“Don’t sign anything,” Brady was saying, the first words to penetrate her thoughts since child custody and visitation. But “Don’t sign anything” seemed to come as a reprieve, so maybe that’s why it got through to her.
“Read it all when you have a chance,” he advised, “that way you’ll know what’s there. Then it has to be signed in front of a notary. When we’ve done that, I’ll send it back to the lawyer and he’ll file it with the courts.”
“A notary,” Kate repeated to prove she was listening and to cover up that she hadn’t been before.
“It’s all just a formality, but we have to do it right for it to be legal.”
“But Elk Creek is a small town. If we get a notary here word is bound to leak, and this won’t be only between you and me anymore.”
“We’ll work something out. Maybe we’ll trump up an excuse to fly into the nearest town and do it there in a day or so.”
That seemed like a reasonable solution. And with Matt in matchmaker mode, her brother would likely not question any time she and Brady shared.
“And that’s about it,” Brady concluded, tapping the edges of the pages on the coffee table to make sure they were all even before he laid them on top of the envelope. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to get here with this. But my buddy in Alaska had an accident that put him in the hospital, and if I hadn’t gone up there and flown for him until he was back on his feet, he would have lost his charter company.”
“It’s okay,” Kate assured. “I thought it would take some time.”
The mention of Alaska brought a return of that strange twinge of jealousy she’d felt earlier. And that strange twinge of jealousy compelled her to say, “So Alaska, huh? You talked at dinner about all you did there, but I imagine you met a lot of interesting people, too.”
“Sure. I met a lot of interesting people. It’s an interesting place.”
“Anyone…special?”
She didn’t have the courage to look straight at him when she asked that, so she pretended to restraighten the divorce document before slipping it back into the manila envelope. But out of the corner of her eye she saw Brady smile for the first time since he’d come into the room. A small smile, but a smile she remembered well from Las Vegas. A smile that made a warm rush of something she couldn’t pinpoint run through her.
Unless of course the smile was due to a happy thought about another woman….
“Did I meet anyone special?” he repeated.
“You know, like did you run into Eskimos or fur trappers or bear hunters?” she persisted.
“I met a few of all those.”
“But not many women, I imagine. I read not long ago that there’s still a low ratio of women to men. Is that true?”
“Are you askin’ if we should add adultery as grounds for the divorce?” he joked.
“No,” she said as if the very thought were outlandish.
“Well, you can relax. I was too busy for romance, and what you read is right, I didn’t run into many women. Especially not many available ones. The irreconcilable differences as grounds for the divorce will have to stand.”
“That doesn’t matter to me. I was really only curious about Alaska’s population,” she fibbed. Badly.
“Either way.”
Despite the fact that he seemed to have seen through her, the news that he hadn’t hooked up with another woman in the past two months brightened Kate’s spirits considerably. Although she didn’t want to think about why it should.
Then he changed the subject. “Seems like you’ve managed to keep the whole marriage thing under wraps.”
“Nobody knows anything,” she confirmed. And you don’t know all you think you do.
“That’s good. Then we’ll be able to take care of it without anyone being the wiser.
Oh, if only that were true for the long run….
“And what about you? Are you still mad at me?” he ventured carefully, as if he were afraid he might set off the same reaction he had on New Year’s morning.
Kate was embarrassed at the memory of her behavior and decided this was the opportunity she needed to apologize for it. “I know I went a little wacko the next morning. It’s just that doing what we did… Well, it was so out of character for me. I’m such a straight arrow….” She wished this were coming out more smoothly, but the awkwardness of the situation was making for a bumpy road. “Anyway, I want you to know that in spite of what I said then, I accept that I’m just as responsible as you are for this whole thing.”
“So I’m not the devil incarnate anymore?” Brady asked with a note of wry levity to his voice.
“No. I was out of line that next morning. My memory of New Year’s Eve isn’t clear but it’s clear enough to know that no one twisted my arm. I was all for getting married. And the rest,” she added under her breath.
Brady’s smile stretched into a grin. “Why am I gettin’ the impression that you’re blamin’ yourself now?”
Maybe because she was. Or at least she had been for the past four days, ever since finding out she was pregnant.
Which also happened to be about the same time she’d begun hearing her mother’s voice in her head.
Her mother’s voice from her growing-up years when her mother had done a lot of preaching about the girl in any girl-boy relationship being the guardian of the gate.
It wasn’t something Kate had thought about in years. But suddenly there it had all been again.
The guardian of the gate.
The guardian of the gate, who wouldn’t be in this pickle if only she’d maintained some control, some moderation in the amount of champagne she’d consumed on New Year’s Eve. If she hadn’t given in to her own baser needs, no matter how strong they’d been. If she’d resisted the temptation of sweet, seductive words, the temptation of the handsome cowboy. If she hadn’t allowed herself to be swept away by the desires he’d raised in her….
Maybe Brady read the answer to his question in her expression, because when she didn’t say anything he said, “Things are pretty foggy in my memory, too, but as I recall, getting married was my idea. You just thought it was a good one and went along with it. I think that makes the blame pretty much equal.”
Kate shrugged, still feeling at fault no matter what he said. But what was the use in arguing about it? “I just wanted you to know I don’t bear you the kind of ill will I did that next morning.”
Brady chuckled—a deep, rich sound that rolled from his throat. “That was definitely ill will all right. I was grateful there were no knives in the room or you might have gelded me. You made it clear you thought I was a big bad beast.”
Kate flinched at the reminder. And the truth in it. “I’m sorry. I was out of line. It isn’t what I think of you now.” What she thought of him now was that he was too good-looking and charming and charismatic and sexy for her own good.
“But you still weren’t too happy to see me today,” he said, sounding as if he doubted her claim.
“Were you happy to see me?” she challenged in return.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead he stared at her with eyes so intense she could almost feel his gaze. So intense she finally