The Wife He Couldn't Forget

by Yvonne Lindsay

  A shudder ran through her body, and she pushed the memory aside. She’d dealt with all of that. Dealt with it and put it away in a filing cabinet in her mind and locked the drawers as effectively as she’d taped the boxes of Parker’s things closed before hiding them in the darkest recess of the attic.

  Olivia opened her eyes and applied herself to scrubbing her cast-iron pan clean and wiping the stove top and the benches down until they gleamed. She cast a glance outside to where Xander lay in the hammock, asleep. Maybe now would be a good time to bring his clothes down from the attic and filter them in among the items she’d brought from his apartment. And put the whole lot back in their bedroom where he believed they belonged.

  And they did belong there, she affirmed silently. Just as he belonged here, with her.

  Mindful that she might not have much time, Olivia moved quickly. This time she managed to avoid looking at the boxes of Parker’s things altogether, right up until she turned around with the storage box and headed back to the door. She had to pass the shadowy nook where she’d put her child’s entire history. If only it could be as easy to put away the pain that crept out whenever she least expected it and attacked her heart and soul with rabid teeth.

  The all-too-familiar burn of tears stung at the back of her eyes, and Olivia forced herself to keep moving toward the stairs. She wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not now. Not now, she repeated down each step on the spiral staircase. In her bedroom—their bedroom, she corrected herself again—she shoved her things to her side of the wardrobe and, after grabbing a few extra hangers, she shook out and hung up the clothes that had been packed in the box. Then she went to the spare room and transferred all the things she’d put in there to the bedroom, clearing the bureau drawers that she’d taken over and putting his clothing away.

  It didn’t look as though he had much. Certainly not as much as she’d left behind at the apartment. Would he notice? Probably. She was talking about Xander, after all. A man who was precise and who took planning to exceptional levels. Detail was his middle name. It was part of why he was so good at what he did and why he’d rocketed through the company ranks. She doubted she’d be able to sneak another visit to his apartment now he was home, not for a while anyway. And if she did that, it would only cause more problems when he discovered she’d added more clothing to his existing wardrobe. No, she’d just have to stick with what she’d already done.

  And hope like crazy that it would be enough.

  * * *

  Xander woke abruptly. At first confused as to his surroundings, he let his body relax when he realized he was home, lying in the hammock in the garden. He let his gaze drift around him, taking in the familiar and cataloguing the changes that they’d obviously made over time. They’d done a good job, he had to admit—if only he could remember actually doing any of it, then maybe he’d feel less like a stranger in his own home and more as if he belonged here.

  Carefully, he levered himself to a sitting position and lowered his legs to the ground. He wondered where Olivia had got to. He couldn’t see her through the kitchen window. He got up and shuffled a few steps forward. Then, as if his brain had taken a little longer to wake up and join the rest of him, he moved with more confidence.

  “Livvy?” he called as he went back inside the house.

  The creak of floorboards sounded overhead, followed by her rapid footsteps on the stairs.

  “Xander? Are you okay?” she called before she reached the hallway where he stood.

  He watched as she did a quick inventory of him and suppressed the surge of irritation that she’d immediately jump to the conclusion there was something wrong. It wasn’t fair of him to be annoyed with her, he told himself. This was all as new and as intimidating for her as it was for him.

  “I’m fine,” he said calmly. “Just wondering what you were up to.”

  “I put your things back in our bedroom,” she said breathlessly. “It took me a little longer than I expected. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to be at my beck and call.”

  Some of his irritation leaked out into the tone of his voice, and he wished the words back almost immediately as he saw their impact on her face and in her expressive eyes.

  “I might want to be at your beck and call, Xander. Have you considered that? It...it’s been a while since I’ve had you here.”

  He felt like a fool. Once again he’d hurt her and all because she cared. He reached out and grabbed her hand before tugging her toward him. He felt the resistance in her body and looped his arms around her, pulling her even closer.

  “I guess when we promised the ‘in sickness and in health’ thing we didn’t think it would ever really apply to us,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

  He felt her body stiffen, then begin to relax until she was resting against him, her head tucked into his shoulder and her breath a soft caress on his throat. His arms tightened, trying to say with a physical touch what he couldn’t seem to say with words. After a few minutes, Olivia pulled away.

  “What did you want to do today? Go for a drive maybe?” she asked. “We may as well make the most of it today because your physical therapist will begin home visits tomorrow.”

  She smoothed her hands down her jeans, making him wonder what she was nervous about. The action had always been her “tell” when something made her uncomfortable. Had it been their embrace? Surely not. They’d always been a physically demonstrative couple. In private anyway. Memories of just how demonstrative they’d been filled his mind and teased his libido into life. Good to know not everything was faulty, he thought cynically.

  But even though that part of his body appeared to be in working order, it was as though there was some kind of a barrier between him and Olivia right now.

  “Xander?” she prompted, and he realized he must have looked as if he’d zoned out for a while—and probably had.

  “You know, I’d like to stay home today. I tire all too damn easily for my liking. How about you show me what you’ve been working on in your studio lately?”

  Her face brightened. “Sure. Come with me.”

  She slid an arm around his waist—apparently more comfortable with aiding him than accepting physical comfort from him, he noted—and they walked outside and across to the small cottage on the property.

  The cottage was one of the reasons they’d bought the property in the first place. He knew that it was Olivia’s dream to give up teaching and paint full-time, and if he had it in his power to help her achieve that dream, well he’d been prepared to do whatever he could to see her do it.

  Stepping over the threshold and into what was originally an open-plan living/dining area but was now the main part of Olivia’s studio almost made him feel as if he were trespassing. This was very much her space, and she’d made it so right from the start.

  He could understand it in some ways. In her childhood, she’d never had a space to call her own. Instead she’d been too busy caring for her siblings, supporting her father where she could, right up until she’d graduated high school and come to Auckland for her degree. Even then she’d lived in a shared-flat situation with ten students in a dilapidated old house.

  “You’ve made some changes,” he commented as they stepped inside.

  “Not recent—” she started, then sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”

  “Not insensitive,” he said, looking around at the canvases she had stacked on the walls. “Don’t worry about it.”

  He walked over to the paintings and gestured toward them. “Can I look?”

  “Of course you can. I’m doing this harbor series for a gallery showing a bit closer to Christmas.”

  “Your style has changed,” he commented. “Matured, I think.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Olivia said from behind him as he lifte
d one canvas and held it at arm’s length.

  “It’s meant as one. You’ve always been talented, Livvy, but these...they’re something else. It’s like you’ve transformed from a very hungry caterpillar into a butterfly.”

  “That’s a beautiful thing to say, thank you.”

  “I mean it. No wonder you gave up teaching.”

  She ducked her head, her hair—loose today—fell forward, obscuring the blush he caught a hint of as it bloomed across her cheeks.

  * * *

  Olivia kept her face hidden so he wouldn’t see her sudden change of expression. She’d given up teaching six weeks before Parker was born. It had nothing to do with her art. Keeping up this facade was as difficult as it was emotionally draining.

  “Do you miss it? The teaching?” Xander asked, oblivious to the turmoil that occupied her mind. He gave a snort of irritation. “I feel like I should know all this. I’m sorry if we’re going over old ground.”

  She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t apologize, Xander. You don’t need to. You didn’t ask for this to happen—neither of us did. We both have some adjusting to do.”

  Not least of which was his casual reference to Parker’s favorite book. When Xander had likened her improvement in her painting to that of a very hungry caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, she’d wondered if he recognized the reference. Wondered if, deep down inside that clever mind of his, he still could recite, verbatim, the book he’d read to Parker every night.

  Six

  “Is this what you’re working on right now?” Xander asked, coming to a halt in his traverse of her studio to stand in front of a large canvas she had on her easel.

  It was a broad watercolor of Cheltenham Beach, only a block down the hill from their house. A place where she usually took daily walks to blow away the cobwebs of the past that continued to stubbornly cling to the recesses of her mind.

  “It is. I’m nearly done,” she replied, watching him as he stared at the picture.

  Would he remember the times they’d taken Bozo for a run on the white sand, laughing as he’d chased seagulls—his short legs and long hairy body no match for the svelte grace of the birds? Or when they’d taken Parker to the beach for his first swim in the sea? Their son had been such a water baby. Crawling flat out on his pudgy hands and chubby little knees to get back to the water every chance he could. In the end they’d had to bundle him into his stroller and take him home, amid much protesting.

  Her heart gave a sharp twist. This was going to shred her into tiny pieces—this wondering, the waiting, the fear that he’d remember and the hope that he might not. But was that entirely fair—to hope that he would never recall the past? He’d been a loving father and a good, if initially reluctant, dad. Was it fair that he shouldn’t remember all that he’d been to Parker and the love that had been returned from child to father?

  “I like it,” Xander said, interrupting her thoughts. “Do you have to sell it? It would be perfect over the mantel in the sitting room, don’t you think?”

  She’d thought that very thing. And there it was. The synchronicity she and Xander had shared from the day they’d met. Just when had they lost it so completely? she wondered.

  “I don’t have to sell it,” she said carefully. “But it’s the focal point of the collection.”

  “Maybe I’ll need to buy it myself,” Xander said with a wink that reminded her all too much of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

  She laughed. “I hope you have deep pockets. It’ll command a good price.”

  “Maybe I have an ‘in’ with the artist,” he said suggestively. “We might be able to come to reciprocal agreement.”

  Her body tightened on a wave of desire so sharp and bittersweet she almost cried out. It had been so long since they’d bantered like this. So long since it had led to its inevitable satisfying and deeply physical conclusion.

  “We’ll have to see about that,” she said noncommittally and stepped away just when Xander would have reached for her. “I was thinking of baking cheese scones for lunch. You keen?”

  “I shouldn’t be hungry after that breakfast, but I am,” Xander conceded but not before she saw the hint of regret in his eyes.

  Had he wanted her in that moment when they were teasing? She’d certainly wanted him. She wished she had the courage to act on it. The doctors hadn’t said outright that they shouldn’t resume normal marital relations. Thing was, theirs was no longer a normal marriage. She’d be taking even greater advantage of him, wouldn’t she, if she gave in to the fierce physical pull between them?

  Of course she would, she told herself. No matter how much she might wish it to the contrary, it would be lying to him. Like you are already? that cynical voice in the back of her mind intruded. How much worse would it be?

  She shook her head slightly, as if she could rid herself of the temptation that way.

  “Come on,” Olivia said firmly, slipping her arm around Xander’s waist in a totally nonsexual way and turning him away from the painting. “You can do battle with the coffee machine for me while I whip up those scones. We can discuss the painting later.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later saw them settled into a more comfortable routine. The physical therapist came to the house twice a week, putting Xander through his paces and working with him to improve his balance and coordination. In between his visits, Olivia helped him through his exercises. She realized, with regular home-cooked meals and the physical exercise, he was slowly returning to normal. Physically, at least.

  Mentally, he was still adrift in the past and none too pleased about it. He’d taken to spending a bit of time in his office upstairs each day, familiarizing himself with his client backgrounds all over again. Olivia was thankful he was nowhere near ready to return to work yet, but eventually he would be. She wouldn’t be able to cocoon him within their home forever.

  It occurred to her that at some point in time, if his memory didn’t show any signs of returning, she’d have to tell him they’d had a child. It was too risky not to. Someone at his office could just as easily raise the subject when he returned to work, and she needed to head that train wreck off at the pass if she could. But now wasn’t the time. He had enough to cope with, relearning everything in their current world.

  Olivia picked up her palette, squeezed some colors onto the board and selected a brush to work with. She tried to force her mind to the small canvas she’d started this morning when Xander had been with the therapist, but her mind continued to drift back to her husband. To the man she loved.

  She’d never struggled to focus on her work before. On the contrary, in the two years since Xander had left her, it had been an escape she’d sought with grateful abandon. Even before their separation, she’d guarded her alone time with a single-minded purpose and actively discouraged him from sharing her creative space. But now the gift of his return to her life made her want to spend every moment she could with him.

  She put down her brush and palette and took them over to the small kitchen to clean. It was useless to keep trying to work today when all she wanted was to be near him. After she’d tidied up she walked across her studio to the bedroom on the other side. It was a large room, longer than it was wide. Its southerly aspect didn’t allow for the best of light, which had made it useless to her as a work space, but it would work well for Xander as an office. He could even access it through a separate door so as not to disturb her when she was working, if he wanted to. And if they relocated his things down here, she’d be able to be near him as she felt she needed to be.

  She tried to kid herself that this new overwhelming need to keep an eye on him was nothing more than that of a concerned wife for her recuperating husband, but in all honesty the need was pure selfishness on her part. Sure, she would worry less about him possibly
losing his balance on the stairs if he was here in the single-level dwelling with her while she worked. But worry wasn’t the only thing that drove her to consider the change. No, it was much more than that. It had more to do with grabbing this second chance at happiness and holding it close. Nurturing it. Feeding it. And never letting him go again.

  Fired up by her decision, she went into the main house and straight up the stairs to the room Xander had set up as his office when they’d moved in. The door was open. When she noticed Xander, she hesitated in the doorway, her hand ready to knock gently on the frame.

  He was slumped in his chair, his elbows on his desk and his head resting in his hands.

  “Xander?” Olivia flew to his side. “Are you okay?”

  “Just another of these damn headaches,” he said.

  “I’ll get your pills.”

  Less than a minute later she was back at his side with the bottle of heavy-duty painkillers the hospital had prescribed and a glass of water to knock them back with.

  “Here,” she said, spilling the tablets into the palm of his hand. “Take these and I’ll help you to our room. You’ve been pushing yourself again, haven’t you?”

  He’d already had a therapy session that morning and, for the past two hours after lunch, had been up here in his office. It was more than his tired body and damaged brain could handle—that much was obvious to her if not to her stubborn husband.

  “Maybe,” Xander grunted.

  His admission told her more than he probably wanted to admit, which, in itself, worried her even more. He grew paler as she helped him to his feet and for once he made no pretense about not needing her support as they slowly made their way across the hall to their bedroom.