The Work Wife

by Allison B Hanson

  “I did. I said it to him. I told him you wouldn’t be touching anything he would need to review. That I prepare all the plans myself.”

  “Wow. I had no idea.”

  “Exactly. I was protecting you from something you would have worried about unnecessarily. I’m sure that’s what your father is doing as well.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “James, I’m always right.”

  “You said this was a really bad plan,” she reminded him.

  “If I had to pick something to be wrong about, I hope it’s that.” He rested his hands on her hips, then brushed a strand of hair out of her face. When she looked up at him, he could still see a hint of worry in her eyes, so he bent to pick her up and pretend to throw her into the icy water.

  She screamed and kicked, but when he put her down she caught her breath and smiled up at him.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Anytime.”

  * * * *

  Jamie gave up on her plans to break into her father’s room and tried to relax and enjoy their visit.

  When they got back from their walk, Wes offered to make dinner in exchange for getting out of clean-up duty. Jamie and her father jumped at the chance.

  Jamie loved to cook and she had a few things she did well. Where she got into trouble was with recipes that had more than six ingredients. And pancakes, apparently. The concept of wet into dry still eluded her.

  It wasn’t until she was elbow deep in suds that she realized what was really happening. Wes had been with her nearly every minute of their trip so far. But now he had donned his jacket and went out the door for a walk.

  Either her new husband was sick of her already, or he was giving her time alone with her father.

  “How are things with you?” she asked casually.

  “Good,” he answered. “The same as they were yesterday when you asked, and earlier today.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t keep asking if I believed your answer.”

  “Maybe you need to ask the right question.”

  “You said the checkup went well.”

  “It did.”

  “I thought I saw a lot of medicine bottles in the cupboard. But now they’re not there.”

  “They were old. I got rid of them.”

  “You seem tired.”

  “I’m older than the medicine bottles.”

  “You’re really okay?” She watched his face when he answered, looking for the lie.

  “I’m great. I’d be perfect if you stopped fussing.”

  Damn. She couldn’t tell anything from his expression. He was skilled in the art of deception. Except, he’d overreached. “Perfect?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Maybe not perfect. My only child got married without even so much as a phone call. I didn’t have a chance to check him out.”

  “I don’t want you to check him out, Daddy. I mean it.”

  “Sorry, princess. It’s already in the works.”

  She let out a sigh of annoyance and shrugged. “Fine.” She dried off her hands and tossed the towel at him. “But you won’t find anything on him. Weston is the most normal guy you’ll ever meet.”

  “Everyone seems normal. Until you see their record.”

  “Not everyone.”

  “I know you snuck out of the house your senior year to go to a party.”

  “And I know that’s not in my record; you stole that information from my subconscious while I was sleepwalking the other night. Wes told me.” She stuck out her tongue. “Nice try, apple pie.”

  “I see married life is maturing you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You know how much I hate that word.” There had been a time when that word had been the extent of her side of their conversations. Back when she was a surly teenager who knew everything.

  “I’m sorry I was so much trouble. I bet some days you wished you would have left me with my mother so you wouldn’t have had to deal with it.”

  He hung the towel on the handle of the oven and shook his head. “Not once did I ever wish I’d left you with your mother. In fact, most of the time I wished I would have never let her take you in the first place.”

  She pushed out her bottom lip and tilted her head to the side at his emotional display. But then he spoke again.

  “Yeah, I think you must have suffered some kind of damage from being around all the drugs.”

  “I don’t think you can get a contact high from a line of coke in the next room.”

  “Well then, I don’t know what your problem is.” He snickered at his own joke.

  She didn’t think she’d ever heard her father laugh out loud. She’d heard him chuckle and snicker, but he was always too serious for actual laughter.

  He kissed her forehead and squeezed her shoulders. “I love you, sweetie.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  They took their places in the living room as the news came on. It felt like old times.

  Wes came back an hour later with a pie from the diner up the street. “I brought dessert.” He held it up with a big grin.

  “What kind is it?” she asked. While Jamie saw pie as the lesser pastry to cake, she wouldn’t pass it up if it was offered.

  “Apple crumb.”

  “Hmm,” her father grumped. “You might not be so bad after all.”

  When her father was in the kitchen, Wes nudged her with his elbow and pointed. “I think that’s the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Don’t push it. You didn’t bring ice cream to go with the pie. It’s obvious I could have done better than you. I’m clearly slumming.”

  “Seriously?” He followed her. “You think you would have found someone better than me on that dating site? The free dating site?”

  Her father had walked into the kitchen in time to hear Wes’s comment.

  “That Jacob guy you were seeing did time for sexual assault. I was about ready to have my friend in the computer crime lab hack into your computer so I could shut down your profile.”

  “Not cool.” She frowned. “I don’t want the two of you bonding by ganging up on me about things I am not even doing anymore.”

  “I’m just saying, I’m better than Jacob.”

  “Time will tell,” her father mumbled just loud enough for them to hear.

  They ate their pie in silence and then went to get ready for bed.

  “Did you have a nice walk?” she asked as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. She saw some muscle definition in his back and gave an impressed nod before he turned around. His going skins in front of her was no big deal.

  He turned his back and reached for the button on his pants. They’d come up with this plan the first night so it wouldn’t seem strange that they went to the bathroom to change. After all, husbands and wives didn’t have an issue changing in front of each other.

  She turned her back on him and quickly got changed.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered when she was in her pajamas.

  They took turns brushing their teeth and when she came back, he was already in bed. Having a warm body in the bed on a chilly evening was a nice feature. Even though the body took up more than half of the bed.

  “Did you talk to your dad about the pills?”

  “Yeah. I asked him straight out. He said he’s great. He said the checkup went well.”

  “And you’re still not convinced?”

  “I know he wouldn’t come out with it on his own, but if I asked him . . . I know he’d tell me the truth. He always hated lying.”

  “Good. Then you can rest easy.”

  And rest easy she did. At least for a little while.

  Hearing the door to her bedroom open woke her from her peaceful sleep. Light spilled in
from the crack at the door, and her father’s shadow stretched across the room to the edge of the bed.

  When she’d lived at home she’d seen him check on her a million times. She never knew if he was worried that someone might have kidnapped her without a sound, or if he was trying to catch her doing something.

  Whatever his worry now, he must have been satisfied by what he saw. It was only after he’d backed away and closed the door that Jamie noticed the weight of Weston’s arm across her body.

  He’d moved closer to her in sleep and had pulled her against him. His face was nestled against her shoulder and she could feel his warm breath on her skin.

  Without bothering him to move, she fell back to sleep. Easy dreams filled her mind and Weston was gone in the morning when she woke.

  * * * *

  Weston was getting ready to start breakfast when Mr. Witmer came into the kitchen the next morning.

  “Let’s go out for coffee,” the man suggested and pointed toward the door.

  Weston nodded, ready to face the inevitable.

  As he followed the man down the sidewalk, he wondered which thing he would bring up first. How Wes wasn’t good enough for his daughter, or how he was still pissed they’d gotten married in secret.

  He’d heard Chris Witmer refer to him as “The Husband.” Surely it was better than some of the names he’d come up with for Jamie’s past boyfriends.

  “You probably think I don’t like you,” the man said before they were even on the sidewalk.

  Wes looked up at the blue sky. It was a little crisp, but the sun would warm things up soon enough. He wouldn’t tell Jamie, but it was nice not to have his balls crawl up in his throat when he left the house.

  “I didn’t give you much reason to like me,” he admitted. He couldn’t imagine having a daughter. It must feel like being a goalie with hundreds of dickheads trying to get their puck in the net. It would be exhausting trying to defend against that. Especially if the net didn’t cooperate.

  “I didn’t approve when I first found out. I wanted to be able to walk my baby girl down the aisle someday. But she seems happy.”

  Guilt clenched Weston’s stomach. He hadn’t realized how selfish he and Jamie had been to hastily get married without a care for how her father might feel about it.

  He knew his mother would be furious when she found out, but for an entirely different reason. To see the pain on Mr. Witmer’s face, he knew he needed to fix it.

  “If you’ll excuse me. I just thought of something I need to take care of.”

  Chapter 9

  Jamie’s hand fell back to her side after waving to Weston as he sped off in the rental car he’d had dropped off that morning. She’d offered to drive him wherever he needed to go, in her father’s car, but he said he wanted to have a car. Maybe he was planning to make a break for it.

  “What did you do?” she asked her father.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why is my husband running away?”

  “If he scared off that easily it’s better that you find out now, isn’t it?”

  “And after he’d made it through the pancakes,” she joked.

  “You don’t seem to be worried.”

  “No. I know he’ll be back.” If there was anyone she knew she could count on, it was Weston. He’d always be there. She knew that without a doubt.

  It only hit her at that moment. There were married people who didn’t know that about their spouses. Real married people. How sad that must be, to feel alone even though someone lived with you.

  She looked back toward the window, missing her pretend husband.

  By lunchtime, Jamie was starting to worry. Not that Wes had left her, but that something had happened to him. He wasn’t answering his cell, because he’d left it in their room. No doubt, out of respect for her father who complained twice about how young people always have their noses stuck to their phones. They were missing life go by. Though he was amused when she’d shared the video of cats that were afraid of cucumbers.

  She had almost talked her father into calling the station when the car pulled up.

  Wes walked inside as if he were right on time.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, sounding the part of the nagging wife.

  “I had something to take care of.”

  “What could you possibly have to take care of here?”

  “Something.” He shrugged, as if that one word should have been good enough.

  “At least you could have brought another pie,” her father added with his normal frown.

  She thought Wes might tell her what was going on later when they got ready for bed, but he stuck to his “something” excuse and just smiled when she pouted.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Soon? How soon?”

  “Friday.”

  “Friday?” Her voice squeaked. Friday was two days away. And they would be packing to fly out on Saturday morning. “You know how I feel about surprises.”

  “You know I live to torment you.”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  “You’ve turned into quite a nag. I don’t know why I married you.” He smirked as she hit him in the stomach.

  * * * *

  It was difficult for Wes to sneak out in the morning. Mr. Witmer had ears like a father.

  “Can’t help but notice you’re leaving again.” The man crossed his arms with a smug look on his face.

  “Yeah. I’ll be back in a little while. I have something to do.”

  “Something?”

  “Right.” His one-word answer wasn’t going to work forever. But then, it only had to work until Friday.

  “But you’re not going to elaborate?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Know this. If you’re fooling around on my daughter not even a week after you promised to be faithful, I’ll end you.”

  “If I were to do such a thing, I would want to be ended. That would be pretty low, and I’m honored that you would think I would do such a thing.”

  “I don’t like sarcasm.”

  “But Jamie—”

  “I don’t like sarcasm when she does it either.”

  “But you like her more than me,” Wes said.

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  Weston wanted to point out the sarcasm in Mr. Witmer’s answer, but decided it wouldn’t work in his favor.

  “Is there anything you need in town?”

  “If you can find a time machine to go back and let me talk some sense into my daughter, that would be nice.”

  “How far back would you need to go?”

  Mr. Witmer scrunched up his face in thought before answering.

  “Pretty far.” The man smiled, actually smiled at Weston. It only lasted for a second or two, but Wes saw it as a step in the right direction. Hopefully his plan would get him closer to winning the man over.

  His plans kept him busy most of the day and into the evening. He faced matching looks of annoyance even though he’d brought a pizza from Jamie’s favorite place.

  He didn’t sleep well that night. He was too excited. Jamie, once again, tried to weasel information out of him before they went to bed, but he’d kept it a secret. He left in the morning before anyone was up to go take care of a few last-minute things.

  When he returned, it was to find matching frowns on the faces of Jamie and her father. It was time. Finally.

  “Thank you for your patience.”

  Her father didn’t call him on the sarcasm this time, though Wes had been oozing with it.

  “I’d like to take my wife and father-in-law out for lunch.”

  “You’re laying it on a little thick aren’t you?” Jamie whispered so her father wouldn’t hear.

  “Just go with it.” He hoped he hadn’t made a huge mistak
e. “Trust me.”

  * * * *

  Trust him, Wes had told Jamie.

  Despite all his strange behavior the last couple of days, she did trust him.

  “I made reservations at Diablo’s for two o’clock,” Wes announced as Jamie stared at him in confusion. What was he doing? It sure wouldn’t have taken all morning and the day before to make a reservation.

  “Wow. Diablo’s. Swanky.” Her father seemed impressed.

  Jamie was more suspicious than impressed. It only got worse when it was time to go and Weston asked her to wear a nice dress.

  “I didn’t exactly bring a nice dress. I didn’t know my pretend husband was going to lose his mind,” she whispered when they were alone in her room.

  “I’m not your pretend husband. I’m your legal husband, and I haven’t lost my mind. Or rather, I haven’t lost any more of my mind than when you talked me into this crazy plan of yours. Now humor me and put on something nice.”

  “Fine.”

  Ten minutes later she was in the living room in a black party dress from college that she found in her closet. She’d done her hair and everything, but Weston frowned when he saw her.

  “What?” she said defensively.

  “Black?”

  “I have four dresses here, Weston. Every one of them is black. One of them I wore in fourth-grade chorus.” She wasn’t sure why it was taking up real estate in a closet. “What color is my dress supposed to be?”

  “Never mind. You look great. Let’s get going. We have a stop to make before we eat.”

  He held the door for her and then jumped in the driver’s side. She hated surprises, but he looked so damned excited, she didn’t want to ruin whatever he had planned.

  She looked over at him as he drove. He was wearing gray slacks and a white shirt. He even had a tie. He hated wearing a tie. Her father was also wearing a tie. He fidgeted with it in the back seat.

  As she wondered what could be so important to warrant a tie, they pulled up in front of St. Matthew’s.

  “Oh, my God,” she said.

  “Relax.”

  “We’re not even Methodist,” she whispered to him as they walked up the sidewalk where the pastor was waiting.

  “Well, I am. Kind of.” He winked at her. “Just go along with it. We’re not doing this for us. It’s for him.” He gestured over his shoulder to her father, who was following behind them looking confused.