Stryker's Wife (Man of the Month) Read online

Reluctantly, he sat up, swung his legs off the bed and stood. Considering the way he felt, he might have just crawled out of a sauna after a three-day sweat. Beside him, Deke stirred in her sleep, and he thought maybe he’d better grab a cold shower before he tried to make his case. He had a feeling that if he hung around here much longer, he might complicate matters by making love to her all over again. She had that effect on him.

  Ten-shun!

  By the time Kurt emerged from the bathroom, his wet hair several shades darker, his good eye several degrees brighter, Deke was awake and stirring. She had secured herself behind the same flowery tent she’d worn earlier. It covered her from chin to toes and all the way out to her fingertips. If she thought that old business about out of sight, out of mind was going to help her, she was way off course. Maybe a chastity belt and a flak jacket…

  It still wouldn’t be enough.

  “So…you’re awake. I was going to surprise you and fix us something to eat.” He shouldn’t have slept with her. Not this time, at least. At least not until he’d laid out the ground rules. This wasn’t your standard hearts-and-flowers romance, but the way he’d been going at it, he could see how she might misunderstand.

  Deke glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Nine-oh-seven. She stared at the white crocheted rug. She frowned at her thumbnail, nibbled it, and finally, she looked at him. “Yes, well…I can do that.”

  “Deke, I want you to know—”

  Her smile was as fragile as one of those crystal champagne glasses she’d taken aboard the boat. “You don’t need to say anything, Kurt. We’re both adults.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, um—the way we affect each other. It—well, it just sort of took me by surprise right at first, because…”

  “Because?” Kurt leaned against the doorframe. He was beginning to enjoy her performance. And he’d thought he was having trouble dealing with whatever this thing was that had sprung up between them. Hell, compared to her, he was an ace.

  “It’s only chemical,” she said earnestly.

  “Sure. I knew that.”

  “According to this article I read, it’s called pheromones—it’s got something to do with moths, but evidently people are affected, too. This invisible chemical that makes people feel—I mean, it makes them want to—well, anyway, when certain people get close to certain other people, it produces this invisible gas or something, called pheromones, and they have to be careful, or…”

  “Or?” Kurt prompted. She was all revved up and ready to rattle, as if talking fast would solve everything. He’d noticed that about her before—that she chattered when she was feeling off-balance. It made him want to hold her, soothe her, comfort her. Which would inevitably start the whole cycle all over again.

  “Look, why don’t I make us some coffee and we’ll talk things over, nice and calm and sensible. If you’re afraid of this pherowhatsis, I’ll stay on my side of the room and you can stay on yours.”

  “It’s not all that big,” Deke said dolefully. “My living room, I mean. And I’m hungry for more than just coffee.”

  Yeah, so was he.

  The phone rang, and she hurried to answer it. “Saved by the bell,” Kurt jeered softly.

  A few minutes later she replaced the receiver, took a deep, bracing breath and said, “It was only Ambrose, wanting to know if I was all right.”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, of course I am. I’m just fine. Kurt, don’t take this personally, but sleeping together isn’t all that big a deal these days. I mean, people do. All the time. Even on TV.”

  “On TV, too, huh? Is that with or without the rabbit ears?”

  Her lips quivered. Her eyes sparkled. Having an irreverent sense of humor herself, she appreciated it in others. “You know what I mean. As long as we’re careful not to—that is, as long as we don’t—well, you know what I mean,” she said, wondering how he could possibly know when she didn’t know herself.

  Kurt knew exactly what she meant. It was one of the reasons he was having such a hard time concentrating. Leaning against the doorframe, he wondered how long it would be before she tripped over her tongue. Her face was pink and earnest and she was picking at a thread that might easily bring about the downfall of that whatchamacallit she was wearing.

  And he was losing sight of his mission again.

  Get it in gear, Stryker. He cleared his throat. “You asked if I was just passing through town. Well, the truth is, I came here looking for you. You remember I mentioned this social worker who’s been giving me a hard time about—”

  Relief flooded her face as the phone shrilled again. Impatiently, Kurt tapped his foot and tried to remember where he’d left off. The social worker. Home—traditional family unit—wife. Silently, he went over his carefully planned speech while Deke assured Miss Cammie that yes, her young man had found her, but he wasn’t really her young man, he was only a friend who was passing through town.

  “Passing through town?” he repeated softly.

  She glared at him. “I had to say something,” she whispered, covering the receiver with the palm of her hand. She reassured Miss Cammie that she was just fine, she really was, and that he wasn’t really a dangerous man, he only looked that way.

  “I do?” Kurt teased after she hung up.

  “Actually, that was one of the first things I noticed about you. That you looked dangerous. Sort of like the pirate in Peter Pan in this amateur production I saw once in Richmond.”

  Kurt held up one hand. “Look, Ma, no hook,” he said, grinning.

  “Yes, well…you have to understand how it is in small towns. Swan Inlet is a bustling resort compared to Church Grove.”

  She smiled, Kurt chuckled, and then they were both laughing. “Now, what was it you were saying about a social worker? Does it have anything to do with Frog?”

  Leaving the support of the doorframe, Kurt steered her toward the kitchen, which was about the size of a walk-in closet. While she set about frying bacon and beating eggs for a late supper, he leaned his hips against a counter, crossed his arms over his chest and launched into his proposition.

  Or proposal.

  Whatever.

  “You’re going to have to move in a few weeks anyway, right?” he said by way of a romantic prologue.

  “As soon as I can find a place,” she corrected, grating cheese into the eggs. “Most of the tenants are already gone.”

  “What would you think about relocating?”

  She cut him a suspicious glance. “I’ve considered it. Why do you ask?”

  Good sign, Kurt told himself. She’d considered it. Which meant it wasn’t entirely out of the question. “Why don’t we move on to the next line? Did you ever consider remarrying?”

  The cheese grater struck the floor with a clatter. Kurt leaned over to pick it up, Deke leaned over to pick it up, and heads bumped. Kurt caught her by the shoulders and dragged her against him. With a soft oath he gave up all pretense at subtlety. “Deke, will you please marry me?”

  She looked cute and sexy as all get-out, even with her mouth hanging open. “What did you just say?” she whispered.

  “I believe I just asked you to marry me. I was trying to lead up to it gradually, sort of work it into the conversation, but I’m not real good at this sort of thing.”

  Deke’s ears were ringing. She suspected it might have something to do with her accelerated heart rate. “But—why?”

  “Why not?”

  Which was not precisely the response she’d been hoping for. “Well, for one thing, we haven’t known each other very long.”

  “How long did you know What’s His Name?”

  “Mark? A few weeks. And look how that turned out.”

  “Well, if it’s any comfort to you, I don’t fly any more. Depth perception’s shot all to hell with the eye thing.”

  Deke murmured, “Oh, heavens,” and plopped down into one of the three dinette chairs. Kurt rescued the burning bacon.

  “Look, don’
t get me wrong. I don’t expect any great story-book romance or anything like that, but if you look at it from a rational point of view, it makes sense. We’re both single and unattached. I’m self-employed. Doing pretty well, with prospects to do even better. You’ve got a portable job—at least, your writing’s portable. I don’t know how hooked you are on your other jobs, but if you gave them up you’d have more time for writing. And since you’re going to be moving anyway…”

  He broke off, thinking there had to be a simpler way to go about this business of getting himself a wife. He didn’t recall getting all tongue-tied with Evelyn.

  Actually, Evelyn had been the one to pop the question, although they’d both pretended afterward that he had. But then she’d gone down to Seattle to shop for her trousseau, and he’d gone down off Montague Island in high winds and rough seas. Saved the boy, his old man and the dog, and in the process busted up his body pretty bad. After that, his big romance had gone south, only Evelyn hadn’t wanted to talk about it. She’d never been real good at facing reality.

  Which was the main reason that this time he wanted everything out in the open, right up front. No unpleasant surprises. No hanging around the church trying to look like he didn’t give a hoot that his fiancée had gotten cold feet and skipped out on him. Socially, it was embarrassing as hell.

  Kurt waited for her to speak. Deke waited for him to continue. Quickly, he went over what he’d just said to see if he’d left anything out, or worse yet, said anything he shouldn’t have said. He figured she was too sensible to expect one of those hand-over-heart, knee-to-the-floor jobs. On the other hand, all he knew about women was that he didn’t know much about women.

  Kids, now, that was a different matter. He got along just great with Frog. Rescue victims? He’d dealt with all kinds, all ages and all sexes over the years. Some of them worked through shock by talking a mile a minute. Some of them didn’t talk at all. Some just needed a warm body to hang on to until they quit shaking and realized they were still alive.

  “Is that it? Some social worker is breathing down your neck and you need a wife to convince her to let you adopt Frog?”

  Kurt let out his breath in one long, relieved gust. “That’s the gist of it, but adoption’s out. Frog’s probably still got a mother somewhere. The trouble is, nobody’s heard from her in a few years, and the kid needs somebody now.”

  “Does Frog want me?”

  “Well, now, as to that…” He raked his fingers over the back of his head and realized he wasn’t wearing his patch. It was the first time he’d ever gone without it in mixed company. “Look, I won’t kid you. Right now he’s sore as hell because he thinks I like you better than I like him—which is crazy.”

  He was studying the tip of his shoe, else he might’ve noticed her stricken expression. “The boy and I, we’ve been together more than two years now. We’ve built up a lot of equity in this relationship, and I don’t want to see him dragged off to start all over again in a different situation. He’s at a vulnerable stage in life. Too old for his age in a lot of ways—still just a kid in other ways. I don’t want him farmed out to a bunch of strangers.”

  But Deke had stopped listening several sentences back. He thinks I like you better than I like him—which is crazy.

  Well, of course it was crazy, she told herself once she’d swallowed the lump in her throat. Kurt had spent more than two years with Frog. He’d known her only a few weeks. He wouldn’t even be here now if he didn’t need her help.

  Of course, there was still that pheromone business…

  “What about someone else? I mean, surely you know other women who would jump at the chance to marry you.”

  His grin was just as quirky and crinkly as ever, except for a certain bleakness in his eye. “Well…there’s Etheleen,” he said. “She runs the marina for the guy who owns it. I reckon if I paid her enough, she might consider taking us on. The trouble is, I’ve never been real partial to women who chew tobacco and wear men’s felt hats and roll their nylons down around their ankles.”

  “Seriously, Kurt, there must be someone.”

  “Seriously, Deke, there is. Someone whose company I enjoy a whole lot. Someone I respect. A lady who has all the qualities I like most in a friend. Add to that, she’s got this sexy way of moving that reminds me of a music box my mama used to have, and—”

  “Your mama had a sexy music box?”

  “Hush up, woman, I’m on a roll. The thing is, even if it weren’t for the boy, I wouldn’t mind being married to this woman. In fact, the more I think about it, the better I like the idea.”

  Deke’s eyes were glittering like wet amber. She knocked over a cup, salted the eggs twice and said, “Then there’s only one problem as far as I can see. Even if she’ll have you, you don’t have anywhere to put her, unless she’ll agree to sleep on deck, and even—”

  The phone startled a yelp out of her. “Honestly! This is the most my phone has rung all month.” She dried her hands on her muumuu, brushed past him and hurried into the living room.

  Kurt gave a silent cheer. It was working! She knew damned well he was talking about her—who else fit the description? And she was right there with him all the way, hooked, gaffed and all but landed.

  “Kurt, it’s for you,” she called out, peering around her monstrous, multistory organ.

  He frowned. No one knew where he was—no one except Etheleen. Which meant that either the boat had sprung a leak or he had messed up his schedule and a charter had turned up—or the IRS had sent a posse after him for mailing in his last quarterly a day late.

  Ten minutes later, Deke sent him off with a bacon and egg sandwich and a mug of coffee. She didn’t offer to go with him, and Kurt didn’t ask her to. Frog was missing. Etheleen hadn’t seen him since early that morning when she’d walked down to leave his monthly bill for mooring space and utilities. The boat had been all battened down, the salon hatch locked. Normally, they only locked up when they were both going to be gone for several hours.

  The school bus had stopped, honked and then driven off, and Etheleen had worried. She’d called around and discovered that no one had seen the boy since early that morning, which wasn’t unusual except that he hadn’t gone to school and he hadn’t stopped by Joe’s to stock up on cheeseburgers. She’d thought Kurt might want to know.

  “Let me know as soon as you find him,” Deke had said, and Kurt had promised he would. His eye had said a lot more than that, but she didn’t dare allow herself to interpret. Didn’t dare!

  Like a sleepwalker, she went about cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, then remembered that she still hadn’t eaten anything. She tried to calculate when he’d be getting to Swan Inlet, but then, she was a cautious driver and she had a feeling Kurt might not be. Not under the circumstances.

  Oh, Lord, she loved him so awfully much.

  Still in a trance, she made herself a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich and left it on the third balcony of the organ alongside the framed snapshot of her mother in her wedding dress.

  She stared out the window, watched the first star come out over Mr. Etheridge’s satellite dish and then sank down and had herself a long, noisy cry, after which she felt somewhat comforted. Kurt would find Frog. The boy was young, for all he tried to appear so tough. If someone had come around asking questions, he might have been frightened enough to run, but once Kurt got home, he’d come out of hiding. And Kurt would call and tell her so. And after a while maybe they could pick up more or less where they’d left off.

  Or maybe not…

  Deke told herself, because there was no one else to tell, that Kurt really did like her. Unless she had misunderstood him, he had asked her to be Frog’s mama. More or less. And he wasn’t talking about any marriage of convenience, either, because there was that pheromone thing.

  So. She just might do it.

  She just might marry the man and make him fall in love with her! A frog, a prince and a determined princess. What more did a story need for a hap
py ending?

  Eleven

  Search and rescue. Even though it was long past midnight and he was short on sleep, Kurt hit the ground running, having already gone over the list of possibilities. Flying air-sea rescue missions was one thing. Finding a street-smart kid who didn’t want to be found was something else.

  He had a sneaking suspicion Frog wanted to be found, only not until he’d made his point, whatever that was. He was pretty sure it had something to do with Deke, and if that was the case, they were just going to have to work it out because Kurt wasn’t about to give up either one of them.

  Not that he had them. But dammit, he was going to! One way or another, he was going to rein in the pair of them, because whether or not they were ready to admit it, they needed him.

  And, yeah—he needed them.

  He got in touch with the sheriff’s office.

  “You’ve got the description?” he asked, and was assured that half the law east of the Mississippi had the description. For a two-bit crook, Junior Smith had had a pretty long rap sheet. Frog was no longer a skinny, hungry-looking tagalong child with freckles, big front teeth and even bigger brown eyes.

  Instead, he was a skinny, hungry-looking adolescent with freckles, big front teeth and even bigger brown eyes. Eyes that could reach right inside where a man lived and twist the living hell out of his heart.

  “Yeah, well…leave a message at the marina if you get any leads,” he said gruffly. “I’ll check in hourly.”

  At a time like this he could have used a cellular phone, but in a fringe area like Swan Inlet it wouldn’t be too reliable. Etheleen was.

  As soon as school opened, he went around to the office. Next he checked in at Joe’s Place. He even waylaid the girl in the pink Jeep, who struck him as only marginally brighter than a green-head fly. He was stumped. There weren’t that many places a kid could hide in a place the size of Swan Inlet.

  Briefly, he considered contacting social services. It was a risk, but they just might know something.

  On the other hand, if he knew Frog—and after two years, he was getting to know him pretty well—he’d steer well clear of any authority. They both knew their situation was pretty shaky. The last thing Frog would risk was having a swarm of child welfare workers come down on him to put the screws on his preferred life-style.