The Husband Contract. Kathleen O'Brien

      Striving for a more natural air, she strolled toward the desk and stole a peek over his shoulder. The map was very old, its colorful pictures quite strange and beautiful. Ships and sea monsters lurked in the oceans; heraldic emblems decorated the borders, while in each corner a face with puffed cheeks blew the four winds toward the land.

      “It’s fourteenth century,” Clay said. He ran a long forefinger across the youthful, garlanded head of Zephyrus, the west wind. “Hand colored. Beautiful, but not terribly accurate. I would have hated to try to use it to actually get anywhere.”

      She looked again. “Well, at least it warns you where not to go. It shows quite clearly where the monsters are.”

      “True.” Leaning back, Clay gazed up at her thoughtfully. “The only problem is that they were wrong. The most terrifying monster on this map swims in what’s now the best fishing water around the Bahamas.” He smiled. “Like many people, mapmakers created monsters out of their own ignorance. Out of their own fears.”

      His smile seemed slightly wry. Did that comment carry a double meaning? Was he suggesting that she had demonized Uncle Joshua out of her own insecurity? Watchful of her temper, she chose not to address that issue.

      “I can sympathize with that,” she said. She hoped she sounded confident, only slightly self-effacing. “I certainly let my fears get away from me when you came to Wakefield the other day. I want to apologize for flying off the handle like that.”

      He was still smiling. “No apology is necessary. I expected you to find the terms of Joshua’s will disagreeable. I wasn’t at all surprised that you decided I was one of your monsters. How are you feeling now? Has your attorney had time to look over the will?”

      “Yes,” she said uncomfortably. He must know what her lawyer had said. If she still cherished any hopes of getting the will thrown out, she would never have come here. “He tells me that my uncle’s will is quite legal and probably unbreakable.”

      “He must be an unusually ethical man, then,” Clay said, sounding surprised. “A lot of lawyers would assure you it was worth a try, just so they could bill you for hundreds of hours of ‘trying’.”

      She bit her lower lip, wondering how honest she needed to be. Completely honest, she decided unhappily. A woman mature enough to inherit twelve million dollars didn’t shrink from confronting an embarrassing fact or two.

      “Well, he didn’t really have any incentive to mislead me. I asked him to take the case on a contingency basis. He wouldn’t have earned a cent if he hadn’t overturned the will.” She lifted her chin. “I can’t afford to contest this will frivolously, Mr. Logan.”

      “Then don’t contest it at all,” he said softly. “Your uncle wanted a will that would stand up to any challenge, and that’s what I gave him.” Standing, he came around the side of the desk. “Look, Melanie, I’ve got an idea.”

      His smile was warm and utterly charming, which made her instantly suspicious. Warm, charming people didn’t ordinarily work well—or very long—with Joshua Browning.

      “Since you’ve acknowledged that I’m not technically a monster,” he said, his tone teasing. “why don’t we start over? We’ll sit down, you’ll agree to call me Clay, and we’ll talk this whole thing over calmly.”

      She nodded slowly, banishing the suspicion. This was, after all, what she had hoped would happen. Calm. Cooperative. That wasn’t so hard. She could do that

      “Good. How about over here, then?” Clay gestured to a large leather sofa directly under the skylight, the most cheerful spot in a room like this. Its only drawback was that it faced a small, strange display of antique handcuffs and thumbscrews that Joshua had collected over the years. More obsession with power.

      But rather than quibble with Clay’s choice of seats—that was no way to start a cooperative chat—Melanie sat, settling herself at an angle to the display. If she didn’t turn her head much, she couldn’t even see the nasty little items.

      When she leaned back, though, the sofa suddenly hissed and writhed beneath her. She leaped to her feet, startled beyond speech. A very large reddish-brown cat—so like the color of the sofa that she hadn’t even seen it—was huffily rearranging himself, angry at the disruption but too lazy to get out of the way.

      Clay laughed and, reaching over, dumped the fat, furry feline unceremoniously onto the floor. “Get lost, Fudge. You’re in the way.”

      “Damn cat,” the parrot complained from his perch. “Useless beast.”

      Melanie stared from Copernicus to the cat, then turned her bewildered gaze to Clay. She finally found her voice. “Is that yours?”

      Clay shook his head, patting the now-empty spot, encouraging her to take her seat again. “Good Lord, no. That lazy feline belonged to your uncle.”

      “Joshua had a cat?” Melanie tried to picture it. For years, she and Nick had begged their uncle for a pet, but he’d always refused. Too much hair, too much trouble. And now—this? “My uncle hated cats. He never had a cat in his life.”

      “I gave this one to him a year ago,” Clay said mildly.

      “Fudge shared tuna sandwiches with him, ate them right off his plate.” He eyed her speculatively. “You’ve been gone a long time, you know. A lot can change in eight years.”

      “Obviously.” She sank onto the sofa, a little dizzy suddenly, slightly disoriented. She felt like the blindfolded player in that old children’s game, twirled first this way and that until she had no idea which way she was facing.

      It had been a mistake to come here. She should have waited until Monday, when she could have met Clay in his office. This place had too many memories, too much emotional residue. Right now, her thoughts were so off balanced that she wondered if she could even find the words to state her case.

      “I think I’d better just come straight to the point,” she said, her voice hardly as steady as it should be. “Nick is at a ball game with a friend, but they’ll be back soon.”

      “Okay,” he said, settling comfortably against the sofa.

      “I’m listening.”

      “Okay,” she echoed. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.

      “As you may have guessed, I want to talk to you about Joshua’s will. I…well, I wanted you to know that, in spite of what my uncle may have told you about me, I really am not a crazy teenager anymore. I’m twenty-four. I work. I live a perfectly sensible, even frugal…”

      She hesitated. His gaze was curious, polite, but somehow unnerving. This was going to be much harder than she had anticipated. And perhaps, though these were the words she’d practiced in front of the mirror, she was going at it all wrong. Even she could hear that she still sounded angry, defensive.

      She started over. “I want my inheritance, Clay. I believe I deserve it, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to convince you of that. Anything you need—credit reports, bank accounts, work references—I’m prepared to make it all available to you.”

      He raised his brows. “This is a fairly dramatic turnaround, isn’t it? May I ask what happened to change your mind so completely?”

      She flushed. “I’ve already admitted I overreacted. I’ve given this a lot of thought since that afternoon. In fact, I’ve thought of almost nothing else. I’ve realized that I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear from an inspection of my finances or my lifestyle.” She tried to smile. “You just reminded me that a lot can change in eight years. You’re right. Perhaps my uncle changed—I don’t know. But I do know that I changed, a lot. In fact, if you’ll give me a fair chance, you’ll discover that I’m a very different person from the headstrong girl my uncle remembered.”

      That much was certainly true, she thought, aware of how bitter the words tasted in her mouth. The old Melanie could never