"What is it this week? The furnace?" His brow would crease in exaggerated thought. "No, you bought a new one last year. Let's see. Termites? Roof caving in? Does the wiring still have those little glass transformers, or whatever the hell they are?"
"Hey, come on," John would say. "The place wasn't wired until the Depression. Modern. Nothing to worry about."
Smiling, Natalie parked to one side of the packed-gravel driveway, noting that he wasn't home yet. The house was actually a charmer, with all the character her inherited split-level lacked. The deep front porch had the kind of swing where you sat on summer nights and visited with your neighbors, or necked with your boyfriend if you were young and the porch light was off. The exterior was painted a pale sea-foam green with the fancy trim typical of the era picked out in white and deep teal. Arbors framed a brick patio in back and a secret garden surrounded by boxwood hedges that John grumbled about but kept impeccably trimmed. Inside, the house was comfortable with oak floors and high ceilings and wonderful woodwork. Natalie envied John his house.
She remembered the first time she'd seen it, when John and his wife had her and Stuart over for dinner right after their honeymoon. She'd felt an acute, nearly painful pang. Both men were detectives; they'd both grown up in Port Dare. Why had Stuart settled for a characterless, 1980s split-level house decorated only with big-screen TV and stereo system when he could have created a home like this?
At the time, she'd suppressed the disloyal thought. John was married. Stuart's house was typical for a bachelor. They'd create a real home together.
Shaking off the memory and the regrets, Natalie unlocked the back door and carried her extra suitcase into the guest bedroom. Cautiously Sasha emerged from under the bed for a visit. As Natalie hung clothes in the closet, part of her was listening for the sound of a car in the driveway.
The rush of pleasure she felt when she heard it disconcerted her. He was a friend. No more. And today, of all days, he probably wished she wasn't here.
The back door rattled and Evan shouted, "Natalie's here!"
Sasha shot back under the bed.
"Evan!" his sister protested. "I can go say hello, too, if I want!"
"But I said I wanted to see her first!"
"Guys!" came their father's deeper, exasperated voice. "You're not dogs, and she's not a bone."
With a faint laugh, Natalie wondered if they'd even heard him. The kids were already jostling at her door for the right to enter first.
"Hey," she said mildly. "Don't hurt yourselves."
Evan gave his sister a look of dislike. "I just wanted to see you."
"We wanted to see you." His blond sister cast a quick glance at the suitcase. "Are you leaving?"
"Settling in a little more, I'm afraid," Natalie admitted. "I needed more clothes than I had."
"Oh." She sounded unaccountably relieved.
"Did you have a good visit with your mother?"
Maddie shrugged. "It was okay."
"I beat her at rummy. I'm a good rummy player," Evan declared.
"Well, I beat you. And Mom," his sister said with a sniff.
"You're bigger," he said simply.
Behind them, John filled the bedroom doorway. His searching gaze took in the suitcase, too. "You stopped by your house?"
"Geoff was there," she told him, feeling absurdly self-conscious to be folding a nightgown and laying it in a drawer. As though she hadn't paraded around his house already in her gown and bathrobe. And then there was the night she'd launched herself into his arms wearing one. She'd seen the way he carefully kept his eyes trained on her face as he gently suggested she don a robe before the rest of the Port Dare P.D. came into her bedroom.
John frowned. "At your house? Did you ask him to go with you?"
"No, he was there. He admitted that he hadn't wanted to take today off." Aware of Maddie and Evan, she said lightly, "He's sure the two of you are having a race with time and the bad guy to find the holy grail."
John's jaw muscles tightened. "He had no business there by himself."
Remembering that momentary, queasy impression that she didn't really know Geoff Baxter, Natalie couldn't help asking, "Don't you trust him?"
His look was frankly astounded. "Don't be ridiculous. He's my partner. What are you suggesting?"
"I'm not suggesting anything," she pointed out. "You're the one who doesn't want him in my house without an escort."
The lines from mouth to nose deepened. "We don't run off half-cocked on our own. He knows that."
"Talk to him." She smiled at the kids. "Have you guys had dinner? Did your dad buy you fast food all day?"
Evan climbed onto the bed and wrinkled his nose. "He packed a lunch and made us eat at the park. I wanted McDonald's."
"Egg-salad sandwiches," his sister agreed gloomily. "And carrot sticks."
"Don't forget the apples," their father reminded them with a quirk of his mouth.
"We didn't even get cookies," Evan concluded.
John's smile was gone. "The point of these Sundays is visiting your mother, not stuffing yourself with junk food."
Evan made the mistake of whining, "But usually…"
"Yeah, well, no more." John sounded hard, almost angry.
Their eyes widened. After a moment, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe sometimes."
"We ate our carrots," Maddie said, almost timidly for her. "So we've had a vegetable and a fruit already. Can we order pizza for dinner?" She added innocently, "Then you wouldn't have to cook."
Natalie saw him on the edge of refusing before his mouth twisted. "Maybe." He held up a hand. "You guys scoot. Let me think about it."
They were smart enough to obey without another word.
"I'm weak," he said, once they had clattered downstairs.
Tempted to laugh, Natalie stopped herself. "Because you want them to be happy?"
"Instant gratification doesn't make for a healthy, well-adjusted child."
"Nor does an occasional pizza corrupt your children." The moment the words were out, she shook her head. "Wait a minute. What do I know? I don't even have kids."
"You were one."
"So was Scrooge."
"My two love you."
"I'm a novelty," she argued.
He shrugged, but a faint smile played at his mouth. "They didn't like the novelty of Daddy packing carrot sticks for lunch instead of driving through Hamburger Heaven."
She rolled her eyes. "That's because I'm not issuing orders or frowning disapproval. I'm like … like candy."
The smile lingered in his eyes. "Versus carrot sticks."
Knowing she was being laughed at, still she said stubbornly, "Right."
The grin showed. "Suit yourself." He watched her hang up a blouse. "So, what do you like on your pizza?"
She smiled over her shoulder. "Anything not fishy."
He nodded and disappeared.
Natalie finished unpacking and then loitered in her room, having a cuddle with her cat and listening for the pizza delivery. Cowardly, maybe, but she was most comfortable with him when Maddie and Evan were around, too.
She emerged when she heard the doorbell half an hour later. The kids, crowing in triumph, barreled down the hall. For safety's sake, Natalie let them pass before following.
The evening was fun. They ate at the dining room table, but with paper plates. John brought pop cans and no glasses. "This is Maddie and Evan's night to clean up," he said.
"Okay," Evan said agreeably.
His sister surveyed the table first with quick suspicion to make sure she wasn't being tricked before nodding as well.
Natalie noticed they didn't talk about their mother. Instead it was school, soccer practices, dance lessons and Uncle Hugh, who apparently could make a really great farting sound with his armpit.
"He always was good," John admitted with a reminiscent gleam in his eyes.
After dinner they played board games, including a cooperative one where deep-sea divers share
d oxygen and tools to bring up treasure from the bottom of the ocean. Natalie laughed and bickered and felt positively childlike.
Except, of course, when she met John's quizzical, amused eyes. Darn it, this evening was not aiding her determination to regain her feelings of pure friendship toward him.
When he told the kids to get ready for bed, Natalie stood and stretched, too. "Good idea. Where do you keep the games? I can put them away."
"Why don't you have a cup of coffee with me?" The tone was one he might have used when telling a suspect he couldn't leave the area.
Half amused, half annoyed, she asked, "Am I in trouble?"
Passing her, Maddie wrinkled her nose. "Dad always talks like that."
He raised a brow. "What?"
"Nothing," his daughter said hastily, scooting out the door.
"You sounded dictatorial," Natalie told him. "Maddie says you always do."
"Sorry." This tone wasn't particularly repentant. "Stock in trade."
She hesitated, her hand on the back of the chair. "Was there something you especially wanted to talk about?"
"No, I … just hoped for your company." His expression became shuttered. "But if you're tired, we can skip the coffee."
His awkwardness and quickly hidden disappointment got to her where a demand didn't.
"No, I'd like to keep you company." Still on her feet, she said, "I'll pour the coffee."
When she came back from the kitchen, he still sat at the table, but he was massaging his temples. When he heard her, his head came up and he dropped his hands to his sides.
"Headache?" she asked.
"It would seem so." He grimaced. "Another of those every-other-Sunday symptoms."
"Hard day, huh?" She remembered his previous reaction to that choice of words. "Harder for her, I know," she amended as she set his cup in front of him and took her own to a safe distance on the other side of the table. "Which doesn't mean it can't be stressful for you."
"You know what hits me every time?" He cocked his head, and she realized he was listening to be sure Maddie and Evan were really upstairs and unable to hear him. "It's discovering all over again that she and I can't just talk. I can't say, 'Please don't make Maddie and Evan feel guilty because they can't come more often.' Hell, no, if I say that she accuses me of trying to get between her and the kids. I pull my punches because she's in a wheelchair, but on the way home I remember that all of our conversations were like that, even when we were married. Every word I said was loaded, every word she said was. Nothing could be simple. No, 'Hey, I had fun tonight.' Because if I had fun at a party it must mean I'd rather spend every evening with the guys instead of her. If she said she had fun, it was a challenge. 'Didn't you see me flirting with so-and-so? Aren't you jealous?'"
He fell silent abruptly, then swore. "What am I telling you this for? I sound so damn petty. Debbie's entitled to a few temper tantrums. Who can blame her? Don't listen to me."
"But I am listening. Just because she's ill doesn't mean she can do no wrong."
His lean, handsome face looked gaunt and older, lines deeper. "My trouble is, somewhere near the end of our marriage I realized I don't even like her. Fine thing, isn't it, marrying a woman you don't like. Apparently, it took me a few years to notice." He took a deep breath. "And now I feel guilty, because the woman I don't like is condemned to life in a wheelchair at an extended care home. If she's lucky."
And he had it all.
Natalie touched his hand, lying slack on the table. "There's no way for you ever to feel better about this, is there?"
His hand closed on hers. "Looks that way, doesn't it?"
"Tell me about her, when you first got married." In a way, Natalie didn't want to hear. She didn't want renewed jealousy to replace her deep pity for the pretty, lighthearted blond woman she had briefly known.
He said nothing for a moment, seeming to study her hand. Finally he released it and exhaled.
"You knew Debbie. She was my high school girlfriend. Always cute, popular, a cheerleader. I felt lucky to have her. I went away to the University of Washington, she took classes at the community college. I didn't see enough of her during breaks to get disillusioned. I graduated, went to the academy, was offered a badge, and proposed."
When he fell silent again, Natalie prompted him. "Were you happy at first?"
He squeezed the back of his neck. "Sure. Why not? Until you have kids, life doesn't get complicated. Yeah, I started wishing she had more interests, wishing she had the stomach to listen to me talk about my job, but, hey, she was pretty and feminine and she'd smile and tease me out of any mood. And I had Connor and Hugh and my friends if I needed to talk." John shrugged. "She wasn't cut out to be a cop's wife. She loved to entertain, would have been great as the hostess for a businessman." He gave a crooked smile. "She actually dated our esteemed mayor when we were all in high school. Think what a mayor's wife she'd have been."
Natalie didn't speak the obvious: Debbie would still be in a wheelchair.
John's face closed, and she knew his thoughts paralleled hers. "She could have been happier with someone else," he said.
"And so could you have been."
His flash of anger startled her. "Meaning?"
She lifted her hands. "Life's a bitch."
Anger extinguished, he gave a humorless laugh. "Yeah, yeah. And then you die. In other words, what's done is done."
"Something like that."
"And she would have come down with MS no matter what." The admission, however obvious, seemed dragged out of him.
"Well, she would have."
He rotated his neck to ease the headache she could see shadowing his eyes. "I did love her."
When Natalie said nothing—didn't know what to say—he grimaced. "I'm good company. Sorry."
"I didn't mind listening." However inadequate that was.
John gave her an odd look. "Do you know, I've never had a woman friend before."
"I'm not sure I've ever had a man as a friend, either," Natalie admitted. "I mean, I have lunch with men from work, but I don't tell them my deep, dark secrets, either."
He cocked his head. "Have you ever told me your deep, dark secrets?"
"I guess I don't have any juicy ones." She made a face. "I'm not a very exciting person."
Cradling the coffee mug in his big hands, John contemplated her. "You're very guarded. I sometimes wonder how well I really know you."
"Would you believe I'm shy?"
His reflective gaze stayed on her face. "From what I hear, you're a bulldog at work."
"That's different." Natalie looked down at her own, nearly untouched, mug of coffee. "It's like acting a part. There's a certain excitement." She gave a small laugh. "Like hunting for antiques in out-of-the-way junk stores. When I bag a big account, I get a rush of adrenaline."
"You want to stuff 'em and hang 'em on the wall?"
Her chin came up. "You're laughing at me."
"No." His smile faded. "I feel the same when I make an arrest that really counts. Triumph, pure and simple."
Natalie nodded, pleased that he understood. "But I can do my job without it being personal."
"You don't have to give anything of yourself away."
She dipped her head.
"Which you don't much like doing."
Natalie stiffened. "Why the psychoanalysis?"
Frustration flared in his eyes. "Because I've just been baring my soul, but you're not about to do the same, are you?"
Strangely, it was fear that rose in her. Fear of him? Fear that he could somehow compel her to reveal parts of herself she wanted hidden? Or fear that if she didn't, she would lose his friendship?
With dignity, she said, "I didn't realize this was a game. What is it, truth or dare?"
Eyes glittering with intensity, he searched her face for a disquieting moment before he shook his head, slammed down the coffee mug and shoved back his stool. "Forget it. I'm in a bad mood. You already knew that."
She tried
to make her tone light, as though nothing had happened, but her voice shook slightly. "Yeah, I kinda guessed."
"I've got to get the kids in bed." He turned away.
"John?" Her heart pumped fast and hard; she already knew she was going to be rash.
He stopped but didn't turn. "Yeah?"
"I think it's because you're a man," she said hurriedly. "I can't seem to get past that."
Now he did turn slowly, expression arrested. "Why?"
She was chickening out. "I don't know. Because you are. Because I never had brothers or male friends in high school or…"
"We've known each other a long time."
Natalie couldn't tell what he was thinking, and that made her more nervous. "Yes."
"Don't you usually quit noticing what friends look like, when you've known them long enough?"
She nodded almost reluctantly. It was true. Her roommate in college had been a girl with burn scars, but she'd no longer seen them after a while.
"So why," he said very softly, "can't you quit noticing I'm a man?"
Because she was attracted to him.
A tiny shock almost stilled her heart. She'd known the answer all along. Maybe, on some level, she had always been drawn to him.
Wordless, she met his eyes.
He took a step closer. She found herself sliding off the stool to face him. He was a large man; she did sometimes forget that. But right now she was exquisitely conscious of his broad chest and shoulders, his looming height, of the way he dwarfed her.
"Could it be," he said, in that same silky voice, "for the same reason I can't forget you're a woman?"
She sounded very strange, as if she heard herself through a long tunnel. "And why is that?"
His intensity arced to her, as powerful as a touch. "Because, God help me, I keep thinking about kissing you."
Natalie drew a shaky breath and chose truth. Her heartbeat deafened her. "I've … thought the same thing. Sometimes."
He said something she didn't understand, something rough, profanity maybe. The next thing she knew, one of his big hands wrapped around her nape and his mouth descended to hers.
* * *
Chapter 9
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HIS PARTNER'S WIFE Page 12
