Another Man's Wife

by Dallas Schulze

  “You didn’t wake me,” he said, only half lying. He hadn’t been sleeping well anyway. “Are you okay?”

  Stupid question, Walker. Of course she’s not okay.

  “No. I mean, yes. I’m okay.” The way her breath caught on a stifled sob after every other word made the reassurance less than effective.

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  “If you don’t mind. I’m not very good company right now.” She wiped her hands across her face.

  “I wasn’t expecting to be entertained,” he said dryly.

  “I know.” She sniffed. “I just don’t want to inflict this on anyone.” She sniffed again. “Stupid,” she muttered, as much to herself as to him. “Please go, Gage.”

  “All right.” He turned to leave but stopped when he heard her sniff again. There was a box of tissues on a little table near the doorway. Picking it up, he carried it over to the sofa and set the box down on the end table next to Kelsey. “Here.”

  “Th-thank you.”

  He saw her reach for a tissue as he was turning away. It seemed as if there should be something more he could do, some comfort he could offer. A box of tissues hardly seemed like enough.

  “Gage?”

  “Yeah?” He turned in the doorway, seeing her face only as a pale blur in the darkness. She didn’t say anything, and he wondered if he’d imagined her saying his name. “Kelsey?”

  “Don’t go.” The words were hardly even a whisper. “I...don’t want to be alone.”

  “You’re not.” Gage was across the room in two quick strides, and she came into his arms with a sob that seemed to explode from the depths of her soul.

  He held her while she cried, wrapping his arms around her and rocking her a little, her pain echoing his own. He almost envied her tears. Maybe tears would help dissolve the knot in his chest.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he murmured without conviction.

  Kelsey didn’t cry long. Within minutes she was choking her tears into silence, her breath catching in awkward little half-sobs as she fought for control. She lay against him like a tired child.

  “I should have waited up,” she said, struggling to speak through her tears.

  “For what?”

  “For Rick. That night. I should have waited up for him. He...told me not to wait up for him, and I went...to bed but I should have stayed up.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “I was asleep when it happened!” Her tone made it a crime.

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything, Kelsey.”

  “I shouldn’t have been asleep. I should have known something was wrong. I shouldn’t have just slept through it.”

  Gage brushed her hair back from her forehead and wished, for the hundredth time, that he could find the right words.

  “It’s only in books and movies that people always know when someone they love is in trouble. In real life it doesn’t work like that.”

  “I should have known,” she insisted stubbornly.

  “If Rick were here, what do you think he’d tell you?” Gage asked with sudden inspiration. “You know how much he believed in ESP and psychic stuff.”

  “He didn’t believe in it at all,” Kelsey corrected him. “He thought it was ridiculous.”

  “‘If I can’t see it, touch it or smell it, it don’t exist,’” Gage quoted, adopting Rick’s most dogmatic tone of voice. Kelsey’s strangled spurt of laughter encouraged him that he was on the right track. “The man barely believed in electricity.”

  “And he thought radio was a trick,” Kelsey added.

  “I think he was half convinced that there were little people inside the television set,” Gage said, and was rewarded with a watery chuckle.

  “I guess he wouldn’t have thought much of my idea that I should have known something was wrong, would he?” Kelsey said slowly.

  “He’d have said you were crazy,” Gage confirmed cheerfully.

  “I guess he would have. I suppose he would have been right.”

  “For once I’d have to agree with him,” Gage told her, keeping his tone deliberately light.

  “Thanks,” Kelsey said dryly. “I’m sorry I cried all over you.”

  “Nothing wrong with crying.” Gage reached over her head and yanked half a dozen tissues out of the box. “Dry your eyes and blow your nose,” he ordered as handed them to her.

  At another time, Kelsey might have protested his autocratic tone. She’d never been much good at taking orders. But right now, it felt so good to simply lie against him and feel not quite so alone.

  “Were you sleeping out here?” he asked, glancing at the pillow shoved against the arm of the sofa and the blanket that dragged half on the sofa, half on the floor.

  “I can’t sleep in our...in the bedroom,” she said, her voice husky from too many tears and too little sleep. “I tried, but when I wake up, I forget and I...sometimes I think he’s going to be there.”

  “You can’t spend the rest of your life on the sofa.”

  “No.” Kelsey’s voice quavered a little at the reminder that it was the rest of her life they were talking about. “Damn,” she muttered, dabbing impatiently at the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I swore I wasn’t going to cry anymore.”

  “Nothing wrong with crying,” Gage said again.

  “Not unless you’ve already cried enough to float the Queen Mary.”

  “I don’t know that there’s a maximum limit on tears.”

  “If there is, I’m sure I’ve exceeded it,” Kelsey murmured.

  She really should sit up, she thought, stifling a yawn. Gage was probably anxious to get back to bed. But it felt so good to lean against him, to feel as if, for a little while at least, she didn’t have to be strong, didn’t have to be alone. She was so tired of being strong. So very, very tired...

  Gage waited until he was sure Kelsey was asleep and then waited a little while longer, listening to the quiet rhythm of her breathing. He eased away slowly, careful not to wake her as he moved off the sofa, shifting her to lie on the cushions. Her sleep was the heavy slumber of exhaustion, and she didn’t stir when he pulled the blanket over her, tucking it around her shoulders.

  He stood looking down at her for a long time, his eyes shadowed. He finally turned and left her alone, going back to his room, where he lay awake until the gray light of dawn crept through the curtains.

  Chapter 2

  Kelsey woke to the sound of high-pitched giggles, mixed with the deeper note of masculine laughter. She was caught between sleep and waking, her mouth curved in a smile. She must have overslept, and Rick was making Danny’s breakfast and undoubtedly making a mess at the same time. He couldn’t seem to set foot in a kitchen without leaving behind a disaster.

  He laughed again, the sound deeper and less familiar than it should have been. She frowned, struggling to hold on to the remnants of sleep. But they slipped away like tattered wraiths dissipating before a brisk wind. The same wind that brought memory sweeping back.

  Rick. Oh, God. Rick. She squeezed her eyes tight shut. The pain was there, waiting for her, just as it had been every morning since the accident. First there was denial—a part of her insisting that it was all a terrible nightmare. And then there was acceptance—he was gone forever. And then the emptiness—deep, hollow, aching emptiness.

  It would get better, she told herself, repeating the words of comfort so many people had offered. Time would make it easier. She hadn’t been left alone. She still had Danny.

  Danny! Kelsey’s eyes flew open, and she shot upright on the sofa, her heart thumping with panic. Oh, God, how could she have overslept when Rick wasn’t here anymore? Their son had only her now, and she’d virtually left him alone. As if on cue, the laughter came again—Danny’s giggle, rich and fat with the pure joy of childhood and the deeper rumble of a man’s chuckle.

  Gage. Kelsey relaxed against the sofa, letting her heartbeat gradually slow to normal. Gage was here. He was taking care of Danny
. And entertaining him pretty well, from the sound of it, she thought, hearing her son laugh again.

  Kelsey felt her cheeks warm when she remembered the way she’d begged Gage to stay with her and then sobbed on his chest like a baby. But her embarrassment was only momentary. She didn’t have to be embarrassed with Gage.

  She shoved her fingers through her hair, combing it into a vague semblance of order. Standing, she stretched to ease the kinks in her back before starting for the kitchen. If Gage didn’t mind keeping an eye on Danny for a little while, maybe she’d take a long, hot bath later—an indulgence that was impossible now unless she was willing to have Danny and a flotilla of rubber toys join her in the tub.

  But when she broached the possibility to Gage a few minutes later, he shook his head.

  “We won’t have time for that kind of thing today,” he said firmly.

  “We won’t?” Kelsey lifted her eyes from the plate he’d just set in front of her and gave him a surprised look. “Why not?”

  “We’ve got a lot to do. Danny and I have mapped out a battle plan, haven’t we, short stuff?”

  Danny nodded, his mouth too full of scrambled egg to do anything more.

  “A battle plan for what?” Kelsey asked, glancing from her son to Gage, who sat across the table from her.

  “Eat your breakfast and I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m not really—”

  “How do you expect Danny to appreciate the importance of proper nutrition in the morning if his own mother does nothing but swill coffee?” he interrupted before she could say that she wasn’t hungry.

  “I think he’s a little young to be worrying about nutrition. And I do not swill coffee!”

  “If you say so,” he said, looking dubious. “But you’re going to need plenty of protein and carbohydrates if you want to keep up with the two of us today, right, buddy?”

  “Uh-huh.” Danny’s enthusiastic agreement was muffled by his eggs.

  “Tell your mom she’d better eat her breakfast if she doesn’t want to get left in the dust,” Gage said as he mopped eggs off the boy’s face.

  Kelsey started to tell him that she wasn’t hungry. Her appetite hadn’t been particularly good lately. But the bacon did smell pretty good, and he’d scrambled mushrooms and green onions into the eggs, which were fluffy and moist. He’d gone to a lot of trouble. It would be rude not to at least taste it.

  Twenty minutes later, she avoided Gage’s smug look as she handed him her empty plate. To his credit, he didn’t say anything but he didn’t have to. His expression practically shouted I told you so.

  “Go put on some jeans. We’ve got work to do.”

  Kelsey started to ask what he was talking about but swallowed the words. He seemed to be enjoying the air of mystery. Why spoil his fun?

  * * *

  Half an hour later, she wasn’t feeling quite so magnanimous.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for this, Gage.”

  “You can’t sleep on the couch forever, Kelsey.”

  “It’s not forever. It’s only been a few weeks,” she protested.

  “That’s a few weeks more than Rick would have wanted you to be miserable. Come on, I’m not talking about erasing every sign of him from the house. I’m just suggesting that we move you into the spare bedroom and turn this room into a study.”

  The two of them stood in the hallway outside the master bedroom. Danny sat on the floor next to them, running a toy car across the floor, using the boards in the hardwood floor as lanes on his imaginary highway.

  “I don’t think I can,” Kelsey said, glancing uneasily through the door at the room she and Rick had shared.

  “You said you couldn’t sleep in there. And since you’ve moved a bunch of your clothes into Danny’s room, I assume you don’t even want to go inside.”

  “I’ll get over it.”

  “Why should you? If I remember correctly, you didn’t like this room for a master bedroom to start with. You said you liked to wake up with the sun in your eyes. The spare room is on the east side of the house,” he elaborated in case she might not have realized it.

  “Rick liked this room, though.”

  “Because it was on the north side and as far away from the sun as it’s possible to get. I always suspected he was half vampire.”

  “He wasn’t much of a morning person,” Kelsey agreed. But her smile was fleeting. She glanced through the open door again. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this, Gage.”

  “There’s no reason to wait,” he stated implacably.

  “It hasn’t been that long!” she said angrily.

  Kelsey could feel him looking at her but she kept her eyes on her son, seeing him through a film of tears. Gage didn’t say anything for a moment, leaving only the sound of Danny’s growled car noises to break the silence.

  “I don’t want to upset you, Kelsey,” Gage said at last, his voice low and quiet. “I just think you need to start trying to get on with life. You and I both know it’s what Rick would want.”

  He was right. She knew he was right. Rick had never been one to hold on to the past, not even for a moment. She was the one who loved old houses, antique furniture, scrapbooks, musty attics and putting down roots. Rick would have been perfectly content to live in a condo, move every year and own nothing that was more than a few months old. Looking back is a waste of time. She’d heard him say those words a hundred times.

  “He’d be the first to urge you to move on,” Gage said, reading her mind.

  “Too bad he’s not here to do that,” she snapped. She lifted her head to glare at him. “But he’s not here, and I’m not going to forget him overnight just to make him happy.”

  There was a pause while Gage tried to sort through the tangled web of her reasoning. Kelsey replayed her words in her head, heard their absurdity and closed her eyes briefly in embarrassment.

  “So, what you’re saying is that you’re going to be miserable as long as you want, just to spite Rick?” Gage drawled slowly.

  “I really hate you,” she said on a sigh. She looked at him, seeing the smile in his eyes and the understanding beneath it. “You’re obnoxious and irritating.”

  “And right?” He emphasized the question with a lift of his dark brows.

  Kelsey hesitated, her eyes shifting away from him to the bedroom. He was right. It was time to start picking up the pieces of her life, for Danny’s sake if not for her own. It was just so hard to think of letting go, even a little bit. As long as she held tight to the pain, it was as if Rick were still a part of her life.

  “What about you? If I move into the spare room, where are you going to sleep?” It was a last-ditch effort to delay the inevitable, and the tilt of Gage’s eyebrow told her that he recognized it as such.

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  “You’re too tall,” she said triumphantly, having anticipated his answer. “You’d be miserable. And I wouldn’t be able to sleep, knowing you weren’t comfortable.”

  “Kelsey.” Gage caught her hands, making her aware that she’d been waving them up and down as if trying to take flight. “I’ve slept on much worse beds than your sofa. I’ll be fine.”

  She started to argue, caught his eye and closed her mouth without speaking. She felt a movement against her leg and looked down at Danny, who was now standing next to her, running his car up and down the seam of her jeans. He grinned when he saw her looking at him, his small face full of love and trust. The past few weeks had been hard on him. He missed Rick, and no matter how hard she tried to keep it from him, he had to sense her own unhappiness. She ruffled her fingers through his silky blond hair and then lifted her head to look at Gage, her chin set with determination.

  “Where do we start?”

  * * *

  “You didn’t have to get up to see me off.” Gage frowned down at Kelsey.

  “I wanted to.” They’d had the same argument the night before, with Gage insisting that there was no need for her to see him off and Kels
ey equally determined to be up to tell him goodbye.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. It was the early hours of the morning, the sun not even a glimmer on the eastern horizon. Around them the house was silent, a sure indication that Danny was sound asleep. When he was awake, silence was generally nonexistent.

  Gage was leaning against the counter, working on his second cup of coffee. He’d refused her offer of breakfast—he’d eat on the plane. In a few minutes, he was leaving, going back to South America to finish the job he’d interrupted to come to California.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” he asked.

  “I’m sure,” she assured him patiently, though it was at least the third time he’d asked the question in the past half hour. He’d spent the past two weeks convincing her that she could move past Rick’s death and start a new life, but now that he was leaving, he seemed suddenly uneasy.

  You and me both, Kelsey thought, keeping her expression serene. She’d always thought of herself as an independent woman but she was fighting the urge to grab hold of his sleeve and cling like ivy on a wall.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him in a tone so even that she almost fooled herself.

  Gage looked doubtful but thankfully he didn’t express his doubts out loud. If he had, she might have broken down and begged him not to leave.

  “You’ll call if you need anything.” The words were more of an order than a request.

  “I’ll call,” she promised, but apparently she didn’t sound sincere enough.

  “I mean it,” he said insistently. “If there’s anything you need, you know how to get a message to me. It might take a while, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “I know you will.”

  “Anything.” He gave the word heavy emphasis, his eyes intent on hers.

  “Stop worrying,” she said, half laughing. “I’m a big girl, Gage. I can take care of myself. And Danny.”

  “Yeah.” But he didn’t look reassured. He ran his fingers through his hair and then kneaded his fingers against the nape of his neck, his dark brows coming together, shadowing the blue of his eyes.