by Rachel Lee
Then she grabbed her jacket, patted Amber’s shoulder and headed out the door.
Feeling almost as if a whirlwind had blown through, Amber sat eating crackers, and as her stomach settled, she even felt the return of some appetite.
She liked Hope and she could understand why Wyatt had confided in her. She looked at the business card on the table and reached for the phone hanging on the wall. She needed to do this. Playing ostrich wasn’t good for her or the baby who was finally becoming real to her.
After ten minutes she had an appointment later in the week with the doctor, Joy Castor. She wrote it on the back of the card and then went out to the foyer to tuck it in her purse. That would make Wyatt happy, she thought. In the meantime, she needed to shake herself out of the mental stasis that seemed to be enveloping her again. She’d quit a job, packed up her life and come running to a friend, but everything else seemed to have shut down. No thoughts for the future, no plans in the works, and for the first time the denial about her pregnancy seemed to be waning.
So what next? She wished she could think of something. Anything. God, she needed a plan. Right now the future looked empty and threatening, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better.
* * *
Midafternoon, just as she was deciding she couldn’t hibernate in this house and at least needed to get out for a walk, the doorbell rang again. Now who had Wyatt sent?
She opened to the door and faced a young woman somewhere near her age with upswept hair wearing a dress and heels. She was used to seeing that in the city, but she already had the sense it wasn’t that common around here. She thought of Wyatt wearing jeans under his robe, and most of the people he’d talked to in the courtroom yesterday. They hadn’t even dressed up for that.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“So you’re the new girlfriend.”
Shock rammed Amber. She wasn’t usually thrown off balance easily with the law. This was a side of the world she had only minimal acquaintance with. “I’m sorry?”
“Wyatt’s new girlfriend,” the woman said. “I heard about you.”
Already? “Um...we’re just old friends.”
“Sure. Well, I’m Ellie Rich, his former fiancée. I just wanted to see who was stupid enough to fall for that guy. Big mistake, lady. He’s all nice on the outside and ugly on the inside. Or maybe you’re his new cover story.”
Then the woman turned and walked away, leaving Amber standing there with the door open and hardly aware of the chilly air. Ellie climbed into her car and drove away fast enough to leave a little rubber behind. The instant she disappeared around the corner, Wyatt’s car appeared from the opposite direction and pulled into the driveway.
Abruptly aware that she was getting cold, Amber pivoted and reached for her jacket but didn’t close the door. Wyatt climbed out, clad in jeans and a blue sweater, paused to look at her standing in the open doorway, concern creasing his brow, then loped up the sidewalk and onto the porch.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Ellie. At least she said she was.”
His face darkened. “Damn that woman. You’re shivering. Let’s get inside.”
He urged her into the foyer and closed the door. “You look like you need a hot drink.” A gentle hand on the small of her back urged her into the kitchen.
“I’m fine. There’s coffee. Your friend Hope made it earlier. I think it’s still good.” In some crazy way, it was as if she were pulling out of her body, standing at a distance from everything. How strange. How very weird.
“I’m not worried about coffee,” he said, an edge to his voice. “I’m worried about you.” Without another word, he pulled out ingredients. “Cocoa coming up.”
Amber sat at the table again, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. It was as if she was removed from everything, but she was sure she hadn’t felt that way until just recently. Maybe since she got here. It was weird, as if nearly everything inside her had shut down. Before, she’d put a few matters on hold to deal with later. But all of a sudden she felt as if everything was on hold. She felt numb, almost disinterested, after her teary meltdown just yesterday.
As soon as Wyatt had the cocoa simmering, he got himself some coffee and joined her at the table. “Ellie didn’t say anything to upset you, did she?”
“I think I’m past getting upset about anything.” A blessing perhaps, but not normal. “She basically told me she was your ex, accused me of being your new girlfriend, or alternatively your new cover story, then she left.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Reaching across the table, he clasped her hand briefly. His touch felt surprisingly warm and pleasant.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m quite sure you didn’t ask her to stop by. That’s all on her.”
“Regardless, you didn’t need it. I don’t believe that woman.” Rising, he went to stir the simmering cocoa. “It’s been over a year. You’d think she would have moved on.”
“I don’t know. I seem to be having trouble moving at all.”
In a flash he was squatting beside her. “What’s wrong, Amber? Are you sick?”
She shook her head a little. “I’m fine. Some morning sickness, but Hope helped with that. No, it’s like...it’s like everything has shut down. I’m numb. I can’t think. I’ve got to plan a future, and it feels as if my brain went on vacation. My emotions, too.” As busy as she’d been in the last month, maybe this had been happening all along and she just hadn’t noticed it. Was she losing her mind?
He nodded and touched her shoulder lightly. “Maybe you’ve been through all the emotional turmoil you can stand for a while. Your mind and emotions might just be forcing a holiday on you.”
“Holiday?” Despite her oddly removed state, she almost laughed. “Some holiday.”
“A rest, then. Maybe you just need a break from it all. Or maybe you can’t deal with it all at once. There’s been an awful lot to deal with.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it,” he said. “You were awfully clinical when you called me and told me you were in trouble. It’s a bit of self-protection going on here. I hope it doesn’t all just crash in at once.”
She gazed into his face, reading his concern but more, his kindness. He’d always accepted her just as she was, and he was doing it right now. Some part of her acknowledged that she ought to feel a whole lot more messed up than she did, but except for that crying fit yesterday, she felt as if her mind and heart were wrapped in cotton. So maybe he was right. Yesterday she had wept and hurt for quite a long time. Then everything had been steadily and slowly stilling inside her. Enough for now.
He touched her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her. Well, at least she could still feel that. It would have been so easy to just fall into his arms. Because she wanted to know what it would feel like to rest her head on his shoulder. To feel his lips on hers. To feel his skin against hers. To feel him filling the emptiness inside her. She’d always wanted to know.
“You did cry yesterday,” he reminded her. “Privately, but it was there on your face when you came down for dinner. Take it a step at a time. Now I need to check that cocoa before I scorch it.”
He stirred it a few more times while she watched and tried to think of a safe place to go with their conversation. It would be almost impossible to feel any more disconnected than she did right now. Except for one connection, that was. Her desire for him was probably the only part of her that was still awake and responding.
“How was court?” she asked.
“A very interesting bigamy case.”
That caught her attention and drove her preoccupation into the background. He filled two mugs with frothy cocoa and put one in front of her. “How could you commit bigamy in a town this size?”
He laughed and sat across from her. “Believe it or not, you
can. But not the way you’d expect.”
“So what happened?”
“This couple split maybe thirteen years ago. She threw him out and told him she was filing for divorce. So he moved to California, where he got a job and, believe it or not, sent regular child support checks.”
“Why believe it or not?”
His smile widened. “It was never ordered by a court. He was just doing what he thought was right.”
“I already like him. Then?”
“Then, all these years later he comes back to town. Stops by to see his kids, meets a new woman, they date and after a few months they got married. Supposedly ex-wife hears about the marriage and immediately calls the cops to press bigamy charges. She had never divorced him.”
“But...” Her mind boggled. “How did he not know?”
“You’re a lawyer, you understand how this works. This guy was poorly educated, never had anything to do with the law until this. My guess is it never occurred to him that he was supposed to get divorce papers to sign, or a decree. Anyway, after listening to all of this, the jury apparently decided that after thirteen years he probably believed he was divorced and therefore didn’t intend to commit bigamy.”
“And it’s an intent crime?”
“That’s one of the elements.”
“I love it. He must have had a good lawyer, though.”
“Public defender,” he answered. “And she was good. She kept hammering on the intent part of the crime and how you have to knowingly be married to two women at the same time.” He laughed quietly. “I enjoyed that trial. I think I enjoyed the outcome even more. That guy was no more intentionally guilty of bigamy than I am. And all those years he paid child support without a court order. I know a lot of men who begrudge it even when a court orders it.”
“I’ve heard plenty of them gripe about it,” she agreed. “Honestly, I don’t get it. When you dump a spouse you don’t dump your kids. Or at least you shouldn’t.”
“I absolutely agree. I do family court as well, and failure to pay child support is the most frequent type of case to come before me.”
She arched a brow, surprised. “You’re a jack-of-all-trades.”
“Within my jurisdiction, yeah. Look at this place, Amber. I have a couple of magistrates who help deal with the really minor things, but they aren’t even lawyers. So I get everything in the area that doesn’t need to go to the district court.”
“This is so very different,” she murmured, even as she realized he had successfully pulled her away from her spiraling concern about being so numb. Maybe he was right. Maybe she just needed a break from it all. God knew, she was weary of feeling overwhelmed, rudderless. Her old life was over. She needed to move on. And apparently she needed some time to do just that. Time that Wyatt was giving her.
Then he asked, “Did you make an appointment?”
“Yeah. For Thursday. You can relax.”
“I wasn’t uptight,” he answered. “So you had morning sickness?”
“I guess that’s what it was.” She looked down at herself, trying to imagine the child growing inside her. It still seemed so far away, so removed. At two months she could barely see any changes in her body.
“You’ll probably find out tomorrow morning.” He winked, but this time she didn’t even smile back. She had found a safe, quiet place in the middle of the maelstrom her life had become, and right now she didn’t want one damn thing to disturb it.
* * *
Wyatt was more concerned about her withdrawal than he let on. After yesterday’s crying jag upstairs—and yeah, he’d known from the puffiness of her face when she came back downstairs—now this? Like a switch had flipped?
He’d tried to be reassuring about it, but he wasn’t at all convinced it was a normal reaction. When he thought about all that had happened to her in the last month or so, he supposed she was entitled to withdraw for a while. It was enough to devastate anyone, and she hadn’t allowed herself much time to just sit, cry and brood.
She’d made two incredibly tough decisions, the first to quit the firm, the second to keep her child. Life altering, life shattering.
Yeah, she was entitled to shut down for a while. He just wondered at what point he should start to really worry.
At least she was drinking her cocoa. “I was thinking about roasting a chicken for dinner tonight. Does that sound good to you?”
She nodded. “Very good, actually.” Then, just as he started to rise to get the chicken out of the refrigerator, she said, “Ellie.”
He sat again. “What about her?”
“She’s very pretty.”
“Only on the outside,” he said, a slight edge in his voice. “I told you.”
“I know.”
He put his elbows on the table and studied her. “What does it matter what she looks like?”
“It doesn’t. It’s only that I can’t imagine why she came over here. It was pointless. You broke up with her a long time ago. It’s just weird that she evidently wanted to say something nasty to me about you.”
Ellie was at least outside the circle of Amber’s problems, and therefore safe. He got it. Well, if she wanted to talk about that woman, he supposed he could as well. He’d left Ellie in his distant emotional past.
Amber spoke again. “Did she hurt you very badly?”
He hesitated. “At first I was so angry I learned what it means to see red. Asking me to intervene on the charges against her cousin...she should have known me better by then. But no, she thought she could manipulate me into doing something that violated all my principles. That’s when I knew what she really thought of me. So later, when I stopped being so angry, yeah, I was hurt. I’d thought I was in love. I’d almost asked that woman to marry me. It took a while for me to just feel grateful she’d pulled that stunt before we were married. Or had kids.”
“I bet,” she said quietly.
“So I escaped by the skin of my teeth.” He shook his head and gave her a lopsided smile. “Live and learn. Trite but true. A wise man, namely my dad, once told me that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from getting it right. I’m here to testify that it may not feel like it at the time, but he was right. I learned a lot from that experience.”
“Any of it good?”
He reached across the table and took her hand again. Her fingers felt cold. “A lot of it. Give yourself time, Amber. Do you want mittens or another cup of cocoa?”
That at least broke through her frozen state enough to make her smile faintly. “Cocoa, please. I don’t know why I feel so cold. I’m sure it’s warm enough in here, and it’s not like I just came from some southern climate.”
He had no answer for that. Maybe she was just run-down. Regardless, he was glad she would see the doc in two days. “It’ll warm up in the kitchen soon, because I’m going to turn on the oven. In the meantime, do you want me to get you a wrap? A blanket? A shawl?”
At that she looked up. “You have a shawl?”
He laughed. “They used to be quite common, and you have to remember a lot of generations have lived here. Yes, I have a shawl. I have a few of them. Lucky I didn’t give them to the church rummage sale, but I can still remember my great-grandmother wearing them. I loved that woman.”
“I’d like to hear about her.”
“Let me get that shawl and I’ll bore you to tears.”
Responsive at least, he thought as he dashed upstairs to a storage closet. Distant, but not gone.
There was a cedar closet off the wide hallway. Over the years it had probably stored many things, especially when woolens were so popular and moths a big problem, but now it was down to mostly keepsakes, carefully wrapped in plastic by his mother before she died. Earl and Wyatt had never used it for much, although Earl did have one good wool coat hanging in there from ma
ny years ago. Wyatt doubted he’d be able to squeeze into it now.
Most of what was left were items he and his father hadn’t been able to part with. It was easy to find one of his great-grandmother’s shawls, and he paused a few minutes, lost in memories of her. More than anyone else, she had helped him get through the weeks after his mother’s shocking death.
He stroked the shawl with his hand, remembering her wearing it. Suddenly remembering that a long time ago Amber had told him about her aversion to wool. Well, all the rest were wool shawls, with the exception of this one, his favorite. His grandmother had tatted it herself, he was told, and she liked peacocks. This had been tatted out of colorful embroidery silks.
Anyway, it was pretty, and while he cherished it more than the others, it was the only one Amber could wear.
Downstairs, he draped it around Amber’s shoulders. “Not wool, but warm anyway, I imagine.”
“I seem to be allergic to wool,” she replied. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
He didn’t tell her that he’d recalled that errant remark from so long ago. He didn’t know why, but he felt it might make her uneasy to know she’d made such an impression on him. “My great-grandma tatted it out of some embroidery silk. Every time I look at it I think about time, patience and talent. And I remember she wore it only on Sundays.”
He paused to switch the oven on and pulled out a roasting pan, which he oiled. Then he stood at the sink washing the chicken under a stream of cold water. “You just want it plain?”
“That might be safest right now.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw her looking down at the shawl, stroking it with her hand.
“It’s so lovely,” she said quietly. “Was it fashionable?”