Judith Stacy - The One Month Marriage

Jana looked up at him then. He lowered his head, but didn’t kiss her. Instead, he touched his cheek to hers, nuzzling her, brushing his lips against her.

His mouth played along the curve of her jaw. “If you’ve forgotten the difference between the two,” Brandon murmured against her ear, “I’ll be happy to demonstrate.”

His lips claimed her neck once more, sending a rush through her. Jana closed her eyes for a moment, then drew in a breath and pushed away.

“No,” she said, wanting to sound forceful but failing miserably.

Brandon didn’t protest, but she saw the wanting in his darkened eyes, his heavy breaths, his flushed cheeks. For an instant Jana wanted to throw herself into his arms once more, have him carry her into her bedroom as he used to do.

But that would only complicate things…!

“Wild West Wager” in A Hero’s Kiss

“A starchy heroine and disreputable hero strike a ‘Wild West Wager’ that sets tongues a-wagging in Stacy’s romantic, funny tale.”

—Romantic Times

The Nanny

“One of the most entertaining and sweetly satisfying tales I’ve had the pleasure to encounter.”

—The Romance Reader

The Blushing Bride

“…lovable characters that grab your heartstrings…a fun read all the way.”

—Rendezvous

The Dreammaker

“…a delightful story of the triumph of love.”

—Rendezvous

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Thanks to David, Judy and Stacy

for always doing more than you have to.

And thanks to Jolene,

for being that once-in-a-lifetime friend.

The author wishes to thank Martha Cooper

for her assistance with this book.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Los Angeles, 1897

S o she was coming home.

Brandon Sayer stared down at the telegram lying atop the papers and ledgers on his desk. Jana was coming home. His bride—if one could be called such after so long a time—was returning.

Brandon rose from his chair and crossed to the window, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet. He gazed down at the corner of Broadway and Third, the most prestigious business address in the city of Los Angeles. The trolley, delivery wagons, private coaches and eight-team oil wagons choked the intersection. Pedestrians scurried across the street, rightly fearing for their lives. Brandon pressed his palm against the warm glass of the windowpane.

Jana was coming home.

After all this time.

“Brandon?”

He turned from the window, saw Noah Carmichael standing just inside the doorway, and suspected that Noah had called his name several times. Beyond, the sound of clicking typewriter keys and muted voices drifted in through the open door as Brandon’s office staff went about their work.

“Another brilliant idea cooking in that brain of yours?” Noah asked with the easy smile their years of friendship and many successful business ventures had brought.

Brandon didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. An odd feeling for the man who, in the last five years, had built a business empire that rivaled the greatest industrialists on either coast.

Noah’s eyebrows pulled together and he tossed aside the stack of papers he’d brought into the office with him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Brandon just stared at him for a moment, then gestured lamely at his desk. Noah picked up the telegram, read it once, twice, then let it drop.

“She’s coming back?” Noah shook his head. “My God, how long has it been?”

“I’m not sure,” Brandon said. But he knew. He knew exactly.

“What are you going to do?” Noah asked.

Brandon shrugged. “Do? Why would I do anything?”

“She’s been gone all this time without a word—not a single word—and suddenly she’s returning? You have to do something.”

“She’s my wife.”

“Barely.”

Brandon turned toward the window again. He couldn’t argue with Noah. Everything he said was true.

After three months of marriage, Jana had left. Simply packed her belongings and disappeared. No warning, no notice, no explanation. He heard from her only once in a telegram a few days after her abrupt departure. She’d gone home to her aunt in San Francisco. They were leaving for Europe to visit a cousin.

And now she was coming home.

Brandon’s stomach tightened with anticipation.

His wife was coming home. After one year, two months and six days, she was coming home.

Thank God.

“I think we’re all settled now,” Jana Sayer reported as she entered the parlor of the hotel suite and gestured behind her at the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

Her aunt, Maureen Armstrong, reclined on the chaise. Tall, her dark hair showing only a hint of gray, Maureen possessed a gentle, artistic soul. She preferred her own company to that of most everyone else.

“Everything’s unpacked,” Jana said. She’d taken care of the important matters herself, then supervised the staff of servants who’d accompanied them on their transatlantic and transcontinental journeys.

“Should we order supper?” Maureen asked, looking up from the newspaper on her lap.

Jana tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear and sank into the wingback chair by the window. A heavy sigh slipped from her lips. The trip had been arduous, the day was late and she was tired.

“Nothing for me,” Jana said.

Outside, the Los Angeles rooftops darkened in the fading light. The Morgan Hotel was among the best in the city. This suite, with its lavish maroon-and-ivory decor, marble, etched glass and silk linens was its finest.

“Perhaps I’ll order a little something for myself,” Maureen mused. A moment passed before she spoke again, changing the subject. “Is it tomorrow, then?”

Jana’s heart fluttered, charging her with an unexpected surge of emotion, or energy—or something. She forced it down and drew in a calming breath.

“Yes, tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going tomorrow.”

“So soon? You’re sure you’ll be up to it?” Maureen asked in the kindly fashion of hers that always reminded Jana of brief childhood sicknesses or rainy days when her aunt stayed at her side, seemingly reading her thoughts and always making her feel better.

Maureen Armstrong had been doing just that for the past sixteen years since Jana’s parents had been killed when she was five. Never married, Maureen had raised Jana in her San Francisco mansion as her own, long-awaited child. Both had flourished in the arrangement.