Cathy Gillen - Lone Star Twins

Poppy and Trace both nodded. She, reluctantly. He, as if to say, what’s the big deal here?

Was he more like his oft-married and divorced mother in this respect than she knew? Poppy wondered uncomfortably.

Mitzy turned the page on the preprinted questionnaire she was working through. “Do you have a prenup?”

“No,” Trace said.

“We trust each other,” Poppy agreed.

Mitzy looked up. “What about an actual marriage contract, verbal or written?”

“No,” they said firmly in unison.

Mitzy tapped her pen on the page. “Surely you have some sense of exactly how this is all going to work.”

Somehow, Trace managed not to sigh—even though Poppy could feel his exasperation mounting. “I’m in the military,” he stated bluntly. “I’ll be here whenever I can, as much as I can. The rest of the time Poppy will handle everything on the home front, like most military wives.”

Military wife . Poppy kind of liked the sound of that. All possessive and gruff-tender.

Mitzy’s expression softened ever so slightly, too. “Will you come home to see them every time you get leave?”

“I always do,” Trace said.

And Poppy knew that was true. Whenever he had time off, the two of them managed to steal time together. Even when it meant they rendezvoused in a third central location.

“So in that sense—” Mitzy smiled, still writing “—nothing will change.”

Trace and Poppy nodded again.

“So is this it?” Trace asked, looking impatient. And still jet-lagged.

Another long, thoughtful pause.

“Actually,” Mitzy said, riffling through the content on her clipboard, “I have several more pages—”

Pages! Poppy thought.

“—of questions to ask for the amended home study. But I can see it’s a bad time, the two of you being on your honeymoon and all. So what do you say we get together at another time, when you have the nursery done, and finish up then?”

“What else could you possibly need to know?” Poppy asked, only half joking, getting to her feet.

Mitzy slid everything in her work bag. “Well, for one thing, we need to revisit your individual family histories.”

“We did that before,” Poppy pointed out.

“Individually. Not together. Now that you are married we have to make sure there has been full disclosure between the two of you and that there are no underlying issues there, either.”

“Sounds like a test,” Trace grumbled.

That Cheshire smile again. “It is, in a way,” Mitzy said. “So, if there’s anything you haven’t told each other—and should—now is probably the time.”

* * *

TRACE WAS ABOUT to say there was nothing he and Poppy hadn’t told each other when he caught the fleeting glimpse of unhappiness in his new wife’s eyes and realized maybe there was. What it could be, though, he had no idea.

He waited until they had showed the social worker out before voicing his concern. He cupped Poppy by the shoulders and looked down at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

Poppy extricated herself deftly, swirled, lifted the skirt of her wedding dress in both hands and headed up the stairs. “Didn’t you see the way she was looking at us?” She was fuming.

He caught sight of the layers of petticoat beneath the satin skirt. And couldn’t help wondering what was beneath that.

Casually, he caught up with her in the short hall that ran the length of the second floor of the bungalow. “Like a social worker doing her job?”

Poppy stormed into the bedroom, still in her stocking feet. Reaching behind her for the zipper, she pouted. “She thinks our marriage is a sham.”

Trace stepped in to gallantly unhook the fastening at the nape of her gown. Once that was free, the zipper came down easily. “Why?” he countered huskily. “Because she obviously figured out you and I didn’t consummate our marriage last night?”

She shivered when his fingertips grazed her bare skin. “Please don’t say it that way.”

Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “Since when have we parsed words or dealt with something other than the truth?”

Poppy raked her teeth across the delectable plumpness of her lower lip. “Never.”

“So what’s the problem, then?”

She stared at the open collar of his shirt. “The fact we didn’t make love makes us—our whole union—look suspect.”

“Well, then,” Trace drawled, taking her in his arms and doing what he should have done the night before, would have done if she hadn’t been so skittish and he hadn’t been so damned jet-lagged. “There is only one way to fix that.”

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