My Secret Wife

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

Gabe turned to Maggie. She was wearing a simple white cotton dress that left her shoulders bare and ended just above her knees, and made her look both surprisingly fragile and very beautiful. At the insistence of the couple presiding over their wedding vows, she had tucked a white rose into her wavy honey-blond hair in lieu of a veil or hat. The overall affect was simple and understated—she made a very lovely bride.

  They had decided to get married out on the beach, next to the ocean, rather than inside, in the intimate little chapel, but Gabe wasn’t sure this was much better. He still felt as if they were married as he leaned forward, looked into her light-green eyes, and delivered a light, gentle kiss to her cheek, even though he knew that in spirit they definitely were not. That this was just a formality done for propriety and their child’s sake.

  Maggie smiled, stepped back and, looking as eager to end the event as he, thanked the young couple for fitting them in on such short notice. Still clutching the bouquet of silk flowers that had come with the Basic Wedding Package she headed with Gabe to the car.

  “Want to have dinner on the way home?” Gabe asked, as they trudged through the sandy dunes and blowing sea grass that separated the ocean from the wedding chapel parking lot.

  Maggie’s forehead creased as she glanced at her watch. “Maybe we just could hit a drive-through on the way and grab some sandwiches,” she suggested instead, “since we have a two-hour drive ahead of us back to Charleston.”

  “Okay,” Gabe did his best to curtail his disappointment as he held her door and watched her settle gracefully into the passenger seat of his sports car.

  He supposed that was what he got for having agreed to get married in North Carolina, instead of the state in which they lived. But given the fact that South Carolina had a twenty-four-hour waiting period—and North Carolina had none—and they didn’t want anyone besides themselves to know about their hasty wedding just yet, there had really been no alternative. To get married before her monthly ovulation window opened, and/or one of them changed their mind, they’d had to drive north to the quaint little coastal community, apply for a wedding license before the county records office closed for the day and then find a chapel to fit them in before they drove back.

  Now, the deed done, the plain gold wedding bands on their fingers, they were officially man and wife.

  MARRIED, Maggie thought, as she took off the plain gold band and dropped it into the zipper compartment in her purse. She was married to Gabe Deveraux.

  In name only, of course.

  But still, she thought as she rubbed the place on her finger where the wedding band had been, she was no longer the free woman she had been just a few hours ago.

  Nor was she really his wife.

  They were just…friends.

  Casual friends, she reminded herself fiercely, who were going to have a baby together as soon as they could get her pregnant the newfangled way. All that would involve would be plastic cups and syringes and hospital gowns and feet in stirrups.

  There would be no champagne, no roses, no romantic dinners for two. So why, she wondered, as Gabe turned his car into a fast-food restaurant with a drive-through lane, were her palms all sweaty and her heart in an uproar? It wasn’t as if the vows they had just said meant anything. Noticing she had taken her ring off, Gabe removed his wedding band, too, and shoved it in the pocket of his starched white dress shirt.

  Abruptly looking as if he felt as uncomfortable and ill at ease as she did sitting side by side in his small sports car, Gabe held the wheel with one hand and loosened his navy and khaki tie and undid the top button on his shirt with his other. He braked as they reached the microphone, then turned to her, a bit impatiently. “What would you like?”

  Maggie scanned the menu and tried not to think how awkward this all was. Neither of them had been nearly this tense on the way to get married. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich, fries and a lemonade,” she said quietly.

  Gabe ordered that for her, and a burger meal for himself.

  As he drove around to the first window, Maggie reached for her purse.

  Gabe held up a hand before she could get out her wallet. “I’ve got it,” he stated firmly as he pulled cash out of the pocket of his khaki trousers. Two minutes later he turned back onto Route 17. “Open mine for me, would you, please?” he said.

  Grateful for something to do besides look at Gabe and notice how handsome he was, Maggie flipped open the box, then looked at the thickness of the sandwich inside. Two patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, pickles, onions and catsup.

  Gabe caught her frown and glanced down. “Probably not the smartest thing to be eating while I’m driving, is it?” he observed with a beleaguered sigh.

  Maggie shrugged, knowing it didn’t have to be a problem if they didn’t want it to be. “We could stop,” she suggested.

  “No.” Gabe’s jaw was set. “I can do it. Just hand it to me, would you?”

  Maggie knew a man with his mind made up when she saw one. Her father had often had that very look on his face when he’d made a bad decision and decided to soldier through and stick to it nevertheless. “Okay,” she said, just as agreeably. She picked the sandwich out of its little brown box.

  “Just squish it together some so it’s a little flatter,” Gabe directed.

  Maggie kept her skepticism to herself and did as directed. “I don’t know about this,” she hedged. The sandwich looked and smelled delicious, but the eating of it threatened to be awfully messy.

  “It’ll be fine,” Gabe said, taking the sandwich.

  One bite later, the first glob of catsup hit his thigh.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gabe said stubbornly, as he continued to eat and drive.

  “Okay,” Maggie said, wondering what it was about men in general that made them have to do things their way, even if it was clearly the wrong way. “It’s your clothing. But at least let me put a napkin or two underneath.”

  She opened one up all the way and, being very careful not to touch his thigh, laid it across the leg of his tailored khaki dress slacks. The napkin slid to the floor the next time he braked, along with the two bits of lettuce he had dropped.

  Maggie put down her own sandwich long enough to add another napkin, but this one she tried to angle around his well-muscled thigh so it wouldn’t slide off. Unfortunately, that had her touching him, ever so slightly, for about two milliseconds. If one discounted the slight tensing of his facial muscles, he didn’t seem to mind.

  In a rather moody silence, he finished his sandwich. She finished hers—a lot more neatly since she was able to use both hands. As they worked on their drinks and fries the silence continued to stretch out between them, and Maggie wished she had taken him up on his offer to have a quiet dinner together somewhere on the way back to Charleston, but it was too late for that. And meantime, it looked like that one glob of catsup was really sinking into the fabric of his trousers, despite Gabe’s half-hearted effort to dab it off with a crumpled napkin.

  “You need some water on that stain,” Maggie said.

  “Don’t have any,” Gabe said. Keeping his eyes firmly on the road, he pulled his tie even looser and unfastened another button on his shirt.

  “I think I do.” Maggie rummaged in her purse and came up with a small bottle of water. She took an unused napkin, wet it, and was about to hand it over when Gabe frowned all the more.

  “I really don’t want to mess with that, Maggie.”

  Maggie eyed the spreading orange stain and warned right back. “If you don’t get it off before it dries, you could ruin those slacks.” She saw no reason to let his male pride be the cause of that.

  “Then you do it,” he ordered with a disgruntled frown. “Otherwise, just let it be, and I’ll take it to the dry cleaners when I get home.”

  And forever remember their wedding night as the night he also ruined a perfectly good pair of dress pants? Maggie didn’t think so.

  Frowning too, she added a little more water to the napkin, leaned over and
pressed the damp cloth to the orange stain on his trousers. Saw it dim somewhat, as she carefully dampened and blotted, and knew that one more good effort on her part would probably keep his pants from being ruined forever.

  She was just about to take care of it when Gabe turned suddenly into a church’s vacant parking lot, brought his sports car to a quick stop, and caught her wrist in his hand. “Stop,” he commanded fiercely.

  And looking down, Maggie saw why.

  NOT EXACTLY the way he’d thought he would get aroused on his wedding night, Gabe thought. But here he was, with a hard-on to rival any he had ever had. And Maggie sitting beside him, looking as pale and stricken as any virgin bride about to be led to the bedchambers of a husband she barely knew.

  Only they weren’t going to consummate their marriage.

  Not the usual way.

  And her touching him this way was only reminding him of that.

  A riot of pink color flooding into her cheeks, Maggie snatched back her hand. “Oh, Gabe, I’m sorry,” she said in a low, trembling voice.

  So was Gabe. Because now he knew, if he hadn’t before, just how much he desired her. And always had. Even as he saw how truly innocent she was at heart. She might have been engaged to his brother—the magazine editor and authority on modern men and their lives and desires and problems—but Maggie didn’t know a damn thing about him and his needs. And given the exceedingly stricken way she was staring at him, probably never would, Gabe thought, his spirits sinking even more.

  “Forget it,” Gabe said, doing his best to mask his disappointment as he thrust his sports car back into gear and headed back onto the coastal highway.

  “I never—”

  “I said forget it!” Gabe commanded gruffly as two things happened simultaneously: the outskirts of Charleston came into view, and the cell phone on his dash began to ring.

  Glad for the diversion, Gabe took the call, then turned to Maggie as soon as it ended. “I’ve got to go straight to the hospital,” he told her. “I don’t have time to drop you first.”

  “No problem,” Maggie said. She offered him a stiff smile. “I can get a cab.”

  “Or just come with me,” Gabe said on impulse, finding he wasn’t as anxious to have their time together end as he’d initially thought. “And see if you can help me find out who Jane Doe is, now that she’s awake and talking once again.”

  TO MAGGIE’S RELIEF, Gabe’s mood brightened as he parked in the hospital lot and went from secret-new-husband mode to doctor. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about the drying stain on his slacks, but Gabe rebuttoned the top of his shirt, fixed his tie and slipped his navy sport coat back on. Determined to look as little like a bride as possible, Maggie removed the flower from her hair and tied the pale blue cardigan sweater she’d brought along just in case it got too cool in the car around her neck. Nevertheless, as she and Gabe made their way through the hospital corridors up to the fourth floor, Maggie caught a few curious glances from some of the nurses. She wasn’t sure whether they recognized her as the woman who had once been engaged to Chase Deveraux before getting briefly involved with Gabe, or simply thought she and Gabe were about to go out for the evening. But interest in them was high just the same. And it was speculation, Maggie thought to herself, as they entered the hospital room where Jane Doe was, she could well have done without. She didn’t want or need to know how quickly the people who worked with Gabe predicted his relationship with her would be over. Because everyone knew Gabe only hung around until the damsel in distress was no longer in trouble.

  Gabe took Maggie’s elbow as they neared the room. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I’m really interested in your assessment of my patient,” he said.

  Maggie tingled at the warmth of his breath against the side of her face. “I’m no expert.” She had no medical background whatsoever.

  “But you’re a woman,” Gabe said, coming even closer. “And a very easy to talk to woman at that.” His eyes caressed her face. “I think our Jane Doe might really warm to you.”

  Maggie had to admit she would like to help someone in need of assistance herself. She also noted immediately upon entering the corner room that the eighty-something patient was a lovely lady, even in a hospital-issue gown. Her long white hair had been caught in an elegant bun at the back of her neck. She had a delicate, aristocratic bone structure, a petite slender frame and exquisitely manicured hands that—Maggie was willing to bet—had never seen a dishpan or a toilet-bowl brush.

  She was sitting up in bed, her faded sea-blue eyes open wide, her cheeks flushed with fever.

  “He’s coming to get me, you know,” Jane Doe told Gabe and Maggie the moment they walked in the room.

  “Who’s coming?” Gabe asked, as he took her chart off the holder on the wall next to the door.

  Jane Doe smiled serenely and clasped her hands in front of her. “Why, my sweetheart, of course.”

  “What’s his name?” Gabe asked gently, as he discreetly checked her chart.

  “Oh, I can’t tell you that,” Jane Doe said vehemently, as Gabe set the chart down on the end of her hospital bed.

  “Why not?” Maggie asked, moving to the opposite side of the bed, so she could be close to the woman and yet out of Gabe’s way.

  “Because our love is very private,” she said seriously, as she looked up at Maggie. “And I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it. Besides, I don’t really think my mama and papa would approve if they knew what I was doing.”

  Gabe took the stethoscope out of his pocket and put it in his ears. “How old are you?” Gabe asked, as he listened to the woman’s chest.

  Jane Doe gave him a reproachful look as Gabe moved from her front to her back. “A lady never tells her age.”

  Gabe listened to each of her lungs. “Do you know what day it is?”

  “Saturday,” Jane Doe claimed triumphantly.

  Maggie and Gabe exchanged worried glances over Jane Doe’s head. It was Tuesday.

  “And the year?” Gabe persisted, as he put his stethoscope away and picked up her chart once again.

  “I wish you people would stop asking me that,” Jane Doe complained, sighing loudly. “It’s 1938, of course.”

  Gabe nodded agreeably and wrote something on her chart.

  “Is my driver coming for me soon?”

  Gabe looked up with a charming smile. “We’d love to call him for you, if you would just give us his number,” Gabe said.

  “No.” Jane Doe clammed up again. “I can’t do that.”

  “All right. You just rest now.” Gabe patted her arm. “And call the nurses if you need anything.”

  “All right, doctor.” Jane Doe settled back against the pillows and closed her eyes.

  “Is she okay?” Maggie asked as soon as she and Gabe slipped from the room.

  Gabe frowned as he headed for the nurses’ station at the other end of the hall. “I don’t like the sound of her lungs. I’m going to order a chest X-ray. She might have pneumonia.”

  Even Maggie had been able to tell Jane Doe was running a fever. “Would that make her confused?”

  “It could. The combination of fever and illness can do that, especially to older people. I just wish we could find her family—they must be worried sick about her.”

  Maggie nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  “The only thing I can do,” Gabe sighed wearily. “Contact the media. I hope they’ll come out and do a story on her in time for the eleven o’clock news.”

  “SO WHAT’S WRONG with this Jane Doe?” Lane Stringfield asked Gabe as the two of them met in the reception room of Gabe’s office some twenty minutes later. The local TV station manager had arrived ahead of his camera crew and reporter. And Gabe had an idea why. He hadn’t come for the story—Lane had staff to do that for him—he had come to talk to Gabe. Probably about his estranged wife.

  “She definitely has a sprained ankle. She fell on the sidewalk in the historic district late last night. Someo
ne on Gathering Street found her around four this morning. It looked as if she had been there for some time. She was confused and dehydrated, in considerable pain and shock—and she also seemed to be running a little fever, which may have been what caused her to lose her balance and fall in the first place. We were hoping a day in the hospital and a little sleep would make her lucid, but when she woke up a little while ago she was as confused as ever and has stayed that way. I was brought in to evaluate her. I think she may be developing pneumonia—I’ve ordered a chest X-ray and other tests to help us make the diagnosis.”

  “Is she senile?” Lane Stringfield asked, still making notes on the small leatherbound pad he had taken out of his coat pocket.

  “I don’t know,” Gabe said frankly. “It wouldn’t appear so. Usually senile patients aren’t nearly as well-groomed as this lovely lady is. Which makes me and the other doctors and nurses on staff think her confusion is something new. But to properly pinpoint the reason for her confusion we need to know who she is and what her medical history is. Which is where you come in. We simply want to run a brief picture of Jane Doe in her hospital bed and ask anyone with information about who she is to come forward.”

  “I gather you’ve already talked to the residents on Gathering Street.”

  “The police have,” Gabe affirmed seriously. “No one in the neighborhood knows her.”

  “All right. I’ll instruct my crew as soon as they get here and supervise the filming of the story. In the meantime, as long as we have a few moments,” Lane continued, looking straight at Gabe. “I want you to tell me what’s going on with my wife.”

  MAGGIE HAD BEEN SITTING quietly waiting for Gabe to be able to take her home until this point, but now she figured she really ought to be going. Not wanting to witness what might be a very delicate and/or embarrassing conversation between the two men, she rose to her feet. Gabe grabbed her hand and tugged her back down beside him on the tweed sofa. “You can stay for this,” he said firmly, still holding onto her hand.

  Suppose I don’t want to stay, Maggie thought rebelliously. But given the grip he had on her, she knew she wouldn’t get out of there without a tussle, and there was no reason to indulge in anything that undignified.