"She"s hysterical." Cal wiped the beer from his eyes with the back of his hand, dragged in some air, and lurched toward her with a purposeful gleam in his eye. "I"m going to have to slap her."
"Don"t you dare!" she yelped.
"Got to." The gleam in his eye now had a faintly diabolical cast to it.
"Touch me and I"ll scream!"
"Don"t touch her!" three people in the crowd called out at once.
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the onlookers. "You could have helped, you know, and then this wouldn"t have been necessary."
"It"s only a bar fight," Kevin grumbled. "No reason to make such a big deal out of it."
Cal took her arm and pulled her down off the barstool. "She"s a little high-strung."
"I"ll say." Kevin pulled up his shirttail to wipe the beer from his face. A cut on his cheekbone was bleeding, and one eye had puffed up.
A middle-aged man wearing a starched white shirt and black bow tie regarded her curiously. "Who is she, anyway?"
Cal pretended not to hear.
"Darlington," she said, holding out her hand to shake. "Jane Darlington."
"She"s my wife," Cal muttered.
"Your wife?" The man looked faintly bewildered as he took her hand.
"The same," she replied.
"This is Harley Crisp. He runs the local hardware store." Jane had never heard a more begrudging introduction.
Harley dropped Jane"s hand and turned to Cal. "How come when she finally showed up here, she was with Tucker and not you?"
Cal clenched his jaw. "They"re old friends."
Jane realized everyone in the bar was now a.s.sessing her, and none of them looked particularly friendly.
"Nice you could finally spare the time to come meet the people who live here, Miz Bonner," Harley said.
She heard several other hostile murmurs, including one from the attractive bartender, and knew that the story of Cal"s chilly scientist wife who thought she was more important than everyone else had spread.
Cal diverted the crowd"s attention by directing the bartender to put the damages on Kevin"s lunch tab. Kevin looked sulky, like a kid who"d been sent to his room. "You threw the first punch."
Cal ignored him. Instead, he grabbed Jane with a hand still damp from beer and headed toward the front door.
"Nice to have met you all," she tossed back over her shoulder at the hostile crowd. "Although I would have appreciated a little more help."
"Will you shut up?" he growled.
He drew her across the porch and down the steps. She saw the Jeep parked at the curb, and it reminded her she had one more battle to fight. Being married to Cal Bonner was becoming an increasingly complicated business.
"I have my own car."
"h.e.l.l you do." His lip was bleeding and beginning to swell on one side.
"I do."
"You don"t."
"It"s parked in front of the drugstore even as we speak." She reached into her purse, withdrew a tissue, and held it out to him.
He paid no attention. "You bought a car?"
"I told you I was going to."
He braked to a stop. She dabbed the tissue gently against his lip, only to have him jerk away. "And I told you you weren"t."
"Yes, well, I"m a bit too old and a lot too independent to pay attention to you."
"Show me." He spit out the words like bullets.
She remembered Kevin"s unkind comments about her Escort and felt a moment of trepidation. "Why don"t I just meet you at the house?"
"Show me!"
Resigned, she walked down the block to the town center, then turned toward the drugstore. He stalked silently at her side and his heels seemed to strike white-hot sparks as they hit the pavement.
Unfortunately, the Escort"s appearance hadn"t improved. As she came to a stop next to it, he looked stunned. "Tell me this isn"t it."
"All I needed was basic transportation. I have a perfectly good Saturn waiting for me at home."
He sounded as if he were strangling on a bone. "Has anybody seen you drive this?"
"Hardly anybody."
"Who?"
"Only Kevin."
"s.h.i.t!"
"Really, Cal, you need to watch your language, not to mention your blood pressure. A man of your age-" She saw her mistake and quickly changed direction. "It"s perfectly fine for what I need."
"Give me those keys."
"I will not!"
"You win, Professor. I"ll buy you a car. Now give me the d.a.m.n keys."
"I have a car."
"A real car. A Mercedes, a BMW, whatever you want."
"I don"t want a Mercedes or a BMW."
"That"s what you think."
"Stop bullying me."
"I haven"t even started."
They were beginning to attract a crowd, which wasn"t surprising. How often had the people of Salvation, North Carolina, seen their local hero standing in the middle of town dripping beer and blood?
"Give me those keys," he hissed.
"In your dreams."
Luckily for her, the crowd made it impossible for him to s.n.a.t.c.h them away as he wanted. She took advantage of that to shove past him, open the door, and jump into the car.
He looked like a pressure cooker about to explode. "I"m warning you, Professor. This is the last drive you"re taking in that junker, so enjoy every minute of it."
This time his high-handedness didn"t amuse her. Obviously the marshmallows hadn"t done the trick, and it was time to take stronger measures. Mr. Calvin Bonner needed to figure out for once and for all that he couldn"t run a marriage like he ran a football play.
She gritted her teeth. "You know what you can do with your warnings, buster. You can take them and-"
"We"ll talk about this when we get home." He hit her dead on with those nuclear winter eyes. "Now drive!"
Seething, she peeled out of the parking place. The car blessed her by backfiring. She set her jaw and headed for home.
She"d had it.
[image]
Jane used the small screwdriver she always carried in her purse to disable the automatic gates. Now they would remain shut and it had taken her less than two minutes. When she reached the house, she parked the Escort in the driveway, stomped inside, and fetched some twine that she secured in a tight figure eight around the twin k.n.o.bs set side by side in the double front door. She fashioned a wedge from several cooking utensils and used it to secure the back door.
She was checking the bolts in the French doors that opened off the family room when the intercom began to buzz. She ignored it and headed for the garage, where she used the small ladder that was stored there to unplug the automatic door opener from its ceiling outlet.
The angry buzzing of the intercom a.s.saulted her ears as she stalked back into the kitchen. She yanked all the first-floor draperies closed and pulled the phone off the hook. When that was done, she grabbed her screwdriver, made her way to the intercom, and punched the b.u.t.ton.
"Cal?"
"Yeah, listen Jane, there"s something wrong with the gate."
"There"s something wrong, all right, buster, but it doesn"t have anything to do with the gate!" With a twist of her wrist, she loosened the connection, and the buzzer fell silent. Afterward, she stalked upstairs, booted up her computer, and set to work.
It wasn"t long before she heard the rattling of doors accompanied by a determined pounding. When it grew so loud it disturbed her concentration, she tore a tissue in two and wadded the pieces in her ears.
Blessed quiet.
An Escort! Escort! Cal hauled himself up onto the lower section of roof that jutted out over the first-floor study. First she"d sabotaged his Lucky Charms, and now she"d embarra.s.sed him in front of the entire town by driving a ten-year-old Escort! He couldn"t explain why both offenses seemed a lot worse than the fact that she"d managed to lock him out of his own house. Maybe because he was enjoying the challenge of getting back in, not to mention the antic.i.p.ation of the fight they were going to have after he"d managed it. Cal hauled himself up onto the lower section of roof that jutted out over the first-floor study. First she"d sabotaged his Lucky Charms, and now she"d embarra.s.sed him in front of the entire town by driving a ten-year-old Escort! He couldn"t explain why both offenses seemed a lot worse than the fact that she"d managed to lock him out of his own house. Maybe because he was enjoying the challenge of getting back in, not to mention the antic.i.p.ation of the fight they were going to have after he"d managed it.
He walked as lightly as he could across the roof because he didn"t want the d.a.m.n thing to spring a leak the next time it rained. As he glanced up at the dark clouds skidding across the darkening sky, he figured that rain might not be too far off.
He reached the end of the roof, where it met up with the corner of the balcony that extended across the front of the house, and experienced a moment of disappointment because there wasn"t a bigger gap to make this more of a contest. Still, the grillwork railing was too shaky to hold his weight, so that made it a little more interesting.
Using the bottom edge of the balcony as a handhold, he lowered himself over the side and, legs dangling, worked his way along the balcony"s edge until he came to the corner column. A clap of thunder reverberated, and rain began to pelt him, plastering his shirt to his back. He wrapped his legs around the column for support, then, bracing one hand on the wobbly grillwork, shinnied up the slippery surface and lowered himself over the railing.
The lock in the French doors that led into his bedroom was flimsy, and it annoyed him that Miss Big Brain hadn"t done anything to secure it. She probably thought he was too old old to make it this far! The fact that his lip hurt, his ribs ached, and his bad shoulder throbbed like a sonovab.i.t.c.h fueled his irritation, and as he jimmied the doors open, his temper flared up again. She should at least have had enough respect for him to shove a chair in front of the k.n.o.b! to make it this far! The fact that his lip hurt, his ribs ached, and his bad shoulder throbbed like a sonovab.i.t.c.h fueled his irritation, and as he jimmied the doors open, his temper flared up again. She should at least have had enough respect for him to shove a chair in front of the k.n.o.b!
He walked across his dark bedroom into the hallway and moved toward the light that spilled out from her room. She sat with her back to the door and all her formidable concentration focused on the columns of incomprehensible data scrolling past on her computer screen. Puffs of blue tissue stuck out of both ears, making her look like a cartoon rabbit. He thought about marching up behind her and giving her the fright of her life by pulling the tissues out. It was exactly what she deserved, but since she was pregnant, he modified his plan. Not that he believed Annie"s dire warnings about marked babies and twisted cords, but still, he wasn"t taking any chances.
The smell of beer clung to him like barroom smoke as he made his way downstairs. He was wet, sore, completely p.i.s.sed off, and every bit of it was her fault! His blood pounded in antic.i.p.ation as he reached the foyer. Throwing back his head, he bellowed out her name.
"Jane Darlington Bonner! You get down here right this minute!" You get down here right this minute!"
Jane"s head shot up. His roar penetrated her homemade ear plugs. So, he"d managed to find a way inside. As she pulled out the wads of tissue and tossed them in the basket, she wondered how he"d done it. Some amazing feat of bravado, no doubt, since the great quarterback wouldn"t dream of demeaning himself by anything as obvious as breaking a window. Despite her pique, she felt a certain amount of pride.
As she rose from her desk and discarded her gla.s.ses, she tried to figure out why she had no desire to lock herself in her room. She"d never liked conflict and never been all that good at it-witness her dismal skirmishes with Jerry Miles. Maybe she wasn"t anxious to avoid this battle because it would be with Cal. All her life she"d been so polite, so dignified, so careful not to offend. But Cal was impatient with politeness, unimpressed by dignity, and impervious to offense. She didn"t have to watch what she said or mind her manners. She could simply be herself. As she crossed the room, her pulses hummed, and her brain cells went on full alert. She felt completely and wondrously alive.
From the foyer below, Cal watched her approach the top of the stairs. Her trim little b.u.t.t swayed from side to side inside her slacks, and her green knit top emphasized a pair of b.r.e.a.s.t.s so unimpressive in their size he couldn"t figure out why he was so anxious to set eyes on them. Her hair, pulled away from her face with barrettes like an upper-crust schoolgirl"s, swung back and forth, as saucy as her mouth.
She looked down at him, but instead of being scared as she should have been, he could swear he saw a spark of mischief in her eyes. "Somebody looks mad," she drawled, all s.p.u.n.k and sa.s.s.
"You-" He slammed his hands on his hips. "-are going to pay for this."
"What are you gonna do, big guy? Spank me?"
Just like that, he got hard. d.a.m.n it! How did she keep doing this to him? And what kind of kinky talk was that for a respectable college professor?
An unwilling vision of that sweet little b.u.t.t curving beneath his palm shot through him. He clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and gave her a look so mean-a.s.sed he was ashamed of himself for using it on a poor, defenseless, pregnant female. "Maybe a bare-b.u.t.t spanking is exactly what you need."
"Really?" Instead of fainting from fear the way any sensible woman would have done, she got this calculating look on her face. "Might be fun. I"ll think about it."
Just like that she turned on her heel and swept back to her room, leaving him standing at the bottom of the stairs in her dust. He was stunned. How did she manage to keep turning the tables on him like that? And what did she mean, she"d think about it?
He remembered that mangled Escort sitting in the drive right where his kicka.s.s Jeep should have been and charged up the stairs after her. He wasn"t half done with this fight!
Jane heard him coming and was ashamed of the thrill of antic.i.p.ation the sound of those pounding feet gave her. Until these past few weeks, she hadn"t realized how heavily the mantle of maintaining her dignity had weighed on her shoulders. But Cal had no more use for dignity than a dog for panty hose.
He flew through her bedroom door and jabbed his finger in the general direction of her forehead. "Starting right now, the two of us are going to get a few things straight. I"m the head of this household, and I expect respect! I don"t want to hear another piece of sa.s.s out of you. Do you understand what I"m saying?"
His confrontation techniques undoubtedly worked very well with men, but she felt a flash of sympathy for those poor young girls he"d chosen as his past companions. He must have devastated those curvaceous little infants.
But for some reason the picture of him yelling at a defenseless twenty-year-old beauty queen wouldn"t take shape in her mind, and it didn"t take her long to understand why. He would never do it. Cal was incapable of unleashing the full force of his anger on someone he regarded as weaker than himself. The knowledge gave her a deep sense of pride.
"Your lip is bleeding again," she said. "Go in the bathroom, and I"ll fix it."