Judith McWilliams - Instant Husband

“Um, about what I said…What I meant was that I wouldn’t…I mean…we are married and…”

Nick’s garbled words slowly filtered through the miasma of unhappiness that surrounded her, and Ann forced herself to look at him. The muscles along his jaw were corded and there was a dull red flush underlying his deep tan. As if…he were embarrassed?

The unexpected idea shook Ann free from her own feelings long enough to consider his. Could his offer be the result of embarrassment at the necessity of articulating his emotional needs, rather than a lack of respect or interest in her as a person? It was possible, she conceded. She didn’t know him well enough to be able to say.

All Maggie had told her about Nick were bare facts. Facts about his emotionally starved childhood, facts about his disastrous first marriage, facts about his problems in dealing with the unexpected arrival of his daughter. What Maggie hadn’t been able to tell her was how those facts had shaped him emotionally. How they had shaped his thought processes. She would have to figure that out for herself.

Which left her where? Ann tried to think. Her brand-new husband had suggested that he wouldn’t be averse to having sex with her. She didn’t like the fact that he was thinking in terms of sex while she thought in terms of making love, but maybe that was the way men thought.

A discouraged sigh escaped her. What she didn’t know about men in general and this man in particular would fill a book.

“But, of course, if you don’t…” Nick responded to what he thought was the reason for her sigh. “I mean I can understand that you might not…”

Ann found his disjointed words somehow comforting. He didn’t appear to be any more sure of himself than she was. In fact, if anything, he seemed to be virtually inarticulate when it came to expressing his emotions.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to…” Ann refused to say “have sex” because it sounded so impersonal and dehumanizing, but she didn’t want to say “make love” for fear that he might think that she expected more from him than he had to give. “It’s just that I don’t know you very well and…that’s so…personal,” she finally muttered.

“Not necessarily.” Nick’s bitter tone shocked her. “How about if we leave it for the time being, and when you feel you know me well enough, you tell me and we can take it from there.”

“Okay,” Ann said weakly, trying to envision a set of circumstances where she walked up to Nick and told him she wanted to go to bed with him. To pull off that kind of bluntness took more sophistication than she possessed— than she was ever likely to possess.

“Good.” Nick’s voice sounded overly hearty to Ann. “Now that we’ve settled that, I’d better go help Snake check out the fencing.”

“What about lunch?” she asked as he swung back up into the saddle.

“Snake always brings sandwiches for both of us. It saves us the time of coming back to the ranch. I’ll be back for dinner about five.” Turning Joe around, he headed toward the pasture behind the house at a brisk trot.

Ann watched him until he was out of sight, and then she turned back to the house.

She was fast coming to the conclusion that she hadn’t solved her problems by marrying Nick, she’d simply exchanged one set for another. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t eventually solve them, she assured herself, trying hard to believe it. She was a bright, educated woman of the nineties. Surely she could think of some way to turn their marriage into a viable one. Preferably before Nick’s daughter arrived on the scene. It was going to be hard enough trying to hammer out some kind of relationship with Nick on her own, but to try to do it under the watchful eye of a teenager who might well be hostile…

She needed to get organized, Ann told herself. To come up with a solid plan. To direct events along the lines she wanted them to go instead of simply reacting to what Nick did.

Ann shoved open the back door in determination. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy. She was hampered by both her own innate shyness and Nick’s bone-deep reserve. Her gut feeling was that Nick was never going to be comfortable expressing his feelings. But when she remembered how eloquent her first husband had been about how much she had meant to him—and how every word of it had been a lie—she wasn’t sure she minded Nick’s reticence.

And in the meantime, there was plenty she could do. She walked into the living room and looked around with a jaundiced eye. A combination of litter and dust covered every square inch of every available surface, and dust bunnies were colonizing the corners.

She shook her head in disgust. It would take days to correct what looked like years of neglect. But the nice thing about cleaning was that it would leave her mind free, she thought in satisfaction. Free to plan out the specifics of her campaign.

* * *

When Ann staggered out of bed at five-thirty the following morning in response to the alarm’s jarring summons, she was buoyed by a feeling of cautious optimism. Thanks to a great deal of hard thought, she now had a cohesive plan of action and its structure gave her a budding sense of security—of something to hold on to in the strange new world she found herself in.

Determined to get down to the kitchen before Nick, Ann scrambled into black jeans, a yellow T-shirt and a heavy green sweatshirt while she mentally reviewed the first plank in her campaign—communication. If she were ever going to get to know Nick, they were going to have to talk. She frowned as she picked up her hairbrush, remembering last night.

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