HIS PARTNER'S WIFE

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He was intensely grateful that he didn't have to find out.

  "You could have come," he said anyway.

  "I thought…" She blushed. "Never mind."

  "You'd be bothering me?" Was this more of the same? She couldn't ask for anything from him, even simple comfort?

  "No, it wasn't that. Really. I just…" She was trying damn hard to sound offhanded, even humorous. "I guess I felt odd, the way I threw myself at you earlier."

  "You were scared. I held you." His voice was gritty. "Isn't that what friends do?"

  She seemed to shake herself. "Yes. Of course it is. We've just never…" She heaved a sigh. "Oh, forget it. I was self-conscious, which is ridiculous."

  "Yes, it is." He nodded at the mug she held. "Drink your coffee and tell John all."

  They sat on the stools at the breakfast bar where they had that night when he'd come home late. Sitting side by side, shoulders nearly touching, thighs inches apart, made him painfully aware of her, yet the fact that they weren't facing each other made it easy to talk.

  He didn't have to prod. After a meditative silence, she began, "My father died when I was two. I don't remember him. He had his own small plane. He came in too low for a landing and hit an electrical wire." Natalie cradled the mug in her hands and inhaled the scent. "Mom remarried two years later. He—my stepfather—thought we should all be grateful to him. After all, he'd rescued us from poverty, which was true," she added in fairness. "But he never let us forget it. He wasn't abusive, exactly. He never hit us kids, and I'm pretty sure he didn't Mom, either, but he was lord of the castle and he couldn't stand even being taken for granted. We were supposed to adore him and be constantly grateful for the bread he put on the table and the fact that we had decent clothes and a roof over our heads." Bitterness laced her voice. "I went through a stage in my early teens where I was always on restriction. I'd hear him downstairs giving my mother hell because she'd raised an ungrateful brat."

  John watched her gaze at her past as if it were playing right here in his kitchen in living color. She'd become nearly unconscious of his presence as she talked.

  In the midst of remembering, she squared her jaw. "I finally figured out a way to best him. I did things for him. I brought him his newspaper. I cooked favorite meals. I mowed the lawn so he didn't have to on Saturday. If he took us out to dinner, I made sure I'd already done something to even the score, so he couldn't say, 'Look at what I do for you.'"

  "You knit him sweaters," John said, understanding.

  Suddenly Natalie bowed her head and pressed her hands to her cheeks. "Oh, Lord. I even did that. It was a game, a war. He knew it, but he couldn't prove it, which ate at him. I was so sweet, and I hated every minute. I hated him."

  "How did your mother feel?"

  Starkly Natalie said, "She was grateful."

  John waited.

  Finally she lifted her head and looked at him, eyes wide and dark. "I swore I'd never owe anyone again."

  "I never expected payment." He wanted to make sure she knew that.

  "I didn't really think you did. It's just automatic." She held her head high. "I want you to know that. I didn't consciously think, He hopes I'll be grateful. I tried to make sure I didn't have to be. That's all." Natalie frowned. "The trouble was, you did big things for me, and I couldn't think of anything but small ones to do in return. I'm in arrears."

  Please, God, don't let her have thoughts of offering herself, he prayed.

  His gaze holding hers, he said, "Your debt is hereby dissolved."

  "That easy?" she marveled.

  "Nothing to it." Something was bothering him. "You were married. Didn't Stuart tell you the same thing?"

  "I didn't—" Realization crossed her face like a shadow, stopped her mid-sentence. "Of course I did," she said softly. "I suppose I always do with all my friends, too. Little gifts, I pay for lunch, I recommend them for jobs."

  "None of which is so bad."

  "Except for my ignoble motive." Natalie heaved a sigh. "Stuart never noticed. I never noticed. I was supposed to love him, which made it natural for me to buy him things or make special dinners or—"

  John didn't want to speculate on what brought her to an abrupt stop this time. What would she have said if she'd finished?

  Or met him at the door in my teddy and garters? Indulged his fantasies in bed?

  Until this moment, John hadn't been actively jealous of Stuart Reed, but now he was. Pretty damn ridiculous, considering the man was dead and buried.

  Sounding curt, he said, "It was natural."

  "Except for—"

  "Yeah, yeah. Your ignoble motive." He felt impatient, almost angry, but knew damn well it had nothing to do with her confession. "Nobody's generosity is uncomplicated, Natalie. We all have selfish moments. And you weren't even being that. You were defending yourself."

  "Defending myself." Her eyes went soft, unfocused. "Maybe."

  John took an unwanted slug of thick, strong coffee. "You didn't let me say my piece earlier."

  Her gaze sharpened. "I'm sorry. What…?"

  "I was trying to apologize for being a jerk. Connor tells me I'm always in a bad mood the night before I take the kids to see Debbie."

  "Oh." Natalie scrutinized his face. "I've noticed before."

  His mouth twisted. "Everybody but me, apparently."

  "I know it must be hard."

  "Hard? For whom? Me?" He gave a harsh laugh. "I came out of this with everything, didn't I? Sure, it's a nuisance to have to drive to Bremerton to see my ex-wife every other Sunday, but 'hard'? I don't kid myself. For Maddie and Evan? Yeah. I don't know whether they want to go or not. They think they should, but then they get so damned quiet when we're almost there. On the way home they look beaten. I try to do something to make it up for them, ice cream or a stop at a playground or even a movie, which makes me feel like I'm in some kind of competition with Debbie. See? Daddy is more fun than Mommy." He rotated his shoulders and made himself return to the bitter point. "Hard for Debbie? Oh, yeah. She wants to see the kids desperately, but all I can give her is a tantalizing taste. Hi and bye. I hear her crying as we leave."

  Understanding welled in her huge, dark eyes. "It's unfair, and you feel guilty."

  He shoved the stool back and stood in one frustrated, angry motion. "Shouldn't I?"

  "You are not responsible for her illness. You didn't leave her because of it."

  "But it's still goddamned unfair and I dread Sundays when I have to rub her face in it."

  Her brow knit and she slipped from the stool. "You don't honestly think Debbie feels that way, do you?"

  John made a raw sound. "No. God. No. She's … grateful." His laugh wasn't a laugh. "There's your idea of torment. She has to be grateful, and she can't pay me back in any way."

  "Don't you really go for Maddie and Evan?" Despite the aching compassion in her eyes, Natalie's tone was brisk.

  He scowled. "Who analyzes why the hell you do something like this?"

  "You, evidently. Isn't that what you're doing?"

  His scowl deepened. "Can't I just feel guilty?"

  "Why not? I was just making the point that Debbie knows you're doing your best for the kids you both love. Of course she's grateful she chose a father for her children who she could trust to do that."

  "For better or worse." He had to say the words. "Where am I, now that the worst has come?"

  "Taking care of your children, which is what she needs most from you." That same brisk, practical tone should have grated but, oddly, comforted instead.

  His grin was wry but real. "Okay, okay. I give up self-pity. For tonight, anyway."

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  After tossing the saddle over the top rail of the fence, Natalie slapped Foxfire's sweaty neck. He whickered softly and turned to playfully close big, yellowing teeth on her arm.

  "Bite me and I'll bite you," she warned.

  The stallion rolled his eyes and paused just long eno
ugh to say, Yeah, but I've got bigger teeth. Then, releasing her, he nickered again and tossed his head, for all the world as if he were laughing.

  She did laugh, feeling the carefree, belly-deep joy a good joke might bring. She wished Stuart could know what a perfect gift he'd given her. Foxfire might occasionally be exasperating—like the time he'd tossed her on an asphalt road a mile from the ranch and left her to hobble home in the rain. But he also gave her wonderful moments of freedom and companionship, letting her experience his power and speed. She found a simple pleasure in the crisp air, open fields and hard gallops. This past year would have been so much tougher without her three or four times weekly escapes to ride her Arabian.

  Today she walked him until the dark patches on his coat dried, carefully avoiding the quarter horse mares pastured below the barn. The one time he'd frightened her was when he caught the scent of a mare in heat and began fighting her. It was then that she knew she should geld him if she wasn't going to put him up for stud.

  This walk was peaceful, the sun warm on her back, the stallion's hooves clopping on hard-packed dirt as he ambled behind her. Twice he nuzzled her back and made her laugh again. They paused so he could snuffle curiously in a pile of fallen maple leaves, huge and lemon-yellow and crunchy when he nibbled one experimentally. Like a child, Natalie kicked the edges of the heap until she gave guilty thought to the ranch hand who had tediously raked these.

  She groomed Foxfire and restored him to his stall and paddock, leaving him contentedly munching on hay. It was only two o'clock. How long, she wondered, did the trip to Bremerton take? Would John stop today to take Maddie and Evan to a movie or … what else? Visit a toy store? An arcade? Or would they come straight home?

  And why should she care?

  They were friends, she told herself defensively. Couldn't she worry about him? Want to see that he hadn't been made silent, withdrawn and frowning by the visit to his ex-wife?

  Getting into her car, Natalie sat for a moment without putting the key in the ignition.

  Yeah, okay, they were friends. Gripping the steering wheel, she closed her eyes for a moment. Friends. Only, she had a suspicion that friends didn't have quite such a tangle of feelings for each other. Compassion for his anguish was mixed with jealousy for the hold his ex-wife still had on him. Natalie's loneliness because she was excluded today turned all too easily into a desire to hold John when he did brood.

  Please, God, never let him suspect, she prayed.

  Natalie took a deep breath, opened her eyes and started the car. Proximity, she told herself desperately, that's all it was. She'd been fine until the day she found Ronald Floyd's body in her house and had to go home with John. It had to be the fact that she was staying in his guest room—sharing a bathroom with his children, passing the milk at the breakfast table, peaceably inquiring what time he'd be home for dinner, as if she had a right—that was doing this to her. Giving her ideas.

  She would be fine again once she could go home.

  Quelling her deep reluctance, even repugnance, at the idea, she thought tartly, If people would quit breaking in and leaving dead bodies, the house might start seeming more like home again.

  And if not—she would sell it. Simple as that. What equity she got out of the sale, Stuart's modest investments and Foxfire would be the only legacies from her marriage. Which was okay with her.

  Thinking about the house made her realize she'd automatically taken the turns that would bring her home rather than to Old Town and John's shingled cottage. This would be a good time to grab some more clothes, Natalie decided. She'd be safe in her own house for a few minutes in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't quite the same as being alone there in the wee hours of the night.

  The moment she turned onto Meadow Drive

  , she saw that she wouldn't be alone anyway. A dark sedan sat in the driveway. She knew an unmarked police car when she saw one.

  Natalie parked beside it and let herself in the front door. The foyer was empty and quiet.

  A little nervous for the first time, she made sure to leave the front door open and only took a few steps inside before she called, "Geoff? Are you here?"

  A door opened and closed and the middle-aged detective came from the direction of the kitchen. He'd been in the garage, she realized. Seeming annoyed, he said, "Natalie. What are you doing here?"

  "It is my house." She sounded almost apologetic.

  "Is John with you?" He looked past her.

  "No, he's in Bremerton with the kids. Didn't you know this was his Sunday? I just thought I'd pick up some more clothes." Confidence returning, she added, "Why are you here?"

  Something shifted on his face, making him for a disconcerting moment into a stranger. The next second, she realized she'd imagined it when he grumbled with familiar irritability, "We shouldn't have laid off today. Damn it, the place could be cleaned out in the middle of the night! Stuart had something here, and if we don't figure out what, you won't be safe."

  She stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm, feeling muscles rock hard. "Geoff, relax. You can take a day off. Think about it. I'll be safe either way. If … if the killer finds what he wanted, he won't be back. I know that would be frustrating for you—all of you take such pride in solving every case, and this one must hit hard. But whether you or our bad guy finds whatever is here, he won't be interested in me."

  He gripped her hand, gaze intense. "Unless neither of us can find whatever it is. Then he's going to think you might know something. That you might have hidden it somewhere else."

  The chilling thought had occurred to her, along with a corollary. "What if Stuart didn't have anything? What if this guy is looking for something that doesn't exist?"

  Geoff Baxter's face hardened. "You'd better hope that's not the case."

  She searched his eyes. "But you knew Stuart. You don't really think he … oh, turned crooked? Because that's the only way he'd have something so valuable hidden here, isn't it? Something he never told me about."

  For a moment that stranger looked at her and his hand tightened until her bones creaked. Then he muttered a profanity, released her abruptly and let out a sigh that left his shoulders slumped.

  "I don't know." He sounded reluctantly honest. His face was haggard below the receding hairline. "He was my friend, but there were times…" Geoff swallowed. "I don't know, Natalie. He took the easy way sometimes. Didn't you see that?"

  She shook her head, then wasn't sure she was telling the truth. Stuart had seemed to love his job, but she had begun to suspect it was the adrenaline rushes and seeing his name in the newspaper that satisfied him, not the mundane work that made up a cop's day-to-day life. And it was true that he hadn't really liked working around the house, or working, for that matter, on his marriage. None of which meant he'd steal … something—a something so valuable men would kill to get their hands on it.

  And if he'd had such a thing, why hadn't he cashed it in? Told her about it? Even lied to her about it? Honey, this great-aunt I've never mentioned died up in Pittsburgh and left me a whole shit-load of money. Easy Street, here we come.

  Because he never had anything.

  She stared unseeing at Geoff and made herself face a niggling fear.

  Had Stuart not told her because he hadn't stolen anything? Or could it have been because he never intended to tell her about it?

  It was true that he'd become increasingly distant with her. They'd had sex less often those last months, and too many of those times at her initiation. Was it her fault he was losing interest? she'd wondered, ashamed. But he did respond to her in bed, so she had convinced herself he was just going through a bad patch. Midlife crisis, with his fortieth birthday approaching. Or maybe the romance went out of every marriage unless the two people involved really worked at staying connected. If work was what it took, and she was the one who had to do it all, well, so be it, Natalie had believed.

  Now she gave voice to a thought she hadn't wanted to acknowledge.

  "W
as he going to leave me?"

  Geoff reared back his head, eyes rolling like a spooked horse's. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Her jaw and voice firmed. "You were friends. Tell me. Was he planning to leave me?" Better to know.

  He swore. "Don't be ridiculous. Stuart never said any crap like that. You two hadn't been married three years! You're a beautiful woman, Natalie. Why in God's name would he leave you?"

  Her mouth quirked in a smile whose sadness she could feel. "Thank you for the compliment, Det. Baxter. But you and I both know that my beauty—or lack," she added wryly, "has nothing to do with whether Stuart was happy married to me." When she saw that he was about to argue, she said, "Would you leave Linda if she put on weight or was scarred in an accident?"

  He shook his head in exasperation. "Damn it, you know I wouldn't, but we've been married for twenty years. What I'm saying is, a man doesn't get tired of a woman like you in less than three."

  Uncomfortable with his insistence on her beauty, something she knew darn well she didn't possess, Natalie gave up the argument, saying only, quietly, "Geoff, I'd rather know what he was thinking. Don't try to spare me." She shook her head when he started to speak too quickly. "Think about it. That's all. Moving on might almost be easier if I knew…" She stopped, pressed her lips together, then managed a rueful smile. "I'm going to go pack. You need to go home and take your wife out to dinner. Appreciate what you have."

  "After twenty years, that isn't a hell of a lot," he growled, but she thought he was pretending disgruntlement. He and Linda didn't have children, and she guessed that he regretted it, but they had a nice house and traveled often. Cops didn't go into their line of work for riches.

  He waited while she packed and then did leave, the dark sedan following her compact until she turned off the highway toward Old Town. Geoff and Linda owned a modern three-bedroom ranch house with half an acre and a view of the strait. He often gave John a hard time about his ninety-year-old restored cottage.