My Secret Wife

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Why was my wife at your beach house Sunday night?” Lane demanded, point-blank, the time for niceties and business obviously over.

  Gabe shrugged and looked at Lane as if Penny’s presence in Gabe’s house overnight were nothing for her husband to be concerned about. “She came over to talk to me.”

  “With a suitcase in tow,” Lane pointed out unhappily.

  Gabe spread his hands wide. “She didn’t plan to spend the night there. She was going to go to a hotel. But then I got called back to the hospital. She was having trouble finding a hotel room—this being the height of the spring tourist season—so I said she could just stay there.”

  Lane’s dark eyes narrowed. “Are the two of you having an affair?”

  “No. In fact, I tried to get her to stay with you, or at least not to do anything rash.”

  “And?” Briefly, Lane looked hopeful.

  Gabe frowned, perplexed. “And all I know is that she got a phone call here at the hospital on Sunday afternoon that seemed to upset her terribly. I saw her crying and asked her if everything was all right, but she didn’t want to talk about it. The next thing I knew she showed up on my doorstep, and she told me she had just left you.” He paused, looked directly at Lane. “I guess I just assumed if someone was having an affair, it was you.”

  “No.” Lane sighed, looking even more troubled and distressed.

  “Then what could have happened?” Gabe asked in shared concern. “Who could have called her at the hospital and upset her so much she started to cry?”

  And what, Maggie wondered, could that person have said to Penny that would have caused Penny to pack a bag and walk out on her husband?

  Lane shrugged. His broad shoulders slumped in defeat. “I don’t know what’s going on with her the past couple of days,” Lane confessed emotionally. He looked at both Maggie and Gabe plaintively. “I mean, I know she’s been really sad about not being able to have a baby, and that infertility can make a woman whose biological clock is already ticking kind of crazy. But I’ve told her that I love her, that I’d be willing to adopt, or have a baby via test tube or whatever she wants.”

  “Maybe you should do that again, then,” Gabe said, just as earnestly. “Maybe she’s just trying to be selfless in leaving you.”

  “Maybe.” Lane stood. “Thanks. Both for the story tonight, and being a friend to me and Penny.”

  “Any time,” Gabe said.

  Lane Stringfield paused at the door, turned back to Gabe. “Listen, I’ve heard your mom is in town again—apparently for good.”

  “Right.”

  Lane forged on hopefully. “Any chance she’d consider hosting a local television show now that she’s left the network?”

  Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know. I gave up trying to predict what my mother would or wouldn’t do a long time ago. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Will do,” Lane promised.

  Lane left and Gabe turned back to Maggie.

  Funny, Maggie thought. She’d thought she had a very good idea who Gabe was—the incessantly selfless Good Samaritan who busied himself helping one person after another. Now, having seen a flash of melancholy and pessimism in his personality as he talked with Lane, she wasn’t certain she knew him at all. She studied him openly. “The fact that the Stringfields might divorce really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah—maybe because I just never saw it coming for the two of them. They’ve been married for five years now. I’ve known Penny for just slightly longer. I attended their wedding and have been friends to both of them, and really feel they belong together.”

  “Then…?” Maggie asked, confused.

  Gabe shrugged. “I can’t explain Penny’s behavior any more than Lane can,” he told Maggie bluntly. “All I know for certain is that my own parents separated abruptly without any explanation and then ended up getting divorced. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to Penny and Lane, because I think they’d end up regretting it the same way my parents have.”

  “And yet,” Maggie observed quietly, “you took Penny in Sunday night, knowing how it would probably look to Lane and everyone else.”

  A muscle worked in Gabe’s cheek. He looked at Maggie, clearly resenting the implication. “She’s a friend. She showed up on my doorstep crying hysterically and telling me her marriage to Lane was over. What was I to do? Throw her out?”

  If that would’ve saved her marriage, Maggie thought, yes, that is exactly what you should have done, Gabe. But out loud, she said only, in a clear, polite tone, “You could have called Lane and heard his side of the story or let him know how upset his wife was and asked him to come over and talk things out with her.”

  Gabe scowled. “I didn’t want to make things any worse. And from the way Penny was acting, I thought Lane might have been cheating on her,” he admitted unhappily.

  “But you don’t think so now,” Maggie guessed.

  “No.” Gabe studied Maggie carefully, obviously wanting her opinion. “Do you?”

  “He didn’t act like he was,” Maggie conceded, just as cautiously, “but then I don’t know Lane. Or Penny. So I’m really not equipped to assess their behavior.”

  Gabe was silent, thinking. He looked at his watch. “I guess I better get you home,” he said glumly after a moment.

  Maggie nodded. Some wedding night this was turning out to be. Even for an-in-name-only marriage.

  Chapter Four

  Gabe had just finished rinsing the shampoo out of his hair Wednesday morning when he heard the doorbell. It was followed by pounding. Figuring it was probably the work crew, there to start their workday a little ahead of schedule, Gabe grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. He hurried downstairs to let the Chavez brothers in, dripping water as he went. He was stunned but delighted to see only Maggie on the other side of the threshold. He grinned at her shocked expression, and in an effort to lighten the sudden tension between them, said teasingly, “You rang?”

  An embarrassed flush climbed from her neck to her face, making her look all the more beautiful in that sweet and capable way. “I thought you’d be still asleep,” she said.

  Gabe glanced down at the beads of water glistening on his arms and chest. “Obviously, not.” Deciding this was nothing the neighbors needed to see, he motioned Maggie in.

  She stepped around him gingerly, looking fiercely independent once again. Her glance roamed the nearly-naked length of him. “You can finish drying off, if you want,” she told him coolly.

  “I want to hear what was so urgent first.”

  “Okay.” Maggie squared her slender shoulders, drew a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eye. “I called the fertility clinic as soon as it opened at 7:00 a.m. I told them you had agreed to be the donor, and scheduled an appointment for both of us this afternoon.”

  That was news. Important news. Gabe blinked, couldn’t help but ask, “Already?”

  The self-conscious blush in Maggie’s cheeks deepened a little more. “I’m ovulating. I know.” She held up a hand before he could protest. “It’s several days early, but when I took my temperature this morning, there was no denying I’m ready to go. So they said they would work us in this afternoon at four.” She peered at him, somehow managing to appear haughty and anxious at the same time. “You can make it, can’t you?” she asked in a low, trembling voice.

  Gabe knew it would take quite a bit of rearranging. He had a full day of patients at the hospital ahead of him, many of them critically ill and hence demanding lots of medical attention. But, this was why he had married her—to get her pregnant.

  Not, Gabe mused unhappily, that he was looking forward to spilling his seed into a cup. Not when it would have been so much better to do things the old-fashioned way. But making love to Maggie hadn’t been part of their agreement. And he was pretty sure, given the way she felt about him, that it wouldn’t be in the future, either. “Sure,” he said.

  Maggie narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not getting cold f
eet, are you?”

  Gabe shifted so he stood with his feet braced farther apart, one hand jammed on his waist, the other holding the towel precariously in place. “Actually, all of me is a little cold,” Gabe fibbed, knowing full well that wasn’t exactly true, either. There was one part of him that was heating up quite nicely. And Maggie would know it, too, if she let her glance fall past his waist.

  Deciding it would be wise to make his exit before that happened and he permanently scared off his new bride, he turned and started for the stairs. “I’m going to get dressed,” Gabe said. “Make yourself at home.” He returned five minutes later, dressed and ready for work. To his amazement, Maggie was no longer alone. His aunt Winnifred and her longtime butler, Harry, were with her.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” he told Winnifred and Harry.

  “Maggie saw us and let us in before we rang the bell,” Winnifred explained.

  Maggie smiled, looking a lot more relaxed—probably because they now had two very good chaperones, Gabe thought.

  “I figured you’d already had enough doorbell ringing for one morning,” Maggie said dryly.

  And she probably hadn’t wanted him to come down the stairs from the loft half-dressed again, Gabe thought.

  It was also clear from the way his aunt was dressed—in the clothes she tended her flower garden in—that she had rushed right over, too. Otherwise, his widowed aunt, who was one of the social doyennes of Charleston, would have taken the time to change into one of the elegant tea dresses she wore when making a daytime social call.

  “So what brings you here so early this morning?” Gabe asked his aunt cheerfully. His dad’s younger sister was one of his favorite people.

  “A story I saw on the local news about that lovely elderly lady admitted to Charleston Hospital night before last,” Winnifred said. “I can’t quite place her, but she looks very familiar to me.”

  Finally, they were getting somewhere, Gabe thought, pleased. “You think you’ve seen our Jane Doe before?” he asked hopefully.

  “I’m almost certain of it,” Winnifred said as she perched on the edge of Gabe’s living-room sofa. “But I just can’t place her. And the thought that I might be able to help her find her way back to her family, if only I could figure out who she is, is really frustrating me.”

  Gabe guessed there was at least thirty years difference between the two women’s ages, since his aunt was fifty and Jane Doe appeared to be in her eighties. So they probably hadn’t hung out together. But there were also some similarities. “She does look and talk as if she might be in your social milieu,” Gabe said. Both Jane Doe and his aunt Winnifred were lovely and proper very old-fashioned Southern ladies.

  “Except if she were,” Winnifred disagreed, “I would know who she is. You know how many parties I attend. There isn’t a charity or civic board in Charleston of which I am not a member.”

  Gabe had to admit his long-widowed aunt was extraordinarily well-connected. Since the death of her husband during their first year of marriage some twenty-five years before, Winnifred had thrown herself into her various good causes. “Maybe Jane Doe used to socialize a lot when she was much younger but doesn’t any more, which is why you vaguely remember her.”

  Winnifred mulled that over for a moment. Seeming to agree with the validity of his theory, she asked, “Do you suppose I could speak to her?”

  Gabe hesitated. They’d put a No Visitors order on Jane Doe before they ran the news story on her, to protect her from any unscrupulous people who might take advantage of her. “I suppose it would be all right if you didn’t stay long and didn’t agitate her—particularly if you can help us identify her. But I have to warn you that she has a slight case of pneumonia and she’s not feeling well.”

  Maggie looked concerned. “Is she going to be okay?”

  Gabe nodded. “I think so. We started her on IV antibiotics last night and the respiratory therapists were in to work with her, to keep her lungs open. But,” Gabe turned back to his aunt Winnifred, “according to the nurses I spoke to this morning, she is still very confused. So you mustn’t allow yourself to be upset by anything she says or does.”

  “Oh, I won’t. I promise.” Winnifred said. She then turned to Maggie and clasped both of Maggie’s hands in hers—a gleam in her eye, her smile suddenly matchmaker-sly. “So, I never did get around to asking you, Maggie. When exactly did you come back into Gabe’s life?”

  OUT OF THE MOUTHS of clever women, Maggie thought to herself.

  Behind Winnifred, her very proper British butler Harry harrumphed. “Perhaps we should be going,” he suggested firmly.

  “Not,” Winnifred turned and shot her handsome employee a look that was far more knowing than usual between an employer and employee, “until I get some answers to my questions.”

  “I’m helping Gabe with the rebuilding of his kitchen,” Maggie said, wondering even as she spoke if there was some sort of romance brewing between Gabe’s aunt and her long-time employee.

  And in return, Maggie continued silently to herself, Gabe is helping me have the baby I—we—both want.

  Winnifred turned to Gabe. “Well, this is a switch. Usually you’re the one helping the woman out of a crisis. Not the other way around.” Winnifred narrowed her eyes at Gabe thoughtfully. “Or is there a crisis here, too?” she asked bluntly.

  “Why would you even ask that?” Gabe retorted with uncharacteristic grumpiness. Striding over to the entertainment center housing his stereo, TV and DVD player, he made a great show of straightening his necktie while looking at his reflection in the glass.

  “Maybe because you seem to be assisting a different woman out of some sort of calamity every two to three weeks,” Winnifred shot back, just as calmly.

  Gabe swung around to face the three of them, steam practically rolling out of his nose. “You’re exaggerating. Besides, that’s not the case now,” he told them all flatly.

  “Good. Because Eleanor left me a note in my mailbox a few days ago saying if you didn’t stop that you would never find the right woman and settle down.”

  “Eleanor Deveraux, the family ghost?” Maggie cut in, wanting to make sure she was following this correctly.

  “Yes,” Gabe told Maggie impatiently. “And Eleanor is dead, Aunt Winnifred,” Gabe said sternly, letting them all know with a hard glance that he didn’t believe in what had come to be known as the Deveraux Family Legacy. The tale had started years ago, when his great-aunt Eleanor Deveraux had fallen in love with Dolly Lancaster’s fiancé, sea captain Douglas Nyquist. After being jilted, Dolly had put a curse on Douglas Nyquist—whose ship had sunk off the coast of Charleston in a terrible tropical storm—and on the entire Deveraux family. Eleanor had died within the year, of a bad case of the flu that everyone said was really a broken heart. As a result of “the legacy,” until the recent happy marriages of Gabe’s brothers, Mitch and Chase, every Deveraux romance or marriage had ended either prematurely or in tragedy. It had reached the point that some in the family—such as Gabe’s younger sister Amy—truly felt they had been cursed.

  “Ghost or not, she left this note.” Aunt Winnifred pulled a faded card from her oversized purse. Gabe looked at it, frowned all the harder, then shoved it back at his aunt, who deliberately ignored his scowl and handed it to Maggie for her perusal.

  “The penmanship is beautiful,” Maggie murmured as she ran her hand over the beautiful ivory and gold notepaper.

  “Isn’t it?” Winnifred beamed. “And it matches the card that was left on the deck of the Deveraux yacht the night Chase and Bridgett set off for their honeymoon. The card that predicted that Mitch would be next to get married. And of course he did!”

  “That was an arranged courtship!” Gabe protested.

  Winnifred turned to Maggie. “Did you know Mitch and Lauren stumbled onto Eleanor’s secret trysting place?”

  “They also found an intruder running in and out of it at all hours of the day and night,” Gabe said, looking all the more worried. “
At least until they changed the locks.”

  Winnifred sighed, her disappointment evident, as she said, “If Eleanor’s old love letters from Captain Nyquist hadn’t been stolen from the secret room, we could have compared the penmanship.”

  Gabe scowled, his patience with family lore clearly exhausted. “Forgeries happen all the time. Face it, Aunt Winnifred. Our family is the victim of an elaborate hoax.”

  “I DON’T THINK you should have been so hard on her,” Maggie said, after Winnifred and Harry had left for the hospital.

  Gabe’s stomach rumbled hungrily. He went to the small refrigerator beneath the bar in the living room and pulled out a carton of milk and a box of wheat flakes he’d brought home the night before. Remembering he had no dishes—they’d all been destroyed in the fire—he shook some cereal into an old-fashioned glass, added milk, and picked up a cocktail spoon from the cutlery set on the bar. He offered it to Maggie. She shook her head. “Thanks. I’ve already eaten. And I meant what I said about your aunt. She’s a wonderful person.”

  Gabe studied Maggie over the top of his glass. He didn’t remember her being so caught up in the specifics of the legend when she had been engaged to Chase. Or this emotional. But maybe that had to do with her ovulating, and thinking today might be the day her—their—baby was made. Gabe had to admit it was a sobering thought. Exciting, but sobering, too.

  With effort, Gabe turned his attention away from baby-making with Maggie and the fierce desire he’d already felt for her that morning, and back to the conversation at hand. “Aunt Winnifred is also completely over the top when it comes to our ancestor.”

  Her slender legs crossed at the knee, Maggie sat forward earnestly on the middle cushion of his sofa. She laced her fingers together and hooked them over one knee. “Perhaps understandably, since both Eleanor Deveraux and Winnifred lost the loves of their lives at very young ages and never loved anyone else.”