The Marriage Experiment Read online

  Rubbing the man’s nose in the fact that he’d been out-maneuvered yet again by his old upstart of an enemy gave Grant a special kind of satisfaction now. In his view, no amount of punishment he could dole out would ever even the score between him and Olivia’s father. The bitterness ran too deep. On both sides.

  “Even with the ink on your diploma barely dry you were an arrogant bastard, and nothing’s changed, obviously,” Sam growled. “It’s no thanks to you that John Polsen didn’t die, the day they brought him into Emergency.”

  “Bull, Sam!” Grant said cheerfully. “John Polsen’s like you—too mean to die.”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Olivia begged, observing the old warhorse fearfully. “For heaven’s sake, Grant, can’t you see my father isn’t a well man? This kind of strain is bad for his heart.”

  Too many sixteen-ounce steaks, after-dinner ports and foot-long cigars are the real culprit in that department, Grant could have told her. But there was a limit to everyone’s tolerance for stress and Olivia had clearly reached hers. Her eyes were dark with worry and she slipped her arm part-way around the old man’s girth as tenderly as a mother. “Don’t upset yourself,” she told him soothingly. “It isn’t worth it. He isn’t worth it.”

  “Maybe you should find him a seat in the shade,” Grant offered, a little alarmed himself at Sam’s stertorous breathing and the sweat suddenly popping out on his brow.

  The glare she flung at him would have stopped traffic. “I hardly need you to tell me how to take care of my father. In fact, given the circumstances, you’re the last person I’d turn to for advice.”

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugged and inclined his head at the crowd lined up at a buffet groaning under the weight of lobster mayonnaise, cracked Dungeness crab, prawns in aspic, smoked turkey and roast beef. “But you’d be doing him a favor if you steered him away from all that rich food.”

  Not deigning to acknowledge what she surely knew was a sound recommendation, she carted Sam off to a table set in the shade of a grand old oak, and plunked him down in a chair. Shortly after, Henry Colton joined them. What a sight they made, with him fawning all over the old man and practically drooling on her, Sam sitting there like a king holding court, and Olivia, the ever-dutiful daughter, anticipating her father’s every need and waiting on him hand and foot.

  Collaring Justin, who happened to stroll past at that moment, Grant nodded at the trio. “Do you see anything wrong with that picture?”

  Justin didn’t miss a beat. “Apart from the fact that you’re no longer in it, you mean?”

  Grant snorted and muttered a satisfyingly obscene expletive. “I hardly think I’ve been missed! But there’s something sadly lacking in a twenty-eight-year-old woman whose idea of high living is to act as handmaiden to her tyrant of a father.”

  “Yeah.” Justin nodded. “So what do you propose to do about it, pal?”

  “Me?” Grant grimaced. “Not a blasted thing!”

  “Why not? Isn’t that why you really came back to Springdale?”

  Incensed, he snapped, “You know very well it’s not!”

  But Justin was no more the type to back away from a scrap than Grant himself was. “Come off it, Grant! I agree you’re doing me a favor by covering my practice while I’m away, but would you have been so eager to stand in if it were anyone else—or, more to the point, anywhere else? Admit it, you’ve got another, less altruistic reason for being here. So what’s on that private agenda of yours? Going another ten rounds with Sam Whitfield for the sheer hell of it—or trying once more to wean Olivia away from him?”

  An hour ago, Grant could truthfully have declared Sam the hands-down winner. That the situation had changed, however, wasn’t something he was prepared to admit to anyone. Deeming ambiguity the better part of discretion, he merely grinned at Justin and raised his glass in a mocking toast. “Let’s just drink to marriage, pal,” he said. “May the honeymoon never end.”

  Up to her neck in bubbles, Olivia lay back in the soaker tub, rested her head against the inflatable pillow, and wallowed in the scented warmth of the water. Gradually, the tension seeped out of her limbs, eased away by a languor that crept along her shoulders and up the back of her neck. Only when a slight ache swept the length of her jaw did she realize she’d been clenching her teeth for longer than was good for her, or them.

  Of course, she knew why she’d been coiled tight as a spring. She’d behaved like a complete idiot at the wedding. By now, everyone else in town probably knew it, as well. And the reason could be succinctly summed up in two words: Grant Madison.

  To say that she’d gone into shock at first sight of him scarcely began to describe the jolt to her system. Her father wasn’t the only one who’d run the risk of cardiac arrest. She’d felt pretty close to it herself, the way her heart had literally thundered to a stop before resuming an erratic rhythm and banging wildly against her ribs. But that was nothing compared to what had happened later, after the sun had gone down behind the hills and left the garden dappled in purple shadows.

  By then, she’d begun to recover from the trauma of coming face to face with her ex-husband, even to relax a little, which was never a good idea around Grant. But he’d seemed more than happy to keep his distance, and when Henry had asked her to dance, she’d accepted. There’d been no reason not to. He was a good, if conservative, dancer, just about all the other guests had been up on their feet, and what better way to celebrate the wedding of two well-known, well-respected Springdale residents than in a turn around the dance floor imported for the occasion?

  People had already been talking, of course, even then. Those who’d known Grant in the past hadn’t forgotten him, or his stormy marriage to the chairman of the hospital board’s daughter, and they’d been more than willing to supply the details to those meeting him for the first time. She’d have had to be both blind and stupid not to have noticed the sly glances directed at her, or the way conversation had suddenly stopped whenever she’d come within earshot. If up-staging the bride and groom had been his intent, Grant had succeeded in spectacular fashion.

  But Olivia had come a long way since she’d watched him walk out on their marriage. In the seven years since, she’d grown up, and no longer hid behind the high stone walls of her father’s house. So she’d held her head high and smiled determinedly as Henry had swept her around the floor in a precisely correct fox-trot.

  If only the music hadn’t changed…if only Henry didn’t feel that jive was something best reserved for leather-clad delinquents….

  Sighing, she reached for the loofah and scrubbed languidly at her right leg. If only she’d had the good sense to say no! But Grant had caught her off-guard, stepping in the moment Henry had released her and grasping her by both hands. “Care to show ’em how it’s done, sweet face?” he murmured.

  “I really must protest,” Henry began.

  “Must you really?” Grant replied with a grin. “And how do you propose to do that, Henry, old sport? Knock my block off?”

  Even if he’d been so inclined, at five-ten and only a hundred and seventy pounds or so, Henry was no match for a man of Grant’s build. Comparing the two, Olivia experienced a shocking sense of déjà vu as she recalled the first time she’d seen Grant without any clothes.

  Doctors weren’t supposed to be so broad-shouldered or narrow-waisted. They usually weren’t blessed with muscular arms, long, athletic legs, and a chest tailor-made to take a woman’s breath away. They were supposed to be studious and serious and kind and safe and, like Henry, a little bit stooped around the shoulders. And what an M.D. looked like stark naked wasn’t supposed to be the first thing a woman thought about when confronted by him.

  Henry, bless his soul, didn’t have a clue about what she was thinking. “Olivia? Do you want me to get rid of this fellow?”

  “It’s all right, Henry,” she said, aware that she was mesmerized by Grant’s laughing blue eyes and even more shamefully aware of the sudden rush of moist electric heat dampening her underwear. “I can handle this myself. If Dr. Madison would like to dance, I’m willing to accommodate him.”

  Accommodate him, indeed! And far more intimately than Henry could begin to guess! Consigning self-preservation to another time, she let Grant draw her into the seething, insistent tempo of “Proud Mary”, and as if it had been only yesterday, they rediscovered the wordless affinity of two people who knew one another so well that their bodies instinctively interacted as one.

  How was it possible for a dance to be so charged with vibrant energy and yet to smolder with such sultry tension? Half the time he sent her spinning away from him, with nothing but the sure grip of his fingers to anchor her. And she let herself go, confident that he wouldn’t lose her, that she wouldn’t stumble, that, eventually, he’d bring her back to him. As he did, drawing her hard and close to him so that their thighs locked and their hips rocked in grinding, hypnotic motion.

  Then, when she thought she could bear it no longer and was sure everyone around them knew she was melting for him, he’d fling her away again, turn her so that her spine rubbed against his chest, pass his hand around his waist and offer it behind his back so that, as she swung by him, her arm brushed against him and her fingers wanted dreadfully to drift down and linger on the taut curve of his buttocks.

  Oh, he was a devil in disguise, no doubt about it, and she a mindless fool for not putting an end to matters when she had the chance! But, too dazzled to sense the danger, she remained with him and let him draw her into the next dance, a slow, slow number which invited—no, which guaranteed intimacy and full body contact—and he crooned softly in her ear This Guy’s In Love. Words to break her heart, because he’d never really been in love with her.

  To hide the sudden pang of regret which blurred h
er vision, she closed her eyes and dropped her head to his shoulder. He gave a little growl of satisfaction and, folding her hand against his heart, tilted his hips so that she couldn’t possibly miss noticing how thoroughly aroused he was. Which was what it always came back to, with Grant. Sex, sex, and sex. As if that was enough to make her forget the hurt and betrayal he’d dealt out to her.

  So, to let him know that she wasn’t about to be seduced again, she reared back and practically shrieked, “How dare you, Grant Madison?”

  “Well,” he muttered, obviously chagrined, “it’s not as if I took the damned thing to obedience school and had it trained to perform on command! When a woman presses her nice soft body up against a man, he’s likely to react.”

  Too late, she realized that the music had stopped. Had the people closest overheard the exchange? she wondered, appalled. Were the titters and giggles and one or two outright guffaws directed at her, or were they just the normal reactions of people enjoying a wedding party?

  Surely they were. But did she comport herself with dignity, as befitting a woman of her position in the community, and simply walk away from Grant Madison and his deplorable behavior? Oh, no, not Olivia Margaret Whitfield! As if they hadn’t already put on enough of a floor show, she hauled off and slapped him across the cheek as a grand finale.

  Groaning at the recollection, she drew in a long breath and submerged her head beneath the water, wishing she could drown herself. How would she ever face people again, after such a performance? Worse still, how would she face him, as she’d undoubtedly have to do if, as he’d claimed, he’d be acting as Justin Greer’s locum for the next two months?

  CHAPTER TWO

  FOR the next two days, Olivia literally hid from the world. Turning off her phone, she buried herself in tasks about the gatehouse, spending Sunday morning painting the powder room at the back of the hall, and the afternoon weeding the flower garden bordering the patio.

  On Monday, thanks to the miracle of modern computers, she was able to put in a full day’s work without once stepping outside her front door. But when she found herself actually planning to lie about not feeling well rather than attend a scheduled meeting at Springdale General on the Tuesday, she knew the self-indulgence had gone on long enough.

  “Grow up, Olivia!” she muttered. “After Saturday’s wedding debacle, showing your face in public again won’t be easy, but you’ve survived worse.”

  An hour later, she wasn’t sure that was true.

  “Hear your husband’s back in town,” Ingrid from the deli greeted her, when she stopped by on her way to the hospital. “Hear your father’s fit to be tied about it, too.”

  There wasn’t much Ingrid didn’t hear in the course of a week. The little tea shop at the back of her premises was well patronized by local matrons and a hive of gossip, even when there was nothing much to talk about. The return of the renegade Dr. Madison would have made front page news even if he’d come sneaking into town under a cover of darkness. Olivia wasn’t the only one who’d found his slow, sexy smile and hypnotically persuasive voice irresistible.

  “I’ll take a jar of black olives, please, and a small carton of the bean salad,” she said stiffly, hoping to nip the conversation in the bud. “And, just for the record, he’s my ex-husband.”

  But picking up subtle hints never had been one of Ingrid’s strong points. “Don’t think folks haven’t noticed, hon! There’s a whole flurry of social events suddenly being planned and, as usual, the first one out of the gate is Mrs. Bowles. Just yesterday, she booked me to cater a garden party and let slip that Dr. Madison’s name’s at the top of her list of invitees. And I guess we all know why.” She weighed the salad, slapped a lid on it, and hitched her bosom on the edge of the glass-fronted display case of imported cheeses, a sure sign she was settling in for the duration. “She didn’t shell out the better part of eight thousand dollars to make her daughter presentable just to have her sitting home and withering on the vine, as it were. Now that Joanne’s got the braces off her teeth and shed all that extra weight, Mrs. Bowles is looking to fix her up with a rich husband. And if the car your ex is driving is anything to go by, he’s not exactly on the bread line.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that, since I have absolutely no idea what sort of car he’s driving, nor any interest in finding out.”

  “No,” Ingrid said slyly. “I guess you’ve been too busy checking out his other assets. Having second thoughts about the divorce, are you?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Probably just as well. From all I’ve heard, he’s a bit more than a woman like you can handle.”

  The way Ingrid looked at her, she might have been the offspring of a troll trying to pass for human.

  “Thank you very much!” Olivia said, and made her escape. But, instead of heading directly to the hospital, she detoured by way of the park and found a bench in a quiet corner overlooking the river. She needed a few moments to collect herself before running the risk of facing anyone else because, in her present state, she could only be described as a mess.

  Why had Ingrid’s last comment hurt so much when it coincided exactly with the conclusion she herself had arrived at years ago? Why did it matter that every eligible woman within hailing distance was setting her sights on Grant Madison, or that invitations were being issued and she probably wouldn’t be receiving any? And why couldn’t she forget how it had felt to be in his arms again, to feel his heart beating beneath her hand?

  She knew the answer and it had nothing to do with falling in love again—at least, not with him. It had to do with his all-too-accurate assessment of her relationship with Henry.

  She was a woman in her prime. She should be married and pregnant, with one or two children already hanging onto her skirts. She should have a warm, exciting body sleeping next to her in bed each night.

  Instead, she had Henry, who’d implied more than once that he was in love with her. But the thought of actually making love with him left her cold, and he fortunately was too much the gentleman to press the point. Unlike Grant….

  Unbidden, the memories of that long-ago summer came sweeping back. She’d been just two months shy of her twentieth birthday when they’d met, and to say that she’d fallen in love with the handsome new intern was an absurd understatement. She’d literally tumbled headlong into a passion so hot and intense it had nearly killed her.

  On their third date, Grant had rented a boat and they’d spent the afternoon drifting down the river. Because of the heat, she’d worn a white sun dress with nothing underneath but a pair of cotton panties, and he’d worn denim cut-offs and a blue golf shirt. Spreading out her skirt, she’d reclined against the boat cushions, rested her head against one raised arm, and let the fingers of her other hand trail through the water, all the time watching him through half-closed eyes, admiring the play of muscles beneath the smooth tanned skin of his arms and legs, and very much aware that he was watching her.

  A few miles past the town limits, he’d steered into a quiet backwater, tethered the boat, and led her up the bank toward a huge old weeping willow. She’d sensed the urgency in him, had seen the smoldering passion in his eyes. When he’d drawn her down beside him in the long, sweet grass, she’d known he wasn’t going to stop at a kiss or two, just as she’d known she wasn’t going to object at his wanting more from her.

  Even all these years later, remembering made her blush. How willingly she’d sprawled beside him, with her skirt up around her waist and the straps of her dress pulled down to reveal her breasts, and her underwear hanging off one ankle! How brazenly she’d let him pleasure her, moaning low in her throat as he’d skimmed his lips over the slope of her shoulder and at excruciating leisure taken each pebbled nipple in his mouth! And how trustingly she’d opened to him, her flesh so slick and eager and his so hard and hot and big that the pain as he’d entered her had barely had time to register before it had been thrust aside by raging passion.