Paper Marriage Proposition

  Barely a second after the car halted, Beth shoved the door open and ran across the asphalt to the fence. “David!” she shouted, as she entered the yard and closed the gate behind her.

  He pivoted instantly, a baseball in his hand. “Mom?”

  His fingers tightened around the ball, but he didn’t run to her. He stayed frozen in place, in loose jeans and a striped T-shirt. He eyed his good friend Jonas first, as if asking for his permission, but all Jonas did was stick his hand out for the ball.

  “Sweetie, oh, darling baby,” Beth choked as she dropped to her knees and stretched out her arms. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  He crashed into her and Beth’s eyes welled up as they clutched each other. He smelled of shampoo and grass and little boy, and for a moment Beth inhaled as much as she could.

  When her pulse calmed, she began asking him what he’d been doing, reminded him his father could not know about this if they wanted to be together again, and then she remembered Landon, now leaning against the car, and she seized David’s little hand and rose to face her husband. The sun made his dark hair gleam and glazed his tanned skin like warmed honey.

  His expression was inscrutable, but there was emotion in his eyes. The silver in them had intensified to a sharp polished metal.

  She brought David over to the fence. “Landon, this is my son, David. David, this is Mr. Gage.”

  Landon’s son would be his age, she realized. Had he wanted to be a dad? He seemed to be ruthlessly suppressing the urge to go back into the car.

  “Is he my new daddy?” David asked, blinking.

  Her motherly instinct didn’t take long to kick in. Beth quickly began to arrange his shirt, comb his hair, and out of habit, checked his temperature. “He’s mommy’s special friend, my love. And he’s doing everything he can to bring you home with us. With me. Do you want that?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  Both man and boy continued regarding each other warily. Landon with a hand in his pocket, the other restless at his side.

  David kicked the grass. “Does he like horses?”

  Smiling because that’s just the thing that her David, the animal lover, would say, she hugged him again. Tight. Had he grown? He’d grown an inch, she was sure of it! “He has two big dogs,” she told him excitedly. “They’re as big as lions. You would like them.”

  “Jonas’s mother said you would come. I didn’t believe her but I wanted you to. She said I could make you something and I made you this.” From the back pocket of his jeans, he retrieved a paper and gradually unfolded it to show her a drawing of spaceships and stars that read, “David+Mom.”

  “Oh, my! Well, there, Commander, that is one dangerous aircraft, and is that big heart mine?”

  He nodded, his grin already showing a missing tooth. Beth thought of how they would play astronauts and cowboys and anything else they could conjure when they got back together. She’d deepen her voice to sound like the villain so David could trap her and be the hero.

  She rumpled his hair and stole a peek back at the house to find Mary Wilson standing by the kitchen window with little Jonas now at her side, watching their reunion with a smile.

  Beth nodded at her and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  As though having at last convinced his legs to move, Landon approached the fence, still so quiet. He reached over the top of the pickets. “Hi, David.” He offered his knuckled fist, as Beth supposed he might do with his brothers, and said, “If you bump it, it means we’re friends.”

  David frowned, not easily sold. “Can I see your dogs?”

  Landon didn’t seem to know what to say. He kept staring down at her son with a mixture of confusion and pain.

  Beth blurted, “You can ride them like ponies if you’d like to!”

  That did it. Her son’s entire face changed from wariness to full adoration. “Okay.”

  And he lifted his balled little hand and bumped it against Landon’s big one.

  “Thank you.”

  Minutes after leaving David, Beth’s excitement had dimmed and morphed into a fuzzy, warm flutter as Thomas drove them home. She felt like hugging Landon but instead fidgeted with the pearl button on the lapel of her shirt. David’s drawing was neatly stashed inside her purse. David’s scent, his smiles, every word he’d said, had been tucked away inside her, too. Her heart threatened to burst.

  “He seemed happy to see you,” Landon said, his eyes glimmering with pride.

  “Yes.” Beth felt her chest contract, remembering how David’s face had lit like a sunbeam when she’d told him they’d be together soon. When? he’d asked, again and again. When…

  A lump gathered in her throat. Even after such a wonderful day, tonight there would still be an injustice in the fact that someone else would be tucking her son into bed.

  Beth realized with a start that Landon’s thigh and her own pressed together, that they were sitting too close, and that it would be rude to slide away. So she tried not to notice how thick his thigh was. How hard.

  She felt she needed to say something but didn’t know where to begin, or how to organize her thoughts. Her armor had been stripped away; she trembled with emotion, excitement and something else. He smelled so good up close, like the wind. Like a man.

  Landon gazed out the window. He looked terribly big and terribly lonely. All her walls against him, all her reservations, seemed to have morphed fully into all these awed and inspired feelings of admiration and respect and desire. God, what was she supposed to do with these?

  “Your son…” she began.

  “Nathan,” he corrected.

  “Nathan. He’d be around David’s age?”

  He nodded.

  Should she have brought up this subject? It seemed to be the one on his mind, but speaking of the boy without telling Landon what she knew proved difficult. “This must’ve been hard for you.”

  He signaled at her, and let his eyes sweep meaningfully over her. “Not particularly. You seem very happy, Bethany.”

  Her cheeks heated up, and she averted her face. “It’s not easy being a parent. You never imagine you could care so much.”

  He made a sound, like a snort. “And yet the instant you hear that wail and stare into their eyes, they’ve got you.”

  “They do!” she agreed.

  They shared smiles, and the comfortable quiet between them morphed into something smoldering and sensual.

  “You know,” Landon said, so softly she felt the whisper in the interior of the car like a tangible caress. “I still don’t know when you got me, Beth.” He cocked his head and regarded her with the eyes of a man who knew too much. “Maybe when you came spitting fire—asking for my help. Or maybe when I see you looking at me the way you do.”

  Flooded with mortification, Beth raised a halting hand and lowered her face. “Landon, don’t.”

  He reached out and cupped her shoulder, grazing her arm with his thumb. “Don’t what?”

  The heat radiating from his body made her squirm. The ache inside her continued opening, like a ravenous animal, turning her desire into pain. “Don’t talk to me like this.” Yes, please do, tell me if you care, too.

  No, he mustn’t!

  He leaned back negligently and studied her with impressive calm. The sunlight streaming through the window cast playful shadows on his profile. “But you like it when I talk to you like this.”

  She struggled against a barrage of emotion. She did like it, she loved it, but she shook her head fast, still not ready to admit anything.

  Landon Gage wasn’t a pillar she could lean on tomorrow, wouldn’t be a steady presence in her life. There were just these few…moments. With him. Dangerous moments, crowded with dangerous thoughts.

  “I don’t…want to.”

  “Now you’re blushing.”

  “Because you’re flirting.”

  “Flirting.” A sprinkle of laughter danced across his eyes. “I’m being honest with my wife.”

  She raised her eyes to his.
“Then can you honestly tell me you’re not trying to seduce me?”

  He offered no argument for a moment, but then said, in a voice that broached no argument, “If I were trying to seduce you, you’d be right here.” Meaningfully, he patted his lap, and her eyes hurt at the image of the prominent bulge between his parted thighs. “You’d be right here, right now. And I wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight—nor would you.”

  She tried reining in her jumbled thoughts, but couldn’t seem to get past the words “seduce” and “you’d be right here.” “Then you’re just playing some sort of game?” Her voice came out unsteady.

  He shook his head. “I’m definitely not playing.”

  “Then what?” she persisted. “What’s this about? What is it that you want from me?”

  “You really want to know what I want?”

  “I want to know what you want, yes!”

  “Your trust, Beth. Before you give me anything else, I want your trust.”

  They engaged in a brief staring contest, Landon’s eyes scalding, Beth struggling to tame the wild impulse to put her lips on his beautiful stern ones.

  Stricken by the realization that Landon always brought out the lonely, impulsive teenager in her, she lost the staring contest and glanced down at her purse on her lap. “What makes you think I don’t trust you?”

  “Do you?”

  She opened her mouth to say yes, yes, she did, despite not wanting to, when Thomas interrupted. “Sir, I’ve got orders to drive you to the office right away.”

  “First we drop off Bethany.”

  Beth frowned, inched a bit farther away, hoping distance between them would give her distance from emotions, too. “Something important at the office?”

  “Not really.” He shifted in his seat, his legs opening wider now that he had more space.

  “If you’d pardon me, sir.” Thomas cleared his throat and caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “It’s Mr. Gage’s birthday today, Mrs. Gage. The office always celebrates despite his say in the matter.”

  Beth gaped in stunned surprise. “It’s your birthday.”

  His birthday. Her husband’s birthday.

  Oh, wow. She must be the worst wife in the history of the world.

  She hadn’t known…

  She hadn’t known about his birthday.

  But she tried to reassure herself, telling herself, in her mind, that she knew Landon in ways others didn’t.

  She knew that his loyalty was steadfast and not easily given, knew that he’d done right by his first wife and generally right by everyone around him. She knew that he was quiet and thoughtful but knew how to laugh, and that his smiles—unlike Hector’s—were real and reached his eyes.

  Pursing her lips in determination, she opened the window. “Thomas, I’ll be accompanying my husband.”

  Landon didn’t protest.

  He glanced out at the cityscape as though it didn’t matter, but his fingers began to drum over his thigh.

  Ten minutes later, when they arrived at the top floor of the San Antonio Daily, the noise was deafening. Eighty people circulated in the office space, if not more. Balloons had been hung from the ceiling. Computer screens held birthday greetings and songs were blaring from speakers. People wore funny hats.

  It warmed Beth to witness this, to know that Landon was so respected his people would do this for him. It made her proud to walk next to him.

  “Goodness, your people love you,” she exclaimed, wide-eyed.

  He cocked one sleek eyebrow. “Surprised?”

  “Amazed,” she admitted, and impulsively reached up to smooth back a strand of dark hair that had fallen on his forehead. “But not in the least bit surprised.”

  This seemed to please him, and his grip tightened on her elbow as he guided her across the hall.

  Of course, his brothers were present, too. Situated right in the center of it all. Julian John uncorked the champagne, pouring the liquid into dozens of glasses, then took a swig directly from the bottle and kept it to himself. Clad all in black, which suited his dark good looks, Garrett was fighting with Kate over who got to wear the silly hat she kept planting over his head. Beth doubted Kate was catering, but she was there because she was practically family to the Gages, had grown up in their household when her father, the Gages’ bodyguard, had been killed in the line of duty.

  Landon greeted everyone by name and introduced Beth as his wife, and he put his arm around her. Beth felt shy and self-conscious, but when the partygoers returned to their mingling and Landon focused on her, holding her lightly against him, all her awkwardness melted under a creamy swirl of excitement.

  “This is a really nice party,” she whispered, touching his arm briefly as she said this.

  The candidness in Landon’s gaze affected her almost as much as the whisper of his fingertip trailing along her jaw. “It’s even nicer with you in it.”

  A shiver raced through her, impossible to suppress.

  God, what was happening between them?

  Neither seemed to stop touching each other, neither seemed to stop staring, to want to put distance between them or be anywhere else but near.

  Before she made a fool of herself, Beth told her husband the sweets buffet called to her and managed a smooth escape, leaving Landon with his mother.

  “Never seen him smile like today,” an older woman hovering by the candy, who’d been introduced as Julian’s assistant, told Beth. “Mr. Landon, I mean. And all the girls and I agree it’s because of you.”

  Landon smiling…

  Because of her?

  The thought moved her so powerfully Beth couldn’t speak through the ball of emotion in her throat. Because Landon Gage not only made her happy sometimes, too, but he also made her ache. Ache for him. For more.

  She picked through the sweets and popped a handful of dried cranberries into her mouth, but they did little to appease the building urge to scan the room and find him.

  She wanted him.

  Admired him.

  Loved his attitude, his strength, his dynamism. Loved his eyes, his face, even the way he scowled. She loved his… She loved all of him.

  Oh, God, love, she thought with a wrenching in her stomach.

  She loathed to think that this was how it felt—the helpless, excited, burning and frightened sensation she got every time she saw and thought about and stood near Landon.

  “Blow it, brother!” Garrett cheered as they surrounded him near the three-tiered cake and the pair of flaming candles that boasted the big blue number 33.

  Chuckling softly while shaking his head, Landon positioned himself at the end of the long table. That flattering white polo shirt really suited him, Beth thought dreamily from afar. He had such a thick, bronzed neck, his shoulders so hard—

  “Beth!” Kate called her. “Get over there next to Lan for a picture. He won’t bite you.” She stuck her tongue out and held up the camera. “Not that I can say the same for the cake.”

  Landon trapped her gaze from across the room. Was it caring she saw in his incredible eyes?

  Weak-kneed, Beth started walking over, her heart pounding like a drum. At that very moment, Kate’s guarantee of him not biting didn’t reassure her. A gleam of possessiveness glimmered in Landon’s eyes, and the mine-mine-mine! they seemed to echo set the tips of her breasts on fire where they pressed against her top.

  He watched her advance. The way his attention homed in on her made her blood simmer. If they’d been anywhere else, anywhere else but in a roomful of people, Beth didn’t know what they’d be doing. No, that was a lie. She had a pretty good idea of what they’d be doing, what they could be doing—like regular husbands and wives.

  “Come on, brother, make a wish!”

  Landon bent forward, and as his eyes met Beth’s over the candles, a slow smile spread on his lips and made her thighs turn liquid. Desire wound around her like a vine, bringing with it a world of emotions she couldn’t suppress. Love…

  They weren’t normal h
usband and wife, but they were more than Beth had ever been with her ex-husband. More connected than Beth had ever imagined feeling to another living thing. The candles smoked as he blew them out all at once. Crazily, she wondered what on earth a man who had everything could wish for. And it struck her.

  He wished for me.

  The thought was irresistible. Her hands clenched at her sides, and she could almost hear the last weak little barrier inside her crumpling.

  And maybe all my life I’ve been wishing for him.

  Something accompanied them home.

  Something searing and undeniable. Electricity leapt from him to her, her to him, charging Beth’s nerve endings as they entered the quiet house.

  They took the stairs side by side.

  Expectation tickled inside of her as she reached her bedroom door.

  She half hoped Landon would draw up behind her, half expected for him to turn her around and claim a heated kiss. He didn’t.

  Startled when he said good-night, Beth heard his footsteps, muffled on the carpet as he made his way down the hall.

  With an awful disappointment, she slipped into her spacious lonely bedroom, then surveyed the contents of her closet.

  She had to do something, wouldn’t forgive herself if his kind actions went unrewarded, if her wanting continued to be unappeased. She wasn’t sure where this determination, this courage or this desperate want had come from; she only knew she needed her husband. She needed to show him her loyalties were with him, her gratitude, her respect and desire. Her trust.

  Were with him.

  Dragging in a breath, she eased into a little number she’d never worn before, and then without thinking about it too much, quietly made her way to Landon’s bedroom.

  The door stood partway open.

  Her blood rushed so fast and heady in her veins it deafened her to the single word she spoke. “Landon.”

  His head shot up at the sound of his name.

  They stared in the quiet, sizing each other up. Beth in the threshold to his bedroom, Landon in bed with the covers to his waist, bare-chested and bronzed, already with a book in his hands.