Christine Rimmer - The Millionaire She Married

Logan said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just…really need to talk to you.”

“I’ll be over right away.”

Lacey decided to make herself scarce. As she went out the door, she advised, “Don’t wait up—and don’t you dare chicken out this time.”

“I won’t,” Jenna replied, sounding a lot more confident than she felt.

Logan arrived five minutes later. Jenna led him to the back parlor, the big, comfortable room off the kitchen, where the family had always gathered. He sat on the roomy dark green convertible sofa and looked up at her, a worried frown creasing his brow. “This is about whatever’s been bothering you for the past week, isn’t it?”

She sat down beside him. “Yes.”

He turned toward her, still frowning. In his somber expression she saw his concern for her. And his love. “You know that whatever it is, you can tell me, don’t you?”

“I know. I just…”

“You know that I love you?”

“I do. And I love you.” It was true. She did love him.

But not in the way she had loved Mack McGarrity.

And that did bother her. It bothered her terribly.

“Logan, I wonder…?”

“Yes?”

“Would you…kiss me? Really kiss me?”

He sat back from her a little. “Kiss you? I thought you were going to tell me—”

She put three fingers lightly against his lips, to silence him. “I will. I’ll tell you. I’ll explain everything. Just…would you please kiss me first?”

His dark gaze scanned her face. “Kiss you.”

“Yes. Please.”

His expression softened a little, the worried frown fading. He slid an arm around her shoulder and gently, with the tip of a finger, tipped her mouth up to his.

Light as a breath, his lips met hers. His mouth was warm and soft and his big arms cradled her cherishingly.

She closed her eyes and tried to give herself fully to the act of kissing him, sliding her hands up his broad chest, allowing her lips to part, inviting him to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth.

Jenna sighed. But she knew as the small, tender sound escaped her that it was a fake sigh, a forced sigh, an effort to convince herself—and Logan, too—that she was an eager participant in this.

Jenna closed her eyes tighter, kissed him back harder, tried to call up memories of when they’d been teenagers.

Teenagers necking in the front seat of his car.

It had been exciting then, hadn’t it? She was certain it had.

But now wasn’t then.

Between now and then, there had been Mack.

Mack.

That did it. Just the thought of his name.

Jenna shoved at Logan’s chest.

Startled, Logan pulled away enough to look down at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He still had his arms around her. She felt trapped there, all wrong there. “Please. Let go.”

He released her and sat back. “Jenna. What the hell is going on here?”

“I…I don’t think I can marry you, Logan.” She didn’t know she was going to say it until after the words were out. And then, once she had said it, she stared at him, stunned at what she herself had just uttered.

Logan stared back at her, bewildered. And hurt.

“Why not?”

She took his hand and looked into his face, right into his eyes. “You are such a good man. A kind man. A man who wants just what I want. A man I could always count on to be there when I needed him…”

“Then why can’t you marry me?”

“Because this…you and me…it just isn’t right for me.”

His dark eyes were shining, a shine that very well might have come from unshed tears. Jenna watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed, forcing down the emotions a man hesitates to reveal.

When he spoke, as always, he strove for calm and reason. “And how did you come to this realization?”

She looked away, and then back. And then, finally, she made herself say it. “Mack’s in town. He’s refused to sign the divorce papers unless I spend two weeks with him first.”

Logan swore under his breath. Then he asked, carefully, “How long has he been here?”

“A week.”

“And you…didn’t feel you could tell me?”

“I kept hoping he’d give up and go away. I’m furious with him, and I can’t believe he’s doing this and…I just wanted it to all be over before I said anything to you.”

“But it’s not over.”

Jenna hitched in a tight breath. “No. It’s not.”

“You’re talking about more than just the divorce papers, aren’t you? You’re talking about you and him.”

Jenna wished with all her heart that she didn’t have to answer that. But she knew that she did.

“I believed it was over, between Mack and me,” she said. “I swear I did, or I never would have said yes when you asked me to marry you.”

“But…?”

“But the minute I saw him again…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to get back together with him. It could never work out. But there is unfinished business between Mack McGarrity and me. And I think I’m going to have to take care of it.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that you’ll do what he wants you to do, that you’ll actually go away with him!”

Jenna swallowed. “I…it’s possible. I just might.”

Logan held her hand more tightly, squeezing the fingers hard enough that she winced. “Jenna. Look what’s going on here, look at the way he’s maneuvering you. He’s a manipulative S.O.B.”

Gently Jenna pulled her hand free. “Lacey more or less called him the same thing.”

“It looks like this is one situation where Lacey and I actually agree.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t know him. He lost his parents when he was very young. He never had a real family. He grew up in foster homes. He had to scratch and scuffle for everything he ever got. When he wants something, he goes after it, any way he has to.”

“And he’s decided, after all this time, that he wants you?”

“I can’t read his mind. But I do know there was a time when he and I shared something very special. He told me last Friday that he was trying to come to grips with what went wrong.”

“He’s chosen a hell of a way to go about it.”

“As I said, it’s the only way he knows.”

Logan made a low noise in his throat. “Listen to you. Defending him.”

She put her hand against the side of his face, longing to make him understand. “Logan. I have to do this.”

Scowling, he ducked away from her touch. “I think it’s time I had a nice long talk with that—”

“Please. Don’t.”

“Jenna. He’s forced you into this.”

“No. No, he hasn’t. I don’t have to go with him. I could divorce him all over again. It might take time, but it wouldn’t take forever. If I go away with him, it will be because I choose to do it. For myself.”

Logan looked at her piercingly. “You’re sure?”

“I am.” She slid the ring off her finger and held it out.

“Keep it,” Logan said.

“No. That wouldn’t be right.”

Reluctantly he took it. A few minutes later, she walked him to the door.

And ten minutes after that, she was walking out herself. She got into her car and headed straight for the Northern Empire Inn. She knew the way. The inn was a Meadow Valley landmark, built over a century before.

She was lucky. She found a parking space near the front entrance. The fine old wood floors creaked a little under her feet as she strode through the foyer and up to the front desk.

“Mack McGarrity’s room, please.”

The desk clerk, who looked about twenty and had big brown eyes, smiled at her sweetly. “I’ll ring his room and tell him he has a visitor. Your name, please?”