Because of Joe Read online

  She shook her head. "Nothing. I'm just having a pre-menopausal moment." She poured the beans into a Dutch oven and ran enough water over them to cover them. "It's the first time I've ever realized I was truly going to have to let them go. They always came back, you know, from camp, from your house, from college. I've probably spent my last summer with kids in the house, and it never struck me till just now."

  "That's not it." His voice was quiet. "You've always been able to let go when you needed to, and I know you too well to believe you've never thought about them growing up on us before."

  She gazed at him wordlessly. But I never meant to be alone. I don't know what I thought, but it wasn't about this. It wasn't about me being in my house in Indiana and you being here. It wasn't about being forty-two with no more direction in my life than a kid in grade school.

  She set the beans on the back burner of the stove. She'd bring them to a boil, then let them sit for a bit before cooking them. It wasn't the best way-soaking them all night was better-but she didn't want Micah to have to wait for his beans. God only knew what would transpire before tomorrow.

  She looked for an explanation of her mood that would satisfy Tell. "It's just that-" She fell silent again, unable to say what was in her heart.

  Because it was only then, standing in Tell's Florida kitchen in her bare feet, eleven years after their divorce was final, that Rags admitted to herself that she'd always thought they'd get back together.

  Chapter Six

  "I know you Maguire women don't usually need kindling to start a fire," Joyce commented dryly, "but Sam referred to our evening trek along the beach as a 'hen party.' And he cackled when he did it. We have the hen party; he cackles."

  "Sam can get by with it." said Marley. "He has that kind of charm. Daddy, on the other hand, would be in deep trouble."

  "What do you mean?" asked Rags.

  "Everyone's always expected so much of Daddy. He was smart, so he had to go to the best schools and get good grades. He was the son of a rich man, so he had to take up the reins when Grandpa retired. When you and he were married, he was supposed to be the perfect husband and father. He's had to make all the arrangements for Grandpa's funeral even though he hates that kind of thing." Marley stopped walking and stared out at the gulf. "I have to have just a tiny little dip."

  "Marley, it's-" Rags began, but her daughter was already down to her underwear.

  In another moment, she was completely nude and sauntering into the water.

  "She amazes me," said Rags. "No one saw me without clothes till I was married. I always dressed and undressed for gym class as well-hidden by my locker door as I could get."

  "Me, too," said Joyce.

  Rags took her eyes from her swimming daughter long enough to cast an envious glance at the doctor. "With that body?"

  "This body developed early, an uncomfortable thing in gym class."

  "Kind of like worn-out underwear and not having bras when all the other girls did, whether they needed them or not." Even now, the memory made Rags' cheeks burn. She reminded herself to call Linda's parents. It had been a long time since she'd thanked them for taking her into their home and hearts.

  Joyce nodded agreement. "We thought we were so alone, didn't we?"

  "Some of us still do." The words slipped out. Rags gave an embarrassed shrug when Joyce looked questioningly at her. "I always feel like the square plug in the round hole," she admitted.

  "Like Tell. That's what Marley was saying. He tried all his life to fit into the niches someone else defined for him."

  The words swirled in Rags' mind along with Marley's and finally slipped into place. I was one of the definers. The truth was like a blow.

  Rags had loved Tell, but had she ever really known him? She'd wanted a house, so they'd bought a house. She'd wanted a baby right away, so they'd had Ben. She'd wanted to keep Joe from the moment she pressed her cheek to his warm forehead, so they'd kept him.

  She remembered her heartbreak that night on the deck when she'd figured out Tell wasn't the man she'd thought he was. Good God, had all of her self-righteous pain been because he wasn't the man she'd tried to turn him into?

  She held her daughter's clothes as Marley tried to slip them onto her damp, salty body, but Rags' attention was diverted. She looked toward the house that was almost exactly the one she'd always wanted. A question sounded and echoed through her heart.

  What had Tell wanted?

  ~*~

  Sleep was elusive. Rags finally gave up the search for it after untangling her sheets for the third time. Wearing only a cotton gown that fell to mid-thigh, she got up and went silently down the stairs. She poured wine and carried it out to the lower deck, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Lighting the candle that sat in the middle of an umbrella-sheltered table, she sat down, propping her bare feet in another seat. She wondered where Tell slept in the house behind her. His mother had the master suite and she and the kids had filled the remainder of the upstairs bedrooms. There was a couch in the den, she remembered, but he wouldn't be comfortable there. Tell had always been a sprawling sleeper, taking his half of their king-size bed out of the middle.

  He'd slept lightly, though, waking often. He used to check on the kids in the middle of the night, standing like a silent sentinel at their doors and watching them sleep. Then he'd come back to bed and bring Rags to slow and burning arousal with his hands and his lips. He'd slip her gown from her before she knew what was happening and murmur softly against her neck, the curve of her breast, her belly that would already be shuddering with need.

  She felt that need now, as the wine warmed her senses. She frowned down at her glass and tried to think of David Miles.

  Their relationship had cooled over the past months, but they still saw each other. Still went out to dinner occasionally and to brunch after church on Sundays. Or they had before this summer, before the twins came to fill the house with noise and clutter. Rags had assumed that when Micah and Marley went back to school, she would see more of David. Would resume the on-again, off-again physical relationship they'd enjoyed through the previous autumn and winter.

  As she sat on her ex-husband's deck, with the waves of the Gulf of Mexico crashing close enough she fancied she could feel their spray, she recognized the fallacy of her assumptions. David Miles deserved more than she had to offer.

  The acknowledgment didn't stop the longing that flickered through her veins. Didn't lessen the hardening of her nipples or dry the sudden moisture between her thighs. She sipped from her glass and remembered Tell pouring wine into the valley between her breasts and then licking it from her skin.

  "It is so good," he'd whispered once, in the early times of sex-every-day. "What will it be like when we're in our forties?"

  They dissolved into laughter at the very idea of it. People in their forties didn't have sex, did they? Or if they did, it wasn't frequent or exciting, was it? Didn't they just sort of lie there in the dark and remember how it had been when their skin was soft and unlined and gravity hadn't done any damage to their bodies?

  "Can't sleep?"

  Tell's presence in her mind had been so absolute that his voice didn't even startle her.

  "Hot flashes," she said.

  He set the wine bottle and a glass on the table and took the chair across from hers. When he filled his glass, she pushed hers forward, and he refilled it, too. His hand trembled just the slightest bit, and she wondered if his thoughts mirrored hers. If he was remembering how it had been. If his body was clamoring to know what it would be like now.

  "It seems early for that. We're still kids, after all," he said idly, resting his bare feet beside hers in the chair. "Do you get them a lot yet?"

  "Hardly ever." She knew she wasn't answering the question he'd wanted to ask, but he didn't need to know that.

  But it was true she scarcely ever had times like this. She didn't think she'd felt yearning of this intensity since they'd separated. There had been wayward thoughts f
rom time to time, most recently at the twins' graduation, when Tell had hugged Rags and it hadn't been nearly enough. Even then, she'd dismissed the thoughts and memories as soon as she'd left his arms. Well, shortly afterward, anyway, when the rippling sensation had gone away and the hair on her arms and the back of her neck had lain down again.

  "We loved each other, didn't we?" She asked the question anxiously. It was suddenly important that these recollections be about more than sex.

  "Do you doubt it?"

  The candle flickered between them, reflecting in the jewel-red tones of the wine and casting eerie shadows on the underside of the umbrella. In the kindness of the golden light, Tell's eyes looked dark and warm, with no hint of shattered glass in their blue depths. A slight smile played around his mouth, and her lips tingled with wanting for his kiss.

  Only this time, she wanted passion.

  He shifted in his chair, and his foot touched hers.

  She didn't move.

  "Sometimes," she said, "I think we loved who we wanted the other to be. When we found out those people didn't exist, we didn't love each other any more."

  "You're probably right about at least the first part of that. Isn't that how everyone is when they're young? Ben thinks Abby will always look at him with eyes shining with approval, but she won't. Abby thinks Ben will always do the right thing, but he won't. It's what they do when the blinders come off that makes the difference." Tell lifted his glass, and his foot moved again so that her sole rested squarely on his instep.

  She didn't move.

  "What if Abby creates a life he isn't a part of, like I did?" She met his eyes over the flame. It wasn't all you. I know that now. I'm sorry it took me so long. Oh, dear Lord, let that foot slide right up my leg and I'll die right here on the spot.

  She dug deep to exhume the old anger, disappointment, and pain. She needed them now, or she was going to leap across the table into his arms.

  Not again. Oh, no, never again. She lifted her chin. "What if Ben has an affair like you did?"

  Tell's eyebrows rose in a motionless flinch. He reached for her hand. "I didn't even see the gloves come off," he murmured, stroking his thumb over her palm. "You had me by the jugular before I knew it was coming."

  "I'm sorry," she said, although she wasn't. "I guess all my talk about new lives and rebirth can't cover the scars that never heal over." She drew her hand away from his and picked up her glass, draining it.

  The hurtful memories washed away on a swallow, leaving only the sensation of his foot rubbing against hers, taking over her entire body as assiduously as if they were both naked. Oh, God. "We never talked about it, did we?"

  "No."

  "Can we?" She poured the rest of the wine, splitting it evenly between them.

  "What's the point?" Both his feet moved, capturing hers between them. "We got divorced, end of story."

  "Did you keep on seeing her?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  He sighed heavily. "I take it you're not going to let this go?"

  "It's been over eleven years. We should be able to discuss it," she argued, her tongue loosened by the wine and the sedative sound of the waves crashing on the beach. "I never cheated, so you don't know what it was like to be on the receiving end. I felt like the worst kind of fool, like everyone in the world but me knew, like my whole life was a lie."

  He sighed again, and stared out at the whitecaps. "Let's go down on the beach."

  Since his feet released hers, there was no reason not to go. It felt natural to leave her hand in his when they left the deck and strolled toward the water.

  Tell spoke quietly. "It didn't happen."

  The wind left her with a whoosh, and she stood stock still in the cool sand, wondering how her heart could continue beating. It did, though, pounding painfully against her chest and making her breathe in sharp pants that seemed to cut into her lungs.

  "You bastard!" Anger choked her so that the epithet came out on a wheeze. "How could you?" she demanded, the words choppy because her breathing was still erratic. "I didn't just feel all those things when it happened, damn you, I've felt them for the past eleven years. How could you let me believe it happened?"

  Tears of rage flooded her eyes and rushed down her cheeks to fall unheeded to the front of her gown, some of them bouncing off the cotton to splash against their bare feet. "How could you?" she repeated. "I thought-I thought that at least we'd always had the truth between us, but we didn't even have that. Good Christ, we didn't even have that!"

  "It was what you wanted to believe," he said dispassionately. "You'd been looking for a way out ever since the Bad Day. When we were to the point of no return, I gave you one."

  "The point of no return," she parroted. "What do you mean?"

  "The day Joe went into a coma that first time. I was at work, you were at home with the kids,

  and you couldn't wake him up. You got him to the hospital, but when you tried to contact me, I couldn't be reached."

  "Oh, yes. The lovely secretary."

  "I believe that's what you said at the time." A shadow of a smile lifted his mouth. "And a few other things, all having to do with my character or lack thereof. When you accused me of sleeping with her, I just didn't deny it. We were both miserable, but I knew you wouldn't leave me unless I gave you what you considered a valid reason. And I couldn't leave you."

  "Why couldn't you?" she asked. "You'd left me in every other way." The anger had already drained away, leaving her aching, though she wasn't certain what she ached for.

  "We left each other," he corrected sharply. "I couldn't walk out because, in my mind, that would make you feel those things you mentioned. You'd worked hard to build the image you had of yourself and our family, even of our house, and I thought leaving you would tear all that down. I didn't know infidelity would do the same thing. I knew it would piss you off, but anger seemed better than apathy."

  She looked down, noticing with detachment that he still held her hand. "I've cried more in the past few days than I have in years," she said, blinking against the tears that continued to flow. They felt cold against her cheeks now, as though they'd cooled along with her anger.

  "I'm sorry." He released her hand to lift the edge of his tee shirt and mop her face. "I have enough regrets about making you cry all that time ago. I certainly don't want to do it now."

  He dropped the makeshift handkerchief so he could frame her face between his hands. "To answer the original question" -his voice was uneven- "yes, we loved each other."

  When he lowered his lips to hers, she met him halfway. Her body curved into his as though it had never left it as she reached for the passion.

  And found it.

  "Oh, God," he mumbled, and kissed her again. His hands moved under her gown to cup her naked bottom, and he groaned into her mouth. "Ah, old lady, it's been so long."

  "Too long." She pushed her hands under his shirt to touch his lightly furred chest, rubbing his nipples with sensitized fingers. She could feel his erection, hard against the soft flesh of her stomach even through the layers of their clothing. Her hand moved down, pushing aside the elastic waist of his shorts to encircle and stroke.

  "Do you ever go swimming at night?" she asked, and gasped when he found her breast through her gown, sucking the distended nipple into his mouth.

  "Not often." He drew back as much as he could without releasing her. "Want to?"

  "Yes."

  It wasn't that she wanted to be her daughter or to pretend that her body was twenty years old instead of forty-two. She wanted, just this once with the man she used to love, to step from behind the locker door.

  She pulled off her gown.

  Tell tried to take a deep breath, but it stalled in his chest. Who was the woman before him? Nothing about Rags was as he remembered. Neither the wind-tossed short hair nor the lush body were as they had been before. When they'd been married, she'd have died before dropping her gown on the beach and walking into the waves. The hi
nt of wildness that he'd loved had all been internal, appearing only when she was near sexual completion.

  But it was in her eyes now. The eyes of this woman who was so familiar, yet wasn't.

  Tell laid his shorts and tee shirt beside her gown and followed her into the water.

  "It's freezing!" she cried.

  "Nah, you've just gotten used to those wimpy lakes up north." He stood with her back flush against his front, putting his arms around her to cover her breasts with his hands. "Better?"

  "No." She turned so that she faced him, her fog-colored eyes inscrutable, marks of her tears salty white tracks on her face. "I want to see your face. I need to know if you want me or if you don't know how to turn me down."

  Tell looked at her creamy shoulders, at the light brown of her nipples appearing and disappearing with the motion of the water. He reached below the surface to find the nest of curls between her legs and slip his finger into the hidden folds. He found her center instantly, that soft little flange of flesh that made her breathing quicken as soon as he touched it. The hands that held his upper arms for balance tightened reflexively.

  If he wanted her? He felt consumed by the wanting.

  "Let's go inside," he suggested, his lips hovering close to hers, "and talk about how much I want you."

  "Talk?" She breathed the word against his mouth.

  "Among other things."

  ~*~

  Tell slept in the maid's quarters, a suite complete with bathroom and kitchenette.

  "Good heavens, I saw the door to this, but I thought it was probably like that room on 'Dallas' where all the Ewings had drinks before dinner and discussed who was sleeping with whom." Rags crossed her arms over the front of her damp nightgown, suddenly embarrassed.

  "Do you want a shower?" he asked, his eyes somber as he looked at her from the doorway that led into the bathroom.

  She nodded.

  "Alone?"

  She nodded again.

  Under the warm spray, she washed the salt from her hair with Tell's shampoo, then lathered her body with the deodorant soap he favored.