The Man She Married

by Muriel Jensen

  Rosie laughed. “I’ll go call Francie right now.”

  His arm still around her, Gideon drew Prue toward the small dance area and took her into his arms. The truth was, she thought as she melted against him, he was her biggest weakness.

  THE GROUP OF MEN Hank had assembled to talk to about the security program seemed to Gideon to be tailor-made for the project. Two were former state policemen out of jobs because of budget cuts, one was a former cop friend of Evan Braga’s and one had been a private investigator in Los Angeles. All the men had experience in self-defense and weaponry.

  “If trained together,” Gideon told Hank after he’d interviewed them, “they’d be good enough to be used as an elite force. I can’t imagine where the need for it would come up in Maple Hill, but if it did, you’d be ready. Berger’s a sharpshooter, Ransom’s got commendations out the wazoo, Phillips has hostage negotiator experience, and Martin, the P.I., has more official and underground connections than seems safe for anyone to have.”

  Hank nodded, looking pleased. They sat at a table in the back of the Barn. “That’s what I thought. I’m thinking about putting them on salary so they don’t get away from me until you have the project ready, and I wanted to be sure I was right about them.”

  “I think you are. But what are you going to do with them? It seems like overkill for little old Maple Hill.”

  “We’ll provide local security,” he replied, “but then we can contract out for special jobs that need muscle or simple investigation.”

  “Like what? Surveillance? Intelligence gathering? That sort of thing?”

  Hank nodded. “Why not? We deal in all kinds of talents, fill all kinds of needs. Why not branch out into something for which there’s always a need but seldom anyone to fill it. There’s a lot we can do on a local level—provide practical security personnel, of course, but we could get the information needed for abuse cases, insurance fraud—you name it. The kinds of things an ordinary police force can’t devote much manpower to. And then there could even be—other stuff.”

  Gideon’s concern was deepening. “What other stuff?”

  “National stuff. International stuff.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re considering?”

  Hank pushed his coffee aside and leaned toward him. “Probably not, but I imagine you do. I’m presuming by the fact that you and Prue are glowing like a couple of halogen lights that the phony-marriage setup on the lake isn’t phony anymore?”

  Gideon remembered that one of his first conclusions about this town was that there were no secrets. “That’s right.”

  “Then, you’re staying?”

  “We haven’t talked about it. Prue has dreams of going to New York.”

  Hank nodded, apparently accepting that he had no control over that. “Well, if you move to New York, then I’ll have to find another solution to the problem of a security boss, but if you’re staying, I’m offering you the job. You can just oversee, if that’s your preference, or you can take an active part—that’s up to you. I think what we have to offer could ultimately be big.” He named an impressive salary. “Anyway.” He downed the rest of his coffee and pushed his chair back. “I’ve got to go pick up the girls at the pool. You think about it, talk it over with Prue and let me know what you decide.”

  They stood and shook hands over the table. “Nobody could accuse you of thinking small,” Gideon said as Hank handed Rita their ticket and a bill as she passed.

  Rita caught his arm and said quietly, “If you need an operative no one would suspect,” she said, apparently quite serious, “I’m your woman. I have a permit to carry a gun, and I’m the best groin-kicker in the business.”

  Hank took a self-protective step back. “I’ll bear that in mind, Rita. Until then, everything you overheard is not for publication.”

  She nodded. “Gotcha. Bye.”

  Hank’s eyes widened as they met Gideon’s. “I didn’t hallucinate that, did I?” he asked. “Rita Robidoux did offer to work for our security team?”

  Gideon laughed as they walked toward the doors together. “That’d be enough right there to encourage me to move to New York.”

  They parted company in the parking lot and Gideon went home, surprised to spot another rental car pulled up near the porch. Justine and Georgette had planned to go over the contact sheet again today to determine whether or not anything had to be reshot. They hadn’t mentioned they were expecting guests.

  He let himself in and stopped in complete surprise several feet into the room when he spotted Claudia Hackett on the sofa, petting Drifter.

  She closed the distance between them at a run and threw herself into his arms.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ROSIE DROVE the van back from Boston. It had been several hours of easy driving and fun conversation on the way up, followed by a stressful and traumatic drive across the city to get to Forsythe Fabrics.

  Prue forgot the terror of Boston’s famous offensive-driving experience as she looked over her fabric order and found it to be even more wonderful than she’d hoped. Everything she’d ordered was there and even more sumptuous in large yardage than it had been in the small amounts she’d purchased to create her line.

  She and Rosie packed the wrapped fabric lovingly into plastic boxes in the van, then had lunch to fortify themselves for the trip back across town.

  “I’ll drive,” Rosie said as they paid their bill. “I’ve grown accustomed to playing chicken without flinching.”

  Prue had noticed that about her. She had a curious fearlessness usually associated with someone who had nothing to lose—or nothing to live for.

  They’d talked about some personal things on the drive over. Rosie had said that she knew everyone in town talked about the misfortunes that had plagued her family, just as they’d talked about Prue and Gideon’s Maine Incident.

  They picked up the thread of the conversation on the way back, as though a hair-raising drive through Boston hadn’t separated the thoughts. “You seem to function beautifully anyway,” Rosie said as they headed west, the traffic sparse. “To behave as though you still feel normal. All I want to do some mornings is hide in the closet.”

  Prue smiled in Rosie’s direction as Rosie drove with confidence. “I had a miscarriage,” she admitted, finally able to say it without feeling guilt attached to it—the guilt that she’d somehow failed her baby and the guilt that Gideon never knew it had happened. Now that she’d resolved those questions, the pain had abated considerably.

  Rosie glanced in her direction, her mouth open in surprise. “Because of the…”

  “No. Just because.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I brought it up to make the point that the miscarriage was the only loss I suffered—and, of course, a great deal of embarrassment. But you lost a father and a brother, then your husband just…”

  “Ran off,” Rosie said with a shake of her head. Then after a moment, she added, her voice tight, “I had a miscarriage, too.”

  It was Prue’s turn to stare with her mouth open. “I never knew that! I was away at the time, though, so I didn’t realize you’d been…pregnant. What happened?”

  “I fell down the porch steps,” Rosie said in a calm tone, though her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “When I found my father’s body on the swing.”

  “How awful!”

  “It was. It was an ugly, horrible time, and it lives with me every day.” She expelled a deep sigh, then sat up straighter and added in a steadier voice, “I started a bridal shop so that I could focus on happy times with people and hopefully be busy enough not to think about that time anymore.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Mostly. When I’m at the shop. It’s harder at home, though I’ve moved into the guest house at my mother’s. I sold the house my husband and I shared at the top of the hill to the developer who built the condos. I knew he’d tear it down and I wanted that.”

  “Were you that unhappy together?”
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  She thought about that. “No, actually. But I thought we understood each other until my whole world crumbled and he walked away without looking back.”

  “What a rat.”

  “Yes.”

  They were quiet for a long time, then they stopped at a drive-through to pick up soft drinks and for Prue to take over the driving. They were about an hour ahead of schedule.

  “It’s probably good to be near your mom,” Prue speculated as she drove on.

  Rosie laughed lightly. “It isn’t good for anyone to be near my mom. She’s snooty and grumpy and leans a little heavily on the Paxil these days.”

  Prue put a hand out to Rosie’s knee. “I’m sorry you’re having such a tough time. How does she handle your nephew if she’s having these difficulties?”

  “She seems to have an endless amount of patience for him,” Rosie said without the resentment that might have accompanied such a statement. “My brother Jake was Mom and Dad’s favorite, you know—” she went on “—so she’s happy to have Chase, but when she feels stressed, he spends time with me since I’m right across the yard. And Francie dotes on him, so he’s in good hands.”

  Prue nodded. “It’s good that you’re looking out for each other. Paris and I moving home was difficult at first but finally solved a lot of the problems we had with each other when we worked together.”

  Rosie rolled her eyes at the passing scenery. “Yeah, well, it’ll take a miracle for us to all appreciate each other again. And there aren’t many of those around anymore.”

  “You want me to come to the studio with you?” Rosie asked as Prue pulled into the driveway of Bloombury Landing, Rosie’s family’s home. “To help you bring all that stuff up to your studio?”

  Prue shook her head. “No, you’ve done more than enough. Thanks so much for coming with me today.

  It made what’s usually a horrible trip very enjoyable.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Rosie replied. “Call me when the shoot’s over and you’re ready to start filling Prudent Designs’ orders.”

  Prue made a quick stop at home to see if Gideon was there to help her carry up the fabric, but he was gone. Georgette and Justine were also out. Drifter, sprawled out on the wing chair, looked up to see if food was coming, but when he was simply patted instead, he went back to sleep.

  Prue jumped back in the van and headed for the studio.

  She was surprised when she pulled into the Chandler Mill parking lot to see Gideon’s truck there. What was he doing? she wondered. There was also a rental car with Massachusetts plates parked beside his truck.

  Anxious to see him again and to show him the wealth of fabrics in her possession, she put a paper-wrapped bolt of black silk chiffon over her shoulder and pressed the button for the elevator.

  When the doors opened on the second floor, she readjusted the burden on her shoulder and pushed the studio door open, a smile on her lips for Gideon.

  But what she saw instead made her drop her burden to the floor, convinced she’d suffered some weird mental reversal and was going insane. Blood rushed to her face, throbbed in her temples, felt as though it might fall from her eyes in large red tears.

  Claudia Hackett stood in the middle of Prue’s studio in black thong panties and a matching, barely-there bra from which her breasts seemed to be trying to escape. The moment was so vivid, so clearly what she’d finally convinced herself hadn’t happened once before that it froze time and seemed to go on and on.

  Then someone stepped out from behind a screen in the corner, a look of horrified surprise on his face.

  It was Gideon.

  “Prue…” he said cautiously, taking a step toward her. “Think a minute. This…”

  She ran. Or she tried to. He caught her at the elevator and pulled her back to him. “Listen to me!” he shouted at her.

  She hit him in the shoulder with a doubled fist, connecting with real power, anger fueling the blow as every process in her body tried to make up for that frozen moment. And while she experienced a rush of physical power, every emotion she could identify—rage, agony, desperation—seemed to have to fight for survival.

  Gideon’s head shot back with the blow, but he didn’t lose his grip on her.

  “Are you going to do this to us a second time?” he demanded quietly, obviously enraged himself. His eyes blazed. No wonder. He probably hadn’t expected her home for another couple of hours.

  “Why not? You did!” She raised her arms to dislodge his—one of the few moves he’d ever shown her that she’d been able to master. Or maybe he let her do it; she didn’t care. The full heart she’d been so proud of only yesterday was suddenly a small, black shriveled thing landing like a weight in the pit of her stomach.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised a hand to stop him.

  “Save it!” she said, her throat so tight the words were barely a whisper. “You may have explained her away once, but you can’t do it a second time.”

  Something seemed to go dead inside him, too. The blaze went out of his eyes, and all his strength and energy was suddenly gone.

  “You know what?” he asked in a flat voice. “I’m not interested in explaining anything to you ever again. Goodbye, Prue.” He went to the stairway and she heard his angry tread all the way down.

  When she looked up again, she was surprised to see Claudia standing in the hallway in her underwear, flanked on either side by Georgette and Justine. She hadn’t noticed them before. She blinked and looked again, so convinced of what she thought she’d seen, it crossed her mind ridiculously to wonder if there’d been some sort of orgy going on in her studio.

  Then Georgette came toward her, a grim, almost pitying look in her eyes, and Prue got a terrible sense of foreboding—or was it déjà vu?

  “This is Claudia Hackett,” Georgette said, extending a hand toward the nearly naked young woman as Justine put the smock Prue sometimes wore when she worked over the girl’s shoulders.

  Claudia slipped her arms into it and, holding the front closed, took Georgette’s hand. She allowed Georgette to lead her toward Prue, though she looked as though she’d prefer to run in the other direction.

  “Tell her why you came, Claudia,” Georgette said.

  It was the first time Prue had ever heard the young woman speak. To contribute to the Hollywood quality of the whole situation, she had a voice like Judy Canova from the old fifties musicals—high and squeaky with the suggestion of the Bronx in it.

  “I came with Roger to a pharmaceutical conference in Boston,” Claudia explained. “And while he was in meetings, I came to Maple Hill to thank Gideon in person for everything he did for me—talking to me about changing my life, getting me money to go to school.” She smiled cautiously. “I’m on the dean’s list at Purdue and I’ve got a great husband, and his family likes me.”

  Justine appeared again with the long-sleeved white cat suit over her arm. “Georgette wanted a shot of this,” she said, “but since you refused to put it on, she was just going to shoot it on the hanger. Until she saw Claudia.”

  Claudia shrugged apologetically. “I can’t gain weight if I try.”

  It occurred to Prue, in a corner of her mind not occupied with the horrible thing she’d just done, that that was reason enough to kill Claudia, even discounting the mistake she’d caused Prue to make.

  No, Prue thought grimly. No one caused her to make it. She did it on her own.

  “He was standing behind the screen while I changed my clothes, Mrs. Hale,” Claudia said, tears in her voice. “And Justine and Georgette were both in the room.”

  Making a last-ditch stand for dignity, Prue looked at Justine and said stiffly, “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was in the bathroom,” Justine explained gently.

  Prue turned to Georgette.

  “I was standing near the worktable against the wall when you opened the door. You never even saw me.”

  Prue drew a pointed breath. “You could have said something.”


  “I was too…shocked,” she admitted, her tone accusatory. “I guess I couldn’t believe you’d do that a second time after all he did to get you into his house.”

  In emotional self-flagellation, Prue was going to accept that as just criticism, until a second thought made the words suggest something suspicious.

  “Get me into his house,” Prue repeated, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Georgette?”

  Georgette shifted her weight impatiently. “Don’t get uppity with me, Prudence. And if ever a woman was misnamed, young lady, it’s you!”

  She was getting that a lot lately, Prue thought.

  “I called Gideon because I wanted photos of your brilliant designs. I knew you were separated and I didn’t care. I figured if you were silly enough to mistrust a man like him, then you could damn well live your life alone if that was what you wanted. But he saw it as an opportunity to get you close to him, to work on that stubbornness of yours. He asked me to pretend that I thought you were still married so that you’d move in with him for the duration, and then I’d agree to the article and the ad campaign.”

  Prue was indignant and embarrassed until she realized that he’d gone to an awful lot of trouble to reestablish communication with her. It probably would have been a lot easier for him to go to Alaska and live in a tent until the lodge was rebuilt.

  “Just so we’re straight,” Claudia said, looking pale and worried. “I did come on to him that time in Maine.” She spoke quickly and urgently. “I’d never met a man like him before. My father took nudie pictures for a living—sometimes of my sister and me—and my boyfriend put me on the street to make extra money. I got away from him to start dancing, and when Senator Crawford became interested in me, I thought my life was going to change. But he did all the same things I’d seen before, only with more money.”

  “Claudia…” Prue wanted to stop her, feeling guilty for having thought her own past troubling. She couldn’t begin to imagine what Claudia’s had been like.