He started to join her on the sofa, then realized Kirk had fallen sound asleep on the floor, the juice glass empty beside him.
He pulled the afghan off the back of the sofa, covered the sleeping child, then sat next to Meghan and looked at her expectantly.
Her cheeks flushed with color. “It’s silly, really,” she began, looking down at her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. “My father was committed to the job. He’d work whatever shift, whatever holiday they needed him to, but for some reason the nights around the Christmas holiday were the most difficult for my mother.”
“Why?” Seth realized that for the seven months they’d been married they’d rarely spoken in any great depth of their families or their pasts. It had been as if they’d both been born on the day they had met, with no past…no future separate from each other.
“Mom said Christmas, like a full moon, brought out all the crazies, so we’d worry more about Dad during that time.”
“And all that worry was for nothing,” he replied. “He didn’t die on the job.”
“That’s true. We worried for nothing.” She slid a strand of her shiny hair behind her ear, her frown deepening. “And it’s more than that. Christmas has gotten crazy. People buy gifts for others not because they want to, but because they feel obligated. Parents go nuts trying to find the toy their child can’t live without.” She shrugged, then gazed at him. “What about you? Do you have good memories of Christmases past?”
Her question took him by surprise. “Sure, I’ve got terrific memories.” The lie tasted bitter in his mouth. He stood and grabbed another box of ornaments, needing some sort of physical activity to keep the personal demons that had awakened at her question at bay. “Come on, we’d better get this finished up while Kirk is sleeping. Otherwise, we might have more help than we really need.”
She got up and once again joined him by the tree. He handed her one of the ornaments, then took one for himself. “You know, it’s funny. During all the months we were married, you never talked much about your family.”
What was funny was that she’d come to the same realization he had only a few minutes earlier. “There isn’t much to say.”
Despite his easy, laid-back tone, tension tightened his stomach muscles. He hung another bauble on the tree. “I told you when we first met that my father died when I was seventeen, my mother when I was twenty, both in car accidents.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was amazed that his voice could sound so cool, so utterly unemotional as he spoke the lie he’d lived since the day of his seventeenth birthday.
She reached for another ornament. “It must have been so hard…losing your parents so close together when you were so young.”
He shrugged. “You get through what fate throws at you.”
“Don’t you find it strange that we were married and we never talked about stuff like this?” Her expression was serious, her eyes so soft, so inviting. “We never talked about our childhood or our parents, didn’t discuss the good and bad things that happened to us that made us who we are.”
He took the ornament from her hand and hung it on the tree, then turned back to her. He reached out and trailed a finger down the side of her cheek, across her full lips.
Her mouth pursed slightly as if in response to his touch and the tiny action stirred a fire inside him.
“You know me, Meghan.” He leaned toward her, so close his head filled with the scent of her and he could see the tiny flecks of gold that merely served to intensify the green of her eyes. “Talking was never my strong suit. I much prefer action.”
She stepped back, away from his touch and he dropped his hand to his side. “Maybe that was our problem, Seth.” Color jumped into her cheeks and she averted her gaze from his. “We spent too much time in action and not enough time talking.”
He took a step toward her and once again touched the smooth skin of her cheek. “Regrets, Meghan?”
Her gaze met his and in the green depths he saw strength. “I can’t regret our relationship. Without it I wouldn’t have Kirk.”
“And our divorce?” He wasn’t sure why, but his breath suddenly felt as if it was an unwilling captive of his chest.
“No regrets, Seth.” Her voice held a ring of conviction. “No regrets about that, either.”
“Good,” he nodded. “At least we’re in agreement about that.” As he turned his attention back to the tree, he frowned, wondering why he felt as if he’d just told a lie.
Chapter 6
They finished with the tree about four, joined by Kirk who woke up in time to help with the final touches. After they were finished, Meghan took Kirk and disappeared into the kitchen to make something for dinner and Seth paced the living room, feeling edgy and irritated and unsure why.
Meghan’s brief questions about his past had stirred sleeping dragons, evoking memories he’d prefer to forget…thought he had forgotten.
When he’d told her he had pleasant memories of Christmas past, it hadn’t exactly been a lie, but it hadn’t exactly been the whole truth, either.
Christmas was generally the one time a year his father rallied from his deep depression. He’d indulge in a few drinks and with the spirit of the alcohol flowing through him, he’d spin yarns about the days when he’d been an FBI agent.
His eyes would shine with a momentary flicker of life, and in those old stories, Seth found his own love for the law. He’d just become an FBI agent when the SPEAR agency had recruited him. And within the first few days of working for SPEAR, Seth had realized he’d found his home, the place where he belonged.
And it was the one thing Meghan had wanted him to give up, the one thing she’d wanted to take away from him. He hadn’t understood her wish then, and didn’t understand it now. She couldn’t have loved him…not really…and asked him to give up his work.
He shoved his memories aside and grabbed the fire poker. He stirred the dying embers, then added several more logs. It was uncomplicated to stir the embers of a near-dead fire, far more complicated to stir the dead embers of a relationship.
And why on earth would he want to stir anything up between himself and Meghan? Nothing had changed between them. The issue that had forced them apart still stood between them, would always stand between them no matter how deeply they cared about one another.
Besides, he was better alone, he told himself. Better to move fast and unencumbered through life. That way you couldn’t disappoint anyone, couldn’t let anyone down. You served only yourself and in the end only had to face yourself.
“Seth?”
He turned from the fireplace. “Yeah?”
“You ready for some dinner?”
He nodded and followed her into the kitchen. Kirk was already in his high chair and he greeted Seth with a happy grin.
Seth tried to ignore the way Kirk’s smile seemed to be able to slice through any defenses he had and attack him in the softest part of his center.
“It smells good,” he said as he sat at the table.
“It’s nothing fancy…just hamburger casserole and a salad.” As she set the food on the table, he noticed she appeared subdued, and he wondered what was going on in her head.
Although her features were expressive, he’d never been able to read her thoughts. It was one of the things he’d always found fascinating about her…the fact that he couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking at any given moment.
They ate in relative silence, the only sound Kirk who chattered between bites. It was as if he were showing off, saying all the words he knew and waiting for praise from the two adults.
“Bite,” he said and picked up a piece of the hamburger meat. He popped the meat into his mouth, then pointed to his eye. “Eye,” he exclaimed, then smiled as if enormously pleased with himself.
“You’ve done a good job with him,” Seth said.
Her eyes lit with surprise. “Thank you. He’s a good boy.”
“Goo boy,” Kirk echoed and smiled broadly
.
“He must get his intelligence from you,” Seth observed with a small smile.
He was grateful to see her return the smile. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re not too short in the intelligence department.”
He grinned teasingly. “I remember a time when you told me something different about my so-called intelligence.”
“You’re probably right,” she agreed with a laugh.
The laughter seemed to ease the tension that had existed between them as they’d decorated the tree.
For the rest of the meal and through the cleanup afterward, they visited about mutual friends, spoke of movies they’d seen and talked about the kind of inconsequential things that held no emotional baggage for either one of them.
And throughout the rest of dinner, Seth found himself thinking back over their brief marriage, wondering how they had been so wrong about each other.
“Meghan, do you really think things might have been different between us if we’d talked more?” he asked as she placed the last plate into the dishwasher.
She hesitated a moment, staring down at the floor. “Yes…no…I don’t know.” She raised her gaze to meet his. “What difference does it make now? It’s in the past and we can’t go back, Seth. I don’t want to go back.” She lifted her chin, her eyes filled with defiance. “I’ve built a good life for myself and for Kirk.”
“You never wonder what it would have been like if we’d stayed together?” he asked softly.
She shook her head, her red curls dancing with the vehemence of her movement. “I don’t indulge in what-ifs. It’s counterproductive. I didn’t make you happy, and you didn’t make me happy. We were smart to cut our losses and part.”
He nodded, the unsettling edginess back inside him. Together they left the kitchen and went into the living room. The tree lit the room with magical color and the fire crackled cheerfully.
For just a moment Seth wished he could curl up on the sofa, Meghan in his arms and together they could watch their son play and laugh in delight as he watched the tree lights change colors.
He frowned. Meghan said her mother had once told her that Christmas brings on the crazies. Maybe it was true. His thoughts were definitely on the crazy side.
“Seth, I know I told you that you could sleep on the sofa while you’re here, but if you want, you can take the spare bedroom.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to overstep boundaries.”
“I can handle you being in the spare room as well as I can handle you being on the sofa,” she replied dryly.
“I thank you, but more importantly, my back thanks you.” He picked up the black duffel bag he’d been living out of the past two days and started down the hallway.
“Seth?” Her voice stopped him and he turned back to her. “Some of your old clothes are hanging in the closet…if you need them…” Her voice trailed off.
“Thanks, I packed pretty light, so they might come in handy.” As he walked down the hall to the spare bedroom he wondered why she would keep anything that had belonged to him.
When he’d left, he’d left for good. Had it not been for Simon, he wouldn’t have ever returned here. Or would he? One day would he have come back here to catch a glimpse of the wife he’d left behind? Just to check on her, make sure she was okay?
Eventually would he have come back to see Kirk? Would he have felt the need to connect with his son? To see what kind of man he’d become? He didn’t know for sure, but liked to think he would have returned eventually.
When Seth reached the spare room it took him only minutes to unpack the few items from his bag. He opened the closet, surprised to discover old shirts, sweaters and pants hanging there. It would appear his ex-wife had gotten rid of nothing when he’d left.
By the time he returned to the living room, Meghan and Kirk had disappeared. Beneath the door of her office, he could see a light shining and knew she must have taken Kirk in there while she worked on the computer…worked to get him out of her house and out of her life.
He doused the fire to make sure it was safe for the night, then unplugged the tree lights. Finally, with nothing more to do, he went back into his bedroom and stretched out on the bed…thinking.
If he remained very still and listened, he could hear Kirk jabbering in the office. For some reason the sound filled him with a strange loneliness. It was an uncomfortable feeling, one he’d suffered often in the months right after he’d left Meghan.
The first month had been the worst. He’d been filled with an anger that bordered rage, felt as if life…love had betrayed him. And when she’d called at the end of that month and he’d heard her voice, he’d had a moment of rejoicing, certain she’d come to her senses and was calling to tell him to come home, he didn’t have to quit his job.
Instead she had told him she was pregnant and never wanted him to see her again, wanted him to stay out of her life, out of their child’s life.
The room was nearly dark, the only illumination was the unnatural light of the snow falling outside the window. He stared at the snow dancing past the window, his thoughts going back over the conversation with Meghan.
She’d been wrong when she’d said she hadn’t made him happy. He’d been deliriously happy with Meghan. Until she’d asked the impossible from him.
He’d never dreamed that the moment he’d said “I do” to Meghan, she’d just assumed he’d soon be saying “I won’t” to SPEAR. Maybe they should have talked more before getting married. Maybe if they had, he’d have realized he couldn’t be the man she wanted…needed in her life.
He threw an arm across his eyes and instead fo cused on Simon, and all the things he’d do to the man before he turned him into SPEAR.
He’d make the bastard pay for all the agents who had died in the L.A. sting, make him pay for threatening the very fabric of the organization that had become family to Seth.
Seth closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, wondering how long he could remain in this house and not explode. He wanted Meghan. He wanted to make love to her, to taste her lips one more time, feel her naked body writhing beneath his.
But what he wanted wasn’t fair, because he had no intention of changing anything. They were divorced, and they would remain so. He refused to quit his job for her, and she refused to stay with him as long as he was working as a field agent for SPEAR.
Stalemate.
He pulled off his clothes and tossed them to the floor, then crawled beneath the bedcovers. He closed his eyes, felt the fuzziness of sleep reaching out to claim him and gave into it, knowing sleep would certainly be more peaceful than his tumultuous thoughts.
Dreaming. He knew he was dreaming. It was his seventeenth birthday and he was walking home from school. It was a gorgeous late September day and the trees that lined the sidewalk had on their autumn colors. Reds, oranges and yellows…like the glow of birthday candles on a cake.
His mouth watered as he thought of the cake his mother had baked the night before. The house had filled with the scent of the chocolate cake and he’d watched her cover it with thick, gooey frosting.
As he walked, he wondered if his old man would remember that today was his birthday. Seth knew his father would be wrapped in an afghan, sitting in his chair and staring blankly at the television screen. In the past five years, the only time Seth saw his father get out of the chair was about nine o’clock each night when he would rise and shuffle off to bed.
Depression, that’s what his mother had told him. His father was suffering from clinical depression. He’d seen doctors, talked to psychiatrists, tried an array of medications, but seemed to get worse rather than better.
Maybe today he’ll actually look at me, ask me about my day, acknowledge that I exist in his world, Seth thought as he neared his house.
With each footstep that brought him closer to him, the unconscious Seth remained blithely unaware of the coming horror. But the part of Seth that knew he was dreaming, the part that still retained a small modicum of consciousness,
knew…and fought against the inevitable.
Don’t go inside, his subconscious screamed. Stay away from the house. And he watched in horror as the young Seth went around to the back door and entered the small house.
The cake was set on the counter and he thought about cutting himself a piece, but knew his mom would kill him if he didn’t wait until after supper.
He placed his books on the table and that’s when he became aware of the smell. The scent of gunpowder…and death.
“Dad?” He walked into the living room and screamed.
“Seth! Seth, wake up.”
He came instantly awake, the memory of blood and death lingering in his mind.
Meghan sat on the edge of the bed, visible in the light that spilled into the dark bedroom from the hallway. He jerked up, raked a hand through his hair and released a ragged breath.
“Are you all right?” Her voice was deep and low with concern.
“Yeah…I’m fine…just a nightmare. Sorry.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes, attempting to shed the lingering horror of the dream. “What time is it?”
“A few minutes after eleven.” She started to rise, but he grabbed her arm.
“Wait…” he said. “Please…stay for just a minute.” He felt her hesitation, then she sat once again and he released her. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I was reading in bed.”
He breathed deeply, savoring the feminine scent of lotion and perfume. It was a welcome change from the scents of his nightmare. “What about Kirk?”
“Still sleeping soundly.” She hesitated, then continued, “Were you dreaming about the L.A. sting?”
“Yeah.” It was easier to acknowledge that tragedy rather than deal with the ghosts of his distant past.
He couldn’t imagine why he’d dreamed of his father’s death. It had been years since he’d suffered the nightmares that had once plagued him nightly. He’d thought they were finally, truly behind him.
Strangers When We Married Page 7