Christine Rimmer - The Millionaire She Married

Her customer ran a hand over the fabric. “Soft.”

“And durable, too. Three hundred thread count. The finest quality combed cotton, cool in summer, cozy in winter.” Jenna slid a glance at Mack. He was watching her. Waiting.

And he’ll just have to wait a little longer, she thought. “Come this way.” She indicated a display near the far wall. “I have more from this designer. Tell me what you think….”

A few minutes later, Jenna closed a sale of sheets, pillowcases, shams and a comforter. As soon as she rang that one up, there was someone new to wait on. And someone else after that. Since one of her clerks had the day off and the other had taken a two-hour lunch in order to handle a few personal errands, all the customers were Jenna’s. And Jenna never liked to make a customer wait.

Still, she could have stolen a moment for the civilities, a moment for hello-how-are-you. An opportunity to find out why Mack had come. She didn’t do that. Because she was stalling, foolishly hoping he might just give up and leave.

But no. He wandered the room, examining her merchandise as if he actually intended to buy something. He seemed…very patient, quite willing to wait until she had time to deal with him.

His patience bothered her almost as much as his sudden appearance in her shop. The Mack she had known had been far from a patient man.

But things had changed since then. Back then, Mack McGarrity had been a man on a mission. He’d been determined to carve out his niche in the world and he’d driven himself relentlessly toward that goal. Now he had millions.

Maybe having lots of money meant you could afford even more than a mansion in the Florida Keys and a forty-six-foot fishing boat. Maybe having lots of money meant you could afford to wait.

Or at least, maybe it had done that for Mack McGarrity.

The thought probably should have pleased her. For a man like Mack to learn patience—that was a good thing.

But it didn’t please her. It made her nervous. Mack had always been relentless. To think that he might now be patient as well could cause her considerable difficulty if, for some reason, he decided to use those characteristics against her.

But why would he do that?

She didn’t want to know—which was why she kept stalling, kept letting him wait.

Nearly an hour after Mack entered the shop, Jenna found herself alone with him—save for an elderly woman who came in often to browse. The nice old lady took her time, as usual. Finally she settled on a three-piece set of needlepoint antimacassars. Jenna rang up the sale and counted out change.

“Thank you so much. Come back again,” Jenna said as she walked her customer to the door.

“Oh, you know I will, dear. I love your little shop.” A cagey grin appeared on the woman’s puckered rosebud of a mouth. “And you always do pay such lovely attention to me when I visit.”

Jenna pulled open the door. To the accompaniment of the shop’s buzzer, her customer toddled outside, turning to wave as she made her way up the street. Jenna stepped onto the sidewalk to wave back. Stalling.

And then the time had come. Jenna went inside again and shut the door.

Mack had moved into the central aisle, only a few feet away from her. She felt cornered, so near the door that she kept triggering the buzzer, but distressingly reluctant to move closer to him.

He had the courtesy to back up a few paces. She moved warily toward him and the buzzing ceased.

There was silence.

She had to force herself to say his name. “Hello, Mack.”

“Hello, Jenna.”

She stared into his face, a tanned face now, with the creases around the eyes a little deeper than before. His light brown hair was still cut no-nonsense short, but more time in the sun had given it gold highlights. His eyebrows, too, had gone gold at the tips.

He looked good. He really did.

And she had been staring too long. She cut her eyes away, not sure what to say next.

She wanted to demand, What are you doing here? To order, Go away, and don’t come back. To insist, I have my own life now. I run my own life. It’s a good life, and it doesn’t include you.

But she knew that if she said those things, she would only sound defensive, would only put herself at a disadvantage right from the start. So the uncomfortable silence continued for several more agonizing seconds.

At last he spoke. “Struck speechless at the sight of me, huh?”

She met his eyes directly, sucked in a breath and forced out a brisk reply. “Well, I have to admit, I don’t understand why you’re here. Key West is a long way from Meadow Valley, California.”

Key West. She never would have believed it. Mack, the ultimate workaholic lawyer, living in the tropics, drifting around the Gulf of Mexico in that boat of his. The idea of her driven, success-obsessed husband—correction, ex-husband—drifting anywhere seemed a complete contradiction in terms.

And she wished he’d quit looking at her with that amused and embarrassingly knowing expression, quit making her feel so…young and awkward. As if she were twenty-one again, a lonely college girl far from home, instead of the mature, settled, self-possessed thirty she was now.

What was it about him? How did he do it? It had been seven years since she’d seen him face-to-face, and five since their divorce should have been final. Still, right now, staring at him, with him staring back at her, she felt exposed. Raw. As if the mere sight of him had ripped open old and still-festering wounds—wounds she’d been certain had healed long ago.

It had been hard enough to pick up the phone and call him, after tracking him down through one of his colleagues at his old law firm. Hard enough to talk to him again, to hear his voice, to ask him to send her the papers she needed.

When she’d hung up, she’d told herself, Well, at least that’s done.

But now here she was. Face-to-face with him, feeling raw and wounded. Breathless and confused.

It shouldn’t be like this, and she knew it. All the hurt and recriminations were long past, not to mention the yearning, the tenderness, the love.

By now she should be able to smile at him, to feel reasonably at ease, to ask calmly if he’d brought her the papers.

The papers. Yes. That was the question.

She cleared her throat. “Did you…decide to bring the papers in person, is that it? It really wasn’t necessary, Mack. Not necessary at all.”

He didn’t reply immediately, only kept looking at her. Looking at her so intently, causing that weakness in her knees and a certain disturbing fluttering in her solar plexus.

Now she wanted to shout at him, Answer me! Where are those papers?

But then the buzzer sounded again. Jenna glanced over her shoulder, pasted on a smile. “I’ll be right with you.”

“No hurry.” The new customer, a well-dressed, fortyish woman, detoured toward a display of afghans and furniture scarves hung from quilt stands along the side wall.

Jenna looked back at Mack. He glanced toward the woman over by the afghans, then spoke in a low voice. “I want to talk to you. Alone.”

“No!” The word came out all wrong. It sounded frantic and desperate.

“Yes.” Lower still and very soft. Gentle. Yet utterly unyielding.

“Miss?” The customer was fingering the fringe of a piano shawl. “There’s no price tag on this one.”

Jenna realized she was scowling. As she glanced toward her customer, she rearranged her face into a bright smile. “I’ll be right there. Just one moment.” She turned to Mack again, the cheerful smile mutating instantly back to a scowl. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“I think we do.”

“You can’t just—” Her voice had risen. She cut herself off, got herself back under control, then went on in an intense whisper. “You can’t just wander in here after all these years and expect me to—”