Wife in the Mail

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Clean what bedroom?” He wanted to know. When he’d brought her here, he hadn’t thought in terms of her doing anything, just staying out of the way until she changed her mind and left. He certainly hadn’t bargained on her rearranging things.

  “Ben’s room. Don’t worry,” she said quickly, “I didn’t throw anything out. I just sorted things and then stacked them out of the way. There’s a lot more room to move around now.” It hadn’t been an easy feat, especially with the extra pair of small hands helping her. But she’d managed.

  Wariness outweighed the sudden hunger that the warm aroma from the kitchen was creating within his belly. “What else did you do?”

  It sound like an accusation, but she did her best to ignore his tone. “I already told you, I helped Asia with dinner. Actually, Sara and I did.” She saw a little blond head peeking out from the kitchen. Smiling, Sydney held her hand out, urging Sara into the room. “Sara salted the soup, didn’t you, Sara?”

  Shayne turned toward the kitchen in time to see his daughter coming into the alcove. Her eyes on Sydney for encouragement, Sara nodded. “Yes.”

  Looking from his daughter to Sydney, Shayne wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this, or how he felt about it. Sydney’d certainly made more headway with his daughter in the few hours they’d been together than he had in two months. He was beginning to see why Ben had been attracted to her. They obviously had the same outgoing nature.

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll have to give the soup a try since you went to all that trouble, Sara.” Shayne was surprised to see that Sara was fairly beaming at him.

  It was, Sydney thought, like being in the midst of an armed truce. The silence in the room pulsed and throbbed like the vital signs of a comatose entity, giving no indication that it was going to awaken anytime in the near future.

  Was this what mealtime was like in this house? No wonder Shayne had seemed unhappy that they had held dinner for him, if this was all he had to look forward to. But it took at least two for a conversation and he was as much at fault as the children. More, since he knew better.

  She thought of the conversations she and her father had always had around the table. Dinner was when they could touch base, exchange ideas, share experiences. It was her favorite part of the day.

  Here it seemed like catered torture.

  She’d kept quiet at the beginning because she thought it wasn’t her place to intrude into their traditions, whatever they were. But it was now obvious that there were no traditions to intrude upon.

  Were they going to go through the whole meal without saying a single word? Sydney cleared her throat as Shayne set aside his soup bowl.

  He looked at her quizzically. She indicated the bowl with her eyes, an expression on her face he couldn’t quite understand.

  This obviously had to be what leading a horse to water was all about, Sydney muttered silently. She looked at Sara. “The soup was very good, Sara. I think the extra salt added just the right touch.”

  Was that what she was trying to tell him? That she wanted him to comment on the soup? Seemed rather silly to him, but Shayne took his cue. “Yes. It was very good, Sara.”

  Sara fairly beamed. She wriggled in her chair, sitting up straighter. “Mama let me help in the kitchen sometimes.”

  Glaring, Mac pushed his bowl away from him. “It’s too salty.” He looked at his father, daring him to dispute his declaration.

  Sydney’d refereed enough playground disputes to recognize trouble before it exploded. “It might have been the fish,” she quickly interjected. “You had that first,” she told Mac, “and I might have added too much pepper to the coating before I fried it.” She knew she’d done no such thing, but felt the lie was justified if she could avert a problem in the making. Genially, Sydney flashed an apologetic smile at the boy. “Sorry.”

  His mouth closed, the biting words on the edge of his tongue disappearing, absorbed by surprise. He wasn’t accustomed to adults apologizing to him. Or even bothering to take note of his opinion.

  Magnanimously, Mac lifted one shoulder, then let it fall again. “That’s okay. The fish wasn’t really that salty.” His eyes shifted toward his sister. “And I guess the soup’s okay, too.”

  Adoration gleamed in Sara’s eyes. “Really?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” Even at the tender age of nine, Sydney could see that Mac was on his way to becoming a man, with a man’s sense of the way things should be. Understated, of course, with little exposure of the emotions he entertained.

  “Yes, you did,” Sydney agreed before his tone could escalate and take the conversation off in another direction. She looked at Shayne. Other than the compliment she’d all but dragged out of his throat, he hadn’t said anything. She gave it another try. “So, how was your day?”

  “My day?” He looked surprised that she should ask.

  “Yes. How was it?” She tried to seem nonchalant.

  Shayne had no idea what she was going after this time and he was too tired to try to accommodate her. He cut a piece of the fish and ate before answering. “It was just another day.”

  Was it really this difficult for him to make conversation, or was he just being stubborn? “Did anything interesting happen at the clinic? Any patient stand out in your mind?”

  He raised his eyes to hers. They held for a moment as he tried to figure out why she was asking him questions. Why should she care how his day went, or if his patients were interesting or not? They didn’t even know each other. “No.”

  Pulling teeth was undoubtedly easier than this, Sydney thought. Doggedly, she kept at it. Ben had said his brother was a man of few words, but she hadn’t thought it was this few. If ever a man had to be shown the way, it was Shayne Kerrigan. “Did you operate on someone?”

  Mac leaned forward in his chair. The word “operate” triggered a memory of a program he’d seen back home. “Did someone come in with a big, old fishhook stuck in them?”

  “No.” It was the first time that Mac had asked him a question that wasn’t couched in total hostility. Shayne saw that his answer disappointed the boy. “Not today. But I did have someone come in last week with one stuck in their finger.”

  For the first time in two months, Shayne saw that he had Mac’s attention.

  Sara shivered and squealed. “His finger? Did it hurt?”

  Mac looked at her contemptuously. “Sure it hurt, stupid. You try having a fishhook in your finger and see if it don’t hurt.”

  “Mac, don’t call your sister stupid,” Shayne said sharply. There was no excuse for name-calling.

  The fragile thread of kinship broke instantly. The moment was gone. Mac pushed aside his dish. “I’m not hungry anymore.” He turned a defiant face toward his father. “Can I go?”

  Shayne’s inclination was to make his son remain at the table, but he knew it was useless to try to talk to the boy, to make him understand. Silently, he waved him away.

  Mac fairly stomped out of the room.

  Upset, afraid, Sara stared down at her plate, rocking to and fro.

  “You can go, too, if you want,” Shayne told her. He tried his best to sound gentle, but knew Sara wouldn’t hear the tone, only the words. She was gone within the moment.

  Sydney waited until she felt the children were out of earshot. Then she looked at Shayne. His expression was unreadable again.

  “You shouldn’t chase them away,” she said quietly.

  Annoyed at his inability to communicate with his own children, Shayne lashed out at the only target in the room.

  “I don’t recall asking you for an opinion.”

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been intimidated by a dark look. Only incensed by it. “No, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need it.”

  Shayne pushed back his chair, the legs scraping along the bare floor. “Lady, I took you in because my brother did you a dirty turn. Don’t push your luck.”

  “I’m not trying to push my luck. I’m trying to help you.”
r />   Rising, he threw down his napkin. This was shaping up as one of the worst days he’d had in a long time. “When I want your help, I’ll ask you for it.”

  She was on her feet, too. “No, you won’t.” She knew that much about him even without Ben’s letters. She could see the stubbornness in his eyes. “I see three people hurting in this house and since you’re the adult, you have to reach out to them—to make the hurting go away—for all of you.”

  Shayne had always been a private man. He didn’t like anyone intruding into his life. “Ben didn’t mention you were a philosopher.”

  It took more than sarcasm to make her back off when she thought she was right “I’m not. I’m a human being—and an outsider, so maybe I can see things that you’re too close to see.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  She raised her chin, determined to make him understand. “No trouble at all.”

  Just who the hell did she think she was, spouting off solutions as if she somehow had turned to the last page of his life, where all the answers were supposed to be written?

  Shayne blew out a breath, getting hold of himself. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper like that. And maybe she had a point. God knew, he wasn’t making any headway with Mac and Sara up until now. This tiny spate of conversation at the table tonight had been the longest one they’d enjoyed.

  He eyed Sydney in pensive silence. She was obviously better at this sort of thing than he was. “You got Sara to help you?”

  Sydney nodded. “Actually, she volunteered. Mac carried up my suitcase.”

  Shayne found that almost impossible to believe. Mac was like a brick wall. Even Ben had found it difficult to get the boy to open up.

  “Mac?”

  “Mac,” she confirmed, a small smile of triumph playing on her lips.

  “How about that,” he murmured.

  Maybe there was a place for minor miracles, after all. Shayne rubbed his neck, wondering if it had been just a fluke, or if all it took to open his son up was patience—and the right approach. An approach she seemed to have a lock on.

  The antique mantel clock that had been passed down in his mother’s family for generations chimed eight o’clock. Early by most standards. Late by the hours he kept. He looked at Sydney and thought she looked tired. She could probably use the rest after what she’d been through.

  “It’s been a long day. Why don’t you call it a night and turn in?”

  Sydney raised a brow, amused. “Sending me to my room?”

  She could go or stay, it was all the same to him. He had some reading to catch up on. “Just making a suggestion.”

  “And in this case, a good one.” There were dishes on the table, but Sydney felt suddenly drained. Besides, he’d said he didn’t want her waiting on him. That undoubtedly included clearing the table, as well. She’d leave that to him. “I think I will go to bed.” She turned to leave the room.

  She heard the clink of dishes behind her. He was gathering them together. Sydney stopped. “Want help with that?”

  “No.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said more to herself than to him. She was at the foot of the stairs when he called to her.

  “Ms. Elliot.”

  Pausing, she looked at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”

  Shayne kept his eyes on the dishes he was stacking. He’d been downright uncivil to her and he knew it. It wasn’t her fault that she’d wandered into a demilitarized war zone. Under the circumstances, she was doing her best to get along.

  “For what it’s worth, I think Ben missed out.”

  He probably had no idea how much she needed to hear something like that, Sydney thought. Or how good it sounded. She smiled her appreciation, even though it was to the top of his bent head.

  “Thank you.”

  Shayne didn’t bother saying anything to her in response. As far as he was concerned, he’d already said too much.

  Chapter Six

  Sighing, Shayne closed his book. There was no point in sitting here, trying to make sense out of the words in front of him. He’d been on the same page for the past fifteen minutes, reading it over and over again. None of it was sinking in.

  His mind just wasn’t on Dumas or his novel about the prince history had chosen to hide. Rising from his chair, Shayne crossed to one of the two bookshelves that buffered the fireplace and returned the leather-bound volume to its place. Tonight it had failed to transport him beyond his four walls.

  Normally, when the long night wrapped itself tightly around him, Shayne found he could loosen the day’s tension by losing himself in the pages of the books he’d been collecting over the years.

  But tonight was different. Tonight nothing could erase the unease he was feeling. Unease mingled with dissat isfaction and a restlessness that seemed to have no reason behind it, no identifying marks for him to trace with confidence to its source.

  A restlessness that had begun the moment he’d walked into his house and seen Sydney standing by the fireplace. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her, looking every bit the embodiment of a dream he’d once deluded himself into having. A dream of hearth and home. And family.

  He was far too much of a realist now to believe in dreams. That had belonged to the remnants of the child in him. A child who had long since grown up to face the world for what it was. A hard, exacting place that never allowed you to put your guard down.

  The restlessness refused to recede.

  Instead, it threatened to swallow him up. Maybe he was just reacting to Ben’s latest escapade, an escapade that left him—however temporarily—not only without another pair of skilled hands at the clinic, but with a woman he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with.

  The ratio out here being seven to one, he knew there would be a lot of men who’d offer very vocal suggestions as to what he could do with Sydney, but Shayne’d never been one for casual coupling. Which was why Barbara had hurt him as much as she had.

  He supposed if he were a drinking man, he would have tried to lose himself inside a bottle tonight. But even if he were so inclined, he didn’t have that luxury available to him. A doctor out here couldn’t afford to drink and muddle his mind. Especially if he were the only doctor in a hundred-mile radius—and it looked like he was, at least for the time being.

  So, he had no crutches to lean on, no quick fixes at his disposal, other than his books, and they just weren’t doing the trick tonight.

  Sleep was the only solution left.

  If he could sleep, he thought, agitation rippling through him like a freshly caught salmon thrown on the ground.

  With careful movements, he banked the fire in the fireplace. Then, one by one, he switched off the lights until only the upstairs hallway light filtered down to him like a thin, winding golden thread.

  He took the stairs slowly, his thoughts involuntarily straying to the woman whom he presumed was now fast asleep. How long was she going to stay here? God, he hoped not long. He had enough on his mind without having to put up with any of Ben’s fallout.

  He could hear the branches scraping against the upstairs hall window. The wind had been picking up steadily all evening and now mournfully strummed the branches of the surrounding trees. It only added to his restlessness.

  Stopping at the landing, Shayne glanced toward the bedrooms opposite his own. Sara’s and Mac’s bedrooms. Every night, before he went to bed, he looked in on them, always when he was certain they were asleep.

  At first, it had been out of pure amazement, to assure himself that, after all these years of separation, they were actually finally here in his house. Now it was a habit, something he did before closing the door to his own room. He wasn’t even sure why he did it, only that he needed to, needed to see their faces, peaceful and devoid of any emotions directed against him, pressed softly against their pillows.

  He eased open Mac’s door first. The boy was on his stomach, his blanket a hopeless tangle at his feet. He slept like a spinning top. Ve
ry gently, Shayne freed enough of the blanket to spread over the wiry body. Mac slept like Ben, turning his bed into a huge battlefield as he sought out sleep. The thought made Shayne smile as he withdrew from the room.

  Approaching Sara’s room, Shayne thought he heard the soft murmur of a woman’s voice. Her voice. Was he imagining it? He listened again. It sounded too real to be his imagination. Curious, he eased the door open.

  Sara was in bed, her eyes shut, her hand curled around Sydney’s. She looked sound asleep. What was Sydney doing in the room with her?

  And then he saw that there was an open book on Sydney’s lap. One of Sara’s storybooks.

  She’d heard him the moment he opened the door. Turning, she put her finger to her lips, afraid, he realized, that he would say something to wake Sara up. He watched as she looked at Sara again—apparently to satisfy herself that the little girl was still asleep—then, very slowly, eased her hand from Sara’s.

  It was like watching someone move in slow motion, he thought. Every movement was fluid, unhurried. A little like poetry on a soft summer’s night. He found himself almost hypnotized, hardly breathing until, tiptoeing out of the room, she came to him.

  Belatedly, Shayne backed up to give her room until they were both standing out in the hallway. Sydney closed the door quietly behind her, turning so that her body was a breath away from his.

  And one breath too close.

  Shayne didn’t step back, not immediately, though he knew he should. Instead, in a hushed voice gauged not to wake either child, he asked, “What were you doing in her room?”

  Sydney thought it was obvious, but she explained anyway. “Sara had a nightmare. I heard her whimpering in her sleep so I went in and woke her up. She was terrified, something to do with thunder and her mother dying.” The little girl’s eyes had looked haunted until she’d managed to calm Sara down. “I didn’t get it all. But whatever it was about, the nightmare was enough to make her afraid. I promised to stay with her until she fell asleep again. I figured the quickest way to make that happen was to read to her.” Sydney grinned, tapping the book she held in her hand. “Works every time.”