The Wrong Wife

She felt his lips against hers, gentle, warm, moving back and forth across her lips, his tongue barely touching, teasing, tasting. She wanted to resist, to tell him this wasn’t the time or place, but the cascade of warmth within her wouldn’t allow her to do that. Instead, her own lips parted and her tongue darted out to meet his, to intermingle, to taste the remains of sorbet, the hint of sweetness on his lips.

His hands slid down her back and below her waist, holding her against him. His whole body felt rock-solid, so wonderfully, comfortingly male. Yet his erection wasn’t comforting at all, but disturbing, because she felt the heat in her own loins answering as she moved against him in a slow rhythm that she couldn’t seem to control.

No. It was up to her to control it, not to fall over backward at his touch, or to let herself feel all the conflicting emotions he evoked. She sucked in her breath and pulled back from him, her eyes wide. “Go away, Ben, please, right now.”

He pulled her into his arms again. “I don’t want to,” he whispered into her hair.

“You’ve got to go back to your party.” She slapped his hand away. “Stop that. You go tell them I succumbed to the vapors or something.”

“Come with me.”

“Ben!” This time she used enough force to overbalance him so that he had to step back a couple of paces. “Read my lips. I cannot, I will not go back over to that house tonight. I’ll write everybody notes tomorrow, including the caterers if that’s what you want…”

He sat on the sofa and took her hands. “It’s not what I want. It’s what you need. If you don’t come back now, the next time it’ll be harder to crawl out of that shell. How can you ever hope to feel at ease in social situations…”

“Who said I have to?”

“I do, dammit.”

She started to smart off back at him, then stopped, tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. “What do you have to do with it?”

Amazingly, he blushed and stammered, “Because I—I want what’s best for you.”

“And the reason for that would be…?”

“That wasn’t exactly a friendly kiss we just exchanged. My ears are ringing.”

“Even in the South you no longer have to marry me because you kissed me, Ben.”

“What if I want to?”

This time she laughed. “Right. Like I’d be the perfect district attorney’s wife.” She walked to the corner and picked up her shoes. “Look, Ben, I’m tired, and I’m feeling like a nitwit. I’m not up to facing those people tonight. Please just make my apologies to your mother and her guests.”

“You won’t change your mind? Or even tell me what went on?”

“Nope.”

His shoulders sagged. “Fine. I can’t pick you up and carry you over there. Well, I could, but you’d probably kick and scream or something equally unattractive.”

“You got that right.”

He straightened. “However, Miss Annabelle, this is far from over. I intend to find out what’s causing this. And when I do, you and I are going to fix it.”

He turned on his heel and made what he probably considered a dignified exit.

As he reached the top step, she applauded slowly.

He paused, then rocketed down and slammed the door at the foot of the stairs behind him.

Annabelle held her pose until she heard him running across the backyard, then she sank into the club chair.

Two hallucinations in one day. Some kind of record. She probably ought to get a CAT scan or an EEG or something. She might have an aneurysm about to pop or a brain tumor.

Maybe Ben was at the bottom of it. She’d been in Memphis for almost a month now without anything worse than bad dreams. Then suddenly Ben Jackson drops out of a tree, and the craziness starts. Was it her hormones?

Was her body finally betraying her for all the years of militant asexuality?

She didn’t know what was going on, but something was definitely out of whack.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE GUESTS WERE STANDING at the front door air kissing and saying their goodbyes when Ben walked back into his mother’s dining room.

She turned a concerned face to him. “Is Annabelle all right?”

He smiled cheerfully. “A touch of migraine. She says she doesn’t get them often, but they come on suddenly. She was afraid she was going to throw up.”

“Poor kid,” the professor said. “I’m sorry about the wine on the tablecloth, Elizabeth. That chime startled me.”

“My birthday clock from Phil,” Elizabeth said. “It’s antique ormolu.”

“Too damn noisy,” Phil said comfortably. “I can disconnect the chime mechanism if you like.”

“Please. It’s beautiful, but a bell ringing every fifteen minutes is a bit much. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit. I’ll do it tonight if you like.”

Elizabeth smiled at Phil. Ben caught the relief in her eyes. His mother would never say anything unpleasant about a gift. But he knew she’d go nuts listening to that thing, and would probably end up hiding it in the broom closet and only bringing it out when Phil was around.

“I’m just glad I didn’t cause her migraine,” said Gene.

“Lucky, you mean,” his wife said.

He seemed to have sobered up quickly.

“Please tell her we’re sorry and look forward to seeing her again,” May added, and squeezed Ben’s arm. “She really is a lovely girl, Ben. So different from the girls you usually squire to these things.”

He kept the smile pasted on his face as he stood at his mother’s shoulder and waved everyone away except Phil Mainwaring, who stood in the doorway with his arm around Elizabeth’s waist.

“Well,” Phil said, giving Ben a lift of the eyebrow. “Time for another cup of coffee?”

Ben shook his head. “I’ll get out of the way and leave you two kids alone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Elizabeth laughed. “We wouldn’t dream of doing half the things you do, would we, Phil?”

“We would if you’d let me.”

“And besides,” she said, ignoring Phil’s comment, “I want to know what really went on tonight with Annabelle.” She slipped out of Phil’s grasp. “Sit down for a minute. I feel responsible for Annabelle. If she’s in any trouble I want to know about it.”