The Wrong Woman

by Linda Warren

  Serena came out of the bathroom. “I forgot my…nightgown.” She glanced at Ethan and saw his tight jaw, the stress on his handsome face, and in an instant knew what was wrong.

  Without a word she dropped to the floor and grabbed hold of his boot, pulling gently. She did the same with the other boot. She placed them by a chair, then stood up, retrieved her nightgown and returned to the bathroom.

  Despite himself, Ethan smiled. He would’ve been angry if anyone else had done that, but she’d managed it in such a nonchalant way it hadn’t bothered him. He liked Serena Farrell. She was a woman after his own heart—and if he didn’t watch out, he’d be giving it to her.

  He realized he was dawdling. She’d be back any minute and he had to get into bed. He hadn’t brought any pajamas. Slipping out of his jeans, shirt and socks, he hung them on the chair and crawled beneath the sheets as quickly as he could.

  Serena emerged from the bathroom and all he could do was stare. Her red hair was hanging loose, falling midway down her back in thick, glossy waves. The stripper’s hair was almost the same length and style, but…something was different and he knew with certainty that Serena and the stripper were not the same person. There was a softness about Serena that the stripper lacked, a softness that couldn’t be faked.

  “Mind if I steal a pillow?” she asked.

  “No, and there’s a blanket in the closet if the air-conditioning’s too cold.”

  “Thanks.” She took a pillow, opened the closet and found the blanket.

  “Should I turn off the lights?” she inquired politely.

  “Yes,” he answered, his eyes never leaving her. She wore a blue nightshirt of some sort of silky material that fell just above her knees and showed off slim, smooth legs.

  The room was suddenly dark and Ethan heard her settle on the sofa.

  “Thanks, Serena,” he said into the stillness.

  “You’re very welcome,” she replied, knowing he was talking about her help in removing his boots. “And thank you for letting me stay.”

  “Didn’t seem like I had much choice.”

  “It’s odd, isn’t it?” she said. “We’re virtually strangers and we’re sharing a motel room. This is a new experience for me, but we’re both adults and we can handle it.”

  Famous last words, Ethan thought as he turned onto his side.

  Serena tried to get comfortable on the sofa, but it was soft and lumpy. As she stared into the darkness, questions filled her head. Instinctively she felt that Ethan was a man who didn’t like to talk. But she decided not to pay any attention to her instincts.

  “What do you think the people at the strip club are nervous about?”

  “It’s a sleazy place, Serena,” he answered. “There could be all kinds of reasons.”

  “But you will talk to her?”

  “I’m not sure now, but I’m gonna give it my best shot.”

  “Ethan?”

  “Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  His voice was curt, and she knew he was still in pain. For the next half hour, she listened to him tossing and turning. Finally she couldn’t take any more.

  “You were shot in the hip?” she asked quietly.

  Ethan’s hip was throbbing so badly he was going to have to do something—like take more pills, and he didn’t want to do that. He tried to concentrate, to block out the pain, but that wasn’t working, either. Her sweet voice came like a balm in the night, and instead of resisting, he found himself welcoming it. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was answering her question.

  “Yeah, we got a tip that a man was storing illegal weapons. When we checked it out, the man and his friends were waiting for us. It was a setup and we had a lot of casualties that day. I was one of them.”

  She wanted to say she was sorry, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate hearing it. So she said the only thing she could. “I’m sorry I kicked you off the bed earlier. It was just a reflex action.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But I do. I’m the reason you’re in pain.”

  “Serena, go to sleep.”

  “Have you ever had your hip massaged?”

  “No,” he said in a low voice.

  “Tense muscles are deprived of oxygen because blood flow is reduced. Massage improves circulation and eases the pain.”

  “Sounds as if you know what you’re talking about.”

  “A little. In college I dated a guy whose sister was a professional massage therapist. She taught me some basics. My grandmother has severe headaches and I massage her neck and shoulders sometimes—she says it helps her relax. Would you like me to try with your hip?”

  “No.”

  “I can hear you thrashing around and I know you’re in a lot of pain. I can try to relax your tight muscles.”

  He’d bet she could. That was the problem.

  “Serena—”

  “We were just talking about being adults, so let’s be grown-up about this. You’re in pain and I’d like to help.” She couldn’t sleep if he couldn’t. It was her fault, after all, that his pain had been exacerbated.

  “I’ve dealt with this for a long time and—” His voice stopped as the bed moved.

  Serena didn’t know what possessed her, but before she could think about it, she’d left the sofa and crossed to the bed. She felt as if she’d stepped outside her body and entered a dreamlike state without her usual rules or boundaries. She followed the dictates of her heart and didn’t hesitate for a minute. She just wanted to make him more comfortable.

  “Turn onto your stomach,” she said.

  Ethan did as she ordered without a word of protest. The way he looked at it, he didn’t have a thing to lose. The fact that she was his client and he didn’t get involved with clients on a personal level seemed irrelevant at the moment.

  Serena pulled the corners of the sheet from beneath the mattress and arranged the sheet over Ethan’s backside. She didn’t turn the light on. She didn’t think she’d need it, and the darkness might encourage him to relax.

  She knelt beside him. “I’ll use long gliding strokes from your neck to the base of your spine.” She wanted him to know what she was doing.

  “Fine,” he said into his pillow.

  The moment her soft hands touched him, it truly was fine. Better than fine. At his age he hadn’t thought there were any more fantasies, but one was forming so wantonly in his mind that he floated along with the rhythm of her hands. But only in his mind…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ETHAN’S MUSCLES were firm. His age was hard to guess, but Serena thought somewhere in his early forties. Considering his age and his injury, he was in good shape. There wasn’t any excess flab on him as she’d seen on other men his age. She stroked and kneaded until her arms began to ache, and still his muscles were taut.

  Taking a long breath, she said, “I’ll have to remove the sheet.” She’d been trying to work around and over the sheet to keep this professional, but she could do a better job without it. Besides, Ethan wasn’t interested in her in that way and she wasn’t interested in him, either.

  “Fine,” he mumbled sleepily.

  She pulled the sheet to one side. He had on briefs, so that was good. Her hands slid to his hip.

  Ethan’s breath lodged in his throat and he didn’t know which was worse, the pain in his hip or the frustration building in him. He hated needing help, hated receiving help, but for once he wasn’t fighting it.

  Her fingers paused over the scar that ran along his hip, then with circular movements of her thumb and fingertips she gently massaged the area. His body still didn’t release its tension.

  “Try to relax,” she coaxed.

  “Hmm?”

  “You have to relax, Ethan,” she told him. “Your body is coiled tight.”

  She should experience this from my point of view, he thought.

  “Talk to me. That might help.”

  “What?”

  Her fingertips pressed softly aro
und his hip. “Tell me about your son. Does he live with his mother?”

  “No,” he said abruptly.

  “Oh.” She was surprised. “Then he lives with you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh,” she murmured again. “That must mean he’s grown up and on his own.” It was hard to believe he had a son that old, but it was the only explanation she could come up with.

  “No, he isn’t.” His words came through the darkness like a hollow echo, and Serena didn’t know what to think. But she couldn’t let it go.

  “Where is he, then?”

  Ethan never talked about his son. Everyone in his family knew the subject was off-limits, but now from somewhere inside him the words seemed to tumble out, words he couldn’t stop.

  “He’s dead,” he said quietly. He couldn’t ever remember saying those words out loud.

  Serena’s hands stilled for a second. She’d never suspected this. She could feel the pain in his voice, and she had to force herself to keep massaging. She’d wanted him to relax but in urging him to speak about something so intolerable, she’d only made matters worse.

  “I’m so sorry. I apologize for prying.”

  “He was three years old,” Ethan added as if he hadn’t heard her. “He was a lively, curious little boy and he always loved to climb. Beth and I laughed about him being part monkey. I was away on a case and it was winter. We lived in Washington, D.C., at the time. Ryan couldn’t go outside and he wanted to ride his tricycle, so Beth let him play in the garage. The phone rang then, and she went to answer it. We had boxes in the garage, things we hadn’t put away from the recent move. Ryan climbed to the top of the boxes, and when he saw Beth coming, he tried to get down in a hurry and fell to the concrete floor. He…fractured his skull.” Ethan took a ragged breath. “He died on the way to the hospital.”

  Serena just continued her massage. She didn’t have anything to say. Every word was like a blow to her chest. All she could think of was the suffering he and his wife must have gone through.

  The words kept coming and Ethan still couldn’t halt them. It was so easy to talk here in the darkness with Serena. “They kept him at the hospital until I arrived, and seeing my son was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” A long pause. “Beth fell completely apart and we couldn’t even comfort each other. I lost myself in a bottle and she found God. We slowly drifted apart, and we both knew the marriage was over.”

  Silence. Absolute total silence.

  Serena noticed that Ethan’s muscles were finally relaxing.

  Ethan couldn’t believe he was talking so much. It had to be the pills. The ache in his heart had become so intense he was hardly aware of the ache in his hip. He felt winded and out of breath, as if he’d run a marathon, and he knew he had to talk about something else before his emotions completely overwhelmed him.

  “Have you ever been married?” he asked.

  Even though the sudden change of subject threw Serena, she managed to find her voice. “No, but I came close a couple of times,” she said, her thumbs pressing gently into his hip. “Remember the guy I mentioned in college? I was crazy about him until I discovered he was also seeing someone else. After I came back to Fort Worth, I got a job teaching and I met Brad. He’s a teacher, too. We fell in love and everything was perfect until my grandfather passed away.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “My grandfather was heavily in debt, and the bank was expecting my grandmother and me to pay the bills. Brad wanted me to put my grandmother in a home and file bankruptcy on my grandfather’s estate.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “No, I couldn’t. My grandmother’s lived in our house since she and my grandfather got married. Putting her in a home was out of the question. I thought Brad would help me pay off the bills, but he didn’t see that as part of our marriage deal. I saw a side to Brad I didn’t like and I broke the engagement.”

  “How are you managing to make ends meet?”

  “I do greeting cards and paint portraits on the side, but it’s not enough. I finally had to hock the earrings my grandfather gave Gran on their wedding day. The jeweler at the Diamond Room said he’d hold them for thirty days in case I changed my mind, but that’s not likely to happen. It hurt so much to sell them. They belonged to my grandfather’s mother, and Grandfather said they’d be mine on my wedding day. Since the wedding was off, I felt I had a right to use them to save our home.” What was she doing? She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d done. The darkness and the intimate conversation—or was it Ethan?—were getting to her.

  “So what made you hire me?” he asked.

  Her fingertips ran along his hip in smooth circular strokes. What was that old saying—In for a penny, in for a pound? “Talking to my grandmother, I got the feeling she wasn’t telling me the whole story about my parents. You see, my mother ran off when she was eighteen and married a boy they disapproved of, and they wouldn’t have anything to do with her after that. When my mother and father were killed in a car accident, my grandparents agreed to raise me, but I don’t think my grandmother ever truly forgave my mother. I don’t know anything about my father’s family, and my mother was an only child. So if there’s someone who looks like me, I have to know who she is.”

  Ethan suddenly understood why finding the other woman was so important to her. She needed answers about her birth, her parents and most of all herself. He would find them for her and he wouldn’t charge her a dime. His mind was becoming clouded from the pills, and her hands had worked magic on his body. He was floating in a world where only he and Serena existed. And he liked it. He liked it a lot.

  Ethan’s body was now completely at ease and Serena was glad. Her arms were almost numb. “Ethan?” she called softly.

  No response.

  He was asleep.

  Serena sat back on her heels and tucked her hair behind her ears. Thank God. He was finally out of pain enough to sleep. She slowly returned to the sofa. Picking up her pillow, she glanced at the bed. Why not? she asked herself. She’d done so many crazy, different things tonight, it seemed almost natural. Besides, the bed was comfortable and the sofa was not. She walked back to the bed and lay down, then spread the sheet over both of them and curled up on her side. Ethan might be upset that she’d taken it upon herself to sleep in his bed, but she knew he wouldn’t do anything. She trusted him completely. She had from the first moment she’d set eyes on him. Drifting into sleep, she felt her features relax into a soft smile.

  AS SOON AS Ethan woke up, he noticed that his hip wasn’t hurting, and he let himself revel in that freedom from pain. A moment later the night’s events came rushing back. Serena, her hands touching him with gentle strokes until he revealed his emotions in a way he never had before. He’d talked about Ryan and he didn’t feel as if he was coming apart at the seams. For the first time it felt good to share his pain with someone.

  He turned over—and his breathing stopped as he saw Serena sleeping beside him. Her red hair was everywhere and there was a peaceful look on her beautiful face. He tried to remember what had happened after they’d talked, but he drew a blank. Then he knew. He’d fallen asleep. The pills—they always eventually knocked him for a loop. That was why he never took them. He liked to have his head clear.

  So what was she doing in his bed? The sofa must be a nightmare to sleep on, he reasoned, and she’d opted for a more comfortable place. That said a lot about the way she felt toward him—as a man. He was older and she probably trusted him, probably thought of him as fatherly. Oh, yeah, that was just how he wanted her to think of him.

  He eased out of bed, careful not to wake her. His hip felt fine; that massage had worked a miracle. He glanced at Serena, observing that the sheet was tangled and her blue shirt had ridden up, revealing more of her long legs. Just looking at her created emotions in him he hadn’t felt in years. Something about her attracted him deeply, and it wasn’t just her looks. It was her gentleness, her caring, her honesty and her openn
ess. She’d been straight with him from the start, and he felt she always would be.

  He collected jeans and a shirt from the closet and found underwear and socks in his carryall. A shower, clean clothes, and he’d be ready to face the day…and Serena.

  THE SOUND of running water woke Serena. Ethan was in the shower, she realized. She hoped his hip was better and wondered what he’d thought when he saw her in his bed. Evidently not much, since he didn’t wake her. They were both old enough not to worry about something so trivial. She reached for her pillow and hugged it. At least her virtue wasn’t compromised, she told herself with a quick grin. So far, she wasn’t even aware that Ethan had noticed her virtue—or anything else.

  She remembered what he’d told her last night. Losing a child had to be a horrific experience. She wasn’t sure how anyone overcame that or lived with the memory, but Ethan had. That was why she saw that somber look in his eyes at times. Life had dealt him a blow that was hard to overcome. From the beginning, she’d sensed Ethan’s strength, and she was sure it was what kept him sane.

  Her financial problems seemed petty compared to what he’d been through. If necessary, her problems could be solved by selling their house, although she couldn’t bring herself to do that. It was Gran’s home and it would be devastating for her to leave. Serena would figure out a way to keep them there. She had to. Chasing the stripper seemed petty, too. Finding her wasn’t going to change anything, though it might tell Serena something about her mother. That one tiny hope made it seem worthwhile.

  Ethan came out of the bathroom fully dressed except for his boots. He wore his usual jeans and a white shirt. His hair was neatly combed back and his face clean-shaven. She felt an unexpected tingling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Good morning,” he said as he sat in a chair to put on his boots.

  “Good morning,” she answered. “I hope you’re not upset about me sharing your bed.”

  He smiled at her as he shoved his foot into a boot without any difficulty. “What man would be upset about a pretty woman sharing his bed? I would’ve suggested it, but I didn’t think you’d agree.”