The Runaway Wife

by Rowan Coleman

  “Not trite,” Rose said. “I suppose it’s not impossible to be amazing in some parts of your life and terrible in others. I hope he is an amazing man, I hope he is redeemable, because if he is then I will be able to forgive him.” Rose looked out across the lake, her brow knitted briefly in concern. “I told him that I would never be able to forgive him—to hurt him, I think—and yet he accepted it as if that was the way it should be. And yet now I find I would like nothing more. Nothing more than to be free of all those years of anger.”

  A waitress arrived with their starters and refreshed their wine, as the sun began to sink slowly behind the crest of the mountain, setting fire to ripples in the almost still lake.

  “So tell me about you, your life, your husband, Maddie, everything,” Frasier said warmly, leaning forward a little, eager to hear all about her.

  Rose sat back a little in her chair, unprepared for that question and reluctant to answer it, to bring even the mention of Richard into this idyllic setting. And yet she couldn’t pretend he didn’t exist.

  “Well . . . I’ve actually recently separated from my husband,” Rose said a little awkwardly. “I’ve left him, I mean. For good.”

  It occurred to her that Frasier might well think that taking a married woman out to dinner was one thing, but to take out a recently separated, newly single woman was quite another. And besides, Rose was very afraid that at some point he would guess the real reason she came to Millthwaite was to find him. That was something he could never know.

  “Oh, no.” Frasier looked genuinely sorry. “That’s awful.”

  “Actually,” Rose said, lifting her chin in unconscious defiance, “it’s a good thing.” She struggled to sum up her marriage in a way that wouldn’t frighten or shock Frasier. “We weren’t . . . compatible anymore. He didn’t cheat or anything, and neither did I. Just . . . he wasn’t a person I could be with anymore.”

  “It must be hard, though, to start again after all those years, just you and Maddie?”

  Rose said nothing for a while, toying with the stem of her wineglass. “Hard” wasn’t the word. She hoped, believed, that the hardest times were behind her even though she knew there would be much worse to come before she could truly be free of her past.

  “I think there will be rocky times ahead,” she said eventually.

  “It’s not amicable, then?” Frasier asked her, seeing the concern in her furrowed brow.

  “Far from it,” Rose admitted, raising her gaze to meet his. “He hates me very much. And I . . . I have no idea what I feel about him. Nothing at the moment. The very thought of him makes me feel numb.”

  “Well, if there is anything I can do, while you are here . . .” Frasier made the offer without hesitation. “I know an excellent lawyer this side of the border who I’m sure could help out.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said. “But for now I’m just concentrating on being here. I’ll cross all of those bridges when I get to them. Being here, it feels strangely wonderful. And I suppose it is. After all, I’ve walked into the picture postcard that I’ve carried with me every single day for seven years.”

  “Carried with you every day?” Frasier asked her, picking up on the remark before Rose realized that she’d made it.

  “Yes, well, it was my only link to John,” she said, unable to look him in the eye, feeling the heat creep up her neck. “Silly, really.”

  “Not at all.” Frasier’s gaze became suddenly more intense, so much so that Rose felt caught like a deer in headlights. “It’s your talisman,” he said. “Your link to another life that might have been, that perhaps still could be. I understand that.”

  “Do you?” Rose asked him.

  “I do. Except that I never dwell on what might have been. It’s my only rule. I live life in the moment, whatever it may bring. And this evening, it’s brought me to you.”

  • • •

  “Shall we take a walk by the shore?” Frasier asked her, after discreetly settling the bill.

  “I feel like I should at least pay for the coffee,” Rose said. “Or the mints. I am admittedly a bit short on funds right now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Frasier said. “My father was an army man. He never got over the fact that I didn’t follow him into the profession; the very least I can do is to adhere to his standard to take care of a lady at all times.”

  “You are a dying breed,” Rose said as she took the arm that Frasier offered and let him escort her down to the shore, feeling all at once supremely happy and excruciatingly awkward to be entwined with him, even so formally.

  They stood for a moment listening to the soft lap of the waters, Rose tracing where the crest of the mountains blacked out the starry sky. Rose discreetly extricated her arm from Frasier’s, content just to stand next to him in such a perfect moment. Perhaps this might be the thing that kept her going for the next seven years.

  “This place is beautiful,” Rose whispered. “I don’t mean just this spot, although it is. I mean the whole area. When you live in a place like this, surrounded by a landscape like this, all your earthly problems should seem so insignificant.”

  Frasier smiled. “Does that mean you might settle here, then? Your father would like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said. “Part of me thinks that now is the time to travel, to see and go places, be free at last. But tonight, I think it would be very hard to leave.”

  “And yet, leave here we must,” Frasier said abruptly. “How about I take you for a quick drink in Millthwaite on the way back?”

  “Don’t you have to get back to your girlfriend?” Rose asked him. “Doesn’t she mind your taking another woman out to dinner?”

  “Cecily and I have planned a tryst in the early hours,” Frasier assured her. “And you are not another woman, you are Dearest Rose. It’s practically my going to dinner with the Mona Lisa.”

  “How about I take you for a drink?” Rose asked him. “I can stretch to that, at least.”

  “It’s a deal,” Frasier said with a smile. They stood and looked at each other for a moment longer, and then with a shrug Frasier took her hand again as they walked back to the car.

  • • •

  Rose hadn’t really given much thought to the likelihood of Ted being behind the bar when she walked into the pub with Frasier, and not even when his dark eyes met hers did she think for a moment that it particularly mattered. Leaving Frasier to take a seat by the window, she went to the bar, smiling at Ted as she approached.

  “What you doing here with him?” was his conversation opener.

  Slightly taken aback, Rose looked over her shoulder at Frasier, who smiled at her from beside the window.

  “He took me for dinner, and now I’m buying him a drink,” she said. “Red wine for me and a single-malt Scotch for him, please.”

  “So you’ve been on a date, then, with him?” Ted questioned her.

  “It’s not a date,” Rose said. “It was just dinner.” Their journey back through the dark, twisted country roads had been conducted in silence, allowing Rose to make a call to John, who assured her that although Maddie showed no signs of wanting to sleep, she was perfectly happy, and for Rose to ponder how to adjust to knowing and liking the real Frasier, as opposed to the one who’d lived in her head for so long.

  “It’s just it’s . . . it’s Frasier,” Rose said, belatedly aware that that wasn’t much of an explanation to Ted. “He’s been very important to me.”

  “Rose,” Ted said suddenly, his expression intensifying.

  “Yes?” Rose said, glancing over her shoulder to where Frasier was studying a print of some Victorian children with baskets full of apples.

  “I know we said the kiss was just kissing,” Ted said. “But the thing is, I think I might like you, Rose. I mean, like you.”

  Rose blinked at him. “No, you don’t.”

  “Yeah,” he said, holding her gaze. “Yeah, I do. I want to kiss you again. Tonight.”

  “No,” Rose said, not s
ure what else she could say, not sure how to feel. “You don’t.”

  “Meet me later,” Ted said, as if he hadn’t heard a word she said. “After Mr. Sappy over there’s gone home.”

  “Ted . . .” Rose was uncertain, caught off guard. “I’ve just . . . I’ve got so much at home to deal with now. I’m not sure I can deal with you too. It’s too soon.”

  “You can,” Ted insisted. “If you really think about it, you want to. I’ll take care of you. I won’t hurt you or do anything you don’t want. I just want to be near you, Rose. From midnight, I’ll be downstairs in the B and B. I’ve got a key, I’ll let myself in. There’s a whole annex which no one ever goes in. I think there might still even be a bed.”

  “Ted!” Rose gasped, knowing full well that Ted’s late granny’s bed was still in situ, even though Jenny had nagged Brian to take it to the dump.

  “You are so lovely,” she told him. “But I’m . . . I’m a mess. I’ll be no good for you.”

  “Then let me be good for you,” Ted said. “I’ll be there, I’ll wait, all night if I have to.” He leaned closer across the bar so that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “I want to kiss you again so badly, Rose. And that’s all it will be, I swear.”

  It took quite some doing to get the drinks back to Frasier without guzzling them both.

  • • •

  “Good night, then,” Rose said as Frasier escorted her to the B & B door. She couldn’t be sure that Jenny and Shona were hovering on the other side of it, but she got the distinct feeling she and Frasier weren’t entirely alone.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” Frasier said. “You really are the most charming company.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said, wondering what the protocol would be on kissing him good night. Could she reasonably kiss him on the cheek, she wondered, discovering that she would really like to know what that golden stubble would feel like beneath her lips—an image that was rapidly followed by guilt and anxiety.

  “You know, I must introduce you to Cecily,” Frasier said, smiling fondly at the mention of his girlfriend’s name. “She would absolutely love you. And you’d probably like her too. She’s awfully funny.”

  “Oh, oh, well, yes, of course. That would be nice,” Rose said.

  “Good night again.” Frasier shook her hand. “See you very soon.”

  “Bye!” Rose said as she slid her key into the lock, the door opening before she had a chance to turn it.

  “He shook your hand, didn’t he?” Shona said. “I saw it through the peephole. It was all sort of funny and far away, but he did actually shake your hand, didn’t he?”

  “Yes!” Rose said briskly, shutting the door and crossing her arms. Jenny was on the second stair, this time in a fire-engine-red nightie trimmed with black lace.

  “Disappointed?” she asked Rose, sympathetically. “I expect you fancied a nice kiss.”

  “No, not disappointed, and no, I did not expect or indeed ‘fancy’ a nice kiss!” Rose protested far too much on both counts. “Frasier is an acquaintance, with a girlfriend called Cecily, and I am barely single. It would have been awful if he’d kissed me, dreadful.”

  “Shocking,” Shona said. “Almost as bad as if he’d taken you to a remote spot and kissed your face off.”

  “Shona!” Rose cried, feeling two hot spots of heat flare on her cheeks. “Stop talking rubbish!”

  “Now, now,” Jenny said. “Let’s not tease the poor lass. You’re quite right, love. Best all round that he didn’t kiss you. It would have only muddled the already very murky waters. Still, you wished he had, though, don’t you?”

  • • •

  Rose lay awake in the dark for a long time, missing the sound of Maddie’s breathing and the hump of her body under the covers. She had phoned John again before getting into bed, and he’d told her in rather irritated tones that Maddie was now fast asleep in her fortress, which was what she’d decided to call the book- and box-lined room that she was ensconced in. She’d eaten cheese on toast, drawn a good deal, tested him on color theory, and eventually asked to go to bed. There had been a moment when the sound of the wind rattling the window gave her pause, but John had told her not to be so ridiculous and she had complied.

  “OK,” Rose had said uncertainly, both peeved and proud that Maddie hadn’t had her usual meltdown and demanded her mother. “Well, I’ll be round first thing to get her then.”

  “This presumably means I can now get some sleep, does it?” John asked her testily.

  “Yes, sorry. And thank you,” Rose said. “Night, John.”

  John did not reply.

  Midnight had come and gone almost an hour ago and she still hadn’t moved from her position, lying flat on her back with the bedspread pulled up under her chin. Rose had been utterly determined not to be tempted by Ted’s proposal, had pulled on a nightshirt with the image of a fluffy yellow cartoon chick on the front of it, and decidedly climbed into her single bed, which she would not be moved from for any reason whatsoever, particularly not making out with her landlady’s son.

  And yet sleep evaded her, her busy brain a tangle of circling thoughts and images. Was she really simply over Richard and the things he had done to her? It could not be so simple. Perhaps Shona was right, perhaps she did have more to face than she was able to admit, and maybe the euphoria—yes, because that was what she was feeling now—was really just a manifestation of relief. She didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Not tonight, anyway.

  She could be anyone she wanted to be. Maybe even the sort of woman who lets herself be kissed by one man when she isn’t sure of her feelings for another.

  Rose knew, as she lay there staring up at the ceiling, that the way she felt about Frasier was real and not imagined. Even if it happened seven years ago, she had fallen in love with him, and that wasn’t going to go away soon just because of the inconvenience of real life and beautiful girlfriends called Cecily.

  But that didn’t stop her from thinking about Ted, her mind drifting back to him again and again, waiting for her. Wanting to kiss her and touch her, like he had done before. And Rose wanted that feeling again, she realized with a surge of adrenaline as she sat up in bed.

  Deciding that it was best not to allow herself too much time to examine her motivations, Rose climbed out of bed. Pulling Haleigh’s nightshirt down over her bare behind, she paused for a moment in front of the dressing table mirror, noticing with a frisson of satisfaction the fine contours of her body just visible under the clingy material. It had been a very long time since Rose had considered herself as a woman, one who might genuinely be attractive to men. It was exciting and scary to do that now, like learning to walk all over again.

  Going to see Ted was another step on her journey, she told herself as she tiptoed down the stairs, her quest to find herself, discover more about what it meant to be a woman. Ted was part of the key to unlocking the woman she really was.

  Rose held her breath as she crept into the living room, which was silent and dark, save for the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Ted was not there. For a second she felt foolish and disappointed, and a little relieved. But then she remembered the annex, where Ted said there was a bed. Her heart rattling against her ribs, she tiptoed across the carpet, feeling the grime and grit between her toes, made her way through the tiny dark hallway, and opened the door to the shadowy annex. There were no curtains up at the window, so the moonlight flooded in, throwing mysterious shadows and cutting a silvery pathway right to the bedroom.

  Silently Rose repeated again and again exactly what she planned to say to Ted, if she could find the courage.

  Sitting on the edge of the stripped bed, Ted sat up sharply when she came in through the door, catching his breath at the sight of her, which was when Rose remembered that she was mostly naked. Hiding as much of her body as she could behind the doorframe, she waved, which on reflection seemed rather odd, even in what was a rather odd situation.

  “Hi!” she squeaked nervously, her res
olve in great danger of evaporating into thin air.

  “I thought you would never come,” Ted said, standing up and taking a few steps towards her.

  “So did I,” Rose said. “Ted . . .”

  “It’s OK,” Ted said, closing the space between them, taking her hand and drawing her out into a pool of moonlight. “I know you are nervous, and I promise I won’t try anything else. Wow,” he said, taking the sight of her in. “Bit freaky that you’re wearing my sister’s nightshirt.”

  “I’m not sure if you understand,” Rose said, turning back towards the door. “I need to say that . . . You need to know that I . . .”

  But before she could move, Ted put his hands on her hips and pulled her close to him so that their bodies were almost, but not quite, touching.

  “I know,” Ted whispered, his hands gently resting on her hips. “And I don’t care. I just want the chance to feel the way I did the other night. That’s enough for me, I swear it.”

  “Ted,” Rose said, looking him in the eye. “You are such a lovely man. And I’m . . . I’m pretty sure I’m broken. I don’t want to break you too.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you do,” Ted said, cupping her face in his palms. “Don’t you get it? I’ve fallen for you.”

  Rose caught her breath as she finally understood that Ted really meant it when he said he was in love with her. It was overwhelming to know that somehow she’d touched this lovely, sweet man so deeply, without ever meaning to. The way he looked at her, the way he held her made her pulse quicken and her chest tighten, but was that anything like love? Surely the best thing she could do now would be to leave, to clear her head and her heart, and not do anything rash. And yet, Rose found that she didn’t want to go.

  “Oh, Ted,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I was rather hoping you wouldn’t say anything,” Ted said. “I was thinking there would just be more kissing. More kisses for me to think about again and again every second that I am not with you.”