Contract Bride. Susan Fox P.
or not by the way things between them had gone.
The past eleven months had revolved around the boy, the ranch and the polite day-to-day cooperation between a stay at home wife who cared for a house and child, and a rancher who spent hours a day working outdoors or doing paperwork in the den. The emotional sterility between the two of them had been so heart-numbing that Leah often wondered if they were even friends.
“I’m…satisfied we’ve both done what we agreed to do.” Leah cringed inwardly at the small hesitation, but it was hard to face the relentlessness she suddenly sensed in Reece.
It was even harder to maintain eye contact with the dark eyes that seemed to flicker with perception when she was trying so hard to hide the truth, at least the most dangerous truth: her real feelings.
“I remember we talked about more than just protecting the boy when we started this,” he said then.
The reminder completely threw her. She recalled Reece’s remarks on that subject with distressing clarity. It had been in this very room at almost the same time of day that he’d made them.
It was the only time either of them had so much as hinted at the possibly of having other children. Or of personal needs, having sex in particular.
“I reckon sex will be part of this deal, since it’s a marriage,” he’d said, and it hurt to remember the bleak, almost grim look in his eyes, as if he was resigned to the task only because he saw it as a marital obligation.
“Won’t be likely for a time,” he’d gone on, glancing away from her before he’d added, “but we’ve both got needs.”
His low voice had trailed off and she’d got the impression that the thought of sex with any woman but Rachel was not only vaguely distasteful to him, but that he also couldn’t imagine that sex would ever again be something more than a biological function, perhaps to have more children, but mainly as a physical release.
At least he’d not insulted her obvious lack of desirability by rejecting the possibility of ever having sex with her. And because he’d also let her know that he was willing to have other children with her if she wanted them, he apparently hadn’t considered her an unworthy recipient of his seed.
Of course, eleven months had gone by and if Reece had ever had a “need”, she’d never known about it. Which only confirmed the idea that Reece felt so little for her that he didn’t think of her in terms of sex.
Reece’s gruff voice brought her back to the present. “You remember that, don’t you?”
His dark gaze shifted downward to flash quickly over her body. So quickly it seemed almost mechanical. As if it was expected that a man who’d brought up the subject of sex might at least make a cursory inspection to familiarize himself with the physical attributes of the woman he’d suggested it to.
Leah felt her cheeks go abnormally hot with a mix of feminine shame and very feminine indignation. Without so much as a single nonaccidental touch between them in all these months, and no hint of personal affection from Reece, sex was the last thing she’d consider. Particularly when the look he’d just given her had been so clearly obligatory. Not even she was so hungry for love that she’d allow herself to be so coldly used.
“I think we’ve moved past the point where the things we talked about that night might have made sense,” she said stiffly, just managing not to give in to the fiery hurt she’d sustained. “I think you’ve realized that too.”
Her heart was pounding so hard that she felt a little dizzy. Her refusal had set off sparks in Reece’s dark gaze and she felt a corresponding nettle of resentment. It took so, so much to keep her voice even and her words reasonable.
“Neither of us was thinking straight after Rachel died,” she told him. “Now that we’ve had these months to put things into a more moderate perspective, I think we both have doubts about going on together.”
There. She’d got it said and the world hadn’t come to an end. The minor softening of Reece’s stony expression had vanished, but he was still silent. She tried not to fidget while his dark eyes bore into hers like twin drills.
There was something in the way he stared over at her that compelled her to go on, something that suggested he needed to hear more to be convinced. Leah made a try at doing just that.
“As I said, we made the decision to marry at a time when we weren’t quite ourselves,” she said calmly, careful to keep her tone mild, though she couldn’t keep the tremor out of it. “Lately you’ve seemed…unhappy. In a different way than before, so I…thought it was time to discuss what might need to change, even though the change that probably seems most sensible is divorce.”
The booming silence that followed was as much a sudden assault on the room as a thunderclap would have been. It had impacted with such power that it was difficult, even in the aftermath, to decide if an actual clap of thunder had sounded around them, or if it had truly been a silent shockwave.
But maybe it had been an actual thunderclap, because the storm was suddenly visible in Reece’s harsh face. His dark eyes snapped with angry surprise, and the ruthless line of his mouth now seemed more promise than vague threat.
“Are you asking for a divorce?”
The blunt question wasn’t unexpected, but his gravelly tone of voice carried a steeliness that warned how rigidly he controlled himself. Leah felt her heart skip faster, and forced herself to shake her head.
“There’s a difference between asking for a divorce and offering one.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth she wondered why she’d put it that way. She should have simply answered “yes”. The huge tide of hurt and unhappiness that rose up added to her alarm and she mentally scrambled to show none of it.
Oh, God, don’t let him see, don’t ever let him find out…
“I’ve made the offer,” she said coolly, so relieved that her tone was calm and practical that she blundered into undermining her purpose even more. “What you do with it is up to you.”
She’d somehow stood to her feet without being fully aware of it until she felt the back of her knees brush the front of the chair. But whether her body had taken action to help her assert herself or to flee, she didn’t know. At least she could see that her more temperate answer to Reece’s question had gotten her message across just as clearly as a more definitive one.
Reece’s weather-tanned face was like a granite monolith. A ruddy flush she recognized as fury had crept into his lean cheeks, but she knew by his iron silence that he wouldn’t inflict it on her.
“I’ll look in on Bobby before I go to bed. Goodnight.”
Leah turned and moved around the chair to walk as normally as possible to the door then into the hall. Her knees were rubbery and her legs felt heavy and weak, but she managed to make a dignified exit.
She’d got the job done and except for that part near the end, she’d managed it fairly well. Though she might have delivered it all a bit less stiffly, she’d survived and Reece hadn’t guessed anything of her real feelings about either the divorce or him.
The need to spend time with Bobby was overwhelming, so she hurried down the hall to the bedroom end of the large, single-story ranch house. The child’s room was next to the master bedroom, and both rooms were linked by a connecting door.
Leah had never shared the master bedroom with Reece, much less shared his bed. He hadn’t offered and she’d certainly never asked. Given her pick of bedrooms, she’d chosen the one on the other side of Bobby’s. Reece had noted her choice and for her convenience, he’d had another connecting door put in the shared wall between her room and the baby’s.
As Leah slipped silently into Bobby’s room, the arrangement struck her as even more telling. At first, it had been understandable that she and Reece wouldn’t share a room or a bed, and she’d completely agreed. Rachel’s death had been too fresh and