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Margie didn’t believe that. She already knew he was a man who didn’t avoid commitment. Hadn’t he given everything to his country? “Then what is your nature, Hunter?”
“To protect.” He said the words quickly. No hesitation at all. It was instinct. Turning his head, he gave her a hard, warning look, then added, “And I’ll protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him.”
She knew exactly what he meant. He still believed that she was taking advantage of Simon. That she wanted only his money and whatever prestige came along with the name Cabot. He’d never understand that the love Simon had offered her had been far more valuable to her than dollars.
Suddenly she was tired of trying to make him understand. Tired of the veiled insults and the way he seemed to look at her with hunger one moment and disdain the next. If he was too hardheaded to see the truth, she’d never be able to convince him. And, since this farce would be over in a few weeks, why should she keep trying? Why should she keep beating her head against a stone wall when all she got for her trouble was a headache?
As he stood there watching her, waiting for her to try to defend herself yet again, Margie decided to take an offensive road rather than a defensive one.
“You want to protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him? Like you did, you mean?” Margie’s voice was quiet, but the words weren’t. They seemed to hang in the air between them like a battle flag. “You left Simon alone, Hunter. You walked off to save the world and left an old man with no one to care about him.”
His cool blue eyes went so cold, so glacial, that Margie wouldn’t have been surprised to see snow start flying in the wind between them. “Didn’t take you long to move in and correct that, though, did it?”
Anger swamped through her and rose like a tide rushing in to shore. Stepping in close, she lifted one hand, pointed her index finger and jabbed it at his chest. “I was his employee.”
He glanced down at her finger, then wrapped his hand around hers and pushed it aside. “So, you were doing it for the money. Still are, aren’t you?”
Margie pulled her hand free of his and shook her head at him sadly. As quickly as her anger had risen, it drained away again. What was the point? She stepped back from him because she needed the physical distance to match the emotional chasm spreading between them.
“It would be easier for you if that were true, wouldn’t it?” she whispered, forcing herself to look into those hard, cold eyes. “Because if I’m staying because I love your grandfather, that makes you leaving him even worse, doesn’t it?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
“Oh, I think I do. You’re a coward, Hunter.”
“Excuse me?”
She waved a hand. “Don’t bother using that military, snap-to-attention tone of voice with me. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be,” he warned. “Nobody calls me a coward.”
“Really? What else would you call a man who turns from the only family he knows because it’s just too hard to stay?”
He didn’t say anything to that, and when the silence became too much to bear, Margie turned and left him standing amid the spring flowers.
And because she didn’t look back, she didn’t see Hunter watching her long after she’d disappeared into the house.
Chapter Six (#ulink_58f2293e-8f4e-5ff0-a68d-1ef256e3b51e)
The dance was a success.
But then it would have to be, Hunter thought. His “wife” wouldn’t have settled for anything less.
To please his grandfather, Hunter was wearing his dress whites, and so he stood out in the crowd of dark suits and ties even more than he might have usually. Now, leaning one shoulder against the wall in a corner of the room, he tried to disappear as he watched the crowd assembled in a local church hall.
It was the only room except for the ballroom at the castle that was large enough to accommodate this many people. And from Hunter’s vantage point, it looked as if most of the town had turned out for the event.
There were dozens of small round tables arranged around the room, with a long buffet line along one wall. The dinner had been catered by a restaurant in town, and the tantalizing spices and scents of Mexican food hovered in the noisy air. There were helium-filled balloons trailing colorful ribbon strings bouncing against the ceiling, and Calvin’s flowers decorated either end of the buffet table.
There was music blasting from someone’s stereo at the front of the room, and several couples were on the dance floor swaying to the beat. But mostly, people wandered the room, laughing and talking as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
Then, there was his “wife,” Hunter thought. His eyes narrowed on the redhead who’d done nothing but plague him for days. Since their conversation in the garden the day before, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about everything Margie had said to him, and that just irritated the hell out of him.
He didn’t want to feel guilty. He didn’t want her looking at him in disappointment as if he’d somehow let her, personally, down. He didn’t want to remember her words and hear the ring of truth to them.
Oh, not the coward part. That he’d fight until his dying breath. He was no coward. He hadn’t run from responsibility. He’d run to it. He’d wanted something different for his life. He’d wanted to leave a mark, to do something important. And he had. Damned if he’d apologize for that.
He straightened abruptly from the wall and felt a twinge of pain from his still-healing wound. And along with that ache came a whispering voice that asked, Haven’t you had enough of the adventure? Hadn’t you already been thinking that maybe it was time to come home?
Scowling out at the woman who’d made him think too much, remember too much, Hunter tried to brush her and all she stood for aside. But that was harder than he might have expected.
“You ought to be out there dancing with your wife,” a deep voice said from somewhere nearby.
Hunter glanced to his left and smiled. “Kane Hackett.” He shook hands with his old friend and said, “I don’t dance. You should know that.”
Kane grinned and slid a look across the room to where Margie was laughing and talking with a short blond woman. “A married man will do lots of things he didn’t use to do. Take that gorgeous little blonde talking to your Margie…”
Hunter had hardly noticed the other woman. How could he be expected to see anything but how that strapless black dress Margie was wearing defined her lush body? Now, though, he forced himself to look at the blonde. “Cute.”
“Damn sight better than cute,” Kane corrected, taking a sip from the beer bottle he held. “That’s my wife, Donna.”
Staggered, Hunter looked at the man who had gone off to join the Marines at the same time Hunter had enlisted in the Navy. “You? Married?”
Hardly seemed possible. Hunter and Kane had both been keen on adventure, on seeing the world. Experiencing everything life had to offer and then some. Now Kane was married?
“Why sound so surprised?” His old friend chuckled. “You took the plunge, why not me?”
“Yeah, but—” Hunter’s marriage was a fraud. “And you live here in town? Simon didn’t say anything to me.”
Kane shrugged. “Guess he was just waiting for us to bump into each other. And, yeah, I live in Springville. I’m the sheriff.”
Hunter laughed now. “Oh, that’s rich. You’re the sheriff? After all the times we got hauled in for a good talking to, the people in this town elected you?”
Kane gave him a huge grin. “Guess they figured it took a bad boy to catch the bad boys.”
Nodding, Hunter slid his gaze back to his wife as the music changed from classic rock and roll to a slow slide of jazz. “How long have you been back?”
“About a year and a half. Met Donna on my last leave. She knocked me off my feet, Hunt.” He grinned and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it himself. “Never saw it coming, but I’m glad it did.” He paused then added, “So when my enlistment was up, I came home, ran for sheriff and married Donna.”
“No more adventures for you, then, huh?” Hunter reached out, took his friend’s beer and had a swallow.
“Are you kidding?” Kane laughed. “Every day with Donna’s an adventure. Best thing that ever happened to me, I swear. But then,” he said, reclaiming his beer, “I guess you’d know all about that.”
“Yeah.” Hunter watched Margie as an old woman stopped to talk to her, and his chest tightened as Margie gave the woman her complete attention along with a brilliant smile.
Briefly, he wondered what it would be like to actually be married. To know Margie was his with the same surety that Kane felt about his Donna. Would he resent staying in Springville? Would he end up one day hating the town and the woman who had snared him?
Hunter frowned at the thought and had to ask himself if maybe Margie hadn’t been more than a little right in everything she’d said to him the day before. Maybe he had been running from responsibility and disguising it with a different kind of duty.
“Well, good to see you,” Kane was saying. “Stop by the station this week—we’ll catch up. For now, I think I’ll go dance with my wife.”
“Right, right.” Hunter nodded but barely heard his friend. He was too busy watching Margie as, one by one, everyone in the hall found the time to stop and talk with her, laugh with her, hug her. Something about that woman made her a magnet for people. Was it a con artist’s gift, he wondered, or was it simply that she was a naturally kind person whom people wanted to be around?
“You know,” Kane said, slapping Hunter on the back, “I really shouldn’t even be speaking to you, all things considered.”
“Huh? Why’s that?”
“Because ever since Margie told Donna and some of the other wives about that honeymoon you two had in Bali…” Kane’s eyebrows lifted and he huffed out a breath. “Well, let’s just say, those stories made the rest of the husbands in town come in a sad second place to you in the romance department.”
Bali, huh? So Margie was making up stories about honeymoons on tropical islands. And, painting him in a very romantic light, apparently. He smiled to himself and wondered just how detailed those stories had been.
“What can I say, Kane?” Hunter said with a slow smile. “I’ve always been good.”
“That you have, Hunt.” Kane slapped him on the shoulder again and walked past him. “You’re missed around here, you know. It’s good to have you back, man.”
“Good to be back,” he said automatically, but for the first time he realized he actually meant the words.
Margie felt Hunter’s gaze on her as surely as she would a touch. Was he still angry about the things she’d said to him the day before? Not that he hadn’t deserved it, she reminded herself while Jenna Carter babbled about the dessert tray. Margie nodded absentmindedly and remembered the way Hunter had looked at her when she’d called him a coward.
Even now, she cringed and wished that she’d found a better way to say what she’d meant. Yes, she thought he’d deserted Simon and the town that needed him, but she also knew he wasn’t a coward. He was strong and sure of himself and brave and—arrogant, bossy and irritating, her mind added quickly before she became just a little bit too understanding.
After all, he hadn’t exactly been kind to her. He was still convinced she was trying to scam Simon, for heaven’s sake. At the thought of the older man, she shifted a quick look at him and spotted him sitting with his friends, laughing and whispering together. And men thought women gossiped.
Simon. She would miss him when she left. And God help her, she would really miss Hunter. Somehow, that man had wormed his way into her heart, making her want him despite the fact that he thought she was a thief. Margie, you are such an idiot, she told herself.
Then Mrs. Banks murmured something about having a meeting the following month concerning the elementary school festival, and Margie only nodded. She wouldn’t be there next month, and that knowledge was too painful to allow, so she buried that ache and let it simmer in the heat that Hunter’s stare was causing.
How in the world was she going to make it through the rest of the night? Her insides were shaking, and her smile felt forced and wooden. She only hoped no one else could tell that her heart was breaking.
With Kane’s words still repeating in his mind, Hunter left his corner and stalked the perimeter of the crowd. He nodded to those he passed, but he didn’t stop. To stop meant being drawn into conversations, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Not to old friends. Not to anyone. His thoughts didn’t make him good company at the moment. Instead, he sought a darker corner, a quiet spot from which to watch and observe.
The music swelled around him, pulsing with an almost erotic beat, that slow, heavy sound of wailing sax that crept into a man’s soul and wrung it dry.
He moved stealthily, using his training as a SEAL to help him slide almost unnoticed through a crowd so busy with their partying they didn’t notice much of anything else. Across the room he spotted Simon—who’d decided to attend at the last minute—sitting at a table near the dance floor, holding court with some of his cronies. Old men gathered together to remember the past and plan for a future that most of them wouldn’t see. A pang of something sharp and bitter sliced into him as he realized once again that his indomitable grandfather was old now. How much longer would he be here? How much more time could Hunter reasonably expect to have with the man who was his only family?
He clenched his jaw and deliberately shifted his gaze from Simon to Margie. As always, she was surrounded by a crowd, laughing and smiling as if she didn’t have a disturbing thought in her head. But then, he thought, why would she? She’d dumped all of them on him the day before.
That he could acknowledge that just maybe he might have deserved some of her taunts only annoyed the hell out of him. His gaze fixed on her as she greeted all of the people who seemed to move in a stream toward her. She smiled, she laughed, she welcomed people into her warmth. People who weren’t him, of course.
But when that thought scuttled through his mind, Hunter at least had the grace to admit that it was his own damn fault. He shut her out whenever his desire for her became too overwhelming—which was damn near every minute. He didn’t want to care about her. Didn’t want to want her. Didn’t want to see beyond what he’d already seen. She was the manipulative woman he’d first thought her. She had to be because anything else was simply unacceptable.
They weren’t really married. He’d made her no promises and didn’t intend to, he reassured himself. When this month was over, he’d be leaving. Back to the Navy. Back to the next mission.
And who, his mind demanded, would be here to look after Simon?
The fierce scowl on his face that thought engendered was enough to convince most people to give him a wide berth, and Hunter was grateful for it. He was visited out. No more friendly chats tonight. All he wanted to do was survive this dance, get back to the castle and locate one of Simon’s bottles of aged scotch.
At last, he found a slice of darkness, an alcove off the entrance, far enough away from the crowd that he could think without being interrupted by old friends. But close enough that his gaze could search out Margie. Damn it.
What was it about her that got to him? She was nothing like the women he was used to. She was…unlike anyone he’d ever known. God, when he compared her with his ex, it was as if the two women were from different planets.
Gretchen didn’t want to think about tomorrow. She was the quintessential party girl. She was ready for adventure, good in the sack and beautiful enough to make a grown man whimper. But, he reminded himself, just two months before Hunter had hinted that he might be thinking about settling down. Maybe getting married—okay, no time soon, but someday. When he was too damned old to go out and get himself shot anymore. Gretchen had backed off like he was on fire and she didn’t want to be singed by the flames. She’d broken up with him that night and taken off for a photo shoot in Peru, of all damn places.
Shaking his head, Hunter folded his arms over his chest, leaned back against the cold wall and watched Margie. Unlike the gorgeous Gretchen, his temporary wife was all about the future. She was always planning tomorrows, looking ahead, dreaming dreams and finding a way to make them real.
Hell, she knew their marriage was a lie, yet she continued to pretend to everyone in town that all was well between them. She continued to do her best for a town that she was going to be leaving soon.
And she told sexy stories about him and a honeymoon that hadn’t happened.
What the hell was he supposed to do with a woman like that?
Of course, he knew what he wanted to do. At least, what his body was clamoring for. But sex with Margie would complicate a situation that was already so twisted he couldn’t see an easy way out. So he’d bury his lust and focus on getting through the next three weeks or so.
In the next instant, he wondered where Margie would go when she left Springville. What would she do? What would Simon do without her?
He rubbed one hand over his face and tried to wipe out the scrambling thoughts in his mind. But how the hell could he not think about her when she was there, in front of him, looking sexier and more desirable than ever?
“I never really believed Hunter was married to her,” a woman said to her friend as she blithely walked past the shadowed alcove where Hunter stood silently.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on.” The first woman, a brunette who looked familiar to Hunter, laughed lightly. “I mean, when you look at Margie, do you really think…hmm, there’s the woman for Hunter Cabot.”
“I guess not,” her friend said and shifted to look at Margie.
Hunter did too and frowned as the brunette kept talking.
“I knew him in high school, and even then he was the stuff dreams were made of.”
He frowned and thought about moving out of the shadows so the women would know he was there. Then he second-guessed that idea. He’d learned long ago that a man could learn a lot with a little eavesdropping, so he held his ground and waited.
“I can imagine,” the second woman said. “The man is…wow.”
“Exactly. He’s wow and she’s…ho-hum. I mean, she’s nice and everything—”
Nice? Margie was nice? Gritting his teeth hard, Hunter glared at the brunette. Margie worked continuously for this town, giving everything she had, and these two women felt comfortable standing in the shadows of the dance Margie had arranged and bloodlessly tearing her apart? Temper sparked and a protective surge like nothing he’d ever known before rose up inside Hunter.
“Completely,” her friend agreed quickly. “Margie’s a sweetie.”
“But he’s a…god, and she’s a peasant. Never should have happened. And—” The brunette stopped, glanced at her reflection in a nearby window and smoothed her pinky finger over her bottom lip. Sighing, she said, “Until Hunter actually showed up here and claimed her, I never believed those stories she told all over town.”
“Mmm,” her friend said on a sigh. “Like Bali?”
“Yes…” The brunette shook her head, stared across the room at Margie and said, confusion ringing in her tone, “What the hell does she have that I don’t have?”
“For one thing,” Hunter spoke up and stepped out of the shadows, startling both women into gasping. “She’s got me.”
“Hunter—I—we—” The brunette threw her friend a desperate look, but that woman was already melting into the crowd, disassociating herself fast.
