Finding Home (18 page)

Only
the sound of their breathing and the fading flashlight on the floor broke up the silence and darkness. Neither of them said a word as the euphoria had receded and then dissolved into the shadows. Finally, Stacey took a deep breath. As if that would help shield her from the answer she feared was coming. But she had to ask. Had to know. Hiding her head in the sand wouldn't change anything.

“Are you leaving me?”

Stunned, Brad was certain he'd imagined the question. It was too ridiculous to be real. “What?”

And then it came again, her voice stronger this time. “Are you leaving me?”

He raised himself up on his elbow to look at her. Stacey was staring at the ceiling as she asked the question. The branches of an oak tree right outside their window cast elongated shadows, like grasping fingers, along the ceiling. It added to the surrealistic scenario.

Had he imagined all this? The lovemaking? The passion? The insane question?

“Stacey?”

And then she wasn't staring at the ceiling any longer. Her eyes had shifted to his face. To his soul. There was no
mischief, no smile, no indication that she was anything but serious.

“Are you?” she asked again.

For a second, he was utterly speechless. Shell-shocked. And then he demanded, “What kind of a question is that?”

Stacey took another deep breath, which didn't help. Nothing calmed this uneasy feeling. Brad wasn't telling her that she was being absurd. Wasn't even bothering to deny the supposition behind her question.

Something inside of her tightened. Now that she'd had a chance to slip off her cloud and examine what had just taken place, anxiety had a deathlike grip on her. Anxiety forged by an anticipated outcome she didn't want.

An anticipation that wouldn't release her, wouldn't allow her to breathe. Was it a coincidence? Or was this the way things were now done? She ran her tongue along lips that were suddenly sandpaper dry.

“Charlotte Lowe's husband made love to her the morning before he left for the office. She said it was the best sex they'd ever had. That afternoon, just as she was defrosting the pork chops for his dinner, some process server in a secondhand suit served her with divorce papers. She was completely devastated.”

He was trying to follow her and figure out what this had to do with them. “By the sex?”

“By the divorce papers.” She pressed her lips together. Charlotte had cried through all three of the cocktails she'd had at lunch. “She said she never even saw it coming.”

Brad looked at her for a long moment, in his mind's eye
seeing what the shadows blotted out. “And you think I'm divorcing you.”

She didn't know. She wanted to think not, but why this sudden change? She hadn't done anything spectacular, anything different from the way she'd been doing things all along.

I love you, Brad. I always have, I always will.

Humor played along her lips as she tried to shut away her suspicions. Her fears.

“Or setting me up for a hit.”

Stacey shifted her body toward his, her blond hair spilling out onto her shoulder. For some reason, he found that particularly arousing tonight. He touched her face, wishing he could see into her mind. He couldn't tell, by either her voice or her expression, if she was being serious, or just joking.

They used to joke, he thought. He'd loved the sound of her laughter. When was the last time he'd heard it?

Her eyes delved into him. What was she looking for? he wondered. What did she see? A stranger? Or the man she married? At times, he felt as if nothing had changed, the rest of the time he felt as if everything had. Including him.

“You haven't made love with me like that since before the kids were born,” she told him softly.

Toying with a strand of her hair, he wrapped it around his finger, his eyes never leaving hers. “Maybe I thought we were overdue.” And then he smiled. “Or maybe it was whatever you put in that seafood medley you served tonight.”

Slowly, a smile began to curve the corners of her mouth. “Then you're not divorcing me?”

His voice was solemn as he told her, “Couldn't afford it. I'd lose half of everything.”

Stacey felt the foundations of her world slip a little. “Oh.”

Brad cupped her cheek. “And you. Mostly you,” he told her tenderly. “Especially you.”

Her heart did a little somersault in her chest. When was the last time he'd said anything nearly as romantic as that? Who
was
this man?

“All right, now I am worried,” she deadpanned. “I need to see some kind of ID. Better yet, I want a DNA test done.” And then the glimmer of a smile faded and she turned serious as a new concern assaulted her. One that was even worse. She scrutinized his face, wondering if there were any telltale signs she'd missed. “There's nothing wrong, is there?”

“Wrong?” Because it was Stacey, the word was too broad to attach a meaning to. He needed more of a clarification.

“Yes, wrong,” she repeated, emphasizing the word. Her body was turned into his, but she was no longer aware of the warmth between them. Real concern had blocked everything else out. “You didn't just find out that you have something, did you?”

She couldn't bring herself to say the dreaded words. Here she was, a doctor's wife, and she was just as much in terror of the world's fatal diseases as everyone else. Maybe more.

“You mean like six months to live?”

“Yes,” Stacey whispered. She searched his face for a sign that she was wrong again. But he looked so serious. Had she guessed it? Was he trying to savor what little time he had left? Her stomach tightened so hard, she could barely breathe. “Do you?”

He inclined his head, as if searching for a way to answer her. “I imagine I do. Have six months. Maybe more.”

She looked at him. And saw the smile that was struggling
to curve his mouth. Damn him, he was waxing philosophical—and scaring her half to death while he was at it.

“You're not leaving me and you're not dying.”

“No,” he answered. “I'm not.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. “I'm not dying and I'm definitely not leaving you on my own power.”

She blew out a breath, confused. “I don't understand. I like it,” she added quickly, “but I don't understand.”

He laughed and traced the outline of her lips with his finger. The way he used to, he suddenly recalled. “Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe I shouldn't.” Dropping his hand, he drew her closer. “All I know is that for no reason, out of nowhere, I started thinking about what it would be like not to have you in my life.” His expression turned serious. “And I didn't like it.”

Yes, Virginia, there
is
a Santa Claus.
Because Brad was being so honest, so straightforward, she found herself wanting to tell him things that she had been harboring in her heart.

She splayed her hand on his chest. The light smattering of hair tickled her palm.

“I know I pay the bills and figure out our taxes and do the hundred and one things that belong inside of each day, but I didn't think you noticed any of that.”

“I guess I didn't,” he confessed. “Oh, on some level, I knew it was happening because I didn't have to deal with any of it. Didn't have to deal with making dinner, searching through a pile of rumpled clothes, trying to find something that was clean, or having the phone go out because I forgot to pay the telephone bill. You took care of all that so well, I was only aware of the end results.” He smiled at her. “You made life very comfortable for me, Stacey.

“Maybe I got too comfortable. Too sure of myself.” He caressed her face. “Maybe it took short-circuiting the house to show me that I'm not a superhero. That I can't handle everything—and I don't.”

She could feel her heart being won over all over again. Moments like this—and God, she hoped there would be more—reminded her why she'd fallen in love with him. And why she was still in love with him.

“Nobody can.”

He laughed shortly, contradicting her. “That guy who's been strutting around here most mornings acts like he can.”

“You mean Alex?” she guessed.

He wasn't much when it came to names. “The head contractor.”

“Alex,” she confirmed. “And if Alex was
that
capable, then the house would have already been finished instead of just halfway there.” She thought of what Brad had said to her when he'd initially complained. “He would have taken it on, one house at a time, completed it and then moved on to the next.”

Brad could see right through her. And it was comforting, he realized. For a while there, he'd lost that knack. “You're saying that to make me feel better.”

“I'm saying that because it's true,” she insisted. And then she grinned broadly. “Just like it's true that you shouldn't be allowed to pick up a tool under penalty of death.”

His pride stung a little, even though he knew she was right. “Oh, I'm not that bad.”

Stacey gestured around at the darkness. “I rest my case.”

“Rest?” Brad echoed playfully. His eyes on hers, he grazed the back of his hand along her nude body, strumming it slowly
as if he were touching the strings of a priceless guitar. “Is that what you're thinking about right now? Rest?”

Stacey could feel her body being aroused again. Humming in response to his light touch. She could feel it begin to moisten again in anticipation.

Her voice was husky as she lay back down, threading her arms around his neck. “Actually, no. Just the opposite, if you must know.”

“I must know,” he told her just before he brought his mouth down to hers.

Still
talking on the phone, Julie answered the door, then did an old-fashioned, belated double-take when she realized who was standing in her doorway.

“Um, I'm going to have to call you back,” she told the person on the other end of the cordless phone, then terminated the connection. Stunned, she stepped back, admitting her far-from-expected visitor into the tiny communal living room of the off-campus apartment she shared with three other med students. “Mom, what are you doing here?”

Stacey had been here only half a dozen times, always by invitation. This was the first time she'd come unannounced on the off chance that Julie was in. Impulse had brought her here.

It looked as if twelve very messy people were living here instead of just three, Stacey thought, covertly glancing around and hoping that Julie didn't notice. “I thought I'd drop by and ask you for some advice.”

For a moment, Julie remained exactly where she was, staring at her mother and rendered utterly speechless. And then she leaned back in order to look out of the second-floor window.

“Was that a rip in the fabric of time I just heard?” Straightening again, she looked at her mother in earnest. “You're asking
me
for advice? You who dispenses advice
faster than that Pez dispenser you have on the shelf in the family room?”

Stacey smiled. Julie was referring to the dated candy dispenser her uncle Titus had given her when she was a little girl. Legend had it that the dispenser had been his when he'd been her age. The toy wasn't on the shelf anymore. She'd placed it in a drawer in her bureau to keep safe during the renovations. The renovations in the family room were completed, but the dispenser still remained in her drawer.

Taking no offense because she knew that none had been intended, Stacey told her daughter, “Well, I've come to learn that in some areas, you know more than I do.”

Soundlessly, Julie crossed the living room, leading the way to the first bedroom on the right. Her bedroom. A couple more steps had her at her desk. And the calendar that hung on the wall just beside it. She circled today's date. Putting her pen down, she looked over her shoulder at her mother who'd followed her into the room.

“Just in case I ever forget—which I won't,” Julie assured her. “Okay, shoot.” And then she suddenly became serious. And just a little pale. “You're not leaving Dad, are you?”

It was Stacey's turn to stare. Julie's question had come out of nowhere, with no preamble and, she'd like to think, at least as far as the children were concerned, no basis. The truth was, if she had wanted to leave Brad, it would have been years ago. For some unknown reason, things were finally getting better between them now.

“Why would you say that?” Stacey asked. “And why would I be asking your advice about something like that if it
were
true?”

Relieved, Julie blew out a breath. “Well, I know some things about breakups.”

There was no arguing with that. Julie had been drop-dead gorgeous ever since she'd graduated junior high school. And each year from then had been marked by the presence of a different boyfriend. To Julie “long term” meant something that lasted over the summer.

Stacey nodded. “But nothing about relationships that have endured for more than twenty-six years,” she pointed out, sitting down on the corner of the unmade bed.

“Okay—” the words dribbled slowly from Julie's lips as her brain examined one theory, then another “—if you're not leaving Dad, then—” Her cornflower-blue eyes widened in surprise and vicarious delight. “You're doing it,” she breathed.

“It?” Stacey echoed.

Julie huffed impatiently. “Having an affair with Mr. Tool Belt Guy.” Without waiting for an answer, she bounced right to the questions. “Really? How long has this been going on? Don't you think it's dangerous? Dad might—”

Like a traffic cop, Stacey held up her hand, trying to stop Julie and her galloping imagination, the scope of which never ceased to amaze her.

“What's dangerous is that you might wind up getting whiplash from that tongue of yours. It's almost faster than the speed of sound.” Stacey shook her head. “I am
not
having an affair with Mr. Tool Belt Guy. Now, if you just keep quiet for a few seconds, I'll tell you why I
am
here.”

Julie realized that despite the fact that she was in her mother's corner, she was relieved to hear that her mother hadn't stepped out on her father. Perching on the edge of her
desk, she crossed her arms before her and waited. “Okay. I'm listening.”

After that bit of drama, this request almost sounded silly, Stacey thought. “I want to work out.”

Julie's eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Isn't that what you call it? Working out?” She was out of her element here and felt vulnerable. Naked. And that was the problem. She no longer had the kind of confidence in her naked body that she'd once had. Gravity had seen to that. Getting up, Stacey prowled around the small space. “Some kind of exercise regimen that eventually will yield a better me.”

Julie's expression softened. “There's nothing wrong with you.”

Maybe on the inside, Stacey thought. But on the outside, there was a great deal wrong from where she stood. “There's more of me than there used to be and I don't want it around anymore.”

Julie studied her mother for a second, torn between sympathy and amusement. Relying on love to guide her through this. “Are you sure you're not getting it on with Mr. Tool Belt Man?”

Stacey laughed shortly, shaking her head. “Not unless he's breaking in every night and taking me in my sleep,” she said firmly when she saw the faraway, slightly dreamy look in Julie's eyes. “I thought, since you're so trim and being a medical student and all, you might have a few good tips for me.”

What was she thinking? She was forty-seven years old. Time to update her frame of reference. Middle age, not teenage. Stacey got up off the bed, picking her purse up from the floor. “Never mind, this was a bad idea.”

Moving quickly, Julie got in front of her. She put her hands on her mother's shoulders to hold her in place. “No, no, this is a great idea.” Since her mother looked as if she was willing to stay, Julie dropped her hands to her sides again. “But why the sudden interest in looking svelte again?”

“Your father.”

Julie frowned. “He's criticizing you?” Her father always was a perfectionist, more prone to point out the one flaw than to applaud the dozen attributes.

“No.”

Julie's eyes widened as she jumped to yet another conclusion. “He's straying?”

Stacey rolled her eyes. “No, Julie, your father's not ‘straying.'”

It was the one thing Stacey knew she could bet her soul on. She'd had a moment of concern that night he'd short-circuited the house, but she hadn't been thinking rationally. Brad was as steadfast as the day was long. There was no other way to put it. Outside of his family, he was far too interested in his profession even to notice that the world was divided into two genders, much less avail himself to the opposite one.

She smiled at her daughter. “If you ever decide to drop out of medical school, Julie, you might want to consider becoming a fiction writer. You've certainly got the imagination for it. No,” she said, getting back to the subject at hand, “I just thought that after all this time, maybe our marriage could use a shot in the arm.” Julie was looking at her as if she was speaking in tongues. She tried to make it simpler for her daughter. “If I can get back to the dress size I used to be, that might be a good start.”

The light seemed to dawn on Julie. Along with an almost
beatific smile. Her eyes lit up. “Excellent start,” she enthused. “And good goal,” she added, looking her mother up and down. Stacey Sommers had never actually “let herself go,” so there would be no massive amount of backpedaling required. Just a little paring down here and there. Now that she thought about it, the challenge of resculpting her mother excited her. “Okay, why don't I take you to the gym?” she suggested. When she saw her mother demur, she added quickly, “It's right here in the building.”

Stacey had just wanted to bounce the idea off Julie. She was running short of time. But she supposed she could work in a quick visit. “You have a gym on the premises?”

Julie nodded. Hooking her arm through her mother's, she began to guide her from the bedroom toward the front door.

“One of the perks of living here. It certainly wasn't the crayon-box-size bedrooms.” Julie grinned. All sorts of routines began to suggest themselves to her. “This is going to be fun.”

“Fun” was not the word Stacey would have used to describe the workout program that Julie and her friend, a tall, hulking Nordic-looking young man appropriately named Sven, who was, conveniently enough, also Julie's new boyfriend, had come up with for her. Torture, maybe, agony most definitely. But fun? Not a chance.

Her daily torment consisted of a cross-training machine and free weights to be used with and without the regulation-size bench she'd purchased. The first time she was on the cross trainer, a machine that the salesman at the fitness store had sworn would be “so easy on your knees, you won't even know you're using it,” she had barely managed to get out five minutes, convinced that she was going to die at any second,
her fingers wrapped around the two poles. Five minutes had never dragged by so slowly, not even during her eighteen-hour labor with Julie.

But she was determined and slowly, very slowly, she managed to conquer five minutes and move on to ten, and then to fifteen, until she was doing twenty minutes, which she'd designated as her ultimate goal. Twenty minutes at a resistance that she kept turning up until she found herself feeling like Marathon Woman.

The weights were another matter. They were for building strength, something she'd always thought she had in natural supply until faced with metal plates and a bar. But most of all, the free weights were for toning. Toning her arms, her thighs and a midriff she'd always been so confident would never need any help other than what Mother Nature had initially supplied her with.

What Mother Nature gave, she was more than willing to take away. At the least opportune time. There was a bulge there now, a bulge where once the terrain had been so flat, a miniairplane could have landed on it.

Finding the time to exercise in a day already overflowing with activities and responsibilities proved to be the ultimate challenge for Stacey. Between work, overseeing the renovations to the house and running said house so that things went along smoothly, there was no pocket of time to dash to a gym.

So, she had the gym brought to her.

Relying on Sven for advice, Stacey purchased the necessary weights, bench and cross trainer and had them all delivered to the house. She housed the lot in the downstairs back bedroom, a place where once all things miscellaneous even
tually found themselves. Over the years, it had turned into a glorified storage area. Stacey turned it into her minigym.

Because 4:00 a.m. was the only time that had been heretofore unaccounted for, 4:00 a.m. was when she did her workout.

She found that being semiconscious when she started was better for her, anyway. The best part was that Brad was sound asleep. She wanted a chance to set her program in motion before he knew what she was up to.

With any luck, it would be six months before Brad found out what she was doing.