Marriage On The Edge

Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.

Natalie solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.

“Baby.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet baby.”

Her hands swept under his jacket. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.

“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please….”

Four brothers—

bonded by inheritance, battling for love!

Jonas Baron is approaching his eighty-fifth birthday. He has ruled Espada, his sprawling estate in Texas hill country, for more than forty years, but now he admits it’s time he chose an heir.

Jonas has three sons, Gage, Travis and Slade, all ruggedly good-looking and each with a successful business empire of his own; none wishes to give up the life he’s fought for to take over Espada. Jonas also has a stepdaughter; beautiful and spirited, Caitlin loves the land as much as he does, but she’s not of the Baron blood.

So who will receive Baron’s bequest? As Gage, Travis, Slade and Caitlin discover, there’s more at stake than Espada. For love also has its part to play in deciding their futures….

Sit back now and enjoy Gage’s story, and be sure to look out next for More Than a Mistress in August (Harlequin Presents #2045), when you’ll get to know Travis a whole lot better!

Marriage On The Edge

Sandra Marton

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

GAGE BARON was not in the best of moods.

He’d put in a long day, riding herd on a contractor and construction crew that seemed to have forgotten the idea was to build a new wing onto Baron’s Windsong Resort, not to demolish it.

Now he was about to put in an even tougher night, though given a choice, Gage thought wryly, he’d trade the company of the elite gathering at the Holcombs’s cocktail party for the earthy reality of the construction bunch anytime.

But he had given his word he’d attend, which meant he had to go to the silly thing, like it or not.

“Damn fool thing to have done, Baron,” he muttered to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “But you did it, and you’re stuck with it.”

Gage scraped the sharp edge of his razor across his jaw. Bad enough a man had to shave every morning but to have to do it all over again at six in the evening seemed unconscionable.

He glanced at the gold Rolex that lay on the edge of the sink. Not six. Seven-fifteen. He was late, on top of everything else…although, now that he thought about it, being late wasn’t so bad. There’d be one less hour of standing around the Holcomb patio, pretending he was having a good time when only an idiot would have a good time at a stupid cocktail party for Liz Holcomb’s latest pet charity.

And who did he have to blame? Gage scowled at his reflection as he rinsed the lather from his face. Himself, that was who. Himself, and nobody else.

He’d let Natalie talk him into it. “I’ll skip the party and send a check,” he’d said, when she’d shown him the invitation. “You just tell me how big the check should be.” But Natalie had given him that look, the one he’d seen on her lovely face more and more the past few months.

“You’re free to do that, if you wish,” she’d said in that cool and elegant voice of hers, “but I worked on the committee with Liz.”

“Meaning?” Gage had countered, and Natalie had smiled politely and said meaning, of course, that she’d be attending the cocktail party even if he didn’t.

Her reply had surprised him. Things had gotten off track between them lately but still, they were a couple. Weren’t they? For one long moment, he’d almost asked her that but he’d thought better of it and said, okay, if it meant so much to her, he’d go.

“Thank you,” Natalie had said, her tone as polite as her smile, and that had thrown him off balance again, made him so damned furious he’d wanted to haul her into his arms, kiss her until she turned back into the woman he remembered.

The breath hissed from between Gage’s teeth. He tossed aside the towel, strapped on his watch and strode, naked, into his bedroom.

But sex was supposed to be a two-way street. And in life, just as in business, you never went into a situation unless you were pretty damn sure you knew the outcome…and who knew what would have happened if he’d tried to melt Natalie’s icy politeness with sex?

It might not have worked. And that was a possibility he wasn’t ready to face just yet.

On the other hand, he’d figured that maybe it was time to push for some answers. Gage paused at the door to his closet, his jaw tightening. Maybe it was time to find out if it was only his ego that wanted Natalie warm and responsive in his arms, and not his heart.

So he’d told her that he’d be delighted to go to the Holcomb party, now that he knew she’d had a hand in the planning, and he’d even thought her polite smile had warmed a little.

“Thank you,” she’d said, and he’d started making plans right then and there to be at his charming best the night of the party and see if he couldn’t recapture some of what used to be between Natalie and him.

Now, those plans had gone up in smoke because he was waltzing off to the Holcombs all by himself.

“Big surprise, Baron,” he muttered as he slid open the closet door.

It seemed as if he couldn’t count on anything much lately. Plans, except the ones that involved iron-clad contracts and rock-hard commitments, were meaningless. People were unpredictable; feelings came and went in the blink of an eye, and if he’d been fool enough to think Natalie would be any different, he was starting to learn otherwise.

Gage’s mouth thinned.

If it was over with Natalie, it was over. And maybe it was for the best. What was the point in a relationship in which silence had replaced conversation and accommodation had replaced passion?

“Is there something wrong?” he’d said a couple of weeks ago. God, what the words had cost him, especially when he’d seen the look of disdain that had crept over Natalie’s beautiful face.

“I don’t know,” she’d said in that polite voice that made his blood pressure zoom. “You tell me. Is there?”

For the first time in his life, Gage had considered that it was possible, just possible, that a man might have a reason for slugging a woman. Well, if the woman were a man. If she were as big as he was, at six feet two, or if her muscles had been hardened by years of physical labor before things started coming together right.

But Natalie was none of those things. She was tall, yes, and with a toned, beautiful body, but she was definitely all woman.

He would never hurt her. Never. And yet, it didn’t seem to mean a damn to her that she was hurting him. Okay, not hurting him. How could she, when he didn’t really feel the same way about her anymore? Still, he was entitled to common courtesy. And after ten years of marriage, it looked as if Natalie had even given up on that.

“She knew I was only going to this damned party because of her,” Gage said to the open closet. “But did she phone my office to say she wouldn’t be going with me? No,” he growled, answering his own question. “No, she did not.”

No call. No explanation. Nothing but the red light blinking on the answering machine to greet him as he came in the door half an hour ago, and then Natalie’s clipped voice saying, “I’ve been delayed. I’m not promising anything but if I possibly can, I’ll meet you at the Holcombs’s.”

At least she’d gotten that right, he thought grimly, as he shouldered his way into a white dress shirt. No promises. And now, no Natalie.

“So, here you are, Baron, going to this party alone,” Gage muttered as he zipped up his fly, then slipped on his jacket. “What do you think that makes you, huh?”

A jerk, that was what. A jerk in a tuxedo. He glared into the mirror, ran his hands through his dark hair, adjusted his bow tie, tried a smile and wondered if people would run in terror when he tried it on them.

This was going to be one terrific night. He’d shelled out a thousand bucks to spend the evening trapped in a monkey suit, munching soggy canapés, drinking flat champagne, wondering where Natalie was…

And why the hell should he? Gage’s pale blue eyes narrowed. Natalie was a big girl. She could take care of herself, as she was so fond of telling him.

If it was over, it was over. The sooner he got used to the idea, the better.

Gage plucked his car keys from the top of his dresser, tossed them in the air, and headed for the door.

The lineup of cars headed for the Holcomb mansion began half a block from the driveway.

“Great,” Gage muttered, as he eased down through the gears of his vintage Corvette, “just great.”

There was nothing like being stuck on the tail end of a line of Caddies and Mercedes to make a man wish he were sitting in the lounge of the Baron Windsong, enjoying a glass of vintage chinon blanc.

The Cadillac ahead of him jerked forward a couple of inches. Gage sighed as he moved the Vette up behind it.

Never mind the wine. Never mind the hotel. He saw enough of it during the day, and wine was a great idea, given the right time and place, but just now what would really do it was a chilled bottle of a good dark ale. And a beach, not here in Miami but somewhere out in the South Pacific, where that same big, white moon that was floating overhead would cast its ivory light over an untouched stretch of sand. Man, he could just see it. He’d be in a pair of cut-down denims, leaning back on his elbows, his face turned up to the night sky as he watched all those falling stars flame through the blackness while the cool surf kissed his toes…

A horn beeped behind him. Gage blinked, frowned, saw the car-length space that had opened before him, and eased the Vette forward.

What was wrong with him tonight?

It was years since he’d sat on a beach, or wanted to; years since he’d spent so much time in foolish introspection…

Years since a woman had made him feel so uncertain.

His hands flexed on the steering wheel.

This couldn’t go on. Okay, he’d endure the Holcomb shindig for an hour. Half an hour; that would be enough. Then he’d slip out the door, confront Natalie when she finally showed up at home, demand answers, and end the nonsense between them one way or the other.

If she wanted to go on, he’d consider it. If she wanted to finish things, so be it. Life would go on, divorce or not…

In which case, what was he doing here, waiting his turn to go to a party he didn’t want to attend, courtesy of a woman he wasn’t sure he wanted anymore?

That was the truth, and admitting it, finally, made him feel as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.

To hell with this. Gage’s jaw tightened. He’d cut out of line, go back to the house, peel off this silly suit, climb into his cutoffs…

“Sir?”

He could feel the knot in his gut start to loosen. All he had to do was back up a couple of inches, thread the Vette’s nose out into the road…

“Sir? Excuse me, sir?”

Gage jerked his head towards the window. “What?” he snarled, and blinked.

Without realizing it, he’d reached the driveway. A kid stood outside the car, his red jacket pronouncing him the parking attendant for the night. His face was pimply, his Adam’s apple was bobbing, and Gage sighed, tamped down his temper, and once again managed that thing he hoped might pass for a smile.

“Yeah,” he said, and because fate had intervened, or he’d taken too damn long to come to his senses, he did what any man would do under the circumstances, stepped out of the Vette, handed the kid his keys along with a ten dollar bill to make up for the way he’d snarled, and climbed the steps of the Holcomb mansion to what he knew would be a couple of hours of brutally civilized torture.

Torture was too polite a word.

Who was it who’d invented cocktail parties, anyway? Charity ones, especially? Not a man, he was certain of that. Only a woman would expect human beings to pay for the privilege of standing in a crowded room clutching a glass of undrinkable wine in one hand and a lump of inedible something in the other, while a string quartet on the patio sawed its way through something that had probably been just as dull and lifeless when it was written a couple of hundred years ago as it was now.

The smile he’d practiced seemed to be working well enough. It made him feel like an escapee from a funny farm but nobody seemed put off by it. Hank Holcomb had pumped his hand, muttered something about how pleased he was to be hosting the party even as he rolled his eyes in denial. Liz Holcomb had swooped down in a cloud of perfume dense enough to gas anybody around her, air-kissed both his cheeks and urged him to try the battered shrimp.

“Where’s our Natalie?” Liz had said, but she’d squealed at the sight of someone else before he’d had to come up with an answer. “I’ll see you later, darling,” she’d cried, kissed the air in his general direction, and flown off.

So he’d wandered through the football-field-size living room, out to the patio, back through the dining room, accepted the glass of wine and the limp canapé from passing waiters once he grew weary of saying, “No, thanks,” every two minutes, and now he’d found himself a fairly quiet spot in a corner nobody coveted because the potted palm that filled it did an effective job of shielding from view whoever might stand beneath its overhanging fronds and, after all, he supposed, half the purpose of attending this thing was the dubious pleasure of seeing and being seen.

And the longer he stood there, observing the scene, the better he felt. There was something about the silliness of it all. The bad food. The worse wine. The awful music. The guests, the women, glittering like brightly plumaged birds; the men, decked out like penguins. He chuckled. It was like being inside some enormous aviary. Even the sounds in the room seemed appropriate. Cluck, cluck. Cheep, cheep…

“Hi.”

He turned. The voice was soft and sultry; it went magnificently with the face and body, which were, without question, the best good genes and plastic surgery had to offer.

“Hi,” he said, and smiled.

“Awful, isn’t it?” the woman said.

Gage laughed. “Absolutely.”

“The wine. The hors d’oeuvres.” She shuddered in a way he figured she’d spent lots of time perfecting. It made her long, straight mane of golden hair slip over her bare shoulders like water running over alabaster and her rounded breasts quiver like Jell-O beneath the couple of inches of fabric that was supposed to be a dress. She tilted her head, looked up at him through her lashes and, very slowly, trailed the tip of her tongue across her moist bottom lip. “Why,” she said, with a lazy smile, “I just don’t know what to do with myself.”

A muscle danced in Gage’s jaw. He’d been out of circulation for a while but a man would have to be dead from the neck up and the waist down not to know what the answer to that remark was supposed to be.

I do, he was supposed to say, and the gorgeous blonde with the impossible boobs would smile again, link her arm through his, and not too long after, they’d be in bed.

His body tightened reflexively at the sudden image. It was a long time since he’d thought about having a woman other than Natalie. Too long, maybe. Maybe that was just what he needed, a hot broad, a mindless tussle between cool sheets, a mutual wham-bam-thank-you-ma’ am, with no morning-after regrets, no recriminations, no commitments that would only screw up his head.

“Yes or no?” the blonde said softly, her baby blues filled with a directness Gage could admire if not accept.

He smiled, a little regretfully.

“Sorry. I’m just not…”

“That’s all right.” Her smile was regretful, too. “Another time, perhaps.”

“Sure,” he said, although he knew he didn’t mean it. Even if things ended with Natalie, even after he was free to move on, he’d be done with women. For a while, anyway, he thought, as the blonde sauntered away. A man would have to be either a fool or a liar to swear off the female of the species completely but right now, for the foreseeable future, he had no wish whatsoever to—to—

That was when he saw her, in the doorway.

His breath caught, his stomach tightened, and he knew his thoughts of a moment ago had been all lies.

He wasn’t done with women, not for tonight, not for the foreseeable future, not any way, any shape, any time.

The woman in the doorway was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

It was wrong to compare her to the blonde who’d just moved off but the contrasts were so incredible that he couldn’t keep from doing it.

She wasn’t blonde. Maybe that didn’t seem like much but in Miami Beach, in this kind of crowd, most of the heads were golden. Not that they’d started life that way. It was just that the sun seemed to inspire a sun-kissed look.

Not for her.

The lady coming slowly down the steps into the living room had hair as black as night. She wore it drawn back from her perfect oval face, knotted high on her head; just looking at it, Gage could tell that when she let it down—when he let it down, it would flow over his hands like ebony silk.

His gaze wandered over her, taking in the wide, dark eyes, the straight nose, the determined mouth, dropped lower to skim over her simple black dress, over what he knew had to be breasts that had not been fashioned by the surgeon’s knife. She was slender, this woman, but she was all woman nonetheless, with sweetly curved hips and long, gorgeous legs encased in sheer black hose that ended in black sandals with impossibly high heels.

She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen, and she was alone. Alone, but searching the room for someone.

Gage ditched the silly canapé and sorry excuse for a drink in the potted palm. If she was looking for a man, that man was damned well going to be him.

He stepped out from the corner, his eyes fastened to her, and waited. She would look towards him; every instinct, every thump of his heart told him so.

And, at last, she did.

Their eyes met and held. Time seemed to stop; the moment stretched out between them, filled with heat. Gage could feel his blood thickening as it pumped through his veins. His body had reacted to the blonde, but not like this.

This was different. It was everything he’d ever hoped for, or dreamed.

Something flickered across her lovely face. Eagerness? Anticipation? He took a step forward…and saw something else on her face. Panic. Even fear. Hell, why would she fear him? She knew what he wanted; it was what she wanted, too, he was sure of it.

He took another step and she whirled away from him, vanishing into the crowd.

She was running from him but, dammit, he wasn’t going to let her get away. Not tonight. Not when she was what he needed, what he’d hungered for without even knowing he was hungry.

He moved quickly, knifing his way through the clots of people filling the room, his gaze constant in its search for a flash of that pale face, that silken hair.

Liz Holcomb grasped his arm.

“Gage, you gorgeous man, there you are! I want you to meet…”

“Later,” he said, and swept past her.

Hank was next, appearing suddenly in his path with a portly, smiling gentleman in tow.

“Gage, old pal, here’s the mayor of…

“Later,” he said again, and kept moving…and, all at once, he saw her, hurrying out the French doors to the patio.

She was almost running, wobbling slightly in those ridiculously high heels, those sexy-as-sin heels. Past the string quartet, down the garden steps, past the fountain where cherubs and dolphins cavorted in cascades of illuminated water. Just beyond the fountain she paused, looked back. Their eyes met again and the heat he saw in hers almost made him groan.

Still, she turned and fled. Gage quickened his pace. There was no need to run. He was faster than she was and he knew she couldn’t escape him, not out here. The garden was walled; there was no way out.

He knew, too, that she didn’t really want to escape him.

It had been there, in her eyes. The need. The urgency. The hot wanting that pulsed through her body just as it pulsed through his.

And there she was, at last. She stood in the rear of the garden, where the darkness had gathered, where the leafy branches of the trees blocked out all but the faintest hint of moonlight.

Gage stopped, inches from her.

Her eyes were wide, her lips were parted. She was breathing hard, and her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath the clinging black dress. A strand of hair had slipped free of the pins that held it and trailed down her neck. Her scent, an erotic blend of jasmine and roses mixed with the scent of the sea beyond the garden wall, filled his senses.

He reached out. She drew back.

“Are you afraid of me?” he said softly.

She licked her lips. Nothing in the way she did it was provocative, yet the simple gesture made his body harden like stone.

He came closer, so close that he knew he had only to bend his head if he wanted to brush her mouth with his.

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured. “Surely you know that.”

“You won’t mean to,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. The sound of it seemed to dance against his skin. “But you will.”

“No.” He said the word fiercely but the hand he reached out was gentle as he tucked the trailing strands of hair behind her ear. “No,” he said again, “I’d never hurt you.”

“You will,” she whispered, “you—”

And then, with a little sob, she was in his arms.

Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He knew he was holding her too closely, that he might be bruising her delicate bones, but he felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.

She solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.

“Babe.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet babe.”

Her hands swept under his jacket, her palms spreading across his chest. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.

“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please…”

She groaned when he dragged down the straps of her dress. The swell of her breasts above the lacy filigree of her bra shone like fresh cream in the moonlight. She cried out when he buried his face in her neck. Her head fell back; he cupped her breasts, bit lightly at her skin, slipped his hands beneath the bra and touched the eager flesh that awaited him.

Her answering cry tore away whatever thin veneer of civilized behavior that remained to him. He made a sound deep in his throat, drew her further into the darkness, pressed her back against the wall.