To Catch a Husband

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Half right. Come on,” she said, lugging him to his feet. “Sofa City for you, my friend.”

  “But I like the bed better,” he whined.

  “Then maybe next time you should crash at Frederika’s condo.”

  He snorted. “That was funny. You’re funny. I love you lots.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Charity said. “Just keep heading for the sofa.”

  He landed with a thud, then she helped him lower his head down and feet up, waving away his boozy-smoky smell.

  “Off with your shoes,” she said, fighting flashbacks of what else she’d helped him take off just last night. After shoving her ladybug pillow under his head, she took a pink afghan Aunt Bedelia crocheted for her sixteenth birthday and spread it over him. Tall as he was, though, it only covered his chest to his shins.

  “There you go,” she said. “See you in the morning.”

  “Bug?” he asked just as she turned out the sofa table lamp.

  “Yeah?”

  “You should be called, Buglicious ’cause you’re a very booyootiful woman.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Know what else?”

  “What?” she made the mistake of asking on her way into the bedroom.

  “I love you. I really love you. And I’ve been a fool up till now, but not anymore. I might’ve had ten beers—maybe twelve—but I’ve never thought more clearly. Beyond any shadow of doubtedness, you are for sure the woman for me.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, flicking off the hall light, too.

  “When the sun comes up,” he said, “I’m going to prove how much I love you.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” she said just before shutting her bedroom door. “Good night.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Charity woke to masculine singing in the shower. Unlike Sam, this man couldn’t sing two notes in tune, let alone a whole song—currently a number faintly reminiscent of something Pearl Jam might’ve sung, but she couldn’t be sure.

  The water turned off, and she flopped onto her side and pulled up the covers. She couldn’t bear another scene with Adam. She shouldn’t have even let him spend the night, but seeing how he’d been in no shape to travel, she hadn’t had much choice.

  Well…Had she truly wanted him gone, she could’ve called a cab—or for that matter, made good on her threat to call security, but both those plans had seemed harsh.

  Whistling now instead of singing, heavy footfalls told her he’d left the bathroom and was on his way to the kitchen or living room. Knowing Adam, the former as opposed to the latter.

  Rolling onto her back, staring at the ceiling, she tried ignoring the woodsy scent of the soap and shampoo he kept at her place in case he wanted to shower after work.

  Up at the lake, after they’d made love, they’d showered together. Standing naked against him, all soapy-slick had been heaven. Like something out of a hazy dream, she couldn’t quite be sure if it had truly happened or not.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead.” Adam appeared, breakfast tray in hand, loaded with French toast and coffee and sliced strawberries and bananas.

  “Hey,” she said, sitting up in bed. “Wow, what’s the occasion?”

  “Can’t a guy make a meal for his favorite girl?”

  “Please, don’t,” she said, taking the napkin from the tray to put it on her lap. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “What?” He perched on the edge of the bed and popped a berry into his mouth.

  “You know what, Adam. Throwing out false platitudes. Just like when checkout clerks tell you to have a nice day, they don’t mean it. They’re just following store policy.”

  “First,” he said, borrowing her fork for a bite of French toast. “I don’t take kindly to being called a liar. I mean what I say. And second, maybe you, Miss Negative, don’t mean it when you tell others to have a nice day, but lots of other folks do.”

  “You know what I’m getting at,” she said, taking back her fork. “Stop saying things you don’t mean.”

  “Who says I don’t?”

  “Mom always said that if I don’t have anything nice to say, then I should keep my mouth shut, but in this case, I can’t hold back.

  “Right now, Adam Logue, I despise you. I hate you for playing with my emotions this way. For this up/down ride you take me on every single day. I’ve told you repeatedly to get out of my life and stay out, but that doesn’t work. I’ve made love to you, thinking maybe that would be the incentive you need to once and for all figure out what you want. But you know what? I’m fresh out of ways to deal with you. Every signal you send is conflicting. Same with every word you say. On the one hand, yesterday morning you pretty much made it clear that while we can be close friends or lovers, we’ll never be man and wife. In practically the same breath, you ask me to marry you, but with no feeling behind the words. You ask as if inviting me along on a death march.”

  “I know all that,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

  “Are you, Adam? Because I’m really starting to wonder if you just like the intrigue of it. Of never really knowing where we stand. You mentioned once that with Angela, you never felt you were good enough for her. Maybe with me, you’re wondering am I good enough for you?” She looked into his eyes and quietly asked, “Tell me what you want from me.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, plowing his fingers through his hair. “Don’t you think if I did know I’d tell you? Don’t you think this is just as hard on me? One minute, I think the two of us might have a legitimate shot at working things out. Then, I think of how I failed Angela. Part of me is scared to death that if I allow myself to love you to that degree, something is going to happen to you. Something totally out of my control. And what then? What if we have kids? How do I tell a little girl the spitting image of you that her mommy’s gone? How do I tell a son with your eyes and penchant for bug collecting you’re never coming back?”

  “Now, you’re being silly and melodramatic,” she said.

  “Am I?” He laughed. “I sure never thought about death when my mom died, but look what happened. It happened again with Angela.”

  “Yeah, and the odds of the same thing happening with me are insane. Incalculable.”

  “You so sure?”

  “Aggghh!” Setting the tray aside, she pounded his back. “Arguing with you is like arguing with a rock. Like it or not, we’re all going to die someday. Not something I care to think about for the next fifty or so years, but a sad fact of life all the same. Now, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you going to spend the next fifty years with one foot in the grave or are you going to start living?”

  “Why are you being mean?”

  “Mean? Dammit, Adam, I’m being honest. If you had half a brain instead of a peanut in your head, you’d admit I’m right.”

  With a disgusted sigh, he grabbed the tray, then took off toward the kitchen.

  “Yeah, run away,” she hollered after him. “Real mature!”

  “Oh!” he snapped. “Like it’s been mature of you to keep sending me packing every time the conversation doesn’t go your way?”

  Grabbing the nearest pillow, she buried her face in it. Adam was scared to death to commit. Had she been through the trauma that he had, she couldn’t in all honesty say she wouldn’t have a few additional issues of her own. But the fact of the matter was that she didn’t know for sure how he felt. She could only guess. And judging by his most recent reaction, she’d hit a sore spot.

  Bottom line, she wanted a baby—and a husband to go along with tiny him or her. To achieve that, she’d once and for all have to make a clean break from Adam. He’d become a drug. One that was growing increasingly more hazardous to her mental health.

  “Sorry about leaving you with the dishes,” he said, suddenly appearing at her bedroom door. “But I’ve gotta run.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ve got an emergency session with my shrink.”

  “YOU’RE FORTUNATE to have caught me,” Adam’
s shrink said, gesturing for him to have a seat. Sad statement about his character—or lack thereof—how he’d never even taken the time to remember her name. The plaque on her desk read, Dr. Margaret Davey. “I was just on my way out for a marathon spending spree at my favorite bookstore.”

  “Sounds hot,” he said.

  She winked. “When you have a date as gorgeous as mine, it would’ve been.”

  “Sorry,” he said in what felt like his hundredth apology of the day. He pushed himself out of the quicksand lounge chair. “Had I known you were—”

  “Sit down,” she said. “My guy knows me well enough to realize that when I get a closemouthed patient like you actually wanting to open up, my mind wouldn’t have been much on our date anyway. Now, Mr. Logue, to what do I owe the pleasure of this urgent session?”

  “If it’ll help,” he said, “you can call me Adam.”

  “All right, Adam.” She leaned forward and with steepled hands asked, “What seems to be the problem?”

  He outlined the events of the past week, during which she didn’t say a word. Just sat there letting him dig a deeper hole.

  “My,” she said when he topped off his story with the events of that morning. “You have been a busy beaver.”

  “Well?” he asked, hoping he’d adequately contained the panic lacing his voice. It didn’t matter that his initial visits to her had been about satisfying his dad and Franks. Now, Adam wanted this therapy for himself. “Is there hope for me, Doc? Because I really do care an awful lot for Bug, I just—”

  “First off,” she said with a kind smile. “You’re overthinking your perceived problems. Which are—and feel free to jump in and correct me if I’m wrong—fear of Bug’s mortality. Fear of your own mortality. Fear of not being at the top of your game where your job is concerned. And the big daddy of them all, fear of commitment because you’re afraid loving another woman might be all the catalyst fate needs to kill again. How’s that? Did I at least hit the highlights?”

  “Pretty much,” he mumbled, mouth dry, heart pounding.

  “Okay,” she said, setting her ever-present clipboard on the floor beside her chair. “I’ve got good news and bad. Which do you want first?”

  “OH, HONEY,” Steph said Sunday afternoon at her house, pulling Charity into a hug. “I’m so sorry. Here I’ve been yammering about how happy Larry and I are, and you’ve been through hell.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it hell,” Charity said, remembering the most arousing details of Saturday morning. “Just…” She brushed tears from the corners of her eyes.

  Steph went back to clucking and hugging. “I feel like all of this is somehow my fault,” she said, smoothing Charity’s short hair, guiding her to the sofa. “If only I’d left you alone. At least then you were happy.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Charity said. “On the surface maybe, but deep down, I wasn’t any better off than I am now.”

  “But at least then, you didn’t harbor illusions about you and Adam ending up together.”

  “Yes, I did. I just never mentioned it.”

  “What’re you going to do now?” her sister asked.

  “First, I suppose I should talk Franks into transferring me to another office.”

  “Oh, Charity, no. Why do you have to move? Can’t you and Adam just agree to an amicable split?”

  Charity laughed. “That’s just it. We were never even officially together, which is why it’s going to be that much harder to break up.”

  “THIS IS GOOD,” Adam said to Gillian Sunday night at her and Joe’s dinner table—thankfully the one in the small dining room. The Medieval-themed dining hall, they reserved for special occasions. Her beef stew hit the spot on what’d turned into a bitterly cold, dreary night. Rain pelted the dark picture windows at a nearly horizontal slant. Their girls, Meggie and Chrissy, were already in bed. “Since when did you learn to cook like this?”

  Joe cleared his throat. “Since I cooked it for her.”

  “That’s so not true,” she said with a playful swat to his shoulder. “I helped—a lot. I chopped potatoes and celery and—”

  “Just kidding,” he said, planting a kiss on top of her head. To Adam he added, “Dinner was a team effort.”

  “However it came together,” Adam said, helping himself to thirds, slipping their dog Barney a chunk of beef, “I like it.”

  Gillian and Joe talked kids while Adam served up one last scoop. Nothing like a good, hearty meal to get his mind off—

  “Adam,” Gillian said. “You ever going to tell us why you’re here, other than to eat us out of house and home?”

  He looked up from his latest spoonful. “Can’t a guy miss his sister?”

  “Not after the weekend he’s just had.”

  “Caleb and Beau have big mouths.”

  “Don’t forget dear, old Dad,” she quipped.

  “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “Right,” she said. “I didn’t think so.”

  Dinner wound down, and so did Adam’s courage.

  He shouldn’t have come here. Joe and Gillian had problems of their own what with trying to raise two kids and mow the lawn of the mausoleum they called a house.

  Adam helped with the dishes, downed three slices of chocolate-cream pie, then was just getting ready to track down his coat when Dr. Margaret’s words came back to haunt him, as did the real reason why he’d found himself at his sister and brother-in-law’s.

  I’ve got good news and bad…. The bad is that we’re all going to die. The good, is that we’re all going to die. Meaning, we’re blessed with a finite amount of time with which to live our dreams. Your clock is ticking, Adam Logue. Whether you use those ticks or throw them away trying to fix things that can never be undone is entirely up to you.

  “Gil,” Adam said as she played mother hen by zipping his leather coat, “you mind if I have a few minutes alone with Joe?”

  She raised her eyebrows, but motioned toward an endless hall, off of which Joe’s study could be found. “His overseas conference call should be over any minute now. Take all the time you need. I’m going to check on the kids, then hit the sack.” After kissing him on the cheek, Gillian climbed the stairs, leaving Adam on his own to ponder the wisdom of what he was about to do.

  With lead in his stomach and feet, he started the long walk to Joe and, hopefully, answers.

  A minute later he knocked on one of a set of double doors. “Joe?” he called.

  “Come on in,” his brother-in-law said, voice muffled.

  In a dark, wood-paneled room with large-scale leather furniture, books and more computer equipment than most office supply stores, Adam found Joe seated behind a desk bigger than Bug’s Bug. Barney was sacked out in front of a crackling fire.

  “What’s up?” Joe asked. “Gil called down and said you wanted to talk to me?”

  Shaking his head, Adam said, “Secrets and this family don’t do real well together.”

  Grinning, holding out a pricey-looking box of cigars, Joe asked, “Smoke?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Mind if I do?”

  “Not at all.”

  Cigar in hand, Joe stepped out from behind his desk and led Adam to a pair of wing chairs in front of the fire. Once they’d sat for a few minutes, Adam savoring aged bourbon, Joe, his cigar, Joe said, “I’ve got a fair idea of what you want to discuss.”

  “Oh?” Adam said.

  “My wife. My first wife. Meggie’s mom.” He stood, took a photo album from a row lining one of the room’s many shelves. “Have a look,” he said, handing it to Adam who opened the cover only to be blown away by a movie-star-gorgeous blonde. Pages and pages of her smiling and laughing and holding Meggie and Barney and Joe.

  Seeing his brother-in-law so happy like this with another woman left Adam more confused than ever. Even a little angry, as though he’d been punched. As though to even have these tangible memories in the home he shared with Adam’s sister was somehow adulterous.

 
“Seems like another lifetime,” Joe said. “When I lost Willow, there were days I wished to die. But there was Meggie. Always Meggie.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Adam said. “I knew you’d been married before, but…”

  “It was easier to believe Willow and I had a bad marriage? That she was an old crone and back then I’d had a beer belly and Meggie had been a sassy brat? And then I met your sister and she made everything all better?”

  “No. Hell, no, man. That’s not what I meant at all.”

  “I know,” Joe said with a puff of his cigar. “I know. See that?” He pointed to a photo of Willow and Meggie hamming for the camera while in the midst of baking. Meggie couldn’t have been much more than two and both mother and child were covered in flour. “Willow was an amazing cook. She could whip up ambrosia from cardboard and paste. I loved her so much that after she’d died, it sometimes hurt to breathe. One minute she was there and the next…”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Adam said.

  “I know. But when I look at you, a lot of times, I see myself—only worse. After she…well, after Willow was gone, I ran away. Didn’t talk to hardly anyone but my dog—and the fact that I’m still referring to that mutt as a person should tell you just what a fix I was in.” He chuckled, but there was no happiness in his eyes. Only pain. “You, on the other hand, have never shown any outward signs of grief. The day after Angela’s death, you were back at work.”

  “Damned straight—nailing the bastard who shot her.”

  “Yet even after you’d done just that, you kept working. And working. In fact, the whole time I’ve known you, I can’t recall you ever having taken more than a weekend away from your job.”

  “Sure, I have,” he said, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Remember? Right after San Francisco.”

  “How could I have forgotten? A swell break from the monotony for you.”

  “For what he did to Gracie, Vicente deserved to die. Two weeks’ mandatory leave. Small price to pay for the pleasure of seeing that bastard dead.”

  “The fact that you did that—shot him between the eyes without a moment’s hesitation, is what landed you in trouble. Since losing Angela, you’ve become like a machine. The only time Gillian and I ever see you soften is when you’re with Charity. She’s good for you. Reminds you what it’s like to be human. Which brings us right back around to the real reason you’re here, which I’m assuming isn’t to rifle through my past, but ask me how I let go of it.”