There was caring between us, I admit that. But affection isn’t love.”

He couldn’t give her what she wanted. He’d done love once before and when it ended, he’d sworn off. Love wasn’t in his future plans. Wasn’t even on his horizon. Yes, he felt something for Maura, but it wasn’t love. He’d been in love before and what was now crowded in his chest, squeezing his heart, was nothing like he’d felt back then.

“There’s nothing wrong with affection, Maura. Plenty of marriages have started with less.”

“Mine won’t,” she said simply. Then she squared her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “You’ve done your duty, Jefferson King. You can go back to your life knowing you tried to do the right thing. But I tell you here and now, I won’t be marrying you.”

T
wo days later, Maura felt like a caged animal. Oh, she had the run of the farm, but she remained under the watchful eye of Jefferson King. He was everywhere she turned. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since he’d arrived during the last storm. If she stepped outside the house, there he was. If she was feeding the lambs, he turned up to help. If she walked into the village, he went with her.

She’d reached the point now where she was looking for him, expecting him. Blast the man, that had most likely been his plan all along.

Though she’d set the village to rights and her friends and neighbors had once again opened their businesses to the film crew, Jefferson remained in the trailer parked outside her home. He didn’t go back to the inn. Didn’t
move to a comfortable hotel. Oh, no. He stayed in that too-small trailer so that he could badger Maura and tell her what their future was going to be, like it or not.

“What kind of world is it when a woman has to sneak out of her own house?” she murmured to herself as she quietly closed the back door, wincing at the click of the door shutting. All she wanted was some time alone. To think. To feel sorry for herself. To do a little damn whining in private. Was that too much to ask?

Being around Jefferson was wearing on her. Love for him was caught up in her chest and strangling her with the effort to express itself. But how could she profess her love for a man who thought “affection” was enough to build a life on?

She snapped her fingers for King and the dog came running. He sprinted past her, out into the fields behind the farmhouse, chasing his own imagination and the rabbits he continually hoped to find. Maura only smiled. She’d made it. Gotten clean away and so she took a deep breath of the chill spring air. It was a fine day, and no sign of another storm yet, though she knew the good weather wouldn’t last. But while it did, she wanted to be outside, with the sunshine spilling down on her and the soft wind blowing through her hair.

And as she walked, she asked herself if she could really have given up this life. Her gaze followed the sweep and roll of the green hills and fields. Stone fences and trees twisted by wind and storm stood as monuments to the only life she’d ever known. Could she have walked away?

If Jefferson had actually meant that proposal. If there had been love rather than duty prompting it. Could she
have sold her farm, moved thousands of miles away and given up the cool, clear beauty of the fields for the tangled crush of people?

The answer, of course, was yes. For love, she would have tried it. She might not have sold the farm, but she could have leased the land to a nearby farmer. She could have come back to visit, though the thought of leaving tore at her heart enough to make her stagger a bit. Yes. For love she would have made the effort.

For affection, she would not.

“Are you all right?” a too-familiar deep voice called out from behind her.

She sighed. So she hadn’t escaped after all.

Maura didn’t turn, didn’t slow down, just shouted, “I’m fine, Jefferson, just as I was the last time you asked that question an hour ago.”

He caught up with her in a moment’s time, her much-shorter legs no match for his long strides. Falling into step beside her, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lifted his face to the sun. “Feels good to actually see sunlight for a change.”

“Spring’s a stormy season,” she muttered and told her jittery stomach to calm down. Much to her own chagrin, it wasn’t just his constant presence that was making her feel trapped. It was her body’s, her heart’s reaction to him that was eating away at her.

Even now, her heartbeat was quickening. Being near Jefferson set her blood to boiling and her nerves dancing. His scent. His voice. His nearness. All combined to make her want with an ache she knew would never really leave her.

And to have him always close by was nothing less than torture.

“Where are you off to?”

“Just a walk,” she told him with a wave. “Up to the ruins and back.”

“That’s at least a mile,” he pointed out.

“At least.” She glanced up at him and smiled at the concerned frown she saw on his face. “I’m used to the exercise, Jefferson. And I don’t need a bodyguard here on my own land.”

He grinned suddenly. “But I enjoy guarding your body.”

She flushed as he’d meant her to and the nerves already scampering through her system went on a rampage. It was probably hormones, she thought. She’d always heard that pregnant women were needier than usual. So it wasn’t entirely her fault that at the moment she wanted nothing more than to feel his arms come around her. To have him roll the two of them to the sweet-smelling grass and bury himself inside her.

She took a shallow breath. No. Not her fault at all.

“Shouldn’t you be working with your people?” she asked, hoping against hope to convince him to stay at the farm.

“The director knows what he’s doing. I don’t butt in on his job.”

“But you’re comfortable butting into mine,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of the words.

“You’re not working. You’re walking.”

“You’re an impossible man, Jefferson King.”

“So I’ve been told.” He bent down, broke off the stem of a wild daffodil and held it out to her.

Charmed in spite of herself, Maura took it and twirled the dainty flower in her fingers. “How long are you staying in Ireland?”

“Eager to see me go?”

No.
Of course she didn’t say what she was thinking. “There’s no real need for you to stay.”

“I say there is.” He stopped, turned her to face him and deliberately let his gaze slide down to her belly.

He couldn’t see the small bump because she was wearing one of her thick Irish sweaters. But she felt him watching her, and felt the possession in that steady gaze and it thrilled her. In some elemental part of her heart and soul, Maura loved the way he looked at her. At the child they’d made.

But even as she admitted that, she had to also admit that it meant nothing. He was concerned for her and their baby. But he didn’t love them.

Need without love was an empty thing she wanted no part of. Especially now that she had more than just her own feelings to think of.

“Don’t you have work to do, Jefferson? Worlds to buy, movies to make?”

He grinned again and the sudden sweep of emotion on his face was another staggering blow to a woman already distinctly off balance.

“I’ve been working.”

“In your trailer?” She started walking again and looked into the distance for King. She spotted him then, a black blur, racing across the open fields, and she smiled.

“With technology, I could work in a tent,” Jefferson told her. “All I really need is a computer, a satellite
phone with Internet and a fax machine, which I’m going to be buying today in Westport. You won’t mind if I connect it in your house, will you?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”

“Good, thanks.”

She muttered something under her breath about him being far more stubborn than she could ever hope to be. But a part of her relished what he was doing. Though she had no intention of being nothing more than a problem for Jefferson to solve, it salved her pride some to have him working so hard to persuade her.

“So, how’d the bull get out?”

His question brought a quick stop to her thoughts and it took her a second to realize what he was talking about. She cringed slightly, remembering. “Oh. You heard about that, did you?”

“Davy Simpson’s still telling the story,” Jefferson said, his grin spreading. “And with every telling, he runs a little faster, the bull gets bigger and meaner and the danger is more desperate.”

Maura laughed at the image. “He sounds Irish. We love nothing more than a good storyteller.”

“Uh-huh. The bull, Maura. Did you turn it loose on purpose?”

“Of course not!” She might have thought about it, but she never would have done it. In fact, she’d been terrified when the bull escaped, worried that it might actually hurt someone. “No, ’twas an accident entirely. I had Tim Daley in to help me that day. Tim’s but sixteen and his mind is forever wandering to Noreen Muldoon.”

“I know what that’s like,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Go on.”

“There’s not much more to the tale. After feeding the bull, Tim, with his mind still on Noreen, forgot to latch the gate behind him and…” She shrugged. “It was an accident, and thankfully no one was hurt. Took me more than an hour to get the bull set away again.”

“You put the bull away?” He goggled at her.

“And who else?” she asked. “’Tis my bull, after all.”

“Your bull.” He dropped his head forward, chin to chest, as he sighed.

“Aye, and his escape was a mistake, though I’ll admit that the sheep running mad through your set was not.”

He lifted his eyes to her. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I was angry. You were ignoring me.”

King bulleted back to them through the grass, gave a happy bark, then spun around and took off again.

“You had a right to be angry,” Jefferson said, “but now you’re being stubborn just to spite me.”

She stopped in the field, with wild daffodils blooming all around her. The sky was a soft blue, with clouds scudding its surface like sailing ships on a placid sea. The wind blew and the grass danced and in the distance, King barked, delighted with his life.

“Is that what you think?” she asked, turning her face up to his so that their eyes met and there could be no secrets between them on this. “Do you believe I’d punish you, myself, my baby all for the sake of spite?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“You don’t know me as well as you think, Jefferson, if you believe me capable of that.” She plucked windblown
hair out of her eyes and stared at him. “I’m doing what’s best. For all of us. I won’t be a pity wife.”

He gaped at her. “Pity wife? Where the hell did that come from?”

She smiled and shook her head. “We both know you’ve no interest in acquiring a wife. It’s the baby worrying you and that speaks well of you. But marrying me is nothing more than feeling sorry for what you see as my ‘difficult position.’”

“It’s
not pity,”
he told her. “It’s concern. For you
and
our child.”

“Doesn’t really matter. I won’t leave my home, Jefferson, and try to make myself into the kind of person who would belong in your world. Can’t you see it would never work?”

Instinctively, she reached out, laid one hand on his chest and felt the pounding of his heart beneath her palm. “I don’t belong in your world any more than you do in mine. We’d make each other miserable inside a year and that would be a punishment on a child who deserves only love.”

“That’s a great speech, Maura,” he said and caught her hand in his. “But it’s bull and you know it. This isn’t about you not belonging in Hollywood. You know damn well that you’d fit in anywhere if you made your mind up to it.”

She flushed and tried to pull free of his grip.

“This isn’t about us, anyway. This is about our baby. I won’t be an absentee father, Maura.” His fingers folded around her hand, holding it fast. “I won’t see my own child once a month or for summer vacations.”

Clouds covered the sun and the wind sharpened.

“I’m not leaving, Maura. I’m not going to walk away so you’d better get used to the idea of having me around.”

“It’ll do you no good, Jefferson. I won’t change my mind.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he told her with assurance, “and don’t say anything you’ll have to take back later. It’ll only make it that much harder on you.”

Astonished at his raw nerve, she said, “You’ve an ego the size of the moon.”

“It’s called confidence, babe,” he said with a smile that softened his words. Then he bent his head to hers and whispered, “And confidence comes from
always
getting what I want. Trust me when I say, I will have you, Maura. Just where I want you.”

Aggravated with him and furious at the way her body was humming with a near-electrical charge, she said, “Why you miserable, softheaded—”

He cut off her diatribe with a kiss that stole her breath, fogged her mind and sent her body sliding away into a sort of dazed confusion. His tongue tangled with hers and Maura groaned at the invasion. It had been too long. Too many empty nights had passed. Too many dreams of him had haunted her.

She surrendered to what she’d missed so sorely. It didn’t mean she was changing her mind. It only meant that sometimes, a bit of what you wanted was better than nothing at all.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the taste of him. The feel of him pressed against her. She’d longed for this. Dreamed of this. And now that it was here, she didn’t care if it was only
making the situation more difficult. For this one brief moment, she would have him in her arms.

A heartbeat later, though, they jolted apart, with each of them staring down at the slight curve of her belly.

“Did you feel that?” she asked.

“I felt…something.” Awed now, Jefferson came closer, laid one hand on her abdomen and Maura covered his hand with her own. She’d thought it was too soon to feel the baby move. But the doctor had told her it would be any day now and that she’d know it when it happened.

And so she had.

A flutter, then a twitch as if her child had wanted to make its presence known while both of its parents were handy. Maura was thrilled, and, looking at Jefferson, she could see he felt the same. It was magic, pure and simple. Life stirring. A life they’d created. What a gift it was to be able to share this moment with the man who’d given her the child. And how sad for each of them that they wouldn’t share more.

“It’s not moving anymore,” Jefferson said in a worried hush. “Why did it stop? Is everything all right? We should go to the doctor—”

She shook her head and smiled. “No doctor, just wait a moment…” She was whispering, as if afraid to have the baby within hear her and stop moving deliberately.

“Maybe…
there!”
A more solid movement this time, with a sort of rippling sensation to accompany it.

Awed, humbled, Maura turned amazed, shining eyes up to his and Jefferson grinned like a fool.