Kathleen O'Brien - The Husband Contract

She stood up though her legs were shaking. She couldn’t listen to another word. Tucking her cardboard helmet under her elbow, she threw her head back, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. She had expected to be hurt, but this… This was worse than anything she had imagined.

“Listen carefully, Mr. Logan,” she said, enunciating each word clearly. “I want you to tell my uncle’s executor, whoever this paragon might be, that I intend to claim my inheritance. The Romeo Ruby belonged to my parents. When they died, my uncle took everything that should have come to us—”

“Their wills named him as beneficiary,” Clay interjected reasonably.

“Perhaps,” she said coldly, “but they meant for him to look after it for us. I’m quite sure it never occurred to my parents that my uncle would try to disinherit Nick and me.”

He waited, not contradicting her. How could he? He must know it was true.

“So you tell my uncle’s executor that I expected something like this. Tell him I’ve already hired a lawyer, and he’s going to break this will.” She narrowed her eyes. “Tell him that I’m not going to lower myself to prove anything to anyone, especially not to any man who’d participate in such a contemptible charade as this.”

Clay was smiling, a strangely charming, lopsided grin that created a small dimple where his cheek met his jaw. She scowled at him. What the devil was so funny?

“I mean it, Mr. Logan. If a snake like that thinks he can actually pass judgment on my life, my decisions, my maturity…”

Her words faltered as a sudden suspicion settled cold and thick in her stomach. She folded her arms across her waist and tried not to shiver.

“All right, I’ll bite. Why the smile? Who’s the executor? Just who is low enough to be my uncle’s accomplice in this farce?”

Clay tilted his head. A ray of sunlight fingered its way through the trees and struck golden highlights into his hair. He was still smiling, his cheek still dimpling.

“I’m sorry, Melanie,” he said quietly. “It’s me.”

“OH, BLAST all!” Melanie balefully eyed the charred bread sticks on the pan in front of her. “Just look at this,” she said, raising her voice so that it could be heard in the adjacent living room. “I burned them. Damn that man!”

Ted Martin, who was spread out comfortably on her sofa watching a basketball game on television, lifted his blond head. “Who?”

“Clay Logan, of course. Who else?” She picked up one of the blackened twists, which was the consistency of a hockey stick, and knocked it against the counter.

It felt perversely gratifying to hit something. Today had been a very, very bad day. Only forty-eight hours after receiving a copy of Joshua Browning’s will, Melanie’s lawyer had called this afternoon with the tragic news. However medieval it might seem, the will appeared to be ironclad. Clay Logan was too good to have left any loopholes.

Her lawyer had been sympathetic, but the bottom line was that he just couldn’t agree to take the case on a contingency basis—the odds of winning were too slim. His best advice, he said, was that she should negotiate with Logan, who was by all accounts a tough lawyer but a fair and just human being.

Well, not by all accounts. If anyone had asked her, the report would have been a great deal less flattering. She wasn’t ready to agree he was a human being at all.

She whacked the bread stick one last time. “Damn, damn, damn the man. May his grandchildren be cross-eyed. May all his dogs have fleas.”

With a resigned sigh, Ted sat up and turned off the television. “Why? Logan didn’t make you burn the bread, did he?”

She came to the doorway, scowling. “Of course he did.”

“How?” Ted ambled into the kitchen and extracted a fat strawberry from the pie on the windowsill. “Did he break in and sabotage the oven thermostat?”

“He might as well have.” Melanie pulled the strawberry from his fingers just an inch short of his lips. “Honestly, Ted, you’re as bad as Nick.” She tucked the berry back into its cradle of whipped cream. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes—I curse Clay Logan and all his dogs because he’s an insufferable man, and I hate him. I’m so busy hating him, in fact, that I’ve ruined a perfectly good dinner.”

“No, you didn’t. The spaghetti’s fine. And I made one hell of a salad. Let’s eat.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t. I hate Logan too much to eat.”

“Good. More for me.” Ted reached around her to rummage for utensils. “But seriously, are you sure it’s Logan you’re mad at, Mel? He was just the hired gun, wasn’t he? The will itself is your problem—and that was your uncle’s idea.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” She knew Ted was right, but her annoyance was no less intense for being irrational. She could still see how Logan had looked at the chess match the other day, sizing her up, obviously deciding that Joshua had been right. “But I wish you could have seen his face when he told me. He was the hired gun all right, and he thoroughly enjoyed pulling the trigger.”

“Well, that dirty rat!” Ted’s attempt at a gangster accent failed miserably. “I’ll stab him in the alley like the dog he is.” He tossed silverware nosily. “Or I would if I could find a damn knife.”

Melanie patted his forearm affectionately. Good old Ted—she thanked heaven for his support this past year. It had been a tough year for both of them. Ted’s fiancée had left him last summer, a break that had wounded him more deeply than he liked to acknowledge. And at about the same time, Melanie’s life had been turned upside down by the arrival of her little brother, who had decided he could no longer tolerate living with his domineering Uncle Joshua.

Melanie herself had escaped Uncle Joshua’s tyranny years ago, running away when she was only sixteen, but Nick had stayed with the old man until last year, when their relationship finally grew so stormy that the boy had sought sanctuary with Melanie.

As the dean of boys at Wakefield, Ted had heard about Nick’s change of address immediately and phoned Melanie for a conference. Since then, Ted had become her best friend. She’d rested her woes on his shoulders a hundred times.

And nice shoulders they were, too—trim and solid and warm. She wondered, not for the first time, why their relationship had never blossomed into a romance. Perhaps Ted wasn’t over Sheila yet—Melanie suspected he might never forget his former fiancée. But Melanie didn’t mind. In spite of Ted’s many charms, she had never felt anything more than friendship toward him. No leap of flame. Not even a tiny wriggle of heat.

The sad truth was, she’d felt more sexual awareness watching Clay Logan launder his shirt with his lips today than she ever had here in Ted Martin’s arms.

Yes, life was just a charming little bundle of ironies, wasn’t it?

Still, his big brother comfort was just what she needed now, when her heart was so sore. Who would have guessed she would find her uncle’s death so unnerving? Was it possible she had been harboring hopes of an eventual reconciliation?

Surely not. She might be naive, immature, impractical—all the things Joshua had accused her of—but she wasn’t a complete idiot. She’d given up yearning for his love years ago. Now she merely wanted justice.

Still—suddenly she couldn’t bear the memories of her uncle. Joshua, bent over his dusty old maps. Joshua, barking into his cellular telephone. Joshua studying the financial pages. Joshua, completely ignoring the little girl waiting in the doorway.

She caught her breath, stunned by the wave of sorrow that overwhelmed her. Instantly aware, Ted dropped the flatware and wrapped his arms around her gently.