The Marriage Risk Read online

  “Just hold me,” she said in a whisper, nestling in his arms. “That’s all I want.”

  They sat on the sofa, the same one her grandmother must have sat on with his father. Charles seemed to realize this at the precise moment she did.

  “My father was with Catherine—here.”

  “I know. We can move,” she said quickly.

  “It’s not important.” When he brought her back into his embrace, his touch was tender. He kissed her face, her eyes and nose and chin. Lanni’s heart fluttered with excitement, with passion. With hope.

  He eased away from her, his breathing ragged. “We have to stop,” he whispered in a voice she barely recognized as his.

  She nodded.

  Charles settled back on the sofa. He gathered Lanni to him, her back against his chest.

  “Tell me what you meant earlier,” she said when she found her voice. “About David not being able to stay away from Catherine. Did they…have an affair?”

  “They did,” Charles answered, breathing softly into her hair. “Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal….”

  “But you haven’t forgotten. Neither has your mother.” She leaned back far enough so she could look into his eyes.

  He didn’t answer her, not right away. His arms, still holding her, tightened. “Eventually we got word that Ellen was returning to Alaska. To Hard Luck. She didn’t want a divorce. She wanted to come home.”

  Lanni closed her eyes, thinking of two teenage boys eager to have their mother back. At the same time, she understood how the news must have crushed her grandmother.

  “My father had to tell Catherine. She’d come to our house—I was doing my homework in the kitchen at the time.” He paused. “Catherine was hysterical. She yelled and screamed and hit my father. He didn’t even try to defend himself, and he stopped me when I tried to intervene. I’d come running in when I heard the noise. I’m just glad Sawyer wasn’t there. Over and over Catherine told him he couldn’t do this to her. Not again. Not a second time.”

  Lanni’s eyes flooded with tears.

  “She started sobbing. She told Dad he’d be sorry, and then she ran out the door.”

  Charles’s fingers bit into her arms. Lanni was sure he wasn’t even aware of it.

  “After she left—” he hesitated “—Dad broke down. It’s the only time in my life I ever saw him weep. At first I thought she might have physically hurt him. Later, I realized what was wrong.”

  He stopped, as if telling her was too much.

  “I need to know. Please, Charles, just tell me,” Lanni pleaded.

  “He wept because he loved Catherine. He’d always loved her.”

  “Then why…” Lanni was confused. If David had truly cared for Catherine, why had he taken Ellen back? Why had he married her in the first place?

  Charles understood her unfinished question. “I’d like to believe my father loved my mother, too,” he said. “My brothers think so, but I don’t know. I just don’t know. They’d been married nearly twenty-five years by that time. Ellen had no one. Except her sons. Her family had been dead for years, wiped out in the war, and when she returned to England there was no one there for her. All the years she lived in Alaska she’d built up a fantasy of what her life would’ve been like in England. But when she went back, she discovered she wasn’t happy there, either.”

  “How long was she away?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  Poor Ellen. She belonged to two different worlds, but to neither one completely.

  “Mother missed Sawyer and me, and wanted another chance to make her marriage work. To her credit she tried hard. For a while after her return she was involved in the community, volunteered at the school, that sort of thing.”

  “Until?”

  Charles’s hands caressed her forearms. “Until Catherine made good on her threat.”

  Lanni stiffened.

  “Catherine made my mother the town laughingstock. The first thing she did was tell Ellen about her affair with my father. She supplied plenty of details, too. And she made sure everyone in Hard Luck heard the whole story. More important, she took delight in purposely destroying whatever chance my parents had of fixing their marriage.”

  “You hate my grandmother, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Charles didn’t hesitate. “My mother made plenty of mistakes over the years, but she didn’t deserve that.

  “She’d done nothing wrong except fall in love with a man who loved someone else. I’ll never understand why they got married at all. Although, I guess people often behave very differently in wartime than they otherwise would.”

  “Your father allowed Catherine to taunt Ellen?”

  Charles didn’t answer her question. “Catherine wasn’t content with making Ellen miserable. She did whatever she could to hurt my father, as well. Remember the old saying ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? I swear Catherine Fletcher was the bitterest woman there ever was.

  “My father betrayed my mother with his affair, and then Catherine humiliated her. I can’t hurt her again. I can’t get involved with someone who’ll be a constant reminder of the woman who brought so much pain into her life.”

  Lanni jerked herself free of Charles’s embrace. She moved off the sofa, backing away from him. “What about my grandmother? Don’t you think she deserved better? Twice your father used her. Twice he cast her aside. Can you blame her? Can you honestly blame her? You claim he loved her. I doubt it. He did nothing but use her!”

  Charles didn’t answer, not that she expected him to. With trembling hands, Lanni brushed aside the hair that had fallen in her face.

  “You say my grandmother ruined your father’s marriage and his life. I wonder.” She inhaled deeply. “I wonder if you’ve considered what he did to her. She married shortly after he returned from the war with Ellen—his bride—but that marriage didn’t last more than two years.

  “She gave up custody of her only child so she could stay close to David. Catherine is a stranger to my mother. A stranger to me. All because of your father.”

  Leaning forward, Charles braced his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “Now you know why there can never be anything between us,” he whispered.

  Lanni stood rigidly beside him. “I’m sorry, Charles, for the pain my family caused yours. And the pain yours has caused mine.”

  “I’m sorry, too. For all of it.”

  “But it doesn’t change anything.”

  He shook his head. “Your leaving is for the best.”

  She fought to keep her voice even. “I’m not going to make the mistakes my grandmother did,” she told him, her voice quavering despite her efforts. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life pining away for you.”

  “I wouldn’t want that.”

  “I’m going home to Anchorage and I’ll do my absolute best to forget I ever met you.” Using one hand, she swiped at the tears running down her face.

  He gave a brief nod.

  “I’m not coming back to Hard Luck.” She swiped at her face again, hating the weakness that let the tears fall. Slowly she backed even farther away.

  Charles stood up, raking his hand through his hair. “I thought you should know,” he said.

  She lowered her head. “It helps. Now that I’ve been properly informed, everything’s evened out. I can hate your family, too.”

  He turned and, shoulders hunched, walked out of her life.

  This time, she knew, it was forever.

  * * *

  Sawyer sat up in bed with Abbey leaning against him as they listened to the surf. The lanai door was open and a tropical breeze rustled through the palm trees just outside.

  “Eventually we’re going to have to leave this room,” Abbey murmured.

  Sawyer stroked her hair. “Why?”

  She moved her head to look into her husband’s clear gray-blue eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, paradise is right outside.”

  “Paradise is being right here with you.”


  Not for the first time, Abbey marveled at her husband’s romantic heart. This side of Sawyer had come as a pleasant surprise—along with what she’d learned about his sensual nature. Marriage to Sawyer was going to be a wonderful adventure.

  The first night of their honeymoon, in Fairbanks, they’d made love again and again before falling asleep in each other’s arms. The next morning, they were on a flight to Hawaii.

  When they arrived, all Abbey wanted was a feather pillow and a bed. Sawyer was interested in a bed, too, but not for the purpose of sleep. This man she’d married, Abbey soon discovered, was inexhaustible. Their dinner had been delivered to the room, followed by a late breakfast some hours later. Still they lingered in bed.

  “I’d like to play tourist for a while,” she said. “Would you mind?”

  Sawyer ran his hand down her bare back. He released a slow, long-suffering sigh. “I suppose I could drag myself out of bed, but only if you promise one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ll play a different kind of game first…”

  “Now?” What she really meant was, “Again?”

  “No time like the present.” He slanted his mouth over hers, and Abbey groaned, sliding toward him.

  “Sawyer,” she protested without any real fervor, “it’s already ten-thirty and—”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s much too late to get started today. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to explore the island.”

  Abbey giggled. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  His tongue slid across her lips.

  “Then again…” she said breathlessly, “you might be right.”

  “I thought you’d see the error of your ways.”

  Hours later they did leave the room. Abbey even managed to convince Sawyer to buy them matching shirts and straw hats in the hotel gift shop.

  “I look like I’m wearing a pineapple,” he complained, studying himself in the shop mirror.

  Abbey laughed, feeling lighthearted and very much in love.

  Sawyer rented a car and they drove to the north shore of Oahu, stopping at an outdoor café for lunch. They discovered a deserted beach and lay there soaking up the sunshine. Abbey asked him to spread suntan lotion on her back.

  “Do you need any help with the front?” he asked.

  “No.” She squeezed the lotion onto her arms and rubbed it vigorously into her pale skin. She paused when she found Sawyer watching her every move.

  “Will you quit that?” she said.

  “Quit what?”

  “Looking at me like that.”

  His expression was one of complete innocence. “Like what?”

  Abbey rolled her eyes. “Like you’re going to ravish me the first chance you get.”

  He lowered his sunglasses, his eyes dancing. “That’s exactly what I intend.”

  Abbey smiled. Although she’d been married before, she’d never felt this loved or cherished. And she’d never felt this sexy. “It’d serve you right if I got pregnant during the honeymoon,” she told him absently, snapping the lid on the bottle of suntan lotion.

  Sawyer went still. “Is there a chance?”

  She glanced at him, fearing his reaction. They hadn’t talked about birth control. They should have, but…“Yes,” she whispered. “There wasn’t time to start on the pill, and we…we haven’t stopped long enough for any precautions.”

  Sawyer let out a shout of sheer delight and sent his hat flying toward the cloudless blue sky. “Hot damn, woman, if I’d known that, we’d never have left the hotel room.”

  “You mean to say you wouldn’t object?”

  “Object? If you were to get pregnant on this trip it would be the second-best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “What’s the first?”

  He seemed surprised she didn’t know. “Meeting you, Abbey. What else?”

  She leapt up from the beach towel and stuffed it in her bag. Once that was done, she shoved in everything else she’d so carefully unpacked.

  “Come on,” she said to her husband.

  He looked at her as if he wasn’t sure what to make of her abrupt movements. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to the hotel room of course!”

  * * *

  Lanni stopped at the Hard Luck Café on her way to the airfield early the next morning.

  “Hi, Ben,” she said, slipping the backpack off her shoulders and setting it aside.

  “Morning.” He eyed her bags. “Looks to me like you’re getting ready to head out of here.”

  She smiled sadly. “I thought I’d come in for one last coffee and to tell you goodbye.” She held out her hand to him.

  He shook it, his hand firmly clasping hers.

  “We’re going to miss you around here,” Ben said.

  “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  “Miss me? My guess is I’m not the one you’re gonna miss when you’re back home.”

  She bent her head, refusing to react to his comment. “Well, I have to say it’s been interesting.”

  “Yup, I suppose it has.”

  He poured her a cup of coffee and she reached for her purse.

  Ben shook his head. “On the house.”

  “Thanks.” She sipped the coffee, needing it. She hadn’t slept much and hoped the caffeine would revive her enough to see her through the morning.

  “It’s too bad about you and Charles.”

  She shrugged as if their relationship mattered little. “You win some, you lose some.”

  “You fit in this town a lot better than some of those women Christian hired. One of ’em didn’t stay long enough to give it a chance. Another woman—a teacher—wouldn’t even get off the plane.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “It’s true,” he said, leaning both hands on the counter. “Ask anyone.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Pity you have to go back.”

  She didn’t contradict him.

  “Who’s flying you into Fairbanks?”

  “Ralph,” she answered. He wasn’t one of the pilots she’d gotten to know. She checked her watch. “I’d better get on over to the office before they take off without me.”

  “We’re gonna miss you, Lanni,” Ben said again as she collected her bags.

  Blinking fiercely to force back the tears, she raised her hand in farewell and hurried out the door.

  Charles’s truck, loaded with camping equipment, was parked in front of the mobile office. She waited there, reluctant to go in, until she recognized Ralph, who stood just inside the door. He looked up from his clipboard and smiled when he saw her.

  “I’m almost ready,” he called. “Go ahead and get on the plane.”

  The office door opened then and Charles walked out. He stopped abruptly when he saw her.

  Lanni looked longingly at the plane. They’d said their farewells; there was nothing more to say.

  “Bye, Charles,” she said, holding out her hand in a businesslike manner.

  He stared at it for a moment, then his fingers closed convulsively over hers. “Goodbye, Lanni.”

  She offered him a proud smile and turned away. Climbing into the plane, she took her seat and snapped the belt into place.

  With tears burning her eyes, she gazed out the small window to see Charles standing next to his truck, watching her. He didn’t move.

  Ralph put her luggage aboard and climbed in. He reviewed the safety instructions with her, although she wasn’t really listening, then started the engine.

  Lanni kept her eyes trained on Charles. Her face was pressed to the window as the engine roared to life.

  The plane taxied down the runway.

  Lanni craned her neck as far as possible in order to see Charles.

  He stepped forward a few paces, then came to a halt. She stared out the window until he disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER 8

  August 1995

  “Hello, Grammy, it’s me. Lanni.” Catherine Fl
etcher gave Lanni an odd look, as though she didn’t recognize her.

  Catherine was in her early seventies, but she appeared older. There were deeply etched lines of bitterness around her mouth and eyes. “I know who you are. Where’s Kate?”

  “Mom’s coming.”

  “Your mother hasn’t been to see me all week. If my daughter’s going to shuffle me off to die, the least she can do is come and visit.”

  Lanni knew her mother had been to the nursing home practically every day. The burden of these daily visits had taken their toll on her. Yet Kate remained faithful, doing whatever she could to make Catherine as comfortable as possible.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Catherine said sourly. “Bring me my robe. I want out of this bed.”

  For all her bluster, Lanni’s grandmother was as fragile as a spider’s web. She was thinner than Lanni remembered and terribly frail.

  “Mother, you know you can’t get out of bed without a nurse.” Kate stood in the doorway, her voice filled with concern and frustration. “And there’s no reason to snap at Lanni.”

  Lanni was greatly relieved her mother had chosen that moment to arrive.

  Catherine looked away sheepishly.

  “I thought we’d wash and dry your hair this afternoon,” Kate said, her tone gentler. Catherine’s hair was tied at the back, but the frizzy sides stuck out in every direction. “We’ve let it go for several days now.”

  Catherine pinched her lips in disapproval.

  “I wish you’d let someone cut it,” Kate went on.

  “No,” came Catherine’s sharp retort. “No one’s touching my hair but me.”

  “Whatever you say, Mother.”

  Lanni marveled at her mother’s patience.

  An hour later she accompanied Kate out of the nursing home. “How do you do it?” she asked, impressed by her mother’s tender care for a woman who seemed so mean-spirited.

  “She’s my mother,” Kate explained simply. “She wasn’t the best mother in the world, but I suppose she wasn’t the worst, either. Adjusting to life in the nursing home is difficult for her. We need to remember how independent Catherine was for all those years.”

  “But she’s so…”