A Husband She Couldn't Forget

by Christine Rimmer

  And why shouldn’t she be fine with it? They weren’t married anymore. They weren’t...anything.

  All of a sudden, he was furious at her. And at himself, too. It was a completely irrational fury and he would damn well keep it to himself.

  She asked, “So, will my being here cramp your style?”

  “No. Of course not.” Yeah, he had planned to bring Margo here after their date. Last Friday night they had come here—to his bed. But last Friday night was a million years ago. No way would he bring another woman here now. He added lamely, “I just, well, I could be late getting back.”

  “Okay, then.” She gave him another ghost of a smile. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Good enough.” He turned to go.

  “Connor?”

  Four steps from the table, he stopped and faced her again. “Yeah?”

  “We never exchanged numbers. We should probably do that, don’t you think?” She pulled a phone from her pocket.

  “Right.” He rattled off his phone number.

  She punched in the numbers and tapped out a short text. His phone buzzed. He took it out. She’d written, “Tell Margo your ex-wife says hi.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Funny.” And he turned and got out of there.

  * * *

  “A date?” Cat set down her strawberry smoothie a little harder than necessary. It made a definite clunk when it hit the table. “Connor has a date with someone else tonight?”

  They were in the Santangelo kitchen, Cat with her feet up on a chair while Aly stood across the table folding a pile of laundry. “Yeah. He told me this morning as he was going out the door.”

  “That man.” Cat glared into the middle distance. “Just when I dare to get my hopes up that he’s finally going to stop being a bullheaded idiot, he does something like this.”

  Aly shook out one of her dad’s T-shirts with an angry snap and replied with way too much snark, “I thought you had a soft spot for him, Mom. I thought you were on his side.”

  Cat made a humphing sound and rubbed her big belly. “I’m on your side is what I am. I want to think that he deserves you, that he’s grown up a little and can finally appreciate a woman like you. But he doesn’t make it easy, now does he?”

  Aly folded the shirt and moved on to the next one. She tried to stick with the snark and not descend into weepiness, but since the accident, it was always way too easy to get emotional. “I don’t know, Mom...” It came out sounding disgustingly sad.

  “Dear heart.” Cat reached out. Aly met her halfway. They clasped hands across the table. Cat gave Aly’s fingers a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “I really don’t know what to say. I’m so disappointed.”

  Aly pulled over the nearest chair and sank into it. “I can’t help thinking that I should just go to his place, get my stuff and come back here where I belong.”

  Her mom had the smoothie halfway to her mouth. She set it down again, minus the clunking sound this time. “Don’t be hasty.”

  “Mom. He’s going out with someone else tonight. I hate it. But I also know I have no claim on him.”

  “Oh, yes you do. You always have. Connor Bravo doesn’t want anyone but you, not really.”

  Aly groaned. “Please.”

  Catriona O’Leary Santangelo had been with Aly’s dad since she was sixteen years old. At seventeen, she’d married him. Dante came along five months later. Neither Cat nor Ernesto had ever so much as looked at anyone else in a romantic way. Cat believed in fate and love that lasted a lifetime.

  “I say this with all the love in the world, Mom. But you have no way of knowing what Connor Bravo really wants. I can’t help but wonder if anybody does.”

  “Did you tell him to call that other woman and say he’s not available, after all, and he won’t be available—ever?”

  “No. But I sent him a text. ‘Tell Margo your ex-wife says hi.’”

  “Cute. But not direct enough. You’ve got to tell him what you want up front. Men are—”

  “Simple creatures. I know, I know.” She pushed the load of laundry toward the center of the table so she could prop her elbows and brace her chin between her hands. “I can’t do this. It was a bad idea.”

  Her mom looked troubled. “You think it’s something serious with this other woman?”

  “He did say that he’d forgotten all about her until this morning...”

  Cat brightened. “Well, see then? That’s because all he can think about is you.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s a date. A second date. Things are different now. People can hook up so easily. Generally, men don’t go on dates that often—and definitely not on second dates—unless it’s someone they really like and want to get to know better.”

  Cat was frowning, deep in thought. “Connor would, though.”

  “Mom. You’re kind of creeping me out. How can you possibly know what Connor would do?”

  “He’s a nice boy. Even if this woman is just for a good time, he would still take her out for a decent dinner first. He’s that kind of man.”

  “Ew.” Aly got up, grabbed a sock and searched for its mate in the pile. “Uh-uh. Either way—if he really likes her or it’s just a booty call with dinner thrown in—I don’t like it. It makes everything wrong, somehow. He’s got his life and I’ve got mine, and I have to stop trying to pretend that my scrambled-up brain knows the truth and reality doesn’t matter. I’ve got to stop kidding myself. Sometimes things end. They end all wrong and you wish with all your heart that you’d done things differently. But you did what you did and you can’t go back and do it over again.”

  * * *

  The offices of Valentine Logging were housed in a barnlike manufactured building at the Warrenton docks on the Columbia River.

  Valentine Logging was still a family-owned company, one that had almost gone under when George and Marie Bravo died in Thailand sixteen years before. But Connor’s great-uncle Percy Valentine, who had been in his sixties at the time, had pitched in to help Daniel learn to run the place.

  By nine years ago, when Connor came on board, the company ship was considerably steadier. Another few years after that, and they were back on course. Since then, they’d expanded, increasing their profits three times over.

  Once a week at least, Daniel joined Connor in his office to go over the calendar, review the jobs in progress and the ones coming up, making sure they had everything on schedule and under control.

  That day, at a little after five, they were just finishing up the weekly review.

  “So, we’re looking good,” said Daniel. “On schedule with both projects.”

  “We’re good, yeah,” Connor replied.

  He was supposed to pick up Margo at six thirty. They had reservations for seven at his favorite steak house in nearby Astoria. He liked Margo, he really did. She was smart and fun and neither of them was looking for anything serious. Since his marriage imploded, he didn’t do serious. It was just better that way.

  But more than once that day he’d almost called Margo to beg off. He didn’t want to go out with her. It felt all wrong to go out with her.

  He needed to go home to Aly, eat that dinner she’d offered to cook for him, look into her lavender-blue eyes and ask how her day had been, how her mom was doing, how she, Aly, was feeling. If she’d had any more headaches, if she’d thought it over and decided she still hated his guts, after all...

  Daniel, across the desk from him, shut his own laptop. “Okay. What is up with you?”

  His brother would find out soon enough, anyway. Might as well get it over with. “Aly’s in town for the next few months. Cat’s pregnant and Aly’s here to help out.”

  Daniel took a minute before he replied, “So...you’ve seen Alyssa, spoken to her? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “More. Much more.”

  “Connor. Ju
st explain yourself.”

  Connor cracked his neck and raked both hands back through his hair. Then he laid it all out for his older brother—the accident, Aly’s strange partial amnesia, her request to stay in his guest room for as long as she was in town. “I said she could stay. She moved in last night.”

  “Wow,” Daniel said.

  “And I’ve got a date tonight with someone else.”

  His brother, who rarely swore, said a bad word.

  Connor grunted. “I don’t want to go, but I feel like a jerk to call her and cancel so late.”

  “Need advice?”

  Connor turned his mesh swivel chair sideways, slumped down in it, stuck his feet out in front of him and stared at his boots. “Make it good.”

  “You want another chance with Alyssa?”

  “I keep telling myself it’s too late.”

  “If you go out with someone else tonight, it just might be.”

  Connor slanted Daniel a dirty look. “I had a feeling you’d say something like that.”

  “Hey. What are older brothers for?” He picked up Connor’s phone from the edge of the desk and held it out to him. “Call your date and cancel.”

  “I feel like a schmuck. Aly walks back in my life and I forget everything but her. I didn’t even remember I had a date tonight until this morning, when Aly offered to cook me dinner.”

  “Okay. I agree with you. You’re a schmuck.” Daniel waved the phone at him. “Don’t be a weenie, too. Make the call.”

  It was still kind of weird to Connor, how much his big brother had changed. In the past year or so, the always serious, usually glum Daniel Bravo had developed a sense of humor and become downright cheerful. The guy was happy with his family—his new wife, Keely, and their baby, and the twins from his first marriage.

  “Smart-ass.” He took the phone.

  Daniel got up and left him to it.

  Margo picked up on the first ring. “Hi, Connor.” She sounded worried, which didn’t surprise him. He would have texted her with any minor change of plans. A call didn’t bode well for the evening itself.

  It was an awkward conversation. Because he really was a schmuck. He should have called her earlier; even that morning, when he’d first remembered about the date, would’ve been better than now. He made a lame excuse about how “something” had come up and he was going to have to cancel.

  She said she was disappointed and then, her voice a low purr, asked, “Next weekend, then?”

  And he knew he would have to be more direct with her. “I’m sorry, Margo. My ex-wife is back in the picture.” It pissed him off to have to say it, to have it mean so damn much. Life without Aly had been a lot simpler. He avoided getting too close, kind of skated on the surface of things. After the first couple years without her, he’d started telling himself life was better with no strings.

  “Whoa,” Margo said. She was not purring now. “You’re getting back with your ex?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening, really. But in the past week, everything’s changed.”

  “In the past week? And you couldn’t have called to let me know earlier?”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. You are so right. I should have called you earlier.”

  “Yeah, well.” She spoke curtly. “You didn’t.”

  “Again, I apologize.”

  “Goodbye, Connor.” Margo said frostily. The line went dead.

  Connor called the restaurant and canceled his reservation. Then he stuck his phone in his pocket and put his laptop in his briefcase.

  He felt more like a jerk than ever. But he was also relieved. He’d called it off with Margo and now he could go home to Aly. Maybe she would still be willing to cook him that dinner she’d offered. And they could talk.

  Except that, when he got home half an hour later, the key he’d given her waited on the kitchen counter. The scrap of paper beneath the key read, “Never mind. I realize I can’t do this, after all.”

  Chapter Five

  It had been a quiet dinner, just Aly and her parents, with Tuck lurking under the table, hoping to catch any fallen treats. Marco was out with his friends.

  No one mentioned Connor, but her mom knew what had happened. Cat might or might not have enlightened Ernesto. Aly didn’t even want to know what the two had said to each other concerning Aly’s fragile mental state and the way she’d moved in with Connor and back out again in the space of approximately nineteen hours.

  Cat had returned to the master bedroom and Aly was straightening up the kitchen after the meal when the doorbell rang. She loaded the last plate in the dishwasher, shut the door and grabbed the sponge to wipe down the counters.

  Her dad appeared in the doorway to the dining room. “Connor’s here. I would’ve slammed the door in his face but your mother warned me ahead of time that I better not try that. So I just shut it on him. Quiet-like. How did your mother know he was going to show up here?”

  Connor’s here. Her pulse raced and her face felt hot. It was a little before seven. He must have called off his date...

  Her dad pinched up his full mouth and narrowed his eyes at her. “That kid’s got a nerve on him. Just tell me to tell him to fuggetaboutit, that if you never see his face again, it’ll be too soon.”

  “Dad.”

  “What?”

  She stepped in close, kissed his cheek and handed him the sponge. “I love you. Back off.” Straightening her shoulders and aiming her chin high, she headed for the front door.

  When she got there, she could see him, his face only slightly distorted by the etched glass in the top of the door. They stared at each other for several seconds before she pulled the door wide.

  He held a huge paper cone of dahlias—big ones in a bright rainbow of stunning colors. Nothing compared to dahlias grown in Oregon.

  She stepped over the threshold as he backed up enough that he wasn’t crowding her. “What do you want, Connor?” She pulled the door shut behind her so her dad couldn’t hear.

  “I canceled my date,” he said solemnly. “I’m not seeing her again. Or anyone. No one but you. And Aly, I’m not taking anything for granted. I don’t know what will happen with us—or maybe I do know and I don’t want to think about it. I just know I want you to please come home with me now.”

  Home.

  She closed her eyes—and she could see it, that little house they’d lived in together on Fir Avenue. She was still at OU then, so they spent too much time apart during the school year. But summers belonged to them, together, at home.

  Summer evenings like this one, they would sit out on their little postage stamp of a front porch and watch the night come on. Dahlias grew in fat clumps on either side of the porch steps—anemone dahlias, waterlily dahlias, collarette and pom-pom dahlias.

  “Aly,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. When I made that date, I had no clue that you would be back in my life again a few days later. And then I forgot all about it because all I had on my mind was you.”

  She opened her eyes and accepted the bouquet of flowers from his outstretched hand. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.” She lowered her nose to them and got what she expected: nothing. Dahlias had no scent. It had always seemed so wrong to her that something so beautiful had no discernable smell.

  He suggested, “Cat might like them.”

  That softened her heart even more. “She would love them. I’ll arrange them in her favorite cut-glass vase and put them in her bedroom to make her smile.”

  “And then will you come home with me?”

  She felt so strange, suddenly. Kind of quivery. Shy. Instead of answering his question, she asked another one. “Isn’t it a little early for dahlias?”

  “It’s been a warm year.” He gave her that smile—the secret one, the one for just between the two of them.

  She’d missed that smile, hadn’t she? Mi
ssed it so much, in those seven years without him. All those seven years of life she’d lived on her own in the big city...

  For a tattered fraction of a moment, she stood at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West Thirtieth Street. It was summer. She could almost feel the heat coming up through the sidewalk. She heard horns honking and a sharp, high whistle—some guy signaling for a cab. She smelled apple fritters and frying sausage from a food cart nearby...

  “Aly?” A hand on her arm.

  She looked down. Connor’s hand. She would know it, always; could easily distinguish it from any other. The broad, strong shape of it, the lean fingers, the perfect dusting of golden-brown hair to just a little below the sculpted wrist...

  “Hmm?” She let her gaze track up until she looked into his gray-blue eyes.

  “Come back home with me. Tonight.”

  She still wanted him. So much. Maybe too much. She should probably stick with the new plan, stay here at her mom’s, not tempt fate any more than she already had.

  But what she should do? To hell with that. Her heart had its own plan and that meant there really wasn’t anything to say but, “All right. Come on in.”

  * * *

  Inside, Connor got the dark glare of death from Ernesto. But at least Aly’s dad left it at that and returned his attention to the game on the big screen mounted over the fireplace.

  Connor followed Aly into the kitchen.

  He said no to coffee and took a chair at the table as she reached for a giant vase from the top of a cupboard and proceeded to arrange the flowers he’d brought.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, and went off with the flowers. He sat there, feeling strange and out of place in the kitchen where he used to feel right at home. Growing up, he and Dante had had the run of the house. Cat had always catered to them, serving up hot dogs and cupcakes and peanut butter sandwiches on demand.

  Aly returned and stood in the doorway to the dining room, a battered, blue-eyed angel with all those acres of black hair he burned to bury his hands in again. Maybe he’d get lucky, steal a kiss from her tonight.