Another Woman's Son (Harlequin Romance) (5 page)

“Open the door,” she said out loud. If she was used to taking orders, she might as well give herself one.

Her heart danced in the back of her throat, but she grabbed the key and opened the door. As if an invisible wall kept her out, she couldn’t force her feet to carry her inside. A few flakes of snow, halfhearted remains of the storm, drifted over her shoulder and disappeared before they hit the hardwood floor.

She stared. Nothing had changed. The place looked just as it had three months ago. Wide, polished oak hall, a center table, topped by a Meissen bowl filled with fresh flowers. Someone must have come in since the accident to refresh the roses.

Of course. Will must have hired a cleaner once he’d lost her. He wouldn’t want to adjust his habits just because his wife had left.

“Hello?” she called, in case anyone had come today.

No one answered. Isabel took her first step back into the life she’d abandoned. Her former home smelled the same. Her footsteps sounded the same on the overwaxed floors.

Nothing had changed, but she was alien here.

This was no time to let bitterness get the best of her. A lot of work faced her. The house was as clean as Faith’s, but different. She and Will had spread his family’s heirlooms around their walls and rooms.

Where should she start? She’d leave the kitchen till last since she had to feed herself during this clear-out. She wandered down the wide hall. The gray-blue light of another approaching storm bathed her former home in the dim cold of outside.

Behind her, the doorbell rang.

She jumped. Ben had said he might bring Tony by. She looked at her watch. It couldn’t be them already. After playtime in the park, he’d have had to feed the baby.

She’d returned calls from her friends and Will’s on the drive over. She still had to answer notes of condolence. She stared at the door, reluctant to face sympathy in person, especially from curious acquaintances who only wanted to know how she and Will had actually finished their relationship.

She plastered a smile on her face and opened the door.

Ben, with Tony perched on his arm, stared at her with a question on his face. “What’s wrong?”

She pulled him inside. “I didn’t expect you so early.”

“But you’re glad to see us?”

She ignored his out-of-character doubt as Tony greeted her with such a happy wave he banged his small fist into his father’s eye. “My Iz-bell!”

Ben covered his face, and she kissed Tony with a loud smack. “Hey, buddy. You make me feel all better.”

“He’s not that medicinal for me.” Ben teased his son with a quick tickle. “Am I bleeding?”

“Come on. Be a man.” Together they laughed, almost like old times. “What did you do with my mom and dad? Are they all right?”

“They’re more cheerful after a big breakfast. I left them at my house. I was worried about you.”

Isabel frowned. “See— I don’t get that. Are you worried because you still care for me, or because you think I’m liable to expose our secret at any moment?”

He ignored her accusation, which made her even more anxious. “You’re my family, too. I’m allowed to wonder if you’re all right over here,” he said. He shut the door and set Tony on the ground. “And you’re Tony’s aunt.” He pulled the child’s mittens off. “He kept asking for you, and we decided you might need help. Where do we start?”

“Nowhere yet.” She knelt beside Tony and helped him out of his coat as he gabbed in baby talk, complete with pointing. “You remember my house, buddy?”

“My Iz-bell.” He grabbed her in a slobbery hug.

He was teething again, but she could stand the moisture. “Tony, remember the pots?” She grinned up at Ben. “Will hated when we played musical pots. Your son’s a natural on drums.”

“I might hate that, too.”

“For you, we’ll play plastic. Unless Will got rid of my plastic storage containers. He preferred glass.” Taking Tony’s hand, she led them to the kitchen. At the door, recognition stopped her dead.

She’d loved this room, its rich woods and the deep farmhouse sink, the island and counters topped in dark brown granite she’d chosen for the warm, pinkish veins that glowed in a reflection of the stove’s copper hood.

This room, she’d miss. Clearing the rest of the house would be easy, but how would she say goodbye to this room that had been hers alone?

Sensing Ben behind her, she pretended not to feel sad about leaving the place. “Want coffee?” she asked.

“I’ll make it.” With the familiarity of long friendship, he opened the appliance garage and took out the coffeepot.

Isabel found the plastic bowls right where she’d left them, on a lazy Susan beside the fridge. She chose a large one, topped it with its lid and offered it, along with a big wooden spoon, to Tony.

Immediately, he began a tune that made Ben turn with exaggerated shock. “That’s a mistake.”

She laughed but wondered what had changed him from the reserved man she’d hardly recognized into the friend she’d missed. He offered no explanation, though he must have seen her questions. He ran water into the coffeepot while Tony beat out a drum solo.

Isabel squatted beside her nephew. He offered her the spoon, but she shook her head and he went back to playing. Beside his leg, she fingered a gouge in the floor. She’d dropped a casserole that had shattered there. A shard of hard ceramic had chipped out a piece of the golden oak.

“I’ll miss this,” she said.

“Huh?” Ben cupped his ear. “Can’t hear you.” He set the carafe on the brewer and hit the power button.

“I’ll miss this kitchen. It was mine, maybe the only thing in my life that really belonged to me.”

Ben’s smile faded. He came around the corner to kneel beside her. “Tony still belongs to you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

She tried to smile, but it felt unnatural. “I know. But we both need more than friendship. We’re the marrying kind. We need what we thought we had.”

“I haven’t had a marriage for a long time. I just never admitted it until Faith’s note forced me to.”

Tony leaned against his dad, beating his bowl with enthusiasm that made Isabel fear for Ben’s hand, which held the “drum” still.

She’d missed this man and boy more than Will and Faith. Loving them had been uncomplicated. “What happened between you and Faith?” She sat back on her heels. “Not that I’m sure I want to know what made her go after Will.”

He stood and walked Tony toward the hall. “Where do you want to start packing?”

“Wait— I’m sorry. I wasn’t blaming you.”

“It’s okay. I blame you sometimes, too. It’s easier than putting the blame with Faith and Will, where it belongs. They can’t ever tell us why they betrayed us.” He hugged her briefly, surprising her. “Forget it, and I’ll tell you the truth. Faith and I grew indifferent. I don’t know how it happened or why, and she insisted nothing was wrong—nothing had changed. So I finally stopped fighting.”

“A man ought to fight for his marriage.”

Ben stopped in midstride outside Will’s study. “What about a woman? Did you fight?”

“I kept trying to make Will believe I wanted to be with him. Until he told me about Faith.” She felt her skin grow warm. “He convinced me I was the one pushing him away. And I had once, so I felt guilty.”

“You sound as if you’re used to it. I’ve known for four days and I can’t stop wondering who else is lying to me.”

“My husband and my sister. You think you ever get used to it?”

He leaned on the door frame, looking around
Will’s study. “Maybe not,” he said. “Sorry I put it that way. You’ve started cleaning in here?”

“No.” She stood. Tony slumped over his bowl-drum, listening to different pitches as he hit in various spots. She moved around Ben to eye the papers that littered Will’s desk. “He was never this messy. Do you think someone else has been here?”

“I don’t know. Check it out. See if you recognize anything he might have been working on.”

“I doubt there’s anything left in here from three months ago.” She studied the desk without touching anything. “I get it,” she said. “This bears all the signs of Will’s last-minute preparations for a trip.”

“Oh.” He stood back. “I wonder where they were going.”

“Faith didn’t tell you?”

“She had no reason. She considered my part in Tony’s life over.”

Isabel put her hand on his arm to comfort him. He didn’t move and he didn’t speak, but his doubts came back full force and obvious. She didn’t like being the object of Ben’s mistrust.

Nervously, she pushed Will’s desk chair in. Her former husband’s scent was still in the air. His favorite books lay open on the table in front of a sumptuous leather couch that had always felt cold as death to her. “I can’t stay in here.”

“Why don’t we start in the dining room?” Ben’s relief matched hers. “You can sort china, and I’ll
box it up.” He prompted his son to stand again, but then let Tony sit in front of the dining room’s doorway. “As long as he’s pounding that bowl, we’ll know where he is. Do you have boxes?”

“In storage above the garage. I should have enough for today. I’ll order more.”

“You could hire someone to do this.”

“I would, but I promised Leah I’d return anything she gave us, as well as Will’s things.”

“You were married seven years. Now, she wants her gifts back?”

“I don’t want anything that reminds me of Will.”

His gaze flickered as he glanced toward Tony.

“He doesn’t remind me of Will. He’s yours.”

Ben leveled her with a doubtful glance.

“All right, then. I don’t mean him,” she said. “You must know that.”

“I wasn’t thinking of Tony.”

“You see what I’m thinking before it’s in my head, but I can’t read you at all now.”

“You just think there’s more than I’m telling you.”

“Do I?” She wasn’t wrong, either.

“You read too much into my wanting Tony to have someone familiar nearby. I know you’re leaving after you finish the house.”

“What if I move to Pennsylvania to be near my mom and dad?”

“And Leah?” A haunted look shadowed his eyes. “That’s your plan?”

She shook her head. It had been a test. “For now, I want to live on my own.” Tony began to sing along to his improvised solo, and they both glanced at him. “But I may want to be close to family someday.” She tried to imagine the future but saw only gray haze. “When I have children.”

“What I’d give to sound so relaxed about having children.”

“You can. I’m not telling.” She opened the sideboard that towered over the room. The shelves on the closest end held a china service Leah had received from her mother-in-law on the day of her own wedding. Isabel began taking it out.

“How badly do you want kids, Isabel?”

“Not enough to try to take yours.”

She lifted her head to find him studying her like one of his experiments. “I’d like to believe you,” he said.

“Choose to. You can trust me.”

“I did.”

Isabel nodded with sarcasm like his. How was she supposed to convince him? Part of her wished with all her heart that she’d told him the truth three months ago. “How was I supposed to tell my best friend he didn’t have a son?” She brought more china to the table. “Besides, Faith and Will might have taken Tony away for good as soon as I spoke up.”

“Rationalize the best way you can.”

His harshness took her breath away, but she refused to let him see. He left, presumably to find the boxes.

She stacked Leah’s dishes on the table, with no qualm or regret. She’d loved them at first for the sense of continuity they’d given her. She’d imagined giving them to her own Barker daughter.

Her silly ideas made her sad now. Will couldn’t explain why he’d so quickly tired of her but kept her on. She hadn’t held a gun to his head to make him propose.

And he wasn’t about to rob her of happiness or the daughter or son she’d yearned for. The trick was learning to believe that she’d love someone enough to marry again and have children of her own. Will might have burned her, but his actions wouldn’t make her choose a life alone.

“Here we are.” Ben came back, stepping over Tony’s legs. “I found some newspapers and tossed them in the boxes.”

“Newspapers? I always recycled them.”

“Will didn’t. There are at least three months’ worth out there.”

He set a couple of stacked boxes on the floor. Isabel opened the top flaps and drew back. Musty newspaper and cardboard odors rose in the room. “They should be okay for dishes, but I hope the drapes don’t end up smelling like this. I’m not replacing a damn thing before I sell.”

“Careful.” With a warning nod in Tony’s direction, he reminded her children repeated every “bad” word. “In case Ringo Starr hears you.”

“Sorry.” She’d already been alone long enough to forget the basics around a boy learning to talk. “Ben?”

“Hmm?” He tossed the dustiest pages of a newspaper into a corner of the parquet floor.

“Can we still ask each other personal questions?”

“You can ask. I don’t know that I’ll answer.”

“What did you mean when you said you had problems before Faith left you her note?”

“Nobody comes to the end of a marriage without warning.” He glanced at her in surprise as he pushed the newspaper her way along the table. “Unless you and Will did?”

“He had an affair before we’d been married a year.” She stared at the blue pattern on Leah’s dishes. “Did you know?”

“Are you kidding? He knew how much I care about you. He wouldn’t have told me.”

“I don’t even know who the woman was.” Like Ray, she’d been afraid she’d have to hate someone she knew. She’d been lucky that first time, not having to find out. “We promised to start over, and I tried, but if I’m honest, I’ll admit now I never felt exactly the same. When he was late, or gone on business trips, there were moments when I wondered if he was with someone else.”

“But you never suspected Faith.”

“No, but I noticed the way they looked at each other. I was a little annoyed that they seemed to share private jokes, but I thought they were about me.” Isabel concentrated on wrapping a plate with the yellowing newspaper. “Those last few months were tense. We argued more and more about having children, because he didn’t want any. Maybe deep down I thought a child would make me commit the way I had at first.”