When I'm With You

by JoAnn Ross

  “Peter and I talked it over last night,” Caitlin said. “We want to take Sammy.”

  “Take Sammy?”

  “You know, give him a home.”

  “He has a home.”

  “A broken one.” Caitlin gave a small, stifled sob.

  Again, Joanna’s eyes stung. “Yes,” she admitted, suddenly imagining all of them—herself, Teague, Caitlin and Sammy—picking their way around the storm-tossed wreckage of some once-great ship, unable to reach each other. “A broken one.”

  “I guess Sammy wouldn’t be happy in this little apartment,” Caitlin admitted.

  Suddenly needing to move, Joanna wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room to stand with one bent knee resting on the window seat cushion. Sunlight danced, dazzling on the water—it was as if there’d been no storm in the night, as if she’d dreamed it.

  While Caitlin talked on, Joanna, only half listening, stared out at the sandy, stony beach in front of the cottage and remembered Teague and Sammy playing there. Teague throwing sticks, Sammy chasing them, bringing them back.

  “Sammy needs your father,” Joanna said.

  And deep in her heart, a silent voice added, And so do I.

  Chapter Three

  By the time Sammy and Teague returned from their supermarket mission, Joanna had brought the bumpy conversation with Caitlin in for a safe landing, gathered up the quilts from the living-room floor, and opened several windows to the warmth of the day.

  “He’s jonesing for a walk,” Teague said with a nod toward Sammy as Joanna stepped outside to help carry in the bags of groceries stuffed into the tiny trunk of the sports car. “Think breakfast could wait?”

  Joanna smiled even as her heart splintered inside her. Why couldn’t life always be like this—simple, easy, glazed in sunlight? “Sure,” she said.

  So they left the groceries, and Teague caught hold of her hand, and they went across the dirt road and down the bank to the beach, Sammy gamboling joyfully ahead of them.

  Joanna bit her lower lip, watching him, trying to stay another spate of tears. They would have this one last glorious weekend together, she and Teague and Sammy. She envied the dog because he couldn’t know just how short the time would be.

  “What?” Teague asked, noticing what she was trying so hard to hide.

  “I was just wondering—do you think we tried hard enough?”

  Teague looked puzzled.

  “To save our marriage, Teague,” Joanna prompted.

  “No,” Teague said. He bent, still holding Joanna’s hand firmly, and picked up a stick. He tossed it a little ways for Sammy, who shot after it, a streak of happy, golden dog catapulting down the beach.

  “What could we have done differently?”

  “Talked, maybe. Instead of always assuming we already knew what the other was thinking or feeling and proceeding from there.”

  “Talked,” Joanna mused. “Tell me about your boat, Teague. The one you want to build.”

  “You hate boats. They make you claustrophobic and seasick,” Teague reminded her.

  She smiled. “True,” she said. “But talking about them is not the same thing as spending weeks at sea.”

  “Weeks at sea?” Teague echoed, confused.

  “Aren’t you planning to sail around the Horn or something?”

  He chuckled, though whether it was because her question had amused him or because Sammy was nudging him in the knees with the stick, wanting him to toss it again, Joanna had no way of knowing.

  So she waited, strangely breathless.

  “No,” Teague finally said after throwing the stick, a little farther this time, and watching as Sammy raced after it. “I just want to go fishing.”

  “Then why not simply buy a boat?” Joanna asked. “Why go to all the trouble of building one?”

  “For the experience, Joanna,” Teague answered. “I’m used to building things. Caitlin’s backyard playhouse. The dog steps in there by the window seat. The company.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said. “I guess I pictured you sailing the high seas.”

  Sammy came back with the stick, but he was tiring. He wasn’t used to running along beaches anymore.

  Teague spotted a fallen log a little way down the beach and led Joanna there to sit. Sammy lay down gratefully in the sand, panting but still holding on to his treasured stick.

  “You pictured me sailing the high seas,” Teague said, gazing out over the waters of the sound, so tranquil now, so dangerously stormy the night before. He looked sadly amused. “No doubt with a long-legged blonde for a first mate?”

  Joanna hesitated, then let her head rest against the side of Teague’s shoulder for a long moment. “And the whole time, you were imagining a dinghy a hundred yards from shore?”

  “Pretty much,” Teague said.

  “I should have asked you.”

  “I should have told you, whether you asked or not.” Teague slipped an arm around Joanna and held her close for a moment. “Are we still pretending right now, Joanna,” he asked, “or is this real?”

  “I’m not sure,” Joanna said softly.

  “Me, either,” Teague admitted. He leaned to stroke Sammy’s mist-dampened back. “I’m not sure of much of anything right now.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “Tell me about the novel.”

  “It would be about a marriage. A young couple falling in love, having a child, building a wonderful life together—and growing apart in ordinary ways. Becoming strangers to each other.”

  “You forgot about the golden retriever they adopted at the pound,” Teague said, with an attempt at a grin that pierced Joanna’s heart again.

  “Oh, I didn’t forget that,” Joanna answered.

  “Will they break up, these people in your book? Or will they work things out?” He was looking deep into her eyes now, peeling back the layers of her very soul. “Stay together for the sake of the dog, maybe?”

  Joanna chuckled, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s too late for them. Maybe it would be better—kinder—to just cut their losses and run.”

  Sammy had recovered after his brief rest and got to his feet, eager to chase the stick again.

  Teague let his arm fall slowly from around Joanna’s shoulders and stood, Sammy’s stick in his hand. “Time to head back,” he told the dog. “You don’t want to overdo it, boy.”

  Joanna rose, too, reluctantly. She’d wanted so much to hold on to the moment she and Teague had shared, but it was already gone.

  So the three of them walked back to the cottage, one buoyant with faith in a good world, two doing their best to pretend things weren’t falling apart.

  Joanna needed to be busy, so she constructed an elaborate omelet from the contents of Teague’s grocery bags. While she cooked, he plugged his cell phone in to charge, in case of another power outage, and carried in more wood from the shed out back. The transistor radio burbled news from the kitchen counter.

  Some of the ferry docks had been damaged in the storm, so only a few routes were still being run, and while the weather was good now, there was another system brewing off the coast, one that might get ugly. She switched off the radio, set the table, poured juice, and waited while Teague washed up at the kitchen sink.

  “I guess we couldn’t get back to Seattle today even if we wanted to,” she said lightly, wondering all the time she was speaking why she was practically holding her breath for Teague’s reaction.

  “Oh?” Teague asked without turning around.

  “Maybe not tomorrow, either. According to the news, we’re likely to have another storm.”

  “That’s terrible,” Teague said, but when he faced Joanna at last, he was grinning. “Absolutely the worst thing that could possibly happen.”

  Confused, Joanna blinked, momentarily speechless.

  “No wonder everybody was buying up all the bottled water and propane when Sammy and I were at the market,” Teague said.


  Sammy, lying on a nearby rug, lifted his head at the sound of his name, then rested it on his forelegs again when he realized no stick was going to be thrown.

  “You’re being awfully casual about this,” Joanna said.

  Teague rounded the table, stood behind Joanna, placed his hands on her shoulders, and gently but firmly pressed her into her chair. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Well, maybe we should stock up on bottled water and propane.”

  “Eat, Joanna,” Teague said, sitting down across from her and helping himself to half the omelet. “I bought some already. Madge Potter will drop it off later, in her truck.”

  Madge, who had lived on Firefly Island all her life, was a local institution. She published the small weekly newspaper, dug clams when the tides were right and sold them door to door—and delivered groceries.

  “You’re enjoying this,” Joanna accused, but she was smiling.

  “The omelet? Definitely. This is first-rate, Joanna. No wonder your cookbooks sell like—”

  “Hotcakes?” Joanna teased.

  He grinned. “Does the woman in your book write cookbooks?”

  “No,” Joanna said. She hadn’t written a word of the novel yet, but Teague spoke as though she were halfway through. “She’s a chef and owns an elegant restaurant.”

  Teague paused, swallowed, and frowned thoughtfully. “Oh,” he said. When he met Joanna’s gaze, his blue eyes were solemn, even grave. “Do you wish you’d become a chef? Started that restaurant you used to talk about?”

  Joanna considered. “No,” she said. “It would have taken too much time. Raising Caitlin and being your wife pretty much filled my dance card.”

  “ Pretty much’?”

  “I was happy, Teague.”

  “Emphasis on the ‘was’?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Joanna, if you were happy, we wouldn’t be dividing everything we own—including the dog.”

  “If you were happy, you wouldn’t have worked eighteen-hour days long after the company was up and running,” Joanna said. “You wouldn’t have bought a sports car.”

  “That again? It’s a car, Joanna. Not an effort to recapture my youth.”

  Joanna lowered her fork to the table and stared down at her portion of the omelet, as yet untouched.

  “Look,” Teague said, making an obvious effort to hold on to his temper, “if the car bothers you so much, I’ll sell it.”

  She looked up. “You’d do that?”

  Before he could answer, a vehicle rattled into the driveway alongside the house, backfired a couple of times, and clunked its way to a reverberating silence.

  “Madge is here,” Teague said. And he smiled.

  In the next moment, a knock sounded at the back door.

  Sammy gave an uncertain woof and slowly raised himself to all four feet.

  Teague went to the door.

  “Got your water and propane and all that camping stuff,” Madge boomed out. “It’s an extra ten bucks over and above what you already paid me if I gotta unload it.”

  Teague chuckled. “Come in and have coffee with Joanna,” he told Madge. “I’ll unload the truck.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Madge thundered as Teague stepped back to let her pass. She was a tall, burly-looking woman, well into her sixties and clad in her usual bib overalls, flannel shirt, and rubber fishing boots. Her broad face was weathered by years of wind and salt-water spray, her gray hair stood out around her head, thick and unruly, and her smile was warm and full of genuine interest. She leaned to pat Sammy on the head once before he followed Teague outside.

  “Hello, Madge,” Joanna said, already filling a mug from the coffeemaker. “Have you eaten?”

  “Hours ago,” Madge proclaimed. “Not a bit hungry. That was some storm we had last night, wasn’t it? Nils and me, we thought it would take the roof right off our cabin.”

  Nils was Madge’s live-in boyfriend. He worked on the fishing boats in Alaska in season and ran the printing press when he was home. He was a good twenty years younger than Madge and was known to write her long, poetic letters when he was away.

  “Sit down,” Joanna invited, handing Madge the steaming mug.

  “Best stand,” Madge said. “Sit down too much, and these old bones might just rust enough so’s I can’t get up again.”

  Joanna chuckled. As colloquial and homey as Madge’s speech was, she wrote like the seasoned journalist she was. Joanna particularly enjoyed her column, which contained everything from political diatribes to recipes to local gossip. “Not likely,” she said.

  “Good to see you and Teague out here together,” Madge went on, narrowing her eyes speculatively. “The way I heard it, you two were on the outs. On the verge of divorce.”

  “Madge Potter,” Joanna said, as a disturbing possibility dawned, “don’t you dare write about us in that column of yours!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t name names or anything like that,” Madge promised before taking a noisy slurp of her coffee. “Course, if I said anything about that sports car, everybody’d figure it out. Stirred up a lot of interest around here, I can tell you, when Teague showed up driving that flashy rig with that redhead—”

  Madge gulped back the remainder of the sentence, but it was too late.

  “Redhead?” Joanna asked, mortified, furious, and totally blindsided, all at once.

  “Oops,” Madge said.

  Teague appeared in the open doorway at just that moment, a propane jug under each arm. He looked from Madge to Joanna, connecting the dots, and the color drained out of his face.

  “I guess I’d best be going,” Madge announced and hastened out. Seconds later, her old truck roared to life and rumbled away.

  “You were here—on the island—with a redhead?” Joanna asked, her voice deceptively mild.

  Slowly, Teague set the propane tanks down. Sammy slithered between Teague and the door frame and headed for the living room, ears lowered and tail tucked, like a canine soldier hearing the whistle of approaching mortar fire.

  “It wasn’t what you think,” Teague said.

  “Wasn’t it?” Joanna retorted, folding her arms. “Teague, you and Caitlin and Sammy and I came here as a family for years. Everybody knows us. And you brought a redhead to this cottage?”

  “Joanna—”

  “Shut the door.”

  Teague reached behind him and closed the door with a soft click.

  “You rotten liar!” Joanna accused.

  Teague reddened, and his jaw took on a familiar hardness. He was shutting down, backing away. In another moment, he’d turn his back on her and refuse to—refuse to what? Explain? Tell more lies?

  To Joanna’s surprise, relief, and outrage, Teague stood his ground. “You’re not going to like the truth a whole lot better than what you think happened,” he said. “Ava isn’t my lover. She’s a real estate agent, specializing in vacation properties. I should have talked to you about it first, I admit that, but you were so busy doing interviews to promote your cookbook—”

  Joanna dragged one of the chairs back from the kitchen table and fell into it. “A real estate agent?” she murmured. “You were going to put the cottage on the market—without even telling me?”

  “Of course I would have told you,” Teague insisted. “Eventually.”

  “Like when I came out here to start my novel and found a FOR SALE sign posted in the front yard?”

  “Joanna, I didn’t sign anything. I was just doing—research.”

  The sun must have gone behind a cloud, because suddenly the bright kitchen seemed dark, full of shadows.

  “And naturally you needed the sports car so the whole island would see you zipping around with a hot redhead.”

  Teague’s jaw tightened again, but he didn’t speak.

  And the room got darker.

  Thunder crashed somewhere in the distance.

  “I’d better bring the rest of that stuff inside,” Teague said.

  “Go
for it,” Joanna said coldly.

  Teague went out.

  She sat there for a few moments, absorbing the aftershocks. Then, because it was too painful to sit still, she got up, cleared the table, scraped the remains of the celebrated omelet into the garbage, filled the sink with scalding hot water, and banged dishes around until they were clean.

  Rain spattered the roof.

  Teague returned several times, lugging gallon bottles of water, a case of wine, a small portable camp stove that could be used outside, a couple of battery-operated lamps.

  “Were you expecting a siege?” Joanna asked, keeping her back to him.

  “More like an arctic chill,” Teague replied, but the joke fell flat between them, plopping like an overfilled water balloon.

  She turned, leaning back against the sink, gripping the counter edge with one hand. “What else haven’t you told me, Teague? What does the whole island—the whole city of Seattle—know that I don’t?”

  “Nothing, Joanna.”

  “ Nothing, Joanna,’” she mimicked. And suddenly, she was crying. She threw her hands out wide from her sides. “We spent vacations in this cottage, Teague. We brought our daughter here. We decorated Christmas trees and set off Fourth of July fireworks and carved Thanksgiving turkeys. And you had the nerve to bring a real estate agent here to put a price on all that? Without even mentioning it to me?”

  “You were busy,” he repeated.

  She launched herself at him, colliding with his rock-hard chest when he didn’t give ground. She jabbed at his breastbone with a furious finger. “How much is it worth, Teague? How much for the dreams, and the laughter, the lovemaking, and the checker-playing in front of the fire? How much is it worth?”

  He caught her wrists in his hands. “Too much,” he said hoarsely. “Way, way too much.”

  Joanna blinked. Staring up at him, she was fairly strangled by anger and heartbreak. It almost would have been better if he’d confessed to an affair with what’s-her-name, the redheaded, red-hot real estate agent. Almost.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears flowed anyway. Teague didn’t let go of her wrists, and she didn’t have the strength to pull free.