Big Girls Don′t Cry
Big Girls Don't Cry
Brenda Novak
Thanks to a devastating revelation about her husband, Reenie Holbrook's once-perfect marriage is over.For eleven years she had the life she wanted–and now it's gone. Reenie decides that the first step in recovering from her ordeal is to find work; after all, she has three young children to support. She's thrilled when she lands a job at Dundee High teaching history–until Isaac Russell, the man who triggered the unraveling of her marriage, accepts a temporary position teaching science. Then she's tempted to quit.Reenie doesn't care if the whole town admires Isaac…and she won't admit that, secretly, she admires him, too. She doesn't want to see him or his sister in "her" town. But a friendship with the most unlikely woman leads to a relationship with the most unlikely man….
Praise for Brenda Novak
“Novak perfectly captures the feel of small-town life, and her powerful story of two lonely, fragile people who find another chance at love is a sweetly satisfying and richly rewarding romance.”
—Booklist on Stranger in Town
“This story should appeal to readers who like their romances with a sophisticated touch.”
—Library Journal on Snow Baby
“A one-sitting read! Kudos to Brenda Novak for an insightful and emotional story that tore at my heartstrings.”
—The Best Reviews on A Baby of Her Own
“Once again, Brenda Novak delivers a stunningly magical performance.”
—Wordweaving on A Family of Her Own
“Novak’s story is richly dramatic, with a stark setting that distinguishes it nicely from the lusher world of other romances.”
—Publishers Weekly on Taking the Heat
“Readers will be quickly drawn in to this well-written, multi-faceted story that is an engrossing, compelling read.”
—Library Journal on Taking the Heat
“Cold Feet left me breathless. Any book by Brenda Novak is a must-buy for me.”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
“Brenda Novak spins a taut, spine-tingling story with imagery so vivid it leaves you breathless.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan on Every Waking Moment (HQN Books)
Dear Reader,
Little did I know when I set out to write this story that I was plunging myself into such a complex situation. But then, I must like getting in over my head. Those of you who’ve read my other stories can probably attest to the fact that they occasionally stretch the boundaries of series romance. Anyway, poor Reenie has her hands full in this book—but don’t worry, I manage to make it up to her in the end. Not everyone deserves a guy like Isaac.
Of all the books I’ve written, I have to admit that I’m probably most curious about reader response to this one. I wonder what people will think of Keith—crucify him or forgive him? And Elizabeth—does she deserve her own happily ever after? Then there’s the old conflict between Gabe and the half sister he never knew….
I always enjoy returning to Dundee. I hope this has become a comfortable place for you, too…a bit like returning home.
If you have access to a computer, don’t forget to visit my Web site at www.brendanovak.com and enter my Contest Bonanza, where you can win one of several fabulous prizes, including autographed books, See’s Candies, Waldenbooks gift certificates, dinners at Chili’s Bar & Grill—and a $500 shopping spree at the store of winner’s choice! Also, I love to hear from readers, so feel free to e-mail me from my Web site or write to me at P.O. Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA 95611.
Until next time,
Brenda Novak
Big Girls Don’t Cry
Brenda Novak
To my editor, Paula Eykelhof, who has been instrumental
in making the Harlequin Superromance line what it is today.
I’m sure I speak for all the authors you’ve worked with over
the years when I thank you for your willingness to take a
few calculated risks, for your commitment to good quality
writing and meaningful stories, and for being such a pleasure
to know. On a more personal note, I can’t tell you how
much I appreciate the confidence you’ve had in me and the
support you’ve given me. We’ve already done nineteen books
together, but I’m looking forward to at least twenty more!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER ONE
Los Angeles, California
KEITH O’CONNELL WAS LYING. Isaac Russell could tell.
Surprised, he slowly lowered his fork while studying his brother-in-law’s face. Keith wouldn’t meet Isaac’s eyes. He wouldn’t look at Elizabeth, either. And there were other signs. The way he hunched his shoulders and kept fidgeting with his hands, constantly moving through the stack of mail near the telephone as if he hadn’t gone through it twice already. The slowness of his responses. Even the irritation in Keith’s bearing bothered Isaac, because it indicated that he didn’t like being questioned.
And yet the subject was so innocuous….
“From the sound of it, the accident was horrendous.” Elizabeth seemed oblivious to her husband’s discomfort as she added another pancake to Isaac’s plate. “I was surprised that you didn’t mention it.”
Isaac was too full to eat any more, but he said nothing. He waited for Keith’s answer, hoping that he was somehow misinterpreting his brother-in-law’s body language.
“What?” Keith finally glanced up as though he’d lost track of the conversation in his preoccupation with the mail. But it was obvious—at least to Isaac—that every word had registered.
“That forty-five-car pileup in Sacramento,” Elizabeth responded. “You never said a word about it.”
“Oh…well, they had it mostly cleared away by the time I came through,” he said, his voice low and noncommittal.
Isaac saw the confusion in Elizabeth’s hazel eyes. Carrying her own plate to the table, she scowled at her husband. “But the paper said it took the better part of a day before they could open the freeway. How did you get through? Traffic was stopped for miles. I saw a picture.”
Another strained silence, then he muttered, “It must’ve happened before I got there, honey.”
Isaac was tempted to look away to avoid what he was seeing. If his sister was having problems in her marriage, he didn’t want to know. He wanted to continue to believe she’d met the man of her dreams and would live happily ever after.
But he couldn’t ignore the warning signs. Elizabeth was his only sibling. He’d taken care of her through the dark years after their mother had died, when he was fourteen and she was eleven. They’d gone to live with their father and Luanna, the woman he’d married, and Luanna’s son, Marty, who was younger and far more spoiled than they’d been. Isaac was the one who’d hurt for Elizabeth when the other girls made fun of her long, spindly legs and uncoordinated movements. He was the one who’d bought her tampons when she started her period and tried to explain how to use them. He was the one who’d gotten her a date for her sophomore homecoming dance. The following year, once she turned sixteen and lost that coltish look, he didn’t have to worry about twisting anyone’s arm to generate male interest. The boys were standing in line by then. But that only meant he’d had to watch out for her in a whole new way.
He’d always tried to protect her because of the fragility engendered by their childhood.
“According to the article I read, it happened just before your plane landed,” Elizabeth said. “You must’ve driven right into it. It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt.”
Keith dropped the letters he’d been holding, but he kept his eyes averted while he pulled on his overcoat and closed his briefcase. “I guess I was too preoccupied to pay any attention,” he told her. “You know how much stress I’ve been under.”
Keith’s response made Isaac even more uneasy. He liked his brother-in-law, who was a hardworking, sincere, honest guy. So what was going on with Keith today?
“The fog was so thick no one could see a thing, Keith,” Elizabeth said. “Eighteen people died. How is it that you—”
“I’m telling you it was the stress,” he interrupted. “And speaking of stress, I’ve got to go or I’ll miss my plane.”
He came forward to kiss her temple. She hesitated as though she was going to stand up and give him a proper send-off, but he didn’t allow her the chance. He was working his way around the table, saying goodbye to the children.
“Do you really have to leave so soon?” eight-year-old Mica asked.
“Every two weeks, babe. You know that.”
The misery that entered her brown eyes seemed magnified by her glasses. “But the spelling bee is next Wednesday. I wanted you to come watch.”
Finally showing a response that felt authentic to Isaac, Keith mussed her hair, which was the same dark blond as his own. “I saw you beat your whole class, didn’t I?”
“It’s not over yet. Now I’m going up against the rest of the school.”
“I’m proud of you, honey. But you know how demanding my job is.”
“I hate your job,” she grumbled.
“Daddy’s job is what puts food on this table, young lady,” Elizabeth said. Obviously, she was trying to teach Mica to give her father the proper respect—but Liz didn’t look any happier about Keith’s leaving than the children did. Isaac knew her husband’s long absences were hard on her.
“Mom will tape your spelling bee for me,” Keith told his daughter. “We’ll watch it together when I get back.”
Mica frowned over what was left of her breakfast and didn’t answer. But she allowed him to give her a quick squeeze. Then he moved on to his five-year-old son, who had golden hair and wide hazel eyes like his mother.
“What about my soccer game?” Christopher asked.
“I’ll catch the next one, buddy,” Keith said. “And then we’ll go get ice cream again, okay?”
Chris brightened considerably. “Okay!”
“You took him out for ice cream?” Mica gasped. “What about me?”
“You were at your friend’s house.”
“You could’ve brought me a cone.”
He winked at her. “You can come with us next time.”
The natural affection between Keith and his children made Isaac wonder if he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion a few minutes earlier. Keith wasn’t the type to do anything that would hurt his family. So what would he have to lie about?
By the time his brother-in-law came around to shake his hand, Isaac had convinced himself he’d been imagining things. This was the man he’d been so happy to see his sister marry—as opposed to, say, Matt Dugan, the guy she used to date.
“I guess you’ll be gone when I get back, huh?” Keith said.
Isaac nodded. “I’ve been here a week already. I need to get home and organize my notes.”
“On the forest elephants?”
“Exactly.”
Keith grinned and shook his head. “I don’t know how you Tarzan types do it, man. I’d go nuts camping out in the jungle for so long.”
“You wouldn’t if you loved it as much as I do.”
“Maybe not. You certainly make it look easy.”
“I’m single. I have only myself to worry about.” Isaac liked it that way. After taking care of Liz for so long, he enjoyed having the chance to focus solely on his work.
“Well, come and see us again before you head back to Africa, okay?”
“I’ll try. A lot depends on whether or not I get the grant money.”
“It’ll come through eventually. It always does.”
Isaac had been lucky so far. “We’ll see.”
Scooping his keys off the counter, Keith headed to the living room. The front door banged shut. Then silence fell over the table—except for the sudden chime of the clock.
“I hate it when he has to go,” Mica complained.
“Me, too,” Christopher said.
Isaac checked Liz’s reaction and found her staring into her coffee cup.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Her sudden smile appeared forced. “Nothing. Why?”
“Are you still thinking about that accident in Sacramento?”
“Not really.”
“Where’s Keith off to this time?”
“Phoenix. He goes there a lot. He’s training personnel on how to use the new software he’s developed.”
“He must like what he does.”
She sighed. “So much he won’t put in for a change.”
“Is everything—” because Mica was watching, Isaac purposefully veered toward the generic, using only his tone to convey that he meant something deeper “—okay, Elizabeth?”
His sister’s delicately arched eyebrows lifted. “Between me and Keith?” she asked in a low voice. “Of course.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “The constant traveling gets to me occasionally, that’s all. It’s hard to maintain a normal family life when he’s away half the time.”
“Would you like me to stay here with the kids this week so you can fly to Phoenix and be alone with your husband?” Isaac was really anxious to get back to the university. Classes would be starting soon. He had to get his syllabus prepared for microbiology, which he’d be teaching in the spring semester, if the grant money didn’t come through before then.
But this was Elizabeth. He and his sister had grown up with the understanding that no matter what the world threw at them, they’d always have each other.
He thought she might need him now.
She tucked her long blond hair behind her ears, then took a sip of coffee. “No,” she said, her cup clinking against the saucer. “That’s sweet but, to be honest, I don’t think he’d want me there. He doesn’t like me to bother him while he’s working. We rarely hear from him when he’s out of town.” She rubbed her temples as if battling a headache. “His company demands so much from him. But he enjoys his work, so…what can I do?”
Isaac rubbed his knuckles against his jaw. “Are you sure he wouldn’t like you to join him? He’s been traveling for years. All that work has got to get old after a while.”
“Like your trips to the Congo get old for you?” she teased, her perfect teeth glinting at him as she smiled.
Isaac returned her smile, then sobered and reached out to touch her arm. “Liz?”
She took another sip of coffee before answering. “Hmm?”
“How do you think he missed that big accident in Sacramento?”
Her forehead wrinkled as she considered the question. “I don’t know.” Although her plate was still nearly full, she pushed it away. “It’s possible I have the dates mixed up. He comes and goes so often.”
Despite her attempt to sound casual, her response didn’t ring any truer than Keith’s answers had earlier.
“Do you really think so?” Isaac asked, afraid he was missing something important.
Another flicker of a smile—and an almost imperceptible glance at the children. “I do.”
Dundee, Idaho
IT WAS STILL AWKWARD. Even after nearly two years.
Taking advantage of a moment when Lucky Hill was studying the menu, Reenie O’Connell made a face at her brother to let him know she expected a more valiant effort from him. Then she curved her lips into a bright smile as the half sister they hadn’t known about—until their father spilled the secret after Lucky had returned to town as a grown woman of twenty-four—looked up.
Unfortunately, admonishing Gabe did little good. He was too stubborn. His granitelike expression didn’t soften, and Reenie could tell he was making Lucky uncomfortable. Every few seconds, her eyes darted his way as if she was looking for some small sign of acceptance.
“So…should we rent something in Boise?” Reenie asked, trying to keep Lucky distracted by pressing forward with plans for their father’s sixtieth birthday party.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Boise’s over an hour away and too impersonal.”
“But Dad’s been in the state senate for…what? Twenty years? He’s got a lot of acquaintances and professional associates. We need someplace big.”
Lucky tossed her curly, strawberry-blond hair over her shoulder. “Who says we have to invite all his professional associates? I vote we include only those people who are closest to him. Then we could have the party right here in Dundee.”
When there was still no response from Gabe, Reenie jumped in. “You have a point,” she mused. “We don’t want to turn this into another tedious political engagement. Lord knows Dad’s suffered through enough of those.”
“Exactly,” Lucky said, and her gray-blue eyes darted Gabe’s way once again.
Reenie added another spoonful of sugar to her coffee, even though it was already too sweet. She needed something to do with her hands. “In that case, I guess our best option would be to have it at the Running Y Resort.”
Lucky’s reaction held a little too much enthusiasm. “That’s perfect. Don’t you think, Gabe?”
“Fine by me,” he muttered, but it was hardly the warm endorsement Reenie knew Lucky had been hoping for. Their half sister seemed to crave Gabe’s approval. She asked about him all the time. Whether or not things were going well for him and Hannah, his new wife. Whether or not he’d be at the family dinner on Sunday. (If Lucky was planning to attend, the answer was always no.) Whether or not he might come to dinner at her place if she were to invite him….
The smell of coffee filled the air as the waitress stopped by with a steaming pot. Lucky leaned back to allow her to reach across the table. Then, when the waitress walked away, she asked Gabe if he’d like more cream.
When he barely answered, Reenie wanted to kick him under the table. She would have, except she knew it wouldn’t achieve anything. He wouldn’t feel it. The car accident that had ended his professional football career almost four years ago had left him paralyzed from the waist down. He’d been in a wheelchair ever since.
Nothing to do but plunge ahead. She’d hoped planning Garth’s birthday would draw them together. Lucky had even left Sabrina, her one-year-old daughter, with her in-laws this morning so the three of them could meet without any added distractions. But considering Gabe’s smoldering resentment, Reenie’s expectations were falling fast. At this point, she only hoped they could survive this little get-together without Lucky heading home in tears.
“So how many should we invite?” Reenie asked.
“Gabe?” Lucky asked, immediately deferring to him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. A hundred?”
Lucky cleared her throat. “A hundred is still quite a lot,” she said, obviously trying hard to be tactful. “What about thirty or forty? We want it to be comfortable, not too crowded. I think it’ll be more meaningful to Dad that way.”
Reenie knew Lucky had been so focused on trying to state her preferences politely, she probably hadn’t even noticed a muscle flexing in Gabe’s cheek when she referred to Garth as Dad.
God, this was miserable. Reenie understood that Gabe was trying, or he wouldn’t have come today. She also understood that he was still struggling with the changes that had been forced on him in recent years. But what had happened between their father and the most notorious prostitute in town wasn’t Lucky’s fault. “I think thirty or forty is the way to go,” she said.
This time Lucky ignored her. “Gabe?”
Reenie watched her brother’s deep blue eyes, eyes that were almost a mirror image of her own, meet and clash with Lucky’s. She curled her fingernails into her palms. “Never mind my…er…our surly brother,” she said quickly. Gabe’s eyebrows shot up at the “brother” part, but Reenie continued anyway. “It’s already two out of three, right?” She plastered another smile on her face.
“I’d like him to have some input,” Lucky said, her voice steady. Instead of glancing away, like before, she glared at him.
Gabe clenched his jaw again, and the gap in the conversation stretched, filled only with the sound of clattering dishes coming from the kitchen and the murmur of voices around them. Reenie would have piped up with something, but she knew it was unlikely either of her companions would respond. They were in their own little world now. Lucky’s demeanor indicated she’d finally given up trying to change Gabe’s attitude.
“What is it you want from me?” Gabe asked at last.
“I’d like to know what you hold against me,” Lucky said. “What I’ve done to make you dislike me so much.”
Reenie swallowed hard, expecting the situation to blow up in her face, and was surprised when Gabe backed off.
He jiggled the ice in his water glass. “Do whatever you want,” he said gruffly. “As far as I’m concerned, the two of you can plan the whole thing. I—”
“Forget the party,” Lucky interrupted, holding her chin at a challenging angle. “Just answer my question.”
His scowl darkened. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
He started to wheel himself away, but Lucky stood and intercepted him, boldly placing a hand on his well-muscled arm. “No, I’ll leave. You stay and keep on pouting about the fact that your father slept with my mother twenty-six years ago, since you can’t seem to get over it,” she said. “But I want you to know I’ve finally realized something.” She grabbed her purse before turning her attention to him once again. “I was a fool for wanting you to like me. I was a fool for trying as hard as I have to convince you I might make a good friend.” She gave him a bitter smile. “Go to hell, Gabe. I don’t care if my husband loves you like a brother, if the father I’ve grown to respect worships the ground beneath your feet, if Reenie insists that you aren’t the ogre you seem to be. The moment I come into the picture, you’re not the man everyone thinks you are, and I don’t want to be part of your life anymore,” she said. Then, head held high, she strode proudly to the exit.
Reenie heard the bell jingle over the door as Lucky left, but it was several seconds before she could let go of her breath. “Happy now?” she muttered.
Gabe was still staring after their half sister, looking stunned. Finally he blinked and focused on Reenie. “I didn’t do anything to her. I’ve never done anything to her.”
“That’s not true, Gabe. All she wants is your acceptance. But you’ve turned your back on every overture she’s made.” Reenie slid around the vinyl seat. “As far as I’m concerned, you got what you deserve.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, obviously surprised that she’d desert him, too.
“Keith will be home today,” she said. “The girls and I have things to do.”
CHAPTER TWO
Los Angeles, California
ISAAC COULDN’T HELP puzzling over Keith’s behavior. He vacillated between believing he must have misconstrued the situation, and wondering what his brother-in-law was hiding. A forty-five-car pileup was no small thing. A traveler would definitely notice something like that. And Isaac didn’t believe for a moment that Elizabeth had mixed up the dates. She wouldn’t have pressed her husband as hard as she had if there was any possibility of that.
Maybe Keith had spotted the congested traffic and exited the freeway before realizing the extent of what had happened. And maybe, somehow, he had missed all the news reports of the accident the rest of the day.
Isaac didn’t know a whole lot about Sacramento, but he’d been there once, years ago, to meet up with an old girlfriend who’d long since passed out of his life. If he remembered right, the airport was pretty far out of town, connected to the city by only one street, a major freeway. But that could’ve changed….
Hoping that he’d arrived at a logical explanation, Isaac stared at a map of Sacramento on the computer in Keith’s home office. It looked as if there were a few exits off Interstate 5 that Keith could’ve taken. But the airport still sat amid large tracts of farmland. Would someone not very familiar with the area, someone sitting in fog thick enough to cause that big a pileup, know how to get around a traffic jam when there were so few options available?
It didn’t seem entirely plausible, but there was always the possibility that Keith knew Sacramento better than Isaac thought. He certainly traveled enough.
“Isaac?” Elizabeth called from the kitchen.
“What?” he replied, still studying the map.
“Telephone.”
Isaac blinked in surprise. He’d been so absorbed in what he was doing he hadn’t even heard the phone ring.
Leaning to the right of the computer, he breathed in the scent of furniture polish as he reached for the handset.
“Hello?”
“Isaac?”
A strong British accent immediately identified the caller as Reginald Woolston, Isaac’s Department Head at Chicago University. “What’s up, Reggie?”
“Good news. I just received a call from the Research Grants Program of the Center for Tropical Forest Science.”
Isaac sat taller. “And?”
“They’re forwarding your application to the interview committee. They’d like to meet you.”
With Reginald’s help, Isaac had submitted his application months ago, before he’d left the Congo. It was about time CTFS finally reached the interview process. “When?”
“That’s the bad news. Your appointment is scheduled for tomorrow. Can you make it?”
Isaac scowled at the iridescent glow of the computer monitor. “I’m in California!”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Can’t we schedule an appointment for next week so I can have a chance to get home?”
“I’m afraid not,” his boss replied. “The committee meets only once a month. If you miss tomorrow’s meeting, it will push your application back thirty days.”
Isaac didn’t want to delay his chances. Not when he was so eager to return to his research. “No, I’ll…” The black line that was Interstate 5 was all that stood out on the Sacramento map as he leaned back. “I’ll catch a flight out right away.”
“Good for you. I was hoping you’d say that.”
Isaac could hear Elizabeth telling Christopher to get his backpack. She worked from nine until three each day managing a large dental office, but she’d taken the week off to spend with him and had kept Christopher out of day care, too. Now she was getting ready to drive him to his kindergarten class, which started at noon. “Did they sound interested?” he asked Reggie.
“You know the committee type. They rarely give anything away. ‘We’ve had numerous applications,’ and all that rot.”
Isaac chuckled at Reginald’s British colloquialism. When he talked to Reg, he nearly found himself saying, “I say, old man,” or “jolly good, then.”
“You’ve made the first cut, as we expected,” Reg continued. “But I’ve heard Harold Munoz is also applying, and he’s done some great work in the past. The competition will be fierce, so let’s make the most of the opportunity, shall we?”
Harold Munoz was more interested in making a name for himself than he was in saving Africa’s population of forest elephants. Isaac didn’t like him. But, with any luck, Isaac would be the one going back to the place that had captured his imagination like no other. “If I get the grant, how long will it be before the money comes through? Did they give you any indication?”
“Judging from experience, it could be three months, or it could be two years, right? You’ve been through this before.”
He had been through the process, but Isaac wished Reg would show some excitement. After all, Reginald shared Isaac’s passion for Africa and all the animals to be studied there. He used to lead teams to the Republic of the Congo himself, before he accepted the corner office at the university and officially hung up his “field” clothes for a monotonous series of tweed jackets. “Just making conversation,” Isaac said.
“I see. Well, it’s too early to tell.”
And, as usual, Reg was too conservative to speculate. “Right. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Do you need a ride home from the airport?” his boss asked before Isaac could hang up.
Isaac considered his options. He’d returned from the Republic of the Congo almost a month ago, but as soon as he’d settled into his small condo and caught up on what he’d missed at the university, he’d come to California to see his sister, niece and nephew. He didn’t really want to contact some friend or other he hadn’t spoken to in over a year and suddenly ask a favor, which meant he’d have to take a cab. He figured he might as well spend the time talking to Reg, rather than ride alone. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. Leave a message on my voice mail with your time of arrival. I’m heading into a faculty meeting right now.”
Isaac agreed and disconnected, then retrieved the phone book so he could arrange his flight. Fifteen minutes later, he was eager to pack so he wouldn’t miss his plane.
Quickly collecting his day planner, he stood and started out of the room. But then his eye caught the computer screen once again.
Keith must have taken the exit called Power Line Road and avoided the whole pileup, he decided. Elizabeth admitted that when he was out of town she rarely heard from him. He was probably as absorbed by his work as Isaac was and had forgotten about the detour in Sacramento by the time he returned home.
In any case, what Isaac had sensed in his brother-in-law this morning wasn’t anything to worry about. Elizabeth was going to be fine.
With a click of the mouse, he closed the map.
Dundee, Idaho
REENIE SLOWED as she passed the small farm for sale a few miles from her home.
“Mommy, why are you stopping?” six-year-old Isabella demanded from the back seat of the old minivan.
Reenie had just picked up her three daughters from school. It was raining and had been for most of the afternoon. She could smell the crushed autumn leaves on her children’s boots, the cool wet of the outdoors on their raincoats and umbrellas, the musty scent of their damp hair. “So I can dream,” she said.
Angela, older than Isabella by two years, was sitting in the back, too. “Mom loves that farm, silly,” she said. “Since it went up for sale, she stops here almost every time we pass by.”
Reenie smiled at Angela’s don’t-you-know-anything attitude and pulled onto the shoulder so she wouldn’t cause an accident.
“Are you sure Daddy won’t move here?” Jennifer asked. The oldest at ten, she always tried to claim the passenger seat. But for safety’s sake, Reenie made her ride in back with her sister.
The wipers continued to beat across the windshield. “I’m sure,” Reenie said, watching as great gusts of wind turned the rusty weather vane on the old barn.
“Can’t you talk him into it?” The snaps of Jennifer’s raincoat made a popping noise as she removed it.
“No.” Suppressing a sigh, Reenie turned down the heater. She’d tried to convince Keith that the Higley farm would be a wonderful place to raise their girls. She’d spoken to him about it again and again, but he wanted no part of such a big project. He wasn’t the type to remodel or farm, he told her. He traveled too much.
But she’d thought the farm might eventually provide a way for him to settle down and stay in one place. They could raise and sell a certain breed of dog or horse or pig. They could stable horses or plant crops or lease out the extra land. Reenie knew how to ride. She could even give lessons to the kids in town who rarely had the chance to sit in a saddle. Maybe she and Keith wouldn’t make a mint with their little farm, but he wasn’t earning all that much right now. The company he worked for made plenty of grandiose promises for later, but “later” never came. At least with the farm they’d be together. If finances became a problem, she could always go back to teaching. The life she had now was nice, comfortable. She took care of her girls, helped her mother with various charities and volunteered at the elementary school. But it wasn’t enough. What she really wanted was a good challenge. And for Keith to stay in Dundee.
“He won’t move here ever?” Jennifer pressed.
“Maybe in a few years.” All his traveling had to be taxing, but Keith never complained. He loved his job, and she loved him. It was that simple. She’d known there wasn’t anyone else for her the day they’d first met. He’d walked into the Homecoming Dance, the new kid everyone had been talking about, and Reenie’s heart had dropped to her knees. She couldn’t remember ever having that kind of reaction to another man. It wasn’t because Keith was so handsome, although his rugged, angular face, dark blond hair and brown eyes certainly appealed to her. His confidence was what drew her, his strength. He was one of the few boys she couldn’t intimidate with the force of her own personality.
“What time’s Daddy coming home?” Angela asked.
Reminded of Keith’s call, which she’d received at her mother’s house earlier, Reenie frowned and put the transmission into Drive. “Not for a while.”
“But you said he’d be here for dinner!” Jennifer complained.
The heater whirred softly as Reenie leaned forward to glance up at a darkening sky. “He would’ve been, if not for this storm.” She threw them a rueful smile. Jennifer and Angela looked almost exactly like Keith, especially Angela, who insisted on wearing her blond hair short. Blue-eyed Isabella, however, had hair so dark it was nearly black, like Reenie’s.
“There’s always some reason he can’t be here,” Jennifer muttered.
Ignoring the pique in her daughter’s voice, Reenie checked over her shoulder before pulling onto the road. “I guess the weather’s even worse in Boise.”
“Is he stuck up in the sky, circling around and around, like that one time when it was snowing and he couldn’t land?” Angela asked, sounding a bit frightened.
“No. The plane hasn’t even taken off yet. They’re holding it in Los Angeles until the weather clears up.”
“He’ll be home tonight, though, won’t he?” Isabella said.
Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder boomed in the distance. Then the patter of the rain grew deeper, sounding like tiny pebbles bombarding the windshield. “I hope so,” Reenie replied. She missed Keith when he was gone, missed his warmth in her bed, his support with the girls, the smile he reserved for her alone. She felt as if half her life was locked in cold storage. But when Keith came home, he made the wait worthwhile.
She felt decidedly warmer remembering the last time they’d made love. They’d been as eager for each other as if they’d been newlyweds, despite the fact they’d been married for eleven years. Maybe the absences did that for them. Maybe the traveling, much as she hated it, wasn’t all bad.
She had to believe that, didn’t she? Or she wouldn’t be able to tolerate his job any longer.
Their small wooden house came up on the right, a few miles after the cozier neighbourhoods of Dundee gave way to ranchettes. As soon as Reenie pulled into the driveway, Jennifer released her seat belt and pounded the back of Reenie’s seat in excitement. “Hey, you’re selling Dad’s Jeep!”
Reenie gazed at the vehicle parked beneath the tarp Keith had attached to the side of the garage. She’d just put the For Sale sign up this morning. “I’m trying.”
“After it sells, will we have the money to buy a horse?” Jennifer asked.
The engine sputtered as Reenie turned off the ignition. “I doubt it, honey. We don’t have anywhere to stable a horse.”
“We have a big yard. The Oakleys down the street have horses.”
“We’d have to build stables in back or pay the Oakleys for board. And I’m sure your dad won’t go for either option. He’s planning to buy a motorcycle with the money.”
“Maybe we’ll get enough for both.” Angela tugged her backpack onto her shoulder. “Has anyone wanted to buy it yet?”
“Not that I know of.” Reenie selected the key that opened the house so she’d be ready for the dash across the wet yard. “Someone might’ve called, but I’ve been gone all day.”
“Let’s go see!” Isabella said.
Reenie grimaced at the sky, hoping for a letup that didn’t appear to be coming. “There won’t be many people out looking at cars in this weather.”
“It’ll sell,” Jennifer said confidently. “Everyone loves the Jeep.”
“I hope you’re right.” Reenie wanted part of the money, too—for Christmas.
“Hey,” Isabella said, her voice so loud it nearly made Reenie’s ears ring. “Uncle Gabe brought our swing!”
Since the accident, Gabe had started making the most beautiful armoires, rocking chairs, beds, tables—even clocks and, evidently, tree swings. But after the way he’d handled their meeting with Lucky this morning, Reenie didn’t want to think about him or his peace offering. She didn’t want to forgive her brother too fast. She’d tried calling Lucky twice since breakfast and hadn’t been able to reach her.
“Remember to take off your boots in the mudroom,” she said as she stepped out of the car. “I just had the carpets cleaned.”
They all ran for the back door and piled into the little antechamber that led to the kitchen. Old Bailey, their bassett hound, greeted them by wagging his whole hindquarters as they tossed their boots in a corner and hung their raincoats on hooks.
Reenie finished first because she wasn’t wearing a hat or a sweater under her coat and passed into the kitchen to find the light blinking on her answering machine. Pressing the button that would deliver her messages, she leaned on the counter, hoping to receive some word from her husband.
Sure enough, Keith’s voice came into the room, as warm and steady as always. “Hi honey. I’m still in L.A. It looks like it’ll be a few more hours, so I’m going down the street for a real meal. Don’t wait up for me. I love you,” he said. “I’ll get home as soon as I can.”
The machine beeped and Reenie stood. Yet another night alone with the girls.
“His job’ll be the death of me,” she muttered.
Los Angeles, California
ISAAC HELD TIGHT to his boarding pass as he strode briskly through the airport, weaving in and out of the small clusters of people who were toting more luggage than he was or had stopped for one reason or another. His plane was leaving in forty-five minutes, which meant they’d be boarding in fifteen. Seven hours after that, he’d reach Chicago, where Reg would pick him up and take him home. He’d get in late, but the thought that he wouldn’t have any trouble making his meeting tomorrow morning filled him with relief.
Hiking the bag that contained his laptop computer higher on his shoulder, he left the ticketing area. But when he reached the security checkpoint, he felt a flicker of concern. The line was longer than he’d expected, and it wasn’t moving very fast.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered impatiently, tapping his boarding pass against the palm of one hand as they inched slowly forward.
A moment later, the line stopped altogether.
What was the holdup? Leaning to the left, he tried to see around the people in front of him. An old lady was arguing with security personnel about having to remove her shoes, as if she hadn’t watched everyone else do the same thing for the past thirty minutes. A couple of college boys were taking their computers out of their bags and putting them in gray bins.
God, at this rate—
Suddenly Isaac caught sight of someone familiar. The man had his back to him, so it was difficult to be sure, but he looked exactly like Keith.
He had to be wrong, of course. His brother-in-law had called Elizabeth just an hour or so ago to tell her he’d arrived safely in Phoenix. If he was in Phoenix, he certainly couldn’t be here.
But that guy…
Moving to the other side of the line, Isaac tried to get a better look. At first someone inadvertently blocked his view, but then the line spread apart and Isaac finally caught the profile of the man he’d been trying to see.
It was crazy! He looked exactly like Keith. He was even wearing the same camel-colored overcoat.
The strange feeling he’d had earlier that morning, the sense that something was terribly wrong, swept over Isaac again. He didn’t care what Elizabeth had said about Keith reaching Phoenix, this man was her husband. The longer Isaac watched, the more certain he became.
Taking his cell phone from his bag, he dialed Elizabeth’s number. “Hey, Liz,” he said when she answered.
She sounded surprised to hear from him, probably because she’d only dropped him off a few minutes ago. “Did you miss your plane?” she asked.
“No, I’m going through security right now.”
“Then…did you forget something?”
“I don’t think so. I was hoping…” He cleared his throat. “Keith made it safely to Phoenix, right? I mean, he called you before we left the house, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He called around two.”
“Did he say what the weather was like?”
“Nearly eighty degrees. In November. Can you believe it?”
“No.” He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that Keith was even in Phoenix, because Isaac was standing right here, staring at him. “You don’t think he forgot anything, do you?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Isaac, you’re acting strange.”
A woman’s voice came over the intercom. “This is a security announcement…”
Isaac bowed his head so he could hear above the noise.
“What do you care about the weather in Phoenix?” Elizabeth was asking him. “And what do all these questions mean?”
Isaac couldn’t say what was going on. But he was determined to find out. “Nothing. I’m…” His mind groped for an explanation.
“You’re what?” she said when he didn’t finish.
Reeling… “Passing the time,” he finished lamely. “Keith and I didn’t get much of a chance to talk, and I was curious about his schedule. When do you expect him back?”
“In two weeks or so.”
“Is he always gone two weeks?”
“Give or take a day here and there. If the kids have something special, he’ll occasionally come home early. Sometimes work demands that he make allowances on the other end.” She paused. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said, feeling numb as he imagined Keith on the phone to Elizabeth. I’m here in Phoenix…the weather’s beautiful…nearly eighty degrees…
“Isaac, what’s the matter with you?” she asked.
She didn’t suspect Keith’s deception, he realized. His baby sister, who’d already been through so much, probably had a nasty surprise in store for her, and he was going to have to be the one to break the news to her.
But not now. Not until he knew exactly what was going on. “Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong. You never act like this.”
He swallowed a sigh. “I’m fine. I’ve gotta go, okay? I don’t want to miss my plane,” he said, and hung up.
Fortunately, the line was now moving faster. Ahead of him, Keith went through the metal detector, then started putting on his expensive Italian loafers.
In a few seconds he’d be fully dressed, recover his belongings and head to his gate, Isaac realized. But which gate would that be? Isaac had to know.
Letting the stress he felt show in his face, he turned to the person in front of him. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m about to miss my plane. If you can afford the time, would you mind letting me go in front of you?”
It was a woman and her daughter. They politely stepped aside and let him through, and several more people did the same. He was nearly to the metal detector when Keith slung his carry-on over his shoulder and walked off.
Isaac cleared security and collected his things, hesitating briefly when he realized that Keith had moved in the opposite direction to the one Isaac needed to go. If he followed his brother-in-law, he’d miss his plane. Which meant he’d miss his interview.
Picturing his sister at the breakfast table this morning, so trusting and gullible and, along with her two kids, disappointed to see her husband go, he cursed softly. Then he gazed down the long corridor, managed to pick his brother-in-law’s tall figure out of the crowd far ahead and started to follow.
CHAPTER THREE
ALONE ON THE TENNIS COURT, Elizabeth lowered her racquet to glance at the new diamond-studded watch Keith had given her for their eighth wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. It was just after six. Renate, who helped them out for a couple of hours each afternoon, would’ve picked up Mica and Christopher from their various after-school activities by now. They were probably already on their way home.
Elizabeth wanted to be with them. Usually she enjoyed going to the country club, especially when Keith was home. They played doubles as often as possible. But she wasn’t in the mood to be here right now. It wasn’t easy having Keith and Isaac leave on the same day. Their departures allowed the loneliness that sometimes plagued her to move closer.
Holding her racquet between her legs, she adjusted the ribbon that gathered her thick blond hair into a ponytail and attempted to shrug off her melancholy mood by telling herself the exercise would be good for her. Keith had given her these lessons for her thirtieth birthday two months ago and expected her to take them. She could do that much. He loved that she could beat almost any woman she played, even most men, and didn’t want her to lose any of her ability.
He didn’t want her to lose her figure, either. Which was probably why he insisted that they were finished having children, even though Liz would have liked one more.
She winced at the memory of the comment he’d made when they were making love the other night. “Wow, babe, what are you eating when I’m gone? Feels like you’re putting on a few pounds.”
He was right, of course. She was comfort eating, trying to help pass the long evenings when he was away. But it wasn’t as though she’d turned into a blimp.
Throwing the ball into the air, she smacked it hard and watched it rocket to the other side of the court. It landed right in the corner, almost on the line. A perfect serve.
“Looking good.”
Dave Shapiro, the club pro, had finally deigned to show up for her lesson. But, from the way he was watching her, she couldn’t tell if he was referring to her serve or her legs.
“You’re late,” she said.
As usual, her attempt to redirect his interest did little good. “I’m worth the wait.”
She adjusted her visor as he swaggered over—and stiffened when he stood behind her, lifting her arm in the motion of her serve.
“You were holding your wrist like this, see?” He made a point of having her look up. “That’s exactly the way I want you to hold it. Every time.”
He was a little too close. Liz could feel his body’s heat, despite the cool November air, and remembered some of the suggestive things he’d said to her in the past. She knew, if she gave him any encouragement, he’d flirt even more.
But she’d never get seriously involved with him. No matter how handsome he was. No matter how badly she needed to feel desirable. After going through some of the most difficult years of her life without a mother, she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her own small family.
“You’re a beautiful woman, you know that?” he said.
“And you’re about seven years too young for me,” she replied, smiling because he was so obvious.
He shrugged. “That isn’t the reason you’re not interested.”
Maybe Dave was cocky, but she appreciated how honest and direct he could be. “Not exclusively, no.”
He hesitated for a moment, his attention roving over her short skirt. “Your husband’s a lucky man.”
“Commitment’s an important part of loving someone, don’t you think?” she said, and served again. Too long.
When his eyes finally met hers, his grin spread up one side, making him appear even more boyish than usual. “I think your husband’s gone too often. It isn’t wise to leave a wife alone so much.”
“He trusts me,” she said simply.
Dave cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you trust him?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t think he’s ever visited a bar or a strip club and wound up in someone else’s bed?”
To be honest, she had considered that possibility. Her husband retrieved his voice mail and his e-mails when he was away, and responded if she needed him. But he never answered his cell phone during those long absences and rarely bothered to call her. She often wondered what he did when he had some spare time. Especially on holidays. At least once a year, he missed a major holiday because a network went down somewhere in the company. Did some of the other guys ever take him out for a drink? Or to a party?
She couldn’t picture it. He said most of the guys at work were jerks and he refused to socialize with them. He wouldn’t even attend the annual Christmas party. When she asked him how he spent his evening hours, he denied having any fun at all. “I try to get as much done as possible while I’m gone so I can be more available to you and the kids when I’m home,” he said. And he made it easy for her to believe him. Although he worked while he was home—quite a bit, actually—he was completely devoted to her and the kids. She’d never seen him so much as look at another woman.
So rather than become an insecure nag, she’d chosen to trust him.
“He’s a workaholic, which keeps him pretty busy,” she said. “And he loves our kids as much as I do.”
Dave reached down to retrieve a stray ball. “Maybe you’re as lucky as he is. But if I were a gambler, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“You barely know him!” she said.
“He’s a man, isn’t he?”
“That’s pretty cynical, not to mention sexist,” she accused, slugging him halfheartedly in the arm. “Anyway, you’re wrong.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
She claimed the ball and served again. “Because I know my husband.”
AT THE AIRPORT, Isaac sat in a row of chairs one gate away from Keith. Other passengers crowded into the space between them, occasionally obstructing his view, but Isaac didn’t move any closer. He didn’t want his brother-in-law to know he was being watched, even though, from what Isaac could tell, he didn’t appear to be particularly concerned about those around him. He didn’t seem to be doing much of anything unusual—except going to the wrong city. According to the sign behind the desk, he was waiting for a flight that had been scheduled to leave for Boise, Idaho, this morning but had been delayed because of bad weather.
Boise. Why in the world would Keith be going there? Isaac might have guessed that Softscape, Inc., the company Keith worked for, had decided to send him somewhere else at the last minute. But that call saying he’d arrived safely and was already enjoying the sunshine made no sense. A man didn’t play such an elaborate charade without a reason.
What was Keith’s reason?
Isaac glanced at his watch. He’d missed his own flight to Chicago more than thirty minutes ago, so that decision had already been made. He knew he might regret his actions—certainly Reginald hadn’t been happy to hear the news—but Isaac felt strongly about getting to the bottom of his brother-in-law’s mysterious behavior.
In order to do that, he needed to follow Keith to Idaho. But if he took the same flight, he risked being seen.
He considered making arrangements through another airline, but decided it would be too difficult to coordinate his arrival with Keith’s. He was afraid if he let Keith out of his sight for very long he’d lose him.
Isaac contemplated several different scenarios before deciding that his best bet was to buy a first-class ticket on Keith’s flight. He’d board before all the other passengers, sit in the last row of coach and bury his nose in a newspaper. Unless the flight was packed, which he could already tell it wasn’t, he doubted anyone would even sit next to him. His brother-in-law would get on and most likely take a seat much farther toward the front. Then Isaac would follow him off the plane when it landed.
The woman behind the counter was telling folks it’d be at least another hour before Keith’s flight could take off. Isaac had heard her say it half-a-dozen times, so he wasn’t concerned about being able to purchase a ticket. There were a lot of people milling around, but most seemed to be waiting to go to Portland.
When a group of businessmen passed between him and his brother-in-law, he finally stood and started toward the escalators. Keith had settled in to work on his computer. He wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until they boarded the plane.
Then Isaac would be going with him.
Dundee, Idaho
REENIE COULDN’T HELP waiting up. She knew it was crazy to lose sleep when she had to get the girls off to school in the morning. But she still felt that old rush of anticipation when she knew her husband was coming home.
She sat in the living room, the filmy black lingerie she’d bought in Boise last week hidden beneath the heavy fabric of her robe, sipping a glass of white wine and playing with Old Bailey’s silky ears. Her dog had been acting a little sluggish lately, but he was eleven years old and suffered from arthritis, so that was to be expected. “You’re okay, aren’t you Bailey?” she asked.
He licked his snout and gave her a short whine, and she sighed, hoping she’d been imagining his lack of appetite and increased lethargy.
Taking another sip of wine, she listened to the wind buffet the trees against the house. A steady drip fell from the rain gutter at the side of the house, but the worst of the storm had blown over. Conditions must have improved in Boise, too, because Keith had called at nine-thirty to say he was boarding his plane. Surely, he wouldn’t be much longer.
The ring of the telephone startled her. She wasn’t used to receiving calls so late. Her husband rarely called when he was gone. If he hadn’t been delayed, she doubted she would have heard from him at all today. He would have simply appeared, luggage in tow, as he always did.
Pulling her gaze away from the silver sheen of wet pavement that lay beyond her big, sloping front lawn, she extricated herself from Bailey, who padded after her as she answered the phone in the kitchen. She hoped Keith wasn’t calling to say his plane had been forced to land elsewhere.
“Hello?”
“Reenie?”
It wasn’t Keith; it was Gabe. She knew her brother well enough to guess he was feeling badly about this morning. That was why he’d brought the girls a tree swing. But she’d already promised herself she wasn’t going to forgive him too easily.
“Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No. Keith’s getting in soon.”
“You haven’t talked him into quitting that lousy job yet?”
“It pays the bills.”
“It makes you miserable.”
She raked her fingers through her hair. “He’s afraid he won’t be able to replace his paycheck. And he says he’s used to the traveling, that I should be used to it by now, too.”
“Are you?”
“Mostly I’m tired of having him gone. But I’m not sure it’s fair of me to demand he give up what he feels successful at, what he loves. Besides, what if he’s right and he can’t find anything better?”
“He’d be fine. It’s time he started thinking of you and the girls.”
“He’s good to us.”
“When he’s around.” Gabe fell silent for a long moment, then drew an audible breath. “I’m sorry about this morning,” he said, offering the apology he’d probably been working on all day.
Because the words sounded as though he’d had to drag them out of some place very deep, they melted Reenie’s heart almost immediately. So much for not forgiving him too easily.
Oh well. Maybe they argued often. They were both passionate people. Stubborn. Opinionated. But their arguments never lasted long. Regardless of their ups and downs, Reenie knew Gabe would do anything for her, and she felt the same way about him. “I know you’re still having a hard time with what Dad did,” she said. “But it happened so long ago, Gabe. And Lucky really is—”
“A nice person,” he interrupted. “I know. You’ve told me that before. I keep thinking I’m over whatever it is that makes me dislike her. But then I see her and…” His sentence trailed off.
Bailey, tired of waiting for Reenie to return to their cozy spot in the living room, lay across her feet.
“She’s your best friend’s wife,” Reenie said, trying to approach the situation from another angle.
“Which only complicates the situation,” Gabe replied. “Dad. You. Mike. I’m cornered.”
“Sometimes it’s better to accept what we can’t change.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Considering the accident that had stolen so much from him, she guessed it was more a matter of her poor brother reaching his “tough luck” threshold before they’d even learned about their father’s affair with the infamous Red.
“Hannah thinks I should give her a call in the morning,” he said.
Hannah. Gabe’s wife was so immovable in her love for him. If not for the strength of the relationship that had developed between them, and Hannah’s two boys, he’d probably still be closeting himself away in the remote cabin where he’d lived for two years after the accident. Instead, he’d bought a house in town and was coaching football at the high school.
Reenie wondered if she was expecting too much of him. Her brother was making progress. But it didn’t hurt to encourage him. “I’m sure Lucky would be glad to hear from you,” she said.
The sound of a car in the driveway brought Reenie’s head up. Bailey, who was hardly an excitable animal, lumbered to the door and gave a rare “woof!”
Finally. Her husband was home. She was going to talk to Keith about the Higley farm. Again. She knew having him around more often would be good for the family. Not only were his long absences driving her crazy, but she had this…this terrible sense that his traveling threatened her and their children in some way.
She knew he’d laugh at her the moment she admitted it to him. Until recently, she wouldn’t even admit it to herself. But she could no longer ignore what she felt. She wasn’t being insecure or overly possessive. Keith was becoming increasingly distant. Sometimes she’d be talking to him, possibly speculating on what their lives could be like if he did something else for a living, and his mind would just drift off. She needed his attention again. She needed him to concentrate more on her and the kids and less on work.
Hearing Keith’s key in the lock, she told Gabe she’d call him tomorrow. Now that she and Keith would be face-to-face, and alone, she was going to sit down with him and tell him exactly how she felt. His job—or his marriage. He’d have to choose.
But as soon as her husband walked through the door, she found herself in his arms and knew she wouldn’t bring up the subject tonight. She didn’t want to argue. He was whispering how much he loved her, how much he’d missed her, and his hands were slipping beneath her robe, seeking the places on her body that craved his touch.
She’d already put up with his traveling for nearly eleven years. She supposed her ultimatum could wait one more night.
ISAAC SAT in the back seat of the taxi he’d hired at the airport and stared across a narrow country road at the house Keith had entered only a few minutes earlier. A quick glance at the clock on the dash next to the meter in front told him it was 11:58 p.m.—a little late for Keith to be visiting a friend.
Frowning, he let his eyes rove over the house. Made of wood and painted white, it had been built some years ago but, like the yard, it was well kept. He could see the top of a swing set over the back fence. A tricycle with pink tassels dangling from the handlebars waited near the front door. A detached garage took up a large section of the right-hand side of the property, but it didn’t look as though it was being used to house vehicles. There was a Jeep, parked beneath a tarp and sporting a For Sale sign. A minivan sat in the driveway next to the blue SUV Keith had driven.
“You gettin’ out?” the cabby asked when Isaac made no move to open the door.
“No.”
“You want I should take you somewhere else?”
“No.”
The license plate of the minivan said, 1 I LUV. Keith’s license plate was pretty conspicuous, too. It read, MY3GRLS, which had made him quite easy to follow.
Isaac lightly rubbed his lip. He’d risked his grant to follow Keith across two states, but he still wasn’t sure what his brother-in-law was up to. He only knew it didn’t look good. Especially when two figures, a man and a woman, appeared in the window. The glaring porch light made it difficult to see much detail, but a softer light coming from another room in the house threw both their bodies into relief.
They were kissing. The man was Keith. No question. The woman he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t discern any specific features, not even the color of her hair.
“Meter’s running,” the cabby reminded him.
When Isaac made no response, the driver rolled down his window and lit a cigarette while Isaac watched Keith shove the woman’s robe off her shoulders. When Keith bent his head to kiss his partner’s neck, Isaac looked away. He felt sick. Elizabeth was going to be devastated. This would hurt Mica and Christopher, too.
What should he do? Dropping his head in his hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think.
“That’s not your wife, is it?” the cab driver asked, smoke curling from his nose as he spoke.
Again, Isaac didn’t respond. He was too busy searching for an answer. But no answer presented itself.
When he glanced up again, the figures in the window were gone. No doubt they’d moved to the bedroom.
Imagining his brother-in-law making love to another woman caused rage to cut through Isaac’s terrible disappointment. He had to do something; he had to stop what was happening. For Elizabeth’s sake.
“Wait here,” he said, and got out. Wrinkling his nose against the cabby’s cigarette smoke and the car’s exhaust, he pulled his coat close and strode briskly across the street. He’d teach Keith a lesson. Break his nose. Something!
Isaac’s mind told him a fistfight wouldn’t solve anything—he hadn’t been in a fight since he was seventeen—but his heart pumped eagerly in his chest as he cleared the driveway. He wouldn’t allow his brother-in-law to have sex with this woman!
Anticipating the satisfying impact of his first blow to Keith’s face, Isaac barely heard the rumbling motor of the waiting taxi as he slipped inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the front yard. He passed the trike with the pink tassels, stepped over a small pair of rubber boots lying near the steps and opened the screen door so he could bang on the wooden panel behind it. But then he hesitated. There was a crayon drawing taped to the door.
He blinked, his hand poised in the air. The drawing depicted several stick figures. One was obviously larger than the rest and, judging by the hair, was a man. The other figures were as crudely drawn but they were much smaller and seemed to be gathered around the man. At the bottom, a child had written, “Welcome Home, Daddy. We missed you. Jennifer, Angela and…” He couldn’t read the last name. Whoever had signed the drawing had attempted to write in cursive, which he or she obviously didn’t know how to do.
Welcome home, Daddy….
Chills rolled down Isaac’s spine as he slowly lowered his hand to his side. Was this woman also married? Was her husband away on business? Could Keith have been driving her husband’s car?
Isaac wanted to knock and demand the truth. But the tricycle with the pink tassels, the little boots and the childish note stopped him. There were children inside….
God, what was going on? How many lives would Keith’s affair destroy?
Taking a bolstering breath, Isaac glanced back at the waiting taxi just as the cab driver finished his cigarette and tossed the butt carelessly away.
He had to think, gain some perspective.
Suddenly the porch light winked off, leaving Isaac in the dark. He froze where he stood on the front step, waiting to see if whoever had turned off the light had heard his approach or spotted the green-and-white taxi parked in front.
But the next several seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Keith and the woman were probably too involved with each other to notice anything less than a sizable earthquake.
The rain began to fall more heavily, but Isaac couldn’t move. Most of his life, he’d done his best to protect his little sister. She’d had no one else.
But, heaven help him, there wasn’t anything he could do to protect her from this.
CHAPTER FOUR
RELUCTANTLY, ISAAC LEFT Dundee behind and had the cabdriver drop him at a motel next to the Boise airport. He would’ve liked more time in the small town where Keith had spent the night. But he couldn’t haunt Dundee while his brother-in-law was around. He didn’t want Keith to know he suspected the affair. Not until he had a better sense of what was happening. Besides, his luggage had gone on to Chicago when he missed his plane and he wouldn’t have had any transportation in Dundee. The town wasn’t large enough to offer car rentals or bus service.
He had to go home. But what he’d witnessed didn’t make it easy to leave. At least a hundred questions crowded to the forefront of his mind as he lay in the double bed, staring down the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him. Did folks in the area know Keith? How often did he appear and how long did he stay? Who was the woman he’d taken in his arms? Where had he met her—and how? What plans did he have for the future? Surely Liz’s husband didn’t feel he could continue lying to her indefinitely.
Or did he?
He’d come back later, when Keith was in L.A., he decided. Then Isaac wouldn’t have to be so discreet. He could poke around, ask whatever he wanted.
Now he needed to sleep, so he could get up early and fly out. He couldn’t make his interview, but he was anxious to be home.
Problem was sleep wouldn’t come. Traffic rambled by; the television in the room next door blared too loudly. He was still getting used to such noise after spending more than a year cocooned in the deep jungle.
The ice machine not far from his door clattered, and he swore softly under his breath. But it was the memories that really bothered him—the memories he hadn’t let himself think about for years. Elizabeth repeatedly waking in a cold sweat, shaking from some terrible nightmare. Luanna, their stepmother, who was the cause of those nightmares, constantly belittling her. Can’t you do anything right?…You clumsy idiot…My hell, if you had half a brain you’d be dangerous…Look at the way you did these dishes. You’re not worth a damn, you know that?
For some reason, Luanna had been kinder to Isaac. He’d grown up feeling guilty for getting away with the little things Elizabeth would be punished for doing. Things like leaving his clothes on the floor, or forgetting to put his plate in the dishwasher. Maybe it was because he didn’t need Luanna as much as Liz did, because he didn’t really care whether she liked him or not. There was a certain amount of safety in indifference.
But Liz had been younger and much lonelier. She’d desperately craved the love they’d lost when their mother died, and it seemed to be that neediness that made Luanna so harsh. At any rate, Liz’s vulnerability gave Luanna her power. The more Luanna punished Elizabeth, the more insecure and forgetful the girl became. The more insecure and forgetful she became, the more Luanna found reason to punish her. It grew into a never-ending cycle, one which Isaac could not stop. Whenever he tried to defend Elizabeth, Luanna would turn on him, and he’d run away from home. A day or two later, he’d go back because he couldn’t leave Liz there alone.
He’d built up a deep resentment of his father for not putting an end to the petty meanness. To this day, they weren’t speaking.
Fortunately, Elizabeth had slowly gained the strength she’d needed to stand up to their stepmother. When she was seventeen, she’d run away herself and refused to go back. She’d graduated from high school while living with a girlfriend and spending most weekends sleeping on the floor of Isaac’s dorm room. Once he’d obtained his degree, he’d tried to help her get through college, but she’d left school to become a stewardess, which she seemed to really enjoy. That was when she met Keith. They’d married, had two children, and Liz had been happier than Isaac had ever seen her.
Which was all about to change.
Isaac shifted to his back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Who was the poor schmuck Keith’s new lover was cheating on? Did he have any idea what his wife was doing?
Sleep, he ordered himself and tried to stop thinking. But it was no use.
Finally he snatched the phone from its cradle and leaned back against the headboard to dial. A call this late would probably wake Liz. But he had to talk to her, if only to remind himself that she was older and stronger than she’d been before, that somehow she’d be okay.
“Hello?” Her sleep-filled voice seemed to reach across the line and grab him by the throat.
“Hello?” she repeated when he didn’t answer right away.
“It’s me.”
“Oh good, you got my message.” Her last word thickened with what sounded like a yawn.
“Your message?”
“On your answering machine. I wanted to make sure you got in safely.”
“I’m fine.” Isaac hated lying to her. She thought her husband was in Phoenix. She thought her brother was in Chicago. Yet they were both in Idaho, of all places. But, guilt or no guilt, he wasn’t about to admit the truth yet. First, he needed to understand more about what was going on, figure out a way to soften the blow. “Have you heard from Keith?”
Isaac knew she had to wonder at his sudden preoccupation with her husband. Other than the usual felicitations, they didn’t talk about Keith a whole lot. But Isaac couldn’t help asking. He wanted to know who Keith really was. Obviously, his brother-in-law wasn’t the man Isaac thought he knew. Hell, he wasn’t even the man Liz thought she knew—and she’d been living with him for eight years!
“Unless there’s a problem with the kids and I leave a message that I need him to call me, I usually don’t hear from him till he gets home, remember?”
She’d already told him that, but she didn’t sound impatient.
Isaac watched the lights from passing cars flicker behind the drapes, thinking that Keith’s calling habits seemed pretty damned convenient. “Where do you leave a message?”
“On his voice mail.”
“Could you give me that number?”
“You want to talk to Keith?”
It wasn’t going to help anything at this point to further rouse her suspicions, so he tried to defuse her surprise. “I have a friend who’s planning a visit to Phoenix. I thought maybe Keith could tell him a little about the area.”
“He should be able to tell him plenty. He goes there often enough. You got a pen?”
Isaac turned on the lamp, then squinted against the sudden brightness. “Go ahead,” he said when his vision cleared and he’d located the pad and pen provided by the motel.
She rattled off the number, then yawned again. “I’m beat. I’ll let you go.”
“Liz?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about Luanna?”
His sister sounded more awake and slightly wary when she answered. “I try not to. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
A pause. “Has Dad tried to call you or something?” she asked.
“Not recently. Have you heard from the asshole?”
“Don’t call him that, Isaac. He wasn’t the best father, but…we’re not kids anymore.”
“You’ve forgiven him?”
“I don’t see the point in holding a grudge. I’m older now. I have Keith, the kids. All’s well that ends well, right?”
Isaac wished she’d become a little jaded so he wouldn’t have to worry about her as much. All’s well that ends well…. It hadn’t ended yet.
“I mailed Dad a picture of the kids for Christmas,” she was saying.
“How’d he respond?”
“He sent them each twenty bucks.”
“Generous of him.”
“It’s an acknowledgment,” she replied defensively.
Isaac dropped the sarcasm. “I guess.” Another pause. “What about Luanna? She have anything to say?”
“She wasn’t part of the exchange. Dad’s note was brief. A simple ‘Merry Christmas,’ and the money.”
“Well, she’s got her own precious child to worry about, right?”
Some rustling came through the line before she spoke again. “I bumped into Joe Stearns a few weeks ago.”
“Marty’s best friend?”
“Yeah. He said our stepbrother’s getting divorced.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
“We haven’t talked to Marty for eight years. Maybe he’s not so bad anymore.”
Isaac doubted that. It’d take someone like Marty forever and a day to change enough to become tolerable, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with Liz. Better to change the subject. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“What would you do if things suddenly…went wrong in your life?”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. Say…you and Keith split up.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Don’t you ever imagine worst-case scenarios? What you might do if you faced a sudden reversal?”
“No, Isaac, I don’t. I’m trying to bury the old fear. To trust. To believe in good things. I’ve had enough nightmares.”
Isaac covered his eyes with his free hand. “Right. Well, it’s late. I’d better let you go,” he said. Before I really upset you.
“Are you okay?” she asked, obviously worried.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” he said. Then he hung up and dialed Keith’s cell phone. He couldn’t leave things exactly as they were. The devil in him wanted to see his brother-in-law sweat.
As expected, his call went straight to voice mail. Not surprisingly, Keith didn’t pick up when he was with “the other woman.”
“You’ve reached Keith O’Connell at Softscape, Inc. Please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Bastard. “Hey, Keith. A friend of mine has business in Phoenix and has invited me to come along and do a little golfing. I told him you were there already and might be able to show us around,” he said, expanding the lie he’d given Liz. “We arrive—” he thought quickly for a date that would be soon yet plausible: it was already Thursday “—on Monday. Give me a call, okay?”
He left his number and disconnected, wondering how long it’d take for Keith to respond—and what excuse his brother-in-law would offer.
“SO WHAT DO YOU SAY?” Reenie leaned up on her elbows and grinned at her husband, who’d awakened her by kissing her neck a few moments earlier. She loved it when his hair was ruffled from sleep and his whiskers created a dark shadow on his jaw. He looked younger then, less like the corporate type he’d become and more like the boy she’d fallen for at the Homecoming Dance.
“Reenie, please,” he said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I just got home. Don’t start in on me already.”
Her hopes fell a little. “But the traveling is killing me.”
He peeked at her. “You’re not traveling. I am. If I don’t mind, I don’t see why you should.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’m tired of having you gone. Of spending half the night waiting up for you. Of worrying about plane crashes and terrorist attacks.”
“I have more of a chance of getting killed in a car accident than a plane wreck. And I telecommute when I’m home, so I rarely leave the house. You probably see more of me than most wives see of their husbands.”
Frustration caused Reenie to clench her jaw. They’d had this argument so many times she was beginning to feel as though they were on some kind of merry-go-round. She missed him, he came home, they made love, they argued, he left. And then it started all over again.
She needed to stop the cycle.
“That’s not true,” she said. “You might stay home, but you’re still working when you’re here. I don’t get any more of your attention than if you worked outside the house those two weeks. And you’re missing a lot of important events with the kids when you’re gone.”
He’d closed his eyes again, but she knew by the deep vee between his eyebrows that he was far from relaxed. “Like what?”
“Like Jennifer’s school play last week.”
“You videotaped it for me, didn’t you?”
“Of course. But she played Tinkerbell, which was a big part. Going to those things without you just isn’t the same.”
He opened his eyes, but his scowl didn’t ease. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “Anyway, I’m home for two whole weeks. Why not enjoy our morning together instead of trying to make my life miserable?” As he sat up, the blankets fell to his waist, revealing the flat stomach and muscular chest Reenie admired so much. After sleeping with him for eleven years, she knew every inch of his body. She knew his moods, too, and recognized the irritation in his expression.
“When do you want to talk about it?” she challenged. “When you’re home you say, ‘Don’t ruin the time we have together.’ When you’re gone you’re too busy to call, or you say, ‘We’ll talk about it when I get home.’ What do I have to do? Make an appointment with you to air my grievances?”
“You shouldn’t have any grievances,” he said. “You’ve got the house, the kids, your folks, the town you grew up in. What more can a woman ask for?”
Despite her desperation to change the situation, Reenie couldn’t help wondering if she was being as selfish as he implied. The possibility that she had no right to ask him to quit Softscape, Inc., always undermined her resolve. But she’d put up with his job for eleven years. Wasn’t that enough?
“I want to buy the Higley farm,” she said. “Myrtle has lowered the price by twenty thousand. At this point, it’s a steal. And I know we can make it work. I’m ready for a new challenge, for something we can do together.”
He chuckled softly, as if she was Isabella, asking for her own reindeer for Christmas. “It’s a broken-down old farm. And you don’t know the first thing about running it.”
She tried not to let his patronizing tone get to her. “My parents gave me riding lessons when I was growing up. I know how to care for horses.”
“That isn’t farming.”
“Horses are part of the experience I’m looking for, and I could learn the rest. I realize it’d require a sacrifice on your part. But I’ve been sacrificing for your job since we got married. When is it my turn? Why is what you want always so much more important than what I want?”
God, that did sound selfish, Reenie realized. Was it? Should she simply continue to kiss her husband goodbye every two weeks and quit dreaming of a time when she wouldn’t have to do so? Or did she have the right to call the shots once in a while?
“I’m the one who’s supporting the family.” Shoving the blankets aside, he got up and strode naked into the bathroom. “I’m good at developing business software, and I know I can pay the mortgage with the job I have right now,” he called out through the open door. “I don’t think we’d even be able to make the electric bill if I decided to become a farmer. I don’t know the first thing about it.”
“You wouldn’t be doing it alone. I’ll be there to help. We can make it work, Keith. I know we can.”
The toilet flushed and the tap in the sink went on. “What’s up with you, Reenie?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Since when did you become so…clingy?”
Reenie’s jaw dropped. She was clingy? Because she wanted him home at night like a regular husband? “You don’t want to be with me all the time?” she asked.
When he came out of the bathroom, he was pinching his neck as if the tightness in his muscles was giving him a headache. “That’s not it. You’re…driving me insane with all of this—” he made an impatient motion with his hand “—badgering.”
“If I’m making your life so miserable, maybe we need to split up and go our separate ways.”
She’d never suggested such a drastic measure before. Even she was shocked to hear the words spoken aloud. And she could tell it had an effect on him, because the color drained from his face.
Crossing to the bed, he gathered her in his arms. “Hey, don’t talk like that. We’re going to be together forever, remember?”
They’d made that promise to each other, but…She leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “I want you home at night instead of flying all over the country.”
The tension in his arms slackened, and he pulled away. “I’ll think about it,” he said, drawing on his boxers. But Reenie knew “I’ll think about it” was just another ploy to get her to back off. “I’ll think about it” was Keith’s Plan B. If “Why are you starting a fight when we could be having fun together?” didn’t work, he’d say something noncommittal yet pacifying.
“That’s not good enough, Keith,” she said. “You’ve told me you’ll think about it before, but you never do. Left to you, the subject would never come up.”
He shoved his legs into a pair of jeans. “How do you know that? You don’t ever give me a chance. You start hounding me the moment I walk through the door.”
“That’s not true.”
“God, Reenie! Can you just…quit?”
She got up on her knees. “I have a right to express my wants and desires,” she said stubbornly.
“So do I.”
“You’ve had your way for eleven years!”
“Give it a break,” he snapped.
Would he ever face the issue squarely? “Quit trying to dodge this conversation and talk to me.”
“We’re not talking, we’re shouting. And you won’t be satisfied until I tell you what you want to hear. But I can’t quit my job!”
“Why not?”
He turned away and started going through his drawers. “Because we need the money,” he grumbled.
“There are other ways to make money.”
“I love what I do.”
Reenie’s heart felt as if it were turning to lead. “Do you love it more than you love me?” she asked softly, clutching the sheet to her chest.
When he glanced back at her, something flickered in his eyes, something warm and solid, something she’d been depending on their entire marriage. “Of course not,” he said. “How can you even ask me that?”
“I’m miserable, Keith. Why won’t you make a change?”
He came to the bed and took her hands. “I will,” he said. “But give me another year. Okay, babe? One more year. Please?”
Reenie stared at him. The warmth of his hands surrounded hers, but that warmth didn’t seem to course through her like it used to. Another year. She didn’t know if she could tolerate six more months. But a small knock sounded at their door and, as soon as Keith opened it, Isabella burst into the room. Watching her squeal as her daddy threw her into the air, Reenie knew she wasn’t really willing to break up their little family.
TWO HOURS LATER, Keith sat at the desk of his home office, staring blankly at his computer screen. He had so much to do, but he couldn’t concentrate. He’d just received word from Softscape that they were running into a glitch on the new inventory control program he’d created for large merchandisers and needed him to return to L.A. right away. After spending nearly twelve hours at the airport yesterday and barely getting to see Reenie and the girls, he hated the thought of going back so soon. But he knew better than to put the company off. When Softscape first moved their offices from Boise to L.A. nine years ago, everyone had been grateful that he was willing to commute. He’d been with them almost since the company first started. But management had changed since then, and his new boss wasn’t particularly pleased with the amount of time he spent out of state. Charlie was looking for any excuse to insist he move to L.A. and appear at the office five days a week like everyone else; Charlie acted like Softscape owned Keith.
Because he was earning almost as much as Charlie, the company basically did own him, Keith thought with a frown. There was little chance he could support two families working anywhere else.
We need you here by Monday. The words of the e-mail he’d just read seemed to grow and then shrink. It was Friday now. That gave him only two days in Dundee. What was he going to say to Reenie come Sunday?
He could hear his wife talking to Old Bailey in the kitchen as she fed him the table scraps from breakfast. After getting the girls off to school, she’d made Keith some pancakes, eggs and sausage, and brought him coffee. But the food was growing cold at his elbow. He had to figure out a way to tell her he was leaving again, a way that wouldn’t upset her too much. This morning she’d actually mentioned splitting up.
The panic he’d felt in that moment rose inside him again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her or his girls.
“How’s it goin’ in here?”
Swiveling in his seat, he found Reenie standing at the door wearing only the see-through lingerie he’d removed—far too quickly—last night. With her long, shiny dark hair, deep blue eyes and small, compact body, she was certainly striking. Every bit as pretty as Elizabeth. Only in a completely different way. Reenie was a nature lover—earthy, real, demonstrative. She felt every emotion to the extreme, argued passionately and made love the same way.
Liz, on the other hand, behaved like the typical upper-class city girl she aspired to be—reserved, refined, elegant. She was a generous lover, but there was some small part of her she held in reserve. Sometimes he found himself saying things to her, hurtful things, just to see if he could pierce that protective shroud, get as close to her as he felt to Reenie. But Liz avoided emotional extremes as much as Reenie embraced them.
Eventually, he had to figure out a way to let Liz down easy, to tell her that he’d made a dreadful mistake, that he already had a family in Dundee. He knew he couldn’t live the way he’d been living forever. But he couldn’t even begin to imagine how Liz—or Reenie, for that matter—would react.
Feeling the onset of the panic that overwhelmed him so of-ten of late, he took a deep breath. He’d fix everything next year, he decided. Or the year after that. It would be a lot easier when Christopher and Mica were older.
“Wanna take a shower with me?” Reenie asked, her voice sultry, her grin suggestive.
Keith let his eyes lower over her soft round breasts, her small waist, the flare of her hips—and felt his body react. He really should’ve taken more time to admire her in that sexy lingerie last night. But he was always too eager when he first came home. He had to feel her beneath him right away. Her warm response reassured him that she still believed in him, that she was still in love with him. Once he knew that, he could relax and slow down when they made love again.
She came toward him, and he quickly stood to block her view of the computer. He’d tell her about his summons to L.A. later. After they made love. Or tomorrow. He didn’t see any reason to ruin the little time they had left. What she’d said this morning had really frightened him.
Bending his head, he kissed her exactly the way she liked. He needed to give her something she couldn’t get anywhere else. “You wouldn’t really leave me, would you?” he asked when they finally made their way into the bedroom. “You’ve never even slept with anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Tell me you love me,” he said.
“I do.”
“We’re a family, right?”
She threw her head back as he kissed her breasts, touched her elsewhere. “Right.”
“And families stick together,” he murmured against the skin of her throat.
“For better or for worse,” she repeated as she wrapped her arms around him. But when he pulled back to look in her face, he saw the sad little smile those words engendered, and the fear returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chicago, Illinois
KEITH’S CALL CAME on Saturday, catching Isaac in his car on the way to the university.
“Hey, why are you coming to Phoenix?” his brother-in-law asked, as engaging as ever. “I thought you had work to do at home.”
Isaac marveled at the fact that Keith sounded perfectly normal. Was it only the night before last that he’d seen him with another woman? “I figure another week off work won’t matter. I haven’t been golfing since before I went to Africa. And the weather in Phoenix is pretty good, isn’t it? This time of year, it’s got to beat Chicago.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Keith said without hesitation. “Not a cloud in sight.”
God, he was a good liar. Isaac wondered if it was still raining in Idaho. “So what do you say? Can you do it?”
Would Keith squirm? Make up some excuse?
“I’d love to, man, I really would,” he said. “But I won’t be here. I have to head back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Isaac struggled not to sound suspicious.
“My company’s having trouble with a new piece of software I developed. They need me there to work out the bugs.” Keith sounded sincerely disappointed.
“Do they call you home early very often?”
“Not often, but occasionally. L.A. is our base.”
Isaac pictured the blurry shape of the female he’d seen through the window of the modest white house—the house with the childish note that had acted like a talisman against his intrusion. “What about the, um—” he cleared his throat “—people you were supposed to train in Phoenix? They won’t mind letting you go?”
Keith’s laugh sounded rather uncomfortable. “They won’t be happy about it, but…I don’t really have a choice.”
Maybe the woman’s husband had returned. “Does Liz know you’re coming home?”
“I’m just about to call her.”
Keith had to be telling the truth. He knew it was likely that Isaac would be speaking to his sister in the next few days. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear the news.”
“Now I can watch Mica in the spelling bee.”
Isaac slowed as he approached the exit that would take him to the university. “Mica’s a great kid.”
“She is. So smart. But Chris is, too.”
Were the children the only reason Keith kept coming back to Liz?
Isaac’s call-waiting beeped. Glancing at the screen, he realized it was Reginald and knew he had to take it. “I’ve got to run, Keith. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
He switched over but couldn’t quite erase the vision in his mind of Keith kissing his lover. “What’s up, Reg?”
“Isaac, where are you?”
“Nearly in the parking lot. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Please tell me you’re wearing a tie.”
“Of course I’m not wearing a tie. It’s Saturday. No one at the university wears a tie on Saturday.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to turn around. You’re going to need one.”
“For what?”
“The committee has agreed to interview you this afternoon.”
“Today?”
“It was the only option. Mr. Zacamoto, the chair, leaves for Detroit on Monday.”
“I thought I had to wait until next month. Why would they be so accommodating?”
“Because of your recent and very extensive experience in the Congo. They’re trying to expedite your application.”
That meant he was probably the center’s favorite contender for the grant. “Great,” Isaac said, allowing himself a huge sigh of relief. He couldn’t wait to fly back to Africa and continue his research. But now that he knew Keith was heading to L.A., Isaac needed to finish up a little business in Dundee first.
“MOMMY, THERE’S A stranger here!”
At the sound of Angela’s voice, Reenie pulled her head out of the refrigerator, which she’d been cleaning, and tossed her rag in the sink. A stranger? Reenie had grown up in this small community. There was hardly a stranger in all of Dundee.
Quickly wiping her hands on a towel, she tucked the wisps of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears and hurried to the front door.
On the porch stood a tall man, maybe an inch or so taller than her husband. He wore his thick dark hair, which had significant curl at the ends, longer than she liked, but the golden cast to his eyes made them intriguing.
“Hello.” He was a stranger, all right. Reenie would’ve remembered the unusual color of his eyes, if not the long, dark lashes that framed them. Only the thick eyebrows that encroached ever so slightly on the space above the bridge of his nose kept those startling eyes from looking too feminine.
He turned the smile he’d just given Angela on her. “I’m Isaac Russell.” He seemed to hesitate briefly, as if he expected some reaction to his name. But she was fairly certain she’d never heard of him before.
“Rena O’Connell,” she replied, and extended her hand.
He’d already moved to shake with her, but froze. “Did you say O’Connell?”
Reenie hesitated. “Yes. Does that come as some sort of surprise to you?”
“No.” He briefly gripped her hand in a firm, warm shake, then let go. “Nothing like that. I—” he cleared his throat. “I wanted to be sure I had your name right, that’s all.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it.” It struck her that there was something odd about his reaction. “What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat again and tipped his head toward the driveway. “I’m, um, here about the Jeep. Is it still available?”
She hadn’t received a single call on the Jeep since putting it up for sale a week ago. Trying to bury her dissatisfaction with her husband’s hurried departure, she’d thrown herself into a cleaning frenzy and had forgotten all about it. “Yes, it is.”
“Jennifer!” Angela called. “Someone’s here about the Jeep!”
Reenie’s oldest, who’d been doing homework in her room since school let out, appeared with Bailey at her heels. The dog preferred her to almost anyone else, probably because she was a gentle soul, quiet and studious. She never tied bells around his neck, or forced him to give the neighbor’s cat a ride, or insisted he wear a Santa hat at Christmas, as Isabella and Angela often did.
Never one to be left out, Isabella hurried to join them, wearing princess dress-up clothes.
The man glanced at each of the girls before turning his attention back to her. “Are these your daughters?”
“Yes. Jennifer, Angela and Isabella.”
“I mean, they’re O’Connells, too?”
“Yes.” She frowned in confusion. “Why do you ask?”
He scratched his head. “I used to know someone named Keith O’Connell.”
“He’s my husband,” Reenie said with a laugh and immediately relaxed. No wonder he’d seemed surprised by her name. Evidently, he wasn’t a complete stranger, after all. “How do you know Keith?”
“I—” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I used to work for Softscape.”
“You’re kidding! Here in Boise or after they moved to L.A.?”
“In Boise.”
“That was some years ago.” Reenie tried to remember him from some of the social functions she’d attended when the company was still based in Idaho, but couldn’t.
“Yeah, I’ve moved on to other things since then.”
She crouched to stop Bailey from sniffing his shoes, glad her dog was acting more like his old self today. “I wish Keith were home. I’m sure he’d be excited to see you.”
“We didn’t know each other very well.” His gaze once again rested on the girls. “You have beautiful children, by the way.”
Bailey gave up his halfhearted attempt to act like a more energetic dog, and simply rested his snout on his paws at Reenie’s feet. “Thank you.” She patted the dog before straightening. “You’ll have to leave your card for Keith.”
Mr. Russell searched his pockets. “I don’t have one with me. Maybe you could just tell him I said hello.”
“Of course. Would you like to test-drive the Jeep?”
He glanced across the yard. “Sure. That’d be great.”
“Let me get the keys.” After a quick trip to the kitchen, Reenie led him across the yard. Old Bailey’s collar tags jingled as he and the girls followed.
Reenie felt Mr. Russell’s eyes on her as she unlocked the vehicle. She sensed a certain curiosity coming from him, which made her wonder about him, too. She was fairly sure Keith had never mentioned an Isaac Russell. But it’d been nine years. She could easily have forgotten.
“This is in good shape,” he said once they reached the Jeep and he’d had a moment or two to check it out. “How much are you asking?”
She’d anticipated selling the Jeep to one of the cowboys around town, or maybe a teenager from the high school. She’d never dreamed someone like Isaac Russell would show any interest. She wasn’t even sure what he was doing in town. Dressed in a pair of chinos, a button-down shirt and loafers, he looked like he could afford something much nicer. Something more urban, like a Lexus.
Jennifer started naming the price she’d heard Reenie mention. “Fourteen—”
“Fifteen thousand,” Reenie quickly interrupted.
Mr. Russell lifted his eyebrows. “Sounds like I’d better act fast.”
“Jennifer wasn’t accounting for the new tires.”
“I see.”
“It’s my daddy’s,” Angela volunteered.
“When will your daddy be home?” he asked.
“Not for a long—”
“Angela, that’s enough.” Mr. Russell seemed like a nice guy, but Reenie didn’t see any reason to tell him she and the girls were alone.
“What brings you to Dundee, Mr. Russell?”
He turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. “I’m, um, here to do a little research,” he said above the noise.
“For what?” Angela asked.
He adjusted the seat and tried the windshield wipers.
“For what?” she repeated when he didn’t answer.
“I’m writing a novel.”
Jennifer brightened immediately, as Reenie knew she would. “What’s your book about?” she asked.
He turned off the stereo. “Small-town relationships.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place for that,” Reenie said.
A brief smile indicated he’d marked the sarcasm in her voice. “I’m sure I have.”
“So you’re only visiting?”
“That’s right.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“In Dundee?” He shrugged. “A few days. Maybe a week. As long as it takes to get what I need.”
“Are you at the motel in town, then?”
“Not yet. I just got in. I was taking a drive to get a feel for the area, and that’s when I came across your Jeep.” He patted the dashboard. “I love these.”
“They’re versatile.”
“An absolute necessity in the jungle.”
“Did you say jungle?”
He chuckled. “Never mind.”
She pulled the girls away from the idling vehicle. “If you leave your driver’s-license number with me, you can take it out on the highway, if you like.”
“Not today, thanks. I’ll think about it and get back to you, though. Okay?”
“We want to buy a horse,” Isabella volunteered.
He smiled at her while turning off the engine. “That sounds like fun.”
“What kind of research do you do for a relationship novel?” Reenie asked as he got out and handed her the keys.
“Talk to people, take note of what they say and do.”
“Mention that you’re writing a book, and half the people in this town will be ready to tell you anything you want to know,” she said. “Gossip is their favorite pastime.”
He studied her for a moment, and she sensed his curiosity again. “Sounds like you’ve been a victim of that gossip.”
“My family has received more public interest than most.”
“You and Keith?”
“No. My parents and my brother.”
He cocked one eyebrow at her. “Want to talk about it?”
“I’d rather leave that subject alone. But if you want general information about the area, I can help. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Thanks, Mrs. O’Connell.”
“Call me Reenie,” she said. “Everyone else does.”
“Okay, Reenie.” His unusual golden eyes seemed to absorb every detail of her face. “Since you’re willing to help, is there any chance you could meet me at the diner in town later?” He raised a hand and stepped back a foot, as if to assure her that his intentions were honest. “For an interview,” he added.
Reenie couldn’t see why not. He was acquainted with her husband, which made him an old friend of sorts. And the diner was a public place. She knew practically everyone in town, which meant she’d be surrounded by friends. “When?”
He checked his watch. “Seven? I’ll buy you dinner in exchange for your time.”
Reenie was hopeful he’d buy more than dinner. She wanted to sell him the Jeep. “It’s too bad Keith isn’t here,” she said. “He’s going to be disappointed he missed you.”
“I’m sorry I missed him, too,” he said. “See you at seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
ISAAC WATCHED the woman he’d just met hustle her children—and her elderly dog—back into the house.
Rena O’Connell had given her name as though she’d owned it for a long time and was comfortable using it. But she couldn’t be married to Keith. He was already married to Elizabeth.
Maybe they were only living together. This was a small community. Maybe Keith had met Reenie no more than a few months ago. When he moved in with her, she took his name to hide the fact that they weren’t officially married. It’d be a good way to avoid the criticism of a small, conservative community, right?
But the three girls…That was where his theory collapsed. Even though Reenie’s youngest daughter didn’t resemble Keith, there was no doubt that the two older girls were his. Which meant Keith’s relationship with Reenie must have predated his relationship with Liz.
It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
Isaac needed to investigate a little more, figure out when and how this whole thing had started.
He circled the Jeep to convince anyone who might be watching that he was really interested in it. Then he started toward the car he’d rented in Boise.
The front door of Reenie’s house opened before he could reach the curb, and her youngest daughter stepped out. “My mommy said I can give you a cookie,” she said, and began clomping toward him in snow boots at least four sizes too big.
He met her halfway up the driveway so she wouldn’t trip and accepted an oatmeal cookie. “Thank you.”
She shaded her eyes so she could look up at him. “Can I go to the diner with you and Mommy tonight?”
He quickly swallowed a mouthful of cookie. “That’s not up to me, honey.”
“But my mom said no.” She grimaced and put a hand to her belly. “And I’m hungry.”
“I’m sure she’s planning to give you dinner.”
“She’s making chicken potpie.”
He took another bite of cookie. “You don’t like chicken potpie?”
“She puts peas in it!”
Isabella said “peas” as though she meant “bugs.”
“Can’t you pick them out?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Mommy won’t let me.”
“Green vegetables are good for you. They make you strong.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Don’t tell me that. I already know.”
Isaac couldn’t help grinning at her. He thought about Mica and Christopher, who very likely had three half siblings they knew nothing about. The news would rock their world along with Elizabeth’s. But this little imp was particularly appealing. Not only was she pretty, she had a flare for the dramatic that made him laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, eyeing him warily.
“You are,” he admitted, enjoying his cookie.
Her eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t say a joke.”
“I know. You’re just very cute.” He glanced beyond her to the bassett hound that waited dutifully on the porch. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Old Bailey.”
“Did you name him?”
“No, my daddy did. He gave him to Mommy for her birthday.”
“When was that?”
“Oh…a hundred years ago.”
He chuckled. Reenie couldn’t be much older than thirty. “That many, huh?”
“No, wait. Maybe it was…two hundred.” She nodded as though she was now positive about her answer.
“Then, it’s definitely been a while.”
“He’s a good doggy.”
“I bet he is.” Tights covered the thin legs that disappeared into her oversize footwear. “Nice boots,” he said.
She grinned proudly. “They’re my mom’s.”
“I see. So…” He lowered his voice, even though he highly doubted anyone inside could hear them. “Where’s your dad?”
“At work.”
“Where does he work?”
She seemed to have difficulty with this one. “Far away.”
Isaac swallowed the last of the cookie. “What’s your daddy’s name?”
“Keith, silly.” She added a giggle for his ignorance. “You know that.”
“Right, Keith.” Considering the fact that she’d just told him Reenie had received Bailey two centuries ago, he wasn’t sure how reliable her answers were. But she was the only one of Reenie’s children who wasn’t old enough to consider his questions in a critical light. “Is he your only daddy?”
She wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“Have there been any other…grown men in your mother’s life?”
“My Uncle Gabe comes to visit. He can’t walk.”
“That’s too bad.”
“If I tease him about it, he dangles me upside down.” Another smile.
“Are you sure it’s nice to tease him?”
“He doesn’t mind. He likes it.”
“Really. That’s difficult to imagine. But I’m not talking about Uncle Gabe.”
Her expression reflected her confusion.
He checked the house and saw Jennifer peering out at him but continued to question Isabella. “Don’t some of the kids at school have a dad and a stepdad?”
“My friend Glenda does. But I don’t. Duh.” She rolled her eyes and laughed again. “Don’t you know anything?”
He pinched his lip. “I admit that I’m a little puzzled.”
“About what?”
The whole situation. His brother-in-law seemed to have built two complete families. Two families that existed in different parts of the country. And, from what Isaac could tell, they were completely unaware of each other. How had Keith managed to get away with it for so long?
A bang drew Isaac’s attention to the house. Isabella’s older sister had thrown the door open. “Isabella, it’s your turn to put the silverware on the table!”
The little girl sighed dramatically. “I’m coming,” she said, and started back up the driveway.
Isaac watched her go. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the mess Keith had created. He didn’t want anyone to be hurt. Not the attractive woman he’d just met. Not her sweet little girls. And certainly not his sister and her children.
In two hours, he’d be having dinner with Keith’s other wife, the mother of his other family. At some point, Isaac would have to tell her—and Elizabeth, too.
God, what was he going to say?
CHAPTER SIX
ISAAC ARRIVED at the diner early. He’d already explored the area and found that there weren’t a lot of things to see in Dundee. After about three blocks of businesses, the town fell to quasi-rural residences like Reenie’s, where the people enjoyed small acreages and often owned horses or other animals. Once he started climbing into the mountains, he saw mostly large ranches.
“Would you like anything else to drink?” A waitress, wearing a badge that identified her as Judy, set a glass of water in front of him. About forty-five years old, she had a smoker’s voice and bleached hair with dark roots.
“Maybe in a minute or two,” he said. “I’m waiting for someone to join me.”
“Who?”
He’d never had a waitress ask him for the name of the party he was waiting for, at least not as if she had a personal interest. He glanced up to see Judy putting her order pad in one of the pockets of her apron. “Excuse me?”
“Who are you waiting for?”
“Reenie O’Connell.” Reenie’s last name tasted bitter on his tongue. He didn’t want to believe she could be married to Keith. Surely there was some other explanation. He wasn’t sure about the ramifications of bigamy, but he knew it was illegal. He needed to do some research, maybe call his friend in Chicago who worked for the Attorney General’s office. Part of him wanted to see Keith behind bars. The other part realized that putting his brother-in-law away wouldn’t help either family. Which might be the reason, besides the few sensational polygamy cases coming out of Utah, he’d never heard of anyone going to jail for marrying two people at one time.
“How do you know Reenie?” she asked, seemingly unaware that he might consider it rude for her to be so inquisitive.
“I used to work with Keith.” He repeated the lie he’d told Reenie while trying to remember what he’d read in the paper about Tom Green. The State of Utah had put Tom Green in jail for bigamy. But, if Isaac remembered right, there’d been other charges as well. Keith hadn’t married anyone underage. And what he’d done had nothing to do with collecting welfare. He maintained two relatively “normal” but separate lives, and he seemed to be a good father to his children. Did the state send bigamists like Keith to jail?
“Hel-lo?” The waitress snapped her fingers in front of him, and Isaac belatedly realized that she’d asked him another question.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What’d you say?”
“Did you meet Keith at that computer company?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Good thing you got out when you did. Keith’s sure gone a lot. If you ask me, he needs to stay home and take care of his family.”
Which one? “How well do you know Keith?”
“Well enough. Everybody knows everybody else around here.”
“How long has he been living in Dundee?”
“Let’s see.” She rolled her eyes, which were caked with blue eye shadow, toward the ceiling. “Seems like…gee, his folks must’ve moved here at least twenty years ago.”
Twenty years was a long time. Her answer certainly didn’t make Isaac feel any better about who might have come first in Keith’s life. “Are his folks still in town?”
“Sure are. They don’t live more than a couple miles from Reenie.”
Interesting. Apparently, Keith’s parents were alive and well, and hadn’t been killed in an automobile accident, as Isaac had been told. Keith also purported to be an only child. Elizabeth was always saying how terrible she felt that he had no family.
Me and the kids…we’re all he’s got, Isaac.
Isaac smoothed his eyebrows with a thumb and finger. “Does he have any siblings?”
He wasn’t surprised when she immediately responded in the affirmative. “Two brothers.”
“Do they still live in town?”
“No. One’s away at college. Baylor. The other married and moved to Boise several years ago.”
“I see.” He hauled in a deep breath. “When did Keith marry Reenie?”
Her trust gave way to skepticism. “I thought you were waiting for Reenie. I thought you were friends.”
“Actually, I know Keith.” But certainly not as well as he had once believed. “I just met Reenie this morning when I stopped by to look at the Jeep she’s selling.”
“What brought you to town in the first place?”
“I’m writing a novel about small-town relationships. Reenie’s agreed to help me with some of the research.”
Judy pursed her lips and nodded as though grudgingly impressed. “Reenie’ll be a big help. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about how she and Keith met in high school. Got hitched almost as soon as they graduated.”
So what he’d suspected was true. Liz was the other woman. She’d met Keith on an airplane only eight or nine years ago.
“Reenie’s father is Senator Holbrook, you know,” the waitress said.
Isaac didn’t know. But neither did he care much about Reenie’s political connections. He was too busy trying to place events in their proper order. First Keith had married Reenie. Then he’d been hired by Softscape. The company had moved headquarters, and he’d started traveling extensively. Which is how he’d crossed paths with Elizabeth. They began to date, she got pregnant with Mica, they married right away. The only thing that made Keith’s extramarital affair so different from those of a lot of men was that he’d married the other woman without divorcing his first wife….
The waitress was still talking, but it took real effort for Isaac to concentrate on anything except his own grim thoughts.
“The senator had big plans for Reenie, hated to see her marry so young,” she was saying.
Had Judy just given him a brief history of Reenie’s early years? Yes…
“But there was no standing in the way of it,” she continued, smiling wistfully. “I’ve never seen two people more in love. And I gotta hand it to them. They started having babies after the first year, but they worked their way through college. They both graduated with some sort of degree. Even Senator Holbrook’s got to be happy with how their relationship has turned out.”
Isaac didn’t think anyone would be happy for long, but there was no time to catalogue the ramifications of what he’d learned from Judy. The bell rang over the door and Reenie walked in, wearing a pair of jeans cut fashionably low on her hips, boots that seemed more city than country, and a thin coral sweater that hugged the slim body beneath her brown leather coat.
As much as Isaac would rather have found her unattractive, he could see why Keith would be drawn to her. She had creamy, flawless skin, beautiful blue eyes, a mouth that was just a little too wide to be perfect, and an energetic, confident air that made him want to look at her much longer. If she was wearing any makeup, he couldn’t tell. With the healthy glow of her skin, and the contrast between her light eyes and rich dark hair, she didn’t need any.
“Getting started without me?” she said, sliding into the booth.
He forced his eyes to stay on her face as she stripped off her coat. He didn’t need to assess her figure. He’d already done that when he’d followed her to the Jeep. “Excuse me?”
The coral sweater had a wide neck that fell off her shoulders slightly—very feminine and appealing. “Are you interviewing Judy?”
He handed her a menu from the clip at the back edge of the table. “I was asking her a few questions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you know a famous author?” Judy asked.
“Famous?” Reenie had knocked her purse over and was busy collecting all the stuff that had spilled out, but she raised an eyebrow at him when she heard this. “He left that part out when I met him this morning.”
“I try not brag,” he said with a grin.
She returned his smile as she finished with her purse, then glanced around the diner. “Busy tonight?” she asked Judy.
“Not too bad. I’ve been telling your new friend here how you and Keith got together.” Judy’s wistful smile returned, taking the harder edges off her appearance. “Love at first sight.”
Reenie shoved her bag and coat farther into the corner of the booth. “And what did he have to say about that?”
“Nothing yet.”
“What were you expecting?” Isaac asked.
She tilted her head in a challenging angle. “Most people think that kind of love is a fairy tale.”
“It’s not?”
Her shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “I’m proof that it does happen.”
Isaac knew he should say I’m happy for you, or some other such thing, but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t make a comment like that knowing what she was going to face in the very near future. “Maybe so,” he said.
She put the menu away without looking at it. Isaac figured she could probably recite the diner’s offerings from memory. “You sound like a skeptic, Mr. Russell.”
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Brenda Novak
Thanks to a devastating revelation about her husband, Reenie Holbrook's once-perfect marriage is over.For eleven years she had the life she wanted–and now it's gone. Reenie decides that the first step in recovering from her ordeal is to find work; after all, she has three young children to support. She's thrilled when she lands a job at Dundee High teaching history–until Isaac Russell, the man who triggered the unraveling of her marriage, accepts a temporary position teaching science. Then she's tempted to quit.Reenie doesn't care if the whole town admires Isaac…and she won't admit that, secretly, she admires him, too. She doesn't want to see him or his sister in "her" town. But a friendship with the most unlikely woman leads to a relationship with the most unlikely man….
Praise for Brenda Novak
“Novak perfectly captures the feel of small-town life, and her powerful story of two lonely, fragile people who find another chance at love is a sweetly satisfying and richly rewarding romance.”
—Booklist on Stranger in Town
“This story should appeal to readers who like their romances with a sophisticated touch.”
—Library Journal on Snow Baby
“A one-sitting read! Kudos to Brenda Novak for an insightful and emotional story that tore at my heartstrings.”
—The Best Reviews on A Baby of Her Own
“Once again, Brenda Novak delivers a stunningly magical performance.”
—Wordweaving on A Family of Her Own
“Novak’s story is richly dramatic, with a stark setting that distinguishes it nicely from the lusher world of other romances.”
—Publishers Weekly on Taking the Heat
“Readers will be quickly drawn in to this well-written, multi-faceted story that is an engrossing, compelling read.”
—Library Journal on Taking the Heat
“Cold Feet left me breathless. Any book by Brenda Novak is a must-buy for me.”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
“Brenda Novak spins a taut, spine-tingling story with imagery so vivid it leaves you breathless.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan on Every Waking Moment (HQN Books)
Dear Reader,
Little did I know when I set out to write this story that I was plunging myself into such a complex situation. But then, I must like getting in over my head. Those of you who’ve read my other stories can probably attest to the fact that they occasionally stretch the boundaries of series romance. Anyway, poor Reenie has her hands full in this book—but don’t worry, I manage to make it up to her in the end. Not everyone deserves a guy like Isaac.
Of all the books I’ve written, I have to admit that I’m probably most curious about reader response to this one. I wonder what people will think of Keith—crucify him or forgive him? And Elizabeth—does she deserve her own happily ever after? Then there’s the old conflict between Gabe and the half sister he never knew….
I always enjoy returning to Dundee. I hope this has become a comfortable place for you, too…a bit like returning home.
If you have access to a computer, don’t forget to visit my Web site at www.brendanovak.com and enter my Contest Bonanza, where you can win one of several fabulous prizes, including autographed books, See’s Candies, Waldenbooks gift certificates, dinners at Chili’s Bar & Grill—and a $500 shopping spree at the store of winner’s choice! Also, I love to hear from readers, so feel free to e-mail me from my Web site or write to me at P.O. Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA 95611.
Until next time,
Brenda Novak
Big Girls Don’t Cry
Brenda Novak
To my editor, Paula Eykelhof, who has been instrumental
in making the Harlequin Superromance line what it is today.
I’m sure I speak for all the authors you’ve worked with over
the years when I thank you for your willingness to take a
few calculated risks, for your commitment to good quality
writing and meaningful stories, and for being such a pleasure
to know. On a more personal note, I can’t tell you how
much I appreciate the confidence you’ve had in me and the
support you’ve given me. We’ve already done nineteen books
together, but I’m looking forward to at least twenty more!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER ONE
Los Angeles, California
KEITH O’CONNELL WAS LYING. Isaac Russell could tell.
Surprised, he slowly lowered his fork while studying his brother-in-law’s face. Keith wouldn’t meet Isaac’s eyes. He wouldn’t look at Elizabeth, either. And there were other signs. The way he hunched his shoulders and kept fidgeting with his hands, constantly moving through the stack of mail near the telephone as if he hadn’t gone through it twice already. The slowness of his responses. Even the irritation in Keith’s bearing bothered Isaac, because it indicated that he didn’t like being questioned.
And yet the subject was so innocuous….
“From the sound of it, the accident was horrendous.” Elizabeth seemed oblivious to her husband’s discomfort as she added another pancake to Isaac’s plate. “I was surprised that you didn’t mention it.”
Isaac was too full to eat any more, but he said nothing. He waited for Keith’s answer, hoping that he was somehow misinterpreting his brother-in-law’s body language.
“What?” Keith finally glanced up as though he’d lost track of the conversation in his preoccupation with the mail. But it was obvious—at least to Isaac—that every word had registered.
“That forty-five-car pileup in Sacramento,” Elizabeth responded. “You never said a word about it.”
“Oh…well, they had it mostly cleared away by the time I came through,” he said, his voice low and noncommittal.
Isaac saw the confusion in Elizabeth’s hazel eyes. Carrying her own plate to the table, she scowled at her husband. “But the paper said it took the better part of a day before they could open the freeway. How did you get through? Traffic was stopped for miles. I saw a picture.”
Another strained silence, then he muttered, “It must’ve happened before I got there, honey.”
Isaac was tempted to look away to avoid what he was seeing. If his sister was having problems in her marriage, he didn’t want to know. He wanted to continue to believe she’d met the man of her dreams and would live happily ever after.
But he couldn’t ignore the warning signs. Elizabeth was his only sibling. He’d taken care of her through the dark years after their mother had died, when he was fourteen and she was eleven. They’d gone to live with their father and Luanna, the woman he’d married, and Luanna’s son, Marty, who was younger and far more spoiled than they’d been. Isaac was the one who’d hurt for Elizabeth when the other girls made fun of her long, spindly legs and uncoordinated movements. He was the one who’d bought her tampons when she started her period and tried to explain how to use them. He was the one who’d gotten her a date for her sophomore homecoming dance. The following year, once she turned sixteen and lost that coltish look, he didn’t have to worry about twisting anyone’s arm to generate male interest. The boys were standing in line by then. But that only meant he’d had to watch out for her in a whole new way.
He’d always tried to protect her because of the fragility engendered by their childhood.
“According to the article I read, it happened just before your plane landed,” Elizabeth said. “You must’ve driven right into it. It’s a miracle you weren’t hurt.”
Keith dropped the letters he’d been holding, but he kept his eyes averted while he pulled on his overcoat and closed his briefcase. “I guess I was too preoccupied to pay any attention,” he told her. “You know how much stress I’ve been under.”
Keith’s response made Isaac even more uneasy. He liked his brother-in-law, who was a hardworking, sincere, honest guy. So what was going on with Keith today?
“The fog was so thick no one could see a thing, Keith,” Elizabeth said. “Eighteen people died. How is it that you—”
“I’m telling you it was the stress,” he interrupted. “And speaking of stress, I’ve got to go or I’ll miss my plane.”
He came forward to kiss her temple. She hesitated as though she was going to stand up and give him a proper send-off, but he didn’t allow her the chance. He was working his way around the table, saying goodbye to the children.
“Do you really have to leave so soon?” eight-year-old Mica asked.
“Every two weeks, babe. You know that.”
The misery that entered her brown eyes seemed magnified by her glasses. “But the spelling bee is next Wednesday. I wanted you to come watch.”
Finally showing a response that felt authentic to Isaac, Keith mussed her hair, which was the same dark blond as his own. “I saw you beat your whole class, didn’t I?”
“It’s not over yet. Now I’m going up against the rest of the school.”
“I’m proud of you, honey. But you know how demanding my job is.”
“I hate your job,” she grumbled.
“Daddy’s job is what puts food on this table, young lady,” Elizabeth said. Obviously, she was trying to teach Mica to give her father the proper respect—but Liz didn’t look any happier about Keith’s leaving than the children did. Isaac knew her husband’s long absences were hard on her.
“Mom will tape your spelling bee for me,” Keith told his daughter. “We’ll watch it together when I get back.”
Mica frowned over what was left of her breakfast and didn’t answer. But she allowed him to give her a quick squeeze. Then he moved on to his five-year-old son, who had golden hair and wide hazel eyes like his mother.
“What about my soccer game?” Christopher asked.
“I’ll catch the next one, buddy,” Keith said. “And then we’ll go get ice cream again, okay?”
Chris brightened considerably. “Okay!”
“You took him out for ice cream?” Mica gasped. “What about me?”
“You were at your friend’s house.”
“You could’ve brought me a cone.”
He winked at her. “You can come with us next time.”
The natural affection between Keith and his children made Isaac wonder if he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion a few minutes earlier. Keith wasn’t the type to do anything that would hurt his family. So what would he have to lie about?
By the time his brother-in-law came around to shake his hand, Isaac had convinced himself he’d been imagining things. This was the man he’d been so happy to see his sister marry—as opposed to, say, Matt Dugan, the guy she used to date.
“I guess you’ll be gone when I get back, huh?” Keith said.
Isaac nodded. “I’ve been here a week already. I need to get home and organize my notes.”
“On the forest elephants?”
“Exactly.”
Keith grinned and shook his head. “I don’t know how you Tarzan types do it, man. I’d go nuts camping out in the jungle for so long.”
“You wouldn’t if you loved it as much as I do.”
“Maybe not. You certainly make it look easy.”
“I’m single. I have only myself to worry about.” Isaac liked it that way. After taking care of Liz for so long, he enjoyed having the chance to focus solely on his work.
“Well, come and see us again before you head back to Africa, okay?”
“I’ll try. A lot depends on whether or not I get the grant money.”
“It’ll come through eventually. It always does.”
Isaac had been lucky so far. “We’ll see.”
Scooping his keys off the counter, Keith headed to the living room. The front door banged shut. Then silence fell over the table—except for the sudden chime of the clock.
“I hate it when he has to go,” Mica complained.
“Me, too,” Christopher said.
Isaac checked Liz’s reaction and found her staring into her coffee cup.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Her sudden smile appeared forced. “Nothing. Why?”
“Are you still thinking about that accident in Sacramento?”
“Not really.”
“Where’s Keith off to this time?”
“Phoenix. He goes there a lot. He’s training personnel on how to use the new software he’s developed.”
“He must like what he does.”
She sighed. “So much he won’t put in for a change.”
“Is everything—” because Mica was watching, Isaac purposefully veered toward the generic, using only his tone to convey that he meant something deeper “—okay, Elizabeth?”
His sister’s delicately arched eyebrows lifted. “Between me and Keith?” she asked in a low voice. “Of course.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “The constant traveling gets to me occasionally, that’s all. It’s hard to maintain a normal family life when he’s away half the time.”
“Would you like me to stay here with the kids this week so you can fly to Phoenix and be alone with your husband?” Isaac was really anxious to get back to the university. Classes would be starting soon. He had to get his syllabus prepared for microbiology, which he’d be teaching in the spring semester, if the grant money didn’t come through before then.
But this was Elizabeth. He and his sister had grown up with the understanding that no matter what the world threw at them, they’d always have each other.
He thought she might need him now.
She tucked her long blond hair behind her ears, then took a sip of coffee. “No,” she said, her cup clinking against the saucer. “That’s sweet but, to be honest, I don’t think he’d want me there. He doesn’t like me to bother him while he’s working. We rarely hear from him when he’s out of town.” She rubbed her temples as if battling a headache. “His company demands so much from him. But he enjoys his work, so…what can I do?”
Isaac rubbed his knuckles against his jaw. “Are you sure he wouldn’t like you to join him? He’s been traveling for years. All that work has got to get old after a while.”
“Like your trips to the Congo get old for you?” she teased, her perfect teeth glinting at him as she smiled.
Isaac returned her smile, then sobered and reached out to touch her arm. “Liz?”
She took another sip of coffee before answering. “Hmm?”
“How do you think he missed that big accident in Sacramento?”
Her forehead wrinkled as she considered the question. “I don’t know.” Although her plate was still nearly full, she pushed it away. “It’s possible I have the dates mixed up. He comes and goes so often.”
Despite her attempt to sound casual, her response didn’t ring any truer than Keith’s answers had earlier.
“Do you really think so?” Isaac asked, afraid he was missing something important.
Another flicker of a smile—and an almost imperceptible glance at the children. “I do.”
Dundee, Idaho
IT WAS STILL AWKWARD. Even after nearly two years.
Taking advantage of a moment when Lucky Hill was studying the menu, Reenie O’Connell made a face at her brother to let him know she expected a more valiant effort from him. Then she curved her lips into a bright smile as the half sister they hadn’t known about—until their father spilled the secret after Lucky had returned to town as a grown woman of twenty-four—looked up.
Unfortunately, admonishing Gabe did little good. He was too stubborn. His granitelike expression didn’t soften, and Reenie could tell he was making Lucky uncomfortable. Every few seconds, her eyes darted his way as if she was looking for some small sign of acceptance.
“So…should we rent something in Boise?” Reenie asked, trying to keep Lucky distracted by pressing forward with plans for their father’s sixtieth birthday party.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Boise’s over an hour away and too impersonal.”
“But Dad’s been in the state senate for…what? Twenty years? He’s got a lot of acquaintances and professional associates. We need someplace big.”
Lucky tossed her curly, strawberry-blond hair over her shoulder. “Who says we have to invite all his professional associates? I vote we include only those people who are closest to him. Then we could have the party right here in Dundee.”
When there was still no response from Gabe, Reenie jumped in. “You have a point,” she mused. “We don’t want to turn this into another tedious political engagement. Lord knows Dad’s suffered through enough of those.”
“Exactly,” Lucky said, and her gray-blue eyes darted Gabe’s way once again.
Reenie added another spoonful of sugar to her coffee, even though it was already too sweet. She needed something to do with her hands. “In that case, I guess our best option would be to have it at the Running Y Resort.”
Lucky’s reaction held a little too much enthusiasm. “That’s perfect. Don’t you think, Gabe?”
“Fine by me,” he muttered, but it was hardly the warm endorsement Reenie knew Lucky had been hoping for. Their half sister seemed to crave Gabe’s approval. She asked about him all the time. Whether or not things were going well for him and Hannah, his new wife. Whether or not he’d be at the family dinner on Sunday. (If Lucky was planning to attend, the answer was always no.) Whether or not he might come to dinner at her place if she were to invite him….
The smell of coffee filled the air as the waitress stopped by with a steaming pot. Lucky leaned back to allow her to reach across the table. Then, when the waitress walked away, she asked Gabe if he’d like more cream.
When he barely answered, Reenie wanted to kick him under the table. She would have, except she knew it wouldn’t achieve anything. He wouldn’t feel it. The car accident that had ended his professional football career almost four years ago had left him paralyzed from the waist down. He’d been in a wheelchair ever since.
Nothing to do but plunge ahead. She’d hoped planning Garth’s birthday would draw them together. Lucky had even left Sabrina, her one-year-old daughter, with her in-laws this morning so the three of them could meet without any added distractions. But considering Gabe’s smoldering resentment, Reenie’s expectations were falling fast. At this point, she only hoped they could survive this little get-together without Lucky heading home in tears.
“So how many should we invite?” Reenie asked.
“Gabe?” Lucky asked, immediately deferring to him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. A hundred?”
Lucky cleared her throat. “A hundred is still quite a lot,” she said, obviously trying hard to be tactful. “What about thirty or forty? We want it to be comfortable, not too crowded. I think it’ll be more meaningful to Dad that way.”
Reenie knew Lucky had been so focused on trying to state her preferences politely, she probably hadn’t even noticed a muscle flexing in Gabe’s cheek when she referred to Garth as Dad.
God, this was miserable. Reenie understood that Gabe was trying, or he wouldn’t have come today. She also understood that he was still struggling with the changes that had been forced on him in recent years. But what had happened between their father and the most notorious prostitute in town wasn’t Lucky’s fault. “I think thirty or forty is the way to go,” she said.
This time Lucky ignored her. “Gabe?”
Reenie watched her brother’s deep blue eyes, eyes that were almost a mirror image of her own, meet and clash with Lucky’s. She curled her fingernails into her palms. “Never mind my…er…our surly brother,” she said quickly. Gabe’s eyebrows shot up at the “brother” part, but Reenie continued anyway. “It’s already two out of three, right?” She plastered another smile on her face.
“I’d like him to have some input,” Lucky said, her voice steady. Instead of glancing away, like before, she glared at him.
Gabe clenched his jaw again, and the gap in the conversation stretched, filled only with the sound of clattering dishes coming from the kitchen and the murmur of voices around them. Reenie would have piped up with something, but she knew it was unlikely either of her companions would respond. They were in their own little world now. Lucky’s demeanor indicated she’d finally given up trying to change Gabe’s attitude.
“What is it you want from me?” Gabe asked at last.
“I’d like to know what you hold against me,” Lucky said. “What I’ve done to make you dislike me so much.”
Reenie swallowed hard, expecting the situation to blow up in her face, and was surprised when Gabe backed off.
He jiggled the ice in his water glass. “Do whatever you want,” he said gruffly. “As far as I’m concerned, the two of you can plan the whole thing. I—”
“Forget the party,” Lucky interrupted, holding her chin at a challenging angle. “Just answer my question.”
His scowl darkened. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
He started to wheel himself away, but Lucky stood and intercepted him, boldly placing a hand on his well-muscled arm. “No, I’ll leave. You stay and keep on pouting about the fact that your father slept with my mother twenty-six years ago, since you can’t seem to get over it,” she said. “But I want you to know I’ve finally realized something.” She grabbed her purse before turning her attention to him once again. “I was a fool for wanting you to like me. I was a fool for trying as hard as I have to convince you I might make a good friend.” She gave him a bitter smile. “Go to hell, Gabe. I don’t care if my husband loves you like a brother, if the father I’ve grown to respect worships the ground beneath your feet, if Reenie insists that you aren’t the ogre you seem to be. The moment I come into the picture, you’re not the man everyone thinks you are, and I don’t want to be part of your life anymore,” she said. Then, head held high, she strode proudly to the exit.
Reenie heard the bell jingle over the door as Lucky left, but it was several seconds before she could let go of her breath. “Happy now?” she muttered.
Gabe was still staring after their half sister, looking stunned. Finally he blinked and focused on Reenie. “I didn’t do anything to her. I’ve never done anything to her.”
“That’s not true, Gabe. All she wants is your acceptance. But you’ve turned your back on every overture she’s made.” Reenie slid around the vinyl seat. “As far as I’m concerned, you got what you deserve.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, obviously surprised that she’d desert him, too.
“Keith will be home today,” she said. “The girls and I have things to do.”
CHAPTER TWO
Los Angeles, California
ISAAC COULDN’T HELP puzzling over Keith’s behavior. He vacillated between believing he must have misconstrued the situation, and wondering what his brother-in-law was hiding. A forty-five-car pileup was no small thing. A traveler would definitely notice something like that. And Isaac didn’t believe for a moment that Elizabeth had mixed up the dates. She wouldn’t have pressed her husband as hard as she had if there was any possibility of that.
Maybe Keith had spotted the congested traffic and exited the freeway before realizing the extent of what had happened. And maybe, somehow, he had missed all the news reports of the accident the rest of the day.
Isaac didn’t know a whole lot about Sacramento, but he’d been there once, years ago, to meet up with an old girlfriend who’d long since passed out of his life. If he remembered right, the airport was pretty far out of town, connected to the city by only one street, a major freeway. But that could’ve changed….
Hoping that he’d arrived at a logical explanation, Isaac stared at a map of Sacramento on the computer in Keith’s home office. It looked as if there were a few exits off Interstate 5 that Keith could’ve taken. But the airport still sat amid large tracts of farmland. Would someone not very familiar with the area, someone sitting in fog thick enough to cause that big a pileup, know how to get around a traffic jam when there were so few options available?
It didn’t seem entirely plausible, but there was always the possibility that Keith knew Sacramento better than Isaac thought. He certainly traveled enough.
“Isaac?” Elizabeth called from the kitchen.
“What?” he replied, still studying the map.
“Telephone.”
Isaac blinked in surprise. He’d been so absorbed in what he was doing he hadn’t even heard the phone ring.
Leaning to the right of the computer, he breathed in the scent of furniture polish as he reached for the handset.
“Hello?”
“Isaac?”
A strong British accent immediately identified the caller as Reginald Woolston, Isaac’s Department Head at Chicago University. “What’s up, Reggie?”
“Good news. I just received a call from the Research Grants Program of the Center for Tropical Forest Science.”
Isaac sat taller. “And?”
“They’re forwarding your application to the interview committee. They’d like to meet you.”
With Reginald’s help, Isaac had submitted his application months ago, before he’d left the Congo. It was about time CTFS finally reached the interview process. “When?”
“That’s the bad news. Your appointment is scheduled for tomorrow. Can you make it?”
Isaac scowled at the iridescent glow of the computer monitor. “I’m in California!”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Can’t we schedule an appointment for next week so I can have a chance to get home?”
“I’m afraid not,” his boss replied. “The committee meets only once a month. If you miss tomorrow’s meeting, it will push your application back thirty days.”
Isaac didn’t want to delay his chances. Not when he was so eager to return to his research. “No, I’ll…” The black line that was Interstate 5 was all that stood out on the Sacramento map as he leaned back. “I’ll catch a flight out right away.”
“Good for you. I was hoping you’d say that.”
Isaac could hear Elizabeth telling Christopher to get his backpack. She worked from nine until three each day managing a large dental office, but she’d taken the week off to spend with him and had kept Christopher out of day care, too. Now she was getting ready to drive him to his kindergarten class, which started at noon. “Did they sound interested?” he asked Reggie.
“You know the committee type. They rarely give anything away. ‘We’ve had numerous applications,’ and all that rot.”
Isaac chuckled at Reginald’s British colloquialism. When he talked to Reg, he nearly found himself saying, “I say, old man,” or “jolly good, then.”
“You’ve made the first cut, as we expected,” Reg continued. “But I’ve heard Harold Munoz is also applying, and he’s done some great work in the past. The competition will be fierce, so let’s make the most of the opportunity, shall we?”
Harold Munoz was more interested in making a name for himself than he was in saving Africa’s population of forest elephants. Isaac didn’t like him. But, with any luck, Isaac would be the one going back to the place that had captured his imagination like no other. “If I get the grant, how long will it be before the money comes through? Did they give you any indication?”
“Judging from experience, it could be three months, or it could be two years, right? You’ve been through this before.”
He had been through the process, but Isaac wished Reg would show some excitement. After all, Reginald shared Isaac’s passion for Africa and all the animals to be studied there. He used to lead teams to the Republic of the Congo himself, before he accepted the corner office at the university and officially hung up his “field” clothes for a monotonous series of tweed jackets. “Just making conversation,” Isaac said.
“I see. Well, it’s too early to tell.”
And, as usual, Reg was too conservative to speculate. “Right. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Do you need a ride home from the airport?” his boss asked before Isaac could hang up.
Isaac considered his options. He’d returned from the Republic of the Congo almost a month ago, but as soon as he’d settled into his small condo and caught up on what he’d missed at the university, he’d come to California to see his sister, niece and nephew. He didn’t really want to contact some friend or other he hadn’t spoken to in over a year and suddenly ask a favor, which meant he’d have to take a cab. He figured he might as well spend the time talking to Reg, rather than ride alone. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. Leave a message on my voice mail with your time of arrival. I’m heading into a faculty meeting right now.”
Isaac agreed and disconnected, then retrieved the phone book so he could arrange his flight. Fifteen minutes later, he was eager to pack so he wouldn’t miss his plane.
Quickly collecting his day planner, he stood and started out of the room. But then his eye caught the computer screen once again.
Keith must have taken the exit called Power Line Road and avoided the whole pileup, he decided. Elizabeth admitted that when he was out of town she rarely heard from him. He was probably as absorbed by his work as Isaac was and had forgotten about the detour in Sacramento by the time he returned home.
In any case, what Isaac had sensed in his brother-in-law this morning wasn’t anything to worry about. Elizabeth was going to be fine.
With a click of the mouse, he closed the map.
Dundee, Idaho
REENIE SLOWED as she passed the small farm for sale a few miles from her home.
“Mommy, why are you stopping?” six-year-old Isabella demanded from the back seat of the old minivan.
Reenie had just picked up her three daughters from school. It was raining and had been for most of the afternoon. She could smell the crushed autumn leaves on her children’s boots, the cool wet of the outdoors on their raincoats and umbrellas, the musty scent of their damp hair. “So I can dream,” she said.
Angela, older than Isabella by two years, was sitting in the back, too. “Mom loves that farm, silly,” she said. “Since it went up for sale, she stops here almost every time we pass by.”
Reenie smiled at Angela’s don’t-you-know-anything attitude and pulled onto the shoulder so she wouldn’t cause an accident.
“Are you sure Daddy won’t move here?” Jennifer asked. The oldest at ten, she always tried to claim the passenger seat. But for safety’s sake, Reenie made her ride in back with her sister.
The wipers continued to beat across the windshield. “I’m sure,” Reenie said, watching as great gusts of wind turned the rusty weather vane on the old barn.
“Can’t you talk him into it?” The snaps of Jennifer’s raincoat made a popping noise as she removed it.
“No.” Suppressing a sigh, Reenie turned down the heater. She’d tried to convince Keith that the Higley farm would be a wonderful place to raise their girls. She’d spoken to him about it again and again, but he wanted no part of such a big project. He wasn’t the type to remodel or farm, he told her. He traveled too much.
But she’d thought the farm might eventually provide a way for him to settle down and stay in one place. They could raise and sell a certain breed of dog or horse or pig. They could stable horses or plant crops or lease out the extra land. Reenie knew how to ride. She could even give lessons to the kids in town who rarely had the chance to sit in a saddle. Maybe she and Keith wouldn’t make a mint with their little farm, but he wasn’t earning all that much right now. The company he worked for made plenty of grandiose promises for later, but “later” never came. At least with the farm they’d be together. If finances became a problem, she could always go back to teaching. The life she had now was nice, comfortable. She took care of her girls, helped her mother with various charities and volunteered at the elementary school. But it wasn’t enough. What she really wanted was a good challenge. And for Keith to stay in Dundee.
“He won’t move here ever?” Jennifer pressed.
“Maybe in a few years.” All his traveling had to be taxing, but Keith never complained. He loved his job, and she loved him. It was that simple. She’d known there wasn’t anyone else for her the day they’d first met. He’d walked into the Homecoming Dance, the new kid everyone had been talking about, and Reenie’s heart had dropped to her knees. She couldn’t remember ever having that kind of reaction to another man. It wasn’t because Keith was so handsome, although his rugged, angular face, dark blond hair and brown eyes certainly appealed to her. His confidence was what drew her, his strength. He was one of the few boys she couldn’t intimidate with the force of her own personality.
“What time’s Daddy coming home?” Angela asked.
Reminded of Keith’s call, which she’d received at her mother’s house earlier, Reenie frowned and put the transmission into Drive. “Not for a while.”
“But you said he’d be here for dinner!” Jennifer complained.
The heater whirred softly as Reenie leaned forward to glance up at a darkening sky. “He would’ve been, if not for this storm.” She threw them a rueful smile. Jennifer and Angela looked almost exactly like Keith, especially Angela, who insisted on wearing her blond hair short. Blue-eyed Isabella, however, had hair so dark it was nearly black, like Reenie’s.
“There’s always some reason he can’t be here,” Jennifer muttered.
Ignoring the pique in her daughter’s voice, Reenie checked over her shoulder before pulling onto the road. “I guess the weather’s even worse in Boise.”
“Is he stuck up in the sky, circling around and around, like that one time when it was snowing and he couldn’t land?” Angela asked, sounding a bit frightened.
“No. The plane hasn’t even taken off yet. They’re holding it in Los Angeles until the weather clears up.”
“He’ll be home tonight, though, won’t he?” Isabella said.
Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder boomed in the distance. Then the patter of the rain grew deeper, sounding like tiny pebbles bombarding the windshield. “I hope so,” Reenie replied. She missed Keith when he was gone, missed his warmth in her bed, his support with the girls, the smile he reserved for her alone. She felt as if half her life was locked in cold storage. But when Keith came home, he made the wait worthwhile.
She felt decidedly warmer remembering the last time they’d made love. They’d been as eager for each other as if they’d been newlyweds, despite the fact they’d been married for eleven years. Maybe the absences did that for them. Maybe the traveling, much as she hated it, wasn’t all bad.
She had to believe that, didn’t she? Or she wouldn’t be able to tolerate his job any longer.
Their small wooden house came up on the right, a few miles after the cozier neighbourhoods of Dundee gave way to ranchettes. As soon as Reenie pulled into the driveway, Jennifer released her seat belt and pounded the back of Reenie’s seat in excitement. “Hey, you’re selling Dad’s Jeep!”
Reenie gazed at the vehicle parked beneath the tarp Keith had attached to the side of the garage. She’d just put the For Sale sign up this morning. “I’m trying.”
“After it sells, will we have the money to buy a horse?” Jennifer asked.
The engine sputtered as Reenie turned off the ignition. “I doubt it, honey. We don’t have anywhere to stable a horse.”
“We have a big yard. The Oakleys down the street have horses.”
“We’d have to build stables in back or pay the Oakleys for board. And I’m sure your dad won’t go for either option. He’s planning to buy a motorcycle with the money.”
“Maybe we’ll get enough for both.” Angela tugged her backpack onto her shoulder. “Has anyone wanted to buy it yet?”
“Not that I know of.” Reenie selected the key that opened the house so she’d be ready for the dash across the wet yard. “Someone might’ve called, but I’ve been gone all day.”
“Let’s go see!” Isabella said.
Reenie grimaced at the sky, hoping for a letup that didn’t appear to be coming. “There won’t be many people out looking at cars in this weather.”
“It’ll sell,” Jennifer said confidently. “Everyone loves the Jeep.”
“I hope you’re right.” Reenie wanted part of the money, too—for Christmas.
“Hey,” Isabella said, her voice so loud it nearly made Reenie’s ears ring. “Uncle Gabe brought our swing!”
Since the accident, Gabe had started making the most beautiful armoires, rocking chairs, beds, tables—even clocks and, evidently, tree swings. But after the way he’d handled their meeting with Lucky this morning, Reenie didn’t want to think about him or his peace offering. She didn’t want to forgive her brother too fast. She’d tried calling Lucky twice since breakfast and hadn’t been able to reach her.
“Remember to take off your boots in the mudroom,” she said as she stepped out of the car. “I just had the carpets cleaned.”
They all ran for the back door and piled into the little antechamber that led to the kitchen. Old Bailey, their bassett hound, greeted them by wagging his whole hindquarters as they tossed their boots in a corner and hung their raincoats on hooks.
Reenie finished first because she wasn’t wearing a hat or a sweater under her coat and passed into the kitchen to find the light blinking on her answering machine. Pressing the button that would deliver her messages, she leaned on the counter, hoping to receive some word from her husband.
Sure enough, Keith’s voice came into the room, as warm and steady as always. “Hi honey. I’m still in L.A. It looks like it’ll be a few more hours, so I’m going down the street for a real meal. Don’t wait up for me. I love you,” he said. “I’ll get home as soon as I can.”
The machine beeped and Reenie stood. Yet another night alone with the girls.
“His job’ll be the death of me,” she muttered.
Los Angeles, California
ISAAC HELD TIGHT to his boarding pass as he strode briskly through the airport, weaving in and out of the small clusters of people who were toting more luggage than he was or had stopped for one reason or another. His plane was leaving in forty-five minutes, which meant they’d be boarding in fifteen. Seven hours after that, he’d reach Chicago, where Reg would pick him up and take him home. He’d get in late, but the thought that he wouldn’t have any trouble making his meeting tomorrow morning filled him with relief.
Hiking the bag that contained his laptop computer higher on his shoulder, he left the ticketing area. But when he reached the security checkpoint, he felt a flicker of concern. The line was longer than he’d expected, and it wasn’t moving very fast.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered impatiently, tapping his boarding pass against the palm of one hand as they inched slowly forward.
A moment later, the line stopped altogether.
What was the holdup? Leaning to the left, he tried to see around the people in front of him. An old lady was arguing with security personnel about having to remove her shoes, as if she hadn’t watched everyone else do the same thing for the past thirty minutes. A couple of college boys were taking their computers out of their bags and putting them in gray bins.
God, at this rate—
Suddenly Isaac caught sight of someone familiar. The man had his back to him, so it was difficult to be sure, but he looked exactly like Keith.
He had to be wrong, of course. His brother-in-law had called Elizabeth just an hour or so ago to tell her he’d arrived safely in Phoenix. If he was in Phoenix, he certainly couldn’t be here.
But that guy…
Moving to the other side of the line, Isaac tried to get a better look. At first someone inadvertently blocked his view, but then the line spread apart and Isaac finally caught the profile of the man he’d been trying to see.
It was crazy! He looked exactly like Keith. He was even wearing the same camel-colored overcoat.
The strange feeling he’d had earlier that morning, the sense that something was terribly wrong, swept over Isaac again. He didn’t care what Elizabeth had said about Keith reaching Phoenix, this man was her husband. The longer Isaac watched, the more certain he became.
Taking his cell phone from his bag, he dialed Elizabeth’s number. “Hey, Liz,” he said when she answered.
She sounded surprised to hear from him, probably because she’d only dropped him off a few minutes ago. “Did you miss your plane?” she asked.
“No, I’m going through security right now.”
“Then…did you forget something?”
“I don’t think so. I was hoping…” He cleared his throat. “Keith made it safely to Phoenix, right? I mean, he called you before we left the house, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He called around two.”
“Did he say what the weather was like?”
“Nearly eighty degrees. In November. Can you believe it?”
“No.” He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that Keith was even in Phoenix, because Isaac was standing right here, staring at him. “You don’t think he forgot anything, do you?”
“No, why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Isaac, you’re acting strange.”
A woman’s voice came over the intercom. “This is a security announcement…”
Isaac bowed his head so he could hear above the noise.
“What do you care about the weather in Phoenix?” Elizabeth was asking him. “And what do all these questions mean?”
Isaac couldn’t say what was going on. But he was determined to find out. “Nothing. I’m…” His mind groped for an explanation.
“You’re what?” she said when he didn’t finish.
Reeling… “Passing the time,” he finished lamely. “Keith and I didn’t get much of a chance to talk, and I was curious about his schedule. When do you expect him back?”
“In two weeks or so.”
“Is he always gone two weeks?”
“Give or take a day here and there. If the kids have something special, he’ll occasionally come home early. Sometimes work demands that he make allowances on the other end.” She paused. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said, feeling numb as he imagined Keith on the phone to Elizabeth. I’m here in Phoenix…the weather’s beautiful…nearly eighty degrees…
“Isaac, what’s the matter with you?” she asked.
She didn’t suspect Keith’s deception, he realized. His baby sister, who’d already been through so much, probably had a nasty surprise in store for her, and he was going to have to be the one to break the news to her.
But not now. Not until he knew exactly what was going on. “Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong. You never act like this.”
He swallowed a sigh. “I’m fine. I’ve gotta go, okay? I don’t want to miss my plane,” he said, and hung up.
Fortunately, the line was now moving faster. Ahead of him, Keith went through the metal detector, then started putting on his expensive Italian loafers.
In a few seconds he’d be fully dressed, recover his belongings and head to his gate, Isaac realized. But which gate would that be? Isaac had to know.
Letting the stress he felt show in his face, he turned to the person in front of him. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m about to miss my plane. If you can afford the time, would you mind letting me go in front of you?”
It was a woman and her daughter. They politely stepped aside and let him through, and several more people did the same. He was nearly to the metal detector when Keith slung his carry-on over his shoulder and walked off.
Isaac cleared security and collected his things, hesitating briefly when he realized that Keith had moved in the opposite direction to the one Isaac needed to go. If he followed his brother-in-law, he’d miss his plane. Which meant he’d miss his interview.
Picturing his sister at the breakfast table this morning, so trusting and gullible and, along with her two kids, disappointed to see her husband go, he cursed softly. Then he gazed down the long corridor, managed to pick his brother-in-law’s tall figure out of the crowd far ahead and started to follow.
CHAPTER THREE
ALONE ON THE TENNIS COURT, Elizabeth lowered her racquet to glance at the new diamond-studded watch Keith had given her for their eighth wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. It was just after six. Renate, who helped them out for a couple of hours each afternoon, would’ve picked up Mica and Christopher from their various after-school activities by now. They were probably already on their way home.
Elizabeth wanted to be with them. Usually she enjoyed going to the country club, especially when Keith was home. They played doubles as often as possible. But she wasn’t in the mood to be here right now. It wasn’t easy having Keith and Isaac leave on the same day. Their departures allowed the loneliness that sometimes plagued her to move closer.
Holding her racquet between her legs, she adjusted the ribbon that gathered her thick blond hair into a ponytail and attempted to shrug off her melancholy mood by telling herself the exercise would be good for her. Keith had given her these lessons for her thirtieth birthday two months ago and expected her to take them. She could do that much. He loved that she could beat almost any woman she played, even most men, and didn’t want her to lose any of her ability.
He didn’t want her to lose her figure, either. Which was probably why he insisted that they were finished having children, even though Liz would have liked one more.
She winced at the memory of the comment he’d made when they were making love the other night. “Wow, babe, what are you eating when I’m gone? Feels like you’re putting on a few pounds.”
He was right, of course. She was comfort eating, trying to help pass the long evenings when he was away. But it wasn’t as though she’d turned into a blimp.
Throwing the ball into the air, she smacked it hard and watched it rocket to the other side of the court. It landed right in the corner, almost on the line. A perfect serve.
“Looking good.”
Dave Shapiro, the club pro, had finally deigned to show up for her lesson. But, from the way he was watching her, she couldn’t tell if he was referring to her serve or her legs.
“You’re late,” she said.
As usual, her attempt to redirect his interest did little good. “I’m worth the wait.”
She adjusted her visor as he swaggered over—and stiffened when he stood behind her, lifting her arm in the motion of her serve.
“You were holding your wrist like this, see?” He made a point of having her look up. “That’s exactly the way I want you to hold it. Every time.”
He was a little too close. Liz could feel his body’s heat, despite the cool November air, and remembered some of the suggestive things he’d said to her in the past. She knew, if she gave him any encouragement, he’d flirt even more.
But she’d never get seriously involved with him. No matter how handsome he was. No matter how badly she needed to feel desirable. After going through some of the most difficult years of her life without a mother, she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her own small family.
“You’re a beautiful woman, you know that?” he said.
“And you’re about seven years too young for me,” she replied, smiling because he was so obvious.
He shrugged. “That isn’t the reason you’re not interested.”
Maybe Dave was cocky, but she appreciated how honest and direct he could be. “Not exclusively, no.”
He hesitated for a moment, his attention roving over her short skirt. “Your husband’s a lucky man.”
“Commitment’s an important part of loving someone, don’t you think?” she said, and served again. Too long.
When his eyes finally met hers, his grin spread up one side, making him appear even more boyish than usual. “I think your husband’s gone too often. It isn’t wise to leave a wife alone so much.”
“He trusts me,” she said simply.
Dave cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you trust him?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t think he’s ever visited a bar or a strip club and wound up in someone else’s bed?”
To be honest, she had considered that possibility. Her husband retrieved his voice mail and his e-mails when he was away, and responded if she needed him. But he never answered his cell phone during those long absences and rarely bothered to call her. She often wondered what he did when he had some spare time. Especially on holidays. At least once a year, he missed a major holiday because a network went down somewhere in the company. Did some of the other guys ever take him out for a drink? Or to a party?
She couldn’t picture it. He said most of the guys at work were jerks and he refused to socialize with them. He wouldn’t even attend the annual Christmas party. When she asked him how he spent his evening hours, he denied having any fun at all. “I try to get as much done as possible while I’m gone so I can be more available to you and the kids when I’m home,” he said. And he made it easy for her to believe him. Although he worked while he was home—quite a bit, actually—he was completely devoted to her and the kids. She’d never seen him so much as look at another woman.
So rather than become an insecure nag, she’d chosen to trust him.
“He’s a workaholic, which keeps him pretty busy,” she said. “And he loves our kids as much as I do.”
Dave reached down to retrieve a stray ball. “Maybe you’re as lucky as he is. But if I were a gambler, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“You barely know him!” she said.
“He’s a man, isn’t he?”
“That’s pretty cynical, not to mention sexist,” she accused, slugging him halfheartedly in the arm. “Anyway, you’re wrong.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
She claimed the ball and served again. “Because I know my husband.”
AT THE AIRPORT, Isaac sat in a row of chairs one gate away from Keith. Other passengers crowded into the space between them, occasionally obstructing his view, but Isaac didn’t move any closer. He didn’t want his brother-in-law to know he was being watched, even though, from what Isaac could tell, he didn’t appear to be particularly concerned about those around him. He didn’t seem to be doing much of anything unusual—except going to the wrong city. According to the sign behind the desk, he was waiting for a flight that had been scheduled to leave for Boise, Idaho, this morning but had been delayed because of bad weather.
Boise. Why in the world would Keith be going there? Isaac might have guessed that Softscape, Inc., the company Keith worked for, had decided to send him somewhere else at the last minute. But that call saying he’d arrived safely and was already enjoying the sunshine made no sense. A man didn’t play such an elaborate charade without a reason.
What was Keith’s reason?
Isaac glanced at his watch. He’d missed his own flight to Chicago more than thirty minutes ago, so that decision had already been made. He knew he might regret his actions—certainly Reginald hadn’t been happy to hear the news—but Isaac felt strongly about getting to the bottom of his brother-in-law’s mysterious behavior.
In order to do that, he needed to follow Keith to Idaho. But if he took the same flight, he risked being seen.
He considered making arrangements through another airline, but decided it would be too difficult to coordinate his arrival with Keith’s. He was afraid if he let Keith out of his sight for very long he’d lose him.
Isaac contemplated several different scenarios before deciding that his best bet was to buy a first-class ticket on Keith’s flight. He’d board before all the other passengers, sit in the last row of coach and bury his nose in a newspaper. Unless the flight was packed, which he could already tell it wasn’t, he doubted anyone would even sit next to him. His brother-in-law would get on and most likely take a seat much farther toward the front. Then Isaac would follow him off the plane when it landed.
The woman behind the counter was telling folks it’d be at least another hour before Keith’s flight could take off. Isaac had heard her say it half-a-dozen times, so he wasn’t concerned about being able to purchase a ticket. There were a lot of people milling around, but most seemed to be waiting to go to Portland.
When a group of businessmen passed between him and his brother-in-law, he finally stood and started toward the escalators. Keith had settled in to work on his computer. He wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until they boarded the plane.
Then Isaac would be going with him.
Dundee, Idaho
REENIE COULDN’T HELP waiting up. She knew it was crazy to lose sleep when she had to get the girls off to school in the morning. But she still felt that old rush of anticipation when she knew her husband was coming home.
She sat in the living room, the filmy black lingerie she’d bought in Boise last week hidden beneath the heavy fabric of her robe, sipping a glass of white wine and playing with Old Bailey’s silky ears. Her dog had been acting a little sluggish lately, but he was eleven years old and suffered from arthritis, so that was to be expected. “You’re okay, aren’t you Bailey?” she asked.
He licked his snout and gave her a short whine, and she sighed, hoping she’d been imagining his lack of appetite and increased lethargy.
Taking another sip of wine, she listened to the wind buffet the trees against the house. A steady drip fell from the rain gutter at the side of the house, but the worst of the storm had blown over. Conditions must have improved in Boise, too, because Keith had called at nine-thirty to say he was boarding his plane. Surely, he wouldn’t be much longer.
The ring of the telephone startled her. She wasn’t used to receiving calls so late. Her husband rarely called when he was gone. If he hadn’t been delayed, she doubted she would have heard from him at all today. He would have simply appeared, luggage in tow, as he always did.
Pulling her gaze away from the silver sheen of wet pavement that lay beyond her big, sloping front lawn, she extricated herself from Bailey, who padded after her as she answered the phone in the kitchen. She hoped Keith wasn’t calling to say his plane had been forced to land elsewhere.
“Hello?”
“Reenie?”
It wasn’t Keith; it was Gabe. She knew her brother well enough to guess he was feeling badly about this morning. That was why he’d brought the girls a tree swing. But she’d already promised herself she wasn’t going to forgive him too easily.
“Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No. Keith’s getting in soon.”
“You haven’t talked him into quitting that lousy job yet?”
“It pays the bills.”
“It makes you miserable.”
She raked her fingers through her hair. “He’s afraid he won’t be able to replace his paycheck. And he says he’s used to the traveling, that I should be used to it by now, too.”
“Are you?”
“Mostly I’m tired of having him gone. But I’m not sure it’s fair of me to demand he give up what he feels successful at, what he loves. Besides, what if he’s right and he can’t find anything better?”
“He’d be fine. It’s time he started thinking of you and the girls.”
“He’s good to us.”
“When he’s around.” Gabe fell silent for a long moment, then drew an audible breath. “I’m sorry about this morning,” he said, offering the apology he’d probably been working on all day.
Because the words sounded as though he’d had to drag them out of some place very deep, they melted Reenie’s heart almost immediately. So much for not forgiving him too easily.
Oh well. Maybe they argued often. They were both passionate people. Stubborn. Opinionated. But their arguments never lasted long. Regardless of their ups and downs, Reenie knew Gabe would do anything for her, and she felt the same way about him. “I know you’re still having a hard time with what Dad did,” she said. “But it happened so long ago, Gabe. And Lucky really is—”
“A nice person,” he interrupted. “I know. You’ve told me that before. I keep thinking I’m over whatever it is that makes me dislike her. But then I see her and…” His sentence trailed off.
Bailey, tired of waiting for Reenie to return to their cozy spot in the living room, lay across her feet.
“She’s your best friend’s wife,” Reenie said, trying to approach the situation from another angle.
“Which only complicates the situation,” Gabe replied. “Dad. You. Mike. I’m cornered.”
“Sometimes it’s better to accept what we can’t change.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Considering the accident that had stolen so much from him, she guessed it was more a matter of her poor brother reaching his “tough luck” threshold before they’d even learned about their father’s affair with the infamous Red.
“Hannah thinks I should give her a call in the morning,” he said.
Hannah. Gabe’s wife was so immovable in her love for him. If not for the strength of the relationship that had developed between them, and Hannah’s two boys, he’d probably still be closeting himself away in the remote cabin where he’d lived for two years after the accident. Instead, he’d bought a house in town and was coaching football at the high school.
Reenie wondered if she was expecting too much of him. Her brother was making progress. But it didn’t hurt to encourage him. “I’m sure Lucky would be glad to hear from you,” she said.
The sound of a car in the driveway brought Reenie’s head up. Bailey, who was hardly an excitable animal, lumbered to the door and gave a rare “woof!”
Finally. Her husband was home. She was going to talk to Keith about the Higley farm. Again. She knew having him around more often would be good for the family. Not only were his long absences driving her crazy, but she had this…this terrible sense that his traveling threatened her and their children in some way.
She knew he’d laugh at her the moment she admitted it to him. Until recently, she wouldn’t even admit it to herself. But she could no longer ignore what she felt. She wasn’t being insecure or overly possessive. Keith was becoming increasingly distant. Sometimes she’d be talking to him, possibly speculating on what their lives could be like if he did something else for a living, and his mind would just drift off. She needed his attention again. She needed him to concentrate more on her and the kids and less on work.
Hearing Keith’s key in the lock, she told Gabe she’d call him tomorrow. Now that she and Keith would be face-to-face, and alone, she was going to sit down with him and tell him exactly how she felt. His job—or his marriage. He’d have to choose.
But as soon as her husband walked through the door, she found herself in his arms and knew she wouldn’t bring up the subject tonight. She didn’t want to argue. He was whispering how much he loved her, how much he’d missed her, and his hands were slipping beneath her robe, seeking the places on her body that craved his touch.
She’d already put up with his traveling for nearly eleven years. She supposed her ultimatum could wait one more night.
ISAAC SAT in the back seat of the taxi he’d hired at the airport and stared across a narrow country road at the house Keith had entered only a few minutes earlier. A quick glance at the clock on the dash next to the meter in front told him it was 11:58 p.m.—a little late for Keith to be visiting a friend.
Frowning, he let his eyes rove over the house. Made of wood and painted white, it had been built some years ago but, like the yard, it was well kept. He could see the top of a swing set over the back fence. A tricycle with pink tassels dangling from the handlebars waited near the front door. A detached garage took up a large section of the right-hand side of the property, but it didn’t look as though it was being used to house vehicles. There was a Jeep, parked beneath a tarp and sporting a For Sale sign. A minivan sat in the driveway next to the blue SUV Keith had driven.
“You gettin’ out?” the cabby asked when Isaac made no move to open the door.
“No.”
“You want I should take you somewhere else?”
“No.”
The license plate of the minivan said, 1 I LUV. Keith’s license plate was pretty conspicuous, too. It read, MY3GRLS, which had made him quite easy to follow.
Isaac lightly rubbed his lip. He’d risked his grant to follow Keith across two states, but he still wasn’t sure what his brother-in-law was up to. He only knew it didn’t look good. Especially when two figures, a man and a woman, appeared in the window. The glaring porch light made it difficult to see much detail, but a softer light coming from another room in the house threw both their bodies into relief.
They were kissing. The man was Keith. No question. The woman he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t discern any specific features, not even the color of her hair.
“Meter’s running,” the cabby reminded him.
When Isaac made no response, the driver rolled down his window and lit a cigarette while Isaac watched Keith shove the woman’s robe off her shoulders. When Keith bent his head to kiss his partner’s neck, Isaac looked away. He felt sick. Elizabeth was going to be devastated. This would hurt Mica and Christopher, too.
What should he do? Dropping his head in his hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think.
“That’s not your wife, is it?” the cab driver asked, smoke curling from his nose as he spoke.
Again, Isaac didn’t respond. He was too busy searching for an answer. But no answer presented itself.
When he glanced up again, the figures in the window were gone. No doubt they’d moved to the bedroom.
Imagining his brother-in-law making love to another woman caused rage to cut through Isaac’s terrible disappointment. He had to do something; he had to stop what was happening. For Elizabeth’s sake.
“Wait here,” he said, and got out. Wrinkling his nose against the cabby’s cigarette smoke and the car’s exhaust, he pulled his coat close and strode briskly across the street. He’d teach Keith a lesson. Break his nose. Something!
Isaac’s mind told him a fistfight wouldn’t solve anything—he hadn’t been in a fight since he was seventeen—but his heart pumped eagerly in his chest as he cleared the driveway. He wouldn’t allow his brother-in-law to have sex with this woman!
Anticipating the satisfying impact of his first blow to Keith’s face, Isaac barely heard the rumbling motor of the waiting taxi as he slipped inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the front yard. He passed the trike with the pink tassels, stepped over a small pair of rubber boots lying near the steps and opened the screen door so he could bang on the wooden panel behind it. But then he hesitated. There was a crayon drawing taped to the door.
He blinked, his hand poised in the air. The drawing depicted several stick figures. One was obviously larger than the rest and, judging by the hair, was a man. The other figures were as crudely drawn but they were much smaller and seemed to be gathered around the man. At the bottom, a child had written, “Welcome Home, Daddy. We missed you. Jennifer, Angela and…” He couldn’t read the last name. Whoever had signed the drawing had attempted to write in cursive, which he or she obviously didn’t know how to do.
Welcome home, Daddy….
Chills rolled down Isaac’s spine as he slowly lowered his hand to his side. Was this woman also married? Was her husband away on business? Could Keith have been driving her husband’s car?
Isaac wanted to knock and demand the truth. But the tricycle with the pink tassels, the little boots and the childish note stopped him. There were children inside….
God, what was going on? How many lives would Keith’s affair destroy?
Taking a bolstering breath, Isaac glanced back at the waiting taxi just as the cab driver finished his cigarette and tossed the butt carelessly away.
He had to think, gain some perspective.
Suddenly the porch light winked off, leaving Isaac in the dark. He froze where he stood on the front step, waiting to see if whoever had turned off the light had heard his approach or spotted the green-and-white taxi parked in front.
But the next several seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Keith and the woman were probably too involved with each other to notice anything less than a sizable earthquake.
The rain began to fall more heavily, but Isaac couldn’t move. Most of his life, he’d done his best to protect his little sister. She’d had no one else.
But, heaven help him, there wasn’t anything he could do to protect her from this.
CHAPTER FOUR
RELUCTANTLY, ISAAC LEFT Dundee behind and had the cabdriver drop him at a motel next to the Boise airport. He would’ve liked more time in the small town where Keith had spent the night. But he couldn’t haunt Dundee while his brother-in-law was around. He didn’t want Keith to know he suspected the affair. Not until he had a better sense of what was happening. Besides, his luggage had gone on to Chicago when he missed his plane and he wouldn’t have had any transportation in Dundee. The town wasn’t large enough to offer car rentals or bus service.
He had to go home. But what he’d witnessed didn’t make it easy to leave. At least a hundred questions crowded to the forefront of his mind as he lay in the double bed, staring down the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him. Did folks in the area know Keith? How often did he appear and how long did he stay? Who was the woman he’d taken in his arms? Where had he met her—and how? What plans did he have for the future? Surely Liz’s husband didn’t feel he could continue lying to her indefinitely.
Or did he?
He’d come back later, when Keith was in L.A., he decided. Then Isaac wouldn’t have to be so discreet. He could poke around, ask whatever he wanted.
Now he needed to sleep, so he could get up early and fly out. He couldn’t make his interview, but he was anxious to be home.
Problem was sleep wouldn’t come. Traffic rambled by; the television in the room next door blared too loudly. He was still getting used to such noise after spending more than a year cocooned in the deep jungle.
The ice machine not far from his door clattered, and he swore softly under his breath. But it was the memories that really bothered him—the memories he hadn’t let himself think about for years. Elizabeth repeatedly waking in a cold sweat, shaking from some terrible nightmare. Luanna, their stepmother, who was the cause of those nightmares, constantly belittling her. Can’t you do anything right?…You clumsy idiot…My hell, if you had half a brain you’d be dangerous…Look at the way you did these dishes. You’re not worth a damn, you know that?
For some reason, Luanna had been kinder to Isaac. He’d grown up feeling guilty for getting away with the little things Elizabeth would be punished for doing. Things like leaving his clothes on the floor, or forgetting to put his plate in the dishwasher. Maybe it was because he didn’t need Luanna as much as Liz did, because he didn’t really care whether she liked him or not. There was a certain amount of safety in indifference.
But Liz had been younger and much lonelier. She’d desperately craved the love they’d lost when their mother died, and it seemed to be that neediness that made Luanna so harsh. At any rate, Liz’s vulnerability gave Luanna her power. The more Luanna punished Elizabeth, the more insecure and forgetful the girl became. The more insecure and forgetful she became, the more Luanna found reason to punish her. It grew into a never-ending cycle, one which Isaac could not stop. Whenever he tried to defend Elizabeth, Luanna would turn on him, and he’d run away from home. A day or two later, he’d go back because he couldn’t leave Liz there alone.
He’d built up a deep resentment of his father for not putting an end to the petty meanness. To this day, they weren’t speaking.
Fortunately, Elizabeth had slowly gained the strength she’d needed to stand up to their stepmother. When she was seventeen, she’d run away herself and refused to go back. She’d graduated from high school while living with a girlfriend and spending most weekends sleeping on the floor of Isaac’s dorm room. Once he’d obtained his degree, he’d tried to help her get through college, but she’d left school to become a stewardess, which she seemed to really enjoy. That was when she met Keith. They’d married, had two children, and Liz had been happier than Isaac had ever seen her.
Which was all about to change.
Isaac shifted to his back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Who was the poor schmuck Keith’s new lover was cheating on? Did he have any idea what his wife was doing?
Sleep, he ordered himself and tried to stop thinking. But it was no use.
Finally he snatched the phone from its cradle and leaned back against the headboard to dial. A call this late would probably wake Liz. But he had to talk to her, if only to remind himself that she was older and stronger than she’d been before, that somehow she’d be okay.
“Hello?” Her sleep-filled voice seemed to reach across the line and grab him by the throat.
“Hello?” she repeated when he didn’t answer right away.
“It’s me.”
“Oh good, you got my message.” Her last word thickened with what sounded like a yawn.
“Your message?”
“On your answering machine. I wanted to make sure you got in safely.”
“I’m fine.” Isaac hated lying to her. She thought her husband was in Phoenix. She thought her brother was in Chicago. Yet they were both in Idaho, of all places. But, guilt or no guilt, he wasn’t about to admit the truth yet. First, he needed to understand more about what was going on, figure out a way to soften the blow. “Have you heard from Keith?”
Isaac knew she had to wonder at his sudden preoccupation with her husband. Other than the usual felicitations, they didn’t talk about Keith a whole lot. But Isaac couldn’t help asking. He wanted to know who Keith really was. Obviously, his brother-in-law wasn’t the man Isaac thought he knew. Hell, he wasn’t even the man Liz thought she knew—and she’d been living with him for eight years!
“Unless there’s a problem with the kids and I leave a message that I need him to call me, I usually don’t hear from him till he gets home, remember?”
She’d already told him that, but she didn’t sound impatient.
Isaac watched the lights from passing cars flicker behind the drapes, thinking that Keith’s calling habits seemed pretty damned convenient. “Where do you leave a message?”
“On his voice mail.”
“Could you give me that number?”
“You want to talk to Keith?”
It wasn’t going to help anything at this point to further rouse her suspicions, so he tried to defuse her surprise. “I have a friend who’s planning a visit to Phoenix. I thought maybe Keith could tell him a little about the area.”
“He should be able to tell him plenty. He goes there often enough. You got a pen?”
Isaac turned on the lamp, then squinted against the sudden brightness. “Go ahead,” he said when his vision cleared and he’d located the pad and pen provided by the motel.
She rattled off the number, then yawned again. “I’m beat. I’ll let you go.”
“Liz?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about Luanna?”
His sister sounded more awake and slightly wary when she answered. “I try not to. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
A pause. “Has Dad tried to call you or something?” she asked.
“Not recently. Have you heard from the asshole?”
“Don’t call him that, Isaac. He wasn’t the best father, but…we’re not kids anymore.”
“You’ve forgiven him?”
“I don’t see the point in holding a grudge. I’m older now. I have Keith, the kids. All’s well that ends well, right?”
Isaac wished she’d become a little jaded so he wouldn’t have to worry about her as much. All’s well that ends well…. It hadn’t ended yet.
“I mailed Dad a picture of the kids for Christmas,” she was saying.
“How’d he respond?”
“He sent them each twenty bucks.”
“Generous of him.”
“It’s an acknowledgment,” she replied defensively.
Isaac dropped the sarcasm. “I guess.” Another pause. “What about Luanna? She have anything to say?”
“She wasn’t part of the exchange. Dad’s note was brief. A simple ‘Merry Christmas,’ and the money.”
“Well, she’s got her own precious child to worry about, right?”
Some rustling came through the line before she spoke again. “I bumped into Joe Stearns a few weeks ago.”
“Marty’s best friend?”
“Yeah. He said our stepbrother’s getting divorced.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
“We haven’t talked to Marty for eight years. Maybe he’s not so bad anymore.”
Isaac doubted that. It’d take someone like Marty forever and a day to change enough to become tolerable, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with Liz. Better to change the subject. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“What would you do if things suddenly…went wrong in your life?”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. Say…you and Keith split up.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Don’t you ever imagine worst-case scenarios? What you might do if you faced a sudden reversal?”
“No, Isaac, I don’t. I’m trying to bury the old fear. To trust. To believe in good things. I’ve had enough nightmares.”
Isaac covered his eyes with his free hand. “Right. Well, it’s late. I’d better let you go,” he said. Before I really upset you.
“Are you okay?” she asked, obviously worried.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” he said. Then he hung up and dialed Keith’s cell phone. He couldn’t leave things exactly as they were. The devil in him wanted to see his brother-in-law sweat.
As expected, his call went straight to voice mail. Not surprisingly, Keith didn’t pick up when he was with “the other woman.”
“You’ve reached Keith O’Connell at Softscape, Inc. Please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Bastard. “Hey, Keith. A friend of mine has business in Phoenix and has invited me to come along and do a little golfing. I told him you were there already and might be able to show us around,” he said, expanding the lie he’d given Liz. “We arrive—” he thought quickly for a date that would be soon yet plausible: it was already Thursday “—on Monday. Give me a call, okay?”
He left his number and disconnected, wondering how long it’d take for Keith to respond—and what excuse his brother-in-law would offer.
“SO WHAT DO YOU SAY?” Reenie leaned up on her elbows and grinned at her husband, who’d awakened her by kissing her neck a few moments earlier. She loved it when his hair was ruffled from sleep and his whiskers created a dark shadow on his jaw. He looked younger then, less like the corporate type he’d become and more like the boy she’d fallen for at the Homecoming Dance.
“Reenie, please,” he said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I just got home. Don’t start in on me already.”
Her hopes fell a little. “But the traveling is killing me.”
He peeked at her. “You’re not traveling. I am. If I don’t mind, I don’t see why you should.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’m tired of having you gone. Of spending half the night waiting up for you. Of worrying about plane crashes and terrorist attacks.”
“I have more of a chance of getting killed in a car accident than a plane wreck. And I telecommute when I’m home, so I rarely leave the house. You probably see more of me than most wives see of their husbands.”
Frustration caused Reenie to clench her jaw. They’d had this argument so many times she was beginning to feel as though they were on some kind of merry-go-round. She missed him, he came home, they made love, they argued, he left. And then it started all over again.
She needed to stop the cycle.
“That’s not true,” she said. “You might stay home, but you’re still working when you’re here. I don’t get any more of your attention than if you worked outside the house those two weeks. And you’re missing a lot of important events with the kids when you’re gone.”
He’d closed his eyes again, but she knew by the deep vee between his eyebrows that he was far from relaxed. “Like what?”
“Like Jennifer’s school play last week.”
“You videotaped it for me, didn’t you?”
“Of course. But she played Tinkerbell, which was a big part. Going to those things without you just isn’t the same.”
He opened his eyes, but his scowl didn’t ease. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “Anyway, I’m home for two whole weeks. Why not enjoy our morning together instead of trying to make my life miserable?” As he sat up, the blankets fell to his waist, revealing the flat stomach and muscular chest Reenie admired so much. After sleeping with him for eleven years, she knew every inch of his body. She knew his moods, too, and recognized the irritation in his expression.
“When do you want to talk about it?” she challenged. “When you’re home you say, ‘Don’t ruin the time we have together.’ When you’re gone you’re too busy to call, or you say, ‘We’ll talk about it when I get home.’ What do I have to do? Make an appointment with you to air my grievances?”
“You shouldn’t have any grievances,” he said. “You’ve got the house, the kids, your folks, the town you grew up in. What more can a woman ask for?”
Despite her desperation to change the situation, Reenie couldn’t help wondering if she was being as selfish as he implied. The possibility that she had no right to ask him to quit Softscape, Inc., always undermined her resolve. But she’d put up with his job for eleven years. Wasn’t that enough?
“I want to buy the Higley farm,” she said. “Myrtle has lowered the price by twenty thousand. At this point, it’s a steal. And I know we can make it work. I’m ready for a new challenge, for something we can do together.”
He chuckled softly, as if she was Isabella, asking for her own reindeer for Christmas. “It’s a broken-down old farm. And you don’t know the first thing about running it.”
She tried not to let his patronizing tone get to her. “My parents gave me riding lessons when I was growing up. I know how to care for horses.”
“That isn’t farming.”
“Horses are part of the experience I’m looking for, and I could learn the rest. I realize it’d require a sacrifice on your part. But I’ve been sacrificing for your job since we got married. When is it my turn? Why is what you want always so much more important than what I want?”
God, that did sound selfish, Reenie realized. Was it? Should she simply continue to kiss her husband goodbye every two weeks and quit dreaming of a time when she wouldn’t have to do so? Or did she have the right to call the shots once in a while?
“I’m the one who’s supporting the family.” Shoving the blankets aside, he got up and strode naked into the bathroom. “I’m good at developing business software, and I know I can pay the mortgage with the job I have right now,” he called out through the open door. “I don’t think we’d even be able to make the electric bill if I decided to become a farmer. I don’t know the first thing about it.”
“You wouldn’t be doing it alone. I’ll be there to help. We can make it work, Keith. I know we can.”
The toilet flushed and the tap in the sink went on. “What’s up with you, Reenie?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Since when did you become so…clingy?”
Reenie’s jaw dropped. She was clingy? Because she wanted him home at night like a regular husband? “You don’t want to be with me all the time?” she asked.
When he came out of the bathroom, he was pinching his neck as if the tightness in his muscles was giving him a headache. “That’s not it. You’re…driving me insane with all of this—” he made an impatient motion with his hand “—badgering.”
“If I’m making your life so miserable, maybe we need to split up and go our separate ways.”
She’d never suggested such a drastic measure before. Even she was shocked to hear the words spoken aloud. And she could tell it had an effect on him, because the color drained from his face.
Crossing to the bed, he gathered her in his arms. “Hey, don’t talk like that. We’re going to be together forever, remember?”
They’d made that promise to each other, but…She leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “I want you home at night instead of flying all over the country.”
The tension in his arms slackened, and he pulled away. “I’ll think about it,” he said, drawing on his boxers. But Reenie knew “I’ll think about it” was just another ploy to get her to back off. “I’ll think about it” was Keith’s Plan B. If “Why are you starting a fight when we could be having fun together?” didn’t work, he’d say something noncommittal yet pacifying.
“That’s not good enough, Keith,” she said. “You’ve told me you’ll think about it before, but you never do. Left to you, the subject would never come up.”
He shoved his legs into a pair of jeans. “How do you know that? You don’t ever give me a chance. You start hounding me the moment I walk through the door.”
“That’s not true.”
“God, Reenie! Can you just…quit?”
She got up on her knees. “I have a right to express my wants and desires,” she said stubbornly.
“So do I.”
“You’ve had your way for eleven years!”
“Give it a break,” he snapped.
Would he ever face the issue squarely? “Quit trying to dodge this conversation and talk to me.”
“We’re not talking, we’re shouting. And you won’t be satisfied until I tell you what you want to hear. But I can’t quit my job!”
“Why not?”
He turned away and started going through his drawers. “Because we need the money,” he grumbled.
“There are other ways to make money.”
“I love what I do.”
Reenie’s heart felt as if it were turning to lead. “Do you love it more than you love me?” she asked softly, clutching the sheet to her chest.
When he glanced back at her, something flickered in his eyes, something warm and solid, something she’d been depending on their entire marriage. “Of course not,” he said. “How can you even ask me that?”
“I’m miserable, Keith. Why won’t you make a change?”
He came to the bed and took her hands. “I will,” he said. “But give me another year. Okay, babe? One more year. Please?”
Reenie stared at him. The warmth of his hands surrounded hers, but that warmth didn’t seem to course through her like it used to. Another year. She didn’t know if she could tolerate six more months. But a small knock sounded at their door and, as soon as Keith opened it, Isabella burst into the room. Watching her squeal as her daddy threw her into the air, Reenie knew she wasn’t really willing to break up their little family.
TWO HOURS LATER, Keith sat at the desk of his home office, staring blankly at his computer screen. He had so much to do, but he couldn’t concentrate. He’d just received word from Softscape that they were running into a glitch on the new inventory control program he’d created for large merchandisers and needed him to return to L.A. right away. After spending nearly twelve hours at the airport yesterday and barely getting to see Reenie and the girls, he hated the thought of going back so soon. But he knew better than to put the company off. When Softscape first moved their offices from Boise to L.A. nine years ago, everyone had been grateful that he was willing to commute. He’d been with them almost since the company first started. But management had changed since then, and his new boss wasn’t particularly pleased with the amount of time he spent out of state. Charlie was looking for any excuse to insist he move to L.A. and appear at the office five days a week like everyone else; Charlie acted like Softscape owned Keith.
Because he was earning almost as much as Charlie, the company basically did own him, Keith thought with a frown. There was little chance he could support two families working anywhere else.
We need you here by Monday. The words of the e-mail he’d just read seemed to grow and then shrink. It was Friday now. That gave him only two days in Dundee. What was he going to say to Reenie come Sunday?
He could hear his wife talking to Old Bailey in the kitchen as she fed him the table scraps from breakfast. After getting the girls off to school, she’d made Keith some pancakes, eggs and sausage, and brought him coffee. But the food was growing cold at his elbow. He had to figure out a way to tell her he was leaving again, a way that wouldn’t upset her too much. This morning she’d actually mentioned splitting up.
The panic he’d felt in that moment rose inside him again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her or his girls.
“How’s it goin’ in here?”
Swiveling in his seat, he found Reenie standing at the door wearing only the see-through lingerie he’d removed—far too quickly—last night. With her long, shiny dark hair, deep blue eyes and small, compact body, she was certainly striking. Every bit as pretty as Elizabeth. Only in a completely different way. Reenie was a nature lover—earthy, real, demonstrative. She felt every emotion to the extreme, argued passionately and made love the same way.
Liz, on the other hand, behaved like the typical upper-class city girl she aspired to be—reserved, refined, elegant. She was a generous lover, but there was some small part of her she held in reserve. Sometimes he found himself saying things to her, hurtful things, just to see if he could pierce that protective shroud, get as close to her as he felt to Reenie. But Liz avoided emotional extremes as much as Reenie embraced them.
Eventually, he had to figure out a way to let Liz down easy, to tell her that he’d made a dreadful mistake, that he already had a family in Dundee. He knew he couldn’t live the way he’d been living forever. But he couldn’t even begin to imagine how Liz—or Reenie, for that matter—would react.
Feeling the onset of the panic that overwhelmed him so of-ten of late, he took a deep breath. He’d fix everything next year, he decided. Or the year after that. It would be a lot easier when Christopher and Mica were older.
“Wanna take a shower with me?” Reenie asked, her voice sultry, her grin suggestive.
Keith let his eyes lower over her soft round breasts, her small waist, the flare of her hips—and felt his body react. He really should’ve taken more time to admire her in that sexy lingerie last night. But he was always too eager when he first came home. He had to feel her beneath him right away. Her warm response reassured him that she still believed in him, that she was still in love with him. Once he knew that, he could relax and slow down when they made love again.
She came toward him, and he quickly stood to block her view of the computer. He’d tell her about his summons to L.A. later. After they made love. Or tomorrow. He didn’t see any reason to ruin the little time they had left. What she’d said this morning had really frightened him.
Bending his head, he kissed her exactly the way she liked. He needed to give her something she couldn’t get anywhere else. “You wouldn’t really leave me, would you?” he asked when they finally made their way into the bedroom. “You’ve never even slept with anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Tell me you love me,” he said.
“I do.”
“We’re a family, right?”
She threw her head back as he kissed her breasts, touched her elsewhere. “Right.”
“And families stick together,” he murmured against the skin of her throat.
“For better or for worse,” she repeated as she wrapped her arms around him. But when he pulled back to look in her face, he saw the sad little smile those words engendered, and the fear returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chicago, Illinois
KEITH’S CALL CAME on Saturday, catching Isaac in his car on the way to the university.
“Hey, why are you coming to Phoenix?” his brother-in-law asked, as engaging as ever. “I thought you had work to do at home.”
Isaac marveled at the fact that Keith sounded perfectly normal. Was it only the night before last that he’d seen him with another woman? “I figure another week off work won’t matter. I haven’t been golfing since before I went to Africa. And the weather in Phoenix is pretty good, isn’t it? This time of year, it’s got to beat Chicago.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Keith said without hesitation. “Not a cloud in sight.”
God, he was a good liar. Isaac wondered if it was still raining in Idaho. “So what do you say? Can you do it?”
Would Keith squirm? Make up some excuse?
“I’d love to, man, I really would,” he said. “But I won’t be here. I have to head back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Isaac struggled not to sound suspicious.
“My company’s having trouble with a new piece of software I developed. They need me there to work out the bugs.” Keith sounded sincerely disappointed.
“Do they call you home early very often?”
“Not often, but occasionally. L.A. is our base.”
Isaac pictured the blurry shape of the female he’d seen through the window of the modest white house—the house with the childish note that had acted like a talisman against his intrusion. “What about the, um—” he cleared his throat “—people you were supposed to train in Phoenix? They won’t mind letting you go?”
Keith’s laugh sounded rather uncomfortable. “They won’t be happy about it, but…I don’t really have a choice.”
Maybe the woman’s husband had returned. “Does Liz know you’re coming home?”
“I’m just about to call her.”
Keith had to be telling the truth. He knew it was likely that Isaac would be speaking to his sister in the next few days. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear the news.”
“Now I can watch Mica in the spelling bee.”
Isaac slowed as he approached the exit that would take him to the university. “Mica’s a great kid.”
“She is. So smart. But Chris is, too.”
Were the children the only reason Keith kept coming back to Liz?
Isaac’s call-waiting beeped. Glancing at the screen, he realized it was Reginald and knew he had to take it. “I’ve got to run, Keith. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
He switched over but couldn’t quite erase the vision in his mind of Keith kissing his lover. “What’s up, Reg?”
“Isaac, where are you?”
“Nearly in the parking lot. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Please tell me you’re wearing a tie.”
“Of course I’m not wearing a tie. It’s Saturday. No one at the university wears a tie on Saturday.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to turn around. You’re going to need one.”
“For what?”
“The committee has agreed to interview you this afternoon.”
“Today?”
“It was the only option. Mr. Zacamoto, the chair, leaves for Detroit on Monday.”
“I thought I had to wait until next month. Why would they be so accommodating?”
“Because of your recent and very extensive experience in the Congo. They’re trying to expedite your application.”
That meant he was probably the center’s favorite contender for the grant. “Great,” Isaac said, allowing himself a huge sigh of relief. He couldn’t wait to fly back to Africa and continue his research. But now that he knew Keith was heading to L.A., Isaac needed to finish up a little business in Dundee first.
“MOMMY, THERE’S A stranger here!”
At the sound of Angela’s voice, Reenie pulled her head out of the refrigerator, which she’d been cleaning, and tossed her rag in the sink. A stranger? Reenie had grown up in this small community. There was hardly a stranger in all of Dundee.
Quickly wiping her hands on a towel, she tucked the wisps of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears and hurried to the front door.
On the porch stood a tall man, maybe an inch or so taller than her husband. He wore his thick dark hair, which had significant curl at the ends, longer than she liked, but the golden cast to his eyes made them intriguing.
“Hello.” He was a stranger, all right. Reenie would’ve remembered the unusual color of his eyes, if not the long, dark lashes that framed them. Only the thick eyebrows that encroached ever so slightly on the space above the bridge of his nose kept those startling eyes from looking too feminine.
He turned the smile he’d just given Angela on her. “I’m Isaac Russell.” He seemed to hesitate briefly, as if he expected some reaction to his name. But she was fairly certain she’d never heard of him before.
“Rena O’Connell,” she replied, and extended her hand.
He’d already moved to shake with her, but froze. “Did you say O’Connell?”
Reenie hesitated. “Yes. Does that come as some sort of surprise to you?”
“No.” He briefly gripped her hand in a firm, warm shake, then let go. “Nothing like that. I—” he cleared his throat. “I wanted to be sure I had your name right, that’s all.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it.” It struck her that there was something odd about his reaction. “What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat again and tipped his head toward the driveway. “I’m, um, here about the Jeep. Is it still available?”
She hadn’t received a single call on the Jeep since putting it up for sale a week ago. Trying to bury her dissatisfaction with her husband’s hurried departure, she’d thrown herself into a cleaning frenzy and had forgotten all about it. “Yes, it is.”
“Jennifer!” Angela called. “Someone’s here about the Jeep!”
Reenie’s oldest, who’d been doing homework in her room since school let out, appeared with Bailey at her heels. The dog preferred her to almost anyone else, probably because she was a gentle soul, quiet and studious. She never tied bells around his neck, or forced him to give the neighbor’s cat a ride, or insisted he wear a Santa hat at Christmas, as Isabella and Angela often did.
Never one to be left out, Isabella hurried to join them, wearing princess dress-up clothes.
The man glanced at each of the girls before turning his attention back to her. “Are these your daughters?”
“Yes. Jennifer, Angela and Isabella.”
“I mean, they’re O’Connells, too?”
“Yes.” She frowned in confusion. “Why do you ask?”
He scratched his head. “I used to know someone named Keith O’Connell.”
“He’s my husband,” Reenie said with a laugh and immediately relaxed. No wonder he’d seemed surprised by her name. Evidently, he wasn’t a complete stranger, after all. “How do you know Keith?”
“I—” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I used to work for Softscape.”
“You’re kidding! Here in Boise or after they moved to L.A.?”
“In Boise.”
“That was some years ago.” Reenie tried to remember him from some of the social functions she’d attended when the company was still based in Idaho, but couldn’t.
“Yeah, I’ve moved on to other things since then.”
She crouched to stop Bailey from sniffing his shoes, glad her dog was acting more like his old self today. “I wish Keith were home. I’m sure he’d be excited to see you.”
“We didn’t know each other very well.” His gaze once again rested on the girls. “You have beautiful children, by the way.”
Bailey gave up his halfhearted attempt to act like a more energetic dog, and simply rested his snout on his paws at Reenie’s feet. “Thank you.” She patted the dog before straightening. “You’ll have to leave your card for Keith.”
Mr. Russell searched his pockets. “I don’t have one with me. Maybe you could just tell him I said hello.”
“Of course. Would you like to test-drive the Jeep?”
He glanced across the yard. “Sure. That’d be great.”
“Let me get the keys.” After a quick trip to the kitchen, Reenie led him across the yard. Old Bailey’s collar tags jingled as he and the girls followed.
Reenie felt Mr. Russell’s eyes on her as she unlocked the vehicle. She sensed a certain curiosity coming from him, which made her wonder about him, too. She was fairly sure Keith had never mentioned an Isaac Russell. But it’d been nine years. She could easily have forgotten.
“This is in good shape,” he said once they reached the Jeep and he’d had a moment or two to check it out. “How much are you asking?”
She’d anticipated selling the Jeep to one of the cowboys around town, or maybe a teenager from the high school. She’d never dreamed someone like Isaac Russell would show any interest. She wasn’t even sure what he was doing in town. Dressed in a pair of chinos, a button-down shirt and loafers, he looked like he could afford something much nicer. Something more urban, like a Lexus.
Jennifer started naming the price she’d heard Reenie mention. “Fourteen—”
“Fifteen thousand,” Reenie quickly interrupted.
Mr. Russell lifted his eyebrows. “Sounds like I’d better act fast.”
“Jennifer wasn’t accounting for the new tires.”
“I see.”
“It’s my daddy’s,” Angela volunteered.
“When will your daddy be home?” he asked.
“Not for a long—”
“Angela, that’s enough.” Mr. Russell seemed like a nice guy, but Reenie didn’t see any reason to tell him she and the girls were alone.
“What brings you to Dundee, Mr. Russell?”
He turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. “I’m, um, here to do a little research,” he said above the noise.
“For what?” Angela asked.
He adjusted the seat and tried the windshield wipers.
“For what?” she repeated when he didn’t answer.
“I’m writing a novel.”
Jennifer brightened immediately, as Reenie knew she would. “What’s your book about?” she asked.
He turned off the stereo. “Small-town relationships.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place for that,” Reenie said.
A brief smile indicated he’d marked the sarcasm in her voice. “I’m sure I have.”
“So you’re only visiting?”
“That’s right.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“In Dundee?” He shrugged. “A few days. Maybe a week. As long as it takes to get what I need.”
“Are you at the motel in town, then?”
“Not yet. I just got in. I was taking a drive to get a feel for the area, and that’s when I came across your Jeep.” He patted the dashboard. “I love these.”
“They’re versatile.”
“An absolute necessity in the jungle.”
“Did you say jungle?”
He chuckled. “Never mind.”
She pulled the girls away from the idling vehicle. “If you leave your driver’s-license number with me, you can take it out on the highway, if you like.”
“Not today, thanks. I’ll think about it and get back to you, though. Okay?”
“We want to buy a horse,” Isabella volunteered.
He smiled at her while turning off the engine. “That sounds like fun.”
“What kind of research do you do for a relationship novel?” Reenie asked as he got out and handed her the keys.
“Talk to people, take note of what they say and do.”
“Mention that you’re writing a book, and half the people in this town will be ready to tell you anything you want to know,” she said. “Gossip is their favorite pastime.”
He studied her for a moment, and she sensed his curiosity again. “Sounds like you’ve been a victim of that gossip.”
“My family has received more public interest than most.”
“You and Keith?”
“No. My parents and my brother.”
He cocked one eyebrow at her. “Want to talk about it?”
“I’d rather leave that subject alone. But if you want general information about the area, I can help. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Thanks, Mrs. O’Connell.”
“Call me Reenie,” she said. “Everyone else does.”
“Okay, Reenie.” His unusual golden eyes seemed to absorb every detail of her face. “Since you’re willing to help, is there any chance you could meet me at the diner in town later?” He raised a hand and stepped back a foot, as if to assure her that his intentions were honest. “For an interview,” he added.
Reenie couldn’t see why not. He was acquainted with her husband, which made him an old friend of sorts. And the diner was a public place. She knew practically everyone in town, which meant she’d be surrounded by friends. “When?”
He checked his watch. “Seven? I’ll buy you dinner in exchange for your time.”
Reenie was hopeful he’d buy more than dinner. She wanted to sell him the Jeep. “It’s too bad Keith isn’t here,” she said. “He’s going to be disappointed he missed you.”
“I’m sorry I missed him, too,” he said. “See you at seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
ISAAC WATCHED the woman he’d just met hustle her children—and her elderly dog—back into the house.
Rena O’Connell had given her name as though she’d owned it for a long time and was comfortable using it. But she couldn’t be married to Keith. He was already married to Elizabeth.
Maybe they were only living together. This was a small community. Maybe Keith had met Reenie no more than a few months ago. When he moved in with her, she took his name to hide the fact that they weren’t officially married. It’d be a good way to avoid the criticism of a small, conservative community, right?
But the three girls…That was where his theory collapsed. Even though Reenie’s youngest daughter didn’t resemble Keith, there was no doubt that the two older girls were his. Which meant Keith’s relationship with Reenie must have predated his relationship with Liz.
It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
Isaac needed to investigate a little more, figure out when and how this whole thing had started.
He circled the Jeep to convince anyone who might be watching that he was really interested in it. Then he started toward the car he’d rented in Boise.
The front door of Reenie’s house opened before he could reach the curb, and her youngest daughter stepped out. “My mommy said I can give you a cookie,” she said, and began clomping toward him in snow boots at least four sizes too big.
He met her halfway up the driveway so she wouldn’t trip and accepted an oatmeal cookie. “Thank you.”
She shaded her eyes so she could look up at him. “Can I go to the diner with you and Mommy tonight?”
He quickly swallowed a mouthful of cookie. “That’s not up to me, honey.”
“But my mom said no.” She grimaced and put a hand to her belly. “And I’m hungry.”
“I’m sure she’s planning to give you dinner.”
“She’s making chicken potpie.”
He took another bite of cookie. “You don’t like chicken potpie?”
“She puts peas in it!”
Isabella said “peas” as though she meant “bugs.”
“Can’t you pick them out?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Mommy won’t let me.”
“Green vegetables are good for you. They make you strong.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Don’t tell me that. I already know.”
Isaac couldn’t help grinning at her. He thought about Mica and Christopher, who very likely had three half siblings they knew nothing about. The news would rock their world along with Elizabeth’s. But this little imp was particularly appealing. Not only was she pretty, she had a flare for the dramatic that made him laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, eyeing him warily.
“You are,” he admitted, enjoying his cookie.
Her eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t say a joke.”
“I know. You’re just very cute.” He glanced beyond her to the bassett hound that waited dutifully on the porch. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Old Bailey.”
“Did you name him?”
“No, my daddy did. He gave him to Mommy for her birthday.”
“When was that?”
“Oh…a hundred years ago.”
He chuckled. Reenie couldn’t be much older than thirty. “That many, huh?”
“No, wait. Maybe it was…two hundred.” She nodded as though she was now positive about her answer.
“Then, it’s definitely been a while.”
“He’s a good doggy.”
“I bet he is.” Tights covered the thin legs that disappeared into her oversize footwear. “Nice boots,” he said.
She grinned proudly. “They’re my mom’s.”
“I see. So…” He lowered his voice, even though he highly doubted anyone inside could hear them. “Where’s your dad?”
“At work.”
“Where does he work?”
She seemed to have difficulty with this one. “Far away.”
Isaac swallowed the last of the cookie. “What’s your daddy’s name?”
“Keith, silly.” She added a giggle for his ignorance. “You know that.”
“Right, Keith.” Considering the fact that she’d just told him Reenie had received Bailey two centuries ago, he wasn’t sure how reliable her answers were. But she was the only one of Reenie’s children who wasn’t old enough to consider his questions in a critical light. “Is he your only daddy?”
She wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“Have there been any other…grown men in your mother’s life?”
“My Uncle Gabe comes to visit. He can’t walk.”
“That’s too bad.”
“If I tease him about it, he dangles me upside down.” Another smile.
“Are you sure it’s nice to tease him?”
“He doesn’t mind. He likes it.”
“Really. That’s difficult to imagine. But I’m not talking about Uncle Gabe.”
Her expression reflected her confusion.
He checked the house and saw Jennifer peering out at him but continued to question Isabella. “Don’t some of the kids at school have a dad and a stepdad?”
“My friend Glenda does. But I don’t. Duh.” She rolled her eyes and laughed again. “Don’t you know anything?”
He pinched his lip. “I admit that I’m a little puzzled.”
“About what?”
The whole situation. His brother-in-law seemed to have built two complete families. Two families that existed in different parts of the country. And, from what Isaac could tell, they were completely unaware of each other. How had Keith managed to get away with it for so long?
A bang drew Isaac’s attention to the house. Isabella’s older sister had thrown the door open. “Isabella, it’s your turn to put the silverware on the table!”
The little girl sighed dramatically. “I’m coming,” she said, and started back up the driveway.
Isaac watched her go. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the mess Keith had created. He didn’t want anyone to be hurt. Not the attractive woman he’d just met. Not her sweet little girls. And certainly not his sister and her children.
In two hours, he’d be having dinner with Keith’s other wife, the mother of his other family. At some point, Isaac would have to tell her—and Elizabeth, too.
God, what was he going to say?
CHAPTER SIX
ISAAC ARRIVED at the diner early. He’d already explored the area and found that there weren’t a lot of things to see in Dundee. After about three blocks of businesses, the town fell to quasi-rural residences like Reenie’s, where the people enjoyed small acreages and often owned horses or other animals. Once he started climbing into the mountains, he saw mostly large ranches.
“Would you like anything else to drink?” A waitress, wearing a badge that identified her as Judy, set a glass of water in front of him. About forty-five years old, she had a smoker’s voice and bleached hair with dark roots.
“Maybe in a minute or two,” he said. “I’m waiting for someone to join me.”
“Who?”
He’d never had a waitress ask him for the name of the party he was waiting for, at least not as if she had a personal interest. He glanced up to see Judy putting her order pad in one of the pockets of her apron. “Excuse me?”
“Who are you waiting for?”
“Reenie O’Connell.” Reenie’s last name tasted bitter on his tongue. He didn’t want to believe she could be married to Keith. Surely there was some other explanation. He wasn’t sure about the ramifications of bigamy, but he knew it was illegal. He needed to do some research, maybe call his friend in Chicago who worked for the Attorney General’s office. Part of him wanted to see Keith behind bars. The other part realized that putting his brother-in-law away wouldn’t help either family. Which might be the reason, besides the few sensational polygamy cases coming out of Utah, he’d never heard of anyone going to jail for marrying two people at one time.
“How do you know Reenie?” she asked, seemingly unaware that he might consider it rude for her to be so inquisitive.
“I used to work with Keith.” He repeated the lie he’d told Reenie while trying to remember what he’d read in the paper about Tom Green. The State of Utah had put Tom Green in jail for bigamy. But, if Isaac remembered right, there’d been other charges as well. Keith hadn’t married anyone underage. And what he’d done had nothing to do with collecting welfare. He maintained two relatively “normal” but separate lives, and he seemed to be a good father to his children. Did the state send bigamists like Keith to jail?
“Hel-lo?” The waitress snapped her fingers in front of him, and Isaac belatedly realized that she’d asked him another question.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What’d you say?”
“Did you meet Keith at that computer company?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Good thing you got out when you did. Keith’s sure gone a lot. If you ask me, he needs to stay home and take care of his family.”
Which one? “How well do you know Keith?”
“Well enough. Everybody knows everybody else around here.”
“How long has he been living in Dundee?”
“Let’s see.” She rolled her eyes, which were caked with blue eye shadow, toward the ceiling. “Seems like…gee, his folks must’ve moved here at least twenty years ago.”
Twenty years was a long time. Her answer certainly didn’t make Isaac feel any better about who might have come first in Keith’s life. “Are his folks still in town?”
“Sure are. They don’t live more than a couple miles from Reenie.”
Interesting. Apparently, Keith’s parents were alive and well, and hadn’t been killed in an automobile accident, as Isaac had been told. Keith also purported to be an only child. Elizabeth was always saying how terrible she felt that he had no family.
Me and the kids…we’re all he’s got, Isaac.
Isaac smoothed his eyebrows with a thumb and finger. “Does he have any siblings?”
He wasn’t surprised when she immediately responded in the affirmative. “Two brothers.”
“Do they still live in town?”
“No. One’s away at college. Baylor. The other married and moved to Boise several years ago.”
“I see.” He hauled in a deep breath. “When did Keith marry Reenie?”
Her trust gave way to skepticism. “I thought you were waiting for Reenie. I thought you were friends.”
“Actually, I know Keith.” But certainly not as well as he had once believed. “I just met Reenie this morning when I stopped by to look at the Jeep she’s selling.”
“What brought you to town in the first place?”
“I’m writing a novel about small-town relationships. Reenie’s agreed to help me with some of the research.”
Judy pursed her lips and nodded as though grudgingly impressed. “Reenie’ll be a big help. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about how she and Keith met in high school. Got hitched almost as soon as they graduated.”
So what he’d suspected was true. Liz was the other woman. She’d met Keith on an airplane only eight or nine years ago.
“Reenie’s father is Senator Holbrook, you know,” the waitress said.
Isaac didn’t know. But neither did he care much about Reenie’s political connections. He was too busy trying to place events in their proper order. First Keith had married Reenie. Then he’d been hired by Softscape. The company had moved headquarters, and he’d started traveling extensively. Which is how he’d crossed paths with Elizabeth. They began to date, she got pregnant with Mica, they married right away. The only thing that made Keith’s extramarital affair so different from those of a lot of men was that he’d married the other woman without divorcing his first wife….
The waitress was still talking, but it took real effort for Isaac to concentrate on anything except his own grim thoughts.
“The senator had big plans for Reenie, hated to see her marry so young,” she was saying.
Had Judy just given him a brief history of Reenie’s early years? Yes…
“But there was no standing in the way of it,” she continued, smiling wistfully. “I’ve never seen two people more in love. And I gotta hand it to them. They started having babies after the first year, but they worked their way through college. They both graduated with some sort of degree. Even Senator Holbrook’s got to be happy with how their relationship has turned out.”
Isaac didn’t think anyone would be happy for long, but there was no time to catalogue the ramifications of what he’d learned from Judy. The bell rang over the door and Reenie walked in, wearing a pair of jeans cut fashionably low on her hips, boots that seemed more city than country, and a thin coral sweater that hugged the slim body beneath her brown leather coat.
As much as Isaac would rather have found her unattractive, he could see why Keith would be drawn to her. She had creamy, flawless skin, beautiful blue eyes, a mouth that was just a little too wide to be perfect, and an energetic, confident air that made him want to look at her much longer. If she was wearing any makeup, he couldn’t tell. With the healthy glow of her skin, and the contrast between her light eyes and rich dark hair, she didn’t need any.
“Getting started without me?” she said, sliding into the booth.
He forced his eyes to stay on her face as she stripped off her coat. He didn’t need to assess her figure. He’d already done that when he’d followed her to the Jeep. “Excuse me?”
The coral sweater had a wide neck that fell off her shoulders slightly—very feminine and appealing. “Are you interviewing Judy?”
He handed her a menu from the clip at the back edge of the table. “I was asking her a few questions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you know a famous author?” Judy asked.
“Famous?” Reenie had knocked her purse over and was busy collecting all the stuff that had spilled out, but she raised an eyebrow at him when she heard this. “He left that part out when I met him this morning.”
“I try not brag,” he said with a grin.
She returned his smile as she finished with her purse, then glanced around the diner. “Busy tonight?” she asked Judy.
“Not too bad. I’ve been telling your new friend here how you and Keith got together.” Judy’s wistful smile returned, taking the harder edges off her appearance. “Love at first sight.”
Reenie shoved her bag and coat farther into the corner of the booth. “And what did he have to say about that?”
“Nothing yet.”
“What were you expecting?” Isaac asked.
She tilted her head in a challenging angle. “Most people think that kind of love is a fairy tale.”
“It’s not?”
Her shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “I’m proof that it does happen.”
Isaac knew he should say I’m happy for you, or some other such thing, but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t make a comment like that knowing what she was going to face in the very near future. “Maybe so,” he said.
She put the menu away without looking at it. Isaac figured she could probably recite the diner’s offerings from memory. “You sound like a skeptic, Mr. Russell.”
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Brenda Novak
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Thanks to a devastating revelation about her husband, Reenie Holbrook′s once-perfect marriage is over.For eleven years she had the life she wanted–and now it′s gone. Reenie decides that the first step in recovering from her ordeal is to find work; after all, she has three young children to support. She′s thrilled when she lands a job at Dundee High teaching history–until Isaac Russell, the man who triggered the unraveling of her marriage, accepts a temporary position teaching science. Then she′s tempted to quit.Reenie doesn′t care if the whole town admires Isaac…and she won′t admit that, secretly, she admires him, too. She doesn′t want to see him or his sister in «her» town. But a friendship with the most unlikely woman leads to a relationship with the most unlikely man….