Ready for Marriage?: The Marriage Ultimatum / Laying His Claim / The Bride Tamer

‘‘I don’t want to lose touch. Promise me you won’t dump us completely.’’

She laughed, perilously close to tears again. ‘‘I’d never do that. You and Mollie are the only family I have.’’

There was a small, warm silence.

‘‘’Night,’’ she said.

‘‘’Night.’’ His voice was affectionate.

Slowly, she hung up the phone and sank down on the side of her bed, heedless of the damp towel, fighting back the sobs that tightened her chest.

As she reached for a tissue, the phone rang again. She checked the caller ID, tempted to ignore it, but when she recognized the voice of the treasurer of the animal sanctuary’s board, she thought she’d better take it. The time was well past nine, not a usual time for him to be calling. She hoped there wasn’t a problem.

Two

She called Derek back moments later.

‘‘Kris,’’ he said patiently before she could get out a word, ‘‘I thought we’d finished this discussion.’’ Apparently he’d checked his caller ID as well.

‘‘Don’t be an ass. I’m calling about something else.’’ Her voice broke, ruining the sharp retort.

‘‘What’s wrong?’’ His voice changed instantly. ‘‘Are you all right?’’

She took a deep breath, striving for calm. ‘‘Cathie Balisle was killed in a collision an hour ago.’’

‘‘What?’’ Derek was instantly diverted from their personal exchange. ‘‘What happened?’’

Cathie Balisle was the executive director of the Appalachian Animal Sanctuary. Kristin’s father had hired her when he’d gotten a million-dollar bequest not long after the sanctuary had opened and she’d turned out to be a perfect choice for the job. ‘‘Drunk driver,’’ Kristin told him. ‘‘Rusty Sheffield just called. I told him I’d call you.’’

‘‘Man, that’s bad news.’’ She could picture him running a hand through his hair like he always did when he was agitated, ruffling the dark waves into disordered spikes. ‘‘I can’t believe it.’’

‘‘I know.’’ Her throat felt too tight to speak. Although they hadn’t been close on a personal basis, Cathie and she had worked on AAS projects together many times, and Cathie had been her father’s choice to head the sanctuary. ‘‘All that energy and drive, just—just gone.’’

Derek exhaled heavily. ‘‘What’s the board going to do?’’

‘‘I doubt anyone’s even thought about that yet,’’ she said, ‘‘but I imagine we’ll advertise immediately. Interview and hire as fast as we possibly can.’’ The sanctuary was a large facility with a big budget and constant management issues. They couldn’t afford to be without an executive director.

‘‘Let me know as soon as you hear when the funeral is. We’ll get a sitter for Mollie so we both can go.’’ Derek’s deep voice was compassionate.

Wryly, she noted that he apparently had forgotten what she’d said about separating their lives, but she didn’t have the energy to battle with him right now. ‘‘Okay.’’

‘‘Thanks for calling. Keep me posted.’’ Derek had taken Paul Gordon’s seat on the board until Kristin had finished college and had time to fill the vacancy. Although he was no longer directly involved in that end of things he still liked to keep abreast of the sanctuary’s agenda.

The following day, Kristin learned that Cathie’s funeral was scheduled for two days later at eleven in the morning.

When she called to tell him, Derek said, ‘‘I’ll close the clinic for a few hours. Sandy says she’ll come over to the house and watch Mollie while we’re gone.’’

‘‘Tell her thank you,’’ Kristin offered.

‘‘I’ll just bring her over when I pick you up at ten-thirty.’’

She hesitated, thinking of her new resolve. ‘‘That’s not necessary.’’

He was silent for a moment. ‘‘This isn’t the time for prickly independence, Kris,’’ he said quietly. ‘‘We do this kind of stuff together.’’

Funerals, he meant. As they’d done first her father’s,and then his wife’s. Together. Suddenly, it occurred to her that the funeral of a young woman might be difficult for him. ‘‘All right,’’ she said, her heart aching for him.

Kristin hadn’t stayed for dinner any night since she’d issued that ultimatum. Despite that, Derek was all too aware that she still made sure there was a hot meal waiting for Mollie and him at the end of the day when he came home.

He used to look forward to getting home, to having Mollie run into his arms while he and Kristin traded smiles as she babbled about her day. To sitting on the stool in the kitchen with Mollie on his lap while he told Kris about his day, to her reactions to everything from animals he’d been unable to save to owners who thought he was crazy to bill them for certain services. This week, he’d been called out of bed in the middle of the night to try to save a dog who’d been hit by a car while running loose. The dog died, and the owners couldn’t understand why he billed them. He’d had to take Mollie to the spare bedroom at the clinic until Kristin arrived to get her. Then he’d had to call his surgical technician to come in, and they had worked for three hours and administered several bags of IV fluids before the dog finally succumbed to shock.

But Kristin hadn’t heard that story, because she hadn’t stuck around to talk since Tuesday. Dinner was on the table when he arrived and she was out the door before he even had his coat off. He’d eaten alone with Mollie—which wasn’t a bad thing, he hastened to assure himself. It was just that he’d gotten used to the adult companionship.

And if he was honest, he missed her. He was actually looking forward to Cathie’s funeral today because he would have some time to talk to Kris.

But when he picked her up for the funeral, she was unusually quiet. Despite the warmth of the early June morning, she was wearing a black pantsuit with a matching jacket and her oval face was unreadable. This was probably hitting her hard. Cathie had known Kris’s dad, in a way had been one of the few remaining links to her past.

He held the car door for her and then went around to his own seat. As they drove toward the funeral home, she was still quiet.

‘‘How was your morning?’’ he asked.

That elicited a brief smile. ‘‘Fine. I took Mollie to play with the Mothers of Preschoolers group at the Methodist church. She’s in love with Jethrup Sowers’s little boy. They walked around holding hands the whole time.’’

He chuckled. ‘‘Sounds like more fun than mine. Three overweight, geriatric dachshunds whose owner doesn’t understand why they’re having back trouble, a macaw who’s plucking her own feathers and a Yorkie with a broken leg.’’

‘‘How did it get broken?’’

‘‘Stepped on.’’

Silence.

Derek felt like a fidgety fourth-grader again as he braked for a red light. ‘‘Has the board spoken at all about hiring someone to—to replace Cathie?’’ He felt crass, voicing the thought aloud but Cathie had loved the sanctuary and he knew she’d be concerned if she were in their position.

‘‘No. Not yet.’’ Kris was gazing out the window. Her hands lay limply in her lap and without thinking he reached over and put one of his atop them.

The moment he touched her he knew it was a mistake. Dammit! All these years they’d been friends, and ever since she’d said what she’d said, he’d been more aware of her physically than he had any woman since…since he was young. Her hands were warm, her skin silky, and he resisted the fierce urge to smooth his thumb across the tender flesh. If her hands were that silky—cut it out, Derek.

Kris hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d touched her. Now, she looked down at her lap, where his much larger hand easily covered both her dainty ones. His fingers actually curled around and under hers and he could feel the give of her thigh, soft and very warm, beneath the backs of his fingers.

She lifted her head and looked at him and he felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach, breathless, gasping for air. Her eyes were as green as emeralds sparkling in sunshine, soft and vulnerable, and a bolt of intense sexual attraction shot through him with the unexpected ferocity of a clap of summer thunder.

‘‘Stop it,’’ he said harshly, barely aware of the words. He pulled his hand away as if touching her would blister his skin.

Her eyebrows rose in bewilderment. ‘‘Stop what?’’

‘‘Stop teasing me.’’ The instant he said it, he knew it was unfair, but he was too stirred up to retreat. In some weird way, he wanted to have a rip-roaring fight with her.

‘‘Teasing you?’’ She repeated the words as if they were in a foreign language. Then he saw fire kindle in her eyes. ‘‘Teasing you! I was doing nothing of the kind.’’ She sucked in a breath of outrage. ‘‘You were the one who touched me!’’