Chapter 23
Archer
When he stepped outside and locked the main door behind him, he turned left and headed to see if Erica was at her cottage. It hadn’t been long since he’d last seen her, but when he rounded the corner and saw her curled up on the armchair in the shade, he felt his entire body relax. Archer approached quietly, seeing she was asleep, her hands tucked under her chin. The sun was almost shining on her toes as it had moved during the afternoon. He didn’t want her to burn in the sun. Crouching in front of her, he stroked the back of his hand over her forehead. Her skin was smooth and warm to the touch. She stirred but didn’t wake, burrowing deeper into the cushions. He couldn’t stop the grin split his face if he tried. He took a moment to gaze at her cuteness when she was asleep. Her beauty astounded him.
There was no doubting he was wildly attracted to Erica, and the need to sweep her up and take her inside had his hands twitching at his sides. He swelled at the thought of removing her clothes and kissing every inch of Erica to wake her. Instead, he kissed her cheek, deliberately touching the edge of her mouth with his.
“Wake up, honey,” he whispered as he hovered over her mouth.
She let out a long sigh and lifted her chin. “Make me,” she said, closing the gap.
Her lips parted as he sealed their mouths for a kiss. He dropped to his knees to lean closer as she tangled her tongue with his. He was making her wake up, but every part of his body was on high alert. The arm of the chair hid his apparent erection as he cupped the back of her head. Sighs and deep breathing filled the air as he pressed harder, searching deeper for a connection. This was a deal, but he was drawn to her. He tucked his arms under her legs and back without opening his eyes, lifting her off the chair. There was no hiding he wanted her, so he owned it by sitting back down with her on his lap. She draped her crossed legs over the arm of the chair. Threading his fingers through her loose hair, his eyes remained closed as he kissed her slowly. The lazy kiss changed from soft touches to stretching his mouth over hers to taste her. His other hand dropped to her hip, holding her in place as he lifted his hips. Archer knew he was in trouble making this move to get some friction. The ache was untenable.
At this stage, he was okay with coming in his pants than taking their make-out session to the next step.
“You’re so hard,” she whispered over his lips.
“I am. I can’t help it.”
“Let’s go inside,” she said, kissing the side of his neck and then nibbling on his earlobe. “There’s a really comfortable bed.”
Archer moved his head back, breaking contact from her talented tongue and mouth but kept his hard-on and hands where they were.
“I can’t,” he said, then groaned.
“Right,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “No sex rule.”
“Actually, I have to meet my aunt in an hour, and I cannot be late. If we went inside, I wouldn’t be leaving until sun up with neither of us getting any sleep.”
If Archer wasn’t mistaken, she heard the gorgeous woman squirming on his lap whimper. He felt exactly the same. So why couldn’t he just have a fling with Erica, fake marry her, and then walk away? Why couldn’t they have a little bit of fun?
That’s right, he thought, because he wasn’t a fling type of guy. One night or all in, that’s the kind of man he was. And there was no way he would be able to have one night and no more with Erica.
“You could come back after your meeting?” she said.
Archer dropped his stare to her hand. Her fingers had found his erect nipple and her thumb gently stroked back and forth over his t-shirt.
“That would be a terrible idea, Erica,” he said, not entirely convinced of what he was saying.
“Why did you come over?” she asked amiably, nodding to the box.
He was thankful she knew when to stop pushing him. He lifted her as he stood and placed her back on her armchair. Archer stepped away to go to the box and brought it over. He took out a photo album, flicked to the page he wanted, and turned it to face her.
He smiled as she stroked the picture of him and his siblings on Stuart Island.
“What’s your favourite colour?” he asked .
“Are we talking shoes or a sweater?”
“Jewels,” Archer replied, observing her reaction.
Her fingers stilled on the picture of four teenagers, arms thrown around shoulders laughing at the camera. He couldn’t remember who had taken the photo for the life of him. He knew it wasn’t his dad, and his mother was long gone since the picture was taken. Someone had taken it and developed the film, putting it into a photo album. Somehow the album that didn’t belong to him found its way into his bedroom.
“Pearls are my favourite, but if I had to choose a coloured gem, I’d pick rubies.”
“Okay,” Archer answered, hoping like hell there was a pearl ring in the selection his aunt offered.
“Just okay, no clues to tell me why you want to know?”
“It’s a surprise,” he answered because he had no idea when, where or how he would actually propose to Erica. They’d struck a deal, but he still wanted to propose, so they had a story to tell without lying.
“Are you going to propose Mr Turner? Have you asked my father for permission?”
Archer laughed at her southern drawl, sounding like she was straight from Mississippi. It was a flawless accent, and he wished he could reply like he sounded like the actor Matthew McConaughey. Then he felt his face fall as he thought about her family and friends.
“Should I meet your family? In all this mess, I hadn’t considered your family.”
“No,” she said, waving away his question. “If you want to walk away after three months, there’s no point in them knowing we were ever married. People get married in secret all the time. This island will give us the perfect cover.”
There was no getting away from her tone that they wouldn’t last. Erica said he would be the one to walk away, but he thought the opposite would happen. She’d already worked it all out. It dowsed his desire to take her to bed. Even a short fling didn’t work for him. All or nothing and Erica was already planning his exit.
“Archer?” Erica asked, bringing him back to look at her. When he did, she gave him a soft smile. “Did you hear me because you look like I’ve stolen your favourite teddy?”
“Nah,” he said, stretching down to his box. “He’s here.”
Archer lifted the old scrappy stuffed toy. He straightened the teddy’s bow tie and turned him to face Erica. “He’s called Peter. Please don’t ask me why. I have no idea. I’ve had him since I was born, so I think someone else named him, and I went with it.”
“He’s cute,” she said, reaching for it.
Archer handed it over, picked up the box, and placed the photo album inside.
“I went everywhere with it as a kid, and when I became too cool for cuddly toys, he sat on my shelf in my old bedroom.”
Erica stood and stepped to Archer, the box the only thing separating them. “Did you hear what I said before?”
“About keeping us a secret? Yeah, I heard you. I get it. I’m sure you don’t want your friends and family knowing about the man you married with oil under his fingernails.”
She shook her head and then dropped her chin for a few beats before she speared him with a stern stare.
“My darling Archer, how little you know about my family or me. I’d be proud to marry someone who worked for a living, who came home dirty from a long day’s work. Please don’t make any judgments about me. You’ll hurt my feelings. My desire to keep things quiet and secret is to protect you and not me. ”
Archer’s watch beeped before he could ask his question. When he saw the alarm alert him to forty-five minutes until he needed to meet his aunt, his question about her needs left his head.
“I have to go, Erica. My aunt doesn’t like tardiness.”
“She’ll hate me. I seem to be late for everything. I’ll keep Peter hostage until you return to retrieve him. If you feel you can’t come back this evening. I’ll see you at the pool tomorrow.”
Erica leaned across the box as much as she could to kiss his cheek and then turned to walk back into her cottage, leaving him alone with a single box of his most precious possessions.
After a shower and a change of clothes, Archer hurried below stairs to the kitchen to swipe up whatever Maggie had baked. Now that he was back in the house, she’d taken to baking in the afternoon. Archer thought she’d have to up her game if his siblings returned, as they all had a sweet tooth. Today was cookies, and by the time he’d run up the stone steps and into the foyer, he’d eaten two. He brushed the crumbs off his shirt and checked his reflection in the front door’s glass before striding across the stone floor to the morning room.
Bailey was waiting at the door, checking his pocket watch. Archer had arrived bang on time. With a nod from Bailey, he opened the door for Archer. Archer entered the room and saw his aunt on the far side. The morning room was vast, with a dozen sofas set facing each other down the long galley-style room. On one wall was a fireplace so big you could roast a hog over the flames. On the other side of the room were lead-lined windows. Usually, as the name suggested, the family only spent the morning in the room and then moved around the house chasing the sun. There were two places Archer could find his aunt if she weren’t resting in her room. The greenhouse where she cultivated exotic flowers or the morning room.
At four in the afternoon, the sun was high in the sky but shining on the other side of the house. He felt the chill in the room from the old bricks and regretted not wearing a pullover.
“Good afternoon, Aunt Cynthia,” he said in greeting.
She sat in a wicker chair facing out the window. The lawns from her vantage point were vast and plain until they reached the tree line obscuring the ocean beyond.
“Please sit down. Bailey is fetching Earl Grey tea for us.”
He wasn’t an Earl Grey tea drinker, and she knew it. But she was, so that was all that mattered to her. Archer accepted this was her house and her rules. So tea for two it would be. He hoped there was a third cookie coming his way.
“Open the box, will you, Archer?” she asked, pointing to the large mahogany box on the tall table a few feet away.
Archer stood and walked to where she indicated and lifted the lid. Inside were rows of rings nestled in purple velvet. The delicate bands with small, medium, and large jewels balanced on top. These looked old, much older than he expected the family jewels were. Most of them were for women, but with their age, they could’ve been for men in the 1700s and early 1800s. He couldn’t imagine how much money he was looking at in the velvet-lined box. And one day they would belong to him. Running his finger along the raised benches, he searched through the dozens of rings, counting as he went. When he got to thirty, he stopped and picked up the gold ring.
“Ah, I see you’ve spotted it,” she said from her seat, not getting up. “That’s the family’s signet ring. Your father never wanted to wear it. Your grandfather was the last to wear it. If you find a wife and take over the wedding business, I expect you to wear it.”
“Is that a condition of the contract we struck?” Archer said, half turning to look at his aunt.
“It’s not a deal-breaker, but I want to know you’ll take the Turner business seriously. Hundreds of years of history exist in this building and on this island. My brother didn’t care for any of it, but he was in line to inherit it. It broke my heart to see him shun all the old ways.”
“Why didn’t you inherit as the eldest?”
“My father had decided.”
Archer waited for more, but his aunt remained tight-lipped.
He didn’t wear jewellery and never had, but if it made his aunt happy, he would. He was getting married, and he wanted to wear a wedding band. What was one more ring?
“Which hand do I wear it on?”
“Your grandfather wore it on his left hand on his pinkie finger. His father, your great-grandfather, wore it on his right hand on his forefinger. Your father didn’t want to wear it at all. He told our father that it would never be worn as it would get in the way of his work on the oil rigs. But he told me privately he wanted nothing to do with old ways. He hated the way his father paraded the family wealth.”
“It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it, seeing as no one can have any of that wealth until the older generation has gone? It’s not like its shared wealth.”
“You have a roof over your head and a full stomach, don’t you?” his aunt snapped.
“Only if I live here. When we all chose to buy a house in Scotland to be near the rig, we had no help from the family. ”
“Because your duty is to be here, on Turner Island. You’re a Turner, and so was your father, by extension, your mother. You need to find a wife, Archer, or else the Turner legacy will die with me.”
His gaze landed on her face. Aunt Cynthia was straight-backed, contrite in her outpouring of information and dictation. He didn’t like her tone. “It will come to me, won’t it? The Island, I mean.”
“Only if I will it that way.”
Archer stared at her in disbelief, not daring to question if what she was saying was true. He wouldn’t put it passed her to be vindictive enough to leave the whole island to charity.
He turned back to the jewellery box and looked at the rings. A delicate pearl set in a silver band was on the top row in the middle. It was simple and beautiful. He hoped Erica would like it. Archer picked up the ring and slid it onto his pinkie finger. He didn’t get it passed the second knuckle. He grimaced at the thought he might need to re-sized the ring. His ancestors were lean, slim-fingered. Erica was trim, but as evolution happened in each generation, humans increased in size.
“Who was the last person to wear this one?” Archer asked as he presented the ring to Aunt Cynthia.
She took it from him and turned it in the sunlight. “My mother, I think. She had a choker and earrings to match. I bet there is a bracelet too. Is that your choice? Not going for a big diamond?”
“No, I think my future wife will prefer this kind of ring.”
Archer was rewarded with an approving glance. He didn’t think he was meant to see it as it was gone as soon as it appeared. Bailey entered the room at that point, informing Aunt Cynthia that her dinner was served. Thankfully he would get out of swallowing Earl Grey tea and any more lectures from his aunt.
Getting up, his aunt straightened her twinset and patted the bottom of her bun. She turned and nodded to Bailey who left the room, then she turned to Archer, pinning him to the spot.
“Don’t forget, as soon as you’re ready to put the ring on her finger. I want to meet her first.”
“Yes, Aunt Cynthia,” he replied.
Archer had no such intention. He would not risk his aunt meeting Erica before he had the ring on her finger. He figured if she said yes to the fake proposal and put the ring on, she would be less likely to walk away after meeting his aunt.
That was his thinking. Whether it worked was another thing. No one voiced liking Cynthia Turner, but anyone who dared say it out loud would risk her wrath.