Sparring Partners Read Free Page B

replied, all business.
    "Reed M. Mohr. She does mediation at this
address."
    Jordon heard some clicking sounds right
before Henry said, "Got her. What's so important about this
woman?"
    "Don't know yet, but I want to know
everything about her. Find out her ring size too. Just in
case."
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    William Bennett brushed a lock of silver
streaked dark brown hair from his lover's face as she slept,
wondering just when she'd give in and marry him. He'd been asking
for the past eight years, she'd been a widow for ten, surely she'd
had enough time to get used to the idea. As sick as he was of all
the sneaking around, he'd never give up on Lily. He'd loved her too
long and too deeply to ever let her go.
    William's hand trailed into the sheets as he
pulled them up farther on his chest. He liked to sleep with the
windows open, enjoying the light breeze off Lake Michigan. It was
cool for mid-June in Milwaukee, cooler than Omaha, where his home
office was. Hopefully he'd be on a plane back there soon, just as
soon as Jordon settled in here, and the Milwaukee office was
running efficiently. Then he would drag Lily to the altar, kicking
and screaming if he had to. William wanted to be her husband, not
her secret.
    Lily opened her sleepy blue eyes, softly
wrinkled at the corners, proof of how often she laughed and how
quickly she smiled. She was smiling sleepily at him now. Remnants
of last night's mascara still smudged the small circles under her
eyes. Lily was never more beautiful to him than when she was in
this gloriously tossed state, still sleepy from making love most of
the night before. Her smile remained as youthful as the first time
he'd seen it, when she came home in the arms of his brother,
wearing his brother's ring. William loved her then. He loved her
still, but, he didn't return her smile.
    "Marry me, Lily." It wasn't a question,
William was tired of asking, it was a command, albeit a gentle
one.
    Lily deflected instead of answering, asking
a question of her own. "What made you issue that ridiculous demand
that Jordon find a wife in four days?" She didn't let him answer
before rapid-firing more questions at him. "Four days, William?
What were you thinking? How do you expect Jordon to find happiness
in less than one week?"
    "Are you finished?"
    Lily nodded, jutting her small chin out like
a petulant teenager dissatisfied with a parental decree and ready
to sulk about it. Sometimes he wondered how she made it to the ripe
old age of fifty-seven without ever having been spanked. William
sighed heavily, putting as much feeling into the gesture as he
could manage without playing the put-upon-parent. He sat up
straighter so he could look at her without being tempted to kiss
her silly and make love to her again until she focused on him and
not her thirty-nine year old son. Since that fix would only be
temporary, William did what he was most comfortable doing, he
attacked the issue head-on.
    "You know as well as I do why I gave Jordon
that deadline."
    Lily opened her mouth, to contradict him no
doubt, but William stopped her by putting one index finger to her
lips, thanking God she was too much of a lady to bite him.
    "If I'd given Jordon two months, or even two
years, he would have waited until the last seventy-two hours to do
anything about it. By giving him the deadline I did, I saved him
the trouble of procrastinating. And, I even added an extra day onto
the time table, giving him only slightly more than the amount of
time he would have given himself."
    Lily didn't argue with that. She knew that
when faced with something he didn't want to do, Jordon would wait
until the last possible moment, and only then complete whatever it
was he didn't want face earlier. He'd been that way since
kindergarten, He remained that way today. Jordon called it "crunch
time". William called it something else entirely, but Lily didn't
need to know that. Instead of challenging William on his assessment
of Jordon's reaction, Lily