This time her finger found the doorbell, and she pushed the button and held it in until the door was pulled open and Elaine Odbert stood facing her.
Elaine’s lips were slightly smeared and swollen from Fergus’s kisses, and her once neatly styled blond hair was disheveled. She blinked in confusion as her gaze fell on Sharon, but before she could speak Sharon did.
“I’m Sharon Lachlan,” she said in a voice too raspy to be her own, “and I want to see my husband.”
Before the other woman could speak or move Sharon pushed past her and entered a foyer. At first she thought she was looking at a picture on the wall directly in front of her. A distorted portrait of a woman in torment, her hair windblown and wild, her face white and ravaged with tears and the features twisted in a grimace of anguish.
But it was the eyes that startled her most. They were wide open, the blue irises dark and distended, and the torment that looked out of them was frantic in its intensity.
It was only then that she realized it wasn’t a picture she was gazing at but a mirror, and it was her own tempestuous image that she saw.
The shock was like a slap in the face, but it brought her back to her senses. Mindless hysteria would get her nowhere. She had to pull herself together. If need be, she could fall apart later, alone and in private.
She swiped at her eyes and face with the back of her hand as Fergus’s voice broke the electrifying silence.
“Elaine, who is it? Is anything wrong?”
Sharon swung around to look at him as he came through the archway from the living room. He stopped in midstride and stared at her as astonishment replaced the inquisitiveness in his expression.
The blood drained from his face. “Sharon!” It was a cry of surprise and...fear? “Dear God, what’s the matter? Have you been mugged? Why are you here?”
He started forward, his arms reaching out to her, but she stepped back and put up her hand. “No!” It was almost a shout, and she made an effort to lower her voice. “Don’t touch me. I’ve been watching you through the window.”
He gasped, but she hurried on. “I haven’t been mugged—I’ve been violated. Betrayed in a most intimate and degrading way by my own husband.”
Fergus’s face went even whiter, and the agony that crept into his eyes as understanding dawned almost made her forget her own.
“Oh dear Lord,” he moaned, as he sagged against the wall.
She’d momentarily forgotten that Elaine was there, as well. Although it seemed to Sharon that the events since she’d forced her way into the foyer had been acted out in slow motion, actually everything had happened so quickly that Elaine was just now recovering her composure.
She looked from Sharon to Fergus and straightened her shoulders. “We’d better go into the living room, where we can talk,” she said firmly. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want to, but I’ll have to leave in twenty minutes. I have a plane to catch.”
She had a plane to catch? Didn’t she mean they?
Elaine led the way into the other room and Sharon and Fergus followed. “Please sit down,” she invited, and settled herself in a chair, then turned to look at Sharon. “I’m sure you have things to say to me, too.” Her voice quivered, betraying her emotional upheaval.
Sharon’s knees were trembling so, she practically fell into the nearest chair, but Fergus remained standing.
Now that Sharon had confronted them her mind went blank. She hadn’t considered how she’d handle the situation because she’d been so sure there was no situation to handle. Had it all been wishful thinking? Her way of hiding from an unbearable truth?
As Sharon floundered Fergus spoke. “How did you know I was here, Sharon?” His voice was tight with strain.
Wordlessly she opened her purse, pulled out the envelope and handed it to him.
His eyes widened with shock as his gaze flew over the message. “Where did you get this?”
“It was delivered by messenger earlier today,” she answered in little more than a whisper.
“And what’s this reference to trying to help you and having the warnings ignored?” he asked grimly as he handed the note to Elaine.
Sharon didn’t answer immediately, but watched while Elaine’s face turned red as her mind absorbed the message she was reading. Then Sharon took a deep breath and told them about the other two malicious notes she’d received previously.
“Why in hell didn’t you tell me?” Fergus raged.
“Because I didn’t for a minute believe them.” Her lips trembled and her teeth worried the lower one. “I only investigated this one because I wanted to prove him wrong.”
Fergus’s eyebrows lifted. “‘Him?’”
She shrugged. “I always think of the writer as ‘him,’ but it could as easily be a woman.”
Again the scalding tears poured down her cheeks. “I was so sure that you loved me, that you’d never be unfaithful—”
A shuddering sob shook her, and she dropped her face in her hands.
Fergus groaned and walked over to her chair, but again she cringed from him and he stopped short of touching her.
“Sharon, I do love you,” he said raggedly, “and I haven’t been unfaithful to you.”
His words tore at her like a knife in her chest, and she sprang out of the chair. “Dammit, Fergus, don’t lie to me,” she yelled. “Not any more than you already have. Don’t forget, I saw you and Elaine making love just minutes ago.”
“We weren’t making love—we were just kissing,” he insisted.
The anger that had been curiously missing in the myriad of emotions she’d been feeling finally surfaced, and she whirled around to face him. “Don’t play word games with me.” Her tone was low and grating. “I’m not stupid, and I belatedly lost my innocence when I saw you take that woman in your arms. You weren’t just kissing—you were making love, and don’t deny it.”
Fergus clenched the back of the chair she’d just vacated, as if trying to steady himself. Elaine hadn’t moved, nor did she speak, but her expression mirrored both guilt and despair.
“Sharon, you must believe me,” he pleaded. “No matter how it looked to you, Elaine and I have not committed adultery.”
Sharon’s eyes widened with disbelief, and the only thing she could think of to say was “Why?”
Elaine gasped, but Fergus seemed to understand what she was asking. “Because I’m married to you. I love you, and I couldn’t betray you in that way.”
The pain of knowing he thought she was simpleminded enough to believe his lies was almost more than she could bear. “I told you not to lie to me,” she said angrily. “How can you say you love me, when you and Elaine have resigned from the firm and are running away together tonight?”
She swallowed a sob that tore at her throat. “Why haven’t you been honest with me? Why didn’t you come to me and tell me you wanted out of our marriage? I’d have given you a quiet divorce if you really wanted it. You didn’t have to scheme to run off in the middle of the night with another woman and make me an object of pity and gossip.”
A spasm of pain twisted Fergus’s face as he ignored her wish not to be touched and clasped her by the shoulders. “Honey, I know this is going to be hard to believe after the notes you’ve received and what you’ve seen here, but whoever wrote those letters has only given you half-truths and vicious speculations. I haven’t resigned from the firm, and I’m not going anywhere, but Elaine has accepted a position in a law office in California and is flying out there tonight.”
He sighed and released her. “I...I admit that there is an...an attraction between Elaine and me, but neither of us wants to break up my marriage. I’ve always loved you, Sharon, and I didn’t take our marriage vows lightly. I don’t want a divorce. The kiss you saw was one of goodbye, not a prelude to making love.”
He turned away from her and put a few steps between them. “I was going to take Elaine to the airport and then go home to you. I’m sorry that we were indiscreet enough that someone
picked up on the attraction and used it to poison your mind with their venom.”
Even in her numbing grief, Sharon realized that she should be relieved. Fergus really didn’t want a divorce.
So he’d gotten involved with another woman. Well, that happened a lot in marriages. He was sending the other woman away, and Sharon tended to believe him when he said they hadn’t had sex. She’d never known him to be anything but honorable in his dealings with people.
Surely that meant he loved her more than he loved Elaine.
Or did it?
Sharon fought against her doubts, but couldn’t put them to rest. As he said, she was his wife, and he took the vows of marriage seriously. It would be just like him to abide by them, even if it meant giving up the woman he really wanted.
With great effort she resisted the urge to break down and sob, to do whatever it took to bind him to her. Instead she again dried her wet face with her hands and pulled in a deep breath to choke back the sobs that shook her.
When she had herself under reasonable control she turned to Elaine, whose cheeks were also wet with tears. “Don’t you have something to say about this?”
Elaine looked Sharon straight in the eye without flinching. “Nothing except to assure you that Fergus has told the truth. We haven’t been intimate, although I’ve let him know that I’d be willing, and I’ve always known that he’d never divorce you.”
She was being searingly honest, and Sharon almost felt sorry for her. This triangle had the elements of a Greek tragedy. It could ruin all three of their lives.
Still holding Elaine’s gaze, Sharon asked, “Are you in love with him?”
The woman didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Sharon winced, then turned to face Fergus. He appeared so tormented, as if he’d been caught in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up.
Her whole being cried out to her to let well enough alone. To accept the situation and let Fergus and Elaine play it out as they’d planned. Sharon would keep her husband, and the other woman would be gone for good. They could all get on with their lives and pretend that none of this had ever happened.
But could they? She wouldn’t know unless she asked Fergus the same question she’d asked Elaine, and she wasn’t sure she had the courage to do that.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them and put her future on the line.
“Fergus, are you in love with Elaine?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but she hurried on. “I’ve always thought of you as an honorable man, and now I’m appealing to that honor. I don’t want to hear about your duty to me. All I want is the truth. Please. You owe me that much.”
He closed his mouth and shook his head. “Sharon, I... You don’t understand....”
“The truth, Fergus.” She sounded like an attorney cross-examining a witness, but she had to know.
His gaze searched hers, and he must have seen how important this was to her. Slowly he looked from Sharon to Elaine, then back again. “Elaine and I have a close relationship. I care deeply for her, but you’re my wife—”
In spite of the scalding anguish his words caused, Sharon felt a calm dignity as she let out the breath she’d been holding. “That’s not good enough. I’m selfish. I want all or nothing.”
Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. “There won’t be any need for Elaine to go to California. I’m sorry, but I can’t live with you knowing you’re not totally committed to me. I’ll file for divorce in the morning.”
She held her head high and managed to walk steadily across the room and out of the house even though she was blinded by tears of grief.
Chapter Two
Five years later
Spring was late arriving this year in St. Louis, Missouri, after a long, cold winter. Sharon had about given up on it, when, almost overnight, it blazoned across the land in a riot of color and bright warming sunshine. Red tulips, yellow daffodils, purple pansies, and peonies in a variety of hues turned the drab landscape into the glory of new life once more affirmed.
New life reaffirmed. The phrase caught Sharon’s fancy, and she turned it over in her mind and examined it as she stood gazing out the window of the staff conference room on the fifteenth floor of the luxurious Starlight St. Louis Hotel. The view overlooked rambling Jefferson Barracks Park along the Mississippi River; the spectacular Gateway Arch, the tallest man-made national monument in the nation; and the majestic riverboats still plying their trade on the treacherous river that had spilled over its banks and caused such catastrophic damage to the towns and farmland of five states during the floods of ‘93.
Her thoughts returned to that surprising phrase that had popped into her mind unannounced, and she realized it was true. Five years ago when her marriage to Fergus Lachlan had shattered around her she’d thought that the fullness of her life was over, that she was destined to a colorless existence devoid of love and laughter and happiness.
For a long time it had been that way, although she’d managed to camouflage it well. Even then her pride hadn’t allowed her to be an object of pity, and few suspected that she was merely going through the motions.
But gradually she’d begun to heal, and the color, very pale pastel at first, had crept back into her life until now she was once more blooming. Not as brightly as she had during that first blush of youth, but by age twenty-eight she’d gained the courage to really live again. Like the tulip bulbs that lay brown and dormant in the ground for months until, in a miracle of life, they once more burst from the earth in full, glorious blossom.
Not that she’d been reborn unscathed. She hadn’t. She had deep-seated scars that would be with her always, the most damaging of which was her inability to feel sexual desire. She had numerous men friends, and for the past couple of years she even dated frequently, but when they came on to her romantically she froze up inside.
Her soul apparently knew what her mind rejected—that she would never love again with the passionate intensity she’d loved Fergus.
That was no small defect. She didn’t relish spending the rest of her years alone without the companionship of one special man, and a select few of the ones she’d dated had actually met most of her requirements for a lifetime relationship.
On the other hand, there were others who seemed nice at the start, but turned out to be jerks—
“Sharon, snap out of your trance and come sit down. The meeting’s about to start.”
The male voice immediately behind her made her jump. Speak of the devil! Her boss, Floyd Vancleave, was rapidly gaining the title of King of the Jerks.
He put his hand at her waist, but she shied away and turned to face him. He was a spritely looking man in his forties, medium height, with a receding hairline and an evolving paunch. He was also a little too loud, a little too jovial and a whole lot too free with his hands around women he fancied.
“Sorry, Floyd.” Her tone was polite, but cool. “I was woolgathering and didn’t realize that everyone was here.”
She quickly walked away, hoping to find a single seat at the conference table, but he caught up with her and took her arm to lead her to a space with two chairs. She sighed and sat down while he took the place beside her. There was nothing else she could do without making a scene, and unfortunately, he was her immediate supervisor.
When Sharon had fled Chicago after the divorce she’d come to St. Louis, where her grandparents had lived when she was growing up. She’d spent part of her summers here as a child, and although her grandparents had died by the time she’d come to stay she knew the city well and felt at home in the area.
She’d taken a job at the registration desk at the Starlight St. Louis and two years ago had been promoted to assistant to the front-office manager, Floyd Vancleave, who was in charge of the booking office, front desk, bell staff, night auditor and night manager.
At first she’d worked the night shift and hadn’t seen much of Floyd, but a year ago she was transferred to days, which put her in direct conta
ct with him. She’d heard rumors about his being a chauvinist, and at that time she’d experienced it firsthand.
He referred to the women who worked under him as “girls” or “doll” or “honey,” and asked them to run personal errands for him in such a way that they knew it was an order. Most of the female employees, Sharon among them, put up with the irritation, rather than complain and take a chance on being fired.
Lately, though, she’d become aware that he was also a lecher. She’d heard rumors that he solicited sexual favors from some of his younger and prettier “girls,” but again no one had come to her with a complaint, so Sharon hadn’t pursued the gossip. After all, he was married, and his wife was the shy, clinging type who seemed devoted to her husband.
It wasn’t until he started coming on to Sharon that she was forced to face the fact that he was a womanizer, and now he was after her.
The staff meeting was called to order by the hotel’s general manager, and Sharon focused on the business at hand. Not for long, though. Midway through the meeting, when everyone’s attention was on a potentially volatile situation in the housekeeping department, she was startled when Floyd reached under the table and put his hand on her knee.
She moved her leg, hoping to discourage him, but he just patted her knee and kept his hand there. She reached down and brushed it aside, but it landed on her thigh and she heard his low chuckle.
Damn him! He was enjoying her discomfort and was counting on her being too well-bred and embarrassed to make a scene.
The loud discussion around them went on, and he moved his fingers to caress her thigh. Again she reached down to dislodge his hand, but all he did was move it to her knee again.
This time she leaned over and spoke softly into his ear. “Take your goddamn hand off my leg or the next time I’ll tell you loud and clear for everyone to hear!”
The words were spoken before she realized she’d used a profanity. That had not been her intention. It had just slipped out in the heat of anger, but his face lit up with a big smile and he squeezed her knee as he turned his head to answer.
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