Czytaj książkę: «Wife By Contract»

One

Joe Camden hadn’t expected to get a lump in his throat. Sentimental emotions weren’t usually his style. But something happened when he got out of his car and looked down at the old ramshackle house.

Home. That was what it was, even though he’d been gone for fifteen years, even though he’d run as fast and as far away as he could when he’d had the chance.

“Ah, you’ll miss it,” Annie Andrews had said, shaking her gray head and laughing at him the day he took off. He’d stopped by to get supplies for his hitchhiking odyssey in her tiny combination post office and general store. “Alaska will call you back.”

“Not me,” he’d said, sure enough of that to grin at her. “It’s bright lights and big cities for me from now on.”

“And girls,” she added for him, laughing again. “It’s true, we don’t have enough girls here for you young men. It’s no wonder you all run off.”

His wide mouth twisted in a half smile as he remembered that day and thought of all the things that he’d been through since. Now he was back, and Annie was half-right. The Alaska grandeur, the white peaks, the forest green meadows, the water tumbling through the gorges still had the power to stir him. But it really wasn’t home any longer. He belonged in L.A.

Still, everything was the same as ever. It hardly looked as though anything had changed since he’d left. The old house where his brother, Greg, still lived looked as beat-up as ever. Evidence suggested Greg was as allergic to responsibility as their father had been—but then, Joe hadn’t expected anything else. In fact, that was why he’d come back.

A rustling caught his ear, and he glanced toward the nearby trees. He caught a glimpse of what looked like brown fur in the underbrush, and the past came tumbling back to him even more strongly.

“Champ,” he murmured, remembering his childhood pet, the energetic brown dog who would hide in the bushes and then jump out at him, licking his face and wriggling in his arms. Without thinking, without wanting to remember that Champ had died when he was eighteen, he went toward the brush and stuck his hand into the leaves where he’d seen the movement, as though he could find that puppy just as he had so often so many years ago, as though he thought he might be able to reach back into yesterday and pull the dog up by the scruff of the neck.

“Champ?”

Champ didn’t answer, but something with teeth bit down on his hand, and he yanked it back, swearing. “Ouch. What the hell...?”

A small boy emerged from the underbrush, running as fast as his chubby little legs could take him, his brown hair bouncing on his head as he ran straight for the house.

“Hey,” Joe called after him, but the little boy didn’t turn. He ran on, stumbling but not giving up, as though the devil himself were after him, aiming to snatch him up and carry him off. Joe realized, with a twinge of regret, that to this kid, he probably was the devil.

“Hey, I won’t hurt you,” he called after him halfheartedly, frowning as he looked down at the unmistakable imprint of teeth on his hand. He’d seen them often enough before, when he and his brother, Greg, were young and he would pin Greg down and Greg would fight back any way he could.

He shook his head as though to clear it. Too many things were echoing the past, and he was beginning to feel a little weird about it. There was no Champ, and this kid wasn’t Greg. But what was he doing at Greg’s house?

He started down the hill after him. Before he’d gone more than a few feet, a woman appeared, coming out through the front door to stand on the porch. The sight of her surprised Joe, pulling him up short.

She raised her hand to shade her eyes against the slice of noonday sun that hit her face. “Rusty?” she called out to the boy as he raced toward her. Then she looked up and saw Joe, and she seemed to freeze, just as he had done.

He stared. He’d never seen anything like her in Alaska before. Out here, conditions were rough and the women dressed appropriately. This woman wore a white wool suit with heels and stockings. Her silvery blond hair shimmered around her face in a chic, professional style, catching the sunbeams, setting off a glow, so that she seemed to be standing in a shaft of golden light.

He shook his head slowly, drawn even more out of sync with this situation. It just didn’t fit his experience of Alaska, didn’t fit with his past, didn’t fit with what he knew of his brother’s present. He felt unbalanced. Who in the world was this woman, and what was she doing in his brother’s house?

Chynna Sinclair saw the man coming down from the rise, saw the car in the background, and her mouth went dry.

“Oh, dam it,” she whispered softly to herself. He’d already seen Rusty. There was going to be no way to hide the boy now, even for the first few minutes while they got acquainted.

Rusty reached her and threw himself against her, wrapping his little arms around her knees and burying his face against her skirt. She looked down at him and tousled his hair lovingly.

Oh, well. Maybe it was best that they get the worst over with right from the beginning. She looked out at the man again. Why was he just standing there, staring at her?

“Come on into the house,” she told her son, gently untangling his arms from her legs. “Come stay with Kim while I talk to the man.”

Maybe if she got the kids quieted down and playing with something, she would have time to talk to him and prepare him....

But whom was she kidding? There was no more time to hide, to make up stories. She’d been putting if off all during the plane ride from Chicago, all during the flight from Anchorage in the little six-seater plane; even in the ride from the landing strip, when the pilot had kindly borrowed a car to get them here, she’d told herself it was time to make a decision on what she was going to say when she saw him. But now it was too late. He’d already seen Rusty. He already knew that the mail-order bride he’d ordered, the pretty young woman he expected, had brought along some baggage she hadn’t warned him about.

Hurrying her son inside, she settled him and his little sister with coloring books in the living room and went back out on the porch. He was still standing there, staring at the house. She hesitated, thinking she should walk out to greet this large male she hoped would be her husband soon, but knowing her heels would sink in the mud if she tried it. She knew she wasn’t dressed for the area, but she’d done it on purpose. This was a selling job she was going to have to do here, and image, as her boss used to tell her in Chicago, was everything. She waited instead, fingers curling around the post at the top of the stairs, her heart beating like a wild thing in her chest.

What if he didn’t want her? What if he didn’t want her kids? She had to convince him. There was no choice in the matter.

She still didn’t know what she was going to say. This was so hard to explain on the spur of the moment. It was the sort of thing it would be better for him to learn about gradually, as he got to know her, as he got to know the kids. As he got to know them, he would understand. But how could he possibly understand when it was dropped in his lap in one large lump like this?

Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile. “Hi, there,” she called to him. “I guess you missed us at the landing strip. The pilot drove us over.”

As though she’d flicked a switch and brought him back to life, he started walking slowly toward her.

She wet her lips and smiled a welcome. “I hope you don’t mind. Your house wasn’t locked and I...I went on in.”

He was closer now and she could see his face, and something inside her relaxed. She hadn’t allowed herself to believe in the picture he’d sent her. It showed a man so handsome, she’d told herself to assume it was taken ten years ago, or was a phony in some other way.

But no. The picture hadn’t lied. This was the same man, all right. In fact, with his broad shoulders and dark hair and glittering blue eyes, he looked even better than he had in the photograph. He wore crisp jeans and a leather bomber jacket, and neither was old or dirty. They looked, in fact, startlingly fashionable for this neighborhood.

She’d had a picture in her mind of what she would find here, and this wasn’t really it. She’d imagined a farmer-hunter type, rough-hewn and bashful. This man was none of those things. This man looked a little too good to be real.

He’d reached the porch and was coming up the stairs, his face drawn into a frown as he looked her over, as though she puzzled him, or annoyed him, or something. She stepped forward quickly.

“Hi,” she said, holding out her hand and bringing back her quick smile. “I’m Chynna Sinclair, and I’m very glad to be here.”

He took her hand and seemed to marvel at it. Then he looked into her face and shook his head. “What’s going on here?” he asked her, searching her eyes for answers. “Where’s Greg?”

But his last question was drowned out by a shriek from inside the house and then by the sound of something breaking. Chynna whirled, glanced at him quickly and muttered, “Uh...I’d better see what happened” before running in to tend to her children.

Joe followed her, then stopped just inside the entryway, turning slowly to take it all in. The house was just the same as it had been before he’d left. Greg hadn’t changed a thing.

He could hear Chynna settling some sort of argument that was going on in the next room, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was looking at the picture of his grandfather that still hung on the wall, his flinty pioneer eyes still staring at his grandson with the same old sense of disapproval; at the snow shovel propped in the corner, the one that always gave him splinters that lasted longer in his skin than the snow lasted on the ground; at the tall, elegant breakfront where his mother had kept her precious dishes and porcelain figurines. Only a few were left, the ones she didn’t care about. He supposed she’d taken all the rest when she moved to Anchorage, five years before. Nothing had changed.

Nothing—except Joe himself.

The woman who called herself Chynna Sinclair came back into the entryway, and he looked up, blinking, wondering how she managed to seem to carry the sunlight with her. She was certainly a pretty thing, but she looked so out of place here in the Alaskan wilderness. He supposed she must be Greg’s girlfriend, though he could hardly imagine where Greg could have met her. Greg wouldn’t go near the city, and this was city bred, all the way. But then, what did he really know about his brother these days? If only Greg were here, these things could be cleared up right away.

“I... I have to introduce you to my children,” she said, stuttering slightly, and he looked into her eyes with surprise. Why was she so nervous? “This is Rusty. He’s five. And Kim is three.”

He looked down at the two sets of eyes, both open very wide, looking as though awe had struck them silly, and he smiled and nodded. “Hi, kids,” he said casually, his mind still on the woman.

“Children,” she told them, “this is Mr. Greg Camden. I...I think you should call him Mr. Camden for now.”

Joe’s gaze shot up to meet hers. She thought he was Greg? This was crazy. “No, wait a minute....”

She grabbed hold of his arm, stopping him from speaking, and said to her children, “You go on back and color for a few minutes. I have to talk to Mr. Camden.”

She was trembling. He could feel it but he had no idea why she would be so emotional about this. Still, her fingers dug into his arm as the children filed out, and he waited, since that was what she seemed to want.

He gazed down into her soft hair, catching a hint of the scent of roses. She seemed small, slender, and for a moment he was reminded of the time he’d found a young silver fox caught in a rusty trap in the pine forest. It had trembled, too, as he’d used one hand to quiet it while working it free with the other. That had been a fool thing to do. He’d known the whole time that the fox could turn at any moment and lash out at him, hurt him badly. But it had been something he’d had to do. The fox had struggled at first, but then it had lain still, and once free, it had streaked off into the woods. Joe had never seen it again.

Her children had finally straggled out of the room, and her head turned. Her dark eyes met his, but there was nothing wary in them, nothing fearful. They were huge and soft and warm, but there was a challenging look to them that caught him by surprise and made him wonder if he’d only imagined that she was nervous. Maybe she’d been shivering from the cool air.

“Okay,” she said crisply. “We can talk.”

“Listen,” he began, anxious to get this identity thing cleared up.

But she shook her head, still clinging to his arm, looking up into his face and talking very fast. “No, you listen. I know this isn’t fair. I know I should have told you. But...but this is the way it is and the way it has to be. If you don’t want us, I’ll understand. But you have to give us a chance. You can’t just turn us away without giving us a chance.”

He stared at her, completely at sea. He had no idea what she was talking about.

“I didn’t tell you about Rusty and Kim,” she went on earnestly, “and that was wrong. But I wanted you to see them before you made up your mind. I wanted you to get to know them. They’re good kids—they really are. They’ll grow on you—you’ll see.”

A shriek from the other room made her wince, but she forced a smile, despite the fact that Joe was shaking his head.

“Listen, kids are not my thing—” he began.

“I know,” she broke in, throwing out one arm as though that were the most natural reaction in the world. “Of course not. Living out here in Alaska, you probably hardly see kids. So you don’t really know, do you?”

He made a face and shrugged. This conversation was crazy, but she looked so cute trying to convince him, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to end. “I was a kid once,” he reminded her.

Her eyes brightened. “Kids have improved since then,” she told him artfully. “You’ll see.”

He grinned, appreciating her spirit though he knew better than to believe her. “You know what?” he said. “There’s no use trying to convince me. Because I’m not Greg.”

Her eyes widened, and she stared at him for a long, long moment. Then a look of skepticism crept over her face.

“Oh, I see,” she said, her eyes turning as chilly as her tone. “You’re going to try to get out of this that way, are you?”

“No,” he said, half laughing. He ran a hand through his dark hair and gazed down at her, perplexed. “Look, it’s true. I’m not Greg. And I’m not even sure why you’re here.”

“I’m here to marry you. Remember?”

“Marry...?” Words failed him, and he lost his breath. All he could do was stand there, staring down at her. The word had hit him like a flash of lightning, shutting off all thought processes as the shock skittered through his body.

“Yes, marry.” She tried to smile, but his reaction had thrown her off her game. “That was the plan.”

He shook his head, struggling to put his feelings into words. “Oh, no, I can’t believe that. Marriage...” He thought of his brother and his isolated ways and shook his head again. “No, that can’t be.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her pretty mouth set. Turning, she whipped an envelope out of her purse and handed it to him. “Then what is this?” she demanded.

The envelope was slit open at the top. A letter was tucked inside, along with a photograph. The letter was from his brother. The photograph was of Joe.

“A deal is a deal, mister,” she told him firmly as he unfolded the letter and glanced at it. “You contracted for a bride. You looked through an extensive catalog and you chose me. And here I am.”

Words still stuck in his throat. He looked at her. He looked at the picture. He looked back at her. And nothing came out of his mouth. If he took her at her word, if he took what she was saying literally—well, then she had to be a mail-order bride. He swore softly, shaking his head. What had he done, stepped back in time? People didn’t do things like this anymore. Did they?

Grasping at straws, he waved the envelope at her. “This is a joke, right?”

She stared at him for a moment, then tossed her head and turned into the kitchen, taking off her suit jacket as she went. “Is there an apron in here somewhere?” she asked, then grabbed a large tea towel and tied it around her waist without waiting for an answer.

“What are you doing?” he asked, following her, still clutching the envelope, still feeling very much at sea.

She looked up at him with cool defiance. “I’m going to make you something to eat. I’m going to cook.”

He frowned. “You don’t need to cook for me.”

“Why not? Aren’t you hungry?”

He hesitated. It had been a long time since he’d eaten breakfast. “Well, yes, but...”

“Then I will cook for you,” she said, opening the refrigerator and staring inside. “Consider it a form of audition for the job.”

He couldn’t hold back a grin. “This is crazy,” he said, shaking his head.

She nodded, pulling eggs and bacon out and placing them on the counter. “I think so, too,” she said coolly. “But you seem to need to be convinced.”

He slumped back against the counter, watching her, pushing back the erotic fantasies that threatened to break into his thoughts. He had an urge to pinch himself. Could he be dreaming? Talk about dreams come true—here was this woman, offering herself up to...

No, he wouldn’t think about it. That would only end up getting him into big trouble—trouble he didn’t need.

“I don’t mean to ridicule you, you know,” he told her softly. “But I just can’t believe that a woman like you has to resort to something like...like mail order... to get a man.” He grimaced. “It just doesn’t compute.”

She spun and confronted him. “Look. You picked me out of the catalog. You must have liked something about me. You wrote me that nice letter and sent me your picture. You signed a contract with the agency.” She searched his blue eyes, looking for answers. “You sent money for my plane fare. What did you think? That this was all a game? That I would never actually show up?”

He started shaking his head before she was finished and kept shaking it. “That was my brother Greg who did all that,” he tried to explain once again. “My name is Joe. It wasn’t me.”

She grabbed his hand and looked up into his face, her eyes huge with determined entreaty. “Give me a chance,” she said softly. “Please. I’ll be a good wife. And my kids...” She shook her head, and for a moment he was afraid her eyes would fill with tears. “They’re good kids. You just wait. They won’t be any trouble at all. You’re going to love them.”

Loving kids had never been one of his goals, but he had to admit he was beginning to feel a definite temptation in other directions. He liked her big brown eyes and the way her breasts filled out the pale pink silk shell she wore and the way her lower lip seemed to pout when she was annoyed with him. His mind began to wander for just a moment, mulling over what it would be like to order up a woman like this from a catalog and have her appear on the doorstep, ready to be a wife. It was a caveman dream, but he kind of liked it.

But before he had time to indulge in it for more than a few seconds, a cry came from the living room, and suddenly a huge crash shook the house.

“Yeah, those adorable kids,” he muttered to himself as she jerked away, spun and started for the living room. “I just can’t get enough of how cute they are.”

But he started after her. Until Greg showed up, he guessed it was his job to act as a sort of surrogate husband here. Though before he made any commitments, maybe he ought to think over just exactly what that was going to entail.

His gaze fell on the letter she’d left lying on the table, and he stopped, hesitating. It wasn’t nice to read other people’s mail. But what the hell. He had a situation here. Reaching out, he took hold of the letter by the corner, as though he wasn’t sure it wasn’t contagious, and carried it over to where the light from the window was the brightest. Gingerly, he unfolded it and began to read.

It was the letter Greg had written to Chynna, but it didn’t sound like his brother at all. The handwriting was Greg’s. So was the signature at the bottom of the page. But the thoughts he’d written down sounded like someone else’s entirely. There were references to loneliness and love of the land, and those he could readily identify with his brother. But there was also talk of soul mates and walking hand in hand through life together, which made Joe want to laugh out loud.

What did he do, copy these romantic phrases from a book? he wondered to himself as he looked them over. The closest thing to a soul mate he could think of for Gregg might be a rabid wolverine.

He frowned, shaking his head. He and Greg had never been close. In some ways, they were the typical Cain and Abel siblings. Whenever Joe said black, Greg claimed white. When Joe wanted peace, Greg turned his radio on high screech. When Greg came home late, like as not, Joe would have locked the door. When Greg spoke, Joe tended to answer him sarcastically, and when Joe laughed, Greg found a way to turn the mood surly.

Now that Joe had been away all these years, he sometimes regretted the way they couldn’t get along. He’d even decided, a few years back, that the rift between them was childish and should be over now that they were men, so he’d come home. But nothing had changed. If anything, Greg had grown moodier and more aloof. The planned-for reconciliation hadn’t panned out.

And now this recluse, this mountain man was figuring to take himself a wife, was he? The situation made no sense at all. And yet it was obvious Chynna was right when she claimed to be here because Greg had...good Lord! Ordered her from a catalog?

His brother, Greg, was preparing to take himself this lovely woman as a wife.

“Over my dead body,” Joe muttered aloud, thinking of Chynna and her wide, hopeful gaze. “It can’t happen. I’d better get her out of here as soon as possible.”

Unfortunately, that was going to be more difficult than it might seem. Unless there had been a radical and unexpected change, the only way out by air would be on the mail plane, and who knew what the schedule was these days. There was probably no other way out except by truck or car, and he couldn’t leave. He had to find Greg.

He might as well resign himself to the fact that she was going to be staying overnight at least.

But then she would have to go. It would be much too dangerous to let her stay.