Wife, Mother...Lover?

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  Mitch felt like a heel for having left her there, no matter what she’d said to him. Kelly had told him once that Leanne always found it difficult to accept help from anyone, that she thought it came from the way Leanne had grown up. Leanne was the one who’d taken care of everyone else, Kelly had explained.

  Mitch wondered if that was true, if what he’d perceived as out-and-out rejection of him was nothing more than an instinctive reaction from Leanne. Maybe she truly never let anyone help her.

  Maybe there was no one to help her.

  Mitch heard the words so clearly in his head, as if someone had inserted them directly into his mind. He was certain they hadn’t been spoken aloud. Still, he turned and looked all around the room. But he saw nothing, heard nothing more.

  “Great,” he mumbled. “Now I’m going nuts.”

  Leanne sighed and shifted on the uncomfortable sofa once again. This time her hand landed on Mitch’s thigh. Mitch froze at the contact and stared at her hand. He felt a sudden rush of heat, an uncomfortable stirring in his body in places that hadn’t stirred in a long, long time.

  “Dammit,” he muttered, pushing her hand aside and feeling as if his own body had betrayed him.

  He didn’t want any other woman’s hands on him, didn’t want to kiss anyone, to hold anyone, definitely didn’t want to share his bed with anyone. For reasons he could not understand, some people had felt the need to tell him about certain aspects of being widowed. Eventually, they claimed, his sex drive would return. They said it wasn’t anything he should be concerned about or feel guilty about, no matter what happened.

  How in the hell was he supposed to keep from feeling guilty about having sex with another woman? He wanted to scream at anyone who dared broach the subject with him. But at the same time, he didn’t want to have such a conversation. He wished people would just leave him alone with his grief.

  His sex life, or lack of a sex life, was no one else’s business but his, and he knew what he wanted.

  No one. No one but his wife.

  And she was gone. Forever.

  Impatient now, Mitch put a hand on Leanne’s shoulder and shook her harder than he had at first. Her eyes came open, and she blinked and turned her head away from the light from the stairway. Then she looked at him as if she didn’t quite see him, rubbed at her eyes and finally sat up.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Is it morning? Already?”

  “No. It’s a little after one, and you need to get to bed. This sofa is the most uncomfortable place in the house to sleep.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  She rubbed a hand against one eye. then paused in the midst of doing that. Her hand came away from her face, and she stared at her own fingers, wet with her tears. Then she seemed embarrassed by the idea that she’d been downstairs crying and that Mitch knew it.

  “I’ll be up in just a minute.”

  “Leanne.” Mitch knew he sounded frustrated and impatient, which was the last thing she needed right now. He tried to remind himself that Kelly would want him to help her, but he just didn’t know what to do.

  What did Leanne want? he wondered. What did she need? What did he possibly have to give?

  He watched as she sat up and scooted to the end of the sofa with her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, so she was barely touching him now. And she kept her face turned away so he couldn’t see her expression at all.

  Mitch knew he would find no peace tonight until this was settled.

  “Earlier,” he said, “when you were looking at Kelly’s picture, what were you thinking? What was wrong?”

  Leanne stared at him as if he’d lost his mind even asking her such a question.

  Searching deep inside himself, he found an inkling of patience and drew on it. “Tell me,” he said softly. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “You’re helping me—with the boys,” he said. It wasn’t an answer, but he hoped it would suffice.

  “Mitch,” she said lightly, “you don’t have to be nice to me to get me to help you with the boys. I’m doing it because I want to, and I’m doing it for Kelly.”

  “I know that.” Mitch decided to switch subjects, to see if he could make it through those barriers of hers with some combination of bluntness and honesty. “Kelly said you never let anyone help you with anything.”

  “She did?” Leanne looked surprised and wary.

  Mitch nodded. “If she was here now, she would try to help you.”

  And then Leanne started to cry. He watched her eyes fill with tears, watched her fight an impossible battle to stop them.

  For Kelly, he reached for her, pushing aside all resistance she offered, and pulled her into his arms. It was awkward at first, and her resistance was strong. She would not let herself relax, would not stop fighting for control over her emotions.

  But soon she was crying too hard to fight him. Mitch held her against him, urged her head down to his shoulder and hung on tight, telling himself he would do the same for a stranger he encountered on the job who’d experienced some tragedy. Surely he could do the same for Kelly’s sister.

  He closed his eyes, then felt the chill in her body and the way she was trembling. The only thing he could think to do was hold her closer, and somehow, she ended up sitting in his lap. Because she was still cold, he ran his hand up and down her back. Because she was shaking and crying so hard, he bent his head down to hers, put his lips next to her ear and whispered to her, trying to calm her as best he could.

  “I miss her so much,” Leanne said brokenly.

  “I know,” Mitch said. “I do, too.”

  “And I need her. I need to talk to her and to explain....”

  “What?” he asked, thinking she needed to get this out. “If she was here, what would you tell her?”

  “That I loved her. Mitch, I always loved her, and I missed her so much all those years I was gone.”

  “She missed you, too,” Mitch said, thinking that might help. But it seemed to make her cry even harder.

  “I would give anything now if I’d just come home while she was still alive, so I could have told her all these things, so we could have had some time together without fighting and without all the misunderstandings between us.”

  And then Mitch knew exactly what she was feeling. He had yearned for the same thing, had begged for it.

  One more chance, one more hour, one more minute, to tell Kelly how much he loved her and needed her, that she was everything good and beautiful in his life. To beg her not to leave him. To ask her to stay close to him and guide him as best she could. To give him some sign that wherever she was, she was all right.

  Mitch felt strangely comforted that the woman he now held in his arms understood the myriad of emotions he’d felt upon losing his wife.

  Maybe he could help Leanne through this, he thought. Maybe she could help him with the boys, and he could help her. And together, they would all get past this. And Kelly would be happy.

  Leanne shifted in his arms, lifted her head from his shoulder and inched away just enough that he could see her face. She looked absolutely miserable and utterly lost and sad.

  He wondered if he’d been wrong about her all these years—that she wasn’t at all cold or remote or somehow oblivious to all the pain her leaving had caused her brother and sisters. Or maybe she’d changed, maybe Kelly’s death had changed her.

  It had changed Mitch in ways he was still trying to understand. He wanted to move more slowly through life, to take the time to enjoy the special little moments, to not get so upset when things didn’t go his way. He wanted to be kinder, and maybe this was some sort of test for him. Maybe Leanne was here for a lot of different reasons, some of them having to do with him and the lessons he needed to learn about life.

  Reluctantly, he put his hand to her face and wiped away her tears. Leanne froze and sucked in a breath. He decided he couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d slapped her in the fac
e.

  Did she think he was such an ogre? Yet she’d still come back to Chicago, determined to stop him from giving up the boys.

  Mitch found himself wondering what was going on inside her head. At once, he became aware of the fact that she was closer to him than any other woman had been in years, that she was warm now, that her shaking had given way to a fine trembling he could still feel because she was so near.

  He looked over her face, taking in the flush of her cheeks, the wetness clinging to her lashes, the moisture still on her cheeks, the soft, fullness of her lips.

  It felt good to be this close to her, to warm her with his body and comfort her. And now that they were this close, it would be so easy to dip his head and press his lips to hers.

  Her lips were already slightly parted, and he wanted to taste her. What would it be like to have a taste of her?

  Blood moved in a dizzying rush to his groin, and he felt his body harden, felt a stab of desire so strong it staggered him. And embarrassed him. And shocked him.

  Whatever the hell had happened, it must have frightened Leanne, because she shifted on his lap, probably trying to get away from him, and for an instant, he felt her bottom pressed firmly against him.

  He wanted to sink into the floor right then and there. Leanne, her face flaming, a look of utter disbelief on her face, jumped to her feet and ran upstairs.

  Mitch stood, too. He thought about going after her. There had to be something he could say to defend himself and to explain. But what?

  “Dammit!” he swore. What had just taken place here?

  He felt as if the world had shifted on its axis, throwing everything off balance and changing all the rules on him yet again. And he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted to go back to the way things had been before, just as, after Kelly had died, he’d longed to go back to the days when she was still with him.

  He turned and looked to the mantel, which held a photograph of her taken two winters ago, when she was pregnant with the boys, and then closed his eyes and tried to feel her presence in the room with him. He tried to remember as clearly as he had the day before and the day before that how it had felt to have her in his arms, how she tasted and the little sounds she made when he kissed her, how it was to sink deep inside her.

  Aw, Kelly, he said to her, hoping she would hear. Don’t leave me. Not now. Not this way.

  But he already felt the loss. The memories were still there, but they were fading on him. Already, it seemed as if it had been forever since he’d touched her.

  Obviously, his body was going to make certain physical demands on him, even if emotionally, he simply wasn’t ready.

  Well, to hell with his body and anything it might want, Mitch decided. He still loved his wife.

  Wearily, he climbed the stairs, passed the closed door of Leanne’s room and quickly checked on the boys. Then he climbed into his bed, knowing he wouldn’t sleep now.

  Punching his pillow, which felt all out of sorts when he put his head down on it, he tried to get comfortable by shifting this way and that. Finally, he rolled over. The moon was nearly full, and its light was shining in the window through the open blinds. The light fell across the photograph in the silver frame that he’d brought upstairs not an hour ago. It seemed to bring almost a glow to the face of his wife.

  For a second, he thought she was alive inside that photograph and smiling just for him, as she had that day at the lake when he’d snapped the picture. And he would like to think that she had something to be happy about now, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what that would be.

  Tell me, sweetheart. Tell me, and maybe I can be happy, too.

  But she didn’t. Her image just smiled back at him from the photograph. Mitch felt strangely comforted by that, before he drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Leanne did not sleep. She lay in her bed, listening as Mitch came up the stairs, as he walked past her closed door, then went into the boys’ room, then into his own bedroom. She heard the bed give beneath his weight as he lay down, heard the slight creaking of the bedsprings a few minutes later as he rolled over once. And then she heard nothing at all.

  How could he sleep? she wondered. After what had happened downstairs....

  Her face flamed at the memory. She’d fallen apart, sobbed out her loneliness and her deepest regrets to him, let him hold her while she cried. And honest to God, all that had been on her mind was the fact that she hated letting anyone, especially him, see her that way.

  But then other little thoughts started creeping in—that it was nice to have someone hold her. To have a man hold her. To have him hold her.

  There, she’d admitted it to herself. It had felt so good to have Mitch hold her tight.

  For so very long, no one had. She hadn’t allowed anyone to get that close to her, hadn’t allowed herself to depend upon anyone that way. She told herself she didn’t need anyone, but her loneliness made a mockery of that idea.

  Still, she couldn’t need Mitch.

  She couldn’t want him, either.

  And if he, for some sliver of time in the darkness downstairs, thought he might want her? Well, it couldn’t have been her that he wanted. He didn’t even like her.

  He must be lonely.

  Men got lonely, just as women did. And Kelly had been gone nearly a year and a half now. How long could any man be expected to be faithful to a wife who was nothing more than a memory?

  Leanne wasn’t a prude and she wasn’t easily shocked. She told herself she wouldn’t have been offended by the idea of Mitch becoming involved with another woman this long after Kelly’s death.

  But what had happened downstairs—that had shocked her.

  Nothing had happened, she told herself. He hadn’t even kissed her. But she’d imagined what it would be like if he had kissed her.

  It had been as though they were caught in some invisible web, with his mouth so close to hers. She hadn’t been able to move or even to look away, hadn’t been able to see anything but him, hadn’t felt anything but his body against hers. She’d nearly tasted his lips on hers. And then she’d moved ever so slightly on his lap and realized he was fully aroused.

  And then he’d looked at her as if she were the devil come to life in his own living room.

  Did Mitch blame her for what had happened? Did she blame herself?

  Leanne couldn’t say for sure. She was still too surprised by the whole thing. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly two now. Adjusting her pillow and burrowing deeper into the bed, she tried to close her eyes and to relax, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t think of anything but Mitch.

  Soon she would have to face him again. Maybe they would both pretend that nothing had happened and leave it at that. She hoped she could manage the feat, that Mitch would let her.

  Otherwise, staying at Mitch’s would be nearly impossible. She had enough guilt inside her. She couldn’t handle any more—especially not the guilt of wanting her sister’s husband.

  Chapter 5

  The boys rose indecently early, sleeping until six-thirty on the best of days. And they were disgustingly cheerful upon waking. They giggled and chattered and bounced around with enough energy to power a small city, all before the sun rose.

  The next morning was no exception. Mitch lifted one eyelid and found himself almost nose to nose with a near-matched set of grinning toddlers who were laughing and shouting, “Papa, Papa, Papa,” as they held out their arms to be lifted into his bed.

  “You climbed out again!” He tried to sound stern, because it scared him that they could get out of their cribs while he slept and because if a baby gate had been invented that they couldn’t outsmart or out climb, he hadn’t yet found it.

  The gate at the door to their bedroom stumped them some days, but not all. The one at the top of the stairs—they hadn’t gone through yet. But Mitch suspected it wasn’t from lack of trying, merely that they came to find him as soon as they awoke.

  He lifted Teddy in
to his bed, then a bruised and battered-looking Timmy. Teddy grinned and nearly stuck his finger in Timmy’s bruised eye, then chattered on excitedly.

  “Boo-boo! Tee! Boo-boo!”

  Timmy pushed his brother’s hand away, and the next thing Mitch knew the boys were rolling around on his bed and giggling.

  Mitch closed his eyes and tried to soak up the happiness radiating from them. They were his strength—the only reason he managed to get out of bed every day and do all the things a normal, sane man was expected to do.

  After Kelly had died, Ginny Dalton, his partner’s wife, had told him to concentrate on taking care of the boys, on simply meeting their physical needs at first. A mother of two herself, she’d known how draining and how all-absorbing that task would be. Once their basic needs were met, it was time to concentrate on making them happy, on showering them with love. Because he would love them, even if he could have sworn after Kelly died that he’d never love another living thing for fear of losing it.

  Ginny, he’d found, was a very wise woman.

  When all else failed him, he focused on doing what had to be done for Timmy and Teddy, which left little time for feeling sorry for himself or worrying about how he would manage to go on living.

  He simply went on.

  Somewhere along the way, when he wasn’t thinking about getting on with his life or about getting through his wife’s death, he’d made it past the worst of it.

  Sixteen months, he thought. Obviously, he was going to live.

  At the moment, with the boys laughing and climbing all over him, life wasn’t bad.

  Doing their best baby lion impressions, the boys growled at each other as they rolled across Mitch’s bed. Deciding to get in on the game, he snagged one of them by the ankle and pulled. Timmy, now ready to defend his captured brother, leaped across the bed and landed hard on Mitch’s chest.

  Mitch decided an early-morning play session was in order. He flipped them both onto their backs and started tickling them. Before too long, he was on his back and the twins were on top of him.

  “Gotcha, Papa! Gotcha!” they chorused.