by Toni Blake
“What things?”
She could read his look easily enough. It said, You’re being pushy and nosy. But she wanted to know because she cared about him. And in that moment it occurred to her that as well as she knew Adam . . . maybe she didn’t really know that much about him at all.
Thinking back to what he’d said about making his divorce look easier than it was, she said, “All right—if you won’t answer that, then answer this. Why did you get divorced?”
“Christ, Sue Ann—that’s . . . a little out of the blue.”
“Blue shmue,” she said. Because sometimes she was pushy, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise to someone who’d known her as long as Adam had. “I’ve always wondered why you and Sheila broke up. And we’ve been friends a really long time, right? So I don’t see why it would be such a big deal to tell me.” He never talked about Sheila unless it involved the logistics of dropping off or picking up the boys. And he never gave anything away about what might have caused their breakup—even Jeff knew very little about it, Adam having claimed vague things like “going in different directions” and being “very different people.” Now, after what he’d said earlier, she suspected there was more to the story.
“Fine,” he finally said, though he was back to sounding more belligerent than she liked. She propped herself on one elbow next to him, and he still faced the bunk above but now spared her a matter-of-fact glance. “Our marriage was crappy long before it broke up. Most people don’t know that, but now you do.”
Sue Ann just blinked, truly surprised. “Really? You both seemed happy.”
“We were for a while,” he told her on a sigh. “But we married young—passion and all that stuff—and once that part faded, we just didn’t have much in common. She wanted . . . bigger things than I did.”
“Bigger?”
“A bigger life. In a bigger place. She regretted moving to Destiny with me after college.” Adam and Sheila had met at Ohio State, where he’d played football and she’d been a cheerleader—Sue Ann and Jeff had even gone up to see a few games and get together with the other couple afterward.
“Well, I’m not sure I agree that living in a bigger place gives you a bigger life,” Sue Ann argued. “Or even a richer one.”
“I guess I must agree with you or I wouldn’t have come back home to start my business,” he replied. “But I should have known it wasn’t right for her. She’d always wanted to move to a big city—but I talked her into being a landscaper’s wife in Destiny. It seemed easy then, while we were in school, living it up, living the dream—and I was young and foolish enough to think it would go on that way, no matter what choices we made. But as time passed, she made me feel like our life together was . . . small. And after the boys were born it got even worse—and we just grew further and further apart.”
“And then?” she asked.
“And then what?”
“What happened that finally brought about the divorce?”
He just looked at her, as if sizing her up in some way, as if choosing his next words with care. “That’s it,” he finally said.
She blinked. “It?” It wasn’t an outlandish claim; that wasn’t what made her question it. It was the look in his eyes. They’d grown darker somehow, even in the room’s pale light, and she knew he was holding back. There for a minute, he’d actually seemed open with her, like he was speaking from the heart—and then he’d suddenly clammed up, his answers growing short and clipped. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Okay, maybe I didn’t tell you everything,” he began—yet he sounded wholly uncertain, like maybe he still wasn’t sure he wanted to. Then his look transformed into one of scolding. “But one reason for that, Little Miss Sugar Plum, is that you kinda have a big mouth sometimes. You know?”
Oh, that. Sue Ann just sighed. There it was, the fault she’d reined in lately, but no one seemed to notice the change—they only remembered past transgressions. Funny how once upon a time such flaws had seemed small—they’d been insignificant traits she’d simply accepted as part of who she was—but now they added to her insecurities. “I’ve stopped that,” she explained. “And something like this, Adam—I would never tell anyone. Seriously.”
When he still looked doubtful, though, she added, “I promise. I can keep a secret. Just ask Jenny. Back when she was secretly seeing Mick, I knew all about it and never breathed a word to anyone, not even Jeff.”
He tilted his head in the other direction, his eyes narrowing on her as he said, “That’s impressive, but . . . I still can’t tell you.”
“You can’t do that,” she snipped, adding a hmmpf sound. “You can’t act like you’re going to and then not.”
He just flashed a challenging look. “Is that so? Sue Ann’s rules of fair play?”
She nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact.”
And she couldn’t completely read his expression then, but if nothing else, she sensed a certain . . . sadness in it.
“Just tell me, Adam,” she whispered.
“I can’t,” he replied, his voice just as low, something in it almost ominous now. “Even if I trust you not to tell anyone.”
Despite the warmth of the bed, his response made her skin prickle and her stomach churn. God, what was it already? What could be so horrible? “Why?”
He let out a sigh, his eyes shifting away from hers. “Because if I tell you, it’ll change how you see me. Not in a good way, either.”
Hmm. Adam? Really? That was hard to fathom. Despite his recent bad mood, he was the most upstanding guy in all of Destiny. “I can’t imagine that,” she finally said.
“Well, you will. If I tell you.”
“No,” she argued.
“Yes,” he countered.
But she still thought it sounded improbable. “How? What could you possibly say to make me think badly of you? I mean, you’re Adam Becker, for God’s sake—Mr. Becker Landscaping, Mr. Cub Scout dad, Mr. All American good guy. You bend over backward to help people. You cut Willie Hargis’s grass for free all summer the year his wife died. You shovel snow for the elderly. You—”
“Sue Ann,” he said sharply, cutting her off. “I cheated on her.”
“Huh?” she said on a gasp, flinching.
“You heard me. I said I cheated on her.”
Four
“These are but shadows of the things that have been.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Adam’s chest tightened as he tried to read the expression on Sue Ann’s face. But he didn’t really need to read it—he could feel it. He’d committed the worst sin a man—a husband—could commit. The same her ex-husband had committed, more or less. And they’d been very different situations, but that probably didn’t matter.
“You’re . . . kidding,” she said, her voice barely audible as she stiffened slightly in his arms.
“I wish I was,” he told her and—damn, the shame washed over him then like something fresh, brand new.
God, there were reasons he never talked to anyone about this. For one, he just didn’t think it was right to go around airing his or Sheila’s private problems. And for another . . . he wasn’t proud of what he’d done.
And as for why he’d suddenly let himself tell Sue Ann now . . . he wasn’t sure. But it had been hard lying here with her naked, having her ask him, and putting her off. Somehow, the deeper they’d gotten into the discussion, the more inevitable it had begun to feel that he would tell her the truth. And then he’d heard himself just blurting it out.
Now she lay back in the bed beside him, staring up at the bunk above, the way he’d been doing for a while—and, hell, he hated upsetting her. He should have just kept his mouth shut, especially given all the new news about Jeff she’d gotten just tonight. After all, he’d managed to keep this to himself for three years—and he’d picked now, here, her, to suddenly start telling? A heavy sigh echoed through his body and out as he lifted his hands to run them back through his hair. “I’m sorry I told yo
u.”
“No, don’t be. I pried it out of you,” she insisted—but she continued speaking more quietly than before, her voice dropping further still when she asked, “Um, do you mind if I ask who you did this with?” Her body still felt more rigid than it had a few minutes ago, like she suddenly wished she were anywhere else besides in a bed with him.
“No one you know,” he told her.
“And did you . . . care about her, this person?”
Arghhhh, him and his big mouth. Suddenly, he felt like it was happening all over again, the whole rotten thing and all the ugliness and regret it had brought with it. “I . . . I . . . ” Barely knew her. God, no, that wasn’t the right thing to say. “It’s a long story,” he settled on instead.
“Well,” Sue Ann replied, voice still whisper-soft in the confines of the cabin, “I have some time.”
Yep, she did. And so did he. And now that he’d so stupidly, hastily spilled his big secret, he supposed there was nothing left to do but tell her the whole unpleasant tale. Should have thought about that before you spit out the truth. But even as much as it would pain him to rehash this, he had to now—because now he had to try to make Sue Ann understand.
“Okay, here goes,” he started, already feeling a little short of breath. Damn, he wasn’t comfortable discussing this. But again, he had no choice now. And hell, he probably shouldn’t say this, but . . . “The fact is, Sheila and I had reached a point in our relationship where I was almost afraid to be out in public with her.”
Sue Ann blinked, clearly taken aback, then asked, “What does that mean? Because, to be honest, Sheila was never my favorite person and I always thought you’d end up with someone nicer—but she wasn’t that bad.”
He just drew a deep breath and slanted Sue Ann a look in the shadowy light. “Listen, I really don’t like saying anything negative about the mother of my kids—that’s one reason I never talk about this—but . . . she really was kinda that bad by then. She got bored being a stay-at-home mom and resented the fact that I was out working, seeing people every day. Eventually, she got . . . a little irrational. She started accusing me of going after other women when I wasn’t.”
“Really?” she asked, her eyes widening on him.
He nodded, vindicated to hear she thought that sounded extreme. “I mean, I run a community-based business, so I have to be nice to people—including women. But I sure as hell wasn’t after them—I wasn’t even flirting.”
“I believe you,” she said very solemnly. “I know you well enough to know that.”
“Thanks,” he answered, appreciating her faith in him, especially at a moment when it would be easy not to have any. “And things just escalated from there—it was like we were enemies and she was out to hurt me.”
“What did she do?” Sue Ann asked.
And Adam let out a long sigh, remembering the worst of times, times he’d never told anyone about . . . until now. “Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but . . . she said I was terrible in bed.”
At this, Sue Ann simply gaped at him a moment, jaw slack, then replied, “Um, she was lying.”
“How do you know?”
In response, she just blinked pointedly, then reminded him, “Personal experience.”
Which brought a small smile to his face and made his chest go warm. “Oh. Well . . . thanks for that, too,” he said. “Because, you know, I was pretty sure I knew how to please a woman, but . . . ”
That’s when Sue Ann’s eyebrows rose higher. “Arrogant much?”
He gave his head a sharp tilt. “What do you mean, arrogant? I’m admitting she had me doubting myself a little.”
“Okay, good point. And . . . actually, I guess you can be arrogant if you want. You’ve . . . earned arrogant. Trust me on that.” She looked a little sheepish as she said it, though, and he kind of wanted to kiss her some more, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t the right time.
So instead he just tipped his head back slightly, feeling a little arrogant now, and said, “Good to know.”
“So back to what happened,” she prodded.
Oh yeah, that. He blew out another long, tired breath. “I guess you could say things reached a boiling point. We went to the wedding of an old friend of hers in Cleveland, where she was a bridesmaid, and besides ignoring me at the rehearsal dinner, she started openly flirting with other men, especially the one she was walking with in the wedding. And by the time the reception rolled around, she was hanging all over the guy.
“And it wasn’t that I felt jealous exactly,” he said, thinking back to decipher the unsavory memories. “What stung was that she was working so hard to humiliate me and hurt me. It was that I couldn’t figure out how my marriage had turned into something like that.”
Beside him, Sue Ann murmured, “Wow, that’s awful. I’m sorry.”
He just looked at her then—and felt his throat growing so thick it was tough to swallow. Because she wouldn’t feel so sorry for him after he told her the next part, the hard part. Strange, at the time, it had seemed . . . too easy. Because it had made him feel human again—masculine. But trying to tell Sue Ann about it now . . . made him feel small.
“I didn’t know anybody there,” he went on, “and I was seated next to a pretty woman who was nice enough to make conversation with me. Watching Sheila embarrass us both all night got hard to take, and I guess I had too much to drink. And I was just fed up. And it felt . . . hell, it felt good to have a woman show some interest in me and make me laugh. And . . . ” He stopped then, because, damn it, no matter how he explained it or how he’d felt in that moment, it still didn’t justify what came next.
“And one thing led to another?” Sue Ann supplied.
He sighed. That was pretty much the size of it. “I ended up kissing her in the little room where the wedding party had stashed all their belongings.”
“Kissing,” Sue Ann repeated.
“Making out,” he clarified—but he still didn’t go into further detail. “And that’s when Sheila walked in on us.”
“So you didn’t actually . . . have sex.”
He shook his head, sighed, and wished that simple fact actually made it better. “No. But it’s still cheating,” he concluded. “And despite what Sheila had been doing all night, she saw it as the proof that her accusations were true all along, that I was a womanizer out to seduce every female who crossed my path.”
“Wow,” Sue Ann said again, but he couldn’t quite tell what she was wowing this time—Sheila’s reaction, the whole distasteful story, or some other aspect of it all. “So, did you love Sheila?”
“Once upon a time, definitely,” he said—yet then he paused, sighed. “I can’t say I really loved her by the time we got divorced, but . . . I’m still not proud of the way it ended. Because . . .” He shook his head and felt it all rumbling through him the same way it had been for the past three years. “I thought I was that guy you and everyone else sees—that all around good guy. I thought I was a man who would do what it took to hold my marriage together and give my sons a good, normal family life. But turns out I wasn’t that guy after all.” Hell. He hadn’t exactly meant to blurt all that out, but there it was.
And it surprised him now to see Sue Ann looking . . . completely critical. Critical a minute ago he would have understood—but not after what he’d just said. “What?” he asked.
“Listen, I’m not condoning what you did,” she said pointedly, “but it doesn’t sound like you should have held your marriage together.”
Okay, he got her point, but, “Who can say? Things might’ve gotten better. Maybe we’d have worked through the problems, pulled it back together somehow.”
Yet her gloomy expression said she wasn’t even remotely convinced. “You just told me you didn’t love her anymore. And once that’s gone, what’s the point?”
He narrowed his gaze on her, somehow seeing yet another new side of her—a smart side, a practical side, but also . . . a woman who still believed in love, even now. “You
sound pretty damn wise for somebody who’s still going through this.”
“They’re two different situations,” she said, shaking her head. “Sounds like you both fell out of love. Whereas, for me, only one of us did.”
Aw God. He felt her pain deep then, even deeper than usual. “You still love him?” he whispered.
But to his surprise, she looked like she had to think it over, like maybe the answer wasn’t as cut and dried as he expected. “At first,” she said, “I just couldn’t understand how he couldn’t love me anymore, how he could do this to us, and to Sophie. But over time, as I see how he’s behaving, I’m realizing he’s no longer the same man I fell in love with all those years ago. Every time I hear about him showing up someplace with Ronni, laughing and glad-handing people, without giving a crap how it makes me or his daughter feel, it’s made me love him a little less. And after tonight’s news, well . . . even more so.”
“Well, between you and me, you’re too good for him now.”
She bit her lip, met his gaze. “You really think that?”
“I think he’s a bonehead.”
Sue Ann looked tired to him, and a little sad, but still pretty as hell. And the sorrow in her eyes now—he knew that was about Jeff and the things she’d just told him, but he also wondered if it was bigger than that, if she was deciding that all men were dogs if even Mr. All American good guy could cheat on his wife. A minute ago, he’d thought it was a victory if she still believed in love—but maybe there were times in life when it would be easier not to.
Then he glanced down to the space between their bodies; it was strange—after this talk, he couldn’t decide if he felt closer to Sue Ann or further apart. She seemed understanding in a way; but on the other hand, he knew good and well how she had to feel about men who strayed, and he’d noticed she wasn’t exactly snuggling up against him anymore.
