Anna Adams - The Marriage Contract

“Have you heard the terms of my father’s will?”

Clair shook her head. Nick’s words, “give your house back,” echoed in her head, the rasp of his tone burrowing deeper into her mind.

“Jeff left everything to me,” he said absently, as if he’d forgotten she was listening. “But there were stipulations. He said I have to marry. Fall in love and marry within twelve months.”

Only Jeff Dylan would be arrogant enough to believe he could regulate love. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I want you to marry me. If you pretend to be my loving wife for twelve months, I’ll sign your house over to you.”

“You must know other women. What’s wrong with them?”

He laughed without joy or happiness. “I know other women, but I don’t want to marry any of them. I don’t want to start a marriage with someone who’d expect it to last. Can you imagine you’ll want to stay married to me?”

Her stomach knotted. “No.”

“Then you’re the wife I want.”

Dear Reader,

I grew up in a loud, loving, extended family. My aunts and uncles continue to love me as if I’m theirs, and I can’t really tell my cousins from my own siblings. I know how lucky I am.

How many of you live away from your family, as I do now? Clair, my heroine in this book, shares my longing for hearth and home, for seeing the faces of people who belong to her as she belongs to them. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about Clair and her not-so-convenient husband, Nick Dylan. Out of a marriage contract, they build a life and home and best of all, an extended community family of their own.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this story, please feel free to write to me at P.O. Box 801068, Acworth, GA 30101 or annaadams@superauthors.com

Sincerely,

Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sylvia, in memory of Becky.

I hope that soon the joy of her life

eases the pain of your loss.

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

EPILOGUE

NICK DYLAN lifted his glass to the orange sun that glinted through his father’s library window. No. His window. He’d buried his father that morning. Uneven panes of glass twisted the October light, destroyed his perspective of the coming sunset, much as his father’s life had twisted Nick’s outlook on his own existence.

But not on his future. Senator Jeffrey Dylan had no right to Nick’s future.

The library door opened behind him, and a man’s footsteps preceded a gruff voice. “Dr. Dylan, why didn’t you accompany your mother to Mr. Thomas’s office?”

Nick’s temples throbbed. “Leota went without me?” He turned away from the window. His mother’s decision to go alone didn’t surprise him.

He looked at Hunter, who’d run the family home here in Fairlove, Virginia, since before Nick was born. Stubble etched the older man’s face. Though he wore his usual, perfectly pressed navy suit, Hunter’s inattention to his beard was as good a sign as any of the grief that darkened this house.

Grief Nick couldn’t feel. He mourned his father’s lifelong disappointment in him, mourned the relationship he’d never won. Maybe he’d been wrong not to compromise more, not to find a way to be the son his father had tried to make him.

“I saw the limo turn out of the driveway. I thought you were with her, sir,” Hunter said.

“Maybe she didn’t want to wait for me. You know she likes to be early for her appointments.” Nick tried to cover up the unease between himself and Leota. Her anger, a freewheeling, almost tangible entity, had grown with every passing second in the three days since his father’s death. When Hunter had called to tell him about the brandy and sleeping pills he’d found on Leota’s nightstand, Nick had moved back into this house. Though Nick and his mother were not close, he loved her. He wanted to care for her.

“I assumed she’d want your support, sir.” Hunter straightened. “Perhaps she needed a moment to herself.”

Crossing the Oriental rug, which muffled his footsteps on the wide plank floor, Nick tossed back the Scotch he’d poured himself. He set the tumbler on the tray that always stood beside his father’s favorite leather armchair, grimacing as the alcohol scalded his throat. “Maybe I can catch up with her.”

“Sir—”

“I wish you’d stop calling me that. Nothing’s changed between us since Jeff died.”

“I feel awkward calling you Mr. Nick.”

At thirty-two, Nick had almost forgotten the title Hunter had used when he was a child. “Try just ‘Nick.’ You’ve managed not to call me anything for the year I’ve been back in town.”

Hunter’s self-conscious smile looked sad. “I’ll try.”

Nick fought an overwhelming urge to hug the other man. He’d last hugged Hunter on the morning his father had sent him away to boarding school. Hunter, the only man who’d shown him affection. Far more of a father to him than Jeff had ever been.

“If, for some reason, Leota didn’t go to Wilford’s office and she calls here, will you let me know?”

“She’ll be there.” Hunter sounded certain. “Despite her grief, she must be curious about your father’s last wishes.”

Or else she dreaded finding out what Jeff might have planned for them—the housemaid he’d married because she was pregnant and the son who’d almost been born a bastard. Nick grunted agreement. He glanced back at the older man as he curved his hand around the ornate library door frame.

“Get some rest,” he said, uncomfortable with Hunter’s sorrow. How deeply had he cared for his difficult employer? Nick had never discussed Hunter’s feelings for Jeff, because he couldn’t define his own.

The older man had been a refuge of stability for Nick. His presence had buffered Nick from Jeff, who’d found Hunter difficult to criticize.

Nick paused in the wide parquet-floored hall. He owed Hunter more than a caution to rest. He should ask straight out how the other man felt. A normal caring human being would ask the question. And once he crossed the final emotional minefield of his father’s will, he believed he could begin to live like a normal human being. If he survived without a mortal blow, he’d come back here and ask Hunter to join him in a beer.

Nick hurried through the double front doors and then strode down the brick steps to his battered Jeep. The old green car was parked on one side of the curving drive like a poor relative, hoping for a kind welcome. Last night, after the limo driver had brought them back from the family visitation at the funeral home, Leota had suggested Nick hide his eyesore of a vehicle in the garage, or better yet, in one of the empty barns on the property.

Putting the Jeep in the garage would have made it appear he’d come home to stay. And though he’d never admitted it to another living soul, home wasn’t a place where he felt comfortable.

He pushed his key into the ignition. As the engine coughed to life, he watched the lights starting to come on in the town below. From up here on Dylan property, Fairlove looked quaint and warm.

Appearances were deceiving. Since he’d come back to Fairlove, Nick had lived in a small house just two doors from Saint Theresa’s—the church parking lot was where Hunter had taught him to ride his bike. For the past twelve months, Nick had attended countless school-board meetings and potluck suppers. He’d “doctored” townspeople who came to him only as their last resort, and he’d tried to turn himself into one of Fairlove’s ordinary citizens. But the townspeople couldn’t seem to forget he was a Dylan and therefore the last physician they wanted to treat their sore throats, arthritis or lumbago.