Karen Templeton - Marriage, Interrupted

“Sorry,”

Cass mumbled.

“For?”

“Acting like a weepy broad.”

Blake nuzzled the top of her head, his chuckle in her hair as soft and seductive as a summer breeze. “ Broad seems apt, at the moment,” he murmured, gently patting her belly.

She turned away, couldn’t back up quickly enough from the flash fire his touch ignited.

“Cass.” When she refused to turn towards him, he touched her again, this time gently hooking two fingers underneath her chin. “Cass, look at me.”

She glanced up, blinking, and saw the remnants of all the hope and promise of so many years ago. Was she seeing what was in his eyes, though, or a reflection of what was in hers?

“Whatever goes on here goes way beyond the wreck we made of our marriage,” he said. “I never stopped caring about you. About what happens to you. Even now, if there’s anything I can do…”

To Gail, still and again, for your constant support and encouragement. Not to mention giving this book a second chance and finally, a home. I literally couldn’t have done any of this without you.

And to my family, who may yet learn what the Do Not Disturb note on the office door means…although I’m not holding my breath.

I couldn’t have done this without you guys, either.

KAREN TEMPLETON,

a bestselling author and RITA ®Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty nappies are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasising about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.

She loves to hear from readers, who may reach her online at www.karentempleton.com.

Dear Reader,

After writing nearly twenty books, Marriage, Interrupted , was my first for Cherish…and I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to be included in this group of wonderful authors. For those of you who have read and enjoyed my family-oriented stories for Sensation, trust me – nothing’s changed. For those readers who might be sampling one of my stories for the first time, I hope you enjoy this tale of second chances, of good-hearted people who, being human, have made mistakes…and learned from them. And of course, about the kind of love strong enough, and stubborn enough, to withstand those mistakes.

I truly feel as though I’ve come home, and I hope, as you laugh and cry along with Cass and Blake and their anything-but-ordinary family , that you will, too.

Karen Templeton

KAREN TEMPLETON

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

On the other side of her swollen belly, Cass was reasonably sure she still had legs. Under normal circumstances, which these definitely were not, she would have waited until after the baby’s arrival to become reacquainted with her phantom appendages. However, in less than two hours, she had a funeral to attend. In a dress. Which meant pantyhose…which meant she had to shave her legs.

Through the eight-foot-tall yucca standing guard outside the window, the low-angled Albuquerque spring sun cast a spiky shadow across the master bath as she stood considering her options, her bellybutton straining the snaps on her cotton robe. They weren’t pretty, any of them. If she got in the tub, she’d never get out. If she attempted it in the shower, she’d probably break her neck. And if she sat down, she could neither bend down nor get her foot up.

Which left the sink. Cass dimly remembered performing this little trick when she’d gone into labor with Shaun a million years ago, while Blake dashed around the house doing whatever it was that had kept him out of her hair until she was ready to leave for the hospital. So this was doable. Or at least it had been when she’d been twenty and a lot looser-hipped than she was now.

Cass filled the sink, shoved the belly to one side, and heaved, grabbing at the towel rack before she toppled over. Her balance regained—physically if not mentally—she pretzled herself in order to perform her task, furious tears pricking her eyes.

God help the next man dumb enough to ask her to trust him.

First leg mowed and once again consigned to oblivion, she hauled up the other one, nicking herself above the ankle with the first swipe of the razor. Swearing, she wadded up a piece of toilet paper into a little square and smacked it against the wound.

For more than ten years, she’d resisted remarriage. To anyone. Between raising a child on her own, holding down a succession of retail jobs and finishing up her marketing degree, there’d been no time, let alone interest or enthusiasm. Loneliness, when she acknowledged it at all, was that nameless, faceless stranger standing on the corner as she zipped from day care to work to school, forgotten before the image even had a chance to fully register. Then she meets a charming, respectable, seemingly sane man at a chamber of commerce dinner, they hit it off, they start dating, she hears him offering her the few things she still occasionally allowed herself to believe she needed. Wanted.

Safety. Security. A full-time father for her son, drowning in adolescent angst. And the opportunity to have another child. Unbridled passion hadn’t been part of the deal, but, frankly, that had been fine with Cass. She no longer had the energy for passion, unbridled or otherwise, she didn’t think. Let alone all the garbage that went along with it.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice …

The bleeding had stopped. Cass quickly finished up before her hips permanently locked in that position, then, on a groan, lowered the second foot to the floor. The baby kicked; her hand went to her tummy, soothing and stroking.

Well. She’d gotten the child, at least.

Copious, angry tears surged from what she’d thought was a dry well. She slammed the heel of her hand against the sink, then dropped onto the toilet lid, stifling her sobs in her stinging palm. How could she have made virtually the same mistake a second time? How? Other women could see beyond the surface, past the charm and the promises and the compliments. Why couldn’t she?

“Cassie, sweetheart—is everything all right?”

Cass yanked off a yard or two of toilet paper to blow her nose. Talk about your major ironies. Despite everything, Cass adored Alan’s zany, exuberant mother, who had been in residence long before the marriage. Not even the louse’s deception could change that.

And to your left, folks, we have the grieving widow .

Yeah, well, she somehow doubted she was the first woman since Eve to link the words louse and dead husband .

Cass swiped at her face with the heel of her hand, willing her voice steady enough to call out, “Yeah, Cille. I’m fine.”

“And I’m one of the Olsen twins,” she rasped through the closed door. “So open the door before I break it down.”

At four-foot-something, and maybe ninety pounds after a full meal, eighty-year-old Lucille Stern would be hard put to break down a doggy gate. Cass struggled to her feet, then waddled over to the bathroom door, opening it to a sight guaranteed to obliterate self-pity.

Reeking of mothballs and Joy perfume, Lucille stood with fists planted on bony hips swallowed up inside a hooker-red satin dress, complete with a mandarin collar and side slits. A tilt of her head made rhinestone earrings the size of manhole covers flash in the streak of sunlight knifing down the hall. She squinted up at Cass through stubby, mascara-clumped lashes.