“So, Liza thought I’d come about the ad because of my injuries?”
He nodded.
“It must be very rewarding to help others like that.”
His response was immediate. “I don’t do it to be rewarded. I do it because the job needs to be done.” The words were clipped, dismissive. “What was the second thing you wanted to know?”
Kate knew it was useless to press any further. Besides, her other question was far more important. “When we were married, why would you never argue with me?”
The tension left him, and he gave a faint smile. Obviously this subject didn’t begin to bother him the way speaking about the ad did.
“The same reason I won’t now. Like I told you then, Kate, I don’t argue.”
She recalled the conversation well. Equally well, she remembered how she’d brushed off his statement as being unimportant. At the time, she’d been so starry-eyed in love, she hadn’t been able to ever envision them arguing. Little had she known that a day would arrive when she’d yearn for just one word spoken in the heat of the moment.
“That still doesn’t tell me why.”
“I thought it was obvious. I grew up in a home where it was rare not to hear voices raised in anger. When I grew old enough to realize that most people don’t live that way, I decided I wouldn’t, either.”
Coming from a family where opinions were openly and vocally aired, Kate just couldn’t accept his decision. How dull life would be if everyone in the world agreed with everyone else.
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything more therapeutic than a spirited debate. It’s invigorating.”
“I disagree,” he retorted. “There’s nothing invigorating about force-feeding your will down someone else’s throat.”
She knew he was referring to his father, and her heart ached for the pain he had endured. “Everyone doesn’t fight dirty, Steve. Not all people use their fists to make a point.”
“I certainly don’t.”
No, he didn’t. There was something else, she knew. Something he wasn’t telling her. Something she couldn’t see, lying just beneath the surface, that made him swallow his pain and anger every time it threatened to erupt. There had to be for him to be so ruthlessly militant about maintaining his self-control. She wished she knew what it was, but she didn’t hold out any hope that he would eventually share it with her.
“Martha and Kent are back,” he announced.
Kate heaved a silent sigh of relief when the security cameras revealed Martha, safe and sound from her cloak-and-dagger escapade, coming up the front walk. Thank goodness. She didn’t know what made her more grateful: that no harm had come to her friend, or that she would no longer be alone with Steve.
“Got it,” the older woman proclaimed triumphantly a moment later when she swept into the room. The sparkle in her eyes spoke of how much she’d enjoyed her adventure. Holding an envelope out to Steve, she dumped the rest of the mail onto the card table. “It’s from him.”
Steve took the envelope, and Kate moved to stand by his side. Careful not to disturb any fingerprints, he extracted the letter and unfolded it. Peering over his shoulder, Kate read along with him.
My dearest Kate,
I am disappointed in you. Why are you trying to keep us apart? Be assured that he cannot save you. We are destined to be together. Until that glorious day when we are united through eternity, I remain faithfully yours. Your biggest fan
Kate shivered and turned away. Wrapping her arms around her shoulders, she crossed to the birdcage, where Fred and Wilma sat grooming each other. She was cold, so cold. Why was he doing this to her? Why had he singled her out? Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?
“I think he knows about you, Steve,” Martha murmured.
“So much for our element of surprise,” Kate added. She felt relief on one level, at least. There was no further need for Martha to collect the mail. Kent could do the job. Now if she could only talk her friend into taking a paid leave of absence.
“Did you get the pictures?” Steve asked
Martha nodded and unfastened the watchband.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll take this out to one of my men to have the film developed.”
Kate sat down at her computer. When she glanced across the room, she saw that Martha’s color remained high and that her eyes still sparkled with excitement.
“Had a good time, did you?”
Martha’s laugh was pure joy. “A blast. When I was a little girl, my father used to entertain us with stories of my uncle who was a resistance fighter in France during World War II. Today, while I was taking all those pictures of people without their knowing it, I felt like a resistance fighter myself.”
“A lot of those resistance fighters didn’t live to see the end of the war,” Kate retorted, an edge to her voice.
Some of the pleasure left Martha’s eyes. “Did I do something wrong? You seem angry.”
Kate suddenly felt like a bully who had kicked a defenseless puppy. It wasn’t Martha’s fault that the stress was stretching her nerves to their limit.
“I’m sorry. It’s just...I was worried about you.”
Martha immediately looked contrite, which only made Kate feel worse.
“How thoughtless of me. Of course you were. And here I was, having a grand old time. But you needn’t have worried, Kate. I had every confidence in Steve. I knew he’d keep me safe.”
Kate poised her fingers over the keyboard and squared her shoulders, willing herself to attend to her work. “When I married him, I had every confidence in him, too,” she muttered to herself. “Look how that turned out.”
She’d obviously spoken louder than she’d intended, because Martha asked, “Are you saying he let you down? Is that why you divorced him?”
Kate didn’t know what she was saying anymore. Her fear over what her biggest fan might do next was all mixed up with her confusion over her unexpected attraction to her ex-husband. Only one certainty remained. If she didn’t fax this column to her editor by three o’clock this afternoon, she was going to miss her deadline.
“We let each other down, Martha. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to work.”
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the clacking of her keyboard and the chatter of the birds. Kate paused in thought over a turn of phrase and heard Martha clear her throat.
“Kate?”
“Hmm?” she said, thinking her assistant was going to ask a research question.
“You never told me he was so...male.”
Dismayed, Kate peered over her shoulder at the older woman. “Aren’t you the one who told me you haven’t looked at a man since your husband died, because no one could possibly measure up to him?”
“I wasn’t looking at him for me,” Martha explained. “I was looking at him for you.”
“Been there. Done that. No thanks.”
She saw the speculation in Martha’s eyes. Since Kate had hired the older woman a year earlier, they’d grown close and often shared confidences. Even though she chafed against similar treatment from her brothers, Kate allowed Martha to nurture and nudge her as if she were one of the woman’s own children. Had she been into self-analysis, she most likely would have said it was because she’d lost her own mother, and that Martha’s interest filled that void. Whatever the reason, she had told Martha things she’d told no one else.
The one thing they had never discussed, however, was her marriage to Steve. While she’d disclosed the fact that she had been married, and with whom that marriage had been—far too often, if Martha’s ready recognition of Steve’s name yesterday was any indication—she’d never divulged any details. Until now, Martha hadn’t pressed.
With a sigh, Kate’s hands fell to her lap and she swivelled around in her chair. “You want to know why I left him, don’t you?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
She didn’t. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Steve, or their ma
rriage. But after what Martha had risked by going for the mail, Kate would have felt churlish refusing. Besides, she didn’t want to make everything a deep, dark secret, the way Steve did.
“We met, fell in immediate lust, and before we could get to know each other, found ourselves facing impending parenthood. A civil ceremony followed. Predictably, the marriage lasted a little more than a year.”
“You were pregnant?”
Throat tight, Kate nodded. Though the sharp edge of the pain had dulled somewhat, there was an emptiness inside her that she knew would always be with her.
“Did you miscarry?”
“No. I...we had a beautiful baby girl. She...she died.”
“Oh, Kate.” Martha’s eyes filled with sorrow. “How awful for you, for the both of you. I’m sorry I brought up such a painful subject. You have enough to deal with right now.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Kate said, surprising herself. “I want to talk about it. I haven’t spoken of Molly in such a long time. My family always avoids the subject. I know they’re trying to spare me pain, but it sometimes makes me wonder if they wish the whole thing had never happened. That she’d never been born.”
“I’m sure they don’t feel that way.”
“Deep down, so am I, but I wish they wouldn’t be so protective of me.” She gave Martha a lopsided smile. “That’s been the story of my life, hasn’t it?”
“There are worse fates,” the older woman pointed out.
Like being shut out by the man you love. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“Was she sick?”
“No.” Kate traced the pattern of the sculptured carpet with her foot. “She was just perfect. According to my obstetrician, what happened the night she was born was just one of those things. Totally unpredictable and unpreventable.”
“What happened?”
“A week before my due date, my umbilical cord ruptured. I hemorrhaged. Steve was working late that night. By the time I got to the hospital, Molly had been without oxygen for almost eight minutes.” Kate expelled a shuddering breath. “She lived for thirty-six hours.”
Tears shimmered in the corners of her friend’s eyes. “So much tragedy for one so young.”
Answering tears burned Kate’s eyes, and she blinked them away. “Steve took it as hard as I did. Harder even. For weeks afterwards he barely spoke. I tried, but I wasn’t able to comfort him. We separated five months later.”
Martha nodded. “I’ve heard it happens that way. The tragedy of losing a child often tears a marriage apart”
“It wasn’t just that. We had other problems. Molly’s death was just the final straw.”
“He seems like a good man, Kate.”
“He is a good man,” she said softly.
“He’s certainly not hard to look at.”
Kate felt her lips curve. “No, not hard at all.”
“How about in the bedroom? He do okay there?”
Had any other person asked her that very question, Kate would have wasted no time putting her firmly in her place. But Martha, she knew, was not asking out of idle curiosity.
“I had no complaints.”
“You still find him attractive.” The words were a statement, not a question.
Kate started. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only because you can’t keep your eyes off him. If it’s any consolation, he can’t keep his eyes off you, either.”
That was what made him so dangerous. “And your point is?”
“You’re going to be spending a lot of time together. This is a unique opportunity, one most couples never get. If you’re lucky, maybe the two of you will be able to work things out.”
The part of Kate that was romantic enough to yearn for a happily-ever-after ending wished that it could be so. But her practical, realistic side told her not to fool herself.
“It’s not that easy, Martha. You see, he was an abused child. When he was thirteen, his father beat his mother to death. He doesn’t share his thoughts and feelings. He puts up walls. Unscalable ones.”
Ironically, his reticence about sharing himself was one of the things that had most attracted her when they first met. In the beginning, he was all lighthearted laughter and fun. Where her family was boisterous, combative and, above all, nosy when it came to personal matters, Steve played things close to the chest and didn’t press for any meaningful revelations from her. Kate had fought long and hard for her independence and was relishing her newfound sense of freedom when they met. It had thrilled her that, except for those few brief weeks when they were first married, Steve never seemed to want to put any restrictions on her, never wanted to be so close that she couldn’t breathe. It was the first relationship with a man where she hadn’t felt claustrophobic. Only when it was too late did she realize that she needed more from him than he could give.
“Oh, the poor thing,” Martha crooned. “Of course he puts up walls. That doesn’t mean they can’t come down. They tore down the Berlin Wall, remember?”
“Yes, but take it from someone who’s bashed herself against Steve’s walls many a time, and has the bruises to prove it. The Berlin Wall was flimsy. It was only made of concrete. Steve’s walls are made of much stronger stuff. I don’t know that the explosive has been invented that could blast through them.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t try.”
“I have tried, Martha. So many times. All I got was heartache. I just don’t have the strength to go through it all over again.”
The echo of footfalls on the bare wood of the hallway floor heralded Steve’s approach, and the two women lapsed into silence. Kate watched Martha begin sorting the mail before turning her attention to the flickering cursor on her computer screen.
To Kate, the silence had a furtive feel to it. A feel Steve obviously picked up on, because he’d barely taken his own seat when he asked, “Am I interrupting something?”
“Nothing important.” Kate picked up the insulated cup of ice water she kept by her computer and took a sip.
Her face the picture of innocence, Martha looked up from the mail. “We were just talking about explosives,” she offered blithely.
Kate choked on the liquid in her throat.
Shortly after noon, the doorbell rang. The camera mounted outside the front door captured the images of three men in police uniform. Her brothers. Carlo, Bruno and Antonio.
“Here come the Keystone Cops,” Steve murmured, making Martha laugh.
Kate stared reprovingly at the two of them. “They are my brothers, you know.”
“You have to admit,” Martha said, her eyes twinkling with merriment, “they do tend to trip over one another in their zeal to protect you. It can be quite comical to observe. Remember the time all six of them dropped by while you were hanging a painting in the dining room?”
Without waiting for her to reply, Martha turned to Steve. “As usual, they insisted on helping, then got into an argument about who was the best man for the job. There was a lot of shouting and posturing, and then they all went for the hammer at the same time. Carlo had finally wrestled control of it, when it flew out of his hands and hit the wall. Made a nice round hole, too. Kate had to hire someone to repair the plaster. While they were arguing over whose fault the hole was, she picked up the hammer and hung the painting herself.”
Steve chuckled. “Sounds like them, all right. Once, right after we were married, Kate was frying bacon while talking to Franco on the phone. The bacon got a little too crisp, which set off the smoke alarm. Kate told Franco she had to hang up, that something was burning. Five minutes later, sirens blaring, a fire engine screeched to a halt outside our apartment building. All six brothers arrived minutes later. We were the talk of the complex for the next week.”
The sound of their hearty laughter filled the room. Feeling invisible, Kate stared from Martha to Steve. They were entirely too chummy to her way of thinking. Not only did they seem to have forgotten her presence, but also the presence of the men on her doorst
ep. She didn’t see what was so funny. After all, this was her family they were laughing about.
“My all-time favorite story,” Martha went on, “is the one where they sat her down to tell her the facts of life. Can you picture the six of them surrounding one poor twelve-year-old? Carlo starts off by explaining that a woman’s reproductive system is like a flower, and that it has to be carefully nurtured for it to bloom properly. Roberto interrupts him and says no, no, no, that’s wrong. It’s like a defenseless animal that needs to be protected from nasty predators. Five minutes later, all six of them are rolling around on the floor, trading punches. When they finally composed themselves, Kate calmly told them they were all wrong. She then proceeded to explain, in painstaking detail, the exact path the sperm swims to meet the egg. When she finished, all six of them were red faced. They couldn’t get away from her fast enough.”
Grinning widely, Steve turned to Kate. “You never told me that one. It’s priceless.”
“I—” She opened her mouth to say that he wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets, and immediately lost her train of thought at the laughter in his eyes. Spellbound, she swallowed hard. How could anyone stare into the vivid blue of those smiling eyes and not fall under his spell? Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t look away.
This was the side of him she found the hardest to resist. This was the man she’d first met and fallen in love with. A man full of laughter and mischief. A man like no other.
As she continued to stare at him wordlessly, the laughter faded from his eyes, and another, deeper emotion took its place. Hunger. Hunger for her. She knew an answering yearning was reflected back at him in her own eyes.
The doorbell pealed again. With an effort of will, Kate tore her gaze from Steve’s. A glance at the monitors told her that her brothers were fast losing patience. With any luck, they would bring with them the news that the identity of her biggest fan was now known, that he was securely behind bars, and that she and Steve could get on with their lives. Separately.
“Is someone going to answer that,” she asked, “or do you want me to get it?”
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