by Robin Wells
"I've got it! Come with me." Her chair screeched on the wooden floor as she rose from the table and headed back to the living room. Once again she reached for the key on top of the tall apothecary case, and once again she unlocked the glass doors. She pulled out a small, rusted tin can, no bigger than a quarter, and handed it to Susanna, then carefully relocked the case.
The older woman held the tin at arm's length to read the tiny label. "Itching powder?"
Annie nodded. "Grandma's mother gave this to her on her wedding day. She said that if Grandpa ever got an itch to wander, she should give him something to scratch.,
Susanna laughed. "How very appropriate. But what am I supposed to do with it?"
Annie shrugged. "I don't have a clue. I only know you're supposed to have it."
Susanna closed her hand around it. "Maybe it's a good-luck charm. A reminder to follow my intuition."
"And to have the courage to fight for what you love," Annie added.
"Sounds like a reminder you could use, too." Susanna smiled at her as the two strolled back to the kitchen. "I'll call Jake as soon as I get back to Tulsa. I'll tell him you two need some time together as a couple, and I'll insist that he let me have Madeline for the weekend. That way you two will have some time alone."
The thought made Annie's heart race. She watched Susanna pick up her purse and slip the tin of itching powder inside. "What should I do once I get him alone?" Annie asked.
Susanna pulled the purse on her shoulder and grinned. "I'm sure you'll think of something."
Chapter Eighteen
Tom plopped his glass down hard two mornings later sloshing his orange juice on the green linen place mat He frowned across the breakfast table at Susanna. "I wit not sit down to dinner with that—that hussy!"
Susanna adjusted the sash on her silk robe. "Annie isn't a hussy. She's a perfectly lovely young woman She and Jake are going to be in Tulsa this weekend, ate it would be a nice gesture for us to invite them to dinner."
"She's a hussy in my book."
"Tom, we've been. all over this. She's done nothin wrong."
"Oh, no? She hoodwinked Jake into marrying her less than a month after they met."
"That was Jake's idea."
"Hogwash. He has better sense than that. At least. thought he did." Tom swilled his juice, looking like he wished it were bourbon.
Susanna leaned forward. "You're letting this ruin your relationship with Jake. Annie is his wife now. If you met her and gave her half a chance, I'm sure you'd like her."
Tom's lip curled in a snarl. "I wouldn't like her if you told me she was Mother Teresa reincarnated."
"Tom, just listen to yourself. You're being completely unreasonable."
"I can't just sit by and watch this woman try to take Rachel's place."
"She's not trying to take anyone's place."
"What's the matter with you?" Tom leaned forward and glowered. "Has that shrink and those damned pills you're taking addled your brain so much that you've forgotten your own daughter?"
The venom in his voice hurt even more than the words. Susanna rose from the table, picked up her cup, and calmly strode to the coffeemaker on the counter. "This isn't about forgetting, Tom. This is about letting go and letting life go on." Susanne lifted the pot from the burner. "It's interesting that you'd mention my 'shrink,' as you call him, because he says this unreasonable anger of yours is fear in disguise. Fear of facing your own mortality." She splashed some coffee into the cup. "He thinks you're scared to die."
"He's full of bull."
Susanna moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of skim milk. She carefully poured some into her cup. "You know, maybe he is wrong. I don't think you're afraid to die. I think you're afraid to live."
Tom's eyes jerked up to hers, his expression first surprised, then wary. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
She moved back to the table and sat down opposite him. "You won't be betraying Rachel, Tom, if you're happy again. If we're happy again."
He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a harsh sigh. "Happy? What the hell is that? I don't think I even remember what it feels like. So much has changed."
Susanna placed her hand on his. Her eyes searched his face. "One thing hasn't. I still love you, Tom."
She needed, desperately needed, to hear him say that he loved her, too. She waited, then waited some more. The words didn't come. The only thing that stirred was the ceiling fan overhead. The silence grew thick and threatening, darkening the sun-filled breakfast room like an ominous thundercloud.
Tom gazed at her, his eyes troubled. "Susanna ..."
Suddenly she knew he was about to say something that would change their lives forever—something like "I want to leave" or "there's someone else" or "I don't love you anymore." She knew, deep and instinctively, that if the words were spoken, their marriage would be over.
She couldn't let him say it, whatever it was. "Oh, Tom, let's get out of here for a while." Her words tumbled out like water over rapids, rushed and jumbled. "Maybe we could take trip to Europe, or go to Hawaii for a week, or .....
"I told you before. I don't have time for that. My schedule is full."
Susanna picked up her spoon and vigorously stirred her coffee. "Well, the national corporate attorney's convention is coming up soon. I can go with you to that."
Tom stared straight into his juice glass. "You wouldn't enjoy it, Susanna. I'm on the conference committee this year. I've got something scheduled just about around the clock."
"Oh, I'll find plenty to do. After all, it's in New Orleans. While you're in meetings, I'll go see the sights with the other wives."
Jake cleared his throat. "I don't think very many spouses are going this year. You shouldn't plan on it."
Until Rachel's death, Susanna had always gone to the convention with him. She'd become good friends with the wives of other attorneys who always went, too.
Oh, dear Lord—that look was back in his eye. He was trying to get up the nerve to say something, something she didn't want to hear. She rose from the table, her cup in her hand, and quickly changed the subject.
"Well, about this weekend ... I won't ask Jake and Annie to dinner. But I've already offered to keep the baby Saturday night."
Tom's eyes followed her as she flitted to the sink and poured her newly poured coffee down the drain. He sighed, then pushed back his chair. "Do what you want. I'm playing in the legal association's annual corporate cup golf tournament this weekend, so I won't be around much."
I hadn't thought you would be. Susanna seized on the topic, eager to keep the conversation on neutral ground. "You and Jake played in that last year, didn't you?"
Tom brow knit in a displeased frown. "Yeah. And he should be playing in it this year, too. Our firm is one of the sponsors. I couldn't believe the lame-ass reason he gave for not participating, either. He said weekends were for his family." Tom shook his head, his expression full of disgust. "We're his family, damn it! I tell you, this woman is brainwashing him. Hell, the other day he said he'd like to start taking on some different types of cases—consumer cases, children's advocacy cases." Tom shook his head. "He's not the person I used to know."
Neither are you. Susanna thought. Neither am I. Rachel's death has turned us all into strangers.
Tom glanced at the clock on the kitchen microwave and sighed. "I'd better get dressed and get to the office."
Susanna watched him head for the stairs, relief and fear mingling in her heart. She'd managed to avert disaster this morning, but how long could she keep him from speaking the awful, fateful words that would end their marriage?
Annie's words floated through her mind: You'll have to wage a battle. You'll have to fight to keep the one you love.
Tom was drifting away—she could see it, she could feel it. She had do something to turn the tide, and she had to do it soon. Somehow, some way, she had to find a way to pull, him back before he'd drifted beyond reach.
"This is so muc
h fun!" Annie's face flushed with excitement as the roller coaster roared into its final turn at the Tulsa County fairgrounds on Saturday.
It sure is, Jake thought, tightening his arm around her. The ride gave him the perfect excuse to touch her, to inhale the scent of her perfume, to feel her hair brush across his skin. A wave of regret washed over him as the ride squeaked to a halt.
"Let's do it again!"
Jake had been thinking the exact same thing ever since the night they'd made love, but it wasn't a roller-coaster ride he'd had in mind. The memory of making love to Annie was torturing him, taunting his thoughts morning, noon and night. .
Especially at night—and especially at Annie's house. It was excruciating, lying in the guest room down the hall from her, just yards from the bed where they'd given and taken such pleasure in' each other. It killed him, knowing that she was lying alone under that crazy covered-wagon canopy, that all he had to do was walk down the hall.
He'd made the logical decision, he told himself over and over. He'd been absolutely right, insisting that their relationship go back to the platonic stage. After all, continued physical involvement would eventually create the type of gut-wrenching divorce experience they both wanted to avoid. And yet, all the logic in the world couldn't keep him from wanting Annie, and all the arguments his lawyer's brain could invent couldn't keep a creeping tenderness from winding into his heart, twisting and binding little bits of her to him, like the tendrils of a vine.
The chemistry between them was strong and combustible, and over the last few weekends, he'd done his best to avoid being alone with her. When he was at the ranch, he went to his bedroom immediately after putting the baby to bed, using the excuse that he had work to do. But instead of studying the piles of legal briefs he brought with him every weekend, he'd sit and listen to the sounds of the night, listen and remember, replaying the sweet way she'd tasted and smelled and felt.
Later, as the night drew on, he'd listen to the sounds of Annie moving through the house, getting ready for bed. He'd hear the shower running, and imagine her taking off her clothes. In his mind's eye he'd see the swell of her breasts, the curve of her-waist, the erotic surprise of her red-gold curls. He'd envision her stepping into the water, envision the wet spray splashing over her smooth, fair, naked skin. She'd torment him with her mere proximity until he was in a white-hot lather.
Annie tugged as his arm. "Come on, let's ride it again."'
"Okay. We'll have to get some more tickets."
The ticket booth was at the far end of the midway.
Jake followed her off the loading platform and into the jostling crowd, into a cacophony of voices and loud music and barker calls, into a scented sea of corn dogs and nachos and cotton candy. The sun was setting, and the midway lights were beginning to gleam.
Jake put his arm around Annie to pull her out of the way of a hot-dog vendor's cart. She glanced up, smiled and looped her arm around his waist in response. He knew he should draw away, knew he should disengage from the intimacy that came with her touch, but she felt too good against him.
"I'm having a great time," she said.
"Me, too." A better time than he ought to be having, he thought guiltily. He'd tried to weasel out of spending the weekend alone with Annie, but Susanna had shamed him into it. "Your marriage doesn't stand a. chance unless you put some effort into it," she'd said. "You and Annie need some time alone."
To appease Susanna, Jake had agreed: It would be easier for her to accept their divorce if she thought he'd tried to make the marriage work. Jake had thought he could spend the day working and Annie could spend it shopping or sight-seeing, and Susanna would never know the difference. But then Susanna had presented them with two tickets to the Tulsa State Fair and a gift certificate to a luxury hotel.
"Annie told me she loves carnivals and fairs, so I thought it would be the perfect place for you to take her," she'd said.
"What's with the hotel gift certificate?" Jake: had asked.
"You two never had a real honeymoon. I thought it would seem like more of a special occasion if you spent the night away from home, so I made reservations for you for tonight.. There's a gift certificate for dinner at
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the hotel restaurant, too. It's supposed to be very nice—very romantic." She'd patted his arm. "You two go and have a good time. I'll look forward to hearing all about it when you pick up the baby on Sunday."
Susanna had him over a barrel. He didn't want to tell her the truth about his relationship with Annie, but he was incapable of telling her a bald-faced lie. So here he was, against his better judgment, spending the day with Annie, enjoying himself more than he had. any right to do.
"Susanna said you're missing out on a big golf tournament this weekend," Annie remarked as she and Jake passed a concession that required contestants to guess which plastic cup hid a golf ball.
He shrugged. "I wasn't that eager to spend time with Tom."
How about spending time with me? Annie wondered. She prayed that Susanna was right—that the reason Jake was keeping his distance was because he was drawn to her. Tonight she intended to find out.
The thought made her stomach knot. She directed her thoughts back to Tom. "From what Susanna told me, it sounds as if things have gotten pretty tense between you and him."
"That's putting it mildly." Jake shook his head. "Lately he's been completely unreasonable."
"About what?"
"Everything."
"Our marriage?"
Jake sighed. "The marriage, Work. Life in general."
"His relationship with Susanna?"
Jake shot her a keen glance. "That, too."
The line of people buying tickets was long and slow and moving. Talking to Jake suddenly held a lot more appeal than taking another ride. Annie looked up at him. "You know, I don't think I've got another roller-coaster ride in me after all. I'm famished, and all the noise and lights and smells are about to give me sensory overload. Why don't we go use Susanna's gift certificate for dinner?"
"Sounds good."
They walked to the car, their arms still looped companionably around each other. Jake opened the car door for her, then settled behind the wheel and started the
engine.
She gazed over at him, her heart tripping at the sight of his handsome profile. "Aside from things with Tom, how are things at work? Have you got any interesting
cases?"
"To tell you the truth, none of it is very interesting anymore." He pulled the car onto the road, steering it toward the interstate, then glanced at her. "I've been doing a lot of thinking about what you said, about practicing another type of law."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. I even talked to Tom about it. I told him I'd like to expand the kind of cases we take, to take on some consumer law cases, maybe even do some pro Bono work for battered women and abused kids."
"What did he say?"
"That it would damage the firm's reputation."
"Is he right?"
"Maybe” He said, “If you needed a triple bypass, would you choose a cardiologist who only does heart surgery, or would you choose one who also treats in-:: grown toenails?' It was a valid point." Jake looked in the rearview mirror and changed lanes. "I've got to make some kind of change, though. I can't stand the thought of doing nothing but acquisitions and mergers for the: rest of my life."
Annie stared at the taillights of the car ahead of them. "That's exactly the point I'd reached when I decided to leave advertising. The final straw came when someone asked what I liked best about the business, and I couldn't come up with an answer."
Jake shot her a sidelong glance. "Why did you decide to go into it?"
"Actually, I didn't. It was my father's decision. He thought he knew what was best for me, and I went along with it, wanting to please him." Annie gazed out the window at the passing lights. "There comes a point when you have to stop trying to please other people and set your own co
urse. Nobody knows what's best for another person. Sometimes we don't even know ourselves. We have to find out as we go along."
Jake pulled off the highway and guided the car toward a large high-rise hotel. He glanced over at her. "How did you get so wise?"
His gaze was warm, and it sent a current of heat sizzling through her. "Oh, I'm not wise. I mostly learn by making mistakes."
Jake grinned as he pulled into the parking lot. "That's what I like about you."
"What? That I make a lot of mistakes?"
"You don't pretend to have all the answers. It's so damned refreshing.".
Annie's heart felt full and ripe and heavy, loaded with love, the way her belly had felt when she was pregnant with Madeline. She gazed. at Jake as he parked the car and turned off the engine. "Is that all you like about me?" she found herself asking.
His gaze locked. on hers like a patriot missile. Tension crackled in the air, along with an acute sexual awareness. "No." His voice was very soft, very deep. "Oh, no." His eyes were hot and aware and hungry, and they set Annie's heart to thumping against fifer rib cage.
It was time for her to make her move. Slowly, deliberately, Annie reached her arms around his neck and pulled him toward her. Slowly, deliberately, her eyes open the whole time, she fitted her mouth to his.
She needn't have worried about how he'd respond. The kiss went from zero to sixty in a matter of mere seconds. He kissed her back, ravishing her mouth and neck and face, kissing her as. if he were starved for her taste.
"That was even more thrilling than the roller coaster," Annie murmured long moments later when they surfaced for air, hot and panting.
"A lot more thrilling." His voice was low and smoky, throbbing with desire. "But, Annie, honey, it's a lot more dangerous, too,"
"So let's live dangerously." She gently drew her fingers through his hair. "I want to make love with you, Jake. I want to feet your hands on me and your mouth on me, and I want to put mine on you. I want to feel the weight of your body on me." Her voice lowered to a breathy whisper. "I want to feel you inside of me."
"Good God, Annie....