Rough Around the Edges Read online

  Don’t go there, she warned herself. Tender feelings weren’t called for here. Hadn’t tender feelings caused her to overlook so many warning signs about Jeffrey? This is just a business arrangement, think like a businesswoman.

  “Well, won’t this agent be asking you things about me as well? Marriage is a two-way street, you know,” she added for good measure.

  Damn, but she was right. He hated overlooking things. “I forgot about that.”

  “What?” Kitt cocked her head, looking at him. “That marriage is a two-way street, or that you’re supposed to know something about me?”

  Amusement was curving her lips. It took him a second before he could draw his eyes away and get his mind back on the subject.

  “The latter.” He thought of his parents’ life together. The untroubled moments were precious few and far between. “Marriage isn’t a two-way street, it’s a superhighway, with things coming at you from all sides when you least expect them.”

  There was bitterness in his voice. Just how much did she know about this man she had agreed to lie for? “Are you sure you weren’t married before?”

  “No, just a witness.” He crossed to the door. By now he should have been in his car, halfway to work. “Okay, make up a list.”

  A witness. She thought that an odd thing to say, but she could tell that questioning him wasn’t going to shed any further light on the subject, at least not now.

  Holding Shawna, she followed him to the door. “I’d rather tell you.”

  It was two days before they had to meet with the INS agent. “I’m not sure when I can find the time to talk,” he told Kitt honestly, pausing to lightly run his hand over the baby’s head. She cooed in response. “If you give me a list, I can memorize it in my spare moments.”

  Kitt’s eyes held his for a split second. “You sound like you’re cramming for an exam.”

  “I am.”

  The next moment, O’Rourke was gone, leaving her to sigh, shake her head and have the rest of her breakfast alone.

  She waited up for him. Instead of seven, the hour he usually seemed to come home, O’Rourke didn’t come in until half past ten. She’d begun to worry about him, then laughed herself out of it. If she didn’t know better, she would have said she was beginning to behave like a real wife. She was only concerned the way one friend was concerned about another, she insisted, using Shawna as a sounding board.

  “No reason to think anything else, right, love?”

  It had hit her a second later that she’d used the same term of endearment for her daughter that O’Rourke did. She didn’t know if that was a bad sign or a good one.

  The moment he walked in through the door that night, she was at his side. She presented her own list of likes and dislikes to him. His had been committed to memory easily enough. She’d done it during the space of one of Shawna’s many mininaps.

  “They’re going to want to know something more, you know. The INS people,” she added when he looked at her blankly.

  He’d thought that she’d be in bed by now. Hoped it really. Something had been riding him all day and he wasn’t sure what it was. He’d thought that it was the upcoming INS meeting, but in the center of his being, where he’d always been honest with himself, he knew that it wasn’t. He just didn’t want to speculate as to what it was.

  But an ounce of prevention…

  The ounce hadn’t been taken. She’d remained up, lying in wait for him. He tossed his jacket toward the coatrack. It missed. “Such as?”

  Seeing that he was about to go into the living room, she caught his sleeve and tugged in the direction of the kitchen. His dinner was being kept warm in the oven. Holding him by one sleeve, she stooped to pick up the jacket. She saw a flash of guilt cross his face and took it as a hopeful sign.

  “Such as how we met, how long we were together before we got married.” Picking up two pot holders, Kitt opened the oven and took out the plate, putting it on the table at the place she’d left set for him. “Anything unusual in our relationship,” she continued, looking at him. “You know, things that make people people.”

  A whimsical look had entered her eyes and he found himself being captivated by it. “I guess this is called getting our stories straight.”

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she took a seat opposite him at the table. “Something like that.”

  Pot roast, he realized. She’d made pot roast. With tiny potatoes and carrots around it. His favorite. She’d read the list, all right.

  He had trouble keeping the smile from finding his lips. “All right, how did we meet?”

  She laced both hands around her mug. “We were both running for the same awning during a sudden cloudburst and we bumped into each other.” Her eyes met his. “You caught me and we’ve been together ever since.”

  The pot roast was excellent. He waited until the meat all but melted on his tongue before commenting. “Very nice. Did you just think of that?”

  “No.” She looked down into the mug, telling herself it was foolish to dwell on the past except for what it could teach her about the future: Not to trust her heart. “It’s how Jeffrey and I met.” Her mouth curved in a self-deprecating smile. “All except the last part.”

  She was hurting. It didn’t take an expert to see that. O’Rourke’s hand tightened around his fork. He had no idea where the protective feeling came from. Probably something left over from the way he felt about his sisters, he reasoned. The excuse didn’t quite ring true, but he ignored that.

  “Ask me, the lout doesn’t deserve you.”

  The reaction, coming from nowhere, had her smiling. “And why’s that?”

  His scowl was almost frightening. It was something she knew men probably didn’t want to find themselves on the receiving end of. “Anyone who can run out on a pregnant woman like that, taking her things and all, should be filleted in the middle of town square.”

  From some distant place, a warmth began to creep forward, curling itself around her heart. “We don’t have a town square in Bedford, but I like the rest of it.” She finished her coffee, then set her mug down. “You always been a white knight?”

  He laughed shortly. “My mother used to call me a blackguard.”

  But it had been said with affection, Kitt decided. If she’d learned nothing else about the man in the last few days, it was that he was very family-oriented. One of the few conversations they’d had had been about his brothers and sisters. Anyone would have heard the love in his voice when he spoke of them.

  “I don’t think she meant it,” Kitt said softly.

  “Neither do I.” He cleared his throat, then waved her on gruffly. “All right, let’s get on with this, shall we? What else do you want to add?”

  He didn’t seem to mind her taking over. Given his gruff nature, that surprised her. Pleased, she launched into the rest of it, giving him the scenario she’d created in her head.

  “All right, we’ve been together two years and you’ve been somewhat marriage-shy, but you took one look at Shawna after she was born and decided the time had come to make an honest woman of her mother.”

  She’d said it exactly the way the policeman had that night Shawna was born. He laughed and there was admiration in his voice when he said, “You’re very good.”

  “Thank you.” The compliment pleased her more than she’d expected it to. “It’s the creative side of me that doesn’t get used very much.”

  “And why’s that?”

  This was going to require more coffee. She rose to refill her cup, then realized that she didn’t want to inadvertently keep Shawna awake after the next feeding. Reluctantly, she crossed to the refrigerator and poured a glass of orange juice instead, consoling herself that at least it was healthy for the baby if not entirely pleasurable for her.

  “Reliability aerospace engineers don’t get to be creative in the general sense of the word,” she told him, sitting down again. She noted that he was making short work of the dinner she’d prepared. That pleased
her, too. “We’re supposed to come through with worst-case scenarios and calculate the probability that they’ll happen.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Doesn’t sound like something you’d be doing.”

  She’d had her sights set on another branch of engineering, but she’d taken the work as it came up. A woman without funds, with student debts to pay off, couldn’t afford to be overly choosy.

  “I didn’t start out that way, just something that seemed to develop.”

  “Why don’t you do something different if you don’t like what you’re doing now?” He thought of the huge risk he’d taken. His had been leaving a mining town and the place that had been waiting for him once he’d finished high school. But he had other plans, plans that had required tightening his belt even more and asking for sacrifices of the others. Plans that had included college and a dream. “Especially since you’re out of work.” It seemed the perfect time to him for her to be choosy.

  She shrugged. Easier said than done. The words on her résumé locked her into a specific area. And marriage charade or not, she didn’t want to be dependent on O’Rourke for her livelihood. She wanted to find something as soon as she could leave Shawna with a sitter. “Once you’re in a niche—”

  “You break out,” he told her firmly. She looked at him in surprise. “You try something different until you find something that works for you.”

  Picking up his plate, she took it to the sink and rinsed it off. “You know, I wouldn’t have said that optimism was something I’d expect from you, either.”

  “It’s not optimism. It’s practical.”

  Wiping her hands as she turned from the sink, she looked at him. “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  Very carefully, Kitt took the paper with his likes and dislikes on it from her pocket and wrote across the top: “Must have final word.”

  Leaning over her shoulder, he read what she’d written. “Do not,” he said.

  She merely smiled, her point taken.

  He blew out a breath, then laughed. “This might work after all, love.”

  Calls me “love” instead of using my name, she added to the list mentally.

  The warmth that curled around her heart rose up another half a degree.

  The Immigration and Naturalization Service office was located in a very modern-looking federal building in the heart of Orange County.

  Nothing about the eight-story edifice looked intimidating, but Kitt still felt a nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach as she got out of the van two days later. O’Rourke was already out on his side, unstrapping Shawna’s car seat restraints.

  He frowned as he did so. He didn’t really condone using the infant as a prop, even though he knew her very presence would instantly strengthen his case for him. There just seemed something wrong about involving someone so small in the middle of a lie. She wasn’t his daughter, as he would claim before the man doing the interview, and he wasn’t in love with her mother, although if he had the time, things could…

  No, they couldn’t, he told himself firmly, taking Shawna into his arms. He closed the rear passenger door. There was no use thinking that. He hadn’t the time, or the expertise when it came down to it. He was best suited for building computers, not relationships. Hadn’t he already had enough proof of that?

  “Wait.” Hurrying up the steps of the federal building beside him, Kitt was suddenly struck with a thought.

  He looked at her. Had she suddenly lost her courage? Was she going to back out on him now? He’d gotten a few days’ extension, the last ever, Henry Rutherford, the agent, had told him, because O’Rourke had said his new baby was colicky, which prevented Kitt from coming in. This was the last possible day he had to plead his case. One more day and he’d be in violation of the law.

  Trying not to sound irritated, O’Rourke asked, “What’s the matter?”

  She was beside him in a step. “What am I supposed to call you?” He raised an eyebrow as if he didn’t follow her. “I’ve been calling you O’Rourke, but that’s not exactly what a wife would call her husband.”

  The memory brought a smile to his lips. “Well, actually, that was what my mother called my father, but if you think it makes things more authentic-sounding to call me Shawn Michael, I suppose it’s all right for the interview.”

  Which meant that he didn’t want her calling him that once they got home, she thought. Why that bothered her so much, she couldn’t really put her finger on. But it did. It was as if he was reinforcing a wedge that had to exist between them.

  Well, why shouldn’t there be a wedge? They were strangers, weren’t they? Strictly speaking.

  “Shawn Michael it is,” she agreed. “Now, if I can just keep all the other details about you straight in my mind…”

  O’Rourke slipped his arm around her, guiding her up the stairs. He wasn’t sure if she was pulling his leg or not. He forced himself to remain calm. As if his entire future, not to mention the future of his brothers and sisters and all the people who’d come to depend on him and his dream, wasn’t riding on this.

  “There’s not that much to remember,” he assured her calmly. “We’ll be done before you know it.”

  He’d lied to her.

  This wasn’t a quick session, over in a blink of an eye. It was a lengthy, prolonged one that felt as if it was to go on indefinitely. In addition, she hadn’t expected to be separated from O’Rourke the moment the interview officially began. But the agent, a tall, thin man who looked as if he would snap at the first sign of a good wind, had explained it was policy to interview them separately and then together.

  It had been O’Rourke’s turn first. She’d had time to grow progressively more nervous.

  When it came to be her turn, Kitt tried to read the man’s face as he asked her question after question, attempting to gauge whether or not he was satisfied with her answers. He had a face that was neither friendly nor off-putting. It was just there, entirely emotionless. Even when he looked at Shawna and asked her questions about the baby.

  Everything she said was being noted and written down. To use against her? she wondered.

  And then the man laid down his pen. It looked as if the session was about to come to an end.

  “You seem uncomfortable, Mrs. O’Rourke,” the agent observed, closing his folder. “Is there any particular reason for that?”

  Kitt began to protest, then thought better of it. She was always best when she fell back on the truth, so she decided to bluff it out rather than to deny the observation.

  Slipping a pacifier into Shawna’s questing mouth, she looked at the agent. “Well actually, there is—” she read his name from the plate before him “—Mr. Rutherford. This feels a little like that police drama on television where they separate supposed suspects and interrogate them in different rooms to see if their stories match.”

  There was no hint of either recognition or humor in the dark brown eyes that bore into her. “Is that what you feel like, a suspect?”

  Kitt raised her chin. “No, I don’t. I do feel like a maligned person, though. Just because I chose to fall in love with a good man whose only failing was that he wasn’t fortunate enough to be born in this country, I have to be subjected to a battery of questions I wouldn’t have had to answer if I’d married, say, a recent parolee who’d been sent to prison for armed robbery of a gas station.” She realized that only part of her indignation was an act. It occurred to her that she really did feel irritated on O’Rourke’s behalf. “I just don’t think it’s fair, that’s all.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Mrs. O’Rourke. The only shot we have at making it remotely fair is by adhering to rules. This meeting is about one of those rules.” The eyes behind the rimless glasses narrowed. “You do know we frown on people who enter into marriage for the sole purpose of allowing one or the other so-called spouse to remain in this country.”

  “Yes,” she said tersely and with the proper amount of indignation, “I do know that.”


  The INS agent didn’t appear to accept her answer at face value. “And that there are substantial penalties attached to staging such a marriage—”

  The butterflies in her stomach tightened, but her expression remained unchanged. “My daughter needed her father.”

  “So you say.” With a slight nod of his head, Rutherford rose from behind the desk. Then, without saying anything further to her, he stepped out of the room.

  Nerves knitted themselves together into a huge, tangled ball. Holding Shawna closer to her, Kitt prayed the agent wasn’t going to get one of the U.S. marshals she saw in the building when she and O’Rourke had taken the escalator up to the second-floor INS office.

  But when Rutherford returned, he was accompanied by O’Rourke rather than an officer of the law. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. O’Rourke slanted a quick look at her. There was compassion in his eyes as he placed his hand over hers and took the chair beside her.

  Rutherford sat down behind his desk and looked at them, his small brown eyes regarding them in prolonged silence.

  “Your answers to all the questions were identical,” he finally said. “Some might say too identical.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. And then he permitted himself the smallest hint of a smile to grace his lips. “Off the top of my head, I can only say that I wish my wife knew as much about me as you know about your husband, Mrs. O’Rourke. I see no reason to continue ‘interrogating’ the two of you.”

  Kitt cheered silently, relieved to have the ordeal finally over with. O’Rourke raised a brow, then looked at her. Kitt realized that Rutherford had picked up on the word she’d used. Was this going to jeopardize the interview?

  “I didn’t mean—” she began,

  But the agent raised his hand. “No, you’re quite right,” he told her primly. “This is an interrogation of sorts. No thumbscrews, but if we can make you squirm, then maybe you’ll give up the lie if there’s one to give up.” He paused again, his eyes scanning them slowly. Kitt decided that she was never going to feel at ease in the man’s presence. “But even though you have convinced me that this marriage was undertaken to give this little girl a proper home, there will be a few spot checks in the next year to make certain that everything is aboveboard.”