Wife, Mother...Lover?

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  Mitch thought about driving because he could cover more ground faster, but rejected the idea, since in the car he couldn’t take the footpath to the park nearby. Surely she’d gone to the park. It was well lit and there were almost always people around at this time of night.

  Once again, he asked himself why the hell he’d ever let her go out without finding out the path she intended to take, or why he’d ever let her go when it had been so dark by the time she left.

  Marc was right. There was more going on here than he’d admitted.

  For just a second, he imagined what it would be like if he lost Leanne, too. And in a rush, all the emotions he’d experienced the day he’d lost Kelly came back to him. It had been like taking a hit from a live wire, and it had left him reeling.

  He couldn’t breathe at first, and he could barely think. All he could do was feel.

  He wasn’t supposed to care this much for Leanne, he told himself. He wasn’t supposed to care for anyone, really, except the boys. Mitch had made a promise to himself after Kelly had died that he wouldn’t ever put himself in a position to be hurt like that again.

  It had been too late to stop himself from loving the boys, but he honestly thought he could guard his heart against falling for anyone else. And he hadn’t worried at all about falling for Leanne, even after he had decided to marry her.

  After that weekend together in the hotel suite, he told himself there was simply no understanding or explaining the mysteries of what attracted a man to a woman. They were adults, and they wanted to be together. There was certainly no crime in that.

  Of course, he’d reached the point where he could hardly wait to get home at night, not just because he was anxious to get into bed with her, but because he liked being home now. Because the boys were happy, and home was a pleasant place to be. Because he wasn’t alone anymore. Because... he was happy, Mitch realized.

  When he’d least expected it, he’d found happiness again.

  With Leanne.

  Mitch walked faster as he turned onto the footpath that led between the backyards of the houses around the perimeter of the park.

  It was because of Leanne that he felt this way; he couldn’t deny that anymore.

  Did he love her? Was that possible? Was he really that stupid as to allow himself to love another woman, after what had happened the first time?

  Scanning the edges of the park, his fear growing with every step he took, he saw nothing, nothing but trees and grass and an empty jogging path.

  He couldn’t love Leanne, he told himself. He was grateful to her for what she was doing for him and the boys. He felt guilty about the way he’d treated her in the past and wished he could make that up to her by helping her find her way back to her family. He wished she weren’t so damned vulnerable or that she didn’t hold so much inside herself, not sharing it with anyone, even him. And when he took her to bed, every other thought flew right out of his head, except for the possibility that he might never get enough of her.

  At the moment he was about to take off running to cover the ground a little faster, because there was an image in his head of her lying on the ground somewhere, bruised and bleeding and needing him. It haunted him with his every step.

  But none of that added up to love, he told himself, trying very hard not to panic.

  Then his cell phone rang.

  For a second he was afraid to answer it. When he dug it out of his pocket, he realized his hand was trembling. Dear God, where was she? And what had happened to her? He flicked the button that activated the phone and said, “Hello.”

  “She’s back,” Marc said.

  “And?” He waited for the bad news.

  “She’s fine.”

  Mitch sagged against a tree trunk as the tension left him.

  “Look,” Marc continued, “I don’t know what’s going on with you tonight, but I thought I should warn you. Your wife doesn’t seem too happy about you searching for her, and I don’t think you’re going to make things any better if you come charging home to give her a piece of your mind.”

  “Well, that is just too damned bad, because that’s what she’s going to get.”

  Marc laughed. “Did you figure out why you were so worried about her?”

  “You think this is funny?” Mitch inquired, unable to believe his partner was actually laughing.

  “No. Really, I don’t. I’ve just been wanting to ask how the two of you are getting along, and I don’t think I have to ask anymore.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “That things must be going well for you to get this bent out of shape because she’s a few minutes late coming home.”

  Mitch said something vile.

  Marc only laughed harder. “Try to calm down a little before you get back home, okay?”

  Mitch tried, because he supposed Marc was right. He wouldn’t get very far with Leanne by jumping her the minute he walked in the door. Women did not respond well to orders, he’d discovered, even when something like their safety was involved. And he normally managed to control his impulses to give orders to anyone outside of the job. But he was finding it very hard to do that right now.

  He forced himself to take his time walking back home. Marc was gone. Mitch managed not to slam the front door behind him when he got inside. As he shrugged out of his jacket he could hear the upstairs shower running.

  He climbed the steps, walked across the hall and looked in on the boys. They were out cold. Then he walked to the bathroom door, checked the knob and found it was unlocked. And the shower had stopped.

  He was still more upset than he had a right to be and more angry, and he didn’t think there was any way he was going to be able to hide that from Leanne tonight.

  Turning the knob, he opened the door and found her standing in that damned white robe, with her hair still dripping wet. But she was safe. He hadn’t quite believed it until he’d seen her with his own eyes.

  Judging from the look on her face, she was angry, too, he noted, wondering where he could find some bit of diplomacy and patience inside him to help him deal with this.

  It might help if he could keep from staring at her in that robe, especially if he could keep from remembering she’d looked just like this that first morning at the hotel, when he’d taken her so quickly and a little roughly, without a bit of patience or finesse.

  And he wanted very much to do that again.

  “Dammit,” he muttered, feeling like a quarterback who’d just fumbled the ball in the stupidest way possible.

  “You burst in here to curse at me?” she wanted to know.

  “No, but I’m reevaluating my options right now.”

  Leanne leaned back against the cabinet and crossed her arms in front of her, the motion pulling the material taut across her breasts. “Oh, really? And why is that?”

  “Because right now, you look so much like you did the morning after our wedding, and I can’t seem to think of anything else but that.”

  Leanne was ready to yell at him, to ask him what he thought he was doing, tearing off after her like that, when all she’d done was take a couple of extra laps around the park. And while she was at it, she was going to ask what he thought gave him the right to tell her not to go out after dark, and whether he was mistaken about exactly what century this was.

  And then he started undoing the buttons on his shirt, and she forgot exactly how she intended to launch into the whole conversation.

  Next he reached for the zipper on his jeans, then for her.

  “Mitch,” she protested, knowing they needed to settle this.

  “Later,” he said.

  He drew her hard against him, his mouth opening over hers. She found herself flush up against him as he pulled at her robe, then groaned in satisfaction when bare skin met bare skin. She clutched at the muscles in his arm as he lifted her onto the vanity and settled himself against her.

  Leanne felt the heat instantly in him and in her. And the memories of that first incred
ible time they’d been together heightened all her senses. She’d been crazy to have him inside her then, and he’d trembled with a vain effort to hold back. Not that he needed to, or that she’d wanted him to. She’d been his for the taking from the instant he’d walked inside that door.

  And she’d gone into his arms more than a dozen times since, just as eager as she was now, just as needy and as greedy. When nothing but a look or the sound of his voice could turn her into some kind of maniac.

  He was kissing her deeply now, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. She was hungry for every bit of him, not wanting to let herself think of how very much she needed him.

  Urging him closer, she opened herself to him, and he slid inside her. Clinging to him, she rocked her body against his, wanting him to take her quickly, powerfully, wanting him as out of control as she was.

  And he was. She smiled against his lips as he groaned out her name. She felt him pulsing hotly deep inside her body, felt an answering shuddering inside herself as she called out his name.

  His arms were crushing her to him, so that she could barely breathe, and every muscle in her body seemed to have worked itself beyond exhaustion, to the point where she wasn’t even certain she could stand, much less walk.

  She felt a bone-deep satisfaction at being with him this way, a happiness so intense it frightened her.

  But she wouldn’t give in to the fear now, she told herself, hugging him tightly against her and pressing her face to his shoulder. She couldn’t lose a moment like this to her fears, not when she and Mitch were as close as two people could possibly be, not when he was still deep inside her, connected to her body and soul.

  Leanne very nearly told him that she loved him.

  But in that instant, he drew away from her, just enough that he could see her face, kiss her with his wonderfully soft, full lips, then lift her into his arms and carry her to her bed. She leaned against him, let him tuck her under the covers, then pull her into his arms.

  “Do you always argue and make up like this?” she asked, drowsy and satiated and so comfortable lying next to him.

  “Whenever I can get away with it,” he said.

  Leanne laughed, loving the humor that had been reborn in him of late. The grimness of the past year and a half were fading. She wondered how much of that Mitch was aware of, wondered whether he was really as happy as Ginny had claimed.

  She was just getting comfortable, when she opened her eyes and noticed something out of place in her room. It was the window—in the wrong place. Confused, she glanced down at the bed and found that it was too big. The pattern on the sheets was one she didn’t recognize.

  “Surprise,” Mitch said, leaning past her to snap on the lamp on the bedside table.

  A new bedside table, she realized. A new lamp. New drapes. New comforter. New bed. New room.

  Leanne went still, trying to understand what he’d done and why. This room was no longer his and Kelly’s. She barely recognized it, in fact, because it was so different now.

  The wedding picture, the one in which Mitch and Kelly had looked so young, was gone, as was the one in the silver frame that had graced the night stand.

  The new bed was whitewashed iron that scrolled at the top of the headboard and the footboard; the chest and dresser were stained a dark green that matched the scrolling vines of the sheets, the comforter and the shades. They were all things she’d admired on her shopping trip with Ginny this morning.

  Would a man do this for a woman who was staying only a year? Leanne wondered.

  “You don’t like it,” Mitch said.

  “No, it’s...just what I helped Ginny pick out for her bedroom this morning.”

  “Ginny’s not getting a new bedroom.”

  “I figured that out.” She turned on her side, facing him, trying for something neutral to say. “I guess I know why Ginny didn’t want to come home this afternoon. You must have worked fast.”

  “I want you to be comfortable here,” he said earnestly.

  “Thank you.”

  He reached around her again and snapped off the light. Leaning back onto his pillow, with one hand up behind his head, he said carefully, “About running in the dark... Leanne, let me win this one. Think of it as having a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can play it anytime you want with me. But don’t ask me to give on this.”

  Leanne was surprised—more than anything by the sincerity of his plea. Still, she needed to get away sometimes, and he needed to understand. She could take care of herself.

  “Mitch, I’ve been in some of the worst hellholes in the world, usually by myself or with one local person as a guide. I’m not stupid or careless or helpless when it comes to defending myself. Would you like to see my certificates from self-defense class? Or should I just throw you flat on your back on the rug?”

  “I didn’t say you were helpless,” he said carefully. “What I meant to say was that I was worried about you.”

  “Oh.” How could she argue against that? The idea of having him worry over her and want to protect her, even if she was perfectly capable of protecting herself, was a wonderfully appealing one. Still, running time was sacred time. “It’s going to get dark earlier and earlier now. And I need to get out and run to clear my head and to think.”

  “How would you feel about a treadmill?” he wanted to know.

  “Bored.”

  “We’ll get you a Walk man. Or a running partner, for when it’s dark. I could live with that.”

  Feeling mischievous and just wanting to give him hell, she added, “And maybe someone to hold my hand while I cross the street?”

  But Mitch didn’t smile. He didn’t look the least bit amused. Leaning toward her, he put his hand along the side of her face, his fingers sliding into her hair. “Leanne, I’ve lost one wife already. I don’t want to lose another.”

  She stared into his dark-green eyes, so deep she thought she could drown in them. He looked tired and somehow vulnerable tonight, she decided.

  And he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

  It was the closest he’d ever come to saying he needed her, that she was important to him, and not just because of the threat to take the boys away.

  Leaning closer, Leanne brushed her lips to his, and when she would have drawn away, he held her there and kissed her deeply, urgently, sweetly.

  When she finally pulled her lips from his, she agreed to what he wanted.

  Two days later, Mitch still hadn’t figured out what had been eating her that night before she’d gone out running. It hadn’t all been about her wanting to run in the dark by herself and him trying to tell her not to.

  She’d given in on running alone. Fortunately, Marc liked to run, too, and they had agreed to get out three or four nights a week together. Mitch was incredibly relieved knowing Leanne wouldn’t be out alone.

  And she seemed pleased with the changes he’d made to their bedroom.

  But something was still bothering her.

  Mitch wondered if maybe he was just more in tune with her moods now, or maybe he was concerned about whether she was happy with the boys and him.

  More and more often, he forgot that all this had come with a time limit, that a year from now she was supposed to pack her things and walk away, and he wasn’t supposed to care that she left.

  The thought nagged at him—Leanne walking out the door.

  When his hands were on her, even in the smallest of ways, he felt immensely better. Touching drove the panic away, and it lit a little fire inside him. Not necessarily a sexual one, but a different kind of need. To be close to someone. To be a part of someone. To forget how it had been to be so alone.

  At the moment, he wanted to know what was eating away at her.

  It was a Sunday afternoon. Will Dalton’s first birthday had been ten days earlier, but various family obligations had kept the entire clan from gathering to celebrate until today. Marc and Ginny’s backyard was crowded with friends and relatives.

  Leanne’s
cameras had finally arrived from New York, and she’d been as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. He was amazed at how quickly she’d gone through film, how she seemed to have stashed cameras all over the house and was forever snapping shots of the boys.

  He’d watched her work and was pleased that it made her happy. But he’d watched her take casual shots haphazardly on many evenings. Now he saw her work the party like a professional photo shoot. She was concentrating hard, focusing on the kids. He heard the click of the shutter and the whirl of the film advancing automatically as she fired off shot after shot.

  She worked with an intensity that amazed him, and she looked...satisfied, in a way he’d never seen her before.

  Mitch felt the first flutterings of dread.

  This was what she used to do, and from what Kelly had told him, she did it very, very well. She must have; after all, people had sent her all over the world to photograph places and things.

  Even that morning after their wedding day, when she’d told him how sick she was of all the travel, she’d admitted she still loved taking pictures. Well, there were only so many pictures she could take in the backyard of the boys and the neighbors’ kids.

  What if she missed taking her pictures more than she would miss him and the boys if she left?

  He watched her work until she was tired and she sat down in a corner of the backyard, staring at something with a wistful expression on her face. Mitch couldn’t tell what she saw until he went and sat down beside her.

  Because his ever present compulsion to touch her was even stronger than usual now and because he didn’t see any reason to fight it any longer, he let his hand close over one of hers.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “Marc and Hannah. They’re amazing together.”

  “They’re very happy,” he said, feeling as if he were dancing around the edges of some emotional wound. “Why would that make you sad?”

  Leanne turned her head to him, blinked once, then again, then stumbled over her words when she said, “It just surprises me...now that I know. He’s not her father. I mean... I know he is. But he’s not. I’m not explaining myself very well.”