Found: One Marriage

by Laura Parker

  He almost sighed in relief when she tugged her skirt down to her knees. In the lamplight he had seen pale gold hairs shimmering on the surface of her thighs. It had been a while since her last leg wax. That thought unaccountably excited him. An earthy man, he often preferred a little natural variation to artificial perfection. Then he noticed the Band-Aid in the crook of her arm. Results of an IV? Hadn’t noticed it before. He was slipping.

  “You don’t seem to be much the worse for your experience. No serious damage done.” That was rude and he knew it but he needed to regain control of the moment.

  Her composure held. “I suppose that depends on what you call damage.” She met his gaze without hesitation. “I can’t remember where I live, my phone number, or even my name.”

  He glanced at the eelskin purse slung across her body by a long thin shoulder strap. “Why don’t you just open your purse and consult your wallet?”

  She reached for the strap and whipped it over her head then thrust the purse at him. “You look in it. It’s what the hospital gave me this morning at checkout.”

  Joe debated the wisdom of humoring her but he had always been a sucker for an easy play.

  Their fingers scarcely touched before she jerked away.

  The eelskin felt smooth, oily, almost damp in his hand. He snapped the latch and dumped the contents into his toweled lap. It contained a compact, lipstick, two tissues, a gold pen, a small tin of aspirin, and a matching wallet. No checkbook, calendar, or note-pad. No bus ticket stubs, either. He picked up the wallet and flipped it open. There were no credit cards stuck in the spaces provided, not even a gas card or license. He felt a bulk through the soft leather and spread wide the dollar bill section. Inside was a stack of cash an inch thick.

  He pulled out the top one, a crisply minted one-hundred-dollar bill so new it felt slightly sandy between his fingers. He pulled out another and then another and then thumbed through the rest.

  He stared at it a little longer than was professionally, objectively polite but he had never seen so many one-hundred-dollar bills other than at a drug bust. Mystified for the first time, he looked up. “There must be eight —”

  “Nearly ten,” she interjected.

  “—nearly ten thousand here.” He glanced down again. “You win the lottery?”

  “I think I have money.”

  He relaxed for the first time. “I’d say you do.”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t even seem to realize that he was teasing her. Her expression was sincere again, passionately so. “I mean I think that money is mine. I earned it, or inherited it.”

  Joe’s face lost its animation. Mention of her trust fund made him uncomfortable. He had refused to touch it when they were married, believing that they should live on what they earned themselves. Evidently, she’d had a change of heart since their divorce. “So, you come from money. Do you have another point?”

  She bit her lip. Not that coy kind of bite women use when they want to seem earnest. She bit down so hard he thought she might draw blood. “The police were very suspicious of that money, especially after I couldn’t explain it, or even who I was. Then, too, I didn’t have any ID to back it up.”

  “I would be too,” Joe murmured...if he didn’t already know who she was. “They thought you were dealing drugs?”

  She sighed and nodded. “Something like that. Do you believe me now?”

  “No.” He didn’t try to temper it. “Your story has more holes than a colander. People don’t just lose their minds—” he smirked “—excuse me, lose their memories from a simple tap on the head. As for the rest, you never took a bus in your life. Of course, you couldn’t explain how you just happened to conveniently wind up on my doorstep if you’d taken a plane, right?”

  She blinked then, the first hint that she was lying or holding back something. “You seem to know a lot about me. Why don’t you tell me everything you know.”

  Danger. The word was a neon red blinking signal in Joe’s thoughts. “I told you before, I’m not going to play games with you, now or ever. Got that?”

  She watched him a long silent time. He could tell she was calming herself, breathing slowly, weighing her options, trying to find a strategy, desperate despite her denial not to be thrown out on her ear. “Won’t you at least hear me out?”

  Joe hesitated only a moment. “What the hell. Sure.”

  He rose from the floor, one hand at his waist to hold his towel closed, and padded barefoot over to his chair. He sat, legs spreading wide out before him. He wasn’t about to worry what she could or could not see beneath the gaping edges of his towel. This was his home and he was in no mood to be polite. “All right, let’s have it. But keep it short.” His expression was not at all one of confidence building.

  “I think I may know why I wasn’t carrying any ID.” She kept her gaze politely averted even though he did not respond. “The police checked my fingerprints through their computers and they didn’t come up with anything criminal on me. They said they wanted to print my picture in the paper but I refused.”

  “Why?”

  “I think—feel—that before the accident, I was in some sort of trouble. I believe I was running away.” She looked up, her expression almost shy. “Someone may be after me.”

  Joe laughed, the rude kind of guffaw that jumps out unexpectedly in the middle of an awkward moment.

  She pinkened. At least, he thought absently, his reaction was good for her circulation. She had been much too pale for his liking.

  “You don’t believe me, do you? Don’t believe any of it?” She didn’t sound angry or surprised, only resigned. “Check it out.” She pointed to the phone on the end table by his chair. “All you have to do is call the sheriff or the county hospital”

  Joe wagged his head. “I’m ready to call your bluff.”

  Her chin lifted. “Go ahead.”

  He sank lower in his chair, his towel inching open. She didn’t even glance down. “You don’t have a driver’s license because you and I both know you don’t know how to drive. As for the money, though I never knew you to carry so much you almost always dealt in cash. Many New Yorkers do.”

  He came to his feet. “Are you ready?”

  She looked the long way up to his face. “Ready for what?”

  “I’m driving you back to wherever you came from.”

  She blushed but held his gaze as he came toward her. “Does this mean you’ll take my case?”

  Joe’s expression soured. “No. I’m going to get your cute butt out of here and then forget this night.”

  She stood up. He hadn’t realized he was so close to her until in her rising they nearly touched. But he’d be damned before he backed away. She met his dark brown gaze at less than a foot. “I’ll go,” she said in the measured tones of a seasoned bargainer. “But only if you answer two questions.”

  He rested his hands low on his hips, as if he thought that might prevent him from strangling her. “Shoot.”

  “What is my name and how do you know me?”

  He didn’t know why he did it, maybe just to get it over with. “Your name’s Halle, H-A-L-L-E, pronounced holly like the berry bush, remember?”

  She shook her head. “Halle what?”

  “Hayworth.” He didn’t stop to think why he gave her maiden name instead of her married one. Neutral territory, he decided. “Now, is this charade over?”

  “How do you know me?”

  “God almighty!” Joe gave a terse shake of his head. No, he wasn’t going to let her get to him, no matter the provocation.

  There was no light, no interest in the chill dark gaze he directed at her. “That’s a third question. You said you’d leave after I answered two.”

  He saw her color rise another notch but she offered him a fetching feminine smile. He caught it like an easy fly ball, at the level of his crotch. “You are not a nice man.”

  “You already knew that.”

  This time he caught the swift darting look of fear in her ey
es, as if she really didn’t know that, or anything else about him. Was it possible? Or was she just playing him for some purpose he couldn’t imagine? “Come on, you’re cutting into my recreation time.”

  She gave the room a quick glance, spying the birthday cake and empty beer cans in her brief perusal. When her gaze came back to his there was clear derision in her expression. “Celebrating alone? Could it be I’m not the only one who thinks the birthday boy is no great prize?”

  He let her have that, but it cost him. He wanted to grab and shake her and make her understand that everything that had gone wrong in his life was somehow bound up in her. But he knew that wasn’t true. He had made enough of his own mistakes to cancel out whatever ones she had made. But she was a handy target and he had learned long ago that anger didn’t need much of a lightning rod. So he smoldered, practically shimmered with suppressed rage.

  She must have noticed, caught a glimpse of the white-hot anger blazing behind his composure because she suddenly turned, practically shouldered him aside, and walked briskly toward the door. He followed more slowly, at a safe distance.

  When she turned at the door he was stunned to see tears once more in her eyes. Halle had never been a water faucet.

  “I—I really don’t want to be alone tonight.” She seemed to swallow back something.

  Then the meaning of her leading statement smacked him right between the eyes. “You can’t stay here!” It was nearly a shout.

  She looked at him almost resentfully. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” He didn’t know why he repeated the dumb question. What was she trying to do, ruin his life a second time? He pretended not to notice the slight quiver of her breasts beneath her cotton blouse. Then she was reeling him into the dappled green depths of her amber eyes.

  “You’re the only person I’ve met so far who knows me. You can’t know what that means, what it’s like to look in the mir—” Again she broke off, swallowing an even larger lump of emotion. He felt a sympathetic lump form in his own throat. Some big bad cop.

  “I’ll pay you.” She looked past his shoulder, as if she could wish herself back into the center of the room. “I can sleep on the sofa. Or, I’ll pull a chair out on the porch if you don’t like the idea of having me in your house.”

  She tried to smile but he saw the muscles in her jaws bunch in a near grimace. “I just don’t want another night...alone.” The last word was all but lost in a whisper.

  Staring into her face, as familiar to him as his own, Joe made himself think of at least ten good reasons why he should just push the screen door open and get this over with. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. He couldn’t afford to believe her. Even if every crazy word she bad spoken tonight was the absolute truth, he had no comfort left to give of any kind for any reason.

  He gave the idea his last impartial effort. She might be lying. She might be telling the truth, in which case, he definitely didn’t want to be involved. He had once loved her. Now she was another man’s wife. She was not his responsibility. Kissing her had proved one thing. He could not win, no matter what the truth was. She seemed to need him—the biggest no-no of all.

  “You thirsty? I need a beer in the worst way.”

  He turned and headed for the kitchen without looking back.

  They hadn’t exchanged a word, just stood silently in his kitchen, each leaning a hip against the opposite counter while sharing a silent drink. He’d substituted a diet soda for his offer of beer once he realized that a woman who had fainted shouldn’t be consuming alcohol.

  The fluorescent light overhead gleamed off her throat as she tilted up the can to drain it. He noticed she held the can with two hands like a child but that wasn’t what kept his interest. She had a thing about drinking anything from a can, said it was the height of barbarity. Yet she hadn’t even asked for a glass. Their first Christmas she had brought him a set of extravagantly expensive cut crystal beer steins to keep him from having an excuse to drink from the can. They were in the cupboard behind her head but he hadn’t offered one to her.

  His eyes narrowed on his own half-empty can as he smoothed away with his thumb the condensation that frosted the side. It collected in droplets then dribbled off the tip of his finger onto his big toe. He was no happier now with his decision to detain her than he had been when he’d made it five minutes earlier. Why hadn’t he forced her out when she was already moving in that general direction? What was it about looking at the woman he had once loved and lost that filled the sick little space in his psyche that two years of living had not?

  He knew she was watching him with equal interest. He felt her shooting tiny glances his way each time he looked in another direction. She was nervous, didn’t yet know whether or not he was going to let her stay. But it wasn’t only that. She was rabidly curious about him.

  Her gaze felt like a touch on his bare shoulders when he turned away for a moment to toss his can in the recycle bin. It grazed his waist then probed cautiously the contours of his terry-clothed hips. He knew, with some pride, that he still measured up to the man she had walked out on two years ago. He had made damned certain he didn’t go to seed physically even though emotionally he was a mess. Odd jobs that demanded physical labor and a minimum of conversation filled in the gaps between his career as a PI.

  Shipmann, as he recalled, who was a little taller than he but lighter in weight, played racketball at the Harvard Club to keep in shape. The ivy leaguer’s jacket might hang better but in a brawl Joe had no doubt about which of them would be the victor.

  “Do you always dress so informally?”

  He turned back, started by her voice which sounded more like the old Halle than at anytime so far this day.

  She glanced deliberately at his towel and then her eyes widened in mock innocence as they met his. “I thought a cowboy always wore his boots and spurs.”

  Desire slammed into him so quickly he didn’t expect it. He thought he had plumbed it’s depths ten minutes earlier when his mouth was hot and open on hers. He was wrong. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to rip off his towel, strip off her clothes and ram into her—right here, right now, standing up—to make her remember a need so primitive that sometimes they had both been a little afraid of it.

  He amazed himself with his control. He hooked his thumb into the knot at his waist and grinned. “Bother you?”

  She shrugged. “Looks a bit drafty.”

  “Prairie air-conditioning.” He flipped the flap open and closed, revealing for a fraction of a second one long hairy thigh and the arc of a bare hip. To her credit she didn’t turn away but laughed.

  Joe smirked but turned quickly away, pretending to check out the contents of his refrigerator. But the hand he put on the handle trembled. Had she noticed the bulge he’d almost revealed? Or was she just better at hiding her reactions than he was? “Another soda?”

  “No, thanks. But if you’ve got anything to eat?”

  Without looking up he said, “Sorry. I’ve been out of town until today. Fresh out of everything edible.”

  From the edge of his vision he saw her glance longingly at his refrigerator. “I’d settle for scrambled eggs.”

  He pushed the door shut. “All I have is beer and birthday cake.”

  Her voice brightened. “Cake? Fabulous.”

  Joe turned and reached past her to open the cabinet by her head. He withdrew and then thrust the plate at her. “Help yourself. I’ve had my fill.”

  She followed him back into the living room where the cake still sat on the coffee table. When he handed her the butcher knife he had been using she only gave it a wry glance before she knelt down and plunged it into the confection.

  “Is April Fool’s Day really your birth date?”

  Joe winced. She was determined to play out her role to the bitter end, it seemed. It had been her idea to link this date with their marriage. She had turned the birthday party she had planned for him into an impromptu wedding ceremony that was a sur
prise for their guests. Then, after things fell apart, she had made certain the final divorce papers came through on the exact same date. She had always had a sense of humor. Too bad he couldn’t appreciate her final joke.

  “Yeah,” he said finally. “That’s me. The original fool.”

  “What year are you celebrating?” she asked as she slipped the blade under the generous slice she carved for herself.

  “Thirty-two.” Joe stood watching her as if she were going to get a grade on her dexterity with a knife. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  She looked up, her eyes lingering a perceptible moment on the broad sun-darkened planes of his chest, and then away, as if it had only now occurred to her that she was alone with a half-naked man.

  He retreated to his chair as she pinched off a piece of her cake slice with two fingers and brought it to her mouth. “Umm. Good. Homemade?”

  Joe shrugged. “A friend made it for me.”

  She glanced from the cake to him; her gaze dropped speculatively to his toweled hips. “Were you expecting company tonight?”

  Mean-spirited or not, he wanted a little of his own back. He rubbed his bare stomach as a slow suggestive smile spread across his face. “What makes you think she hasn’t already been here?”

  She blushed but said pertly, “I don’t see any presents or wrapping paper. Doesn’t look like you got much.”

  The direction of her gaze as it followed his hand’s movement into the sleek dark hair fanning out above the towel span just below his navel had him growing hot and heavy again. “I’m a big boy. The present came in it’s own unique wrapping.”

  This time, she did look away.

  Definitely mean-spirited. But, hell! She was married to someone else, probably had a kid by now. She—they had always wanted children. They’d just been waiting for things to settle down. Only, they’d never settled.

  She finished her cake in silence, curled up on the floor beside the coffee table. Joe concentrated on the TV, Australian football traded for cartoons. Only when the last crumb was gone from her plate did he move. He came to his feet so quickly she started.