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“But, Dekker—”
He stopped her with a look. “I also want you to consider what’s been bothering you the most. Which is how you’re going to afford both good child care and the legal battle that’s coming up. If you marry me, the cost of all that will be no problem. You can hire the best damn lawyers, and you’ll be able to pay for top quality child care. Hell, if you want to stop working altogether, be there full-time for Sam, you could do that, too.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You know me. I like to work.”
“Does that mean I’ve convinced you?”
She wasn’t ready to admit that yet. “I only said I like to work.”
“So fine. Work. And put Sam in the best day care center in the city.”
She had to admit that his arguments made sense.
But there were a few issues he hadn’t covered—awkward, uncomfortable issues. Issues she felt a little bit embarrassed to bring up, even with her very best friend.
But still, they were issues that needed discussing before they did anything so wild and strange as to marry each other in order to keep Robert Atwood from taking her child.
“Say it,” he said after a few very long minutes in which neither of them had made a sound. “Whatever it is, we can’t deal with it if you won’t get it out there.”
She scrunched up her nose at him. “Well, I know that.”
“Okay, then. Talk.”
“It’s just…”
“What?”
She stared at him, struck by the tone of his voice. He sounded…so excited about this. In the soft glow of starlight he looked eager and intent, his eyes focused hard on her, watching her so closely.
Such earnestness surprised her.
Most of the time it was hard to know what Dekker Smith was feeling. It wasn’t that he hid his emotions, exactly. Just that he guarded them. He kept them in check. He could be warm and funny and gentle and kind. But most of the time he made it seem as though nothing was life-or-death to him. As if he could turn and walk away from anything, that there was nothing—and no one—he really needed to get by.
Of course, she had learned a few years ago how deep his feelings actually went. It had almost killed him when Stacey died.
But still, he didn’t make a habit of letting what was going on inside him show.
Not so right now.
Now he did seem eager. And earnest. And excited. Three words that, until that moment, she would never have used to describe Dekker Smith.
“Jo.” His voice was gruff. “What is it? Damn it, talk to me.”
She made herself say it. “It’s just that, while I do love you and I know that you love me, it is not a man-and-woman kind of love. I guess I’m saying, what about love, Dekker? And, well, what about sex?”
He sent her a look of great patience. “Let’s tackle one insurmountable obstacle at a time, all right?”
“Please don’t make light. I think this is important.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“But you—”
“I only meant that we’ll work it out. Day by day, as we go along.”
“Well, Dekker, I’m sorry. But I just can’t.”
“You can’t take it day by day?”
“No, I mean I wouldn’t feel right unless we came to some kind of understanding about what we’re going to do when it comes to…the things that men and women do—and why are you looking at me like you find me amusing?”
“Because I do find you amusing—in a good way.”
“Oh. In a good way, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s supposed to make it all right that you are laughin’ at me?”
“I am not laughing at you.”
She made a humphing sound. “Well, I don’t care. Whatever you’re doing, it’s not going to stop me from talkin’ about this. Sex is a problem, and we have to face it.”
“I disagree. Sex is not a problem. Not right now, anyway, not unless you insist on making it a problem.”
“But…well, I mean, that’s just not us, it’s not what we are together. We are deep and true friends. But we are not lovers.”
“Right. So?”
“Well, even if we didn’t sleep together, if I was married to you, I would be true to you. And I would really hate it if you were not true to me. Marriage, even a marriage for practical reasons, is still a sacred trust, Dekker. A trust that should be respected and…” She could see that he was only waiting for his turn to talk. Fine. “What?” she demanded. “Say it. Go ahead.”
“I would be true to you.”
“You would?”
“Yes.”
“But what if you—”
“Don’t start in with the thousand and one possible reasons I might have for wanting to sleep around. I don’t need to hear them. I said, I’ll be true to you, even though we’re not lovers.”
“But what happens when—”
He cut her off, his voice low. “Fact is, it’s just not that important to me.”
She felt her cheeks warming. “It’s not?”
“Right. It’s not.”
Maybe she had misunderstood him. “You mean, uh, you’re telling me that sex is not that important to you?”
“Sex. Love—what you call man-and-woman love, anyway. When it comes to that, well, I’m pretty much dead meat.”
Dead meat. How sad. Joleen had known that what had happened with Stacey had scarred her friend in a deep way. But she’d been telling herself he was slowly getting over the pain of that time.
Not so, evidently.
He went on. “I’d rather be with you than with a lover anyday. And I never planned to marry again—at least not until I thought of marrying you tonight. I’ve got to tell you, Jo. I like this idea. A marriage to you sounds damn good to me. Hell. To be legally a part of the family—of your family, and Sam’s—sounds pretty terrific, as a matter of fact. Until you brought it up, I didn’t even think of the sex issue. It didn’t seem important. I guess I had some idea that, since Bobby Atwood did a number on you, you felt more or less the same way I do about love and romance and everything that goes with it.”
Joleen found herself wondering, did she feel the same way—emotional dead meat when it came to man-woman love?
Well…
Not really.
“Oh, Dekker…”
He was sitting very still. “I’m listening.”
She strove for just the right words. “I, well, I can see how you would think I don’t want anything to do with love. The family drives me crazy, always after me to find someone, always telling me my turn for true love is comin’ right up. Lately it seems like every wedding I go to, I’m the one who gets the bride’s bouquet tossed in her face.”
“They do it because they want the best for you,” he reminded her gently.
“I know they do. I know all their hearts are in the right places. But still, it aggravates me no end. It’s like the old saying goes. Once burned, twice shy. Bobby did burn me. Bad. I just don’t want a thing to do with it—with love and romance—not right now.”
“But?”
“Well, to you, Dekker, at this moment, because of the seriousness of what we are considering, I am willin’ to admit something.”
“Do it.”
“Even on the day that Bobby turned his back on me, even then, when I had to face the fact that I’d made a worse mistake in judgment than my mama and my sisters ever made. Even then, I knew deep in my heart that someday—maybe not for years and years—but someday I would try again.”
He looked at her levelly. “Years and years, Jo. Do you hear yourself? You are talking about a long time.”
“Maybe so. But still. Someday, I can’t help but hope, I will find love—and I mean the real and lastin’ kind.”
“Too bad you need a husband right now. A husband with a fat wallet, a husband you can count on.”
“Well, okay. You may be right, but—”
“Let me put it this way.” He leaned closer. They’d been talking quietly, but right then, he lowered his voice even more, as if they were a pair of conspirators, as if he were about to suggest the most dangerous conspiracy of all. “You could marry me now. We could deal with the Atwoods together, present a united front. And eventually, once the Atwoods are no longer a threat to you and Sam, if you feel you’ve got to have more than I can give you, well then, we’ll end it.”
She hated to say the ugly word, but it did require saying. “Divorce, you mean?”
He nodded.
She found herself leaning toward him as he leaned toward her. “So. We could marry…” She was whispering, too, keeping her voice way down low so that only he could hear, though it was nearing two in the morning and they were alone in her mother’s dark backyard. “We could marry and live together and be just what we are—friends, and that’s all. But we’d also stay true, to each other. Respect our vows. And then, if the time comes when one of us wants more than the other can give, we would get ourselves a divorce.”
He nodded again. “That’s exactly right.”
She thought of the family. “What would we tell everyone? Would we try to make them think that all of a sudden the two of us discovered we were in love?”
“However you want to handle it. Maybe calling it love would be the best way to go. You’ve got some pretty big talkers in your family.”
He had a point there. She said, “Aunt LeeAnne comes immediately to mind.”
“That she does. And it’s possible, if we let it be known that this marriage is really for Sam’s sake, the Atwoods might get hold of that information. They could twist it to make it look as if there’s no real commitment between us, as if it’s only a marriage on paper, entered into so that you wouldn’t lose Sam to them.”
“Well. And that would be the truth, more or less, wouldn’t it?”
His gaze did not waver. “There is, always has been and always will be, commitment between us.”
Oh, he was so right. They did share a very deep commitment. She swallowed, gave a nod.
He said, “Let me put it this way. If you think the Atwoods have a right to that particular truth, then we probably don’t need to be having this conversation.”
She took his meaning. “Because we might as well not be married at all, if Robert Atwood is going to be able to call our marriage a sham. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She flopped back against the cushion and stared up through the trees at the starry night sky. “So we’d need to make everyone think it’s a real marriage, in every way. We’d need to—”
He chuckled again. “Jo. Settle down.”
“Well, I want to get this all straight in my mind. I want to know exactly how we would manage everything.”
“And I’m trying to tell you that we don’t need to ‘make’ them think anything. We’ll just say we love each other and we’ve decided to get married. I don’t see why we have to go into any big explanations about what kind of love it is.”
Easy for him to say. She sat up a little straighter. “Maybe you won’t. You’re the man. The women in my family will not be askin’ you why, all of a sudden, you’re getting hitched to your best friend.”
“You can handle them.”
“How?”
“Let them ask. Answer with care.”
She knew he had the right idea. But she did hate evading and telling lies. If she and Dekker did this, she would have to lie at least a little and evade a whole lot.
She told him, “The family will have to know that the Atwoods are after Sam. Eventually, when we get to court, I don’t see any way we could hide it. And then there’s the babysitting issue. I’m going to have to tell my mama and my sisters why they suddenly can’t watch my child.”
“Our getting married will make that easier.”
“How?”
“We’ll tell them about the money I’ve got now, money that means you can start paying for day care, so you won’t have to take advantage of them so much anymore.”
For the first time since they’d started this particular discussion, Joleen felt a smile curving her lips. “Hey. When you say it that way, it doesn’t sound bad at all.”
