His Virgin Wife: The Wedding in White / Caught in the Crossfire / The Virgin's Secret Marriage

She searched his hard face. “You can’t own people.”

The eyebrow that wasn’t under the string of the eye patch lifted sardonically. “She won’t thank you for making a play for him.”

She ached all over with frustration and misery, and she hated him for arousing her and pushing her away at the same time. It wasn’t logical, but then, she wasn’t thinking clearly. She didn’t mean what she said next, but she was so angry she couldn’t help herself. “What would you care if I did? You don’t like him. Maybe it would open her eyes.”

“Don’t do it,” he warned in a low, threatening tone.

“Or you’ll do what?” she challenged icily.

He didn’t answer. They were enemies in the blink of an eye. He was furious, and it showed. He went to the door and opened it with a jerk, waiting for her to leave.

She hesitated, but only for an instant. If that was the way he wanted it, all right! She went out the door without looking at him, without speaking, without knowing that she’d just altered the whole pattern of her life.

Mack closed the door sharply behind her, and she grimaced before she went to the kitchen to see if Whit was there. He was. He’d just made coffee, in one of the expensive modern coffee machines that did it in seconds. He’d poured two cups, one for himself and one for Vivian.

“Where’s the tray?” he asked, looking around.

“I haven’t got a clue,” she admitted. She looked in cupboards, but she couldn’t find one.

“Never mind,” he said. “I take mine black and she takes hers with cream. I can carry both cups if you’ll bring the cream, and we’ll forget the tray.”

“Okay,” she said.

He was gazing at her with an experienced eye, and it suddenly occurred to her that she must look pretty disheveled. She thought about taking a minute to repair her makeup before she went upstairs, but Whit was already out the door.

She followed him up the staircase and into Vivian’s room. It hadn’t dawned on her, either, that Whit had been out in the wind and his hair was disheveled. When the two of them entered the room, Vivian put together Natalie’s swollen mouth and mussed hair and Whit’s mussed hair and came up with infidelity.

“Go home,” she told Natalie in a vicious tone. “Go right now and don’t ever come back!”

“Viv! What’s wrong?” she asked.

“As if you don’t know!”

Whit didn’t say anything, but he had a very strange look in his eyes. “You’d better go,” he said gently. “I’ll look after Viv.”

Natalie looked at Vivian, but she turned her face away and refused to say another word. With resignation and bitter sadness, Natalie put down the cream and left the room.

Nobody was around when she went out the front door. She’d made a clean sweep tonight. Mack and Vivian were both furious at her over Whit when she hadn’t meant to cause trouble. She hoped it would all blow over.

For the moment, all she could think about was the close call she’d had in Mack’s arms on the sofa, and she wished with all her heart that things had been different between them. For better or worse, she loved him with her whole heart. But he had nothing to offer her.

She went home and fell, exhausted, into bed.

Whit was left alone with Vivian, who was in tears. “You were making love to her!” she accused, her blue eyes shooting sparks at him. “My boyfriend and my best friend! How could you?”

He hesitated before he spoke, with both hands in his pockets. He’d seen Vivian as a nice, biddable little source of gambling money and light lovemaking. But she’d become jealous and possessive of him, and he was getting tired of it. There were other women.

“So what?” he asked, not denying her charge. “She’s not as pretty or rich as you are, but she’s sweet and she doesn’t question every move I make.”

Vivian stared at him, almost purple with rage and frustration and hurt pride. “Then go with her,” she spat at him. “Get out. And don’t come back!”

“That,” he replied, “will actually be a pleasure. You’re no man’s idea of the perfect woman, Viv. In fact, you’re a spoiled little rich girl who wants to own people. It’s not worth it.”

“Worth what?” she choked.

He looked at her with world-weary cynicism and contempt. “I like to gamble. You had money. We made a handsome couple. I thought we’d be a match made in heaven. But there are other rich girls, honey.”

He laughed mockingly and walked out, closing the door behind him. Vivian went wild, throwing things and weeping horribly until Mack came into the room minutes later and helped her off the floor and into bed.

“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” he demanded, surveying the destruction of her bedroom.

“Whit and Natalie,” she choked. “They were…making love… Whit said she was everything I’m not.” Sobs choked the words for several seconds while her brother stood by the bed, frozen. “Oh, I hate them so. I hate them both! My boyfriend and my best friend! How could they do this to me?”

“How do you know they were making love?” he asked in a hollow tone.

“I saw them,” she lied viciously. “And Whit admitted it. He even laughed about it!”

Mack’s face became a mask. He drew the covers over Vivian with a strange, frightening silence.

Vivian wasn’t making connections. She was just short of hysteria. “They won’t come here again. I told them not to. I’m through with them!”

“Yes.” His voice sounded strained. “Try to calm down. You’ll make yourself sicker.”

“If either of them call,” Vivian added coldly, “I won’t speak to them.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he told her. “I’ll handle it.”

“I already handled it,” she shot back. “And don’t tell Bob and Charles. Nobody else needs to know!”

“All right, Viv. Try to get some sleep. I’ll have Sadie come in tomorrow and clean up in here.”

“Thanks, Mack,” she managed through her tears. “You really are a dear.”

He didn’t answer her. He went out and closed the door quietly, and the life seemed to drain out of him. Natalie, with Vivian’s boyfriend. He’d told her not to flirt with the man, and she’d been angry with him. Was that why? Did it explain why she’d go from his arms into another man’s in less than ten minutes?

Well, if her idea was to make him jealous, it had failed. He had nothing but contempt for her. Like Vivian, he didn’t want her in the house, in his life. He went downstairs to his study and immersed himself in paperwork, trying not to see that long leather couch where they’d lain together in the sweetest interlude of his life.

Maybe it was just as well. He couldn’t marry her. There were too many strikes against them. But he didn’t like the idea of her with that gambler. Or any other man…

He cursed his hateful memory and put the pencil down. Natalie ran like a golden thread through so much of his life. In recent years, she’d been involved in just about everything that went on at the ranch. She rode with him and Vivian, she came to parties, barbecues, cattle sales. She was always around. Now he wouldn’t see her come running up the steps, laughing in that unaffected way she had. She wouldn’t flirt with him, chide him, lecture him. He was going to be alone.

He got up and went to the liquor cabinet. He seldom drank, but he kept a bottle of aged Scotch whiskey for guests. He poured himself a shot and threw it down, enjoying the hot sting of it as it washed down his throat. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so powerless. He looked at the bottle and carried it to the desk. As an afterthought, he locked the door.

Vivian couldn’t sleep. She got up and washed her face, careful of the broken objects she’d dashed against walls in her rage. She kept remembering Mack’s face when she’d told him about Natalie and Whit. She’d never seen such an expression.

It bothered her enough to go looking for him. He wasn’t in his room or anywhere upstairs. Walking slowly, because it was difficult to walk and breathe at the same time despite the antibiotic, she made it to the door of his study. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Mack never locked the door.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. She combined the look on his face with his strange behavior and the way he’d held Natalie when they’d danced at the nightclub, and with trembling hands she went to the intercom panel and called the foreman.