His Ordinary Life (8 page)

He couldn’t stand in their bathroom mere months ago, talking around his toothbrush, and say he was taking the Atlanta job in investigations because he was
bored
and then try to deny it now. The words seared her memory. Even worse, the job had merely been an excuse—one that had never materialized. Oh, he’d gone to Atlanta all right and completed the training, but there’d been no investigations job. Instead he’d remained in insurance sales. The message had been clear—he no longer wanted her or their life.

His sudden insistence that
they’d
wanted different things was insulting. How dare he sit in Rachel Simmons’s office and pretend the desire for separation had been mutual?

The hurt swamped her, the shattering sense of loss, of knowing he didn’t want her anymore. All of her adult life, it had been “Del and me” and then it had been only “me”. She was learning to define herself apart from him—a long, painful process through which she hoped to find fulfillment. She was damned if she’d let him take away what progress she’d made by coming back into her life as if he still belonged there and trying to revise the past.

His SUV was in the drive when she pulled in and she glared at it when she climbed out of her truck. Wonder where his Barbie car was?

Like that Porsche he’d shown up in didn’t scream “man on the make”.

She strode up the pathway and let herself in the front door. Absolute quiet greeted her. No television played, no music drifted from the children’s rooms. Frowning, she set her teacher bag on the armchair and followed the rich aroma of bubbling soup to the kitchen. A large stockpot simmered on the stove and five soup plates waited on the counter.

Del sat at the island, the paper spread open before him. He glanced up, his face tense. “Hey.”

“Where are the kids?”

He folded the paper and laid it aside. “The girls went across the street to Lauren’s house and Blake is at Mama’s, cutting her grass. Tick’s over there. He’s going to run him home once he’s finished.”

They were alone, but that didn’t mean she had to spend time in his presence. “Okay. I’m going to grade while I have the chance.”

She moved toward the door, but his hand on her arm brought her up short, each finger burning through the silk of her blouse.

“Barb, wait.” She glanced up and he rubbed his free hand down the outside of his denim-clad thigh. “I thought this would give us a chance to talk.”

She swallowed and stiffened her body. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

When she attempted to pull away, he tightened his hand and leaned closer, his dark gaze intense. “You never did when things got sticky.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means sometimes we’re too damned much alike.” He lowered his head, compelling her to maintain eye contact. “Neither of us is crazy about conflict. But I’m thinking I should have forced this issue a long time ago. Tell me why we split up.”

“Are you crazy?” She tugged her arm from his grasp. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“Why not?” His voice dropped to a forceful whisper.

Tears scalded her eyelids and she blinked, looking away from him, hating him. “Because there’s no point. You made your choice, Del. You’ve always made the choices.”

Surprised realization flickered across his face. She stepped away, but he didn’t give any ground. Instead, he backed her against the wall, his hands resting on either side of her neck. His gaze, dark and compelling, held hers captive.

“Tell me why we’re not together anymore.” A tear escaped. He moved his hand, brushing the drop away with his thumb. A low groan rumbled from his throat. “God, Barb, don’t cry.”

“Then stop hurting me.” More tears spilled over. “Let this go. It’s
over
, Del. We’re over and the whys don’t matter.”

“Like hell they don’t. What did you mean, I always made the choices?”

“Just what I said.” She laughed, the harsh, ugly sound scraping her throat, and waved a hand. “You chose this house. You picked out my car. It was your idea that I go to Thomasville instead of Norman Park for my degree.”

The tears were falling in earnest now, the words spilling from the well of resentment deep within her. He’d stilled, the entire line of his body freezing, and he dropped his hands so they lay flat against his thighs.

She couldn’t look at him and she covered her mouth, as much to smother a sob as to kill the awful words wanting life.

“Go ahead and finish.” Lord, she’d never heard his voice that cold, that dead before.

Biting her lip behind her hand, she shook her head and struggled to catch her breath.

“Then let me finish for you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, a childish urge to cover her ears pushing through her.

“I’m the one who thought we should get married, right? I’m the one who said we shouldn’t think about adoption, that we should keep—”

The front door opened, girlish giggles filling the air. Barbara brushed at her damp cheeks and sucked in a shaky gulp of air. Del turned away, muttering a curse. Lyssa and Anna appeared in the doorway, their friend Lauren in tow.

“Mama, is it okay if we go in the pool?” Lyssa asked, her grin fading as she looked from her mother to her father.

Anna regarded them with a solemn gaze and sidled closer to Barbara. Forcing a bright smile, Barbara pulled her in for a brief hug and hoped her daughter couldn’t feel the slight tremors moving through her body. “Of course you can go in the pool. Hello, Lauren, how’s your grandmother?”

Lauren smiled, braces sparkling. “She’s a lot better. She came home Monday.”

“Wonderful. Tell her I asked about her.” Barbara gave Anna a tiny push toward the door. “Go swim. Dinner should be ready shortly.”

Apparently satisfied all was well, Lyssa tugged Lauren down the hall. “Come on, let’s change.”

Anna trailed after them, throwing one last accusing glance at her father. His jaw tightened, color draining from his face, leaving his eyes dark and burning with pain. Barbara’s heart stuttered, a heavy, aching thing in her chest.

“Well, I guess we answered the question about why we’re not still together, didn’t we?” With jerky movements, he rested his hands on the counter, his back to her, his head down. A harsh exhale shook his shoulders.

She lifted a hand but stopped herself before she touched him. “Del—”

“Not right now. Please.”

Without another word, she retreated to her room.

“We need to talk. About Blake.”

Barbara glanced up as Del dropped onto the lounge chair next to hers. She laid aside the paper she’d been attempting to read. She sat up straighter, a sense of unease running over her. Something indefinable had shifted in him after their conversation in the kitchen, leaving her with the impression she sat with a stranger now.

She moistened her lips. “I’m listening, Del.”

He laced his fingers together between his knees. A rough laugh trembled between them. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve gone round and round in my head, and I plain don’t know what to do.”

His uncertainty surprised her and she pushed back her damp hair. “We’ll get through to him. It may take some time, but we’ll do it.”

He lifted his head. “I’m just afraid we don’t have that much time, Barb. It seems like he’s slipping away from us more and more every day.”

“He is.” She shrugged, wishing she knew how to soften the words. “He’s growing up. He’s drifting right now and it’s our job to pull him back where he’s supposed to be. Don’t you remember what it was like at his age?”

“I remember.” His features stiffened and he looked away. She knew immediately where his thoughts had gone. His seventeenth summer—Will’s death and the beginning of the estrangement from his father.

Impulsively, she reached out, covering his knee, and smothered a prick of hurt when he shifted away. “Then you know what he’s going through. It’s not the same, but he’s feeling a loss, too. He’s lost his family. And in a way, he’s lost you.”

Turning his head, he met her gaze, his eyes fierce. “I’m
here
. As long as it takes. So what do we do to help him?”

“Exactly what we’ve been doing. Hold him to the rules we’re setting. Keep talking to him, trying to get at what’s eating him. If it helps any, I’m just as lost as you are.”

His mouth turned downward. “We set rules, and he’s in more trouble than he was. I don’t think what we’re doing is working.”

Barbara pulled her knees up and linked her arms around them. “He earned himself more consequences today, didn’t he? What’s it gonna be, Dad?”

He grimaced. “You know consequences were a lot easier when they were little and you could stick them in time-out for a few minutes.”

“You’ve obviously forgotten what it was like trying to
keep
Blake in time-out.”

“He had a stubborn streak then, too, didn’t he?”

“Don’t know where he gets that from.” A tentative smile curved her lips, and when she glanced at him, their gazes clung. The familiar sense of connection zinged between them, taking Barbara’s breath for a moment. She sucked in air and glanced away. “So pick a consequence.”

“I already have his keys and he’s grounded.” He slanted a look at the house. “The trim needs to be sanded and painted. I bet the gutters could use a good cleaning, too. We’ll fill his next few weekends with extra chores.”

“No television,” Barbara said. “And the MP3 player is ours now.”

Del nodded, his expression satisfied. “Sounds good. Make me a honey-do list of what you need done around the house. I’ll make sure it gets done and maybe I can get him to talk to me while we’re working.”

At his words, her heart did a slow flip-flop. With him wandering the house in his version of pajamas, and talking about honey-do lists, it was too easy to let herself remember what had been. The need to remind him of their boundaries surged through her.

She gathered her book. “I can supervise him. Tonight’s your last night here, and I know you have other obligations—”

“You think I have one more important than him?” The firm, quiet words washed her with shame.

She swallowed the pithy comment that rose to her lips. Instead, she shook her head, afraid to meet his gaze again. “I know you don’t.”

“Yeah, well, after tonight, I’ll sleep over at Tick’s.” His mouth tightened. “I know better than to hang around when I’m not wanted.”

Real pain hovered in his voice and she cringed. “That’s not—”

“We’d better talk to Blake.” He rose from the lounge. “Might as well be now.”

Del cut through the water with swift, even strokes, grateful for the quiet. With everyone asleep, the silence was peaceful, rather than heavy and tense. However, the cool water and the calm night did nothing to soothe the troubled thoughts tumbling through his mind. When they’d laid down the new terms of Blake’s punishment, Del had expected anger and rebellion. Instead, there’d been only quiet, albeit sullen, acceptance.

That silence unnerved him because he recognized it. By the time he’d stopped talking to his father, he’d already made his mind up what he was going to do—marry Barbara. He’d sat and listened to his father’s berating and suggestions without a word. Blake was accepting their dictates, but the situation wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

He turned at the deep end and swam underwater the length of the pool. Surfacing, he found Barbara standing on the concrete apron. She stared at him and pulled her short robe closer around her. On his feet now, he pushed back his dripping hair. A slight breeze rippled across the water, raising goose bumps on his skin.

Damn it, what was she doing out here? He’d held it together through the evening—a tense, uncomfortable supper, helping Lyssa with her math homework, their come-to-Jesus meeting with Blake—but the whole time he’d been itching for escape, filled with the need to be alone and figure out where to go after their disastrous conversation that afternoon.

If there was anywhere to go at all. Hell of a note to find out for sure everything good he’d believed about his marriage had been a lie.

Unable to read her expression in the dim light, he shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep and thought laps might help. Sorry if I bothered you.”

She shook her head, one hand keeping her robe closed. “No, you didn’t…I couldn’t sleep either.”

Slogging through the water, he moved up the steps. With water sluicing from his body, he grabbed the towel he’d dropped on a lounge chair. He rubbed the moisture from his face and hair then draped the damp terrycloth around his neck. Grasping the ends, he stared down at her.

Still clutching her lapels, she shifted under his gaze. “What?”

“If you felt that way, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

A tiny frown drew her delicate brows down. “I…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Anger prickled to life under his skin. He remembered the surge of nausea that had swept over him under the force of her resentment earlier. How could he have lived with the woman standing before him, watching him with wary blue eyes, and seen so little of her inner thoughts? “What the hell?”

“Del, I don’t—”

“I just need to understand, Barb. Help me understand what went wrong. Tell me why you couldn’t talk to me.” He hated the beseeching note of pain he could hear in his raw voice. “What did I do? Or was it something I didn’t do?”

Tell me why you stopped loving me. Or if you ever really loved me at all.

He couldn’t voice that, but the entreaty hung between them.

“I told you, I don’t know.” She let go of the robe and brushed her hair behind her ears with both hands. A nervous laugh trilled from her lips. “It was simply…easier to go along with what you wanted.”

“Easier.” He tightened his stranglehold on the towel at his neck. She’d dropped her gaze, an unhappy expression constricting her face. And she was biting the inside of her cheek. How many times had he seen her do that when she was anxious? God help him to tread lightly here.

“Yes, easier.” She lifted her head, a pleading glimmer in her light blue eyes. “I was afraid if I—”

She clamped her lips on the words and frustrated guilt fired in him. Damn it, obviously she’d done this a lot, kept her feelings locked inside, and he hadn’t been astute enough to see that, to draw her out.

“Afraid of what, baby?” He gentled his voice deliberately. “Of me?”

Lord, not that. Please not that. Hearing those words from her would break him.

“Of course not. I’d never be afraid of you.” She shook her head. “How can you ask that?”

“Because I’m trying to understand what’s going on with us, what went wrong. And I—” He exhaled, trying to clear the brooding tension from his body. He couldn’t begin to find a way to fix it without the answers she didn’t want to give him. “I’m lost, Barb. What were you scared would happen if you didn’t fall in with what I wanted?”

“I was afraid I’d lose you.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and stared at him with defiance. “There, I said it. Happy now?”

“You thought…baby, that doesn’t make—” This time, he shut his mouth on the words. Better not to go there. “I live for you and those kids. The only way you could lose me is if…”

He swallowed. The only way she could get rid of him was the one way she had—by pushing him away, cutting him out of her life.

“Right.” Censure soured her voice. “Look what happened the one time I didn’t go along with what you wanted.”

The one time? Confused, he frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“What did you do when I tried to talk you out of this whole investigations thing?” She crossed her arms over midriff.

Oh, shit.
Go easy there, Del.
“What did I do?”

“You left,” she said in a choked, hush murmur.

“I couldn’t stay.” He glanced away from the curves revealed by the maillot she wore under the terry robe. He needed answers, not the distraction of how badly he wanted to run his hands along the indention of her waist, the flare of her hips. “You think I left because you disagreed with me?”

“Didn’t you?”

He flinched from the heavy sarcasm that coated the question. “No.”

“No,” she echoed. Her strangled sob vibrated with anger. “You tell
me
why then. Why you left. The real reason, not that song and dance about investigations.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t a song and dance. There was a job—”

“That meant more than we did.”

“No.” He shivered in the breeze. “Hell, Barb, I always intended to come back home, once you cooled off. The next thing I know, you’re talking divorce. I didn’t expect you to see a damn lawyer like that. What was I supposed to do? You obviously didn’t want me back. I had to have a freakin’ place to live and I couldn’t exactly afford the rent on an apartment, the mortgage on this place and pay child support on an insurance investigator’s salary. That’s why I stayed in sales. I needed the damn commission work and sales bonuses.”

“Who said I wanted you to leave?”

“You helped me pack.” He kept the words level, didn’t let the sarcasm or the pain escape. “You acted like…I felt like it was nothing to you that I was going.”

“How could it be nothing?” Her eyes glittered, tears sparkling on her long lashes. “You were
leaving
me. I helped you pack because I kept hoping…” She closed her eyes, the tears slipping down her cheeks. “I wanted you to change your mind.”

“Oh, Lord.” He groaned and cupped her face in his hands, thumbs caressing the wetness from her cheeks. The urge to pull her close and wrap himself around her wracked him. “Baby, why didn’t you
say
anything?”

She grasped his arms, trying to push away. “Would it have done any good?”

“All I wanted to hear was two words.” He slid his hands to her shoulders, pulling her closer. Heat radiated from her body, warming his chilled skin. He lowered his head, his mouth a breath away from hers. “Don’t go.”

Her eyes wide, she looked up at him, her lips parted. She shook her head, tugging away from him. “Stop. You’re not going to stand there and pretend you didn’t want—”

“Look at me.” He reached for her again, but she evaded him. “Tell me the divorce is what you
really
wanted, that you wanted me gone, and I’ll let this go. That’ll be the end of it.”

Anger sizzled in the glance she shot his way. “This is pointless. I’m going back to bed.”

She walked away.

“I don’t want a divorce,” he called after her, hearing the desperation in his own voice. She froze, halfway across the deck, her body vibrating with visible tension. Del swallowed, a cold fear trembling along his nerves. “I never did.”

While he watched her frozen body, the next seconds seemed more like a lifetime. Finally, she spun to face him, her face pale with fury. “You liar.”

He shook his head and ran a hand along the outside of his thigh. “Why do you think I’m not fighting it?”

She stared at him a long moment before blinking and looking away. “Because you wanted out so badly you didn’t care what the terms were.”

“No.” He stepped forward, reaching a hand in her direction. The tightrope sensation shivered through him again, ten times worse than he’d felt with Blake. “Because I thought you didn’t want me any longer, that you saw me as nothing more than a mistake, the guy who screwed up your entire life. Was I wrong?” Her lashes dipped, hiding her tear-damp eyes from him. Del took another step forward, daring to touch her this time. He cupped her shoulders. “Was I?”

Eyes still closed, she nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice a broken whisper. “You were wrong.”

A groan tore from his throat and he pulled her close, wrapping her in a tight embrace. He pressed his cheek against the softness of her hair, inhaling the sweet essence of her. The strong relief of holding her again overpowered him and a long moment passed before he realized she struggled against his arms. He let her go, her tense expression sending foreboding through him.

“Stop.” Smoothing her hair, she stepped back. She wrapped her robe around her once more. “This doesn’t change anything, don’t you see?”

“What do you mean it doesn’t change anything?” Confused, he stared at her. “We just agreed the divorce isn’t what either of us wants. Everything has changed.”

She was shaking her head, the fingers clutching her robe visibly trembling. “Has it? The last few months…we’ve changed. We’re not the same people we used to be.”

Yeah, he’d changed. He’d realized what living without her was like. He knew what really mattered. “That doesn’t mean—”

“
I’ve
changed,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. She straightened, drawing herself up, but still she held onto the robe like a lifeline. “I’m not the same woman, the same
girl
, you married. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I like who I’m becoming now.”

Hell, he knew she was different. He could see it, see the strength and the independence, the ways she’d grown. More than anything, he wanted to explore those new layers, to peel them away and find out who this new Barbara was.

She smiled, a sad, soft curve of her lips. “It’s late. I’m going back to bed.”

Turning away, she walked toward the door. Del watched her go, his chest tight. The sensation recalled the day of Will’s funeral. After everything was over, he’d stood in the cemetery, separate from his family, knowing he was alone, adrift. He’d watched his father lead his mother to the car, swallowing the urge to run after them and beg for forgiveness.

He’d regretted it ever since.

He couldn’t let Barbara walk away without giving it one more try. He crossed the deck, flattening his hand on the door as she curled her fingers around the doorknob. “Barb, wait.”

Her head dropped forward, the line of her neck exposed and delicate. “Del, please.”

The warmth of her nearness pulsed in him. He lowered his head, his mouth near her ear. “Just hear me out.”

She shook her head, the silk of her hair brushing his mouth. “There isn’t anything else to say. It’s over.”

“Only if we want it to be. Do you want that, baby? Do you want it to be over?”

Her deep breath brought their bodies closer together, his chest grazing her back. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“I do.” Del touched her shoulder, stroked a hand up her neck, her skin warm and smooth against his knuckles. “I want you back.”