The Way Home (29 page)

“I’m not a very big eater,” she said, answering his comment.

“How about a bowl of soup and a roll?” he coaxed, thinking that there were hollows in her cheeks that hadn’t been there a week ago.

“All right.” She gave him a quick smile and shut the menu. Ty knew she’d eat the soup to please him rather than because she wanted it. But dammit all, she’d eaten barely enough to keep a kitten alive these past few days. He’d married her to take care of her, not to watch her waste away.

He gave their order to the waiter, who took their menus and disappeared, leaving Ty with nothing to do but look across the table at his bride. Meg stared out the window, as if enthralled by the traffic outside the hotel. She was twisting the ring on her finger again — her wedding ring, he reminded himself. The one he’d given her barely three days ago, the one that said that she was his wife. His wife. Little Meg Harper, his wife.

“If the ring’s too big, I can take it to a jeweler’s,” he said, seeking a distraction from his thoughts.

Meg’s fingers jerked away from the ring as if it were suddenly hot to the touch and her eyes flew to his face. “It’s fine,” she said quickly.

“It’s not a problem to have it sized,” he said.

“It doesn’t need to be sized,” Meg insisted. It was the truth, but even if the ring had been on the verge of dropping off her finger, she wouldn’t have admitted it. It was silly, but she had the feeling that, if she let the ring off her finger, she wouldn’t be married anymore. As if the gold band were the only thing that made their marriage real.

“If you’re sure.” iy reached across the table and took her hand, running his thumb across the surface of the ring. “It was my grandmother’s, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.” Though she’d jumped like a startled deer when he touched her, Meg was soothed by the feel of his hand holding hers.

“My grandfather gave it to me not long before he died. Said he hoped it brought half as much luck to me someday as it had brought to him.”

And he’d given it to her. Meg felt something stir inside her, something she was afraid to examine too closely. Something that could have been, if she was very, very foolish, a renewed hope that this marriage was more to him than just a means of protecting her.

“It fits just fine but I’m not used to it,” she admitted apologetically.

“Not used to the ring? Or not used to being married?” Ty asked.

“It does feel a little strange, still.” She kept her eyes on their hands, his fingers enfolding hers.

“To me, too. How long do you think it’ll take to get used to it?”

There was a trace of laughter in his voice that brought her eyes to his face. The laughter was in his dark eyes, too, inviting her to smile at the absurdity of the two of them finding themselves married. Meg felt a small shaft of pain stab her chest, but she smiled, wanting desperately to get back something of the comfortable relationship they’d had — Lord, was it only a few days ago?

“I don’t know,” she said, wondering if they were going to be married long enough to worry about getting used to it. But she couldn’t ask him that — not when she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to hear his answer.

“I guess most couples must feel like this, at first.” Ty squeezed her hand one final time before releasing it.

“Yes,” Meg agreed, even as she thought that there couldn’t be very many marriages that started out quite like theirs had.

“I imagine we’ll get used to it,” he said. He leaned back to allow the waiter to set a plate of steak and still-sizzling fried potatoes in front of him.

Meg stared down at her bowl of cream of tomato soup and wondered if she should take his words to mean that there would not only be time for them to get used to being married, but a reason to do so. Was she to have a real marriage, after all? A real wedding night?

* $ *

Meg smoothed her hand over the soft cotton of her pajamas — Ty’s pajamas, actually. Jack was bringing her things to California with him, but until he arrived, her wardrobe was limited, to put it mildly. Hanging in the spacious closet was one dress and the suit in which she’d been married. Her only night attire was the striped pajamas Ty had provided. She’d grown quite fond of them, actually, but she couldn’t help but wish for something just a little more feminine to wear on her wedding night. Or what she thought might be her wedding night.

Ty had left her alone in their suite, saying he’d be back later. After their conversation at dinner, when it had seemed so clear that he intended their marriage to last, she thought he was being considerate, giving her some privacy in which to get ready for bed.

Meg lifted her head and looked at her reflection. It wasn’t exactly the motion-picture image of a girl on her wedding night. And the bride wore yellow and blue, she thought, touching the bruises that still circled her eye. The swelling was gone and the marks were starting to fade, but she doubted that her appearance was going to start a craze for brides with black eyes this season.

She patted her cheeks to bring color into them, aware that her fingers were trembling. She might not be wearing a white silk nightgown, but she’d brushed her hair until it shone golden in the soft light. She wanted desperately for Ty to think she looked pretty. He
had
thought she was pretty, before they were married. He’d kissed her and he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t thought she was attractive.

The frightened girl in the mirror had no answers to give her, and Meg turned and left the bathroom. Holding on to her courage with both hands, she crossed the soft carpet to the bed. Abandoning dignity, she dived into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She was trembling a little, shivers of nervous tension running down her spine.

Staring up at the pale-pink ceiling, she asked herself if she was afraid. The answer was a very definite maybe. The consummation of her marriage was something she wanted, dreaded, longed for, and feared. Like most unmarried girls, she had only a rough understanding of just what happened between a man and a woman in the privacy of a marriage bed. What little she did know was neither encouraging nor reassuring.

But against those vague bits of knowledge, she had the memory of the way she’d felt when Ty held her, kissed her. There’d been nothing frightening about that, unless it was the sheer wonder of how he’d made her feel.

Briefly she considered whether her stepfather’s brutal attack had left any lingering traces of fear. The memory of his hands on her body, the twisted lust in his eyes were enough to bring the acrid taste of bile to her throat. But it simply wasn’t possible to compare the horror of that moment with the sweet memory of Ty’s arms around her.

When Ty held her, kissed her, she’d felt a warmth that started in the pit of her stomach and spread outward to encompass her entire body. His touch made her want things she didn’t understand, made her hungry for something she couldn’t quite define. Just thinking about those feelings made her blush.

When Meg heard the outer door to the suite open, her breath caught. A quick spurt of panic had her hand shooting out to snap off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The outer door shut and Meg held her breath, her eyes glued to the narrow band of light just visible under the bedroom door.

She could hear vague noises as Ty moved around in the sitting room that comprised the other half of their suite. Tired and nervous as she was, Meg had been impressed by the sophisticated decor, everything done in shades of peach and black lacquer. There was a built-in bar and she heard the faint clink of a bottle against glass as Ty poured himself a drink.

She wondered suddenly if it was possible that he was nervous about tonight, too. The thought that he might need a little Dutch courage was oddly reassuring. She lay watching the thin bar of light beneath the door, trying to guess what iy was doing from the faint sounds that reached her.

Minutes ticked by and the door remained shut. She could hear Ty stirring in the other room, but he didn’t come to the door. Should she have left the light on? she wondered. Maybe he thought she was asleep. Her teeth worried at her lower lip. Should she turn it back on or would that look absurd?

Her nerves were stretched near to breaking point when the light under the door vanished. Meg caught her breath, thinking that Ty would be coming to the bedroom now. Her fingers clutched the sheet with white-knuckled force, and she could feel her every thud of her heart as it pounded against her breastbone.

The room was so quiet, she could hear the seconds ticking off on the clock next to the bed. Seconds that stretched into a minute. Two minutes.
What was he doing?
Five minutes.
What could be taking him so long?
Ten minutes.

He wasn’t coming.

The realization crept over her slowly as the minutes ticked away. Her fingers relaxed their hold on the sheet and the nervous anticipation drained away, leaving her shaky and feeling almost sick. She didn’t have to worry about not having a white silk nightgown or whether her husband thought she looked pretty for her wedding night or not.

Because there wasn’t going to be a wedding night.

Would there ever be? Or was she going to be signing annulment papers in a few months, standing before a judge and admitting that her marriage had never really been a marriage; that there was no reason that the court shouldn’t wipe it from the record books as if it had never happened?

Without thinking, Meg swung her legs off the bed, feeling the soft pile of the carpet beneath her bare feet as she crept toward the door. She turned the knob slowly, holding her breath as she tugged the door open and peered out into the sitting room. The curtains were open and there was enough light coming in through the windows for her to make out the lines of the furniture.

She tiptoed forward until she stood next to the sofa. From outside, she heard the faint hum of traffic, the buzz of the city that never completely disappeared, no matter how late the hour. But the room was quiet enough for her to hear the steady sound of Ty’s breathing. He was asleep.

Meg stared down at him. The sofa was nearly a foot shorter than he was and his feet hung off the end of it. He’d taken off his shirt but left his T-shirt on. A blanket was draped over his legs and a pillow was bunched under his head. All in all, it looked like a thoroughly uncomfortable place to spend the night. But he’d apparently preferred it to sharing a bed with her.

Staring down at him, Meg forced herself to accept reality. He’d married her to protect her. No more dreams, no more telling herself that they could build a solid marriage on the unorthodox beginning they’d had. Ty had married her because he’d wanted to keep her safe. He didn’t want her and there was no sense in thinking he did.

When she turned eighteen and was beyond Harlan Davis’s reach, her marriage would end. If Ty didn’t ask her for an annulment, she’d offer it. She loved him enough to make it easy for him. And in the few weeks between now and her birthday, she’d do her best to be a good wife, to make him happy. If possible, when she walked away, she’d leave him with nothing but good memories.

With a last look at Ty’s sleeping figure, Meg turned and went back into the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her. She crept back into the bed, letting the smooth linen pillowcase absorb the slow tears that dampened her cheeks.

Ty heard the barely audible
click
of the bedroom door closing and drew a deep, ragged breath. He opened his eyes and stared at the faint gleam of lights just visible between the open drapes. Sometime in the past, he must have committed a sin for which he was now being punished.

It wasn’t enough to know that Meg was his wife, his by laws of man and God, and yet know that she was out of reach. And it apparently wasn’t enough to have spent the past several hours thinking about the wide bed in the other room, a bed just made for sharing, and yet know that he was going to be spending his night on a sofa that fell a foot a short of comfort.

Those things weren’t punishment enough. Meg had to come tiptoeing out of the bedroom, smelling of soap and tooth powder, wearing his old pajamas and looking more desirable than any woman had a right to do. He’d watched her through slitted eyes, careful to keep his breathing steady. She’d hovered next to him for a moment, and Ty had curled his fingers into his palm, fighting the urge to reach out and catch her hands in his, to pull her down to him.

He’d cursed the need he felt, the hunger that burned in his gut. He’d married Meg to protect her, to keep her safe.

She wouldn ‘t fight you,
a sly voice whispered.
Remember the way she kissed you?

No, she wouldn’t fight him. Knowing Meg, he figured that she’d probably think her virginity was the least she owed him. She just couldn’t seem to see that he was to blame for what had happened, that
he
was the one who owed her. All the pain and humiliation she’d suffered had been his fault. If he hadn’t let their friendship develop; if he hadn’t ignored the growing affection he’d seen in her eyes, she wouldn’t have found herself hurt and alone, turning to him because there was nowhere else she could go. For once he was going to do the right thing and keep his distance from Meg.

She’s your wife.

She was also a sweet, innocent girl who’d come to him for protection, who’d married him out of fear. Considering all that she’d gone through, he couldn’t imagine that she’d welcome sharing her bed with him. Maybe she’d had a bad dream and that was why she’d come to him. But offering comfort was beyond him tonight. Tonight he couldn’t forget how good she’d felt in his arms, how sweet her kisses had been. Or the fact that she wore his wedding ring.