Rose toyed with a velvety crimson petal. “My husband.”
“Ah,” Mary said knowingly. “What’s the occasion?”
Rose shrugged her shoulders. “Damned if I know.”
Mary grinned. “That’s the best kind.”
Vicky poked her head into the office door and grinned. “Wow. Looks like somebody’s pretty fond of you.”
She didn’t know how to answer. How to react. What to think. In fourteen years of marriage to Eddie, he’d never once sent her flowers. She’d always thought that women who went gaga over a bouquet were mindless twits. She hadn’t understood until now that red roses had the power to turn a woman’s insides to pabulum.
Rose picked up the phone and called her brother. “What does it mean,” she demanded, “when a man sends a woman a dozen red roses? For no reason at all?”
“Well,” Rob said, “first of all, there’s always a reason.”
“But what if there isn’t? There’s no special occasion, nothing out of the ordinary. They just show up, out of the blue.”
“I didn’t say it had to be an obvious reason. But there’s always a reason.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I can only tell you what it would mean if I was sending them to my wife.”
“Which is?”
“A rough translation might be: You are my love and my life, you own my heart and my soul, you’re the very air I breathe. Let’s go to bed right now.”
Dryly, she said, “You’re such a sentimental guy.”
“Works every time. Look, Rose, maybe it just means he loves you. Did you ever consider that?”
“Tell me another one.”
“Although I can’t imagine how he could, with that vicious tongue of yours.”
“Go to hell.”
“I love you, too, pumpkin. Call me tomorrow with your crisis du jour. They’re always so entertaining.”
She was still sitting there, admiring the damn things, when Torey Spaulding showed up for her appointment, twenty minutes late. “Nice flowers,” Torey said. “Who’re they from?”
“My husband.”
“Hah. I’d have to be dead for my husband to send me flowers.”
She found an empty room for Torey to sit in to take the vocational aptitude test which, like everything else around the place, had already been in use when Fred Flintstone was a kid. She spent the rest of the morning sitting in her office, doodling on a sheet of paper and staring at those damn flowers.
That afternoon, she skipped out of work early and drove to the IGA. It wasn’t often that a domestic urge struck her, even less often that she acted on such an urge. But the flowers had managed to weasel their way into some soft, womanly place inside her that she usually kept closed and locked. She hummed along with the Muzak as she pushed the cart from aisle to aisle, picking and choosing from the pathetic choices available here at earth’s end. The locals stared in open curiosity, whispering behind her back after she’d passed. Damn their hides. She gritted her teeth in determination, smiled pleasantly at each face she met, and wondered how long it would be before they found something better to talk about than Jesse Lindstrom’s new wife.
The cashier seemed intensely interested in her purchases. “Linguine, tomato sauce, fresh garlic and basil,” she said. “Guess I can figure out what you’re making for supper tonight.”
Rose pulled out her checkbook. “I suspect you probably can.”
“I went to school with your husband, you know.”
Rose’s mouth thinned. “You and everyone else in town.”
“Ever since kindergarten. We did sandbox together. I had a wicked crush on him in high school. He broke more than a few hearts, I’ll tell you.”
“I just bet he did. How much do I owe you?”
The cashier seemed surprised to note that there was a line forming behind Rose. “Twelve-fifty,” she said, and Rose wrote out the check and tore it off. “Thanks,” the woman said. “Tell Jesse that Eileen said hi.”
The house was blessedly silent. Rose unpacked her meager purchases and began chopping vegetables. She sautéed them in olive oil, threw in the basil and a pinch of oregano from a jar she found in the spice rack. She was stirring the sauce and had just put on the water to boil for the linguine when the phone rang.
Rose lowered the heat beneath the sauce, scurried across the kitchen, and snatched it up. “Hello,” she said, stretching the cord to maximum capacity as she opened the refrigerator and took out a stick of butter. She popped it into the microwave and began punching buttons.
At the other end of the line, in a cool, clipped British accent, an elegant female voice said, “Good afternoon. May I speak to Jesse, please?”
“He’s not here right now.” The microwave beeped, and she popped open the door. “Can I take a message?”
“I really must speak with him directly. Is this his sister?”
Rose wiped her hands on her apron. Impatiently, she said, “This is his wife. Are you sure you don’t want to leave a message?”
At the other end, there was a moment of absolute silence. “His wife?” the woman said.
Rose squared her jaw. “That’s right.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. That sly dog got married and didn’t tell me! That explains why I haven’t heard from him in so long. He’s been honeymooning. You lucky girl! I suppose I don’t need to tell you just how fortunate you are.”
“It would be hard to forget,” Rose said, “with people reminding me night and day.”
The woman chuckled. “Listen, darling, tell him to call Daphne. He has the number. And tell him that he’s broken my heart irrevocably, and I’m expecting him to make it up to me. He’d better have something very special for me this time around. Ta-ta.”
She was left holding a dead receiver. Ta-ta?
Jesse had mentioned only two women in his past, neither of them named Daphne. Just who was this woman? Some girlfriend he’d conveniently forgotten to mention? No wonder. Apparently their little romance hadn’t yet officially ended. The rat.
After twenty minutes of stewing, she’d built up a big enough head of steam to hit him with it the instant he walked through the door. Arms crossed over her chest, she raised her chin and said, “Just who the hell is Daphne?”
He set down his briefcase and unzipped his jacket. “Daphne called?” he said.
“She seemed rather surprised to hear that you’d gotten married.”
“I guess I forgot to tell her.” He loosened his tie. “What else did she say?”
“She said to tell you, and I quote, that you’d broken her heart irrevocably, and you’d better make it up to her by giving her something really special this time around. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain precisely what that means?”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he checked his watch. “Let me call her back first. Then I’ll explain.”
He disappeared into the den to make his call, and Rose opened a can of peas and flung its contents into a saucepan. First thing tomorrow morning, his roses were going into the dumpster. Goddamn men. You couldn’t trust them, no matter how clean-cut and polite they seemed. Miserable rats, every one. Godless rodents without any sense of right or wrong.
While she was fuming, Luke hobbled in, guitar in hand, and went directly to the refrigerator. “Supper’s cooking,” she said. “What are you, an eating machine?”
He set down his guitar and reached into the fridge. “I’m hungry.”
Rose turned on the burner beneath the peas. “And just where have you been?”
Luke took out a cold chicken leg and shut the refrigerator. “Jamming with the guys,” he said, taking a huge bite and swallowing it with minimal chewing. “We’re starting a new band.” Guitar and chicken leg in hand, he thumped his way up the stairs.
The door to the den opened and Jesse came out. The look she gave him would have vaporized a lesser man. But he bore it with aplomb. “Did you and Daphne have a nice little chat?” she said.
; “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d think you were jealous.”
She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“It was a business call. That’s all.”
“A business call. From a woman whose heart is broken because you forgot to tell her you were getting married.”
“She’s a sixty-two-year-old grandmother who bears a marked resemblance to Winston Churchill. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”
“Who the hell says I’m worried?”
“Rose, she’s my editor.”
That stopped her. “Editor?” she said blankly.
“I think you might want to sit down.”
She squared her jaw. “I’d rather stand up. So what’s the big deal? What do you write, stuff for academic journals?”
“Actually, I write mostly fiction. Although I’ve done a handful of magazine articles.”
“Short stories?”
“Novels. Twelve, at last count. I’m just about finished with number thirteen. That’s why I’ve been spending so much time at the computer. I’m on a deadline, and I fell behind when we got married. I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.”
She looked at him in disbelief. Slowly, enunciating each word as though it had its own zip code, she said, “You have written thirteen books.”
“Almost thirteen. The newest one’s not quite done.”
“And they’ve all been published?”
He took her by the arm and drew her to a chair. “Sit here. I’ll be right back.”
A moment later, he returned and placed a paperback book in her hand. A Time to Reap, by Michael Starbird. She stared at it without comprehending. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What does this have to do with you?”
“Open it up. Read the copyright page.”
She flipped open the cover, found the page. “Copyright 1988 by J. Lindstrom,” she read aloud. And gaped at him. “You’re Michael Starbird? You?”
“Michael’s my middle name. Starbird was my mother’s maiden name. I like my privacy. My family knows, and Henry Lamoreau. And of course, now you do.”
Suddenly it all fell into place, Lamoreau’s fawning, his little speech about how talented her husband was. She cleared her throat. Cleared it again. “These books…they were all bestsellers.”
“That’s right.”
“Which probably explains why your house is paid for.”
“And why I can afford to support your kids. And buy you enough art supplies to stack from here to the moon. I tried to tell you, Rose. Remember when I said we needed to sit down and talk? But you kept putting me off.”
“Holy mother of God. You’re loaded, aren’t you? You must have thought it was some joke when I threw that prenuptial agreement in your face.”
“I hope it won’t make a difference. People see you differently when they know you have money. That’s one of the reasons I keep it quiet.”
“But you’re still teaching high school. If you have that much money, you don’t have to work at a day job.”
“I love teaching. I love writing. So I do both.” He gave her one of those incredible smiles. “My day job keeps me grounded.”
She felt the impact of his smile in a number of places, most notably the area immediately surrounding her heart. The feeling was disturbingly pleasurable. She scowled. “By the way,” she said, “Eileen sends her regards.”
She would have succeeded in escaping if he hadn’t caught her by the wrist. “Rose,” he said, “come here.”
Her heart pumped like a piston as he drew her into his arms and held her hard against his chest. Panicked, she said, “I have to make supper.”
“It’ll wait.”
“The kids will see us.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “What are they going to see? A man kissing his wife? If they have any objections, I’ll show ‘em the marriage license. Kiss me, Rose.”
She opened her mouth to object, discovered she didn’t want to. His lips were whisper-soft against her cheek, at her temple, along the stubborn line of her jaw. By the time they reached her mouth, she would have followed him to Tibet if he’d so much as crooked his little finger. It was a tender kiss, not overwhelmingly sexual, the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted, but was perfectly content to take his time getting there.
When it was over, he pressed his cheek to hers and exhaled a long, ragged breath. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Her fingers were still exploring the warm skin beneath the collar of his shirt. “No,” she whispered.
His breath tickled her neck. “Then you’re not mad at me, for not being a poor man?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but she was drowned out by a shout from upstairs. “Mom?”
She felt his body stiffen. Slowly, he pulled away from her and they gazed into each other’s eyes. The shout came again, more insistent this time. “Mom!”
Every particle of DNA in her quivering, she ran a hand through her hair and tried desperately to remember her son’s name. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
“Iggy’s missing from his cage again!”
chapter eleven
It was amazing, the pandemonium one missing iguana could bring to a reasonably peaceful household. Three hysterical kids and one distinctly uneasy husband were no help at all in finding the AWOL reptile. Together, they turned the house upside down, but the little sucker had vanished into thin air. How a three-foot-long iguana could vanish into thin air was beyond her, but the evidence was right there, in front of her eyes. Or, more precisely, missing from in front of her eyes.
“You don’t suppose he got out, do you?” Luke said plaintively, turning on the porch light and gazing out at the hard ground. “He’ll freeze to death out there at this time of year.”
“He didn’t get out. He’s hiding somewhere. Probably because you guys are raising such a ruckus. When things quiet down, he’ll show up again.”
“Hopefully not in my bed,” Jesse said.
Rose raised both eyebrows. “You’re not afraid of him, are you?”
“Of course I’m not afraid of him. That doesn’t mean I want to sleep with him.”
“If we don’t find him,” Mikey pointed out helpfully, “he’ll starve to death.”
“He’ll eat spiders,” Rose said. “Or dog food. The way I keep house, he could probably live for a month off the table scraps on the dining room floor. Stop worrying.”
“Mom?” Devon said. “You don’t suppose Chauncey got him?”
“Chauncey wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Chauncey’s terrified of him.”
“Then where is he?” Luke demanded.
“This is a big house. He could be anywhere. If you cleaned your room, you might find him. Hell, if you cleaned your room, you might find the lost city of Atlantis.”
They finally gave up the search and sat down to supper. But it was a dismal meal in a house of mourning, and afterward, the kids all trooped upstairs in wretched silence. When they were out of earshot, Jesse said, “I’m warning you, Rose, if I find that creature in my bed, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”
She patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
***
The next morning, as she sat at her desk, the heady fragrance of red roses tickling her nose, she had difficulty thinking of her husband the same way as before. It was difficult to believe that the man sleeping in her bed was the Michael Starbird, whose identity had long been cloaked in secrecy and whose prose made her pulse pound and her throat go dry. She had admired his work for so long, had admired his finely drawn characters and his astute observations about people and his ability to create and maintain edge-of-the-seat suspense. Was it really possible that the unflappable, even-tempered man who slept beside her every night was the same one who created such intense, edgy, primal emotion on the page?
She glanced again at the roses, reached out and touched a single bead of water resting on a blood-red petal. It ro
lled off and landed on her desktop, smudging the ink on an envelope. It shouldn’t make a difference. She didn’t want it to make a difference. This marriage wasn’t about emotion. It wasn’t about love, or sex, or even friendship. It was about practicality, about honor, about bettering her children’s lives.
But it wasn’t as simple as she’d thought it would be. He wasn’t as simple as she’d thought he would be. It was difficult to remain indifferent toward a man who wrote earth-shattering prose, sent her flowers for no reason at all, and commiserated with her kids on the loss of their beloved pet.
She couldn’t let herself fall in love with him. She’d been that route before, and it brought nothing but heartache. Men, no matter how charming, no matter how attractive, sooner or later ended up disappointing a woman. It was a simple truth, a fact of life she’d long since accepted. And Rose intended to protect, no matter what the cost, the wall of safety glass she’d built around her heart. If she let Jesse break through that, the result would be devastating.
Goddamn flowers.
***
Torey Spaulding’s test results surprised her. The woman had demonstrated a high aptitude in a number of areas that Rose would never have guessed at. With her outstanding mechanical ability, Torey would probably be a crackerjack at running the giant presses at the paper mill in nearby Easton. So Rose picked up the phone and dialed Geneva Spencer, head of personnel at the mill, and managed to sweet-talk her into a Thursday afternoon interview. Then she called Torey. “I think we might be able to get you in at the mill,” she said, and explained in detail the results of the testing. “If you can meet me here at 1:30, we’ll ride over together. Can you get somebody to watch the kids?”
“My sister might be able to. Long as Buddy don’t find out. He don’t usually get home on Thursdays until five. Will we be back by then?”
“Your appointment’s for two o’clock. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. You should be home way before Buddy.”
“Well,” Torey said reluctantly, “okay.”
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