Fatal Impulse: A Widow's Web Novel (13 page)

His chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh. "We are."

"Have you moved out? Or are you still living together?" There was a tan line on his left ring finger. Why hadn't she noticed that sooner?

"We're still living together, for the sake of convenience, but the marriage is over." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “And what’s your story? Ever been married?”

“Yes.” After a pause, she added, “I was. For six years.”

“Was?" He glanced at her, then returned his focus to the road. "When was the divorce final?”

Wind tugged at her hat. She pulled it down tight. “He died.”

Traffic ahead of them slowed, so he tapped the brakes and looked at her, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry. How long ago?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “Not long.”

“How did it . . .?” His voice trailed off. The warm smile faded.

“Accident.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, then he recovered and accelerated as the traffic in front of them began to move. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “Wait! Andi Adams – I knew I recognized your name! Your husband was Dr. Adams - he was that dentist that fell onto the rocks, up by the Clifftop – oh, man, how horrible. I’m so, so sorry.”

"It's okay." She shrugged and swallowed the lump in her throat.

He reached over and squeezed her hand. Goosebumps pebbled her skin, and she shivered. A day did not go by that she didn’t remember that night. The sound of his screams haunted her.

They didn’t speak again until they reached Caddy's Quick Shop. She slid out of the Jeep, and he did, too. Sort of. He stood, one leg on the ground, the other inside, half-sitting on the driver’s seat.

“Listen. I don’t want to push you. I didn’t realize.” His voice trailed off. He shrugged and one corner of his mouth twitched upward, “But I like you a lot, and I’d like to see you again.”

She nodded and smiled. His smile spread across his face and her knees felt like spaghetti. She liked the fact that his front teeth were slightly crooked. It gave him character. “I’d like that, too.”

“I’ll call you, then.”

“I’d like that.” Maybe she needed to invest in a thesaurus. She hopped into her Jeep and drove away, glancing at the rearview mirror at his reflection until the road curved around and she couldn’t see him anymore.

A
ndi spoke to Dana on the phone several times after the trip to Witch Hole Pond, but hadn’t confided in her yet about her day with Paul, whom she had also spoken to on the phone several times. Her heart felt like a balloon, pulling her up, lifting her mood. Just the thought of Paul made her smile.

She met Dana at the Black Sails Diner for lunch that next week, and the secret of her budding romance (dare she think of it like that?) had her ready to burst, so after Maggie set their salads down, Andi said, "Remember me telling you that Paul and I were going to Witch Hole Pond last weekend?"

Dana paused, fork in midair, dressing dripping from the lettuce. Her eyes pinned Andi's. "Just the two of you?"

"It’s not what you think. It was for work,” Andi insisted. “And he and his wife are getting a divorce.”

"Work. Right." Dana stuck her fork in her mouth and chewed slowly, then, "Getting. Not gotten."

Andi plunged forward, “I’m not looking for a relationship. Besides, it’s flattering to have someone pay attention to me.”

Dana nodded. “I know. And I know things weren’t as perfect as they seemed between you and Chad.”

Andi's body tensed as the unwanted memories returned, wondered how much her friend noticed over the years. Did she notice the bruises? Did she wonder why Andi wore sunglasses so often? Did her friend believe she was that clumsy? Did she know how it felt to cower in the corner while a man out of his mind with rage ranted and raved because the soup cans weren't alphabetized?

Andi closed her eyes and shivered, then pushed the memories away. She met Dana's gaze and said, "I know what you're thinking. That Chad hasn't been gone long. But here's the thing. I've waited for so long to be happy, I don't want to waste time."

Concern softened Dana's features. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Believe me, I don’t want that either.”
In more ways than one
, Andi thought. How could she explain that she wanted to put Chad firmly in her past? That she wanted to pretend the marriage never happened?

Dana's eyes focused in on a point behind her friend, and Andi turned to follow her gaze. Paul and a beautiful raven-haired woman walked in the door, and waited to be seated. His hand spread across the small of her back, and her head tilted intimately towards him. She brushed her hair back with her left hand, and a huge diamond glittered under the diner's lights.

Her wedding ring.

His wife.

Andi turned slowly back to Dana, and smiled, trying to hide her pain behind a façade that she hoped wouldn’t crack. At least not until she was alone.

“See. Not even bothered.” She stabbed a slice of hard-boiled egg with her fork. “Now, tell me about what’s going on with your life. You told me you and Derek are seeing a lot of each other lately.”

“Yes, I think he might be
the one
.” Dana paused and tilted her head, her emerald eyes narrowed. “You sure you’re okay with listening to this?”

“Absolutely. Fill me in.” Andi imagined Paul’s face on the other half of the hard-boiled egg and stabbed it. She refused to even glance in his direction, and focused on her friend for the remainder of the meal, though she only heard a few words here and there.

A couple of days later, she curled up on the sofa with a bowl of Rocky Road ice cream smothered with chocolate syrup. With Chad gone, she could enjoy it guilt free. After a long day at the tourism center, with a group of elderly couples on a bus trip wanting to know every detail of every attraction in the area, she relaxed into the cushions. She closed her eyes and rolled the creamy sweetness in her mouth, savoring it. The doorbell rang and her eyes sprang open.

She peered through the peephole and saw a middle-aged man wearing a polo shirt. She'd seen him around town, but didn't know him. She opened the door and said, "Can I help you?"

He grinned. "I hope so! My wife has wanted to live in this neighborhood for ages and I just noticed the for sale sign."

She shook her head, but he forged ahead. "I realize it's rude for me to just stop in without calling first, but can you tell me how many bedrooms there are?"

Her heart sank. Even if she turned him away, he'd just call the agent. There was no escaping the fact that her house was for sale. "Three bedrooms, two full baths."

He leaned out and looked to the side. "Looks like there's a basement. Is it finished?"

She sighed. "Not completely. My husband used it as a workshop."

The man rubbed his beefy hands together. "A man cave."

She shrank with every word he uttered. "I'm sorry, but this isn't a good time. Perhaps you should call the agent and make an appointment."

"Of course," His large head bobbed. "I didn't mean to impose."

She shut the door before he stepped off the porch. The house might be for sale, but that didn't mean she had to offer tours for drop-ins. The sofa was calling her name, so she settled in to watch TV. She tucked her feet under her and snuggled into the corner, just as the opening scene started. The phone rang and she debated on letting the machine pick it up, then shrugged and picked up the handset from the end table.

“Hello?”

“Hey, there.”

Her heart chilled at the sound of his voice, just like the icy coldness of the bowl cupped in her left hand. Retorts raced through her brain, but none of them traveled along the right pathways to her mouth.

“Hey, there, yourself.”
Brilliant
.

His voice was low, seductive. “Sounds like it’s going to be a beautiful weekend. Want to go for a boat ride, take some photos of the lighthouse? We can take my boat out.”

“Don’t you have plans with your wife?” For a moment, she wondered if she'd really said it out loud.

“She and I don’t do anything togeth-“

She cut him off, “Really? You don’t eat lunch together?”

His breath caught. Her thumb hovered over the red end button, but she couldn’t bring herself to push it. Weakness made her angry, and she wasn’t sure who was weaker – her, for allowing herself to fall for a married man, or him, a lying asshole who cheated on his wife.

The low seductive quality in his voice disappeared, replaced by a clipped tone reminiscent of her cousin’s from Boston. “Yes, we did have lunch together. I just can’t – I haven’t-“

"What?" Her temper flared. She'd been ready to forgive him for anything, ready to give her heart to him. She broke in, unable and unwilling to hide her irritation. “You don’t have the guts to tell her it’s over?”

He continued, his voice barely more than a whisper. “It’s complicated, and I, well, I think I’m falling for you.”

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, wanting him to need her so badly, and hating herself for that. Since Chad died . . . hell, since long before Chad died . . . she had been so lonely. And here was a wonderful man, good-looking, funny . . . would it be so bad to see what happened? To be a friend to him? To be more?

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her blood pounded in her ears.

“Look, I hate doing this over the phone, where I can’t see your face. Can I come over?”

“I don’t know. Probably not a good idea.” She sat the bowl of ice cream on the coffee table and hugged her knees to her chest.

“Just to talk. Promise. Nothing more. Just for a little while?” He was pleading. He needed her. It felt so good to be needed.

She gave in, but promised herself she wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t do anything, and sure as hell wasn’t going to primp for him. She punched the end button and laid the phone on the arm of the couch, then took a big bite of rapidly softening ice cream. The creamy coldness soothed her hurt feelings.

W
ithin fifteen minutes, her doorbell rang. Though her muscles tensed with the urge to run to the door, she took her time washing and drying her hands after she rinsed her ice cream bowl, then pumped a little dab of lotion into the palm of her hand and massaged it in as she forced herself to walk to the front door.

He stood on the front porch, like a lost puppy dog with droopy eyes and down turned lips. He held up a grocery bag. "I come bearing ice cream."

"I just had some." She pushed the door open and motioned him in.

"Mind if I stick it in the freezer?"

She led him to the bright, cheery kitchen, then opened the freezer door of her stainless steel refrigerator. He stuck the carton in and volunteered, "Nothing comforts like ice cream, right?"

Without a word, she led the way to the family room. He followed, silent. She gestured to the couch, and then settled into her favorite overstuffed chair. He was nervous, and she did not intend to make it easy for him.

The inane chatter from the television filled the room. His eyes darted around, taking inventory of their surroundings. Finally, he made eye contact and the sadness in their blue depths touched her.

The tales of his wife reminded Andi of her own frustrations with Chad. Verbal abuse, how she used sex as a control, how she handled their financial affairs. One story sounded painfully familiar. Her sympathies were with him as he related the story.

“For instance,” he began, “We went to the big charity dinner in the spring, you know the big whing-ding out at Wild Flower Stables? She’s on the Board of Directors for the Denim & Diamonds Dinner, so we went. It’s a western event, so I wore my cowboy boots and Stetson hat. Well, she didn’t tell me until we got there that it was a catered dinner, coat and tie. She laughed at me the whole evening, called me Tex. She flirted with all the men. I caught her chatting with our neighbor, Patrick Evans.”

That last bit struck a nerve. “There’s nothing wrong with your wife talking to another man.”

He shook his head and said, “No. No, that’s not what I mean. She leaned in towards him, gave him a great view of her cleavage. When I stepped up to join them, she rolled her eyes and patted me on the arm like I was some doddering old fool that didn’t know what was going on. She told Patrick I'm fifteen years older than her, and can’t keep up with her. Then she laughed and said, ‘I’m referring to tennis, of course.’ It hurt, and she didn’t care. She never cares.”

Andi's eyes narrowed. “So why are you still with her?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It’s complicated. A long story, you know?”

She settled back in her chair. “I’ve got time.”

He cupped his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed, “I know money isn’t everything, but I’ve fought hard for us to get to the point where I can take time off, enjoy myself. She would fight me tooth and nail, and make my life a living hell if I asked for a divorce.”

Thoughts of her own marriage bubbled up, those times she'd wondered if divorce was an option. It felt unrealistic in her situation. Chad kept her on a short leash, and he controlled everything from the household budget to the groceries in the cabinets. Even paying for an attorney would be difficult. Paul didn't have that problem, though. She asked, “Do you really think it’d be that bad?”

"Yes." He nodded slowly, then lifted his eyes to meet hers. “She’s a mean, vindictive person.”

She couldn’t imagine any man not standing up to his wife. Couldn’t imagine those roles being reversed. It made no sense. She scoffed, “Oh, come on, she can’t be that bad. You file for divorce, and let the attorneys work it out.”

"She'd ruin me," he snorted. “She had a salesman at a Best Buy in Portland fired when he sold her a modem that didn’t work. She flat out installed it wrong – her mistake, not his - but she insisted that he gave her bad advice and caused her computer to crash. She called a sorority sister of hers at the corporate office and had him fired. Not his fault. And he lost his job.”

She nodded her understanding. So, they had bad marriages in common. It made her think twice about why she didn’t file for divorce. Though her marriage was horrible, divorce wasn’t an option. Her parents raised her to believe that marriage is "‘til death do you part." Was that reason enough to stay?

She sighed and acknowledged, “She sounds awful. So why not file for divorce?”

“I’d lose everything. My house. My retirement. Plus I'd have to pay alimony.” He shifted on the couch so he was facing her. “I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling, and I know it’s wrong. But what it boils down to is that if I stay married to her, I live my life. I picnic at Jordan Pond, I take trips, I do my own thing. We sleep in separate rooms and lead separate lives. I’m not ready to rock the boat yet.”

Andi swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She knew exactly what he was talking about. Chad and she had gone through that, too, even down to sleeping in separate rooms for a while. She'd convinced herself life wouldn’t be much different, married or not, and it really wasn’t – she still did all the cooking, cleaning, shopping. But it was so much easier without him around. And she had to admit, if she was honest with herself, the fact that Chad was dead and not an ex-husband that could – no,
would
– make her life hell, made her life now much easier.

Paul slid off the couch and leaned forward, so he was kneeling, and put his hands on her knees. His piercing blue eyes were beautiful, though sincere and pained. Her own difficulties and struggles reflected in their depths. She could see into his soul at that moment, and knew they were meant to be.

He smiled and fine lines crinkled his tanned face. "I know this is happening quickly, but I think we could turn into something special.”

She put her hands on his. God help her, she was falling in love with a married man. What the hell was she doing? Was she so desperate to be loved? She'd been unhappy for so long, wasted so much of her life . . . was it possible to make up for lost time?

“Please be patient with me,” he whispered. Even the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth appealed to her. His skin was that of a man who spent his life outdoors, and a tear slid down his cheek, over his tanned skin and along a few light scars on his left cheek. she reached forward and traced the scars with her index finger, and it hit her. Long, manicured nails left those marks.

“You’ve got to leave her,” she whispered, her voice catching in her throat.

“I know.” He bent his head forward and rested his forehead on her knee. She stroked his thick, dark hair, and made soothing sounds. After a moment, he looked up at her. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

There was no doubt in her mind that she was falling, too, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the gold band encrusted with diamonds on his left ring finger. Then she glanced at the wedding set she still wore on her left ring finger out of nothing but simple habit. She could draw upon her strength to create a fresh start and plan her future. Maybe one day Paul would wear a ring like that for her and she would have a ring that really meant something on her own finger.

But it had to be done right. She sat up straight and lifted her chin.

He whispered, "You know yourself how difficult it is. I suspect you know exactly what I mean."

"You need to go,” she said, more abruptly than she intended. “Go back to your wife. And when you are able to leave her, come and find me.”

"Tell me, have you gone through Chad’s things, or are his things still here?” He kept his hands on her knees and rose so that his face was inches from hers. “It's not easy to get rid of someone who is a part of your life, who has been a part of your life for so long."

Her breath caught at the sudden change of subject. He had her, and he knew it. She shook her head, and he pressed on. “Have you gone through his closet, his drawers? What about his desk? His papers?”

Her eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill over if he said another word, and she whispered, “Not yet.”

He stood up and said, “I’ll come over and help you. It’ll be easier to do if you’re not alone. I’ll haul the stuff to the Salvation Army for you. Promise me you’ll call when you want to get rid of his stuff?”

She nodded, and he smiled, his lips pressed together tightly. He gave a curt nod and said, “Before I go, I need to know how you feel about me.”

She cocked her head to one side, “My feelings for you have nothing to do with your marriage. If you want to leave her, leave her. But don’t make that decision based on me.” The strength she felt surprised her. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin proudly.

He nodded and held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. She led him towards the front door. As she put her hand on the doorknob, he grabbed her shoulders, turning her towards him. He kissed her, really kissed her, for the first time. The electricity in that kiss shot through her body, and her toes tingled and her heart skipped a beat. Her body molded to his as his body responded. It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt as if time stood still.

He spoke, his breath warm against her ear, “We can still go exploring, right?”

That throaty voice melted her resolve and, in spite of her conscience screaming no, she nodded.

He jogged down the steps to his Jeep. He got in and started it up, then put it in gear. As he reversed out of the driveway, he turned and raised a hand. She waved back, then shut the door and slipped her wedding ring off. She trudged up the stairs and to her bedroom, rubbing the warm metal between her thumb and finger. She dropped the ring onto the crystal ring holder on the dresser and crawled into the king-sized bed alone.