Marriage On The Edge
Sandra Marton
Gage Baron has made it on his own. He's wealthy, and his marriage seems successful, too–until Natalie leaves him.Then Gage receives an invitation to his father's Texas estate; Jonas obviously has more on his mind than just his eighty-fifth birthday celebration. But the possibility he might inherit Espada is less important to Gage than the opportunity to win back Natalie. Jonas will expect to see her, so Gage must ensure that his wife is back by his side, still married to him–for convenience's sake….
With a little sob, she was in his arms.
Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.
Natalie solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.
“Baby.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet baby.”
Her hands swept under his jacket. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please….”
Four brothers—
bonded by inheritance, battling for love!
Jonas Baron is approaching his eighty-fifth birthday. He has ruled Espada, his sprawling estate in Texas hill country, for more than forty years, but now he admits it’s time he chose an heir.
Jonas has three sons, Gage, Travis and Slade, all ruggedly good-looking and each with a successful business empire of his own; none wishes to give up the life he’s fought for to take over Espada. Jonas also has a stepdaughter; beautiful and spirited, Caitlin loves the land as much as he does, but she’s not of the Baron blood.
So who will receive Baron’s bequest? As Gage, Travis, Slade and Caitlin discover, there’s more at stake than Espada. For love also has its part to play in deciding their futures….
Sit back now and enjoy Gage’s story, and be sure to look out next for More Than a Mistress in August (Harlequin Presents #2045), when you’ll get to know Travis a whole lot better!
Marriage On The Edge
Sandra Marton
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
GAGE BARON was not in the best of moods.
He’d put in a long day, riding herd on a contractor and construction crew that seemed to have forgotten the idea was to build a new wing onto Baron’s Windsong Resort, not to demolish it.
Now he was about to put in an even tougher night, though given a choice, Gage thought wryly, he’d trade the company of the elite gathering at the Holcombs’s cocktail party for the earthy reality of the construction bunch anytime.
But he had given his word he’d attend, which meant he had to go to the silly thing, like it or not.
“Damn fool thing to have done, Baron,” he muttered to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “But you did it, and you’re stuck with it.”
Gage scraped the sharp edge of his razor across his jaw. Bad enough a man had to shave every morning but to have to do it all over again at six in the evening seemed unconscionable.
He glanced at the gold Rolex that lay on the edge of the sink. Not six. Seven-fifteen. He was late, on top of everything else…although, now that he thought about it, being late wasn’t so bad. There’d be one less hour of standing around the Holcomb patio, pretending he was having a good time when only an idiot would have a good time at a stupid cocktail party for Liz Holcomb’s latest pet charity.
And who did he have to blame? Gage scowled at his reflection as he rinsed the lather from his face. Himself, that was who. Himself, and nobody else.
He’d let Natalie talk him into it. “I’ll skip the party and send a check,” he’d said, when she’d shown him the invitation. “You just tell me how big the check should be.” But Natalie had given him that look, the one he’d seen on her lovely face more and more the past few months.
“You’re free to do that, if you wish,” she’d said in that cool and elegant voice of hers, “but I worked on the committee with Liz.”
“Meaning?” Gage had countered, and Natalie had smiled politely and said meaning, of course, that she’d be attending the cocktail party even if he didn’t.
Her reply had surprised him. Things had gotten off track between them lately but still, they were a couple. Weren’t they? For one long moment, he’d almost asked her that but he’d thought better of it and said, okay, if it meant so much to her, he’d go.
“Thank you,” Natalie had said, her tone as polite as her smile, and that had thrown him off balance again, made him so damned furious he’d wanted to haul her into his arms, kiss her until she turned back into the woman he remembered.
The breath hissed from between Gage’s teeth. He tossed aside the towel, strapped on his watch and strode, naked, into his bedroom.
But sex was supposed to be a two-way street. And in life, just as in business, you never went into a situation unless you were pretty damn sure you knew the outcome…and who knew what would have happened if he’d tried to melt Natalie’s icy politeness with sex?
It might not have worked. And that was a possibility he wasn’t ready to face just yet.
On the other hand, he’d figured that maybe it was time to push for some answers. Gage paused at the door to his closet, his jaw tightening. Maybe it was time to find out if it was only his ego that wanted Natalie warm and responsive in his arms, and not his heart.
So he’d told her that he’d be delighted to go to the Holcomb party, now that he knew she’d had a hand in the planning, and he’d even thought her polite smile had warmed a little.
“Thank you,” she’d said, and he’d started making plans right then and there to be at his charming best the night of the party and see if he couldn’t recapture some of what used to be between Natalie and him.
Now, those plans had gone up in smoke because he was waltzing off to the Holcombs all by himself.
“Big surprise, Baron,” he muttered as he slid open the closet door.
It seemed as if he couldn’t count on anything much lately. Plans, except the ones that involved iron-clad contracts and rock-hard commitments, were meaningless. People were unpredictable; feelings came and went in the blink of an eye, and if he’d been fool enough to think Natalie would be any different, he was starting to learn otherwise.
Gage’s mouth thinned.
If it was over with Natalie, it was over. And maybe it was for the best. What was the point in a relationship in which silence had replaced conversation and accommodation had replaced passion?
“Is there something wrong?” he’d said a couple of weeks ago. God, what the words had cost him, especially when he’d seen the look of disdain that had crept over Natalie’s beautiful face.
“I don’t know,” she’d said in that polite voice that made his blood pressure zoom. “You tell me. Is there?”
For the first time in his life, Gage had considered that it was possible, just possible, that a man might have a reason for slugging a woman. Well, if the woman were a man. If she were as big as he was, at six feet two, or if her muscles had been hardened by years of physical labor before things started coming together right.
But Natalie was none of those things. She was tall, yes, and with a toned, beautiful body, but she was definitely all woman.
He would never hurt her. Never. And yet, it didn’t seem to mean a damn to her that she was hurting him. Okay, not hurting him. How could she, when he didn’t really feel the same way about her anymore? Still, he was entitled to common courtesy. And after ten years of marriage, it looked as if Natalie had even given up on that.
“She knew I was only going to this damned party because of her,” Gage said to the open closet. “But did she phone my office to say she wouldn’t be going with me? No,” he growled, answering his own question. “No, she did not.”
No call. No explanation. Nothing but the red light blinking on the answering machine to greet him as he came in the door half an hour ago, and then Natalie’s clipped voice saying, “I’ve been delayed. I’m not promising anything but if I possibly can, I’ll meet you at the Holcombs’s.”
At least she’d gotten that right, he thought grimly, as he shouldered his way into a white dress shirt. No promises. And now, no Natalie.
“So, here you are, Baron, going to this party alone,” Gage muttered as he zipped up his fly, then slipped on his jacket. “What do you think that makes you, huh?”
A jerk, that was what. A jerk in a tuxedo. He glared into the mirror, ran his hands through his dark hair, adjusted his bow tie, tried a smile and wondered if people would run in terror when he tried it on them.
This was going to be one terrific night. He’d shelled out a thousand bucks to spend the evening trapped in a monkey suit, munching soggy canapés, drinking flat champagne, wondering where Natalie was…
And why the hell should he? Gage’s pale blue eyes narrowed. Natalie was a big girl. She could take care of herself, as she was so fond of telling him.
If it was over, it was over. The sooner he got used to the idea, the better.
Gage plucked his car keys from the top of his dresser, tossed them in the air, and headed for the door.
The lineup of cars headed for the Holcomb mansion began half a block from the driveway.
“Great,” Gage muttered, as he eased down through the gears of his vintage Corvette, “just great.”
There was nothing like being stuck on the tail end of a line of Caddies and Mercedes to make a man wish he were sitting in the lounge of the Baron Windsong, enjoying a glass of vintage chinon blanc.
The Cadillac ahead of him jerked forward a couple of inches. Gage sighed as he moved the Vette up behind it.
Never mind the wine. Never mind the hotel. He saw enough of it during the day, and wine was a great idea, given the right time and place, but just now what would really do it was a chilled bottle of a good dark ale. And a beach, not here in Miami but somewhere out in the South Pacific, where that same big, white moon that was floating overhead would cast its ivory light over an untouched stretch of sand. Man, he could just see it. He’d be in a pair of cut-down denims, leaning back on his elbows, his face turned up to the night sky as he watched all those falling stars flame through the blackness while the cool surf kissed his toes…
A horn beeped behind him. Gage blinked, frowned, saw the car-length space that had opened before him, and eased the Vette forward.
What was wrong with him tonight?
It was years since he’d sat on a beach, or wanted to; years since he’d spent so much time in foolish introspection…
Years since a woman had made him feel so uncertain.
His hands flexed on the steering wheel.
This couldn’t go on. Okay, he’d endure the Holcomb shindig for an hour. Half an hour; that would be enough. Then he’d slip out the door, confront Natalie when she finally showed up at home, demand answers, and end the nonsense between them one way or the other.
If she wanted to go on, he’d consider it. If she wanted to finish things, so be it. Life would go on, divorce or not…
In which case, what was he doing here, waiting his turn to go to a party he didn’t want to attend, courtesy of a woman he wasn’t sure he wanted anymore?
That was the truth, and admitting it, finally, made him feel as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.
To hell with this. Gage’s jaw tightened. He’d cut out of line, go back to the house, peel off this silly suit, climb into his cutoffs…
“Sir?”
He could feel the knot in his gut start to loosen. All he had to do was back up a couple of inches, thread the Vette’s nose out into the road…
“Sir? Excuse me, sir?”
Gage jerked his head towards the window. “What?” he snarled, and blinked.
Without realizing it, he’d reached the driveway. A kid stood outside the car, his red jacket pronouncing him the parking attendant for the night. His face was pimply, his Adam’s apple was bobbing, and Gage sighed, tamped down his temper, and once again managed that thing he hoped might pass for a smile.
“Yeah,” he said, and because fate had intervened, or he’d taken too damn long to come to his senses, he did what any man would do under the circumstances, stepped out of the Vette, handed the kid his keys along with a ten dollar bill to make up for the way he’d snarled, and climbed the steps of the Holcomb mansion to what he knew would be a couple of hours of brutally civilized torture.
Torture was too polite a word.
Who was it who’d invented cocktail parties, anyway? Charity ones, especially? Not a man, he was certain of that. Only a woman would expect human beings to pay for the privilege of standing in a crowded room clutching a glass of undrinkable wine in one hand and a lump of inedible something in the other, while a string quartet on the patio sawed its way through something that had probably been just as dull and lifeless when it was written a couple of hundred years ago as it was now.
The smile he’d practiced seemed to be working well enough. It made him feel like an escapee from a funny farm but nobody seemed put off by it. Hank Holcomb had pumped his hand, muttered something about how pleased he was to be hosting the party even as he rolled his eyes in denial. Liz Holcomb had swooped down in a cloud of perfume dense enough to gas anybody around her, air-kissed both his cheeks and urged him to try the battered shrimp.
“Where’s our Natalie?” Liz had said, but she’d squealed at the sight of someone else before he’d had to come up with an answer. “I’ll see you later, darling,” she’d cried, kissed the air in his general direction, and flown off.
So he’d wandered through the football-field-size living room, out to the patio, back through the dining room, accepted the glass of wine and the limp canapé from passing waiters once he grew weary of saying, “No, thanks,” every two minutes, and now he’d found himself a fairly quiet spot in a corner nobody coveted because the potted palm that filled it did an effective job of shielding from view whoever might stand beneath its overhanging fronds and, after all, he supposed, half the purpose of attending this thing was the dubious pleasure of seeing and being seen.
And the longer he stood there, observing the scene, the better he felt. There was something about the silliness of it all. The bad food. The worse wine. The awful music. The guests, the women, glittering like brightly plumaged birds; the men, decked out like penguins. He chuckled. It was like being inside some enormous aviary. Even the sounds in the room seemed appropriate. Cluck, cluck. Cheep, cheep…
“Hi.”
He turned. The voice was soft and sultry; it went magnificently with the face and body, which were, without question, the best good genes and plastic surgery had to offer.
“Hi,” he said, and smiled.
“Awful, isn’t it?” the woman said.
Gage laughed. “Absolutely.”
“The wine. The hors d’oeuvres.” She shuddered in a way he figured she’d spent lots of time perfecting. It made her long, straight mane of golden hair slip over her bare shoulders like water running over alabaster and her rounded breasts quiver like Jell-O beneath the couple of inches of fabric that was supposed to be a dress. She tilted her head, looked up at him through her lashes and, very slowly, trailed the tip of her tongue across her moist bottom lip. “Why,” she said, with a lazy smile, “I just don’t know what to do with myself.”
A muscle danced in Gage’s jaw. He’d been out of circulation for a while but a man would have to be dead from the neck up and the waist down not to know what the answer to that remark was supposed to be.
I do, he was supposed to say, and the gorgeous blonde with the impossible boobs would smile again, link her arm through his, and not too long after, they’d be in bed.
His body tightened reflexively at the sudden image. It was a long time since he’d thought about having a woman other than Natalie. Too long, maybe. Maybe that was just what he needed, a hot broad, a mindless tussle between cool sheets, a mutual wham-bam-thank-you-ma’ am, with no morning-after regrets, no recriminations, no commitments that would only screw up his head.
“Yes or no?” the blonde said softly, her baby blues filled with a directness Gage could admire if not accept.
He smiled, a little regretfully.
“Sorry. I’m just not…”
“That’s all right.” Her smile was regretful, too. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Sure,” he said, although he knew he didn’t mean it. Even if things ended with Natalie, even after he was free to move on, he’d be done with women. For a while, anyway, he thought, as the blonde sauntered away. A man would have to be either a fool or a liar to swear off the female of the species completely but right now, for the foreseeable future, he had no wish whatsoever to—to—
That was when he saw her, in the doorway.
His breath caught, his stomach tightened, and he knew his thoughts of a moment ago had been all lies.
He wasn’t done with women, not for tonight, not for the foreseeable future, not any way, any shape, any time.
The woman in the doorway was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
It was wrong to compare her to the blonde who’d just moved off but the contrasts were so incredible that he couldn’t keep from doing it.
She wasn’t blonde. Maybe that didn’t seem like much but in Miami Beach, in this kind of crowd, most of the heads were golden. Not that they’d started life that way. It was just that the sun seemed to inspire a sun-kissed look.
Not for her.
The lady coming slowly down the steps into the living room had hair as black as night. She wore it drawn back from her perfect oval face, knotted high on her head; just looking at it, Gage could tell that when she let it down—when he let it down, it would flow over his hands like ebony silk.
His gaze wandered over her, taking in the wide, dark eyes, the straight nose, the determined mouth, dropped lower to skim over her simple black dress, over what he knew had to be breasts that had not been fashioned by the surgeon’s knife. She was slender, this woman, but she was all woman nonetheless, with sweetly curved hips and long, gorgeous legs encased in sheer black hose that ended in black sandals with impossibly high heels.
She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, and she was alone. Alone, but searching the room for someone.
Gage ditched the silly canapé and sorry excuse for a drink in the potted palm. If she was looking for a man, that man was damned well going to be him.
He stepped out from the corner, his eyes fastened to her, and waited. She would look towards him; every instinct, every thump of his heart told him so.
And, at last, she did.
Their eyes met and held. Time seemed to stop; the moment stretched out between them, filled with heat. Gage could feel his blood thickening as it pumped through his veins. His body had reacted to the blonde, but not like this.
This was different. It was everything he’d ever hoped for, or dreamed.
Something flickered across her lovely face. Eagerness? Anticipation? He took a step forward…and saw something else on her face. Panic. Even fear. Hell, why would she fear him? She knew what he wanted; it was what she wanted, too, he was sure of it.
He took another step and she whirled away from him, vanishing into the crowd.
She was running from him but, dammit, he wasn’t going to let her get away. Not tonight. Not when she was what he needed, what he’d hungered for without even knowing he was hungry.
He moved quickly, knifing his way through the clots of people filling the room, his gaze constant in its search for a flash of that pale face, that silken hair.
Liz Holcomb grasped his arm.
“Gage, you gorgeous man, there you are! I want you to meet…”
“Later,” he said, and swept past her.
Hank was next, appearing suddenly in his path with a portly, smiling gentleman in tow.
“Gage, old pal, here’s the mayor of…
“Later,” he said again, and kept moving…and, all at once, he saw her, hurrying out the French doors to the patio.
She was almost running, wobbling slightly in those ridiculously high heels, those sexy-as-sin heels. Past the string quartet, down the garden steps, past the fountain where cherubs and dolphins cavorted in cascades of illuminated water. Just beyond the fountain she paused, looked back. Their eyes met again and the heat he saw in hers almost made him groan.
Still, she turned and fled. Gage quickened his pace. There was no need to run. He was faster than she was and he knew she couldn’t escape him, not out here. The garden was walled; there was no way out.
He knew, too, that she didn’t really want to escape him.
It had been there, in her eyes. The need. The urgency. The hot wanting that pulsed through her body just as it pulsed through his.
And there she was, at last. She stood in the rear of the garden, where the darkness had gathered, where the leafy branches of the trees blocked out all but the faintest hint of moonlight.
Gage stopped, inches from her.
Her eyes were wide, her lips were parted. She was breathing hard, and her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath the clinging black dress. A strand of hair had slipped free of the pins that held it and trailed down her neck. Her scent, an erotic blend of jasmine and roses mixed with the scent of the sea beyond the garden wall, filled his senses.
He reached out. She drew back.
“Are you afraid of me?” he said softly.
She licked her lips. Nothing in the way she did it was provocative, yet the simple gesture made his body harden like stone.
He came closer, so close that he knew he had only to bend his head if he wanted to brush her mouth with his.
“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured. “Surely you know that.”
“You won’t mean to,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. The sound of it seemed to dance against his skin. “But you will.”
“No.” He said the word fiercely but the hand he reached out was gentle as he tucked the trailing strands of hair behind her ear. “No,” he said again, “I’d never hurt you.”
“You will,” she whispered, “you—”
And then, with a little sob, she was in his arms.
Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He knew he was holding her too closely, that he might be bruising her delicate bones, but he felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.
She solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.
“Babe.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet babe.”
Her hands swept under his jacket, her palms spreading across his chest. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please…”
She groaned when he dragged down the straps of her dress. The swell of her breasts above the lacy filigree of her bra shone like fresh cream in the moonlight. She cried out when he buried his face in her neck. Her head fell back; he cupped her breasts, bit lightly at her skin, slipped his hands beneath the bra and touched the eager flesh that awaited him.
Her answering cry tore away whatever thin veneer of civilized behavior that remained to him. He made a sound deep in his throat, drew her further into the darkness, pressed her back against the wall.
She whispered something he couldn’t understand as he thrust his hands up under her skirt. Her hips tilted towards his; he brushed his palm over the scrap of lace that covered her. She was hot, wet enough so he could feel the slickness of her through the lace; she burned like molten lava against his questing fingertips.
He groaned, and ripped the lace away. “Come to me,” he whispered…
“No!”
Her cry rose into the night, sharp and piercing as the gust of wind that had suddenly come from the sea. Gage didn’t hear it. He was lost, blind to everything but the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her on his lips. It had been so long. So long…
“No.” Her hand clamped over his; she twisted her face away from his seeking mouth. “Stop it,” she panted, “Damn you, I said stop!”
The urgency in her voice, the combined anger and fear, snapped him back to reality. He went still, his body numb as he became aware of her struggles. He blinked his eyes, like a man who has gazed too long at the sun, and looked down into her face.
“What?” he said. “What?”
She was trembling and she hated herself for that, hated herself almost as much as she did for having succumbed, for having let herself be caught up in one blind, foolish moment of passion.
“Let go of me,” she whispered.
Let go of her? Let go of her, when she’d just been coming apart like a falling star in his arms?
“Let go,” she said again, and what he heard in her voice now vanquished whatever dream had held him. Reality was her cold voice, her cold eyes…
Her contempt.
The fire inside him died. He stepped back, adjusted his tie, smoothed down his shirt. She fixed her shoulder straps, tugged down her skirt.
“That’s a dangerous game you were playing, lady,” he said, when he could trust himself to speak.
Her eyes flashed. “You were the one playing games, not me.”
“Dancing a man to the edge and then telling him to behave himself might win you applause in some quarters, babe, but sooner or later, you’re liable to do that to a man who doesn’t give a damn about the rules.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. It was hot out here in the garden, but the wind carried a chill in its teeth, or maybe the chill was inside her; it was impossible to tell and she didn’t much care. All that mattered was how close, how dangerously close, she’d come to falling into the trap again.
“I suppose you think I was the one who stalked you.”
“Stalked?”
She heard the growl in his voice, knew he was angry, but so what? She was angry, too, dammit, angry and hurt.
“Stalked,” she said. “Followed me, even though I made it perfectly clear I was trying to get away from you.”
Gage gave a bark of laughter. “Give me a break! You wanted me to come after you. I saw the way you looked at me. I understood what it meant.”
“It’s just a good thing you finally figured out what ‘no’ meant. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise, what?” A slow smile crept across his mouth. He reached out, traced a finger over her parted lips. “Be honest, baby. If I’d ignored that ‘no,’ I’d be inside you right now and you’d be—”
The crack of her hand against his cheek echoed through the silence of the night.
“You no good bastard!”
Her voice trembled. She despised herself for it, for the weakness that had sent her into his arms…and for the knowledge that he was right. For all those reasons and a thousand more, Natalie Baron lifted her chin, met her husband’s angry glare and spoke the words she’d once never imagined herself saying, the words she’d bitten back over the last endless months.
“Gage,” she said, “I want a divorce.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE sound of a lawnmower woke Natalie from a fitful sleep.
She blinked her eyes open, then shut them against the bright sunlight that poured into the room. That was a surprise. Hadn’t Gage remembered to close the blinds before he’d come to bed? It was something he always did, for her. The light didn’t bother him but she…
“Oh, God.”
Natalie’s whisper rose into the still morning air. Of course Gage hadn’t closed the blinds. This wasn’t their bedroom, this was the guest room. She and Gage hadn’t shared a bed last night.
Her throat constricted.
For the first time since the night they’d eloped, she and her husband had slept apart.
Well, no. Not exactly. Slowly, she sat up and swung her feet to the carpeted floor. Actually, they’d slept apart lots of times. More and more times, in fact, over the past year and a half. Gage was always off on business trips, exploring new sites for Baron Resorts, talking high finance with bankers from Bangkok to Baltimore, checking out the competition…
Or so he said.
Natalie pushed a fall of dark hair back from her face. She rose and made her way into the attached bathroom, trying to avoid seeing her reflection, but it wasn’t easy. The interior designer who’d “done” the bath had covered the walls with mirrors. Since the room was the size of the first apartment she and Gage had lived in, that meant lots of mirrors. Acres, or so it sometimes seemed. It wasn’t what she would have done—what woman in her right mind really wanted her reflection beaming back at her from every angle, first thing in the morning? But Gage had given the designer carte blanche.
“Everything subject to my wife’s approval, of course,” he’d said, standing there with his arm around Natalie’s shoulder.
“Of course, Mr. Baron,” the designer had replied, casting a fawning smile in her direction.
“Just don’t bother her with details,” Gage had added, with a just-between-us-guys grin. “My wife has enough to do without worrying about chips of paint.” He’d beamed down at her. “The country club tennis tournament, her charities…isn’t that right, darling?”
“Absolutely,” Natalie had answered. What else could she have said, with her husband and a complete stranger beaming at her as if she were some clever new wind-up doll?
Natalie brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and winced when she looked up and saw a universe of Natalies watching her.
“Ugh,” she said to the straggly hair, the pale face, the smudge of mascara beneath one eye that was all that remained of the makeup she’d never taken off last night. She could have: the guest suite was well-equipped. The designer had seen to that. Cotton sheets so soft they felt like silk, Unisex pajamas, fluffy white bathrobes, disposable slippers, sample sizes of cosmetics enough to stock a department store. Hairbrush, comb, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, tissues…The man with the flutey voice had thought of everything. And when they had guests, part of Luz’s housekeeping duties was to restock whatever had been used.
The only thing the decorator hadn’t thought of was how a woman was supposed to feel when she awoke in the guest room because she’d told her husband of ten years that she wanted a divorce.
Natalie turned off the water and patted her face briskly with a towel. She hadn’t planned to say the words, not consciously. Not last night, certainly. But, really, she was glad she had. It was better this way. Why prolong things? She’d known, for a long time, that the marriage was over. That she and Gage were living a charade, known since she’d lost the baby—a baby, she’d realized, he’d never really wanted—that he didn’t love her anymore, that she didn’t love him. That—that—
“Oh, Gage,” Natalie whispered, and sank down in the middle of the tiled floor. “Gage,” she said again, her voice breaking, and she buried her face in her hands and wept until she was sure she could never weep again.
And, after that, she wept some more.
Gage awakened, as always, promptly at 6:00 a.m.
It was the habit of a lifetime, one he’d developed in those long-ago years when he’d first headed east from Texas. He’d figured out really early that a twenty-one-year-old kid with half a college degree, no discernible skills in much of anything that didn’t involve a horse, and a brand-new wife to support had to work hard at being an early bird if he was going to catch even the smallest of worms.
It wasn’t necessary now, of course. His offices didn’t open until nine but still, every morning, rain or shine, he was out of bed at six on the button.
Usually, he crept around quietly in the shadowy darkness with the bedroom blinds shut, doing his damnedest not to disturb Natalie. She always said she didn’t mind, that what she called her internal clock was still set at dawn.
But he’d vowed, a long time ago, that his wife would never have to creep out of a warm bed at dawn again. No way would he ever have to watch Natalie stumble into her clothes, then go off to a day spent waiting tables.
He could remember the time he’d told her that.
“I’ll take you up on the no-waiting-tables deal,” Natalie had said, laughing. Then she’d thrown her arms around his neck and flashed a sexy smile. “Come to think of it, staying in bed is a pretty fine idea, too…As long as you stay there to keep me occupied.”
“Occupied?” he’d said, with a puzzled look that was hard to maintain because just the light brush of Natalie’s body against his had always been enough to make him go crazy.
“Occupied,” she’d said, and then she’d threaded her hands into his hair, drawn his head down to hers, kissed him with her mouth open so that he could taste her honeyed warmth…
Gage’s face hardened.
Kissed him, exactly as she had last night, just before she’d said, “Gage, I want a divorce.”
He muttered an oath, kicked the afghan blanket from his legs, and sat up.
“Ouch.”
So much for spending the night on the leather couch in the den. Gage groaned, pressed his hands to the small of his back, and rose to his feet.
Leather couches were not made for sleeping. Neither was this room. It was too big, too impersonal, too filled with stuff. What man would want to share his sleeping quarters with a pool table?
Not him, that was for sure. But Natalie had stalked off to the guest suite, leaving the bedroom to him.
“You can have it,” she’d said with dramatic flair.
Gage groaned again as he hobbled across the hall to the downstairs lavatory. He could have it, but he hadn’t wanted it. That huge room, with its enormous bed, all to himself? With Natalie’s perfume and a thousand memories lingering in the air?
“No way,” he muttered as he splashed cold water on his face.
A man didn’t want to spend the first night of the rest of his life surrounded by reminders of what he was leaving behind.
Gage took a towel from the rack and scrubbed it over his face. Towel? That was a laugh. These puny things were more like handkerchiefs. But Natalie liked them. Natalie and that fruity designer, the one who’d hand-picked the leather couch Gage had thought, until last night, was only uncomfortable to sit on.
He looked into the mirror. A guy in a dress shirt and rumpled black trousers with a satin stripe down the side looked back at him. Hell, he was a mess. Hair uncombed, face unshaven…he looked like Chewbacca after a bad night, but what could you expect after six hours on a cowhide-covered rack?
A smile. Damn, yes. A smile, at the very least. Because now, if nothing else, he’d had his life handed back to him.
Gage stomped down the hall and up the curving staircase to the master bedroom.
Okay, maybe he hadn’t seen it that way, at first. Natalie’s announcement had been…upsetting.
Upsetting?
He shot an unforgiving glance down the corridor, towards the guest room and its closed door, where Natalie was still sleeping the sleep of what he supposed she thought of as the innocent and martyred.
“Let’s be honest here,” he muttered as he marched through the master bedroom and into the bathroom.
I want a divorce weren’t exactly the words a man expected to hear from his wife, especially after they’d been going at each other like two teenagers in hormonal overdrive…
Like the two teenagers they’d once been.
Pictures flashed through his head. He and Natalie, parked in his car on Superstition Butte. Natalie, her beautiful face pink and glowing after their first kiss. Natalie, crying out in passion in his arms.
Gage swallowed hard, slammed the bathroom door shut, and pulled off what remained of his rumpled monkey suit.
Sex. That was all it had been, all it had ever been. His father had tried to tell him that. His brothers, too. Well, no. Not Travis. By then, Travis had already taken off for parts unknown. But Slade had tried to make him listen to reason, and Gage had waved off his kid brother’s warnings, laughed them off, really, telling Slade he was too young to understand love, telling his father he was too jaded to understand it.
And now, it was over.
Oh, the heat was still there. For all he knew, it always would be. Natalie was a beautiful, sexy woman. Why pretend otherwise? And he was a man who had an eye for beauty.
Gage glanced at the ornate gold and platinum faucets jutting from the marble sink. Well, for some kinds of beauty. Not stuff like this. He shuddered. This was ugly. But Natalie liked it, the same as she liked the Spanish Inquisition couch.
“All to madam’s tastes, Mr. Baron,” the obsequious little interior decorator had explained any time he’d questioned a purchase.
All of which proved, Gage thought glumly as he stepped into the shower, all of which most definitely proved how little he and Natalie suited each other.
That was why her announcement last night really hadn’t come as such a shock. Well, it had, at first. He’d felt as if the ground were dissolving under his feet when she’d looked at him, her eyes cold, and said, “Gage, I want a divorce.”
“A divorce?” he’d repeated dumbly, as if saying the word might give it some real meaning, turn it into one he could understand.
“Yes,” she’d said. “A divorce.”
And then a bunch of the Holcombs’s guests had come traipsing through the garden, talking and laughing.
What’s the matter with you people? he’d wanted to shout. Don’t you realize that the whole world just stopped?
But he hadn’t said anything, partly because his brain seemed to have gone numb, partly because Natalie had swung away from him and was hurrying towards the gate that led to the beach. He’d gone after her, following as she made her way not to the sea but around the side of the mansion, up the walkway, to the front of the house.
She’d taken the long way. Evidently, she hadn’t been any more interested in pasting on a smile and saying good-night to a bunch of people than he was.
She was already heading for the street by the time he got to the driveway.
“My car,” he said to the kid with the pimples, pulling out the first bill from his pocket. “And make it quick.”
It must have been a hefty tip because the kid took off like a rocket and delivered the car thirty seconds later.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, but Gage was already in the Vette, pulling away, tires screaming as he raced after Natalie.
He slowed when he caught up to her and put down his window.
“Get in the car.”
She ignored him.
“Get in the damn car,” he said, and something in his voice must have warned her that he was in no mood for games because she’d stopped, wrenched open the door and climbed in.
“What does ‘I want a divorce’ mean?” he’d growled.
“It’s not Swahili, Gage. It means exactly what you think it means,” Natalie had replied without looking at him, and she’d sat silent as a statue all the way back to their house, where he’d roared up the driveway and come to a screeching, bone-jarring stop. She was out of the car, into the house, up the stairs in one fluid motion, with him hot on her heels.
“Natalie,” he’d said, “what’s going on here?”
But it was a pointless question. For starters, she didn’t answer it. And even a man as dumb as he could see what was going on here.
Natalie had marched towards the guest suite, not towards the bedroom.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he’d yelled.
She hadn’t answered that, either, and he’d felt his blood pressure zoom up the scale as the guest room door slammed behind her and the sound of the lock sliding home echoed like a rifle shot through the silent house.
So he’d stood there, hands balled into fists, brows tied in a knot, while the adrenaline pumped through his body at a thousand gallons a minute. Should he go after her? Demand answers? Should he break down the guest room door, break it down and…
And what?
He’d never felt more useless, more frustrated, more furious in his whole life.
And, short of doing something he knew he’d regret later, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
Except not sleep in the master bedroom.
It wasn’t much, but it was something—something, it turned out, that had come close to breaking his back.
Well, at least it had given him time to think.
Gage shut off the shower, stepped out and strode into the bedroom with a towel tied around his waist.
Natalie wanted out? Fine. So did he. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d been thinking while he’d dressed for the party last night?
What they’d had, what he’d thought they had, just wasn’t there anymore. The truth was, they quarreled all the time. Over everything. Natalie didn’t hurry to the door when he came home. Hell, most of the time she wasn’t even there when he came home, not even after he’d busted his tail flying through five time zones to get to her, the way he’d done a couple of weeks ago after he’d opened the newest Baron’s in Samoa, where he’d had to grin like an idiot while some broad with too many teeth and not enough clothes had propped her boobs against his arm.
“Miss South Pacific,” the hotel manager had hissed into his ear. “It’s good for local business.”
And it would have been good as a little joke to share with Natalie. But the days of shared jokes and smiles were long gone.
Oh, she could still turn him on. There was no question about that. Gage reached into his closet, then stopped.
Except, now that he thought about it, even sex hadn’t been the same lately. There were the nights he thought about reaching for Natalie in bed, but didn’t do it. He was tired. She was tired. But hadn’t there been a time he hadn’t thought about reaching for her, a time he’d just done it? And, after they’d made love, hadn’t there been a time he’d never had to wonder if Natalie had—if she’d—
Gage grabbed for a shirt, a tie, a suit.
What did any of it matter? Last night, tossing on that couch, he’d admitted to himself that she had simply spoken the truth before he had. Their marriage had run its course. Marriages did that in his family. Just look at his old man, tucked in with wife number five. Just look at Travis, one down and swearing he’d never get trapped again.
Gage snorted.
And then there was Slade, who worked at staying single. And Caitlin…well, forget Caitlin. Not because she wasn’t really a Baron by blood but because his stepsister was too smart to even consider becoming a participant in the marriage wars.
Gage stepped into his briefs, pulled on his trousers and zipped them up.
Yessirree, today was the first day of the rest of his life. A life without a wife who’d made it clearer and clearer she didn’t love him.
She had, once. He knew she had. Maybe—maybe, if they hadn’t lost the baby…
His face hardened. The baby had nothing to do with it. Natalie hadn’t really wanted a baby, anyway. He knew that, now. That was something else it was time he admitted.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “It’s over. And I’m damn glad it is.”
“So am I,” Natalie said, and Gage whirled around to face her. His face reddened.
“I didn’t know you were there.”
“So I gather.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t you?”
The coldness in her face was like a blow to the heart. Gage’s mouth thinned.
“Did you want something?” he asked politely.
“No. I mean, yes. I mean…”
What did she mean? If only she hadn’t stumbled in without knocking. If only she hadn’t heard him say those words. He was right, of course. It was over and, dammit, she was as relieved as he was. Only—only he didn’t have to sound so happy…
“Natalie?”
She blinked. Gage had come closer. All she had to do was reach out her hand to touch him…
“Natalie? Are you all right?”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry I barged in on you, Gage. I should have knocked, but the door was open.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have to—”
“You’re busy. I’ll wait until you’re finished and then I’ll—”
“No.” The word shot from his throat. “No,” he said carefully, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not busy at all. I’m just getting dressed.”
Yes. She could see that for herself. He was wearing nothing but a pair of gray trousers, zipped but open at the waist so that they drooped low on his hips. And he’d just come from the shower. His dark hair was still damp and uncombed. It lay over his forehead in a way that made her want to go to him and push it back.
Habit, she thought, and stood straighter. It was habit, too, that made her gaze drop lower, to survey that familiar body. The broad shoulders. The muscled arms and chest. The narrow waist that tapered to long legs…
Her gaze shot back to his face.
“That’s—that’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll wait.”
“Natalie.” His hand fell on her shoulder as she turned away. “Did you, uh, did you want something?”
“My clothes.” She made a little gesture that took in the white robe, hanging almost to her toes. “I need my clothes.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “I, ah, I thought you might have wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
About what? Gage’s vision clouded. How could she ask that? How could she sound so damned polite?
“About us,” he said tightly. “That’s what I thought you might want to talk about.”
She nodded. “I don’t think there’s anything to say,” she said quietly. “We both know our marriage is over. We’ve known it for a long time. I just finally put it into words last night.”
A muscle knotted in Gage’s jaw. “Of course,” he said politely. “You’re right. Now that I’ve had time to think it over, I know that.”
Natalie forced a smile to her lips. “I just…I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do next.”
“No. Neither am I.” He walked to the bed, where he’d dropped the rest of the clothes he’d taken from the closet. “Talk to a lawyer, I guess.”
“A lawyer.” Natalie stumbled a little over the word. “Yes. Yes, of course. Do we use one or do we use two?”
“Two,” Gage said in that same polite tone. He slipped on his shirt, began doing up the buttons. “Why don’t you call Jim Rutherford?”
“I assumed you’d want Jim.”
Gage shook his head. “That’s okay. You might as well deal with somebody you know. I’ll get someone else.”
“Yes, but…” God, what was wrong with her? What did she care what lawyer he used? His feelings weren’t her problem, not anymore.
“Landon. Grant Landon.”
“Who?”
The name from the past had tumbled from Gage’s lips without warning but now that it had, he knew it made sense. A friend. A real friend, one who’d known him in that long-ago time when he’d stood halfway between the defiance of his abandoned youth and the promise of the man he was to become.
“You met him in New York. I brought him by a couple of times when I was in law school. Remember?”
Did she remember? Natalie almost laughed, or maybe she almost cried. She’d never forget New York. Gage in school, at class all day, bent over his books half the night. She, working at the restaurant where the grease on the griddle probably dated back to pre-history. The little walk-up apartment on Eighth Street, where the water always gurgled in the pipes and the thin walls that transmitted every sound from the apartment next door.
And the joy. The happiness. The wonder of being Gage’s wife, of being able to begin each day seeing his face, of ending each night wrapped in his arms…
“Nat?”
She looked up, her vision hazed by tears. Gage had come closer. He was only a breath away. He smiled and lay his hand lightly against her cheek.
“Do you remember New York, Nat?” he said.
Natalie stared at him. Oh, he was so transparent. Did he think he could do this forever? A soft word. A smile. A gentle touch. And she was supposed to succumb, to go into his arms, to pretend that she meant more to him than an ornament. Because that was all she was. An ornament. One he could drape with jewels and place in a glowing setting.
Once, she’d been a woman of flesh and blood. Gage’s wife. A whole person, the one he discussed things with. Planned with. Chose to be with, above and beyond anyone else, instead of jetting off at every opportunity to meet with Important People, to be photographed at the opening of the latest Baron resort with some nubile young thing breathing down his neck, Miss Samoa or Miss Pittsburgh or—or Miss Minnie Mouse, for all she knew or cared…
Natalie jerked back.
“I remember,” she said coldly. “That ratty apartment. The water that shook the pipes. The noise from next door, and the stink of old grease in my hair. You’re damned right, I remember. How could I ever forget?”
Gage’s eyes went flat.
“I see. The bell rings for round one.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
His smile was tight and unpleasant. “Come on, babe, don’t give me that innocent look. Half your girlfriends have been divorced. Round one, in which the much-put-upon little woman lays out a list of all the sacrifices she’s made for hubby.”
Natalie’s chin lifted. “What an excellent idea,” she said sweetly. “I’ll be sure to mention it to Jim.”
“And I’ll be sure to tell Grant that he’d better help me figure out a way to lock up the valuables.”
“You do that,” Natalie said through her teeth.
“Damn right,” Gage said through his. “Now, was there anything else you wanted, or can I finish getting dressed in the privacy of my own room?”
Natalie fluttered her lashes. “Your own room?” She looked around slowly, then at Gage again. “Your own room, my dear, almost-ex-husband, is waiting for you at your club. Or at your hotel. One of your hotels, anyway.” Her smile glittered. “But it certainly isn’t here. As you so carefully pointed out, this is round one. That means the house is the least of what I expect to get.”
Gage slapped his hands on his hips.
“You’re joking.”
Natalie slapped her hands on her hips, too. “Do I look as if I’m joking?”
His eyes narrowed. “It’ll take a court order to get me out of here, babe.”
“I’m sure Jim will provide me with one.”
Natalie turned away from him and sauntered towards the door. It was crazy, but the sight of that stiff, slender back sent Gage’s blood pressure soaring again.
“And I’m sure Grant will know what you can do with your court order,” he said, his voice rising.
She swung to face him, her hand on the doorknob. “I hope so,” she said politely. “I hope, too, that your Mister…Landon? I hope he’s able to do such things, here in Florida.”
Gage blinked. “What?”
“He practices in New York. Isn’t that what you said? And this is Florida. I just hope, for both our sakes, your dear old pal can hang out his shingle in another state because I’m telling you right now, Gage, I don’t want this thing dragging on forever.”
Gage strode towards her. “It won’t. Oh, it won’t.” He grabbed Natalie’s shoulders, drew her up to her toes, lowered his face until they were nose to nose. “Because I’m telling you right now, babe, you can forget about a divorce.”
Natalie turned white. “But you just said…”
“I know what I said!” He let go of her, yanked open the door, and she stumbled backwards into the hall. “I know exactly what I said, dammit.” He slammed the door shut and glared at it. “And I meant every word,” he muttered. “Every mother-loving word.”
Enraged, he kicked the wall, welcomed the sharp pain the thoughtless action sent shooting through his bare toes.
“Every word,” he said, and buried his face in his hands.
CHAPTER THREE
GAGE pushed open the double glass doors that led to the main offices of Baron Resorts. Carol, seated behind the reception desk, gave him her usual sunny smile over the mug of steaming coffee she held in her hands.
“Morning, Mr. Baron.”
Gage glared at her.
“It’s after nine,” he snapped. “You’re supposed to be working.”
Carol’s smile faded. “I am working. I mean, I’m just—”
“You want coffee, wait until your break.” Gage marched past her. “Let’s have a little efficiency around here, if you don’t mind.”
“No, Mr. Baron. I mean, yes, Mr. Baron. I mean—”
He pushed his way through the next set of doors and strode towards his office. His secretary rose to her feet as he swept past her desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Baron. Mr. Folger called. Mr. Okada, too. And there are several faxes from—”
“No calls,” he snapped. “No faxes. No interruptions. Understood?”
Rosa’s dark brows lifted. “Certainly, sir. No interruptions. But—”
Gage swung towards her. “What part of the word ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
Color flooded Rosa’s face. “No part of it, sir.”
“Good. Then don’t disturb me for anything less than a five-alarm fire or an armed insurrection.”
He slammed his office door shut, tossed his briefcase on a low beechwood table…
“Hell,” he muttered, and opened the door again. “Rosa?”
Rosa looked up from her computer keyboard. “Yes, sir?”
Her tone was polite but stiff, and her cheeks were still red. Gage sighed and walked towards her.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to take your head off. It’s just…” Just what, Baron? Just that your wife is leaving you? “It’s just that, ah, that I had a late night.”
Rosa smiled. “I can imagine.”
“Sorry?”
“The Holcombs’s party. According to today’s paper, it was a smashing success.”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was—terrific.”
“I’ll hold all your calls, Mr. Baron.”
“Thanks. And do me a favor, please. Tell Carol to call Starbuck’s, order herself a couple of pounds of whatever coffee she likes and charge it to me. And tell her I said she can keep a pot of the stuff at her elbow all day long, if that’s what she wants.”
“Sir?”
“Just tell her what I said, okay? She’ll understand.”
“I’ll tell her. And I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed—but there is this one envelope that arrived by messenger this morning…”
Gage sighed and held out his hand. “Okay, okay. Hand it over, though why you’d think something that comes via Express Mail would be…” He frowned as Rosa put the heavy vellum envelope in his hand. “This didn’t come Express Mail.”
“No, sir. It was hand-delivered, as I said.”
He looked at the cream-colored envelope. His name and address had been written in flowing, elegant script.
“It’s quite impressive, sir.”
“It is, indeed.” He grinned. “Probably an advertising gimmick. ‘Come in and test drive our newest super-duper, ultra-luxurious boatmobile.’ Something like that.”
Rosa laughed. “I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Baron. But I thought it might be important.”
“Sure. No need to explain.” Gage smiled. “Just do me a favor and hold everything else, okay? I have some, ah, some thinking I want to do about, ah, about that property in Puerto Rico.”
“Certainly, sir.”
His smile held until he’d shut the door to his office. Then it slid from his face like the mask it was.
“Great job, Baron,” he muttered as he dropped the vellum envelope on his desk. “First you chop off the heads of two of the best people in your office, then you stand there and sputter excuses as if you were a ten-year-old explaining how the ball broke the window.” He yanked off his jacket, loosened his tie, kicked back his swivel chair and collapsed into it. “Next thing you know, you’ll be phoning one of those talk show shrinks and whining out your tale of woe to a million people.”
What tale of woe? His marriage was breaking up. Well, so what? Divorce had been a part of his childhood. Back then, only his brothers, and then Caitlin, had understood. Now—now, it was an everyday thing.
Enough of feeling sorry for himself. He needed to think about something else. Clear his head, so he could approach things logically. Today was a business day, same as any other. He had appointments, meetings, probably a lunch scheduled with somebody or other.
The ever-efficient Rosa had centered his appointment book, open, on his desk. A neat stack of faxes lay to its left. To the right were half a dozen “while you were out” memos.
The vellum envelope had landed on top of them.
Gage pushed it aside, picked up the memos and leafed through them. Words ran together in a senseless pattern. He frowned, dumped the memos in the wastebasket and reached for the faxes, but he couldn’t get past the first sentence on any of them.
“Damn,” he said, and dropped them, too.
How was he supposed to keep his mind on work? How was he supposed to concentrate on anything but what was happening in his personal life?
He shoved back his chair, got to his feet and drew open the vertical blinds that covered the wall of glass behind him. Below, sun-worshiping guests lazed around the Windsong’s pool, which had been designed in the spirit of a lazy river, complete with waterfalls that flowed over hidden grottoes. Beyond, a stretch of white sand led to the emerald sea.
Everything he’d busted his tail to create was out there. Well, there and beyond, in a dozen places around the globe. Under his command, the sorry excuse for a hotel he’d almost hocked his soul to buy had become a world-famous, five-star resort, the center of what the financial wizards had taken to calling Baron’s Kingdom.
He was a successful, happy man.
At least, he had been, until last night.
Gage sank down into his chair again, propped his elbows on the desk and held his head.
What to do? What to do?
There had to be a way around this. Two people didn’t just walk away from a marriage after they’d invested ten years of their lives in it.
It wasn’t logical. Wasn’t practical. It was pointless and wasteful and foolish. Okay. He’d tell Natalie that, give her the chance to change her mind…
Was he crazy? Give her the chance to cut him to shreds again, was more like it. Besides, he wanted out. How come he kept forgetting that?
He muttered an oath, a creative one dredged up from those long-ago days when he’d worked with his hands, not with his head.
“Got to keep busy,” he muttered, “got to stop thinking.”
His gaze fell on the vellum envelope. Okay, even reading a hokey ad for an overpriced car or maybe a boat, considering that this was Florida, might be good for a distraction.
He ripped open the envelope flap, extracted a heavy formal notecard. His brows rose as he read it.
Your presence is requested at
The eighty-fifth birthday celebration
Of Mr. Jonas Baron
Saturday and Sunday, June the 14th and 15th
At the Baron Ranch
‘Espada’
Brazos Springs, Texas
R.S.V.P.
A note was scrawled beneath the perfectly executed calligraphy.
“Gage,” it read, “you’d damn well better come if you know what’s good for you. No excuses, you hear?”
The brusque words were followed by a bold capital C—and softened with the drawing of a tiny heart.
A grin spread across Gage’s face. Catie never changed. Tough as nails on the outside, soft and sweet inside, though she’d probably have slugged him if he’d ever dared say something like that to her face.
His grin faded.
Now his morning was perfect. First the confrontation with Natalie and now this demand that he attend a command performance at Espada. Oh, yeah. Today was shaping up to be a gem.
Jonas, pushing eighty-five. Was it really possible? He hadn’t seen his father in a year. Two, maybe. But in his mind’s eye, Jonas was ageless, with a body as tough and straight as an ironwood tree and silver eyes that could stare down a hawk.
He put down the vellum card. Eighty-five. That was quite a number. Well, he’d have to phone on the—what day was it, anyway? The fourteenth of June? The fifteenth? Either way, he’d call the ranch, wish the old man a happy birthday. And send him a gift, of course, though what you could send a man who had everything he wanted and disdained everything else was beyond him.
Gage’s expression softened. He’d make a separate call, to Caitlin. Explain that, much as he wanted to, he couldn’t possibly break away and—
His private phone rang. The sound startled him. No one had that number except—
“Baby,” he said, grabbing the phone. “Natalie, I love you so—”
“And I love you, too, precious,” a falsetto voice warbled, “but my husband’s starting to get suspicious.”
Gage jerked upright in his chair. “Travis? Trav, is that you?”
A deep, masculine chuckle sounded over the line. “I know it’s probably disappointing as all get-out but yeah, it’s me. Good morning.”
A slow smile spread across Gage’s lips.
“Good morning?” He glanced at his watch and gave a soft whistle. “My, oh, my, I am impressed, Travis. Why, it’s hardly seven o’clock, your time. I didn’t think you West Coast big shots turned over in bed until us hardworkin’ Easterners were darned near havin’ lunch.”
“I already told him that,” another deep, lazy voice said.
Gage’s smile became a grin. “Slade?”
“The one and only,” Slade Baron replied.
“Hell, I don’t believe this! What are you two guys doin’? Havin’ a reunion out there in Malibu? Or are you both in Boston, livin’ it up in that big old house on Beacon Hill my little brother calls home?”
“I’m in Boston,” Slade said.
“And I’m in Malibu,” Travis said. “This three-way brotherly phone call is comin’ to you courtesy of the marvels of modern-day science.”
“I’ll bet it’s the only three-way ever been done by telephone,” Slade said with a wicked grin at the pretty young secretary who’d just brought him his coffee. “Thank you, darlin’.”
“Don’t you ‘darlin” me, pal,” Travis said with a mock growl, “or I’ll fly straight to that fancy-pants mansion of yours and beat you up the way I used to when you were a scrawny twelve-year-old and I was a strappin’ lad of thirteen.”
“Uh-huh. You an’ who else?”
“Me an’ my man Gage. Isn’t that right, Gage?” Travis chuckled. “’Course, it’ll have to wait until the sun gets up in the sky a piece, so my brain starts workin’ right.”
All three brothers laughed. Gage could have sworn he felt that laughter reach out over the miles and enfold him in its warmth.
It never failed to amaze him, how easily they all fell into the teasing repartee of childhood. Months went by now without their seeing each other but it didn’t matter. The small battles they’d fought as kids didn’t matter, either. Put two of them together in a room—or on a telephone line—and the memories flooded back. Put three of them together and it was as if the years had fallen away. Even their accents changed and took on the soft, drawling cadence of their growing-up years in Texas, until Travis finally cleared his throat and got down to the reason for the call.
“Okay, guys,” he said, and sighed. “I wish to hell we could avoid the topic and I’m sure you do, too, but it’s time for a reality check.”
“The invitation,” Slade said.
Gage heard the rustle of paper over the line. “You got yours, too?”
“This morning, bright and early. Trav?”
“Bright and early is right. Mine arrived at six.”
Slade laughed. “And interrupted you and a guest.”
“Go on,” Travis hestitated. “Let’s just say I was otherwise involved when I got this invitation.”
“What a tough life he leads,” Slade drawled.
“I’d expect some compassion from you, kid,” Travis said. “Not from Gage, of course, since he gave up his freedom years ago.” His voice softened. “How’s my girl, by the way? You still treating her right, or is she about ready to use that pretty head of hers and ditch you for me?”
Gage’s smile faded. “She’s fine,” he said tightly, and knew he’d made a mistake the minute he heard the overwhelming silence humming across the lines.
“Gage?” Slade said. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Travis said. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes.”
“You sure? Because you don’t sound—”
“Listen, maybe you two guys can horse around all day,” Gage said, even more tightly, “but I’ve got things to do. So let’s get down to it, okay?”
There was the sound of throat-clearing on both coasts. “Right,” Slade said. “Uh, business. Well, Travis already put the agenda on the table. What are we going to do about this command performance the old man’s got planned for the middle of the month?”
“Ignore it,” Gage said firmly. “I’ve got—”
“Things to do,” Travis said. “Yeah, I heard that. And believe me, I don’t have any greater desire to go back to Espada for a dress rehearsal of King Lear than either of you guys, but—”
“Lear?” Slade said, sounding puzzled. “Hey, this is Texas we’re talking about, not Stratford-on-Avon.”
“Come on, Slade, give me a break. You know what this is all about. Jonas is starting to feel mortal.”
“Jonas?” Slade snorted. “Our father’s got every intention of making it to one hundred and you know what? My money’s on him.”
“Mine, too. But I suspect the old boy’s looking around, taking stock of that little spread of seven zillion acres he calls home, sweet home, and figuring it’s time he made plans on how to divvy up the kingdom.”
“Well, I don’t need to spend a miserable weekend listening to him snap out orders to know that I don’t give a damn how he does it.” Gage rose from his chair, paced to the door, opened it and mimed that he was drinking a cup of coffee to Rosa, who nodded and slipped out from behind her desk. “I’ll send a gift, phone the ranch, wish Jonas the best…” He smiled his thanks as Rosa handed him a cup. “You two guys can enjoy the party without me,” he finished as he sat down at his desk again.
“Hold it right there, pal.” Slade’s voice rang with indignation. “I never said I was going. In fact, I’m going to be in Baltimore that weekend.”
“Or in the Antarctic,” Travis said lazily. “Anywhere it takes to avoid this shindig, right?”
“Wrong. I’ve put in the past eight weeks on plans for a new bank in Baltimore, and I’ll be damned if—”
“Easy does it, Slade. I was just kidding.”
Slade sighed. “And I was lying through my teeth. Not about the commission, but about why I can’t make it to Espada.”
“Amazing,” Gage said softly. “Here we are, three grown men, all of us falling over our own feet in a rush to keep clear of the place where we grew up.”
“Some people call the place where they grew up ‘home,’” Slade said, trying for a light touch but coming up short.
“Yeah,” Travis said, trying for the same light touch, “but they aren’t the sons of Jonas Baron.”
“The Sons of Jonas Baron,” Gage said, trying even harder. “Sounds like a movie.”
“Not a bad idea,” Slade said. “I can play myself but they’d need to hire stand-ins for you two. Splash those ugly mugs of yours across the big screen and they’d scare away paying customers.”
This time, at last, they all laughed.
“The thing is,” said Travis, “tough as the old man is, eighty-five is a pretty impressive number.”
“So?” Bitterness tinged Gage’s voice. “I don’t much remember him being impressed enough by other numbers. Your eighteenth birthday, for instance. Or when Slade finished his two years of grad school.”
“Or your big fifth anniversary party,” Travis said, and Gage felt the pain of Natalie’s announcement rip through him again. “But, what the hell, gentlemen, we’re bigger than that, right?”
Groans greeted the announcement, but Travis was undeterred.
“Well, we are. We’re young, he’s old. That’s a simple fact.” His voice softened. “And then there’s Caitlin.”
“Yeah.” Slade sighed. “I do hate to disappoint her.”
“Disappoint her?” Gage muttered. “Hell, Catie’ll come after us and cut out our hearts when she hears we’re not coming.”
“Or other, even more important parts of our anatomies,” Slade said.
The three Barons laughed, and then Gage gave a deep sigh.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t like letting her down, but I don’t see a choice here, guys. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“The choice,” Travis said in the tone of reason that had made him such a successful attorney, “the choice, my man, is that there is no choice. We have to show up at this thing.”
“No way,” two voices said in unison.
“Look, we’re not kids anymore. Jonas can’t get under our skin. He can’t make us miserable and, what the hell, we do owe him a show of respect. And think how happy we can make Caitlin by showing our faces, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ or whatever it is she’s got planned, before we head out to the real world again. What’ll it take? A couple of days? That’s not much, when you come down to it, is it?”
Silence skimmed along the phone line. “Maybe not,” Slade said after a while.
Maybe not, Gage thought—but the birthday weekend was only ten days away. Every instinct he possessed told him it was going to take longer than that to fix this mess with Natalie, to convince her that he still loved her, that he wanted her because, dammit, he did.
“Okay,” Slade said, and heaved a sigh. “I’m in.”
“Great,” Travis said. “Gage?”
Gage cleared his throat. “I can’t.”
“Dammit, Gage, if Slade can, and I can—”
“I can’t, I’m telling you! I’ve got—I have things to take care of. Important things.”
“It’s just a weekend,” Slade said.
“Well, I don’t have a weekend to spare.”
“Listen here, brother,” Travis snapped. “If I can manage the time and Slade can manage the time—”
“Good,” Gage snarled. “Great. I’m proud of the two of you. But I’m busy. Too busy for this kind of nonsense. I have some sensitive things going on here. You guys understand that, or do I have to put it on a billboard?”
He heard the harshness, the anger, of his own words echoing around him. His brothers were silent and he shut his eyes and put his fist to his forehead. He could almost see the looks they’d be sending each other if they were in the same room.
He took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice near a whisper. “But I can’t be there. I just can’t.”
“Sure,” Travis said after a minute.
“Understood,” Slade said a beat later. “Well…”
There was silence, then the sound of a throat being cleared. “Well,” three voices said at one time, and then there were hurried goodbyes, good wishes…
The phone went dead. Gage sat staring at it, waiting—and smiled a little when it rang.
“Listen,” Travis said without bothering to say hello. “If there’s a problem on your end…”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, sure you are, but if there should be a problem, whatever—”
“I’ll call you,” Gage said quietly.
“Yeah,” Travis said, cleared his throat, and hung up. The phone rang again, almost immediately.
“Gage?”
Gage sighed. “Yes, Slade.”
“Look, if you, ah, if you need anything—”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, sure, but if you should need anything, somebody to talk to, whatever—”
“I’ll call you,” Gage said softly.
“Right.” Slade cleared his throat and hung up.
Slowly, Gage put down the telephone. He forgot, sometimes, what it was like, having a family that loved you. Maybe Natalie had forgotten, too. He was her family, after all, just as she was his. Maybe all she needed was for him to sit her down, tell her how he loved her…
The phone rang again. Gage rolled his eyes and picked it up.
“Listen, you guys, I swear to you, I’m perfectly fine. There’s not a thing troubling me. You got that? My life is perfect. I’m just too busy to take time out for a weekend of sentimental claptrap.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Natalie said. “I know all about how busy you are, Gage.”
“Natalie?” He shot to his feet. “I didn’t realize—”
“No,” she said, her voice trembling. “No, you never did. I just hope you’re not too busy to take down this phone number.”
“What phone number? Nat, listen—”
“My phone number. I’ve left you, Gage. I took an apartment off Lincoln Drive.”
“Huh?” Gage ran his hand through his hair. “But the last thing you said this morning was—”
“I changed my mind.”
“Natalie, baby—”
“And I’ve spoken with Jim Rutherford. I think you should speak with your attorney, too.”
Gage’s eyes narrowed. “All this,” he said slowly, “in one morning?”
“All this, in one morning.”
“How long have you been planning this, Natalie?”
“I haven’t. I’ve thought about it, but—”
“Thought about leaving me? Thought about it?”
He shut his eyes, remembering the nights she’d feigned sleep, the times he’d taken her in his arms anyway and felt as if she were made of wood. Was that when she’d thought about leaving him? When she lay beside him, when she lay beneath him, in the darkness?
“Well,” he said, his voice a growl, his heart trying to break and harden at the same time, “I’ve got news for you, baby. I thought about it, too. For months. I just didn’t know how to tell you but I can see, I needn’t have worried.”
Natalie put the back of her hand to her mouth, biting hard on her knuckles so she wouldn’t give this man she’d once loved the satisfaction of hearing her weep. “If you don’t know how to swim, don’t jump into the deep end,” Liz Holcomb had pleaded after Natalie had poured out her heart over endless cups of black coffee. “Oh, Natalie, don’t do anything too quickly. Wait. Think. Give it time.”
But she had waited, for what seemed years and years. She’d waited for her husband to look up and notice that he’d forgotten who she was, that she was at least as important as his hotels, his meetings, his money.
And then she’d looked at him in the Holcombs’s garden last night and she’d realized that the only thing Gage wanted from her anymore was what she could give him in bed.
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