Lovers Only. Christine Pacheco

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      “Now see here, Mr. Landon—” her attorney began.

      “No,” Clay interrupted softly. Dangerously.

      How many times in the past years had Catherine heard that tone? Not as often as in the early part of their marriage, but enough to recognize the careful control with which he held his anger in check.

      “No,” he repeated. “You see here. Catherine is still my wife.” With that, he broke gazes with her attorney and fixed glacial blue eyes on her—the opponent.

      She shivered, despite the sun streaming through the window.

      For a moment she thought she detected a softening in Clay’s expression. And something more. Perhaps a hint of hurt?

      No, that wasn’t possible.

      She and Clay had lost the ability to hurt each other three years ago. Catherine remembered it well. It had happened at the exact same time they’d lost their ability to communicate and share.

      “She won’t be married to you for much longer,” Kevin 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.”

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