by Dawn, Penny
"That's right,” Schaeffer said. “The biggest obstacle."
"Aside from the fact I claim a daughter who isn't mine, work my fingers to the bone and don't make enough money to keep my wife happy, and I have the best golden retriever on the planet and she hates him?"
"Her contempt for your dog is one of your biggest problems?"
"She won't even walk him. Everything that might help me is an inconvenience for her. She doesn't do anything for me."
Schaeffer raised his thin eyebrows. “She does nothing?"
"I work, I bring home checks, and she cashes them."
"You said last week she's in charge of your finances."
"She is, but that's her only job."
"You don't think raising two children and keeping the house are jobs worth mentioning?"
Luke shook his head in resignation. “Look, I know what she does is important. But there's more to a marriage than ironed shirts and hot dinners, you know? It's the whole package, not just her keeping score. The only reason she keeps my house is so she can martyr herself for doing so."
"What else is important to you, in regards to your marriage, Mr. Jackson?"
"Call me Luke."
Dr. Schaeffer nodded. “I prefer to keep things formal, Mr. Jackson. What else is important to—"
"Intimacy."
Schaeffer fingered his closely shaven chin, assuming he was old enough to shave. “Go on."
"Two or three times a year. That's what I've been living with since my boy was born. She doesn't do anything for me."
Schaeffer nodded silently.
"And it isn't my fault. I'm willing to take my time with her, to help her out, if you know what I mean. I'm not selfish in bed, but after eight years of hurry-up sex, it's obvious she doesn't want anything from me. Wouldn't you want to do it as quickly as possible? To make sure you have time to finish?"
Schaeffer took a breath, as if he didn't know what to say. Maybe he had no frame of reference. He was probably a virgin. Who'd have him?
"She hates sex,” Luke said. “Well, she hates it with me anyway."
Schaeffer didn't flinch. “Have you thought about the fact she hates it"—His fingers became visual quotation marks—"and still does it for you?"
Across a battered coffee table, Luke stared, fighting the lava threatening to erupt inside him. “I don't force myself on my wife. I care about Diane's feelings."
"Do you?"
"What do you know? Are you there when I try to touch her? I'd spend hours with my tongue between her legs, if she'd allow it. But if I stroke her, kiss her, try to love her at all, she pulls away. Is that—having sex with me twice a year—doing it for me?” He rose from his seat and turned toward the door.
"There are forty-three minutes left of this session, Mr. Jackson."
"Yeah, yeah. Enough time for fourteen sexual encounters with my wife, and one minute to spare for clean-up. I've done the math more than I care to admit."
"We're not done, Mr. Jackson."
"I am."
"Same time Saturday then."
Although the thought of one more moment in-session with this snot-nose, know-it-all kid made him want to regurgitate his breakfast, Luke nodded. Without looking back, he rushed through the waiting room, through the county counseling wing, and through the parking lot, chilly rain pounding down upon his head.
Derby groaned when Luke unlocked and opened the driver-side truck door. The warm air inside greeted him, thawed him the way he imagined Kimberley Roderick might after a cold night plowing driveways.
The old picture pressed into the dashboard—he and Diane with their son on his second birthday—caught his eye, and he scrutinized the photo for the millionth time, searching for a clue Diane had been lost to him even then. But not a hint existed. Not then, and not now. Paul Radcliffe had been pleasuring his wife a few times a week back then, and for all he knew, the bastard could be servicing her again now.
"Come on, Derby. Let's pick up the kids from school."
* * * *
Brennan arrived home on schedule, at three o'clock Friday afternoon, his arm outstretched to a screeching Allison. “Daddy, Daddy!"
Kimberley remained glued to her seat in the breakfast room, nursing a mug of decaffeinated tea. With an ex-boyfriend perpetually milling around in her mind, she shouldn't have room to think about the stranger fond of holding hands, but the energy Luke evoked raced through her veins like lightning through a summer sky. “Doesn't Mommy look nice today?” Brennan approached the breakfast table. His gorgeous blue eyes sparkled, fixated on Kimberley. “But Mommy looks nice every day, doesn't she?"
Preoccupied with the father too hung over to play with her last weekend, Allison's attention remained focused on him, her little hands rubbing his five o'clock shadow.
"Let's give Mommy a kiss together.” He kissed one cheek, and Allison's chatter stopped just long enough for her to peck the other.
"Down, Daddy. Want to play?” She wiggled her way to the floor and scampered to her dolls.
"I'm sorry,” Brennan whispered, gingerly tousling her hair. “About last weekend, about everything, Kim."
She pressed her lips together and met his gaze. “Do you love me?"
"What kind of a question is that?"
A lone tear escaped, but she caught it on the tip of her little finger. “Yes or no."
"You know I do."
"I don't feel loved."
"Don't say that.” His arms enveloped her. “I don't want to make you feel that way."
"How do you expect me to feel when you do what you do? Brennan, we've been together eight years, and you're obviously—"
"I'll try harder."
"I'm tired of hearing that. Things have to change."
"It all comes out in the wash, Kimmy. So I lost a few hundred to Rick. He'll lose it back to me next week.” He grinned. “Luck is on my side. I found you, didn't I?"
"I'm more concerned with what happens after the betting than your luck. You have an addictive personality, and you can't get enough. Of anything."
"I can't get enough of you, that's for sure.” His hand grazed up her side. Just before he cupped her breast, she flinched away.
"Think about the tiny audience five feet away, and please, think about what I said. You need help."
"It's taken a good many years for me to make the progress I've made, and it'll take a good many more before we're done. I used to be at the track every night, in Vegas at least once a month.” He kissed the top of her head. “I'm trying, Kim. Don't you know I'll never stop trying? Believe me. Please."
She pressed a hand to her abdomen and observed Allison's play. “I don't have a choice."
CHAPTER 4
"Hey, beautiful girl.” Luke approached the stepping machines, cracking a smile. A bicep threatened to rip his cotton T-shirt. The man needed new shirts. Desperately.
Kimberley skimmed her fingers over a tiny rip near his collar bone. He was hot to the touch. And firm. Hard. Their gazes met, and she snapped her hand away. “Your shirt's torn."
"Yeah.” He stepped onto the machine next to hers. “So ... have you talked to your husband about breastfeeding?"
Frowning, she helped herself to a sip of his water. “Do you work for a breastfeeding advocacy group?"
"No.” His ultra-white teeth gleamed. “I just think it's important. Besides, I need to know if I should be jealous."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'd be jealous of anyone who got any of those."
"Would you compliment them in their usual, barely-B state? Let me guess. Your wife is a standard-D."
"No."
"Bigger?"
"You really want to talk about my wife's breasts?"
"No.” Despite the guy's inept flirting, which was charming as hell, he probably knew his way around the female breast well enough to guide a tour. Those hands, that mouth ... An undeniable urge to climax, right then and there, flushed through her.
"Your husband's a lucky guy."
"Yes, he is."
"No, he isn't. Men forever covet what they do not have, but that never made my husband lucky, or Jason, for that matter. Given the chance, you think you'd be lucky, too, but you'd be sorely mistaken."
"Who's Jason?"
She shifted her glance to the monitor on the stepper. “No one."
After a few silent seconds, Luke piped up. “You know, this planet wants the strongest and most beautiful of a species to procreate."
"What?"
"It's true. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. If you watch two sperm from two different men under a microscope, the stronger of the two will attack. It's scientific. It's nature's way. Men protect what's rightfully theirs, and if you were rightfully mine, I'd be the luckiest guy in the world."
A delightful burst of pleasure surged between her legs.
"I'll bet a hundred-to-one my soldiers would bury your husband's swimmers in a second. You're far too pretty for him, I'm sure of it. So tell me. Do you cheat on your husband?"
"What? No!” Then again, she'd heard Brennan's family-shmamily.
"So Jason's an old flame.” Luke's brown eyes narrowed, and he brushed a thumb over the moon-shaped scar near his eye.
"Married four years ago come September to an hourglass figure with gorgeous blonde hair."
"Diane's my high school sweetheart. I don't have any ex-girlfriends."
"Oh, come on. Men like you play the field in excess."
"Well, I have ex-lovers, just not ex-girlfriends. I did my share of chasing skirts in the army."
Great. An ex-soldier. Loves his children, loves his country. Watch me melt.
"Don't think less of me for it,” he said. “Sex is necessary for survival, you know, and when you're faced with a real possibility of dying ... well, animal instinct takes over. Kind of wish you were around when it did. Then that baby might be mine."
Had Luke ever pounded into his wife, or any of his ex-lovers, on the stairs? Would he ever pound into her? She stopped stepping, mouth agape, brow knit. What had she gotten herself into? She stepped off the apparatus and wiped her towel across her forehead. “I'm not going to cheat on my husband with you."
Luke flashed his killer smile and joined her on a walk toward the locker room. “Who would you cheat on your husband with? Jason?"
"In my mind, I already have. But that's as far as it goes."
"Did you cry when he got married?"
She stopped walking and turned toward him. “Why does that matter?"
"Just curious.” His gaze remained planted on her eyes, but a sexual aura surrounded his body.
Oh, to feel those hands trailing along her skin, cupping her breasts, raking through her hair.
"Do you want to cheat on your wife with me?” God, that sounded like an invitation.
"Yes."
"I'm pregnant."
"I didn't say I'd let it happen. You asked a question, and I answered truthfully. Yes, Kimberley, I'd love to make love to you, but no, it'll never happen. I'm married.” He twisted his wedding band. “And my kids mean everything to me."
Dumbstruck, she shook her head, hoping for a few words to fall to her tongue.
"I thought we were pretty clear on that,” Luke said.
"Clarity. There's a pipe dream for you.” She stared at a poster on the wall. Believe it. Become it, it said. “For three hours. I cried for three hours in a tepid bubble bath one week before Jason got married."
"Because he replaced you with the hourglass?"
"Because he loved me once. And now, he doesn't know me. And he doesn't care."
Luke rested a hand on her abdomen. When she was pregnant with Allison, she hated people touching her belly, but Luke's hand melded against her body as if it belonged there.
"He was a fool to leave you, Kimberley."
"He wasn't a fool. He was young. And so was I."
"He was a fool.” His strong hand massaged her stomach, and she leaned into him, praying for his hand to slip. Up or down, she didn't care, but she needed to feel his touch in areas much more intimate than her tummy.
Her cheeks flushing hot, she caught her breath and stepped away. “I have to go. Brennan and I are going out tonight, and I have a hundred things to do."
Luke nodded. “He was a fool, Kimberley."
"I have to go.” Dazed, she backed away, hurried into the locker room, gathered her things, and headed to the market.
* * * *
"I'm going to cheat on my wife.” There. He'd said it.
Schaeffer pressed his fingers together in a rigid tee-pee. For a moment, he appeared peaked, flustered. “You're going to ... to ... what?"
"I met someone, Doc. And I think she needs me as much I need her."
The pipsqueak cleared his throat. “Do you ... do you think sexual gratification with this woman will replace the mental intimacy you share with your wife?"
Luke forfeited his good posture and stretched the entire length of his body in the uncomfortable chair, his feet honing in on the space under the coffee table. “A: there's nothing intimate left between Diane and me. And B: yeah."
"Let's talk about the consequences, Mr. Jackson."
"All right. And it's Luke, by the way."
"Consequence number one. Losing your wife."
"I already lost her to Paul Radcliffe six years ago."
"Paul ... who?"
"Keep up with me, Benny.” Luke clasped his hands behind his head. “Paul Radcliffe. Rachael's biological father."
"It's Doctor Schaeffer. Please."
"I take issue with that. If we're going to discuss my darkest, secret desires, I'd rather be on a first-name basis."
"The formality of a title keeps our relationship professional. Don't think of me as a bartender. Think of me as your therapist."
"And I can't do that and call you Ben?"
"We're getting away from the issue at hand. You assume Mr. Radcliffe is Rachael's father. Why?"
"Because I've never known a baby to grow in utero for an entire year, that's why."
"Have you performed DNA tests to prove she isn't yours?"
"There's no reason to. When Diane told me she was pregnant, she knew I'd leave. She already had my bag packed. I'm no mathematical genius, but—"
"Your name is on the birth certificate."
"Yes."
"Rachael shares your last name."
"Yes."
"You love her as if she's your own."
"Absolutely."
"Then why are you using Diane's past infidelity—one you've obviously accepted—as an excuse to cheat on your wife?"
He took a deep breath. “I'm not using it at all. I don't need an excuse, and I don't need a reason. All I need is the desire, and trust me, I've got that one covered."
"Let's talk more about Rachael, about why you raise her as your own."
"She's a little girl. None of this is her fault."
"So it has nothing to do with keeping Diane."
"No, it's about the well-being of my daughter, and the confidence and character of my son.” He straightened to a ramrod position. “Everything I do, I do for them, with them in mind. I'm not using them to keep my wife around."
"So when you decided to have an affair, you did so with your children in mind?"
Luke rubbed at a callus on his thumb, looking the doctor in the eye. “Listen. I'm not a bad guy."
"I'm not judging you."
"The hell you're not."
"You're here for marriage counseling. You tell me you're going to have an affair. It's my job to help you think this through before you—"
"I've already thought it through."
"Then why are you here? I have plenty of clients who want my help. You're not one of them."
"You want to know what I want? I want you to tell me how to eke by in this marriage for the next thirteen years, so I can keep my kids under the same roof. With me, and yes, with my dog. I'm not looking for some magic formula to make Diane and
me what we used to be. We're long gone, probably dead before I left for Saudi, and we're never coming back."
"Again, if that's the case, why are you here?"
