by Joan Kilby
“This sprained ankle of your grandmother’s came at an awfully convenient time.”
“If you’re implying I’m lying, Ben will give you a full report—” she began in umbrage, then broke off with a weary sigh. “Okay, it’s not as bad as I’ve made out, but I don’t want the kids to think we’re having serious problems.”
“I knew it. Ordinarily you would have looked at other options. Why don’t you bring Ruth over here until her ankle heals?”
Kelly didn’t speak for a moment; nor would she meet his gaze. “I was up half the night pondering what to do,” she said at last. Tears swam in her eyes; impatiently she brushed them away. “I feel like I’ve shattered into pieces, Max. I have to get away for a while and put myself back together—if I can.”
“We have to mend our marriage, Kelly, and we can’t do that if we’re apart.”
Silence followed. Max heard their daughters’ voices in the foyer as Tammy and Tina hunted for their shoes and Robyn and Beth packed lunches and books into their backpacks. The homely sounds of an ordinary school day provided a bitter counterpoint to the quiet desperation with which his world was falling apart. That he’d been the agent of destruction made it no less devastating.
“I need some time, and space,” Kelly continued more quietly. “I need to be apart from you. I’d like to send you away, but I can’t since your office is at home.”
“For God’s sake, Kel,” Max said. “You’ve only been gone a day and I miss you. If this is about Randall, I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Tell him he can’t visit?”
Max shook his head, unable to deny his son.
Kelly nodded, lips compressed as she struggled to control her tears. “This isn’t easy for me, either, Max. Randall can come, but I won’t stay in the same house. Afterward, we’ll find out if there’s anything left of our marriage.”
“It’s no good having Randall if I don’t have you.”
“Mom!” Beth yelled from the front door. “Are you coming?”
“Have you told the girls about him yet?” Kelly asked in a more normal voice.
Max shook his head. “I will tonight.”
“Mom!” It was Robyn this time.
“I’ve got to go.”
Habit made Max reach for her; longing made him want to hold her. Before he could kiss her she slipped out of his arms with a quick decisive shake of her head. “I can’t.”
He followed her to the door, watching her glossy dark hair swing with each footstep, bouncing and gleaming in the sun streaming through the skylight. Even from this distance he could catch tantalizing whiffs of her lavender-and-vanilla shampoo, and his fingers itched to slide through those silky strands.
At the threshold she turned abruptly and his outstretched hand fell to his side. “I’ll come by after work to help with dinner and homework,” she said. “And to pack my things.” She was being quintessential Kelly now: brisk, efficient, emotions held firmly in check. “We won’t tell the children we’re separated unless we make it legal.”
“We’re not separated. You’re staying at Ruth’s to help out with her sprained ankle,” he said, horrified by the speed at which she was leaving him.
“That’s right.” She nodded, approving his grasp of the story. “See you later.”
And she was gone. Before he could so much as touch her cheek.
CHAPTER FIVE
AROUND NOON, KELLY FOUND a moment between clients to drop in at Gran’s house. Geena and Erin had just returned from taking her to see Geena’s husband, Ben, at the medical clinic.
“So what’s the damage?” Kelly asked, coming into the kitchen. “Where’s Gran?”
“Lying down,” Erin told her. “The X rays showed no fractured bones, thank God.”
“Ben says the ligaments are slightly torn, but not enough to require surgery,” Geena added. “He put a splint on and told her to stay off her ankle.”
Kelly felt relief, because her grandmother’s injury wasn’t as bad as it might have been and because she had a legitimate reason to stay away from home. Beth was engrossed in her sporting activities and the twins were too young to see through the flimsy story; only Robyn might figure out the truth. Well, if she asked, Kelly wouldn’t lie.
“So tell us,” Geena said, eyeing her curiously. “What happened with you and Max this morning?”
Kelly recalled the expression on Max’s face just before she’d left the house—angry, pleading, frustrated and frightened. It was the way she felt inside. She’d had to overcome a physical urge to run back to the solid comfort of his arms, to hear his whispered assurance that everything would be okay. Instead, she’d bolted for the car. Everything was not okay, and never would be again, as long as Max insisted on bringing his son into their home. Randall would be a constant reminder of Max’s affair—as if Kelly needed one—and a slap in the face to their marriage and their daughters.
“He asked me to come home,” Kelly said. “I refused.”
“Are you sure what you’re doing is wise?” Erin asked. “If it came to a custody battle Max might claim you abandoned your children.”
Kelly shook her head. “Max loves the girls too much to hurt them by denying me custody if we ever got divorced. That’s one thing I’m sure of. Just as I would never deny him custodial rights.”
“Surely it won’t come to that,” Geena protested.
“I hope not.” Kelly felt suddenly bleak. As things stood between her and Max she couldn’t be with him, but deep down she wanted nothing more than for their marriage to work.
Hours later, she turned in between the two tall cedars and drove up the long gravel driveway, having rescheduled a client so she could come home early and do some chores around the house.
She tiptoed past the closed door of Max’s study, reluctant to encounter him and get into another fruitless argument. Into each of the girls’ rooms she went, looking for dirty clothes. Theoretically, they were supposed to take their clothes to the laundry themselves, but it only worked out that way on Saturday during the weekly ritual of cleaning their rooms.
But even though it was Thursday she found no socks or underwear on the floor. No gym uniforms, no T-shirts with jammy fingerprints. In the laundry room, she opened the door and literally bumped into the reason why.
The bundle of clean laundry Max had just unloaded from the dryer tumbled onto the floor. “What are you doing home?” he demanded.
“Why aren’t you working on your house design?” Kelly stooped to help him pick up the clothes.
Their hands met unexpectedly between the folds of her silk nightgown and she yanked her hand back as an electric shock crackled from his fingertips to hers.
He gave her a slow smile. “Guess there’s some spark left.”
Kelly ignored the rush of heat caused by his brief touch and straightened to start pairing socks. “It’s called static electricity.”
Max dumped his load of clothes on top of the dryer and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “Admit it, Kel. We belong together.”
Kelly tried to concentrate on the ankle socks in her hand. Were they Beth’s or Robyn’s? Her eyes shut as he nudged closer, his thighs pressing against her bottom. He was right; they belonged together, and this was where she wanted to be—in his arms….
“No.” With an abrupt movement, she thrust her rear end backward, shoving him away, making him yelp. Spinning, she wagged a finger in his face. “No, no, no. You’re not using sex to win me over, Max Walker. I’m not some lovestruck cheerleader and you’re no longer a randy teenager. We’ve got issues! There’ll be no sex, no foot rubs, no back scratches, no kissing or touching or pillow talk until we solve our problems.”
“Okay,” Max said grimly, withdrawing to cross his arms and lean against the washing machine. “Start talking.”
She grabbed socks and underwear and tossed them into separate piles willy-nilly. “Not when you say it like that. I think we should see a marriage counselor.”
Max threw his hands i
n the air. “You know how I feel about spilling our personal problems to a stranger. It ain’t gonna happen.”
“Andrea McCall is not a stranger,” she said, referring to the family counselor in Hainesville.
“That just makes it worse. She’s an old friend of my parents. You think I’m going to discuss my marital problems with her? She knows darn well my mother and father never wanted us to get married in the first place. That they thought our marriage would fail because we were too young. How am I going to feel when Andrea tells my mom she was right?”
Kelly shook her head. “Andrea is a professional. She wouldn’t abuse client confidentiality.”
“She saw me getting my diaper changed. I’ve exposed as much of myself to that woman as I’m ever going to.” Max turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
“There are other towns, other counselors,” Kelly called after him, but he was gone.
Her arms fell slack at her sides. Drained by the up and down of emotions, Kelly finished sorting the clean laundry. After she’d distributed the piles to their respective rooms, she went into the kitchen to take chicken out of the freezer for dinner. The bouquet of dying roses still sat on the counter, petals wreathing the black granite around the base of the fluted glass vase.
Sighing, Kelly gathered the thorny stems and carried them out back to the compost bin. The Salish Lodge and that single magical night before she knew of Randall Tipton’s existence seemed a lifetime ago. Was it only two and a half weeks ago she’d assured Robyn that she and Max would never split up? Or that they’d made love like newlyweds? Tears welled for her lost innocence, her dying marriage, her lost love. Max, Max. How could she bear to leave him? How could she stay?
She replaced the dead roses with long-stemmed bunches of blue and red anemones from her flower beds. On her way back to the house, she hesitated outside her plant room, where the arrangement she was making for a friend sat unfinished. She had no time today to work on it, but maybe this weekend.
Max came into the kitchen as she was browning the chicken pieces. “Erin’s taking dinner over to Gran, so I’ll stay and eat,” she said. “I should be here when you tell the girls about Randall.”
Her words brought relief to his tense expression. “Thanks,” he said, briefly squeezing her forearm. “I appreciate that.”
Damn him, she thought as he left the room. Damn him for making it so hard to stay angry. Seduced by his warmth and confused by her own mixed emotions, she felt a wave of compassion for him. Instead of simply baking the chicken in the oven, she added sour cream and mushrooms and turned it into the girls’ favorite dinner.
IN THE END, MAX DECIDED he had to tell the girls on his own. He’d created the situation; he had to take full responsibility. While Kelly was busy cooking, he went looking for Tammy and Tina. Peeking unnoticed through the crack in the door of their room, he eavesdropped on their animated discussion.
Tina was kneeling on the carpeted floor, brushing her twin’s curling blond hair with a doll’s brush. “Wanna play dress-up, Tammy?”
“Yeah!” Tammy, cross-legged, her white undies showing beneath her dress, bounced on her bottom. “I’ll be the fairy and you can be the princess.”
“Okay. But we have to make a new crown, ’cuz Flora ate the last one.” Tina got to her feet and went to the small table where they did “art.” It was laden with scissors, paper, crayons, glue and tubes of colored sparkles—everything they needed to construct props for their games.
Tammy sat in the child-size wooden chair opposite and picked up a sheet of yellow construction paper and scissors. “I wish Mommy could help. She cuts the cardboard gooder than me.”
Leaning over the table, Tina drew a line resembling mountain peaks across the yellow paper. “I hope Great-Gran gets better so Mommy will come back.”
“Me, too.” Tammy nodded in agreement. “Maybe if we be extra good she’ll come home.”
Unseen, Max made a face. He ought to go in now, but he couldn’t resist watching the twins a little longer. Their make-believe games were endlessly fascinating, and in all honesty, he wanted to hear what else they had to say about their mommy.
Tammy cut along the jagged line, then laid the paper crown on the table. Tina colored in a giant central diamond while Tammy dabbed glue and gold sparkles over the rest of it. Then Tina taped the ends together and jammed it on her head.
Admiring herself in a doll’s hand mirror, she declared it, “Beautiful.”
Tammy eyed her sister judiciously. “It’s a little crooked, but it’s okay.”
Tina headed for the toy box in the corner, where she pulled out Kelly’s old prom dress and struggled into it; pink satin billowed around her feet. “I live in a castle and eat jelly doughnuts for breakfast,” she announced. “You’re my sister and you’re coming to visit me because we’re best friends.”
Tammy stuck her arms through a pair of sparkly gauze-and-coat-hanger wings Kelly had made for Halloween last year. “I fly in through the fairy door in the tower and give you a hug.”
Tina’s face clouded. “I miss Mommy’s hugs.”
Tammy reached up and adjusted Tina’s crown. “Silly, she hugs us lots. Every morning and every night and when she picks us up from play school, and sometimes when you don’t expect it.”
“But when I woke up scared last night because of the monsters in my dream she wasn’t there to hug me.”
“No. That’s true.” Sad and thoughtful, Tammy kicked at the table leg. Then she brightened. “If the monster comes again, I’ll hug you, okay, Tina?”
“And I’ll hug you.” Tina put her arms around her sister and they embraced, chubby cheek pressed against chubby cheek. “Now,” Tina declared, all smiles, “let’s have a tea party.”
Max leaned against the wall outside their room, staggered at the effect his son was already having on his daughters’ lives. Straightening, he knocked quietly, then pushed the door open when Tina’s imperious princess voice bade him enter.
“Hi, girls—” He broke off, feigning surprise, and glanced around the room. “I thought my daughters were in here, but I see only a beautiful princess and an enchanting fairy. What have you done with Tina and Tammy?”
The girls giggled madly and shouted in unison, “It’s us, Daddy!”
“So it is!” He lowered himself to the floor and patted the carpet to draw them near. “Sit down. I’ve got something important to tell you. We…we’re going to have a visitor this summer.”
“Marty?” Tammy asked hopefully, referring to Max’s cousin who lived in Omaha.
“Er, no. Not Marty.”
“Auntie Liz?” Tina suggested, meaning Kelly’s aunt, who lived down the coast in Astoria.
“No…look, this isn’t twenty questions.” Max was getting flustered. “I’m trying to tell you who’s coming. It’s—”
“Sam!” both girls exclaimed, clearly overjoyed at the prospect of a visit from Max’s wild and crazy college buddy, who came every second summer and stirred the girls into hysterics twenty-four hours a day.
“No.” Max took a deep breath. “His name is Randall. He’s thirteen and lives in Jackson, Wyoming.”
He told them the rest in a few simple words. Only the facts, none of the whys or wherefores. They had an older half brother. He was coming to visit.
“Half brother?” Tina wrinkled her blond brow at the unfamiliar term. “Which half? Top or bottom?”
Max smiled. “My half. He’s not your mother’s son. He’s another lady’s son.” They seemed to accept that, though goodness knows what they thought about it. “Do you want to ask me anything else?”
Tina adjusted the slipping crown on her head. “Where’s he going to sleep?” she asked, always practical.
“He could sleep in my bed,” Tammy said, “and I could share with Tina.”
“Thanks. That’s very generous of you, but I think we’ll put him in Robyn’s room and she can share Beth’s bunk bed. I’d better go talk to them about it.” He started to get up to
leave, then paused. “I love you both. Come here. I want to hug you.”
The girls scrambled across the floor and tumbled into his lap, two pairs of sweet little arms stretching around his neck. His voice thick, he squeezed them tight and told them, “Whenever either of you needs an extra hug you can always come to me if Mommy’s not around.”
Tina and Tammy exchanged solemn glances.
“When Gran’s ankle is better, Mommy will be back,” he hastened to assure them.
“Promise?” Tina asked.
“I promise.” He loosened his grip and let them slide to the floor.
Now he just had to make that promise come true.
Max left them and walked down the hall to Beth’s room. Again he knocked and waited till he was told he could enter. Beth was lying on her bed, reading by the light of a table lamp. She looked up, a question in her eyes, a finger marking her page.
“Hi, kiddo. Have a good day?” he asked, sitting in the computer chair at her desk. She nodded. “What did you learn in school today?”
“Nothing.”
“You mean, you can’t be bothered telling me about it,” he said, smiling.
“No, I really didn’t learn anything. We had a substitute teacher who gave us old work sheets to do.”
“Oh.” Max picked up one of her judo trophies, which were lined up on the bookshelf next to the desk. “How long have you been doing judo?”
“Three years,” Beth said patiently. Her light ash-brown hair had the same springy texture as his. Tufts of it stuck out around the hem of the knit cap she’d jammed down around her ears in an attempt to flatten it. Try as she might to smooth out her hair with water or gel, it invariably bushed out around her head.
“What are you reading?” Max said, stalling, knowing she was waiting for him to get to the point.
She showed him a cover depicting a girl and a horse, then indicated two other books with bookmarks stacked on the floor beside her bed. “Those, too. But not right this second,” she explained, literal minded as always.
“I’ve got something I want to talk to you about. Would you come out to the living room so I can talk to you and Robyn at the same time?”
