Free Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) by Linda Lael Miller, Cathy McDavid Page A

tonight?” Sean argued. “Was that a difference?”
    Kate swallowed. “A few more nights like tonight and I’ll be a candidate for a nursing home. I must have had six...” Her cheeks went hot as she fell silent.
    “Seven,” Sean replied, “but who’s counting?”
    “That was only physical,” she said. “You can’t build a relationship on that.” She prayed Sean would say he loved her, so she could tell him her real feelings for him.
    “Come on, Kate. Men and women have been building ‘relationships’—I hate that word—on that for a few million years.” He shifted gears as they began moving uphill. “Beware of me, Katie-did—now I know how to bring you right into line.”
    Kate’s face throbbed with renewed heat, and she was grateful for the darkness. “That was a chauvinistic thing to say!”
    “Nevertheless,” Sean replied with a shrug, “it’s true.”
    And it was, although Kate would have died before admitting it. All Sean had to do was maneuver her into certain positions, touch her in certain ways, and she was lost.
    “The way it is with us,” he began after a long silence. “Was it like that with Brad?”
    Kate knew he was really asking if what they had was new to her, so she didn’t resent the question. “Brad and I never made love,” she admitted, “so I wouldn’t know.”
    Sean pulled the car over to the side of the street and stopped so suddenly that Kate was stunned. “What?” he demanded.
    “I said, Brad and I never made love—”
    “How the hell did you manage that? You were engaged to the man!”
    Kate’s eyes were very wide. “You sound angry.”
    A closer look proved that he was more indignant than angry. “I feel so cheap,” he said.
    Kate couldn’t help laughing. “I think that’s supposed to be my line,” she told him.
    “You were saving yourself for marriage with him,” Sean pointed out. “With me, it’s a fast roll in the straw and ‘thank you very much I’ve got a plane to catch’!”
    Kate only shook her head, baffled.
    Sean wrenched the car back into gear and pulled onto the road again, muttering a swear word.
    Kate squinted at him in the darkness. “Did I miss something here? I haven’t been to bed with anyone since college, and you’re upset because you’re the first?”
    “Who was he?” Sean barked.
    “Who?” Kate countered, getting angry herself now.
    “The guy in college!”
    Kate laughed again. “My God, I don’t believe this!”
    Sean’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, then relaxed again. “Were you in love with him?”
    Kate sighed, turning her eyes to the rain-misted view. Even in that weather, at that hour of the night, it was magnificent. “I thought so. His name was Ryan Fletcher, and we were going to be married.”
    “What stopped you?”
    “Abby brought you home, and I realized what love really was.”
    Sean was quiet for a moment, then he said something that surprised Kate to the core of her being. “I married the wrong sister, I think.”
    Kate reached out and laid a hand on his thigh. She felt the muscles tighten to a granite hardness beneath her palm. “What went wrong between you and Abby?” she asked. “You were so happy once.”
    “Maybe I was. Abby changed her mind about life with me about five minutes after our plane took off from Seattle. She didn’t like being married to a pilot, she didn’t like sex, she didn’t like Australia.”
    “Why didn’t she leave you, then, and come home?”
    Sean gave Kate a sidelong look. “This was home,” he said flatly.
    “Not to Abby,” Kate pointed out.
    “And not to you,” Sean replied.
    “We’re not talking about me,” Kate countered.
    “I think we are,” Sean argued. “You couldn’t stay here with me and be happy any more than Abby could. You’re a Yank, and you belong in the States.”
    Kate sighed. “I’ll decide where I belong, thank you very much.”
    “You belong in my bed,” Sean answered, “and if you think you can deny me,