My Favorite Husband Read online

  Unless Scott was about to tell her something that would make it worse. “Mother isn’t here, is she?” she asked in horror.

  “No, but—”

  “Not now,” she whispered fiercely. If it wasn’t about Mother making a scene, it could wait.

  “Kell, you really need to listen—”

  “Hush.” Why was he pushing this? Scott wasn’t usually so insensitive. Annoyed, she whispered in a snappish tone, “If you don’t be quiet, I’ll tell Mother what really happened to her favorite Aubusson.”

  “You wouldn’t.” He actually sounded wounded.

  “Only if you don’t be quiet.”

  “But it was such an ugly rug,” Scott murmured. “And the guys down at the pool hall think it adds such class. . . .”

  No, he was not going to cajole her into smiling this time. She gave him a speaking glance. One that said clearly, “Shut up or else.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, it’s your funeral.”

  No, it was Chaz’s. And nothing was going as she’d planned. She turned a polite face to the cousin who finished with a maudlin statement and the minister asked if there was anyone else who wanted to say anything. He knew better than to look at Kelly. She’d made it very clear she wanted to say her goodbyes in private.

  A deep voice came from the back. “I’d like to say something.”

  Kelly glanced up and frowned as the man made his way toward the front. What kind of idiot came to a memorial service dressed in khaki? With that deep tan and full beard, he must be one of Chaz’s archeologist friends. Ah, that explained it.

  Scott leaned closer and whispered, “I really need to—”

  She whipped around and fixed him with a killing glare that made him back off with his hands raised. What the hell was the matter with Scott? She would have understood it if he had tried to disrupt the wedding, but not the memorial service. He had liked Chaz.

  With Scott now suitably cowed, Kelly turned back to face the front and gazed at the man at the podium. He did look familiar. She knew she had seen him before, but couldn’t quite place him. She was sure his hair used to be brown, not sun-streaked blond like that . . . and something else wasn’t quite right. The full beard? It nagged at her. She knew she ought to know him, but who was he?

  The man didn’t bother introducing himself. Instead, he nodded at the elaborate casket and said in a rich voice full of humor, “I just have one thing to say. If Chaz Vincent’s body was never recovered, who the hell is in that box? Elvis?”

  She knew that voice—intimately.

  Ohmigod. Kelly shot to her feet as her mouth dropped open and shocked exclamations sounded throughout the room. Those bright blue eyes, that grin, that voice . . .

  Chaz!

  Chaz grinned at her and spread his arms wide. “Hi, honey. I’m ho-oome.”

  Joy filled her. Her husband was alive!

  Horror filled her. Her husband was waiting in the Pourtales honeymoon suite.

  Ohmigod, what do I do? Reaching out blindly, she found Scott there to support her.

  “I tried to tell you . . .” he muttered.

  The combination of emotions was too much. As a mish-mash of feelings roiled through her, Kelly did the only sensible thing.

  She fainted.

  2

  As Kelly crumpled into her brother’s arms, Chaz cursed himself. He should have broken it to her easier, but no, he had to make a grand entrance and scare her half to death.

  Pandemonium broke out in the room as everyone rushed toward him. Everyone, that was, but the person he wanted most, the one whose memory had kept him sane during the five years of his captivity.

  Chaz ignored the outstretched arms and exclamations of his friends and relatives and shoved past them, desperate to get to Kelly. But they all wanted a piece of him, this miracle who had come back to attend his own funeral.

  After hearing umpteen versions of “Chaz, is that really you?” while feeling like a salmon trying to swim upstream, Chaz finally stopped and bellowed, “Yes, it’s me. And yes, I’m alive. I’ll explain everything later—just let me get to my wife, please.”

  They finally let him through and he saw Kelly slumped in Scott’s arms. Thank heavens Scott had managed to keep her out of the crush, save her from being trampled. Chaz scooped up his wife into his arms, but the bombardment of questions never stopped. “Find us someplace quiet,” he told Scott.

  Nodding decisively, Scott broke trail through the gaping crowd. Chaz followed him, black-clad mourners trailing in his wake.

  A tall man with a discreet name tag on his jacket identifying him as Mr. Throckmorton met them at the side of the chapel. “This is most irregular,” he said, scowling at Chaz.

  “Whatsamatter?” Chaz asked. “Never have one of your memorial services disrupted before?”

  Throckmorton’s tone turned wry. “Not by the departed.”

  “Well, it’s a new experience for you then, isn’t it?” He nodded down at Kelly, still unconscious in his arms. “Can you find us somewhere private for my wife? Then restore order out here?”

  “Of course.” He motioned them into an empty room.

  Scott followed Chaz in, and just before the door closed, he saw Throckmorton raise his arms like a revival preacher addressing a tent full of rich sinners.

  Chaz felt a momentary pang of guilt for leaving the man to clean up what he had started, but right now, his wife was more important. “That ought to keep them for awhile,” he said, and propped Kelly up in a nearby love seat. “Guard the door, will you, Scott?”

  “Sure.”

  Chaz gazed down at Kelly in consternation. He hadn’t thought through his miraculous resurrection scene, hadn’t thought about how his wife would react. Who knew she’d pass out like that? Not knowing what else to do, he chafed her hands and peered anxiously into her face.

  The one thing that had kept Chaz going the whole time he’d been gone was the thought of her, the wife he’d left behind. He’d kept a picture of her in his heart, with her homey, comfortable clothes and long, beautiful tumble of hair. She epitomized what home and family meant to him. For some reason, he hadn’t expected her to change, but she had. She looked so . . . different.

  He didn’t know much about fashion, especially not what had been “in” for the past five years, but her clothes screamed chic even to his untutored gaze and so did her raven-black hair, cut short with clean lines that made her look elegant and sophisticated. And that bright red lipstick made her lips look oh, so kissable. Memory of those full, sensuous lips and her long, slender legs had haunted many a night.

  She could still bowl him over, but this wasn’t the Kelly he’d left behind, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. What had happened to his wife?

  Kelly moaned and raised one hand to her head, then opened her eyes and froze. “It is you,” she whispered in wonder.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “But what . . . ? How . . . ?”

  He couldn’t resist an urge to tease her. “You know how I love a good joke. I just waited until you finally had a memorial service for me so I could show up and shock the world.”

  A tiny frown creased her forehead. “That’s not funny.”

  Remorse filled him. “I know. I’m sorry. I just—” His warped sense of humor had a bad habit of taking over in times of stress. All he knew was that he was very glad to be home—finally—and wanted to make up for lost time with his wife. Starting now.

  Repeating his earlier words, he said softly, “Hi, honey. I’m home,” and gathered her into his arms.

  God, she felt good. He’d missed this, missed her. Missed her soft, responsive body, her warmth and humor, her way of making a house a home. She returned his embrace, but he sensed some reserve, some holding back. What was wrong?

  Dumb question. She’d just had the shock of her life, finding her supposedly dead husband had come back to life. He released her gently. “You must have a million questions.”

  “Yes, I do.” She stared up at him, her eyes se
arching his face. “But I still can’t believe it’s you. You look so different. Your hair is lighter and you’re so tan, so thin, so . . .” she stroked his beard in wonder, “. . . so hairy.”

  “Yeah, well, five years in the Manu wilderness will do that to a guy.”

  She sat up straighter and regarded him curiously. “What happened? We searched everywhere. We found the downed plane and all the other . . . bodies, but couldn’t find a sign of you anywhere.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said from the doorway. “I’d like to hear this, too.”

  Though impatient to get his life back to normal, Chaz knew he needed to take the time to explain what had happened. They deserved to know. “I wasn’t on the plane when it crashed. They dropped Garcia and me off a few miles up from our landing spot at an unscheduled stop. We wanted to check out some ruins we saw from the air, then planned to meet them at the rendezvous point.” But though he and Garcia had made the rendezvous, they hadn’t. “I didn’t know what happened to them until I got back to civilization.”

  Kelly frowned. “Garcia? I don’t remember that name.”

  “A last minute addition,” he explained. “Garcia’s a guide and knew where we could find some Inca ruins.”

  “That’s right—you were looking for the lost city, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” The legend of the safe haven where the last ruling Inca had retreated with all his gold had fascinated Chaz. “But when the plane didn’t show up, we had no idea what happened to them, so we decided to look for it along its planned route.”

  “Didn’t you find it? The investigators found it right away, on the flight plan you filed.”

  “Unfortunately, we were captured by a local tribe before we could do so.”

  She gasped and covered her mouth. “So that’s why you’ve been gone so long. Were you imprisoned the whole time? Did they . . . hurt you?”

  “Yes, we were, and no, they didn’t hurt us. Not physically anyway.” But being deprived of freedom, the luxuries of civilization, and his adorable wife were torture enough. “At first, we went along with them, since they seemed to know the ruins pretty well. We hoped they would take us to the lost city and figured we could get away at any time.” We were wrong.

  “What happened?”

  “We took sick—some tropical fever, I guess—and it lasted for months. By the time we were strong enough to understand what was going on, they’d moved far into another part of the jungle.” He and Garcia had both lost their gear and had been hopelessly lost and disoriented, not to mention disappointed that their captors had no idea where the lost city might be. “They nursed us back to health, but for some reason, they seemed to consider us good luck. They wouldn’t let us go.”

  “What did you do?”

  He shrugged. “What we could. We escaped several times, but they always recaptured us. At least they treated us decently.” If you could call being imprisoned and guarded continuously as decent. “But I’m home now and I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But how did you finally escape for good?” Kelly asked, obviously enthralled by his story.

  Uncomfortable with dwelling on the past when he wanted only to concentrate on the future, he donned a straight face. “Well, we found these ruby slippers, so I slipped them on and clicked my heels together, saying, there’s no place like home. There’s no place—”

  She slugged him in the arm. “Be serious. How did you get away? After searching for you for five years, I deserve to know.”

  He sighed, knowing she’d bug him until she heard the whole story. “Someone formed another expedition to search for the lost city. They came across us and ransomed us out of there.”

  “Ransomed?”

  “Yeah—bought our freedom with a few bribes.” Talk about humiliation. A few strings of beads, a machete, and a dented canteen had bought their way free. “If they hadn’t come along, we might still be there.”

  “Thank heavens they did,” Kelly exclaimed, then her tone turned oddly apprehensive. “But one thing still confuses me. How . . . how did you know to come to your memorial service?”

  “Well, when I didn’t find you at our apartment, I went by your mom’s house and caught Scott just as he was leaving. He told me you were here.”

  “He did?” She exchanged an enigmatic glance with Scott. “Did he tell you anything else?”

  “No—nothing important, anyway. Nothing matters except that I’m finally home.” He tried to hold her again, but she held him at arm’s length. “What’s wrong?”

  She bit her lip, looking uncertain and adorable. “There are . . . a couple of problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re legally dead.”

  Chaz threw back his head and laughed. “Well, if that’s all, I think I can get that judgment reversed.” He leaned closer to those luscious lips of hers. “Let me prove to you just how alive I am . . .”

  She backed off with such an odd look on her face that he knew there was something else wrong. And he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her until she spilled it. “Okay, what else?”

  She cast a pleading glance at Scott who said, “Sorry, I didn’t tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Chaz asked.

  Kelly turned her apprehensive glance on Chaz. “I’m married.”

  He laughed. “I know. I was there, remember? Eight years ago this past April. Now we can take up where we left off.”

  He tried to kiss her again, but she shook her head and held him at arm’s length, looking even more anxious. “It’s not that simple. I mean I got married again . . . to someone else.”

  Shock made him speechless. Someone else? Who? He glanced at Scott for confirmation. When Scott nodded sympathetically, it finally hit him. No, slammed him was more like it. All this time he had been desperately trying to get back to Kelly, and she hadn’t cared. She hadn’t waited. Instead, she had spent the time in the arms of another man.

  Ignoring the pain and pleading in her expression, he whispered accusingly, “You betrayed me.”

  * * *

  Kelly shook her head as guilt swamped her. She had betrayed him and there was no good explanation, no good reason she could give him for doing so. Only excuses.

  Scott spoke up from the doorway. “No, she didn’t.”

  Chaz’s head swung in his direction. “What?”

  “She didn’t betray you.”

  “Oh, no?” Chaz said. “Even the law calls it bigamy.”

  “Not really,” Scott said reasonably. “In the eyes of the law, you’re dead. So, she was a widow when she remarried. I’m no lawyer, but it’s possible her second marriage may be totally legal.”

  Kelly didn’t know if Scott was trying to reassure Chaz or her, but whatever he was trying to do, it didn’t seem to be working.

  “But I’m not dead,” Chaz said, stating the obvious. “So what does that mean?”

  Scott shrugged. “That you’re screwed?”

  “Like hell it does.” Chaz swung back to Kelly and she would have given anything to take away the pain and accusation in his eyes. “When were you married?”

  “This morning,” Kelly said in a tentative voice.

  Surprisingly, Chaz didn’t comment on her getting married the same day she “buried” him. Instead, he brightened. “You mean this so-called second marriage isn’t legally consummated yet?”

  “That’s right—”

  “You’re not still intending to go through with it, are you?” he asked incredulously.

  “Of course not.” Not now. . . .

  With relief in his expression, he said, “Then you can get an annulment, no problem.”

  “Yes, I suppose . . .” But how on earth was she going to tell Spencer?

  “Wait a sec,” Scott protested. “Legally, that still leaves Kelly a widow . . . or married to a walking corpse.”

  Chaz gave a short bark of laughter, but there was little humor in his expression now. “We’ll figure that out later—do what
ever needs done. We’ll either have the courts declare me legally alive, or get married again if we have to. Right, honey?”

  A spark of rebellion flared deep inside her. She had forgotten how Chaz liked to take charge of everything. She had gotten used to ordering her own life while he was gone—liked it, even—and wasn’t quite ready to relinquish that privilege to anyone. “I’m so glad you asked my opinion.”

  Taken aback, Chaz said, “Hey, you’re the one who had me declared dead so you could play footsie with another guy while I suffered in captivity.”

  It did sound bad, put that way. “Not right away,” she protested. “Everyone thought you were dead, and finally convinced me you must be. I waited five years.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that the minimum time in Colorado to have someone declared dead?”

  “Well, yes, but it wasn’t like that. . . .”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  She squirmed. “Spencer’s.”

  “Is that the guy you married?” When she gave a reluctant nod, Chaz asked, “So who is he, anyway?”

  “Spencer Preston. You remember—he’s the food editor at Pizzazz.”

  “You married some twerp with two last names?” For some reason, that seemed to bother Chaz more than the marriage itself. “What kind of creep is he?”

  Feeling obliged to defend Spencer, Kelly said, “He’s not a creep. The whole time you were gone, he was very good to me. He helped me get promoted, helped me cope with your loss, helped me search for you.”

  “Helped you right into his bed, I’ll bet.”

  Fired up now, Kelly said, “That’s not fair. I was faithful to you the whole time.”

  Chaz raised an eyebrow. “Until today, you mean.”

  “Well, we all thought you were dead.” Couldn’t he understand that? If she’d still thought him alive, she would have never gone through with it. “There was no sign of you.”

  “Oh, yeah? How long did you look?”

  He still sounded betrayed, but Kelly was beginning to get a little ticked. “For five years.”