“You’d have hundreds of wins, too, if you’d ever entered a cooking contest before,” Pierce told her, stacking their pillows together and settling back against them. Content to sit in the dark and listen to her voice for the rest of the night.
“I don’t know about that.” She chuckled. “All we really know is that I’m good enough to keep our guests happy.”
“You won the first contest you ever entered,” he reminded her dryly. “You won the audition contest to be there. That’s how good you are.”
“Yeah, well, you’re good for me, Pierce Westin, you know that?”
He wasn’t. But with her so far away, he wasn’t going to let on to her that she’d caught the raw end of their deal.
She told him about a man who owned a culinary cooking school in Idaho. Another one with a popular fast food stand on the beach in Florida. And a woman from California who’d confessed that she really wasn’t all that great a cook. She’d used a friend’s recipe to audition for Family Secrets because she was trying to break into the business.
“The cooking show business? If she’s not into cooking, why does she want to be in the business?” he asked, grinning. He loved it when Eliza’s tone took on that slightly sarcastic note. Not quite poking fun at people, but sounding as though she were asking him, Can you believe it? To his knowledge, she’d never used the tone with anyone but him.
Which was probably why he liked it so much...
“I wondered the same thing,” Eliza said, “but only to myself. Luckily, Mr. Beach Food Stand wasn’t as reticent and was able to ask her questions and draw her out. She’s hoping to break into show business,” Eliza said.
Pierce wondered what she looked like, but didn’t ask. He wasn’t going to spend what time he had with his wife talking about another woman’s appearance.
“Apparently she’s spent the past two years going on auditions, and this is the first gig she got.”
A gig that didn’t pay unless you won. Which you weren’t likely to do if you couldn’t cook.
“She’s hoping to get discovered when the world sees how photogenic she is,” Eliza continued. “From what I hear, several former contestants on Family Secrets have been offered full-time positions on other shows. One even got a show of her own.”
Pierce was ready to move on. Way on.
Eliza was photogenic. Gorgeous, in fact. And a fabulous cook. She could get offers...be lured from their quiet life. The only kind of life he could endure with a reasonable assurance of maintaining his equilibrium.
Was this the beginning of the end for them? Would this be how he lost her?
Shaking his head, he sat up. Turned on the light. Fear was a waste of time. And flights of imagination were not allowed in his world. Were not anything he could afford to indulge in. Ever.
He had a hard enough time keeping the nightmares manageable when he controlled every thought.
“You got the light on?” Eliza’s voice broke into the moroseness he’d allowed to enter their room.
“Yeah.”
“And the TV?”
“Not yet.”
“Sleep with the TV on, Pierce, please? Don’t try to prove anything...”
Sweet woman. Didn’t get that proving himself was all he ever did. “I won’t,” he told her. And then added, “And I will sleep with the television on.”
“We’ve gone almost a year without a nightmare,” she told him. “I’ll feel awful if they start up again because I’m off having a dream moment...”
She’d done the audition as a lark. Hadn’t expected to win. And had offered, many times, to turn down the opportunity when she did win.
“You have nothing to feel awful about, Eliza,” he said now, his voice filled with command. “The fact that you put up with the nightmares at all makes you an angel. I won’t have them preventing you from enjoying the best life has to offer you...”
Or forcing her to be less than her potential would allow, he finished silently, remembering a long-ago night when his not-yet father-in-law had come to him. Issuing the warning to stay away from his daughter.
“You are the best life has to offer me.” Her voice had dropped, and if she’d been there, he’d have taken her in his arms.
God, he missed her.
“So, tell me about the rest of your day,” he said, when he should have told her how much he loved her.
His breathing steadied as she talked about the magnificent mountains, the desert landscaping and all of the pristine green surrounding Palm Desert and its Siamese twin, Palm Springs. As she described the huge beds of colorful flowers on every street corner, he tried to picture her there. And wished, for a moment, that he’d agreed to go with her.
He might have gone, except for one key point neither of them had acknowledged—she’d never asked him to. From the moment she’d won the audition, the only question had been whether or not Eliza would take part in the show. Not once had she ever asked him to go with her or given him an opportunity to offer to go.
Right from the beginning she’d assumed he couldn’t, citing his work schedule. And the limited time off they had. He hadn’t pressed the issue. Partly because the idea of flying to California and hanging around a television studio surrounded by strangers who’d expect him to be social had left him more than a little uncomfortable. And he didn’t want Eliza thinking she had to tend to him, or worry about him, while she was there.
And there’d been another risk he hadn’t been willing to take—the other reason he hadn’t introduced the possibility of him accompanying her to California—the chance that she might just tell him she didn’t want him there.
Lord knew he wasn’t an easy man to live with. Laughing didn’t come as readily to him as it did her. He didn’t always have a lot to say. And he was overprotective. He didn’t blame her if she needed time away to be carefree and enjoy herself.
“Pierce?”
“Yeah?”
“I was...talking to Mr. Beach Food Stand tonight. His name’s Jason...”
The hesitancy in her voice bothered him. More than a little. He waited to see what was coming. Picked up the TV remote and pushed On, watching as the smart television booted up.
“He was talking about his kids,” she continued. “He has two of them. Two boys. Seven and nine.”
With the sound muted, he scrolled through channels. Waited for mention of a wife. A mother to the boys. Wondered why beach bum Jason had caught her interest enough to talk to him about it.
“Listening to him talk...it just made me wonder...maybe it’s time we talked about our future.”
Was she trying to kill him here? She was a country away, getting ready to become a television star, and she wanted to talk about the future, too?
“What about it?”
“I just...we never talk about kids...”
“What’s there to talk about? I can’t have them. You knew that going in.”
“I know.”
She was going somewhere with all of this. Pierce settled on a sports station. A rerun of a boxing match. Thought about smashing heads. Or getting his smashed.
Figured it would be preferable to this conversation.
“We agreed, before we married, that we’d both be happy with it being just the two of us,” he reminded her. Because it was the basis of their union.
Not because he thought he could hold her to it.
“I know.”
Pierce threw a mental punch, felt the satisfaction of it connecting. Took a harder one. And went dizzy.
She wasn’t going to say any more. He knew that. Just as he knew that she needed him to do so. To ask what was going on. To need to know why she’d brought up an already closed subject.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked, leaving the boxing ring and landing on a news sta
tion. He couldn’t hear what the announcers were saying. But headlines flashed up now and then. The stock market had taken a dip.
Something that didn’t matter to him directly. Or to Eliza. Their money was safely tied up. Together.
“A little,” she said, sounding subdued. “But not nearly as much as I would have been if I hadn’t already met so many of the others tonight. I’ve just never been on camera. I hope I don’t do anything embarrassing,” she said.
Relaxing back against the pillows, he scrolled through more channels, stopping when he found commercials. “You aren’t going to embarrass yourself,” he told her. A repeat of a conversation they’d had at least a half-dozen times since she’d won her spot on Family Secrets. Most recently on the way to the airport. And before that, the night before when he’d lain in the exact same spot and watched her pack.
“I could trip walking across the stage to my stool.”
“Which is why you packed your flat patent leather penny loafers.”
“What if I sneeze?”
“Say ‘excuse me.’”
“I might get tongue-tied and just stare.”
“Then they’ll cut that part out. This time isn’t live.”
“What if I get stage fright when it is live?”
“Everyone will get a chance to enjoy your beautiful face while you stare at the camera.”
“I might lose, Pierce.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to let you down.”
His heart was racing again, but in a way that didn’t strangle him. “You couldn’t possibly do anything, anything, that would let me down, Eliza,” he said. “I love you more than life.”
The words weren’t clear, sticking in his throat. But he got them out. And felt guilty—like he was holding her to him when he had no right.
“I love you more than life, too. You know that, right?”
“I do.” She loved the man she thought he was. The man he’d been. Not the man he’d become, whom she knew nothing about.
“Can we talk in the morning?” she asked. “Before I go?”
“If you’d like.”
“I’ll call your cell?”
“Yeah.”
“Sleep tight, Pierce.”
“You, too.”
Waiting until he heard her disconnect, Pierce turned off his phone’s screen but didn’t put it back on the nightstand. He’d sleep with it in hand. Just like he did every other time he spent a night apart from his wife. While she was gone, that phone was their connection. And his comfort.
Not that anyone would ever, ever know that.
CHAPTER FIVE
ELIZA DIDN’T EMBARRASS herself that first day in the studio. She enjoyed herself immensely. More than she’d ever imagined. Being around professional cooks, meeting Natasha Stevens in person, just looking around her small but state-of-the-art stainless steel culinary space made her feel like skipping around the room.
She was no longer just running a business her grandmother had left to her. Or being her father’s daughter who continued to be a disappointment to him. She wasn’t even just retired-medal-toting-military-man-turned-respected-cop’s wife. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she was someone in her own right. A chef worthy of national television. Her love of cooking, her cooking talents, were her own.
As she said her goodbyes at the studio, took a cab to the airport and boarded her plane home Saturday night, Eliza had another problem on her plate. Not only did she have an illegitimate son her husband knew nothing about, not only had she given away her sterile husband’s child, not only did she have to tell Pierce both of those things—but also, she now needed to win Family Secrets. Needed it with a burn inside that wasn’t going to let her rest.
All her life she’d been looking for her way. Her own mark to make on the world. She’d been looking for her purpose. Not her parents’ purpose for her. Not her grandmother’s. Or her guests’. Not even Pierce’s—not that he’d admit to any purpose for her but her own happiness.
Since the day she’d given away her baby, she’d accepted the fact that she’d given away any chance she’d had of knowing ultimate joy. From that point on, she’d been settling. Not allowing herself to want for more than she could have. Content to love those she loved with all of her heart, to serve them. To take her happiness through pleasing them as best she could. To avoid asking for more than she deserved. To be thankful, every day, for what she had. She’d lost her drive to be all she could be. To achieve more than what was placed before her. To pave her own way.
She sat in her window seat and stared out into the night, scared to death that she’d just found her way and that it might implode her entire world. Scared that Pierce wasn’t going to understand. Scared that she’d fail. And that she wouldn’t.
And more excited than she’d been in a long, long time.
* * *
PIERCE KNEW THE SECOND he saw Eliza walking toward him that things had changed. The lightness in her step, the easy smile on her face, were like a shield around her—keeping him out. Not because she’d had fun or was enjoying the beginning of her television experience. But because, for the first time since they’d reconnected, she wasn’t greeting him with a sense of relief.
Relief that they’d parted and made it back together again unscathed.
He almost let himself be convinced that he’d been imagining the difference. And yet, as the new week started—and next weekend’s separation loomed—a shadow seemed to lurk over their home.
Maybe that sense of darkness, of doom, was only in him. As Pierce took the Shelby Island exit Monday, he didn’t discount that possibility. His first call that day had ended in the arrest of a man for pulling his young daughter’s arm out of the socket and then backhanding her when she’d cried about it. He’d gone from there to take a report from an elderly woman who suspected her children were stealing from her. And then he’d been second on the scene at a convenience store robbery. Not exactly a bright, sunshiny day. In spite of the blue skies and seventy-degree weather report.
A few hours alone with Eliza, sequestered in their portion of their antebellum home, would probably work wonders on him. She was making his favorite steak dinner. Though he’d stood in the kitchen talking to her more than once while she’d made it, he knew only that the sauce had about three kinds of mushrooms and whipped cream, and the meat itself was crusted with sea salt. And that it was the best steak he’d ever had in his mouth.
He’d be having it at least twice that week as she timed herself from refrigerator to plate in preparation for the upcoming Saturday’s meat competition in Palm Desert. While the whole idea of the show was making him nervous now, he wanted her to win. And figured the steak would do it. At least enough to guarantee her a place in the competition’s final round.
The inn’s guests for the evening included just two separately roomed businesspeople who were regulars. Social interaction requirements would be minimal.
He was hoping for an evening walk on the beach. Or good tunes on in the exercise room while they took turns with the equipment. Something to use pent-up energy while still having her close.
Pierce had himself down for being the only one aware of any gloom when Eliza met him at the door with a very welcoming kiss. After he changed out of his uniform into jeans and a casual blue button-down shirt, she was actually the one who suggested a walk on the beach after social hour and their private dinner. So much for thinking that she’d been shielded off from him. They were as simpatico as always.
He couldn’t help watching her—like a man watched a woman—while she moved about the parlor, welcoming their guests back, asking about their days. In black leggings and a longish black-and-white variegated-plaid flannel shirt belted at the waist, she was the furthest thing from nightmares he could imagine.
The meal she’d prepared was superb, as always, but it was her smile, the warmth in those brown eyes as she waited for his assessment, that really filled him up.
Dishes done, she grabbed her sweater. Pierce might have suggested they stay home instead of taking that walk, but he took her hand as they set out to Shelby Island’s long stretch of public beach, content to be by her side in the cool evening air.
Right up until she said, “Can we talk?”
A rendition of “we need to talk.” And everyone knew what that meant.
He braced himself.
“Of course.”
“I just... I’m thinking about kids a lot these days, Pierce.”
Kids. He’d been prepared for changes due to television stardom. A need to fly permanently away from their lives on quaint and relatively safe Shelby Island. Her eventual dissatisfaction where he was concerned.
And...kids. Her mention the other night on the phone had not been casual. When she didn’t pursue it, he’d just hoped whatever question she’d had had been answered in the meantime.
There was much he might say. Much he probably should say. At least an inquiry into where she was going with this. An indication that he was willing to listen.
He walked beside her. Felt her squeeze his hand and didn’t squeeze back. He also didn’t let go.
“We said we’d always make space between us to talk about whatever we needed to talk about...”
He didn’t disagree. Still said nothing.
They’d reached the beach. Still holding his hand, she slid out of her flip-flops, bent to pick them up, then continued to walk. He’d noticed the hand-holding most.
Took note. Breathed a little easier. And told himself that he’d get through this...whatever it was...for her. And had never been more thankful for darkness. While streetlights emblazoned patches of sidewalk and blacktop up off the beach, nothing illuminated the sand but the moon.
He could see a couple of lights bobbing out on the horizon. And noticed three or four other people sharing the beach with them. All locals, he assumed, enjoying their beach before tourists completely took over. Spring break—the official beginning of Shelby Island’s tourist season—was only a few weeks off.
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