Lovers Only. Christine Pacheco

Dobson insisted.

      When Clay turned his attention to Catherine’s attorney again, the older man pulled a starched handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow.

      “I want to talk to my wife. Privately.”

      “Clay,” Jack Simmons said. “This really isn’t the time.”

      “Out!” he ordered his own attorney.

      Catherine felt the heat of their stares fasten on her, one by one. First her attorney. Then Clay’s attorney. Finally, Clay himself.

      Beneath the table she twisted her fingers together, absently reaching for the missing wedding ring...the ring Clay had gently slipped onto her hand as he’d solemnly promised to love and cherish her forever.

      The same ring she’d shed when he’d broken that vow. The same ring that now rested, by itself, at the bottom of her jewelry box.

      “Five minutes, Cat.”

      The raw-edged intensity in his tone skittered across her nerves.

      “Isn’t what we had worth five minutes to you?”

      She remembered the way he’d raised her hand to his lips, making the preacher pause. She swore she still felt the warmth that had rushed through her at that moment, when she’d believed she and Clay would truly grow together, have a family together, become old together....

      “Out, Jack. And take Dobson with you.”

      “This is highly unusual,” Kevin Dobson protested.

      In less time than it took her frantic heart to beat half a dozen times, Clay had moved, coming around to her side of the table. With the toe of his cowboy boot he pushed back her chair.

      When his fingers found her shoulders, she looked up, trying to gauge emotions carefully cloaked behind his unreadable blue eyes.

      “Call him off, Cat.”

      With slow and gentle, yet inexorable pressure, Clay drew her to her feet. Then he pulled her closer to him. She could have resisted. Part of her mind screamed at her to resist. But she didn’t.

      There was something so right, so elementally right and basic about being in his arms again. It had been so long....

      Illogically, a frisson of excitement took hold. He was acting as if she was special, just like the Clay she’d fallen in Jove with so many years ago. Catherine forced herself to remember that it was the man he’d become she was divorcing.

      She looked up. His eyes didn’t seem so glacial. Nor did they contain the heat that they might once have had when he held her.

      “Cat, talk to me. Tell them to get out. Please,” Clay said quietly.

      The warmth of his breath on her cheek stirred Catherine’s starving senses, along with memories—memories of cool Colorado nights and Clay’s masculinity to keep her warm and secure.

      “It’s okay,” she finally said, looking sideways toward Dobson—away from her husband.

      Dobson checked his watch. “Really, Mrs. Landon, this isn’t the way things are done,” he protested a second time.

      Clay’s grip tightened.

      From experience she knew it was better to face the storm, brave it out and then let it blow over.

      If Clay wanted five minutes, she would give it to him. And then close the door behind her, never to look back.

      Besides, knowing Clay, he would stand here and argue the point for five minutes and win, anyway. Giving in now meant victory in the end. Victory in the form of freedom.

      “Give us five minutes, Mr. Dobson.”

      He wiped his brow again, then checked his watch. “Five minutes, Mrs. Landon. I do have other clients, you know.”

      The door closed behind the two lawyers. She and Clay were alone for the first time since she’d moved out of their home several months ago.

      In spite of everything, she attempted a grin. “He acts as though he’s paying me,” Catherine said.

      Clay didn’t smile in return.

      If anything, his expression had darkened. The storm hadn’t diminished, it had intensified.

      Her smile fled. She knotted her hands into fists, fingernails cutting into her palms.

      “Okay, Clay, you won.” Catherine let out a long breath, then said, “Talk.”

      “We haven’t done much of that, have we?”

      “Don’t,” she protested, wedging one of her clenched hands between them in a desperate attempt to gain some space. “It’s a little late for regrets.”

      He shook his head; a renegade lock of hair drooped over his forehead. Instantly years and experience were erased from his features. If only pain could be vanquished so easily....

      “I was serious. I’ve changed my mind about giving you a divorce, Cat.”

      Her pounding heart stopped. He couldn’t mean it. Not at this stage.

      He began to move his fingers in a light caress.

      Her heart resumed pounding.

      Catherine forced herself to drink a deep breath of air and hold it for a few seconds. “You can’t prevent me from divorcing you, Clay. These are the nineties.”

      “I know,” he said, voice barely over a whisper, making her strain in order to hear his words. “But I can make life hell for you.”

      Her own anger surged to the surface, red-hot and blazing. “Are you threatening me?”

      “No.”

      She frowned. “What then?”

      “A proposition.”

      Confusion replaced anger. “A proposition?” she echoed.

      “I love you, Cat.”

      Her pulse leapt. The right words. Too late. Oh, Lord, he’d finally used the words she’d waited night after night to hear for the last three years. Slowly she forced her fists to uncurl. “Clay—”

      “Hear me out.”

      She tried to harden her heart. But how could she when he stood so close? When she inhaled the same untamed scent he’d worn on their wedding day? When he moved his hands so slowly, as if in intentional seduction?

      They’d been in the same room less than half an hour and already he’d tossed her emotions into a tumultuous cauldron. She should resist. Should. But a look at his implacable face, hardened jaw and drawn lips convinced her otherwise. “Okay,” she said softly, resignedly. “You’ve still got three minutes.”

      “What we had was good.” When the only sounds that filled the room were the distant ringing of a phone and their combined breaths, he finally asked, “What? No argument?”

      She shook her head. “What we had was good,” she agreed. “Was, Clay.”

      “What happened?”

      “Life,” she answered. She’d pondered that same question a hundred, a thousand, no, ten thousand times. Not a night passed that she didn’t sit in the white wicker rocking chair, pushing it with her toe as she asked herself over and over, What went wrong? “We grew in different directions. You’ve got your business. I have the store.”

      She took a breath, looking him deeply in the eyes, memorizing his every nuance, wondering if this was the last time they’d ever stand this close...if this was the last time she would ever feel his once-loving arms hold her.

      Catherine wasn’t a fool. She’d considered all these things before finally swallowing the past and deciding to move on to the future.

      She just hadn’t realized Clay would make the finality