Her Secret Affair

by Arlene James

  “Vichyssoise,” Brodie answered calmly, a twitch of his lips betraying his amusement, “potato soup, mild enough for your sister’s delicate digestion, cold enough for summertime consumption.”

  “I like hot potater soup,” Dude grumbled, eying the second bowl Kate passed to him with open suspicion.

  Harp reached over and snatched it away before Dude could sample this one, too. Plopping it down in front of Brown, he reached across Dude for another, growling, “If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.”

  Dude slapped his spoon down on the table and folded his arms. The rest of them ate in near silence. Even after Marcel entered with the main course, poached salmon and greens—which was, as always, sublime—no one seemed to have the heart for conversation, not even Brodie. It was doubly shocking then when Brown rose, immediately following the dessert service, and announced baldly to Janey, “I’ll start moving your things now.”

  “Moving?” Brodie echoed, a spoonful of sherbet halting midway to his mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, darling,” Janey said brightly, beaming that angelic smile, “Brown’s ruined the surprise. I’m ready to move back into our room now.”

  “You mean my room?” Brodie exclaimed.

  “Well, of course, I mean the master bedroom,” Janey said coyly. “I’ve so missed sleeping close to you.”

  Brodie actually laughed, the sound short and sharp. “Janey, we have never shared a bedroom, and we certainly aren’t going to start now.”

  Janey darted a glance at her father, but her smile and tone remained sweet. “But we’re married, a-and I miss you.”

  A muscle flexed in the hollow of Brodie’s clamped jaw. “No,” he said flatly.

  “It must seem old-fashioned,” Viola said, leaping into the conversational breach, “but I assure you that none of the better people actually share a bedroom. I suppose it’s a matter of preference, but there are many who consider it quite common behavior, really. I certainly wouldn’t want to share.”

  “Yeah,” Seth put in seriously. “I don’ want sharin’, too.”

  Everyone laughed at that except Janey, who snapped, “Someone needs to teach him some manners!”

  The levity died swiftly as Brodie leveled a warning look at Janey. “His manners are just fine for a three-year-old.”

  Janey immediately went saccharine again. “I only meant that he needs to learn to share.”

  “You wouldn’t know what he needs,” Brodie retorted, and behind her determined smile, Janey colored violently.

  “I think we’ll go up,” Viola said smoothly, rising from her chair. “Seth needs a bath before bed.”

  Marcel, Nate and Brodie leapt to their feet, but the notion of standing in deference to an elderly lady never seemed to occur to the Shellys. Brodie rose and helped Viola remove Seth from his chair. Once he was free, Viola ushered the boy quickly toward the door.

  “I’ll be up to help in a few minutes,” Brodie called.

  “Chey-Chey come,” Seth insisted.

  Chey glanced at Brodie then at Janey, who was glaring at her from across the table.

  “Uh, Ms. Chey has…something else to do,” Brodie told the boy, but Chey shook her head and got up, glad for any excuse to escape the hostility directed toward her.

  “No, it’s all right. I’ll be glad to give Viola a hand.”

  Seth waved happily at this news and allowed his great-grandmother to take him from the room.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Brodie told her. “I’ll go up as soon as I’ve had a private word with Nate.”

  Chey glanced at Janey, then said softly to Brodie, “I want to do it.”

  Brodie’s eyes warmed significantly, and he took her hand in his. “Thank you. I promise it won’t become a habit.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she told him lightly, worried about it.

  “Listen,” he said, his voice pitched intimately low, “I have a movie I think you’d enjoy. Join me for that later?” Chey knew what her part was supposed to be and nodded.

  “I would enjoy a movie,” Janey purred.

  “I want to talk to you, girl,” Harp growled, putting an end to that.

  She frowned, then nodded in apparent resignation and said, “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Come up when you can,” Chey said lightly.

  Brodie squeezed her hand, promising, “I’ll join you soon.” Then he looked pointedly to Nate Begay. “If you have a minute, Nate, I’d like to discuss Janey’s treatment with you now.”

  The other man nodded and rose. “Sure thing.”

  Chey thanked Marcel for the excellent meal and slipped from the room. It had been a long, trying day, and she could only wonder how many more she must endure before she could return to her simple, solitary life. The larger puzzle was why that thought didn’t bring the comfort she expected.

  Her bedroom door opened, and Chey glanced away from the screen of the computer propped against her knees. Two bright blue eyes peeped up at her from the edge of the high tester bed upon which she rested. She squelched the urge to reach out and ruffle the silky, bright red hair. More and more often over the past few days, she’d been squelching similar urges.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you should knock first and wait to be invited inside?” she asked mildly.

  The boy shook his head, wide-eyed. Then, at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, he dropped down onto his belly and slid under the bed. Chey’s mouth fell open and an unguarded chuckle tumbled out. Setting aside the laptop, she rolled onto her side, grasped the canopy post with one hand and leaned down to lift the crocheted bed skirt with the other, peering beneath it. Seth lay with his hands clapped over his mouth as if to prevent any unintentional sound.

  “Come out from under there,” she said. He shook his head. “Why not?”

  Just then the door swung open again, and Chey jerked up in time to see Harp Shelly stick his head inside and glance around the room, demanding rudely, “Did that boy come in here?” That boy, not my grandson or Seth, but that boy.

  Chey sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I would appreciate it if you’d knock before you open my door again,” she said firmly.

  Harp smirked and replied, “I’m lookin’ for the kid,” as if that were excuse enough. “I went in to tell him goodnight, an’ he said I stunk, jumped outta bed and run off. Someone needs to teach him some proper behavin’.”

  Chey had stood downwind of Harp on a couple of occasions now, and she could readily attest to the fact that the man did, indeed, smell unpleasantly of stale tobacco, sour alcohol and unwashed sweat. She had noticed, as well, that his breath could peel paint. She could not, however, implicitly condone the boy’s behavior, but neither did she mean to turn him over to Harp Shelly.

  She folded her arms and glared at the man, saying, “I suggest you leave that to someone who knows better than to barge into a private room without first knocking and being granted permission to enter.”

  “Whatsa matter? ’Fraid I’ll catch you and my son-in-law playin’ house?”

  “Ex-son-in-law,” she corrected firmly, not bothering to deny the accusation.

  Harp Shelly narrowed his eyes and growled, “Ain’t you got no shame?”

  “More than you. Now get out of my room.”

  He glared, stepped back through the door and yanked it closed behind him. She waited until the count of ten, then bent and lifted the bed skirt again. “You can come out now. He’s gone.”

  After a moment, Seth dragged himself out from under the bed and got to his feet. With a sigh, Chey sat down on the edge of the bed. Uninvited, he crawled up beside her with much pulling and sliding of the covers. She lifted a censorial eyebrow. “It is not polite to tell people they smell bad, even if they do.”

  He wrinkled his nose and bowed his head, mumbling, “Don’t like Grumpa.”

  “All the more reason to be polite,” Chey told him. “It’s all right not to like someone, Seth. It’s not all right to hurt them and
say bad things to them or about them. Do you understand?” He turned up huge, guileless eyes and nodded solemnly. “In that case,” she decided, “I won’t have to tell your father about any of this.” Seth immediately brightened, so she judiciously added a caveat. “But if it happens again, your father will be instantly informed. Is that clear?”

  He nodded again and clambered up onto his knees to wind his arms about her neck and squeeze hard. She laughed and hugged him back. Only as he was sliding out of her embrace did it occur to her that she had just done a very mommylike thing. She had offered guidance and safety and comfort and affection to a child about whom she cared a great deal, without even thinking about it. She closed her eyes, ambivalence and affection shivering through her, then quickly set him on his feet.

  They moved to the bedroom door. Chey opened it slightly, looked both ways and tiptoed out into the hall, Seth’s small hand clasped firmly in hers. He giggled, thinking it an elaborate game and crept along exaggeratedly behind her. They had just reached the nursery door when another opened elsewhere and voices, though lowered, could be clearly heard.

  “I still think this is a mistake.”

  “Look, the longer I’m in that chair the longer Begay will be around.”

  Recognizing the voices of Brown and Janey, Chey quickly hustled Seth through the door into the nursery, motioning him to silence. He looked up at her curiously while she listened at the crack in the door. She’d lost part of the conversation but quickly picked up on the rest.

  “…stay vulnerable. Harp says you can’t get well too quick.”

  “I don’t care what Daddy says,” Janey snapped. “Begay is too much of a threat, and the only way to get rid of him is for me to get well.”

  They seemed to stop just past the door, and the next voice was Brown’s. “That may be so, but it don’t get rid of that Simmons hussy, and until we can find a way to do that, you got to stay sick.”

  “Oh, it’s hopeless, Brown,” Janey moaned. “He’s in love with her!”

  “Don’t you say that!” Brown ordered sharply. “You just stay the course, young lady, or Harp will know why, and you know how he gets.”

  “I know better than anyone,” Janey hissed, “and you’re not my stepmother yet, so don’t try to tell me what to do!” With that she flounced off, her footsteps just slightly uneven as she moved down the hall. Brown heaved a sigh and clumped after her, muttering under her breath.

  So Brodie was right. Harp was masterminding this whole amnesia ploy, and Brown was helping him, apparently believing he’d marry her, silly woman. Their plan, hers and Brodie’s, was definitely beginning to show results. Chey put her back to the door, folding her arms in satisfaction. Only then did she look down and recall that Seth was standing there. He curved his mouth into a big smile and said, “I real quiet.”

  Smiling, she leaned forward and cupped his face in both her hands. “Yes, you were,” she praised. “Thank you very much. Now let’s find your great-grandmother to tuck you back into bed. I need to talk to your father.”

  She laid her head back against the side of the pool and lifted her hips, allowing her body to float atop the cool water. Brodie had decided it was time to step up the program. Beside her, he peered over the edge of the pool and murmured, “Here she comes.” Janey had been moving freely for several days now, resorting to the wheelchair only after a strenuous physical therapy session or whenever she thought it might garner her some sympathy.

  Moving back from the edge of the pool, Brodie hooked an arm about Chey’s waist and pulled her against him. Aware of a building charge of electricity between them, Chey allowed her feet to sink and lifted her arms around his neck. Brodie grinned, arched a wicked eyebrow, and laid his mouth across hers, his hands smoothing over her back. She moaned as her breasts flattened against his sleek, muscular chest, and his tongue slid into her mouth.

  Despite the fact that this was for show, her heart was slamming inside her chest, and her head had started a slow, disorienting spin. He was equally moved, she knew. The evidence rode against her abdomen, hard and long and thick. Everything else gradually faded away, and she hooked a leg around his, craving the heat and weight of him. Dimly, in some part of her mind, she was aware of a grating sound in the distance, but she had forgotten about Janey and the little scene they were staging for her. All she could think about was the man kissing her as if he never meant to let her go.

  She didn’t recognize the vague clicking noise as heels on cement until those same shoes came to a sliding, hissing halt. Suddenly aware of an audience, Chey felt herself beginning to pull back, but that was precisely when Brodie deepened the kiss, cupping her bottom beneath the water and pulling her hard against him. His palm slid along her thigh, encouraging her to twine a second leg around him. Allowing him and the water to take her weight, she pressed her most private, needy part against the hot ridge throbbing between them and completely forgot about Janey—until Brodie turned his head slightly, his mouth still pressed to hers, and made a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat.

  Memory slid back, and Chey opened her eyes, whispering against his mouth, “Is she gone?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Did she see us?”

  “Mmm.”

  “We can stop then?”

  “Um-um.”

  He once more deepened the kiss, plundering with exquisite finesse and attention to detail. The lapping water buffeted their bodies, creating delightful frictions and maddening pressures until she was breathless and mindless and desperate. She remembered in lush detail every moment of the night they’d made love, increments of sensation and completion flashing over her, the frightening intensity of satisfaction that so temptingly beckoned her now. When he turned her and carried her two long, heavy steps to the side of the pool, she wrapped herself tighter about him, answering every manipulation of his mouth with an equally fervent one of her own.

  He held her there against the side of the pool with the weight of his body and the force of his mouth, his hands roaming where they would. She realized how easy, how wonderful, it would be to make love here in the pool, and her own hands wandered below the surface of the water. It was then that a small voice quite close to her ear calmly said, “Daddy, I whim wif woo?”

  Chey knocked both elbows painfully against the edge of the pool even as Brodie jerked away. Widening his eyes at his son, he demanded, “Seth, what are you doing out here? You know you aren’t supposed to come inside the gate without an adult.”

  “Mommy open it,” Seth said plaintively.

  “Your mother brought you out here?” Brodie asked skeptically. If so, Chey thought, it would be the first time to her knowledge that Janey had given the child the time of day. Seth shrugged in answer to his father’s question, and Brodie lifted a censorial brow. “You followed her out here secretly, didn’t you?”

  Seth shrugged again, then looked at Chey, lifted a finger and pressed it to his lips. Chey disciplined a smile. Obviously the tyke understood more about eavesdropping on his mother than she had assumed. She cleared her throat. Just then another voice lifted.

  “Seth! Get away from there! How did you get inside the gate?”

  Brodie stepped aside so Viola could see him. “It’s all right, Grandmama.”

  “Oh, Brodie. He scared the fool out of me. I went in to check on him and his bed was empty.”

  “He followed his mother out here,” Brodie told her. “I’ll have a talk with her about it. Meanwhile, I’m having a lock put on that gate. But first, I’m going to take Seth upstairs and have a stern conversation with him.”

  “Da-a-ddy,” Seth whined. “I wanna whim!”

  “Seth, you disobeyed the rules,” Brodie told him calmly. “You know that you aren’t supposed to be anywhere near the pool without permission.”

  “Chey-Chey?” A little hand snaked around her neck, and she gave him a look that let him know he’d be getting no support—but no scolding—from that quarter. At his downcast look, she twisted around,
placed her palms on the edge of the pool and propelled herself upward.

  “Come on,” she said to the boy, reaching for a towel. “I’ll go back to the house with you. Okay?” The fact that she was escaping Brodie and the possibility of picking up where they’d left off provided strong incentive, now that her blood had cooled somewhat.

  Seth nodded and reached for her hand, blinking against the small shower of water that sluiced from her body. Behind her, Brodie began wading toward the steps. Seth’s little hand clasped Chey’s as they walked toward the house.

  Inside, she was quaking, knowing how very close she had come to surrendering her body to Brodie a second time. Now all she had to worry about was surrendering her heart to his son.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chey knew the moment that she opened the door that she wasn’t alone. Her gaze swept the room and came to rest on the figure standing before the window. She wondered why she was surprised and reflected wryly that the pool gate was not the only portal in this place that needed a lock. Steadying the towel that she’d wrapped around her head, she stepped into the room and closed the door.

  “You Shellys have a real problem with privacy issues.”

  Janey turned awkwardly, a pitying smile curving her mouth. She sighed and reached for the bedpost, leaning dramatically against it, her wispy chiffon skirts floating about her. “I’m not a Shelly,” she said. “I’m a Todd, Mrs. Brodie Todd. I understand, of course, why you’d like to forget that. You want my husband for yourself. And I understand that, too.”

  “Do you?” Chey said with some surprise. “How magnanimous of you.”

  “Brodie’s a very attractive man,” Janey went on, her voice all that was reasonable and calm. “Any woman would want him, but not just any woman would go after him. Don’t you feel bad that you’re breaking up my marriage and destroying my family?”

  Chey felt chilled in the air-conditioned room, her wet swimsuit beginning to cling uncomfortably to her drying skin, but Janey’s pretense sent her blood pressure straight through the top of her head. “What family?” she snapped. “The issue of your ‘marriage’ aside, you hardly seem to know your son exists.”