A Husband Worth Waiting For. Grace Green

light under the en suite door.

      So…Jedidiah was up.

      “C’mon, Mom, I want to go back to bed.”

      She ushered Emma back to her room, tucked her in, then began a swift search for Jamie. He wasn’t in any of the bedrooms. Could he have wandered downstairs?

      She hurried back along the corridor and almost bumped into Jedidiah as he emerged from his room.

      He was wearing only jeans, and even in her state of anxiety over Jamie, she couldn’t help noticing what a fantastic body the man had—lean, tanned, muscled, with crisp black hair covering his chest and tapering down…

      She sucked in a lungful of air and shot her gaze back to his face. “Excuse me.” Her voice had a Marilyn Monroe breathiness that appalled her. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’ve lost Jamie and—”

      “He’s in here—he’s asleep.”

      “Oh. I’m sorry if he woke you—”

      “No problem.”

      She made to walk around him. “I’ll just get him—”

      “Why don’t you leave him?” He braced a hand against the door frame, halting her. “He’s okay where he is.”

      There was something profoundly intimate about his stance. He wasn’t touching her, but she felt trapped within his space, and he was so close she could smell the salty sweat from his skin. Feel the heat of it.

      She cleared her throat and took a step sideways. “He needs to be in the other room. I have the monitor set up so I can hear him.”

      “You obviously didn’t hear him this time around!” He dropped his arm and, leaning languidly against the door frame, surveyed her with a gleam of amusement in his eyes.

      “I’d forgotten to switch it on.”

      She walked around him and crossed to the bed. Scooping Jamie up carefully, she carried him to the door.

      “I thought he might have gone looking for Max,” she said. “I don’t know where the dog’s been, but he’s back.”

      “He apparently followed the ambulance to the hospital and then hung around waiting for me. Was he hungry?”

      “I’ve fed him.”

      “Good. Sarah…we need to talk. After you put Jamie down.”

      “I agree.” Her eyes had taken on a haughty glitter. “There are certainly things we should discuss!”

      Jed watched her stalk off along the corridor. She was a sparky little thing, this wife of his. It was going to be interesting, getting to know her. Kind of like courting her all over again. He found the prospect exhilarating.

      After putting on a shirt, he made his way along to the landing. As he descended the stairs, he glanced around and found himself perplexed by what he saw.

      Nothing about the interior of this house drew him. The place not only had a sterile quality, it gave a whole new dimension to the word “tidy.” Something deep inside him ached to see a scarf tossed over the oak hall stand; fingerprints on the pristine white walls; even a fractional misalignment of the oil painting hanging sedately above the telephone table.

      What kind of woman had he married that she needed such order in her life? Because he was pretty damned sure he wasn’t the one who wanted it to be this way. He knew—he just knew!—that he couldn’t have been comfortable in such barren surroundings.

      Sarah Morgan was an enigma.

      Shaking his head, he strolled along to the kitchen, but when he opened the door he did a double take. The room looked as if a bomb had hit it.