An Officer And A Millionaire

Six

The dance was a success.

But then it would have to be, Hunter thought. His “wife” wouldn’t have settled for anything less.

To please his grandfather, Hunter was wearing his dress whites, and so he stood out in the crowd of dark suits and ties even more than he might have usually. Now, leaning one shoulder against the wall in a corner of the room, he tried to disappear as he watched the crowd assembled in a local church hall.

It was the only room except for the ballroom at the castle that was large enough to accommodate this many people. And from Hunter’s vantage point, it looked as if most of the town had turned out for the event.

There were dozens of small round tables arranged around the room, with a long buffet line along one wall. The dinner had been catered by a restaurant in town, and the tantalizing spices and scents of Mexican food hovered in the noisy air. There were helium-filled balloons trailing colorful ribbon strings bouncing against the ceiling, and Calvin’s flowers decorated either end of the buffet table.

There was music blasting from someone’s stereo at the front of the room, and several couples were on the dance floor swaying to the beat. But mostly, people wandered the room, laughing and talking as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

Then, there was his “wife,” Hunter thought. His eyes narrowed on the redhead who’d done nothing but plague him for days. Since their conversation in the garden the day before, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about everything Margie had said to him, and that just irritated the hell out of him.

He didn’t want to feel guilty. He didn’t want her looking at him in disappointment as if he’d somehow let her, personally, down. He didn’t want to remember her words and hear the ring of truth to them.

Oh, not the coward part. That he’d fight until his dying breath. He was no coward. He hadn’t run from responsibility. He’d run to it. He’d wanted something different for his life. He’d wanted to leave a mark, to do something important. And he had. Damned if he’d apologize for that.

He straightened abruptly from the wall and felt a twinge of pain from his still-healing wound. And along with that ache came a whispering voice that asked, Haven’t you had enough of the adventure? Hadn’t you already been thinking that maybe it was time to come home?

Scowling out at the woman who’d made him think too much, remember too much, Hunter tried to brush her and all she stood for aside. But that was harder than he might have expected.

“You ought to be out there dancing with your wife,” a deep voice said from somewhere nearby.

Hunter glanced to his left and smiled. “Kane Hackett.” He shook hands with his old friend and said, “I don’t dance. You should know that.”

Kane grinned and slid a look across the room to where Margie was laughing and talking with a short blond woman. “A married man will do lots of things he didn’t use to do. Take that gorgeous little blonde talking to your Margie…”

Hunter had hardly noticed the other woman. How could he be expected to see anything but how that strapless black dress Margie was wearing defined her lush body? Now, though, he forced himself to look at the blonde. “Cute.”

“Damn sight better than cute,” Kane corrected, taking a sip from the beer bottle he held. “That’s my wife, Donna.”

Staggered, Hunter looked at the man who had gone off to join the Marines at the same time Hunter had enlisted in the Navy. “You? Married?”

Hardly seemed possible. Hunter and Kane had both been keen on adventure, on seeing the world. Experiencing everything life had to offer and then some. Now Kane was married?

“Why sound so surprised?” His old friend chuckled. “You took the plunge, why not me?”

“Yeah, but-” Hunter’s marriage was a fraud. “And you live here in town? Simon didn’t say anything to me.”

Kane shrugged. “Guess he was just waiting for us to bump into each other. And, yeah, I live in Springville. I’m the sheriff.”

Hunter laughed now. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re the sheriff? After all the times we got hauled in for a good talking to, the people in this town elected you?”

Kane gave him a huge grin. “Guess they figured it took a bad boy to catch the bad boys.”

Nodding, Hunter slid his gaze back to his wife as the music changed from classic rock and roll to a slow slide of jazz. “How long have you been back?”

“About a year and a half. Met Donna on my last leave. She knocked me off my feet, Hunt.” He grinned and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it himself. “Never saw it coming, but I’m glad it did.” He paused then added, “So when my enlistment was up, I came home, ran for sheriff and married Donna.”

“No more adventures for you, then, huh?” Hunter reached out, took his friend’s beer and had a swallow.

“Are you kidding?” Kane laughed. “Every day with Donna’s an adventure. Best thing that ever happened to me, I swear. But then,” he said, reclaiming his beer, “I guess you’d know all about that.”

“Yeah.” Hunter watched Margie as an old woman stopped to talk to her, and his chest tightened as Margie gave the woman her complete attention along with a brilliant smile.

Briefly, he wondered what it would be like to actually be married. To know Margie was his with the same surety that Kane felt about his Donna. Would he resent staying in Springville? Would he end up one day hating the town and the woman who had snared him?

Hunter frowned at the thought and had to ask himself if maybe Margie hadn’t been more than a little right in everything she’d said to him the day before. Maybe he had been running from responsibility and disguising it with a different kind of duty.

“Well, good to see you,” Kane was saying. “Stop by the station this week-we’ll catch up. For now, I think I’ll go dance with my wife.”

“Right, right.” Hunter nodded but barely heard his friend. He was too busy watching Margie as, one by one, everyone in the hall found the time to stop and talk with her, laugh with her, hug her. Something about that woman made her a magnet for people. Was it a con artist’s gift, he wondered, or was it simply that she was a naturally kind person whom people wanted to be around?

“You know,” Kane said, slapping Hunter on the back, “I really shouldn’t even be speaking to you, all things considered.”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

“Because ever since Margie told Donna and some of the other wives about that honeymoon you two had in Bali…” Kane’s eyebrows lifted and he huffed out a breath. “Well, let’s just say, those stories made the rest of the husbands in town come in a sad second place to you in the romance department.”

Bali, huh? So Margie was making up stories about honeymoons on tropical islands. And, painting him in a very romantic light, apparently. He smiled to himself and wondered just how detailed those stories had been.

“What can I say, Kane?” Hunter said with a slow smile. “I’ve always been good.”

“That you have, Hunt.” Kane slapped him on the shoulder again and walked past him. “You’re missed around here, you know. It’s good to have you back, man.”

“Good to be back,” he said automatically, but for the first time he realized he actually meant the words.

Margie felt Hunter’s gaze on her as surely as she would a touch. Was he still angry about the things she’d said to him the day before? Not that he hadn’t deserved it, she reminded herself while Jenna Carter babbled about the dessert tray. Margie nodded absentmindedly and remembered the way Hunter had looked at her when she’d called him a coward.

Even now, she cringed and wished that she’d found a better way to say what she’d meant. Yes, she thought he’d deserted Simon and the town that needed him, but she also knew he wasn’t a coward. He was strong and sure of himself and brave and-arrogant, bossy and irritating, her mind added quickly before she became just a little bit too understanding.

After all, he hadn’t exactly been kind to her. He was still convinced she was trying to scam Simon, for heaven’s sake. At the thought of the older man, she shifted a quick look at him and spotted him sitting with his friends, laughing and whispering together. And men thought women gossiped.

Simon. She would miss him when she left. And God help her, she would really miss Hunter. Somehow, that man had wormed his way into her heart, making her want him despite the fact that he thought she was a thief. Margie, you are such an idiot, she told herself.

Then Mrs. Banks murmured something about having a meeting the following month concerning the elementary school festival, and Margie only nodded. She wouldn’t be there next month, and that knowledge was too painful to allow, so she buried that ache and let it simmer in the heat that Hunter’s stare was causing.

How in the world was she going to make it through the rest of the night? Her insides were shaking, and her smile felt forced and wooden. She only hoped no one else could tell that her heart was breaking.

With Kane’s words still repeating in his mind, Hunter left his corner and stalked the perimeter of the crowd. He nodded to those he passed, but he didn’t stop. To stop meant being drawn into conversations, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Not to old friends. Not to anyone. His thoughts didn’t make him good company at the moment. Instead, he sought a darker corner, a quiet spot from which to watch and observe.

The music swelled around him, pulsing with an almost erotic beat, that slow, heavy sound of wailing sax that crept into a man’s soul and wrung it dry.

He moved stealthily, using his training as a SEAL to help him slide almost unnoticed through a crowd so busy with their partying they didn’t notice much of anything else. Across the room he spotted Simon-who’d decided to attend at the last minute-sitting at a table near the dance floor, holding court with some of his cronies. Old men gathered together to remember the past and plan for a future that most of them wouldn’t see. A pang of something sharp and bitter sliced into him as he realized once again that his indomitable grandfather was old now. How much longer would he be here? How much more time could Hunter reasonably expect to have with the man who was his only family?

He clenched his jaw and deliberately shifted his gaze from Simon to Margie. As always, she was surrounded by a crowd, laughing and smiling as if she didn’t have a disturbing thought in her head. But then, he thought, why would she? She’d dumped all of them on him the day before.

That he could acknowledge that just maybe he might have deserved some of her taunts only annoyed the hell out of him. His gaze fixed on her as she greeted all of the people who seemed to move in a stream toward her. She smiled, she laughed, she welcomed people into her warmth. People who weren’t him, of course.

But when that thought scuttled through his mind, Hunter at least had the grace to admit that it was his own damn fault. He shut her out whenever his desire for her became too overwhelming-which was damn near every minute. He didn’t want to care about her. Didn’t want to want her. Didn’t want to see beyond what he’d already seen. She was the manipulative woman he’d first thought her. She had to be because anything else was simply unacceptable.

They weren’t really married. He’d made her no promises and didn’t intend to, he reassured himself. When this month was over, he’d be leaving. Back to the Navy. Back to the next mission.

And who, his mind demanded, would be here to look after Simon?

The fierce scowl on his face that thought engendered was enough to convince most people to give him a wide berth, and Hunter was grateful for it. He was visited out. No more friendly chats tonight. All he wanted to do was survive this dance, get back to the castle and locate one of Simon’s bottles of aged scotch.

At last, he found a slice of darkness, an alcove off the entrance, far enough away from the crowd that he could think without being interrupted by old friends. But close enough that his gaze could search out Margie. Damn it.

What was it about her that got to him? She was nothing like the women he was used to. She was…unlike anyone he’d ever known. God, when he compared her with his ex, it was as if the two women were from different planets.

Gretchen didn’t want to think about tomorrow. She was the quintessential party girl. She was ready for adventure, good in the sack and beautiful enough to make a grown man whimper. But, he reminded himself, just two months before Hunter had hinted that he might be thinking about settling down. Maybe getting married-okay, no time soon, but someday. When he was too damned old to go out and get himself shot anymore. Gretchen had backed off like he was on fire and she didn’t want to be singed by the flames. She’d broken up with him that night and taken off for a photo shoot in Peru, of all damn places.

Shaking his head, Hunter folded his arms over his chest, leaned back against the cold wall and watched Margie. Unlike the gorgeous Gretchen, his temporary wife was all about the future. She was always planning tomorrows, looking ahead, dreaming dreams and finding a way to make them real.

Hell, she knew their marriage was a lie, yet she continued to pretend to everyone in town that all was well between them. She continued to do her best for a town that she was going to be leaving soon.

And she told sexy stories about him and a honeymoon that hadn’t happened.

What the hell was he supposed to do with a woman like that?

Of course, he knew what he wanted to do. At least, what his body was clamoring for. But sex with Margie would complicate a situation that was already so twisted he couldn’t see an easy way out. So he’d bury his lust and focus on getting through the next three weeks or so.

In the next instant, he wondered where Margie would go when she left Springville. What would she do? What would Simon do without her?

He rubbed one hand over his face and tried to wipe out the scrambling thoughts in his mind. But how the hell could he not think about her when she was there, in front of him, looking sexier and more desirable than ever?

“I never really believed Hunter was married to her,” a woman said to her friend as she blithely walked past the shadowed alcove where Hunter stood silently.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on.” The first woman, a brunette who looked familiar to Hunter, laughed lightly. “I mean, when you look at Margie, do you really think…hmm, there’s the woman for Hunter Cabot.”

“I guess not,” her friend said and shifted to look at Margie.

Hunter did too and frowned as the brunette kept talking.

“I knew him in high school, and even then he was the stuff dreams were made of.”

He frowned and thought about moving out of the shadows so the women would know he was there. Then he second-guessed that idea. He’d learned long ago that a man could learn a lot with a little eavesdropping, so he held his ground and waited.

“I can imagine,” the second woman said. “The man is…wow.”

“Exactly. He’s wow and she’s…ho-hum. I mean, she’s nice and everything-”

Nice? Margie was nice? Gritting his teeth hard, Hunter glared at the brunette. Margie worked continuously for this town, giving everything she had, and these two women felt comfortable standing in the shadows of the dance Margie had arranged and bloodlessly tearing her apart? Temper sparked and a protective surge like nothing he’d ever known before rose up inside Hunter.

“Completely,” her friend agreed quickly. “Margie’s a sweetie.”

“But he’s a…god, and she’s a peasant. Never should have happened. And-” The brunette stopped, glanced at her reflection in a nearby window and smoothed her pinky finger over her bottom lip. Sighing, she said, “Until Hunter actually showed up here and claimed her, I never believed those stories she told all over town.”

“Mmm,” her friend said on a sigh. “Like Bali?”

“Yes…” The brunette shook her head, stared across the room at Margie and said, confusion ringing in her tone, “What the hell does she have that I don’t have?”

“For one thing,” Hunter spoke up and stepped out of the shadows, startling both women into gasping. “She’s got me.”

“Hunter-I-we-” The brunette threw her friend a desperate look, but that woman was already melting into the crowd, disassociating herself fast.

He looked down into the brunette’s eyes and finally placed her. Janice Franklin. Cheerleader. Homecoming queen. And still the town’s reigning bitch, apparently.

“Janice, right?”

She brightened, obviously pleased to be remembered. “Yes.”

Hunter just looked at her for a long minute or two. She was still pretty, in a hard, sharp way. And clearly, she thought highly of herself if she figured he’d just brush aside everything she’d said about his “wife” without a second thought. Well, she was wrong. He wasn’t going to stand there and let this woman-or anyone else for that matter-sharpen her claws on Margie’s hide. Why it mattered to him so much, he couldn’t have said. All he was sure of was that it did matter. He’d worry about the why of it later.

“Well, Janice,” he finally said softly, chucking her chin with his fingertips, “let me tell you something else about my wife. What she has someone like you will never understand.”

She blinked at him. “Well-I-”

“Do yourself a favor,” Hunter told her as he left her babbling to herself, “don’t say anything else.”

Riding a wave of righteous fury on Margie’s behalf, Hunter stalked through the crowd. His gaze locked on his wife, he was like a ballistic missile, focused solely on his target.

Who the hell did those women think they were, talking about Margie as if she were less than nothing? As if she wasn’t good enough for him? Good enough? Hell, if she was everything she claimed to be, she was too damn good for him. What right did they have to say a word about his wife?

The fact that he was inwardly defending the woman he’d been complaining about for days didn’t register with him. His only thought now was to get his hands on her. To make sure everyone here understood that they’d better treat her right.

Across the room, Margie looked up and saw Hunter headed right toward her. He was hard to miss, she thought, with an inward sigh. In his white dress uniform, with the rows of colorful ribbons and medals on his chest, he looked like every woman’s fantasy. He was tall and strong and fierce and…headed right for her with an expression on his face that was a mixture of fury and determination.

What was wrong? A woman beside her was talking, but Margie didn’t hear a word. Instead, she was caught up in the power of Hunter’s blue gaze locked on hers. The people separating them seemed to melt out of his way, propelled by some invisible force. Margie’s heart pounded and her breathing hitched as he came closer, never slowing down, never hesitating.

What was going on? She’d hardly seen him all evening, though she’d been aware of him. How could she not be, she wondered frantically. The man was inescapable. Just knowing he was in the room had kept her on edge all night-wondering what he was doing, what he was thinking-had had her own mind racing, questioning.

Now, he was only an arm’s reach away, and the only thing she read on his face was a strength of purpose she couldn’t identify.

“Hunter-” She spoke first as soon as he stopped in front of her. “Is everything all right? Are you-”

“Quiet.” It was a command no less authoritarian for its whispered delivery.

“What?”

Then Hunter shook his head as if not surprised at all she hadn’t been able to be quiet. His lips curved into a wicked smile that sent a jolt of something amazing staggering through her. And before she could recover, he grabbed her, swept her into a low dip, cradled her in his arms and kissed her, so long, so hard, so deep, that Margie forgot to breathe.

His mouth on hers was at first wild, aggressive, almost as if he didn’t want to be doing what he was doing. But she responded to that hint of darkness instantly, as if the shadows in this man had reached out and found every dark corner of her own soul. There was fire here, a ferociousness she hadn’t expected but thrilled to, in the deepest corners of her heart. In seconds, his kiss changed, shifted, became less brutal, more hot and hungry, more passionate. Margie sighed into his mouth and felt his body mold itself to hers as if he were trying to hold her so tightly she’d never be able to escape him.

She didn’t know what had prompted this, and she didn’t care. Since the first time he’d kissed her, days ago, she’d been dreaming about another one. And this kiss more than lived up to her fantasies. Her blood felt like champagne, bubbling into a froth that swam giddily through her veins. His tongue swept into her mouth, stealing her breath, filling her with a heat that felt overwhelming, mind boggling.

She gave herself up to it, and when her mind started whispering, she resented every taunting thought. What was he doing? Why was he kissing her? Was it all a show for the townspeople? And if it was, why now? Why tonight? He hadn’t seemed to care if anyone believed they were married or not. So what had changed?

And why do you care? that voice murmured at last. Did she really have to question this? Couldn’t she just, for once, enjoy the moment? Feel his arms around her and pretend, however briefly, that they were a real couple? Couldn’t she just convince her brain to take the night off and let her body lead the way?

Oh, yeah.

Lost in sensation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him everything he was giving her. And while she surrendered to the heat, she was only dimly aware of the thunderous applause rising up from the people surrounding them.

Margie couldn’t sleep.

How could anyone be expected to sleep when the bodies were simmering at a high boil and sexual expectation was humming along at a gallop? Hmm. Mixed metaphors. Probably a bad sign.

Apparently her “husband” wasn’t feeling any lingering effects from that kiss. His deep, even breathing sighed into the silence, telling her that at least one of them was going to get some rest that night.

Jerk.

With the pillow wall at her back, Margie tried to ignore the fact that Hunter had been ignoring her for hours-ever since that spontaneous kiss had ended. As if he somehow was blaming her for him kissing her. And wasn’t that just like a man? Right back to Adam in the Garden. It was all that woman’s fault.

She punched her own pillow and shifted position, trying to find a spot where the sheets didn’t seem to be scraping sensitive skin raw. Where she could hear the sound of Hunter’s breathing and not imagine that breath dusting her face as he loomed over her.

Moonlight sifted into the bedroom through the French doors and lay in a silvery blanket across the bed. In the dim light, she stared up at the ceiling and told herself she’d never fall asleep if she didn’t close her eyes. But then every time she closed her eyes, she felt Hunter’s mouth on hers again, so no sleep that way, either.

She folded her arms over her chest, pinning the sheet and quilt to her body and tried silently repeating multiplication tables. Maybe she could bore herself to sleep.

That’s when Margie noticed Hunter’s breathing pattern had changed. She listened harder, noticed the quickened tempo of his breaths, as if he were running in his sleep, and she went up on one elbow to peer over the pillow wall.

He yanked a field dressing out of his pack and wrapped it around his side in an effort to stop the bleeding. Damn lucky shot, he told himself, fury at the situation spiking inside him.

Should have been a simple recon mission. But he’d been cut off from his team almost from the moment they entered the target area. They’d had to break for cover; then he’d been trapped, forced to hide while the others stealthily made a break for it.

The SEALs never left a man behind, and he knew his team would be waiting for him. They’d never evac the country without him, but it would be up to him to make it to the rendezvous point. Which would have been a hell of a lot easier if he hadn’t been bleeding.

With pain his only companion, Hunter inched his way across a desert barren of any life but the enemy. He hid during the day, traveled at night. He rationed his water and was finally forced to dig the bullet out of his side with his own fingers. Days crawled past and tension, along with a fever, mounted. There were so many dangers, so many easy ways for him to die and be lost in this damn desert forever.

But he wouldn’t go that way, he told himself. He’d find a way out. Get back to where things were green. Quiet. Where he didn’t have to constantly expect the muffled explosion of a gunshot coming out of nowhere.

He wanted…In his sleep, Hunter heard a whisper of something soft, something comforting, and he turned toward it, instinctively reaching. Warmth surrounded him. A gentle touch smoothed his hair back from his face and whispered words of comfort swam through his mind, his heart. He reached for the source of that calm, for the ease it promised, for the balm he so desperately needed.

Gentle hands stroked his skin, and Hunter groaned at the sensation. He was back, he was out of the desert. It hadn’t killed him, after all. And here he was, with a warm, willing woman sliding her hands over his back, tenderly across his face, and he wanted that touch more than he wanted his next breath.

Coming up completely out of the dreamscape he’d wandered through, Hunter heard that whisper again, and this time, he recognized the speaker.

“It’s okay, Hunter,” Margie soothed, while her hands stroked him tenderly. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Come back.”

He took a slow, deep breath and drew her scent of jasmine deep into his lungs. His eyes cleared and he looked up into her grass-green eyes and felt something stir and shift inside him. The same something he’d fought all night after kissing her at the dance.

Well, he thought, staring up at her, feeling her hands on his bare skin, he was through fighting. He wanted her. Had wanted her for days.

And now he was going to have her.