“I imagine the lodge must feel empty when Matt’s away,” Abbey said in a quiet, conversational tone.
“It does.” Days like this made Karen wonder how she’d managed without Matt during their year and a half apart. In her first months of pregnancy, she’d felt alone and afraid, and the harder she’d tried to convince herself she didn’t need Matt, the less true it became. She did need him. The fact that she’d been tempted to keep the baby a secret from him proved as much—she’d been fighting the very thing she wanted most.
“I’ve been feeling so blue lately,” Karen said softly.
Abbey reached for her hand. “Sounds to me like you could use a little cheering up.”
Karen managed a watery smile. “What do you have in mind?”
Abbey gave her a knowing smile in return. “What does every woman do when the going gets tough?”
“Shop,” Karen answered automatically.
“Sawyer’s flying into Fairbanks later today. Why don’t you and I tag along and check out baby furniture? It’s time the two of us indulged ourselves at a real, live shopping mall.”
“That,” Karen said, brightening immediately, “is an offer too good to refuse.”
Matt had never been so eager to head home. Good thing he wasn’t responsible for the weather, because it had rained for two solid days, and there was no letup in sight. Donald and Derrick, his clients, had called a halt to their expedition. They were wet, cold and miserable.
Luckily the fishing had been great, and the two men felt they’d gotten more than their money’s worth. What they wanted now was a hot bath, a good dinner and a warm bed.
Matt was in complete agreement. He radioed in to Midnight Sons and requested that Sawyer pick them up a day early. Unfortunately Sawyer was in Fairbanks, but Christian said he’d meet them. It might’ve been Matt’s imagination, but Christian sounded desperate to get out of the office.
Although the weather was dismal, that wasn’t the only reason Matt felt so eager to get home. He missed Karen. He wanted to be with her, hold her, make plans for the future. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss the past. He’d always dreaded it when she wanted to “clear the air,” because those conversations invariably led to more problems. He never understood why women found it necessary to dissect every aspect of a relationship.
As far as he was concerned, the situation was simple enough. He loved Karen. He wanted her and the baby with him. If she didn’t want that, too, well…
But Matt knew Karen. A man couldn’t live with a woman for more than four years and not become acquainted with her ways. She loved him so much it hurt. He knew that in the very depths of his heart. She loved him. What bothered Matt was her reason for holding out.
All right, he understood that his tendency to drift from one kind of job to another had troubled her. But that was tied to her childhood and her father.
Matt wasn’t anything like Eric Rocklin, and if Karen hadn’t figured that out by now, he thought with a spurt of anger, then she never would.
Christian arrived in the float plane late in the afternoon. It took the two of them more than an hour to load up the gear. Matt sat next to him in the copilot seat and watched as the landscape unfurled below them and the town of Hard Luck finally appeared. He experienced a swelling sense of pride as the lodge came into view.
But it wasn’t only the lodge that beckoned him. His wife would be there, and for the first time in a long while he felt like a husband again.
It seemed to take forever to reach the lodge. He imagined Karen rushing out to greet him, and the anticipation set his heart racing. He could hardly wait to hold her in his arms again. They had a lot of time to make up for.
“Karen!” he shouted as he pushed open the heavy wooden door and strode through. “I’m home.”
The two bedraggled professors followed close on his heels.
“Karen!” he repeated, louder this time.
No response.
“She must have gone out,” he explained to the two men. The image of her rushing to greet him crumbled at his feet.
Donald and Derrick mumbled something about a bath and immediately headed up the stairs.
Matt wandered through the house, looking for his ex-wife. It wasn’t as if she was expecting him; nevertheless, he felt a deep sense of disappointment that she wasn’t home.
When she hadn’t returned an hour later, he called the library. To his surprise Lanni answered.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Karen?” he asked without preamble.
“Not today,” Lanni told him. She seemed about to say more but stopped herself.
“Do you know where she might be?” he probed.
Lanni hesitated. “No, I don’t. Let me check around and see what I can find out for you.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He hung up and started the dinner preparations.
Peeling potatoes, he thought about his short conversation with his sister. It suddenly occurred to him that something wasn’t right. Wedging the receiver between his shoulder and ear, he punched out the number for the library.
“What’s going on with Karen?” He wanted the truth, and he wanted it now. “What are you keeping from me?”
“I—” Lanni stopped.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
“Something’s happened between you two, hasn’t it?” his sister asked.
“Yes,” he said, but to his way of thinking, the changes were all good. She was back in his bed, and as soon as possible, they’d get remarried.
“Whatever it was must’ve really upset Karen,” Lanni said.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. He’d thought, he’d hoped, that Karen would be excited. That she’d be happy. He realized she wanted to “clear the air”—have one of those discussions he disliked so much—but he’d assumed they’d scaled the major hurdles by admitting how much they loved each other and wanted to be together.
“When I saw Karen yesterday, she started crying for no reason.”
“Crying? Just where is she?” he asked, losing his patience.
“If you’d give me a chance I’d tell you,” Lanni snapped. “I talked to Scott ten minutes ago, and he told me Karen flew into Fairbanks with Abbey and Sawyer. They’re due back anytime, so don’t worry.”
By ten that night it became clear that Karen had no intention of returning.
She’d left him again.
Well, it wasn’t the first time, but it as sure as hell would be the last.
Chapter
10
Abbey was right. A shopping spree in Fairbanks had done wonders for Karen’s spirits. Sawyer had dropped the two of them off at the closest mall and arranged a time to meet them later.
Karen and Abbey had delighted in drifting from one store to another, from one baby department to the next. Karen felt like a child let loose in Toyland at Christmas.
The experience of shopping for baby clothes had produced a flood of tenderness for her unborn child. Choosing sleepers and nighties somehow made everything more immediate, made the baby seem real. Before she could stop herself, she bought a number of things, more than she could easily carry. She ordered a crib and changing table and selected several other items for a layette.
The most fun she had was trying on maternity clothes with Abbey. Karen hadn’t laughed this much in ages. The smocks were huge on her. But although she barely showed, she could no longer button her pants. Abbey was an old pro at this pregnancy business, and she assured Karen that in another month or so, those smocks would be a perfect fit.
Sawyer met them at the scheduled time, and because of the rainstorm, suggested dinner in Fairbanks before flying back to Hard Luck. When they finally landed that evening it was after ten. The afternoon away had been exactly the remedy she needed. Karen felt happy—and exhausted.
Sawyer and Abbey drove her to the lodge. Sawyer climbed out of the truck, helped her down and sorted through the packages before handing Karen her purchases.
“Looks like
someone’s inside,” Abbey said, gesturing toward the front window where a light shone in the growing dusk.
“Do you think Matt might be back?” Sawyer asked.
“I doubt it,” Karen answered. Knowing her ex-husband, he’d probably consider the rain and wind a bonus. She’d heard that rain made for good fishing, but then, what she knew about the sport was minimal. She could imagine Matt standing in the middle of a raging river that very minute, happily soaked and hoping to lure breakfast onto his hook.
“Thanks again,” Karen called as her friends left. She shifted the sacks in her arms, pleased with her purchases and looking forward to showing Matt.
“One thing’s for sure,” she said aloud to the baby, “whether you’re a boy or a girl, you’re going to be one of the best-dressed kids around.”
She suddenly realized that she and Matt had never talked about the baby’s sex. She didn’t know if he had any preference; he’d never said.
No sooner was she inside than her eyes connected with those of her ex-husband. He was sprawled in the overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace. His feet were propped on the raised hearth and his outstretched arms dangled over the sides of the chair.
“Karen?” He stared at her as though she were an apparition.
“You’re back early!” she said excitedly. “This is a surprise.”
“You can say that again.”
She ignored the sarcasm in his voice. “I’ve had the most marvelous day.” Hurrying across the room, she set down her packages in the empty chair. “Just wait until you see what I bought for the baby!”
He continued to stare at her.
She chattered nervously, talking too quickly, describing the baby clothes and toys.
“Why are you buying these things now?” he asked in a snarling tone.
“Because I had the opportunity to fly into Fairbanks with Sawyer and Abbey,” she explained as patiently as she could. Surely he wasn’t upset because she’d bought things for the baby. Ignoring his sour mood, she pulled a yellow cotton sleeper from the sack. “Isn’t this adorable? You wouldn’t believe the incredible stuff they have for babies these days. I found the cutest pair of baby sunglasses. Abbey and I got a real kick out of them.”
“Baby sunglasses,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound impressed.
It was clear that her ex-husband—soon to be husband again—was in a rare temper. Karen lowered herself onto the hearth, facing him. “What the matter?” she asked with a laborious sigh.
After the long, happy afternoon, she was tired and disappointed by his lack of welcome. The last thing she wanted now was a confrontation with Matt. “Didn’t the professors have a good time? Do they want their money back?”
“No,” Matt said irritably, obviously taking offense at the question. “They had the time of their lives and made a point of telling me so. They would’ve stuck it out if the rain hadn’t started coming down in buckets.”
“So that’s why you came back a day early?”
His eyes narrowed. “I surprised you, didn’t I?” He got to his feet, looming above her. “You planned to be out of here by then, didn’t you?” he went on. “You were planning to be gone before I learned what you’d done.”
“Out of here? Gone?” Karen had thought they’d be able to sit down and discuss where their lives were going, how their relationship would change. But she had no intention of leaving him. It was the furthest thing from her mind.
“Sure,” he said with a hint of belligerence. “You intended to sneak out of Hard Luck without telling me.”
“You assumed because I wasn’t here when you returned that I’d left you?” This was by far the most ridiculous thing he’d ever said. She leapt to her feet and stuffed the yellow sleeper back in the bag.
“What else was I supposed to think?”
“If you’d bothered to look in your office, you’d have found a note.”
“You wrote me a note when I wasn’t expected home?” he challenged, his eyes glittering with disbelief.
“You or anyone else who happened to stop by and needed to know where I was.” She held the packages tightly against her stomach as if to protect herself from Matt’s hostility. This wasn’t like him; she didn’t understand it, didn’t know how to respond.
“You left me before,” he reminded her. “What else am I to think when I return home and find you gone?”
“That was different,” she said in her own defense.
His short laugh was devoid of amusement. “Last time, you filed for divorce so fast my head was spinning. Remember? You couldn’t wait to get rid of me then. Nothing’s changed. Certainly not you.”
Karen almost gasped with pain at his accusation. Her knees felt weak, but she stood her ground. “I warned you, Matt, but you wouldn’t listen. You hardly ever listened to me in those days.” He didn’t seem to have improved much now.
“You warned me?” he spat out.
Karen glanced over her shoulder and up the stairs, fearing his outburst would waken their guests. Well, so be it, if that was what Matt wanted.
“When you decided to become an accountant I told you to be very sure. You’d already gone through three other professions in short order, and I wasn’t about to let you risk our financial security again.”
“Telling me to be very sure is a long way from filing divorce papers,” he said sullenly.
“You didn’t even discuss it with me. I come home from work one night and you gleefully announce that you’ve quit.” Tears threatened, but she held them back through sheer force of will. “Without so much as hinting you were unhappy, you quit. If you’d talked to me, explained that the job wasn’t right for you…But you left me completely out of the decision.”
“And so the next day you packed your bags and were gone,” he said. He snapped his fingers as if to say her leaving had been a spur-of-the-moment decision.
“Can you blame me?” she cried. “Can you honestly blame me? I was tired of having you jerk our lives around. I’d had it up to here,” she said, raising her hand above her head, “with your inability to stick to a job. Any job.” She paused and dragged in a deep breath before she continued, “I’d grown up with a father who refused to accept responsibility. Then I made the mistake of marrying a man just like him.”
“I am not your father.” Matt made each word loud and distinct.
“You’re exactly like him. You didn’t even think about the bills. They were supposed to pay themselves, I guess. Your ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ attitude drove me crazy.”
“I was miserable working for the accounting firm!” he shouted.
“Just as you were miserable continuing with college, with the chef’s job, with commercial fishing and with everything else you dabbled in over the past five years? Or was this a different kind of misery?”
He didn’t answer.
“The time had come to grow up, Matt. You didn’t want a family, you drifted from job to job, without revealing an ounce of responsibility or ambition, any plan for our future. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Answer me this, Karen. Would a responsible adult turn tail at the first sign of trouble? Would a responsible adult walk out on her husband and end her marriage on a whim?”
“Do you really think that was easy for me, Matt?” Her voice shook as she stiffened herself against his accusations.
“Easy or not, you did it, and I don’t trust you not to look for some excuse to do it again.”
“All this because I went shopping?”
“I returned early and you were gone. When I called around, all I could find out was that you’d been feeling low. Then I discovered you’d gone into Fairbanks with Sawyer and Abbey.”
“For heaven’s sake, I went shopping!” she said again.
“I didn’t know that. For all I knew, you could be going back to that wonderful job in California that you love so much.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It hurt that he was saying such things. “Why would
I do that?”
He shrugged. “Why do you do anything? What happened two years ago makes as little sense to me now as it did then.”
“You’re being absurd.”
“Am I?” he challenged. “The last thing you said to me before I left the other day was that I shouldn’t take you for granted. Trust me, Karen, I don’t. I never will again. You’re as likely to walk out on me now as you were before, and I can’t—I won’t—forget that.”
“Just because I didn’t leap back into marriage when I found out I was pregnant? As far as I could see—”
Matt didn’t allow her to finish. “If you’re going to go, Karen, I advise you to do it now. I haven’t got the stomach to drink away my sorrows. Nor do I enjoy living with uncertainty.”
“You really think I’d do anything so underhanded?”
“Why shouldn’t I? You did it before.”
She tried to swallow the constriction blocking her throat. “Fine, then, I will.” She moved toward the stairs. “You didn’t need an excuse to get me to leave, Matt. All you had to do was ask.”
Mariah was singing quietly to herself when Duke Porter opened the office door and walked in. She looked up, relieved to find it wasn’t Christian. Her boss appeared to be doing his utmost to avoid her these days. Which was just as well.
“Hello, Duke.” She greeted him with a cheerful smile.
Duke stayed close to the door, as if he was prepared to make a quick exit. “If I come in here, you aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?”
Mariah laughed. “A lot of guys around here wouldn’t complain if I did.”
“Maybe not,” Duke agreed good-naturedly, “but you said the kiss was from that attorney friend of yours. Tracy something or other.”
“It was.” Duke wasn’t fooling her; he knew Tracy’s name as well as he did his own. He should; he’d been complaining about her for months.
Duke rubbed the back of his hand across his lips as if to wipe away anything to do with Tracy. “Let me set one thing straight right now. The last woman I want kissing me is that…that she-devil.”
Midnight Sons Volume 2 Page 30
