Sleeping With the Enemy (21 page)

The painting kept Rose sane.  She spent all her free time in the studio, experimenting with colors and styles and techniques.  As a young woman in her twenties, new to painting, she had been timid, afraid to express herself, to find her own style.  But maturity had erased those unnamed fears, and she painted with a confidence that produced stunning results.  Vivid splotches of color and wide, bold brush strokes characterized her work.  She experimented with light and shadow, studied and recorded on canvas the varying moods of the mountains, and rendered swift and precise portraits of family members.

She and Paula Fournier drove to Portland for lunch and shopping one Saturday.  When they returned home, she gave in to Paula’s pleas and took her up to the studio to show her what she’d been working on.  While Rose stood by nervously, Paula walked slowly around the room, looking at everything, saying nothing.  She finally stopped before a large canvas Rose had painted of Jesse, leaning casually against a wooden piling at the end of his boat dock while he talked to his cousin Leo, who sat atop a wooden keg on the deck of his boat, gesturing with a work-roughened hand.  “The detail in this is amazing,” Paula said.  “Jesus, Rose, these are really good.  Are you going to keep them hidden away forever?”

“What am I supposed to do with them here in Jackson Falls? Hang them up over the meat counter at the IGA?”

“Damned if I know.  But there must be some place you can display them.  They deserve to be seen.  Jesse must be so proud of you.”

Rose lowered her eyes and stuffed her hands into her coat pockets.  “Jesse hasn’t seen them.”

Paula turned and gave her a long, assessing look.  “You’re kidding.”

Rose shrugged apologetically.  “He’s not interested in my work.”

“Well, he should be,” Paula said indignantly.  “You’re a talented artist.  And it’s obvious, from looking at your work, that he’s your favorite subject.”  She turned back to the painting, reached out a hand to touch its surface.  With studied casualness, she said, “Are you and Jesse okay?”

Rose struggled in her search for an answer, finally said, “Define okay.”

Paula turned to look at her, eyebrows raised.  “Problems?”

“Oh,” Rose said breezily, “things are just peachy around here.”

“And I can clearly see that it’s none of my business.  Well, hon, your paintings are spectacular.  Maybe you could talk one of the local restaurants into exhibiting them.  You might even get a sale or two out of it.”

“And which restaurant might that be?  The Jackson Diner?”

Paula grinned.  “You’re right.  The pickings are pretty slim around here.  Maybe the IGA wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.  I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.  You never know what might turn up.”

Her day with Paula had been an enjoyable diversion, but Rose’s enjoyment was clouded by the fact that Jesse was still sleeping in the den, and was aloofly polite whenever their paths happened to cross.  The battle lines were drawn, and they both declined to cross those invisible barriers.  He never came into her painting studio, and she steadfastly refused to enter his den.  The kids knew that something was wrong; Jesse made no attempt to hide the fact that he had moved out of their bedroom and into the den, and Rose could see the questions in their eyes every time she and Jesse were in the same room.  But none of them voiced those silent questions, and for that, Rose was grateful, for she had no idea how she would have answered.

She was on the phone with her brother one morning when she looked up to see Torey Spaulding standing in the doorway to her office.  “Call you back later,” she said abruptly, and hung up.  She eyed Torey for a moment.  “Kids feeling better?”

The girl had the grace to blush.  “Sorry.”

Rose tapped her pen against the edge of her desk.  “You don’t have to apologize to me.  This isn’t about me.  This is about you.  I’m just doing my job.  If you want my help, fine.” She combed tired fingers through her tangled locks.  “If you don’t, that’s also fine.  But don’t screw around with me.”

For a moment, she thought Torey might bolt.  The young woman gulped and looked around furtively, and Rose sighed in resignation.  “Come in,” she said.  “Shut the door and sit down.”

Torey shut the door behind her and sat gingerly on the edge of the chair, only the toes of her dingy canvas sneakers touching the floor, as if she were poised for flight.  “Bud told me about you coming out to the trailer.  He said if I even talked to you again, he’d teach me a lesson I wouldn’t forget.”

Rose sat up straight.  “He threatened you?”

In a small, resigned voice, Torey said, “Yeah.”

Appalled, Rose said, “That’s illegal.  You could have him arrested.”

“Right.”  Torey’s laugh was brittle.

Rose shuffled some papers on her desk while she struggled to control her rampant emotions.  “Are you afraid of him?”

“Look, Mrs. Lindstrom, he’s hit me before.  I don’t want no trouble.  I should’ve stayed away from here.” She stood up so abruptly, she nearly knocked over her chair.  “I gotta go.”

“Torey!”

But she was gone.  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Rose sputtered.  She grabbed her coat and headed out in hot pursuit.

She caught up with Torey in the parking lot.  The young woman paused next to a dirty gray sedan, its windows sticky with fingerprints.  Inside, her sister waited behind the wheel, and several toddlers climbed back and forth between the seats.  Torey flattened herself against the side of the car.  “He has guns,” she said.  “Four or five of ‘em.  When he wants to remind me who’s in charge, he takes ‘em all out and cleans ‘em.”

Rose felt like a balloon that all the air had been abruptly sucked out of.  “Why?” she said.  “Why on earth would he have guns?”

Torey laughed.  “I keep forgetting you’re from the city.  This is Maine, Mrs. Lindstrom.  Most everybody has guns.  Hunting’s the number-one sport around these parts.”

“Will you be all right?” The wind whipped her pathetically inadequate wool dress coat around her bare legs, and she turned up the collar to ward off pneumonia.

“Guess I’ll have to be.”  Without saying good-bye, Torey Spaulding climbed into her sister’s car, and her sister cranked the ignition.  After several tries, it started, and the sister put the car into reverse.

And Rose stood there, freezing, hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, and watched them drive away. 

***

The Thanksgiving turkey smelled heavenly.  It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock, but already Rose was hungry enough to start chewing on one leg of Casey’s kitchen table.  Her stomach growled and she set down the potato peeler and flattened a hand against her thickening waistline.

“Hungry?” Casey said.

“What else is new?”

“If you need something to hold you, there’s pie in the fridge.”

“What are you trying to do, turn me into a baby hippo?”

Her sister Maeve rinsed off the chunk of squash she’d just peeled.  “You’re eating for two people.  Stop worrying about it.”

“If I stop worrying about it,” Rose said, “by the time this baby’s born, I’ll look like two people.”

The door opened and her brother Rob blew in, six feet of lanky Irishman, the front of his Led Zeppelin sweatshirt soaked with perspiration, and made a beeline for Casey.  Catching her in a bear hug, he said gruffly, “Come here, wife of my loins.”

Eyeing her brother with distaste, Rose said, “Does this aromatic creature belong to you?”

Gazing lovingly at her husband, Casey raised elegant dark eyebrows.  “I thought he came with you.”

Rob removed the paring knife from his wife’s hand, set it on the counter, and began to waltz her around the kitchen.

Maeve grinned.  “Is he always like this?”

Wryly, Rose said, “Only when he forgets to take his Prozac.”

Rob spun Casey away from him.  Without missing a step, she whirled around and came back to him.  Rose popped an olive into her mouth and bit down on it.  “I hate to be the one to tell you,” she said, “but there’s no music playing.”

“Hah!” he said, bending his wife over backward so far she was in danger of falling on her rump in the middle of the kitchen floor.  “What do you say, babydoll? Is there or is there not music playing?”

Casey slowly rose back to an upright position, her face flushed.  It could have been exertion.  Or it could have been something else altogether.  Gazing into her husband’s eyes, she gave him an intimate smile that hinted of deep secrets and hidden delights.  “Oh, yeah,” she said softly.  “It’s playing, all right.”

Over her shoulder, Rob shot Maeve a wink.  “I rest my case.”

“Jesus,” Rose said irritably, “you two make me want to throw up.”

***

Outside Casey’s kitchen window, a loud and lively football game was in progress.  Even Devon, generally far too sophisticated for such sophomoric nonsense, had deigned to join in.  Not to be outdone by his sister, Luke was also taking part in the boisterous play, hobbling around on the walking cast he’d gotten three days ago.  Inside the kitchen, Maeve MacKenzie was buried in suds up to her elbows.  “So,” she said, “how’s it going with Mr. Wonderful?”

Rose glanced out the window at her husband, who was squabbling good-naturedly with Rob for possession of the football.  Rob won the battle, and Jesse crouched beside him, hands braced against his thighs, his denim-clad backside thrown into vivid relief.  Rose swallowed hard.  She’d always been a sucker for a great ass.  Briskly, she said, “It’s going just ducky,” and whipped the dish towel around the inside of Casey’s roaster.

She pretended not to notice Maeve eyeing her long and hard.  “There’s trouble in paradise? So soon?”

“Some paradise,” Rose grumbled as she began opening cupboard doors in search of a final resting place for her sister-in-law’s turkey roaster.

“Is he treating you bad?” Maeve demanded.

“Hell, no.  He treats me like a queen.”

“You don’t look very happy, for a queen.  Does he drink?  Run around?  Yell at the kids?”

Rose knelt on the kitchen floor, shoved the roaster into an empty spot on the bottom shelf, then pressed a hand to the small of her back.  Closing her eyes, she said, “No, no, and no.”

“Is he lousy in bed?” Maeve glanced out the window and said skeptically, “He sure doesn’t look like he’d be lousy in bed.”

At Rose’s silence, Maeve turned to look at her.  “Oh,” she said.  “Looks like I’ve struck a nerve.”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. 
“Why the hell couldn’t I have been born an only child?” Rose snapped.

“What’s he done to you, Rose? He’s not into kinky sex, is he?”

“How the hell would I know?” she snarled, and to her absolute mortification, burst into tears.  Loud, messy, wretched tears, the kind that would make her look like the bride of Frankenstein for days.

“Aw, Rose, I’m sorry.  Come, let’s sit down.” Maeve dried her hands on her apron and guided Rose to a chair.  Sitting down across from her, she patted her sister’s hand.  “Tell Auntie Maeve all about it.”

“It’s so humiliating.  I can’t believe I’m telling anyone this.”

“Sweetie, this is me you’re talking to.  You can tell me anything.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath.  “It’s been eight weeks, Maeve.  Two frigging months, and we still haven’t done the dirty deed.”

Maeve’s mouth fell open.  “You’re not sleeping together?”

Rose sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of Casey’s apron.  “Oh,” she said bitterly, “we were sleeping together, up until a couple of weeks ago.  We just weren’t doing anything else.”

“What happened a couple of weeks ago?”

“We had this stupid fight, and he moved into the den.  Jesus, Maeve, I wasn’t looking for love when I married him.  You know as well as I do what a disaster that’s always been for me.  But I thought…oh, hell, who knows what I thought?  All I can say is that it’s pretty humiliating when you’re married to a man for two months, and he never lays a hand on you.”

Maeve glanced toward the window, her pale freckles drawn together in puzzlement.  “This does not add up,” she said.  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.  What the hell did you do to him?”

Rose blew her nose on a paper napkin.  “Oh, sure,” she said, dabbing the tip of her nose.  “Blame it on me.”

“Come on, Rose, look at him.  He’s gorgeous, healthy, virile…hell, if he didn’t belong to you, I’d be after him myself.  What happened?”

“I’m not really sure.  Luke broke his ankle on our wedding night.  Then we all came down with the flu.  I started my new job, and I’ve been so tired, and we’re both always bringing home work.  We don’t have any privacy, with a house full of teenagers.” She swiped again at her nose with the napkin and shrugged in apology.  “And then we had that awful fight, and ever since then, he’s been furious with me.”

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you to make the first move?”

“I couldn’t.  He hates me right now.  Hell, Maeve, it’s only sex.  It shouldn’t matter so much.  I don’t understand why it does.  Except that every time he walks by, my whole body goes on red alert.”

“Sounds to me,” Maeve said, “as though you’re falling in love with him.”

Rose snorted.  “Love,” she said bitterly, “is a myth, conceived and perpetuated by the male of the species, to ensure that there’ll always be somebody around to wash their socks and feed their overactive libidos.”

“There’s your problem, idiot.  The poor man’s terrified of you.  If I were him, I wouldn’t come near you with a ten-foot pole.”

“I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

“If you’d stop acting like such a jackass,” Maeve said, “maybe you could fix it.”

“Fix it?  How the hell am I supposed to fix it?”

“Simple.  By seducing him.”

For the second time in thirty seconds, Rose snorted.  “Give me a break.”

“I’m serious.  I’ll take the kids home with me, and you and Mr. Wonderful can spend the weekend getting to know each other.  In the Biblical sense.”  Her mouth thinned.  “I suppose you’re still wearing that stupid football jersey to bed.”

“It’s comfortable,” Rose said defensively.  “And I happen to like it.”

“Haven’t you learned anything in thirty-six years?” Maeve wrinkled her brow again as she pondered the situation.  “Do you still have all that sexy lingerie that Eddie bought you?”