Her Heart's Divide (3 page)

By the way the dappled sunlight played across the wall, I knew I’d slept much longer than usual. I stretched and winced a little. Parts of me were feeling a little tender, but recalling the ways they got that way made me smile.

There was a note on my nightstand.

“I don’t snore—I inhale deeply,” I said to myself with a grin. His accusation of snoring and my response was a long-running joke between us.

I flopped back and grinned at the ceiling. Living out in the sticks was wonderful most of the time, but tasks like going to the ATM and the hardware store tended to pile up until it was possible to blow half a day on picky little errands. For Ryan to do them for us was proof I’d married a real keeper.

And I had to do my part for our team. I threw on some old clothes and grabbed a banana for breakfast on my way through the kitchen.

Three hours later, I felt like my part had been a fair one. The shrubs were tamed, the flowerbeds contained my flowers and nothing else, and our gravel was all herded back onto the driveway. I was hot and sweaty, and the river looked inviting.

No one was around. I peeled off my grubby gear, including the sweat-soaked bra and panties that had been chafing my tender bits, and jumped off the dock with my best rebel yell.

Skinny-dipping is only sexy in company. Alone, I felt like a four-year-old whose mama forgot to bring a swimsuit to the picnic. I splashed and hollered with complete abandon. The sun beat down on my dark hair, so I did an underwater somersault to cool off. My eyes were closed in the murky water. I kept them closed and floated for a moment.

I’d have stayed like that for hours if my stomach hadn’t growled. With a sigh, I flipped over to swim back to the dock.

“I have half a mind to join you,” said Jack.

I got a mouthful of river water when my jaw dropped. “What the hell? How long have you been there?” I spluttered.

“Since you dove under the water.”

“That’s swell. If this dealership thing doesn’t work out for you, there’s always a spying career waiting for you.”

He snickered at me. “It’s not my fault if you were making enough noise to drown out a marching band.”

“I thought you were going to be gone all day,” I said, trying to tread water and keep my entire torso hidden. It wasn’t possible, despite my best efforts.

“Nope. Finished earlier than I thought.”

“Are you planning to sit on that dock all day instead?”

“Maybe.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. I could see him tracing the outline of my breasts with his eyes. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he swallowed hard.

I managed to get to the end of the dock and huddled next to it without getting out. “Maybe you can give me a little privacy.”

“I have seen you naked, you know.”

“Yeah,” I snapped, “outside my bedroom window.”

He flushed. “You saw me?”

“Yes, and you’re damned lucky I didn’t scream.”

“I’m sorry, Lila, I—sorry,” he said. “I’m just going to head inside, if that’s okay.”

“I’ll see you there,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster. As soon as he was halfway to the house, I hauled myself onto the dock. I used my bandanna as a makeshift towel until I was dry enough for my shirt and jeans.

I went through the living room without looking at Jack, but my temper was cooler after I changed clothes. I still couldn’t resist poking at him a little.

“Would you like anything for lunch? Sandwich? Cold pork chop? Binoculars to spy with?”

“You know, I just thought of something,” he said. His face was serious, but his eyes crinkled up as though he were laughing.

“What’s that?”

“For someone who knew I was there, you were awfully uninhibited.”

It was my turn to flush. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He pursued the point. “At what point did you see me? I fully admit I was there. I’d gone onto the deck for some fresh air and I heard noises.”

“And you went to investigate out of concern for my safety. Is there some kind of burglar who moans when he’s got his hands on the DVD player?”

“Sure, why not? All kinds of things turn people on. Like, say, being caught having sex.”

“I don’t—I mean, I…” I gave up. “Fine. I saw you when you sat down.”

“Thank you.”

“Hope you got an eyeful, you disgusting Peeping Tom.”

He grew serious. “Lila, I truly am sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, and I meant to walk away.”

I sniffed. I took a step away from him, but before I could take another, he caught my hand and held on as though he were drowning. “Really, I tried. Please try to understand me, Lila. In my mind and in my heart, I was the one making love to you. Last night was like watching a movie of our sex life, with someone else pleasing you exactly the way you like it best. Don’t you get it, babe? Everything about you is exactly the same as it was for me two days ago, except that now it isn’t me you love. But you look the same to me. Your hair, your smile, your body, your…responses.”

His voice cracked on the last word and I shivered. “Jack, don’t—”

“I’m trying,” he whispered. He pressed my hand to his cheek and kissed my palm.

I jerked my hand away. My body was responding to his voice and his touch as if we had been lovers. A fantasy was one thing. Everyone is free to daydream in a hot tub, and I often did. But in the flesh, there had never been another man since the day Ryan first kissed me.

“I think you should go,” I said in a small voice.

There was silence and then, “I think you’re right,” he said gently. “You’re a faithful, loyal wife in my world too.”

His words were a benediction, and his leaving before he said anything more was a blessing of its own. But as soon as the door closed behind him, tears poured down my face.

It was the Friday after Jack’s bizarre change, and we’d all made it through another week of work. I had dreaded going to work on Monday, but to my surprise and relief, Jack acted with total normalcy. If it hadn’t been for Ryan telling me about some of their private conversations, I might have been able to write off the weekend’s events as an aberration. Some kind of freak thing to be ignored and forgotten—like, oh, making a pass at your boss at the company Christmas party.

But Ryan’s descriptions of their chats convinced me that whatever was wrong with Jack hadn’t gone away. Ryan suggested one of our regular cookouts on Friday would be the best thing we could do for our friend, who was by now a mass of tangled nerves.

Of course, my nerves were getting strung out as I waited for them to get home. When I’d left two hours before, Ryan was helping Jack with another one of the fiddly differences between “his world” and ours.

“We’ll be home soon, honey,” Ryan had said. “We’ll help you put the meal together.” I chopped the potatoes and onions with a little more force than necessary, wondering what on earth was taking so long.

An hour after that, I was really worried. They weren’t answering their cell phones. The steaks were back in the fridge, and I would have to start a fresh round of charcoal if I were to cook them, because my first batch of briquettes had long since gone to ash.

Finally, the sound of crunching gravel came through the evening air. I ran out onto the deck.

“You dogs!” I hollered. “What’s the point in a cell phone if—”

But it wasn’t Ryan’s pickup truck, or even Jack’s. The thin bar of reflective blue and red lights on top of the truck’s cab marked it as a police vehicle, even if it was too dark to really see the county logo on the door. I felt my stomach lurch, and my hands went icy.
Coincidence,
I said to myself.
It’s just a funny coincidence, the police stopping by here when my husband is two hours late getting home.

The officer got out. “Hey, Lila.”

“Hey, Bill.” As I’ve said on many occasions, this part of Virginia is pretty much one big small town, and I’d known Bill since he was the safety-patrol captain. “What brings you out here so late?”

“Li, I didn’t want you to get a phone call when I was so close to the house. It came over the radio—there was a nasty accident—”

“No.”

“It looks like Jack’s truck hit a ditch and flipped. It happened on the Coller Road sometime in the last two hours. They—”

“No, Bill, they’re good drivers.” I was shaking with cold.

“Come on, honey. Sit down a second.” He got me onto one of the deck chairs and held my hands. “We don’t know what happened. Hardly anyone uses that old dirt track. It’s a miracle anyone came along and saw the wreck. There doesn’t seem to have been another vehicle involved. The officer at the scene said that Jack said heard a loud banging noise, and he lost control.”

“Well, what did Ryan say?”

Bill swallowed hard. “Lila, I’m here to take you to the hospital if you don’t think you can drive. Ryan’s unconscious, and they’re taking him in now.”

The hospital wasn’t close by, but I don’t remember any of the ride, except for the sound of the siren. The emergency room was a blur of too-bright lights and Bill saying, “This is the wife of the MVA that just came in. Can she go to him?” And the woman in the bile-green smock looking at me with pity and saying I should wait for the doctor. After that, the room started to spin.

I didn’t faint, although I wanted to. The nurse got me to a seat and practically forced my head between my knees before she vanished. A few minutes later I felt her slap a cold, wet towel on my neck. I shivered and looked up at her.

“I have to know. Is my husband…I mean…is he—” I couldn’t get the question out of my mouth.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “He’s alive. But we don’t really know much right now, and he’s unconscious. If you’ll just wait for the doctor to finish the examination, we might know more. Are you okay now?”

I nodded and closed my eyes.

I sat like that for a long time. I heard people coming and going, but I didn’t look up. I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. The first thing I was able to focus on was the rough blue tweediness of the waiting-room couch. There was a tiny stain with an irregular shape. A drop of something, smeared into the loose weave, never cleaned. I reached down to poke it and thought better of touching mysterious hospital stains in the nick of time.

“Yeah, good call. Who knows what that is.”

Jack was sitting on a matching tweed armchair nearby. Unshaven, rumpled, with a nasty cut under one eye, he still looked fantastic. But any attraction I might have felt was overwhelmed by the sudden desire to kill him.

I nearly fell trying to get off the couch. “What the hell happened, you son of a bitch!”

He put up his hands. “I don’t exactly know. There was that loud banging noise I heard back when all this started. I saw something orange flash out of the corner of my eye and it startled me. I hit the ditch. The passenger side of the cab crumpled, and Ryan’s leg was hurt. Lila, I’m so sorry.”

This time I reached him and hammered on him with my fists. He didn’t even try to protect himself. I was too shaky to pummel him for long, and I realized that his face was as wet as my own. What had started as a beating turned to a hug of sorts, and we clung to each other.

“I wish it were me who was hurt, Lila, I swear to God,” he whispered.

“I know you do,” I said into his shoulder.

We heard the squeak of rubber shoes on tile and turned to see a tired doctor.

“Mrs. Crosse? How are you doing now?” he asked.

“I’m fine. But how is my husband?”

“He’s stable, but he’s still unconscious. He’s got a broken foot, a lot of deep bruises on his right leg that go to the bone, and a head injury. That much we know. The rest will have to wait until he wakes up. I came to suggest you go home and rest.” He gestured at the couch. “That’s not the most comfortable bed in the world, and you’ll do your husband more good if you’re in good shape when he comes around. Get some sleep. Come back tomorrow.”

I tried not to sound shrill. “What if he wakes up and I’m not there? Or what if…” I choked, unable to articulate my fear.

“We don’t really know what kind of shape he’s in, Mrs. Crosse. I’m not going to lie to you. But I do think he’s going to wake up, and when he does, he’s going to be in a lot of pain. We’re going to give him something for that pain, and he’ll be fast asleep before we can even fetch you from this waiting room.”

“Why can’t I stay with him?”

“Because we’ve got him in the intensive care unit so we can watch him closely. Head injuries are funny things, and I want to keep an eye on him. Just in case.”

“Just in case, I want to be here,” I said. I sat down on the couch, prepared to stay all night.

“I understand how you feel. But you’re not going to see him for a while. Go home. We’ll call you when anything changes.”

He must have realized arguing with me was pointless, because he walked away without looking back. I turned to Jack and saw him flipping his cell phone closed. “Who’d you call?”

“A taxi, Lila. I’m taking you home.”

“You and what army?”

Jack didn’t need an army, as it turned out. I fell asleep on that awful couch, worn out from fear and the adrenaline rush I’d been on since I saw Bill’s police pickup. When the taxi came, I was limp and groggy. And the fact was I was used to Jack’s presence and his friendship. His strange behavior of the past week was nothing compared to years of kindness and strength, and in my weakened state my trust for him was automatic.

How he got me in the door and up the stairs, I’m not sure. But I was tucked under a blanket, shoes off but clothes on, when the smell of coffee wafted into the bedroom. The morning sun was glorious, and I stretched and smiled. Reaching for Ryan reminded me that something was horribly wrong.

Before I could panic, I heard a knock on the bedroom door. “You decent, Li?”

“Yeah.”

“No word from the hospital, before you ask.” Jack came in, balancing two mugs of coffee and some toast. The swelling under his eye was down, but the cut was hard to see within a magnificent bruise. We ate in silence, staring out at the trees.

“Lila, he’s going to be fine.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem.”

“I mean—”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You and Ryan are exactly the same as I’ve always known you. Our friendship, the things we’ve all shared, our affection for each other, none of it is any different from where I’m from. You two are the most important people in my life, and I know you like I know the back of my hand.”

I had to ask. “Who is Ryan married to? In your world?”

Jack laughed. “He’s not. He says being a bachelor is too much fun. He’s always going out with one girl or another. He says if he ever gets serious about one, we’ll know because he’ll bring her to our cookouts.”

“That’s what—” I blurted.

“Eh?”

I sighed. “That’s what you told me he used to say before he met me. That if he ever got serious about a girl, you’d know because he’d invite her to your weekend cookouts.”

He changed the subject. “So how’d I get married to Allison?”

“Ryan and I gave you a little nudge, I admit. She did so much for you that you didn’t seem to notice. We…helped you notice, I guess.”

“Am I really in love with her?”

I hadn’t really thought about it. I was quiet for a moment. “You don’t have a marriage like Ryan and I have, but you care for her, and she cares for you. You seem happy and content.”

His reply was cut off by the phone ringing. I snatched it from the charger. The hospital’s name came up on caller ID.

Ryan was awake, asking for a cold beer and a warm wife, said the voice on the other end. “I’m on the way!” I hollered into the phone.

I tossed the phone onto the bed. “Jack, Ryan’s awake! He’s making jokes. He’s gonna be all right!”

Jack’s face lit up and he grabbed my hands. We danced like wild things, whooping and shouting. When we ran out of breath, I threw my arms around him. “Thank you for staying with me and being so strong,” I whispered. We grinned crazily at each other, and then he was kissing me.

He was taller than my husband, with longer arms, and his build was leaner. He made me feel small and feminine as he pulled me close to his chest. His kiss was more powerful too, with the urgency of pent-up desire instead of the slow warmth of a married man’s passion. His tongue was strong and insistent, and probed my willing mouth. I didn’t understand how I could be willing, as overjoyed as I was at my husband’s awakening. It was as if this embrace was a continuation of the dance that had overtaken me when I heard the good news. More than just that, I wanted him. Jack had one hand against the back of my head, his fingers buried in my hair. His other arm was wrapped tightly around my waist, and as our tongues met, he guided my body against the thick bulge in his jeans.

My pussy contracted sharply and my knees buckled. Jack caught me and moaned. I broke away, panting.

“Jack—”

“Give me a minute.”

I watched until his breathing seemed normal. “Jack, it’s okay.”

“I’m sorry, Lila. I got so—”

“Carried away. So did I. I was so happy and relieved, and you were…there.”

“That’s all. We were just there.” He made it sound like a statement, but I knew he wanted it to be a question.

“Nothing really happened.” I waited until he nodded, and I turned away to look for my car keys. “Come on, let’s go back to the hospital.”