The Unwilling Bride (12 page)

It was an unbearably frightening risk, to give her exactly what she’d asked him for. He was leaving, disappearing from her life soon, and she would no longer have to worry about him causing her problems in any way. While they were romping in the snow, he hadn’t wanted to give her time to think about that.

But as he turned around and left her, he hoped, he violently hoped, that she took plenty of time to think about it now. Paige had to decide what mattered to her. There was no forcing love. She was the only one who could define the nature of love and loyalty in her own heart.

From the den window, Paige could see the lumpy blob their snowman had melted into. The yard was no longer pristine white, but slushy-mucky soup, and typical of March, a wild, screaming wind had howled
incessantly all day. The wind rattled the eaves and made her nerves rattle right along with it.

She wasn’t exactly sure when February had sneaked into March, but the lion winds kept roaring in her mind as if it were a reminder that Stefan was leaving.

Soon. Very soon now.

“Cookie, could you define ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ for me?”

“No. Not now.”
Star Trek
was showing one of the priceless episodes with Q, but neither of them turned on the tube. Stefan had asked her if she’d mind looking over the forms involved in all his citizen papers. She’d said sure. He’d brought over some history tomes to keep himself occupied while she studied the forms. So far the history tomes weren’t keeping him busy. And nothing was keeping him quiet.

“Well, I have a serious question about the freedom of religion. I mean…what if someone has religious beliefs about using drugs? Or about conducting services in the nude? If it is actually someone’s religion—even if those beliefs could cause medical or personal harm or offend others—this is really still okay?”

“Button it, Stefan. I’m onto you. You already know ten times more about the constitution than any American I ever met. You don’t need me to help you interpret a damn thing—you just love discussing that stuff. And I do, too, but I can’t concentrate on these papers if you keep
talking
to me. Now if you say one more word—even one teensy-weensy tiny word—I am going to strangle you with pillows until you are dead, dead, dead.”

“Hmm. Is there any chance this means you don’t want to explain ‘probable cause’ right this minute?”

She hurled a tapestry pillow toward his face at torpedo speed. Since he was only sitting on the other side of the couch, the pillow easily had enough momentum to thwack him good. He made an
oomph
sound when it collided, but when he lifted off the pillow, his grin was exasperatingly male, unrepentant and irrepressible.

“I’ll be good,” he vowed.

“I’ll only believe that if I can get it in blood, duckie.”

“Get it in blood?”

“A slang phrase. A blood promise means you really mean it. And the ‘duckie’ was just your simple, basic American insult. Although trying to insult you is like trying to get through cement, in your case.”

“Aaah.”

Another mischievous grin. She responded by rolling her eyes—and pointing her finger toward the door. “That’s it. I’ve had it with you, you big nuisance. Out, out, out.”

“You’re throwing me out?” His tone sounded injured, and he hammed up his hurt feelings by covering his heart with a big, splayed hand.

“You bet your sweet bippy I am. Go walk around. Go raid the fridge. Go do whatever you have to do to vent some of that physical energy. Just give me fifteen minutes of solid quiet to wade through this stuff.”

“Okeydoke, my darling.”

Paige ignored that “darling” and forced her attention to the sea of papers, which were strewn every which way from her lap to the floor. She had no idea so much was involved in becoming a U.S. citizen. Stefan had a lawyer. He hadn’t asked for or expected her help at any legal level, but nothing in the American
language had prepared him for legalese. He was just hoping she might be able to translate some of the forms, but there seemed to be a million of them—all in triplicate—involving terms like “work authorization” and “petitioner letters” and “diversity visas.” She had to study a mountain to even have a clue what those terms meant.

Absently her fingers reached up to stroke the cameo at her throat. The cameo happened to be an old-fashioned garbo—meaning oval-shaped—and was the first one she’d made from a cowrie shell. The cameo was pinned to a high-necked ivory blouse with a flutter of lace, and paired with a longish camel skirt. Nothing formal or fancy, but it wasn’t as if there was a
rule
she had to wear jeans every day. She’d just felt like wearing a skirt. She’d just felt like putting on a little blush, and Shalimar, and for no reason at all had just been in a mood to leave her hair down.

Stefan hadn’t seemed to notice. Not the hair down, not the cameo, not the skirt. It didn’t hurt, she told herself. For days now, they’d had a great time together, bickering and talking and treating each other as if they were brother and sister. She was thrilled, downright thrilled, that he’d cooled down. It was good he was leaving. Good for him, good for her. Their attachment had been too intense, too dangerous, too begging-for-heartbreak risky.

But damn if her heart wasn’t breaking. Breaking like silver splinters, fragile, sharp, causing an aching pain that she couldn’t seem to shake. A good woman, she’d told herself a thousand times, had the willpower and character to do what was right and ignore something stupid and unbearable like heartbreak.

It was safer this way. When he got himself established, settled down, she had no doubt that a ton of women would come flocking. He would not be lonely for long. He’d find the right woman, someone who matched him in courage and spirit. She could never have lived with herself if she failed Stefan, and she’d always believed that she only appealed to him because he was alone and she was convenient.

Convenient.

A phrase suddenly leaped out of her from the sea of papers. Cripes, they were a mess. Files five and six inches thick. Tons of legalese, and she’d had to wade through the whole first batch before understanding that Stefan had something called a Diversity Visa. Apparently this special type of visa was made possible through the Immigration Act of 1990, which opened the country’s doors to certain people with extraordinary skills or education. It was no surprise to Paige that Stefan had easily been singled out as uniquely valuable.

She could have told ’em that without his having to fill out all those blasted forms.

Still. Getting in and staying in were two different issues. Paige waded through more files, slowly picking up the rules and complications involved in his becoming a naturalized citizen. The surest route was if the immigrant applying for citizenship had a U.S. relative to sponsor him—but no blood relationship except for father and brother applied. His distant cousins couldn’t help him there.

She only found one other sure way. Her gaze leaped to the page she had clenched in her left hand. Minutes before, the phrase had drawn her attention like a magnet. It was just a set of words. “If married to a
U.S. citizen, the spouse can petition on the alien’s behalf…”

A lump filled her throat as she read further. Every paragraph and clause made the issue clearer. If he were married—or chose to marry—an American, his bid for naturalized citizenship would not only be faster, but be about guaranteed.

It would really be “convenient” for him to have an American wife.

Paige strongly suspected that Stefan knew that. This whole mound of files was partly a measure of how fiercely he wanted to become an American. She couldn’t help but think of all the emotional and personal prices Stefan had paid to come here. And he had a long history of doing whatever he had to, when a goal that really mattered to him was at stake.

“Hey.”

She swallowed quickly, painfully, when she heard his voice. And looked up.

“I was going to be good and not interrupt you—this is truth, I swear! But I wandered into your workroom. I didn’t see your jade cameo and I wondered what happened to it.”

“You’re right. It’s gone. I packed it up last week and mailed it to Harry…he’s the man who markets all my stuff. I’m pretty sure I told you about him before-”

Stefan stepped into the room. “You mean it’s on its way to be sold?”

“Yup.”

“You would give away the jade?” he asked disbelievingly.

He made it sound as though she was giving away something precious. She had no way to explain that
she simply needed it out of her sight. She was twenty-seven, old enough to live her life based on principles and truth. And way too old to believe in fairy tales or dreams that couldn’t be.

“Paige, I…” It was impossible to miss the dark, brooding frown carved on his forehead, and there was pain in his eyes—the sharp, lancing pain of despairthat she didn’t understand. She assumed he was about to tell her what was bothering him, but then never had the chance to find out.

The doorbell rang, interrupting them both.

Nothing could have startled her more than to find her sister Abby on the front porch.

T
hey’d taken off on her. Both the turkeys. Paige would have blamed her sister—Abby was so used to functioning in the cutthroat business world that she was pretty skilled at manipulating men. Only nothing and no one could manipulate Stefan, and he hadn’t needed any persuading to take off. The pair of them had taken one look at each other, sized the other up and mutually stampeded for their coats. As if they were reading from the same cue card, they’d even babbled out the same excuse—poor Paige had been working all day, so it struck them both as a great idea to head for town and pick up a nice, easy takeout dinner while she relaxed.

Dinner, her foot.

Paige was chewing on a thumbnail when she finally heard the front doorknob turn an hour later. Her sister
jogged in, carrying sacks of Chinese—enough for ten marines—but noticeably alone.

“What’d you do with Stefan?”

“Took him home. He didn’t mind, not once I explained that I only had a few hours with you. My plane leaves at nine tomorrow morning—I’ve got a business meeting at three I can’t miss. He can see you any old time. I’ve only got tonight.”

Paige shook her head. “Tell me you didn’t fly all the way here for less than a twenty-four-hour visit.”

“I sure as hell did. Gwen couldn’t. She doesn’t have the money, and what would she do with our two hellion nephews while she was gone? But we both decided it was time one of us got a look at your guy.”

“Did it occur to either of you that if I’d wanted your interference, I’d have asked for it?”

Abby raised her eyebrows. “Of course it did. What does that have to do with anything? We’re your sisters. Stefan understood that with no sweat at all, so don’t have a cow.”

“You
told
Stefan you wanted to look him over?”

“Sure. I grilled him up the wazoo. Trust me, he didn’t mind.”

“Maybe he didn’t mind, but I’m mortified. If I had any cyanide in the medicine cabinet, I’d be gulping it right now. You probably embarrassed him to death.
And
me. Dammit, Abby, you should have talked to me before doing anything like this.”

“If you thought Gwen or I were in trouble, you’d just sit on the sidelines and do nothing, huh?”

“That’s an entirely different thing.”

“I know. Gwen and I are both reasonably subtle. You’d probably show up with six guns ablazing.”

“I don’t own a gun.”

“A moot point. Words, guns, billy clubs…we all have our favorite choice of weapons. You’re our baby sister. And Gwen was getting an ulcer worrying about you. And I don’t think it’d kill any guy to discover you have family who love you.”

“I don’t love you. I’m so mad at you I could strangle you with my bare hands. And I may.”

“After dinner,” Abby advised. “Fighting is lousy on digestion. We can pick up this fight right after we finish the Chinese, okay?”

They didn’t pick up the fight right after dinner. Abby leveled enough food for three women, and kept a running monologue on family news, her job, politics, PMS, how good it was to be home, Dad’s health, hair, nails and the state of the world.

As soon as the dishes were done, Paige grabbed the phone to call Stefan—he’d left all his citizenship papers in her den—but Abby stopped her. “He knows they’re here, because he mentioned it. In fact he mentioned several things about his citizenship status. He said not to worry, he’d just pick up the papers later when he had the chance,” she said cheerfully, and then more quietly, “You’re not even going to ask what I thought of him, are you?”

“No.”

“No,” Abby murmured, “You’re that far gone that you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks, do you…you know exactly where your heart stands on that man.”

By then, Abby had pushed off her spectator pumps and slipped out of her suit jacket. It didn’t matter how relaxed she was. Paige always figured that if her sister were stark naked in a shower, she’d still look dressed for success. The navy blue suit, the scarf with the
tasteful splash of color, the perfect makeup and haircut were only part of it. Abby had an attitude beneath the surface, a chin-high, dare-the-world confidence. She wore drive and determination as if it were a second skin. There wasn’t a hint of vulnerability in anything about her physical appearance.

But Paige saw the faint lines of strain around her sister’s eyes, the restlessness. There was a fragility she sensed in Abby, even if it didn’t show. “You’re not happy,” she said worriedly.

Abby dismissed her concern faster than the speed of sound. “Sure I am. Everything couldn’t be going better.”

“Did you get that promotion?”

“I won’t know for a few more weeks.” Her eyes flashed a grin. “That promotion is a battle, but I’ve always had to fight for everything I won. For some people, that’d be stress. For me, that’s what I am—a fighter. This is just one more war.”

Maybe, Paige thought, but she still had the intuition that her sister was headed for a crisis. If she couldn’t get Abby to talk further about her work, though, at least for a few hours she laid off the subject of Stefan.

They headed upstairs before ten. The spare beds weren’t made up. Paige could have thrown on fresh sheets in her sister’s old bedroom in a few seconds, but Abby insisted that fussing that way for one night seemed silly. It wasn’t as though they’d never huddled together in Paige’s old-fashioned four-poster before. Growing up, all three sisters had been scared of the dark. Paige’s bed was the biggest, and a hundred times the three of them had sacked out together, buried in blankets, talking until the wee hours.

Her sister’s visit was like going back in time. They bumped hips in the bathroom, bickering over sink space, talking ten for a dozen through all the nightly female rituals of face washing and brushing teeth and putting away clothes. Abby drew the curtains; Paige flicked off the lights. No different than when they were kids, they dived under the blankets and yelped at the freezing-cold sheets.

Gradually, though, the sheets warmed up, and their eyes became adjusted to the pitch-dark room. Both of them were studying the dust motes in the ceiling, not looking at each other, when Abby started talking again. Paige was already mentally braced. A bookie would never bother with odds on her sister forgetting the subject of Stefan entirely.

“He’s adorable,” Abby said thoughtfully.

“I know he is.”

“Sexy. Smart. And a good man. I don’t run into many good men, not in my line of work, so I recognized one of those rare breeds right away.”

“He is. The rarest of good men.”

Abby carefully picked her words. “But I think it has to be tough for a man to know how he really feels about anything, with so many changes going on in his life. Everybody moves. Everybody changes jobs. But he’s doing it all at once—different job, different home, different country. That’s a pretty big emotional uproar.”

“Believe me, I’ve told myself those things a dozen times.”

“It’s just so damn easy to confuse loneliness for something else.”

“I know.”

Abby turned her head. “And I’m sure you realize how badly he wants to become an American.”

“I know.”

“Paige?”

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure you know this, too—that it’d be a hell of a lot easier for him to become an American with a U.S. wife. Not that it can’t be done through other channels, but an American wife would make it a ‘for sure.’ He might not
mean
to. But he could be using you.”

Paige closed her eyes. “I’ve considered that.” All evening, the issue had nagged on her mind like a toothache. Stefan had specifically chosen to bring her all those legal papers—ostensibly to seek her help. Through the history of their relationship, though, he’d asked for her help a ton of times when he needed it like a hole in the head. And her Russian had to know she would run across that citizenship information about American wives.

Stefan never did anything without a purpose. And as much as she loved him, it was usually a sneaky purpose.

Abby was just winding up for the punchline of her advice. “I’m just saying be sure, sweetie. Be very sure of what you feel before you do anything. I think he’s one hell of a special man, but I think both of you could really, really be hurt…unless you are absolutely positive of your feelings for him.”

Paige opened her eyes. For some reason, her pulse was clattering at a thousand miles an hour…matching the mental wheels clicking in her mind. There was nothing odd about her sister’s voice, nothing unusual about Abby being intuitive, but it did seem down-right
amazing that her sister was raising every exact fear she’d privately worried about herself. Amazing to the point of miraculous.

Stefan, of course, had the chance to talk alone with her sister earlier.

Paige stared hard into the darkness. She couldn’t get it off her mind—his motivation for showing her those papers, his reason for feeding her sister all those fears and concerns. Like when she was carving a cameo, it seemed the answers and real truth were under the surface. Where only she could find them—if she were honest with her heart.

As soon as her sister left the next day, Paige hiked across the road to return his mountain of files. She had no trouble getting into Stefan’s house—he’d left his back door unlocked—but he was gone. There was no sign he’d even been there that morning except for a coffee mug in the sink.

She’d just catch him later, she thought, which would work out better because she really wanted to take a trek into town. Only when she returned at noon with a mountain of parcels and an exhausted Visa, Stefan still wasn’t back.

He never came home on Tuesday at all.

Or Wednesday.

By Thursday, she’d paced a flat spot on the carpet in front of her living room window. She’d tried working; she’d tried eating; she’d have tried chants and charms if superstitions would just make the lights pop on in his house. There was no chance of her concentrating on anything—but him. Stefan had never, even for an afternoon, just
disappeared
on her without a word.

Anything could have happened to him. He was a hopeless idealist who gave freely and openly from his heart. She’d never met a more vulnerable man than that damn Russian. Anyone could hurt him.

Worse yet, she was afraid she had. Badly. Maybe irreparably. Her worst fear had always been of hurting someone through her own bungling insensitivity, and the thought kept stabbing through her mind that maybe he’d tired of hearing doubts from her. Maybe he’d given up on her. Maybe he’d taken off for the sheer relief of getting away from her.

Sooner or later, she kept promising herself that he
had
to come back, if only to reclaim all his stuff. But the morning dragged into the afternoon, then slowpoked into the evening and still his car hadn’t appeared across the street. By nine o’clock, it was coalblack and sleeting rain outside, and she finally gave up hoping for his return that night.

After switching off the downstairs lights, she climbed the stairs and ran a long, hot bath. She was submersed to the neck when she heard the muffled sound of pounding below. Pounding—and then an insistent doorbell. Then more pounding.

It wasn’t as though she was napping—she surged out of the tub—but she still barely had time to stand up and reach for a towel before she heard Stefan bellowing from the foot of the stairs. “Are you up there, lambchop?”

Odd, how her heart stopped. Odder yet, it seemed too scared to start up again. Her chest felt as if a fist had squeezed panic-tight around her heart and just wouldn’t let go. Possibly she’d been that afraid of never hearing his voice again, of never hearing him call her lambchop.

Or possibly her heart recognized exactly that this was it. Her one chance to take the biggest risk she’d ever taken. The one she’d been terrified to take all her life…and still counting.

“Paige? You there? Lambch—?”

Initially her voice emerged as a squeak, but it gained some volume on a second try. “I’m here! And I’ll be down in two seconds! Don’t you go
anywhere,
Michaelovich! Just sit down right exactly where you are!”

Stefan sat exactly where he was. On the stairs. Holding a velvet sack that he shifted from palm to palm as if he were weighing it. Waiting.

He waited more than two seconds. More than two minutes. When five minutes passed, though, he ran out of patience and lurched to his feet.

He’d just twisted around and intended to bound up the stairs when he saw the vision appear at the top. The vision had bare feet, a bare throat and was wearing a long nightgown in scarlet silk. Nothing more than two skinny straps holding up the whole thing, and the slinky fabric faithfully outlined every ripe, voluptuous dip and curve. She’d brushed her hair simply back from her forehead, no style, no artifice, but it flowed down her shoulders in a lustrous waterfall. The vision had her chin up, her shoulders straight and proud, a sensual woman reveling in her sensuality… but he couldn’t help but notice the shine of panic in her eyes, or the vulnerable unsureness implied by her trembling fingers.

He’d learned a ton of American vocabulary, yet for several seconds, he couldn’t seem to make his throat work long enough to push any of those words out.

He’d been prepared to track her down, to find her, to make her talk with him no matter what he had to do. He’d been prepared for reluctance. He’d been prepared for fears. He’d even come prepared with the offering in the velvet sack to bribe her into listening. But there was just no way, no how, he’d been prepared for this.

When more seconds of silence spilled past and he still failed to say anything, she either seemed to lose her nerve—or find it. Because she pelted down the stairs and launched herself into his arms.

He only had a micromoment to stash the velvet sack on the stairs. And then he reeled back from her jetpropelled launch…but he caught her. His fingers slid along the slippery silk at her waist, securing her steady. Her arms noosed around his neck, tight and hard, and her mouth slammed on his with the pressure of a bullet. The force was caused more by projectile momentum than actual passion, but the second kiss from her blew all the physics laws out of the water. So much for gravity. So much for the speed with which solid objects were supposed to fall.