Substitute Bride (Special Edition)

by Alexander, Trisha

  Rachel jerked awake. She was sweating, and her heart was pounding like a piston. The dream had been so vivid. For a brief moment she felt as if it had really happened.

  But no.

  There was David, sleeping soundly beside her, still blissfully unaware that in just a few hours she was going to blast his world to pieces.

  Rachel shivered, the memory of the way he’d looked at her in the dream a chilling reminder that even though no one was going to put her in jail for what she’d done, if she was banished from David’s life, she would be in a different kind of prison.

  Her heart ached with a deep hopelessness as she watched him sleep. Oh, David, David, I love you so much. I’d give anything in the world to change things. How had she ever imagined she was doing the right thing? What demon had possessed her?

  Turning her pillow over, she tried to get comfortable. Tried to go back to sleep. But her troubled thoughts would not let her rest. On and on they tum-bled, a relentless barrage of accusations that pummeled her mercilessly. By the time she finally did fall into an exhausted slumber, it was close to dawn.

  The next thing she knew, David was jumping out of bed.

  “Wh-what’s wrong?” she said, rubbing her eyes. The bedroom was bright, even though the blinds were closed.

  “Dammit!” he said through clenched teeth. “I overslept again. And I’ve got a meeting at eight.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and seconds later she heard the shower.

  She looked at the bedside clock. It read 7:30. Running her hands through her hair, she tried to gather her fuzzy thoughts.

  And then, with perfect clarity, she remembered everything. Last night. How she’d planned everything, and how her plans had been foiled by David’s late homecoming. She remembered how she’d tried to talk to him, but how he’d broken down her resistance by making love to her.

  Oh, dear God, I can’t wait any longer. I have to tell him this morning. Because even if I wanted to put if off again, I couldn’t. Roxanne is calling Daddy today!

  Scrambling out of bed, Rachel threw on her bathrobe and hurried out to the kitchen. After putting the coffee on, she downed two aspirin, then used the guest bathroom to wash her face, comb her hair and brush her teeth.

  Afterward, she felt marginally better, and she sat at the kitchen table and waited for the coffee to finish brewing and David to emerge from the bathroom.

  A few minutes later she heard him moving around in the bedroom. Soon he would come out to the kitchen. Knowing David, he would probably be planning to take his coffee in the car and drink it on the way.

  No matter what he says, you have to tell him before he leaves for the office.

  Her stomach felt hollow, and she pressed her hands tightly against it. Oh, God. She should have told him last night. This was terrible, telling him this morning when he was late and would be stressed out about missing his meeting and whatever else awaited him at the office.

  In the bedroom, a drawer slammed.

  Rachel’s heart skidded.

  She began to pray.

  Even though he was going to be late for the meeting with Mark Taylor from Taylor Security Systems, David wasn’t sorry about last night.

  Remembering, he smiled.

  Roxanne.

  He loved her so much. Even more than he’d loved her before. Much more than he’d loved her before, he corrected.

  These past two weeks with her had been the best weeks of his life. Even the scare about his grandmother hadn’t diminished his happiness and contentment with his marriage.

  Roxanne was so perfect, he thought as he struggled to get his tie just right. Quiet when he needed quiet, fun when he needed fun, and loving when he needed love.

  Sexy, too.

  He grinned. Well, that went without saying. Finishing with his tie, he grabbed his suit jacket and briefcase and headed for the kitchen. The smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted him. Roxanne, who had been sitting at the kitchen table, stood.

  “David…”

  He walked over to her and kissed her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I haven’t got time for breakfast this morning.”

  “I know, but David, I need to—”

  “You don’t need to do anything. I just want a cup of coffee in one of those insulated things, okay?” As he was talking, he walked to the cupboard and took out the insulated mug.

  “David, please, I have to talk to you.”

  Filled mug in hand, he turned. Seeing how troubled she looked gave him a start. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “No, but I—”

  “Good. For a minute there, you had me wor—”

  His words were cut off by the peal of the telephone. Swearing under his breath, he reached for the portable phone on the kitchen counter. “Hello.”

  “Hello, David?” said a female voice.

  “Yes?”

  “What’re you doing home? Shouldn’t you be out earning a living?”

  David grinned, finally recognizing Paula’s bantering tone. “It’s Paula,” he mouthed.

  Roxanne frowned and waved her hands in a “no” gesture.

  “We slept in,” he said. “I was just on my way out the door.”

  “Well, guess I’ll have to settle for talking to Roxanne, then,” Paula said, laughing.

  “Okay. Here she is.” He shrugged in apology. He didn’t have time to fend off Paula. Dropping a kiss on Roxanne’s forehead, he handed her the phone, saying, “We’ll talk tonight, I promise.”

  Then he waved goodbye and left.

  Rachel felt like crying as she reluctantly accepted the phone. Taking a few seconds to compose herself, she waited before saying, “Hello?”

  “Hey, how’s the old married woman doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? Just fine? Come on, I’m your best friend. I want to hear all about it. How was the honeymoon? Wonderful? Fabulous? Or just great?”

  From somewhere, a strength Rachel hadn’t known she possessed kicked in and she was able to make her tone light and bantering, just the way Roxanne would have. “I’ll never tell.”

  There was a knowing chuckle from Paula’s end. “That means it was fabulous.” She sighed. “Too bad those honeymoon feelings don’t last.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Paula laughed again. “Just wait, that’s what I thought, too, when old married people told me the same thing. Trust me, that state of I-can’t-get-enough-of-him doesn’t last long. I give it three months, tops. Then you’ll be looking for excuses not to do it, just like the rest of us.”

  They continued in this vein for another ten minutes or so, with Paula teasing and Rachel doing her best to return her quips with quips of her own. Then Paula’s voice turned serious. “I was going to holler at you for not calling me as soon as you got home, but then I heard about David’s grandmother and realized you were probably spending all your time at the hospital.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, relieved to get past the topic of sex.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s doing great. She’s in a private room now.” Rachel went on to describe Georgina Hanson’s condition and what her doctors had said.

  “So when’re you going back to work?” Paula said when they’d exhausted the topic of David’s grandmother.

  For one second Rachel almost said something about the sketches she’d finished the night before, but she caught herself in time. Paula wasn’t asking about her, she was asking about Roxanne. “I, um, don’t have anything scheduled until after the Fourth.”

  “Lucky you.” Paula worked as a paralegal in the labor relations department for one of Houston’s biggest oil companies and, according to Roxanne, she was always complaining about her job. “I wish I worked for myself and could take time off like you do.”

  Rachel made a noncommittal sound. She knew, again from things Roxanne had said, that even though Paula and Roxanne were close friends, Paula was envious of Roxanne. And the envy wasn’t about Roxanne’s job or her self-employed st
atus so much as it was about the twins’ moneyed background. Paula came from a working-class family and had always had to rely on herself alone. Yet there were things about her background that Rachel envied. Like the fact that Paula’s mother was alive and healthy and that Paula and her father had a close relationship.

  “Oh, I know, I shouldn’t complain,” Paula said, obviously not taking any offense at Rachel’s silence. “I have a good job and so does Craig.”

  “Yes, you do.” Rachel searched for a reason to terminate the conversation. She had to get off the phone, because it was imperative she try to get in touch with Roxanne and once again delay her impending phone call to their father.

  But before she could come up with an excuse to hang up, Paula said, “Have you talked to Rachel since you got back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, good! Is she married?”

  “Yes, she’s married.”

  “Ooh, what did your father have to say about that?”

  “He wasn’t real happy. But listen, Paula, I really don’t have time to tell you all about it now. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. I have an appointment to get my nails done, and I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry.”

  “Oh, okay. But I can’t wait to hear all the poop. How about meeting me for lunch today? We could go to Treebeard’s.”

  Rachel injected as much regret into her voice as she could. “Gee, I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I can’t. I already have lunch plans.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, Paula.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess you’ve got plans. I know! Why don’t you and David have dinner with Craig and me tomorrow night?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think we can. Not this weekend. Um, why don’t you call me Monday morning?” By then Rachel would be long gone and Roxanne would have called Paula to explain everything.

  “Well, if you’re sure you can’t—”

  “I’m sure. I’ll talk to you Monday. And thanks for calling. Bye.” Rachel hung up before Paula could protest further.

  As soon as she heard the tone, Rachel dialed the now-familiar number in Mexico. This time another female voice answered, and Rachel had to resort to her rusty Spanish to ask for Señora Terraza. She breathed a sigh of relief when Carlos’s mother came on the line.

  “I am sorry, Señorita Carlton, but my son and your sister have gone to Mexico City today,” Señora Terraza said.

  “Yes, I know, but I have to reach my sister. It’s very important. I was hoping you’d have a number there that I might try.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. They were going in to talk with Carlos’s superiors at the foreign service office. I suppose I could try to get the number for you, if you really need it.”

  “No, no, that’s all right.” No way did Rachel want to try to track Carlos down, especially since she wasn’t sure she could make herself understood if she had to talk with someone who didn’t speak English. “Um, I’d just like to leave a message, though.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Please tell my sister that something prevented me from talking to David today, so she should not call our father today. That’s very important. She should not call our father today.”

  Senora Terraza repeated Rachel’s words, and Rachel could hear the question the older woman was too polite to ask. She probably thought both Rachel and Roxanne were crazy, seeing as how this was the second time Rachel had left a similar message.

  “She’ll understand,” Rachel said.

  “Do not worry. As soon as they arrive home, I will give your sister the message.”

  After thanking Carlos’s mother, Rachel slowly hung up. She was afraid to feel relief. There was always the chance Roxanne wouldn’t get the message in time. What if, for some reason, she decided to call their father from Mexico City?

  Rachel knew it would be courting disaster to assume she was safe until David got home tonight. She just couldn’t ignore the chance that Wylie might hear from Roxanne before Rachel could explain things to David.

  Oh, God, that would be horrible.

  She bit on her bottom lip. She had to talk to David this morning. Preferably, just as soon as he was finished with his meeting.

  And in the meantime, she had better pray.

  Chapter Twelve

  David tried to give his full attention to Mark Taylor, who had been damned decent about David’s tardiness and who had obviously put a lot of time and thought into his presentation. But no matter how he tried, something niggled at the back of his mind. Something he couldn’t banish or figure out.

  If you told her how you feel about your job and explained your idea about that boys’ ranch to your grandmother, I think she would be proud of you.

  That was the gist of what Roxanne had said last night. David frowned again, just as he had then.

  How had Roxanne known about his secret ambition? For the life of him, he couldn’t remember ever having told her. In fact, he’d taken pains not to reveal this hidden desire, because he was sure she would not approve. Because aside from her father and David’s grandmother, Roxanne was the most enthusiastic supporter of David’s involvement in the joint family business.

  So how had she known about the boys’ ranch?

  Had someone else told her?

  That must be it.

  Someone else had told her. But who?

  David could count on one hand the number of people he had confided in. In fact, there had been only four. His sociology professor at college. Hank. Andy Simcheck, an older guy he’d worked with and become friends with in Saudi Arabia.

  And Rachel.

  It was funny about Rachel. He certainly hadn’t intended to tell her. It had just seemed to happen.

  He smiled, remembering.

  It was last Christmas and the two families had spent Christmas Eve together. They’d gone to the candlelight service at their church, then come back to the Carlton house for a late supper. Afterward, they’d sat around the fire with their eggnog and listened to Roxanne play Christmas carols on the piano.

  Rachel and David had been sitting together on one of the couches. Rachel had commented about how well Roxanne played.

  “She can do so many things well,” she’d said.

  There’d been a wistfulness in her voice that had touched David, and he thought how much he liked this future sister-in-law of his. He wished she wasn’t always selling herself short, though.

  “You’re talented, too,” he told her. “Just in different ways.”

  She smiled and nodded, but the tinge of sadness remained. “Oh, I know. I’m a good teacher and hopefully a good artist, but…Roxanne is just different. She has so many talents. In so many directions. She could be successful at anything she wanted. Take music, for instance. If she’d wanted to, she could have had a performing career. Her teachers all said so.” Her smile turned wry. “Nobody ever told me that, and I had the same amount of lessons.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not an artist, and you are,” David observed.

  Rachel sighed. “I know. I’m probably not explaining myself well. I guess what I’m trying to say is, Roxanne is one of those really lucky people who has so much ability, she can have just about anything she wants. It’s simply a matter of setting her sights on a goal and working toward it. The rest of us, well, some things are attainable by hard work, but mostly we wish for things we haven’t a prayer of getting.”

  “What is it you want that you haven’t gotten?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time. Then, giving herself a little shake, she laughed. “Oh, nothing. I’m just being silly. It’s this whole Christmas thing. It always gets to me.”

  He almost accepted that. Almost went along with her pretense that her earlier comment hadn’t been important. But something wouldn’t let him. Something told him she needed to know that everyone had secret yearnings, that no one’s life—no matter how it appeared on the surface—was perfect.

  So he said, “You know, you’re right abou
t one thing. Most of us do have secret dreams that are probably not ever going to come true. I’ll bet even Roxanne does.”

  She turned to look at him then, and her blue eyes, so incredibly like Roxanne’s, studied him thoughtfully. “You, David?” she said softly. “Do you have secret dreams?”

  He smiled wryly. “Sure. I’m not immune.” And then, surprising himself, he blurted everything out, telling her about the idea he had for a boys’ ranch.

  When he finished, her eyes were shining. “Oh, David, it sounds wonderful. Why can’t you do it?”

  “You know why.” He inclined his head in the direction of his grandmother and her father, who were sitting in matching fireside chairs about a dozen feet away.

  As she had since they were kids, Rachel understood without further explanation. That ability to intuit another’s feelings so easily had always been one of her finest qualities, David thought.

  Yes, he decided now, Rachel must have been the one to tell Roxanne. After all, he hadn’t told her to keep it confidential. Rachel wouldn’t have felt she was doing anything wrong in discussing the topic. In fact, she would most likely have assumed he’d already confided in her sister.

  What surprised him, though, was Roxanne’s attitude—that she thought he should tell his grandmother how he felt about his job and what he really wanted to do with his life. In fact, he couldn’t believe she was in favor of his idea.

  And she must be.

  Otherwise, she’d have been trying to talk him out of it last night.

  He guessed it was true what everyone said—that you never really knew anyone until you were married to them. He sure as hell hadn’t known Roxanne. Why, every day she surprised him by revealing new facets to her personality. And instead of the new facets irritating or disappointing him, they were all pleasant surprises.

  You are one lucky son of a gun.

  He had the perfect wife, and every day he loved her more. She was the brightest spot in his world, and he couldn’t imagine living without her.