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“I’m not quitting my job.” Working for Mamie might be a far cry from what she wanted to do in life, but she could take pride in making the ladies of Latour look prettier, and in the fact that she was earning her own way. “And I refuse to take one cent of Ben Parker’s money.”
He looked almost insulted. “We’re in total agreement then. I wasn’t exactly a bum up in New York, Cal. Trust me, I have more than enough money of my own. Money I’ve learned to put to good use, so I know what’s a good investment.” He glanced over his shoulder at the salon. “You don’t belong at Mamie’s, and we both know it. Keep the job, if it’s that important to you, but you belong in college. That’s why, along with the legal documents making sure you and your son will be well provided for, I’m including a trust fund to finance your education.”
She could feel herself bristling. Magruders didn’t take handouts, especially from a Parker. “I can pay my own way through college, thank you all the same.”
“I know that.” The concession, coupled with his solemn nod, unruffled a few of her feathers. “But in a way,” he went on smoothly, “what I’m offering is a job. This will be part of your salary. And I’m not just talking about your schooling. I’m offering to finance your son’s education, as well.”
Trust Luke to find her Achilles’ heel. Robbie meant everything to her; she’d do just about anything to make his life better.
“And as proof of my good faith,” Luke went on, “I’ll talk to the doctors at the hospital, get them to release your grandfather to our care. If we can keep him from badgering my father any further, I’m sure there’s no need to keep him confined in a strange place.”
With a sudden, painful lump in her throat, Callie remembered the desperation in her grandfather’s eyes, his steely grip on her wrist as he pleaded with her to get him out of that awful institution. She’d felt so helpless, uttering hollow reassurances about trying her best. Sad fact was, her best hadn’t been good enough. She’d exhausted what little savings she’d had, filing appeals and hounding the parish welfare system, only to discover that nobody cared about the Zeke Magruders of this world. Money, that’s what did the talking, and having so darned much of it, Ben Parker talked louder than most.
“You’re too late,” she said, swallowing the lump to make sure her voice sounded even. “Gramps died last winter.”
“Ah, Callie, I’m sorry. I know how much he meant to you.”
Yes, he did, and Luke’s sympathy was almost her undoing. All that grief, so close to the surface, had her saying far more than was wise. “They said it was old age, that they couldn’t find a more specific cause, but up until your father had him committed to that terrible place, Gramps stayed as young as you or I. I know it was wrong, the way he kept harassing your father, but those little mischiefs kept him going, helped him hold tight to the belief that he’d one day get our home back. By locking him away, Ben Parker robbed him of far more than his freedom, Luke. He took away my grandfather’s reason for living. I had to watch that proud old man wither away, powerless to save him, knowing your father’s spite was to blame.”
“Wait a minute, I’m not sure you can call it spite—”
“I call it as I see it, Luke.” She cut in before he could utter one more syllable in defense of his father. “Ben hounded him to death. All because my grandmother chose Gramps and Ben couldn’t handle it. You’d think he would be content with owning half this town, but no, he had to go and take away the one thing of value Gramps had left. Don’t tell me you don’t know that he stole the farm out from under us.”
His blank expression told her he didn’t know about the rather nasty battle they’d fought with his father. “I never heard anything about Ben taking your farm.”
“Gramps took out a mortgage years ago and neglected to tell me,” she went on. “Your father knew about it though. He bought out the savings-and-loan that held the deed. Within a month of the takeover, they served our eviction notice, which was what started Gramps on his harassment campaign. Ben threatened to build a factory there, you see, some smoke-belching monstrosity guaranteed to ruin the land. It is, I believe, his version of having the last laugh.”
“I swear, I didn’t know, Cal.”
“But you do now. And I hope you can understand why I might feel indisposed to trust anyone bearing the Parker name.”
“I’m not my father,” he said quietly. He stared at her a long moment, visibly pleading with her to believe him. “Your beef is with Ben, not me. And quite frankly I can’t think of a better way at getting back at him than by agreeing to this marriage.”
In that much, Luke had a point. It would do her battered heart good to see Ben’s face when his son brought Zeke’s granddaughter to his big old fancy house and introduced her as his wife.
Still, she thought in a flash of sanity, it would be remarkably shortsighted to marry for revenge. Marriage to Luke, even in name only, would be like making a pact with the devil. Short-term, she’d get what she wanted, but in the end there’d be a helluva price to pay.
As if he were indeed Lucifer, Luke didn’t leave the tempting at that. “The fall semester starts in a month. We can get you signed up for some classes right away.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” she said slowly, wondering when careless, take-it-as-it-comes Luke Parker had gotten so methodical. “You must really be serious.”
He took her by the arms, forcing her closer. “Never more so. C’mon Callie, what’s left to consider? No matter how you look at it, we both stand to gain.”
Watching him as he talked, her mind flashed back to that long-ago summer when she’d swallowed each and every word his sweet, coaxing lips had uttered. She’d given herself completely to the youth he’d been then—her hopes, her sympathy, her trust. Even now she could feel a softening as the well-remembered yearnings rose up from deep inside her.
She caught herself up short. What was she thinking? Insanity, to even listen to this man.
“Help me out here,” Luke continued, applying gentle pressure to her arms, “and I promise you won’t regret it.”
Something snapped inside her, turning her insides into cold, hard steel. “You’re real glib, Luke Parker. We’ve been down this road, only now I know better than to listen. It’s all just words to you. You use them like water but you give them no meaning, no substance.” She poked a finger into his chest. “Around here, around me, don’t you dare go making promises you don’t mean to keep.”
He grabbed her hand, encircling it with his own and holding it tight against his chest. “We’ve got this past and we can’t hide from it. Neither of us.” He towered over her, his gaze just as heated, seeming more than ever a stranger. “But where’s the sense in letting it mess up our futures? I’m offering you and your son a chance at a better life, Cal. What will it take to get you to say yes?”
What would it take?
Money, schooling, security—no question that these things might tempt her, but if she couldn’t get them herself, she could learn to do without. In truth, there was only one thing she craved, only one thing beyond her reach, and that was the house she’d grown up in. Generations of Magruders, laughing and loving and working together—that was the legacy she wanted so desperately to pass down to her son.
“All I want,” she answered without hesitation, “is my family’s farm.”
He stared at her a long moment, then shook his head. “What you’re asking is close to impossible. There are two things Ben never does. One is to give in to my requests, and the other is to back down from a fight with a Magruder.”
She pulled her hand free. “Then I guess we’ve got nothing more to talk about.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.” This time he took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. He seemed tense and grim, a far cry from the grinning youth who always used charm to get what he wanted. “Marry me, Callie, and I promise I’ll find some way to get your farm for you.”
For an instant she could almost believe him. He seemed so sure of himself, so sincere, but then, so much of what he’d seemed in the past had proved to be mere illusion. She’d be a fool to trust in his good intentions.
Still, in the long run, did it matter? If she considered this—and insanely enough, she was considering this—Luke’s motives needn’t concern her at all, not as long as she got what she needed out of the bargain, the wherewithal to buy the farm back herself. This would be a business arrangement—nothing less, nothing more. As he’d pointed out, she wouldn’t be taking his money, she’d be earning it. On her terms.
“If I agree to this,” she started slowly, “I’d have certain conditions.”
He released her arms, eyeing her warily. “And those would be?”
“Well, for one thing, I want to make it clear that this will be a marriage in name only. No honeymoon, no sharing a bed.”
He raised a brow, but didn’t comment.
“Even so,” she went on, warming to the subject, “I’d still expect you to honor our vows as if they were real. No carousing with the boys and no sleeping around with other women. Not here in town. I won’t have me and my boy being the subject of Monday morning’s gossip.”
“Dammit Callie, you can’t expect me to be a monk for the rest of my life.”
“You’re right. I don’t expect any such thing from you. I’ve read the papers, Luke. And I’ve seen firsthand how you are with the ladies. Actually, what I was thinking is that it would be to both our advantage to set a time limit on this marriage.”
He stiffened. “A time limit?”
She could feel a slight breeze, stirring the warm air around them. It didn’t cool her down any, but it helped steel her resolve. “Yes, I think next August should be more than sufficient time.”
He narrowed his gaze, his expression far from pleased. “A year?”
“Let’s face it, Luke. If you can’t convince Ben to leave you alone by then, you’re not likely to ever convince him.”
“But I had in mind that—”
“Doesn’t really matter what you had in mind, Luke. If we do this, for once we’ll be doing things my way, not yours.”
Overhead Callie could hear the sighs as the Spanish moss stirred in the breeze. Could be a storm brewing, she thought inanely—both in the air and in the stranger glaring back at her. If it were at all physically possible, his eyes looked ready to spit.
She felt a sudden, strong need to stand her ground. “Those are my terms,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Take them or leave them.”
For a moment she thought he might just do that, take his ridiculous proposal and stomp away, but with disarming abruptness, he shook his head and laughed softly. “You drive a hard bargain, lady.”
“Not at all. I’m just looking out for me and mine.”
He nodded, sobering instantly. “Okay, then, I agree to your terms. Do we have a deal?”
He held out a hand, no doubt expecting her to shake it, but she couldn’t bring herself to reach out and make contact. Some might call it fear, but she preferred to call it practicality. It was such a big step, after all, such a major decision.
“You won’t regret it,” he said softly. “I’ll make certain of that.”
The words set off a rage in her. How like Luke to think he could come back here and wrap her around his little finger. “No, I’ll be the one making certain,” she told him, making it plain that she was no longer the trusting teenager she’d been back then. “Play false with me again, Luke Parker, and this time, you can live with the regrets.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his hand still extended between them. The fact that he didn’t flinch, that he met her gaze and held it, had her tentatively reaching out to meet his grip halfway. It was an unsettling sensation, shaking hands with him. She felt suddenly as if she’d had the rug yanked out from under her feet, the walls containing her life pushed back in all directions. She could make all the vows and stipulations she wanted, but in that instant she knew that where she and Luke were concerned, virtually anything could happen.
“C’mon,” he said, his voice and expression solemn. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Following Luke back to Mamie’s, she was left wondering if she had indeed made a pact with the devil.
Chapter Four
“Till death do us part.”
A dazed Callie repeated the words because it was expected of her, not out of any real conviction. Until one year do we part, she corrected in her mind, as if it could make up for lying to the well-meaning justice of the peace. An elderly version of The Wizard of Oz’s scarecrow, Malcolm Fry beamed down at her, tightening her sense of guilt. You’d think he’d be bored, having conducted this ceremony countless times for countless others, but Mr. Fry actually seemed eager to bind them together. His kindliness, his obvious happiness for them, left Callie feeling an utter fraud.
Standing close beside her, Luke betrayed no such difficulty with mouthing the vows. Then again, hard to imagine a Parker battling any last-minute attacks of conscience.
At least she could be grateful that no one she knew was here to watch them enact this parody of a wedding. The only witnesses were two female clerks, a pair of senior citizens in faded gingham shirtwaists, pressed into service for the brief ten minutes the deception would last. Tittering as if they were the bride instead of Callie, the women seemed perfectly happy to overlook the fact that she carried no flowers, wore no veil or special outfit. Even the ring was a loaner. Luke had taken the friendship ring once sent by a fan off his finger, but she supposed the semigold band was a close enough imitation to prevent any undue eyebrow-raising by the staff here at City Hall. Besides, she kept telling herself, it wasn’t as if this ceremony meant anything to either of them.
Except that it was her second time at this. A complete stranger prompting their vows instead of the family minister, someone else’s grandma serving as her maid of honor—it was a far cry from how she’d always imagined her wedding. Under the circumstances, she supposed she could forego the fancy reception and frantic rice throwing, but given that she tried this before, she could have hoped the word love could figure into it somewhere.
Oblivious to her doubts, Mr. Fry turned to smile at Luke as he asked for the ring. Callie’s guilt swiftly slid into trepidation as Luke took her left hand to slide the band onto her finger. Stupid, to have forgotten how it felt to have his hand cover hers. It came rushing back in a flood, how swiftly she’d responded to the dangerous heat they’d generated between them. It was all she could do not to yank her hand free.
It’s just a mockery, she wanted to tell the beaming Mr. Fry, but of course she did no such thing. She had to get a grip. None of this was about her, anyway. She was here for Robbie. This marriage, fake or otherwise, meant they could stop struggling to make ends meet. One short year and she could make sure her son would have all that he needed, all that he deserved. That was what was important here.
Robbie, she thought with a catch in her throat, glad that he was safely tucked away at day camp and unaware of what his mother was now doing. He wouldn’t understand, and how could he? To him Luke was a stranger. Not the man who biologically, at least, happened to be his father.
It wasn’t a new thing for Callie, this wrestling with the moral dilemma. Had Luke been around at the beginning, things might have been different, but he’d gone and left her, and really, wasn’t it a bit late now to be opening that can of worms? For ten long years she’d been virtually alone with her secret, telling no one but Gramps, and through necessity, Reb Jenkins. In all that time her only thought had been to protect the life she and Luke had forged between them, to give their boy the best that life could offer. For Robbie’s sake she would marry Luke and let him take care of her son’s education, but she had no intention of now relaxing her vigil. Technically the boy might be a Parker, but in all ways that counted, Robbie was her son, raised to think, act and breathe like a Magruder. For her son’s sake and future well-being, she had no choice but to continue living her lie.
Busy convincing herself, she was startled out of her thoughts by the words, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” But that particular death knell didn’t frighten her nearly as much as the ensuing “You may now kiss the bride.”
She had to face Luke then, had to face what she’d committed herself to for the one year’s duration. Oh, she might have felt dread before, the same what-on-earth-am-I-doing sensation when saying her vows with Reb Jenkins, but this was far worse. She’d had no history with Reb, no experience of how his lips could turn her bones to mush. Only one man had ever held such power over her—Lucky, always Lucky—and he was leaning down to melt her resolve again.
She fought the urge to run from the room screaming, far too conscious of Mr. Fry and the two old ladies watching them. Of Luke watching her. I can do this, she told herself fiercely. I can touch him and kiss him and feel absolutely nothing.
Half dying inside—and yet, half coming alive—she lifted her face to his.
Luke saw her hesitation and felt a nasty tightening in his gut. Could she actually fear he’d ravish her here on this dusty floor for his own gratification? Did she think so little of him? Gazing down at her uplifted face, he saw the answer in her wide, wary eyes.
Reassure her, a tiny voice coached inside him. Show her how much you’ve changed in the ten years you’ve been gone.
He leaned down and touched her lips with his own. He meant the kiss to be gentle, perhaps even reassuring, but the instant their lips met, his own started tingling. A sensation that resonated downward throughout his body.
Startled and uneasy, he’d pulled back. Despite all his careful planning and good intentions, he’d never bargained on that—how, even after ten long years apart, something hot and demanding could still spark between them.
He didn’t need to see the fear and accusation in Callie’s expression to know how this could mess up his agenda. Sobered, he moved away from her, going with Mr. Fry to finish the paperwork. From now on he had to keep his distance, had to keep things simple, to stir up the minimum fuss and heartache. Clearly, if he hoped to achieve his goal, kissing Callie couldn’t figure into the equation.
Yet as they finished up the details and left the courthouse, he couldn’t seem to take his gaze from her mouth. She tastes like peaches, he now remembered, so sweet and fresh and ready for plucking. And just as it had been ten years ago, he found himself wanting more.
Not that it seemed likely she’d ever again let him near enough to try. Sitting on her side of the BMW, huddled against the door as she clutched the handle, his new wife looked ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. It bothered him that she seemed so afraid of him. It bothered him a lot.
“You don’t have to hug the door because of one little kiss,” he said, noticing how her entire posture stiffened at the mere sound of his voice. “You didn’t feel anything, did you?”
“Of course not.”
Of course not. “So what’s the big deal? I wasn’t putting any moves on you, Cal. The kiss was expected. Didn’t you hear those ladies giggling? If I hadn’t made it look good, they’d have gone home disappointed and who knows what stories they would spread? Don’t worry, I won’t be forcing my attentions on you. I promised to be a monk and I will.”
She didn’t say anything, just nodded, keeping her gaze trained on the road ahead.
Luke hid his impatience with a sigh. “Listen, Callie, I know we have our past, and it’s not easy to get over it, but—”
“I’m not thinking about the past,” she blurted out, panic ringing loud and clear in her words. “I’m more concerned with the future. You rushed me through this so fast, my mind’s in a blur. Here we are heading home, and I haven’t the slightest idea where or what that home will be. Shouldn’t we discuss how we mean to go about conducting day-to-day life? Really, Luke, don’t you think this is all just the slightest bit insane?”
Her voice cracked a little on that last. If she gripped the door handle any tighter, her bone-white knuckles would turn to silver steel.
In his opinion the only insanity was the way she was acting, as if she were the only one with a right to anger. “I said I’d take care of you, and I will.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she went on. “I have a son, remember? Robbie will be coming home from day camp soon, and I’m gonna greet him with the news that I went and married a stranger. And if that’s not enough to rock his sense of security, I have to admit that I haven’t the slightest idea where we and this stranger are going to eat, drink or sleep.”
“The ‘stranger’ has an apartment over on Elm Street,” Luke told her angrily. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not completely irresponsible. Granted, my place is a bit sparse on furnishings—needs a woman’s touch maybe—but it will do until I can find us a house.”
“I thought you were going to get me my farmhouse back.”
She put the words out there like an accusation. And perhaps she was justified in this, since he’d momentarily forgotten his promise, but he was no less angry at her for pointing it out. “Until we get the farmhouse, then,” he said through gritted teeth.
“No.”
Startled by her adamant tone, he glanced over at her. She’d relinquished the grip on the handle and now clasped her arms across her chest instead. “No, what?”
“No bachelor apartment,” she said with a steely edge to her tone. “Robbie and I have a place over on Park Street. The two bedrooms may be small and a far cry from what you’re used to, but my boy has already lost one home. I’m not going to make him give up another. The only disruption he’s going to face is our move back to the farmhouse.”
“Okay. But if there are only two bedrooms, where the heck am I supposed to sleep?”
“The couch. You said yourself you have a lot of business trips planned. You’ll be out of town as much as you’re in it for the next few months.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have confided his plans to sell his restaurant in New York and open a new one in New Orleans. “Fine,” he told her, not really caring where they stayed. “The couch it is, then. You do intend to allow me a pillow?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “You’re headed the wrong way for my apartment,” she said, gesturing ahead. “You need to take the next right.”
When he drove past the street she’d suggested, she turned to face him with a huff. “Are you ignoring me?”
