Steve mumbled something unintelligible as a means of reply. Her cheerfulness grated against him. He wasn’t in the mood for good humor this morning. He wasn’t in the mood for anything … with the possible exception of making love to Carol again, and that bit of insight didn’t suit him in the least.
“It doesn’t look like you had a good night’s sleep, brother dearest.”
Steve’s frown deepened, and he gave his sister another noncommittal answer.
“I don’t suppose this has anything to do with Carol?” She waited, and when he didn’t answer, added, “Or the fact that you didn’t come home Christmas Eve?”
“I came home.”
“Sure, sometime the following morning.”
Steve took down a mug from the cupboard and slapped it against the counter with unnecessary force. “Drop it, Lindy. I don’t want to discuss Carol.”
A weighted silence followed his comment.
“Rush and I’ve got almost everything ready to move into the new apartment,” she offered finally, and the light tone of her voice suggested she was looking for a way to put their conversation back on an even keel. “We’ll be out of here by Friday.”
Hell, here he was snapping at Lindy. His sister didn’t deserve to be the brunt of his foul mood. She hadn’t done anything but mention the obvious. “Speaking of Rush, where is he?” Steve asked, forcing a lighter tone into his own voice.
“He had to catch an early ferry this morning,” she said, and hesitated momentarily. “I’m happy, Steve, really happy. I was so afraid for a time that I’d made a dreadful mistake, but I know now that marrying Rush was the right thing to do.”
Steve took a sip of coffee to avoid looking at his sister. What Lindy was actually saying was that she wanted him to find the same contentment she had. That wasn’t possible for him now, and wouldn’t be until he got Carol out of his blood.
And making love to her Christmas Eve hadn’t helped.
“Well, I suppose I should think about getting dressed,” Lindy said with a heavy dose of feigned enthusiasm. “I’m going to get some boxes so Rush and I can finish up the last of the packing.”
“Where’s your new apartment?” Steve had been so preoccupied with his own troubles that he hadn’t thought to inquire until now.
As Lindy rattled off the address Steve’s forehead furrowed into a brooding frown. His sister and Rush were moving less than a mile away from Carol’s place. Great! That was the last thing he needed to hear.
Steve’s day wasn’t much better than his sleepless night had been. By noon he’d decided he could no longer avoid the inevitable. He didn’t like it, but it was necessary.
He had to talk to Carol.
He was thankful the apartment was empty when he arrived home shortly after six. Not willing to test his good fortune, and half expecting Lindy or Rush to appear at any minute, he walked directly to the phone and punched out Carol’s number as though punishing the telephone would help relieve some of his nervousness.
“Hello?” Carol’s soft, lilting voice clawed at his abdomen.
“It’s Steve.”
A pregnant pause was followed by a slightly breathless “Hi.”
“I was thinking we should talk.”
“All right.” She sounded surprised, pleased, uncertain. “When?”
Steve rotated his wrist and looked at the time. “What are you doing right now?”
She hesitated. “I … nothing.”
Although slightly awkward, their conversation to this point had felt right to Steve. But the way she paused, as though searching for a delaying tactic, troubled him. Fiery arrows of doubt hit their mark and he said, “Listen, Carol, if you’re ‘entertaining’ Todd, I’d prefer to stop by later.”
The ensuing silence was more deafening than jungle drums pounding out a war chant.
It took her several seconds to answer him, and when she did, the soft voice that had greeted him was racked with pain. “You can come now.”
Steve tightened his hold on the phone receiver in a punishing grip. He hated it when he talked to her like that. He didn’t know who he was punishing: Carol or himself. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Carol replaced the telephone in its cradle and battled down an attack of pain and tears. How dare Steve suggest Todd was there. Suddenly she was so furious with him that she could no longer stand in one place. She started pacing the living room floor like a raw recruit, taking five or six steps and then doing an abrupt about-face. And yet she was excited—even elated.
Steve had taken the initiative to contact her, and it proved that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, either.
Nothing had been right for her since Christmas Eve. Oh, she’d reached her objective—exceeded it. Everything had gone according to plan. Only Carol hadn’t counted on the doubts and bewilderment that had followed their night of loving. Their short hours together brought back the memory of how good their lives had once been, how much they’d loved each other and how happy those first years were.
Since Christmas Eve, Carol had been crippled with “if onlys” and “what ifs,” tossing around those weak phrases as though she expected them to alter reality. Each day it became more difficult to remember that Steve had divorced her, that he believed her capable of the worst kind of deception. One night in his arms and she was fool enough to be willing to forget all the pain of the past thirteen months.
Almost willing, she amended.
It took vindictive, destructive comments like the one he’d just made to remind her that they had a rocky road to travel if they hoped to salvage their relationship.
Before Steve arrived, Carol had time to freshen her makeup and run a brush through her thick blond hair. She paused to study her reflection in the mirror and wondered if he would ever guess her secret. She doubted it. If he couldn’t read the truth in her eyes about Todd, then he wasn’t likely to recognize her joy, or guess the cause.
Thinking about the baby helped lighten the weight of Steve’s bitterness. Briefly she closed her eyes and imagined holding that precious bundle in her arms. A little girl, she decided, with dark brown eyes like Steve’s and soft blond curls.
The mental picture of her child made everything seem worthwhile.
When the doorbell chimed, Carol was ready. She held the door open for Steve and even managed to greet him with a smile.
“I made coffee.”
“Good.” His answer was gruff, as though he were speaking to one of his enlisted men.
He followed her into the kitchen and stood silently as she poured them each a cup of coffee. When she turned around, she saw Steve standing with his hands in his pockets, looking unsettled and ill at ease.
“If you’re searching for traces of Todd, let me tell you right now, you won’t find any.”
He had the good grace to look mildly chagrined. “I suppose I should apologize for that remark.”
“I suppose I should accept.” She pulled out a chair and sat.
Steve claimed the one directly across from her.
Neither spoke, and it seemed to Carol that an eternity passed. “You wanted to talk to me,” she said, after what felt like two lifetimes.
“I’m not exactly sure what I want to say.”
She smiled a little at that, understanding. “I’m not sure what I want to hear, either.”
A hint of a grin bounced from his dark eyes. “Forgiving you for what happened with Todd …”
Carol bolted to her feet with such force that her chair nearly fell backward. “Forgiving me!” she demanded, shaking with outrage.
“Carol, please, I didn’t come here to fight.”
“Then don’t start one. Don’t come into my home and hurl insults at me. The one person in this room who should be seeking forgiveness is you!”
“Carol …”
“I should have known this wouldn’t work, but like a lovesick fool I thought … I hoped you …” She paused, jerked her head around and rubbed the heels of her ha
nds down her cheeks, erasing the telltale tears.
“Okay, I apologize. I won’t mention Todd again.”
She inhaled a wobbly breath and nodded, not trusting her voice, and sat back down.
Another awkward moment followed.
“I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, or how you feel about … what happened,” Steve said, “but for the past ten days, I’ve felt like a leaf caught in a windstorm. My emotions are in turmoil … I can’t stop remembering how good it was between us, and how right it felt to have you in my arms again. My instincts tell me that night was a fluke, and best forgotten. I just wish to hell I could.”
Carol bowed her head, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. As you said when you left, we should chalk it up to the love and goodwill that’s synonymous with the season. But the holidays are over and I can’t stop thinking about it, either.”
“The loving always was terrific, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t sound as though he wanted to admit even that much, as if he preferred to discount anything positive about their lives together. Carol understood the impulse. She’d done the same thing since their divorce; it helped ease the pain of the separation.
Grudgingly she nodded. “Unfortunately the lovemaking is only a small part of any marriage. I think Christmas Eve gave me hope that you and I might be able to work everything out. I’d like to resolve the past and find a way to heal the wounds.” They’d been apart for over a year, but Carol’s heart felt as bloodied and bruised as if their divorce had been decreed yesterday.
“God knows, I want to forget the past …”
Hope clamored in her breast and she raised her eyes to meet Steve’s, but his gaze was as weary and doubtful as her own.
His eyes fell. “But I don’t think I can. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over finding Todd in our bedroom.”
“He was in the shower,” Carol corrected through clenched teeth. “And the only reason he was there was because the shower head in the other bathroom wasn’t working properly.”
“What the hell difference does it make?” Steve shouted. “He spent the night here. You’ve never bothered to deny that.”
“But nothing happened … if you’d stayed long enough to ask Todd, he would have explained.”
“If I’d stayed any longer, I would have killed him.”
He said it with such conviction that Carol didn’t doubt him. Long before, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t defend her actions again. Todd had been her employer and her friend. She’d known Todd and his wife, Joyce, were having marital troubles. But she cared about them both and didn’t want to get caught in the middle of their problems. Todd, however, had cast her there when he showed up on her doorstep, drunk out of his mind, wanting to talk. Alarmed, Carol had brought him inside and phoned Joyce, who suggested Todd sleep it off at Carol’s house. It had seemed like a reasonable solution, although she wasn’t keen on the idea. Steve was away and due back to Seattle in a couple of days.
But Steve had arrived home early—and assumed the worst.
The sadness that settled over her was profound, and when she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “You tried and found me guilty on circumstantial evidence, Steve. For the first couple of weeks, I tried to put myself in your place … I could understand how you read the scene that morning, but you were wrong.”
It looked for a moment as though he was going to argue with her. She could almost see the wheels spinning in his mind, stirring up the doubts, building skyscrapers on sand foundations.
“Other things started to add up,” he admitted reluctantly, still not looking at her.
Carol could all but see him close his mind to common sense. It seemed that just when they were beginning to make headway, Steve would pull something else into their argument or make some completely ridiculous comment that made absolutely no sense to her. The last time they’d tried to discuss this in a reasonable, nonconfrontational manner, Steve had hinted that she’d been Todd’s lover for months. He’d suggested that she hadn’t been as eager to welcome him home from his last cruise, which was ridiculous. They may have had problems, but none had extended to the bedroom.
“What ‘other things’ do you mean now?” she asked, defeat coating her words.
He ignored her question. His mouth formed a cocky smile, devoid of amusement. “I will say one thing for ol’ Todd—he taught you well.”
She gasped at the unexpected pain his words inflicted.
Steve paled and looked away. “I shouldn’t have said that—I didn’t mean it.”
“Todd did teach me,” she countered, doing her best to keep her bottom lip from quivering. “He taught me that a marriage not based on mutual trust isn’t worth the ink that prints the certificate. He taught me that it takes more than a few words murmured by a man of God to make a relationship work.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. Your jealousy has you tied up in such tight knots that you’re incapable of reasoning any of this out.”
Steve ignored that comment. “I’m not jealous of Todd—he can have you if he wants.”
Carol thought she was going to be sick to her stomach. Indignation filled her throat, choking off any possible reply.
Steve stood and walked across the kitchen, his hands knotted into fists at his sides. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, he looked like a stranger, his inner torment was so keen.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said unevenly. “I don’t know why I say such ugly things to you.” Carol heard the throb of pain in her voice. “I don’t know why you do, either. If you’re trying to hurt me, then congratulations. You’ve succeeded beyond your expectations.”
Steve stood silently a few moments, then delivered his untouched coffee to the sink. His hesitation surprised Carol. She’d assumed he would walk out—that was the way their arguments usually ended.
Instead he turned to face her and asked, “Are Todd and Joyce still married?”
She’d gotten a Christmas card from them a couple of weeks earlier. Until she’d seen both their names at the bottom of the greeting, she hadn’t been sure if their marriage had weathered better than hers and Steve’s. “They’re still together.”
Steve frowned and nodded. “I know that makes everything more difficult for you.”
“Stop it, Steve!” This new list of questions irritated her almost as much as his tireless insinuations. “All the years we were married, not once did I accuse you of being unfaithful, even though you were gone half the time.”
“It’s difficult to find a woman willing to fool around 400 feet under water.”
“That’s not my point. I trusted you. I always did, and I assumed that you trusted me, too. That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, all I ever wanted.”
He was quiet for so long that Carol wondered if he’d chosen to ignore her rather than come up with an appropriate answer.
“You didn’t discover another woman lounging around in a see-through nightie while I showered, either. You may be able to explain away some of what happened, but as far as I’m concerned there are gaping holes in your story.”
Carol clenched her teeth so tightly that her jaw ached. She’d already broken a promise to herself by discussing Todd with Steve. When the divorce was final, Carol had determined then that no amount of justifying would ever satisfy her ex-husband. Discussing Todd had yet to settle a single problem, and in the end she only hurt herself.
“I don’t think we’re going to solve anything by rehashing this now,” she told him calmly. “Unless our love is firmly grounded in a foundation of trust, there’s no use even trying to work things out.”
“It doesn’t seem to be helping, does it? I wanted us—”
“I know,” she interrupted softly, sadly. “I wanted it, too. The other night only served to remind us how much we’d loved each other.”
They shared a discouraged smile, and Carol felt as though h
er heart was breaking in half.
He took a few steps toward the front door. “I’ll be leaving in less than three weeks.”
“How long will you be away?” For a long time she hadn’t felt comfortable asking him this kind of question, but he seemed more open to discussion now.
“Three months.” He buried his hands in his pockets and Carol got the impression that the action was to keep him from reaching for her and kissing her goodbye. He paused, turned toward her and said, “If you need anything …”
“I won’t.”
Her answer didn’t appear to please him. “No, I don’t suppose you will. You always could take care of yourself. I used to be proud of you for being so capable, but it intimidated me, too.”
“What do you mean?”
He hedged, as if searching his reserve of memories to find the perfect example, then shook his head. “Never mind, it isn’t important now.”
Carol walked him to the front door, her heart heavy. “I wish it could be different for us.”
“I do, too.”
Steve stood, unmoving, in the entryway. Inches from him, Carol felt an inner yearning more potent than anything she’d ever experienced engulf her, filling her heart with regret. Once more she would have to watch the man she loved walk away from her. Once more she must freely allow him to go.
Steve must have sensed the intense longing, because he gently rested his hands on the curve of her shoulders. She smiled and tilted her chin toward him, silently offering him her mouth.
Slowly, without hurry, Steve lowered his face to hers, drawing out each second as though he were relaxing a hold on his considerable pride, admitting his need to kiss her. It was as if he had to prove, if only to himself, that he had control of the situation.
Then his mouth grazed hers. Lightly. Briefly. Coming back for more when it became apparent the teasing kisses weren’t going to satisfy either of them.
What shocked Carol most was the gentleness of his kiss. He touched and held her as he would a delicate piece of porcelain, slipping his arms around her waist, drawing her close against him.
He broke off the kiss and Carol tucked her forehead against his chest. “Have a safe trip.” Silently she prayed for his protection and that he would come back to her.
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