Page 81 of Kiss an Angel

That wasn’t the real reason for his objection. As she gazed at him, she realized she had two choices. She could go off and treat herself to a well-deserved sulk, or she could force him to be honest with her. “Tell me exactly what’s wrong.”

“I already have.”

“No, you haven’t. Sheba said you’d turned down a nicer trailer for this place.”

He shrugged.

“You wanted to make it as hard on me as possible, didn’t you?”

“Don’t take it personally. I hadn’t even met you when I made the decision about the trailer.”

“But you’d heard about me from my father.”

He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine he’d bought the day before, a bottle that she’d considered too expensive for their budget.

She refused to let him shut her out. “Did you want to keep living in this place the way it was?”

“It was all right.” He reached in the drawer for the corkscrew.

“I don’t believe you. You’re a man who enjoys beautiful things. I’ve seen the way you take in the scenery when we’re traveling or point out something pretty in a store window. Yesterday when we stopped at that roadside stand, you said the basket of fruit reminded you of a Cézanne.”

“Do you want a glass of wine?”

She shook her head, and as she studied him she began to understand. “I’ve stepped over the line again, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know what you mean, by that.”

“That invisible border you’ve set up in your mind between a real marriage and a pretend one. I’ve crossed it again, haven’t I?”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Sure I am. You’ve made up a whole list of rules and regulations for our pretend marriage. I’m supposed to follow your orders without question and stay out of your way except when you want me in bed with you. But most of all, I’m not supposed to make any emotional attachments. I’m not allowed to care about you, about our marriage, our life together. I’m not even allowed to care about this dumpy little trailer.”

She’d finally gotten to him, and he slapped the flat of his hand down on the counter, shaking the wine bottle. “I don’t want you nesting, that’s all! It’s a bad idea.”

“I was right,” she said quietly.

He shoved his hand back through his hair. “You’re such a damned romantic. Sometimes when I see you looking at me, I have the feeling you’re not seeing me at all. Instead, you’re seeing the way you want me to be. You’re doing the same thing with this—this legal tie between us. You’re going to try to make it into something it’s not.”

“It’s a marriage, Alex, not just a legal tie. We made sacred vows.”

“For six months! Don’t you understand that I care about you? All I’m trying to do is protect you from getting hurt.”

“Protect me? I see.” She took a deep breath. “Is that why you’ve been checking to make certain I’m taking my birth control pills?”

His expression grew stony. “What does that have to do with anything.”

“At first I couldn’t figure out why I’d find them on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet when I’d left them on the bottom. Then I realized that you’d been handling them.”

“I was just making sure you weren’t forgetting them, that’s all.”

“In other words, you’ve been checking up on me.”

“I’m not going to apologize. I told you how strongly I feel about not having children.”

She gazed at him bleakly. “We don’t have anything, do we? No respect, no affection, no trust.”

“We have affection, Daisy. At least I do.” He hesitated. “And you’ve earned my respect, too. I never figured you would take your work so seriously. You’ve got guts, Daisy.”

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