Free The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly

he had it all right at home.
    But tonight, he wasn’t at home. Not his, anyway, he thought as he closed the front door of the big, extravagant Tudor manor behind himself and bolted it. Tonight, he’d come home to another man’s house. Another man’s “wife.” There was absolutely nothing of his own to welcome him here. Nothing he wanted. Nothing he needed. Nothing personal. Nothing familiar. Nothing comfortable. Nothing to make him feel warm or easy or safe.
    â€œHi. Welcome home.”
    At the softly uttered words, he glanced in the direction from which they’d come, and saw Bridget Logan stretched out on the couch in the living room, a longneck bottle of beer, half-empty, sitting on the coffee table beside her. She was dressed in softly faded blue jeans, a baggy flannel shirt and heavy socks. Her back was supported at one end of the sofa by the fat, fringed throw pillows that had been so carefully arranged at opposite ends that morning, her legs stretched out toward the other end. Small black-framed glasses were perched on her nose, and she lowered a book into her lap as she returned his gaze. She looked relaxed and intimate and warm, and in that moment, she made him feel warm and easy and safe.
    Until he reminded himself that this wasn’t his house, and she wasn’t his wife. All of this was a put-on, a masquerade manufactured to catch a criminal. None of it was real, and it damned sure wasn’t cozy. So whatever those strange feelings were that began to wind through him when he saw her sitting there, those couldn’t be real or cozy, either.
    â€œHi, yourself,” he said, forcing himself to sound genial even as he felt himself go tense.
    â€œYou always work this late?” she asked.
    He lifted his arm to check his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock. “Actually, I usually work later,” he said.
    She nodded, then smiled. But the gesture didn’t seem any more genuine than their situation was. “Me, too,” she told him. And before he could comment, she added, “Have you had dinner?”
    He took a few steps forward, propelling himself out of the foyer and into the living room proper. “Yeah, a couple of the guys who are working a pretty high-profile case are going to be working all night, so somebody sent out for sandwiches and got me one, too. You?”
    â€œI had dinner at my parents’ house.”
    This time Sam nodded. And had no idea what else to say.
    Bridget seemed to be suffering from the same problem, because she only gazed back at him in silence. Then again, he supposed it was his turn to say something, though she hadn’t exactly provided him with any kind of decent volley, had she?
    â€œBeer?” she asked, reaching for the one on the coffee table. “There’s a six-pack in the fridge. Well, a five-pack now,” she amended as she lifted the bottle to her lips.
    Now that was a much better volley, he thought. Inspite of that, he told himself to decline the offer, that if he was having this much trouble coming up with something to say after a simple exchange of greetings, it would only get worse if they tried to prolong it. Strangely, though, he found himself wanting to take her up on the offer. He told himself it was only because it had been a bitch of a day, and a cold beer sounded like a very good punctuation mark to put on it. It wasn’t because he wanted to visit any longer with Bridget Logan.
    â€œSounds good,” he said. He really wanted to go change his clothes first, to make himself more comfortable, but something made him hesitate before excusing himself and turning toward the stairs behind him. Changing into something more comfortable just seemed like an oddly intimate thing to do at the moment. And intimate wasn’t how he wanted to be with Bridget. He didn’t care if they were supposed to be man and wife. Behind closed doors, he wanted to keep things formal.
    So he only loosened