Wife in Disguise

by Susan Mallery

  He wasn’t asking a question but she nodded, anyway. “Dozens. For the first six months I was dealing with facial reconstruction along with my leg. I don’t look the same.”

  He pushed away the table, his half-eaten plate of food apparently forgotten. Then he leaned toward her and gently touched her cheek. The tender gesture surprised her, especially when her first instinct was to lean into the contact.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked.

  “My face doesn’t. There are a few tender spots, but except for a little swelling, I’m about as healed as I’m going to get there.”

  He studied her as if seeing her for the first time. He traced her eyebrows, then the length of her nose.

  “What’s different?” he asked.

  They were treading on dangerous territory but she didn’t know how to avoid the question. “My cheeks are a little higher and my chin is more round. The bones were completely shattered. The replacement shapes are a special plastic. Like an action figure.”

  He smiled faintly. “I can’t picture you looking any other way.”

  That was good news, she thought.

  “What else changed?” he asked.

  “My voice is a little lower and huskier. There was some damage to the vocal chords. Obviously the most injury was done to my legs. I’ve been through several surgeries, and I still have a couple more to go. My goal is to be able to walk without a cane.”

  “Will you get there?”

  She liked that he didn’t offer platitudes, promising that she would be fine when he didn’t know the details of her situation. She thought about the question.

  “If nothing else, I’m pretty stubborn, so I would say there’s a good chance.”

  “I’m glad.”

  He was sitting very close. She hadn’t noticed him moving, but suddenly he was in her personal space. Her chest tightened and her mouth got dry. She didn’t know what to say or do. Her hands fluttered on her lap before she laced her fingers together to keep herself still.

  She wanted him to kiss her.

  The thought came from nowhere, but once it appeared, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She wanted him to pull her into his arms and kiss her. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, to taste him again and be filled with the heat of desire.

  At the same time, she wanted him to know the truth about her. She wanted him to be this close, this open and friendly and know that she was Josie Scott, his ex-wife. An impossible fantasy, she told herself.

  He reached out to touch her face again. In that second she knew he was going to kiss her. Then, suddenly, he pulled back, shifting to his side of the sofa and reaching for his beer.

  Disappointment filled her. She’d been so sure. What had happened to change his mind? Had the thought of all her injuries, surgeries and scars repulsed him? Was he concerned about getting involved with a client? Or was it something else? Make that someone else. She knew he was single, but there was a lot of material between not living with someone or being engaged and not being involved at all.

  “I’m sure when you were first in the accident it was hard to imagine being where you are now,” he said. “This house is a little like that. Right now it’s a mess, but in a few weeks you’re not going to recognize it.”

  “I agree. It has a lot of potential.”

  They were changing the subject. Josie decided that she didn’t mind. Maybe a few minutes of chatting about the impersonal would allow her to catch her breath.

  Del looked around the main room. “I’ve always had a thing for this place.” He grinned. “Would it shock you to know I almost bought the house with my ex-wife?”

  Josie was startled—not by the information but by the fact that he would admit it. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Some of it was money. When we were first married we didn’t have enough to afford a place like this. Later, when we could have swung the loan, we couldn’t seem to agree on what needed to be done.” He swallowed the last of his beer. “Actually those plans I showed you are the same ones I’d had drawn up about three and a half years ago. I’d done them for Josie and me. I’m glad you liked them.”

  Hearing him speak her real name felt strange. As was his appreciation that she’d been in favor of his work.

  “From all I’ve heard, you’re doing so well now you could afford to buy the house on your own.”

  “Sure, but I guess I never made the time.” He looked at her. “This place suits you. I’m glad you bought it.”

  “Me, too.” She took in a deep breath. A question hovered on the tip of her tongue but she wasn’t sure she had the courage to ask it. Or the courage to hear the answer. But it might give her the lead-in she needed to confess her identity. She squared her shoulders and plunged in with both feet. “At the risk of intruding where I’m not welcome, what went wrong in your marriage?”

  Del took his time responding to the inquiry. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Josie. Not with a woman like Rose sitting next to him. He would rather discuss why someone as interesting and obviously intelligent as Rose wasn’t married or even involved. He would rather go on at length about how attractive he found her, especially with the light catching the waves in her long, blond hair. He wanted to stare deeply into her eyes and go back to touching her pretty face. He’d come damn close to kissing her a few minutes ago. He wanted to slide next to her and this time give in to the hot need building inside of him.

  But getting involved with a client wasn’t smart. So he’d stopped himself before, and he would distract himself now. Even if that meant talking about Josie.

  “You’re nothing like her,” he said by way of an answer.

  Rose smiled. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

  “It’s good. You’re a comfortable person to be around. Quiet, thoughtful. I feel relaxed. Josie was always going a hundred miles an hour. Sometimes I wanted to just sit and be.” He grimaced. “That wasn’t her style.”

  Rose touched her left leg. “She probably had a choice in the matter. I don’t.”

  “I think you would be restful, regardless.”

  He found his thoughts drifting to what life had been like with his ex-wife. To what had gone wrong. For the first time, he found himself willing to pick at the past and discuss it. Maybe because Josie had been on his mind for the past couple of weeks. A phenomenon he still couldn’t explain. Or maybe it was because of Rose. He respected her. With all she’d been through during her recovery from the accident, she could have been a bitter, closed person. But she wasn’t. She was a fighter. He respected that. Josie would have been throwing things and complaining about the unfairness of it all. He doubted she would have had the character to tough it out for any length of time.

  Rose was feminine and delicate—something Josie could never be. Even if she’d known how, she would rather have eaten glass than given in to him. But that wasn’t something he could share with the woman sitting next to him. Nor did it answer the question about what had gone wrong in his marriage.

  “I met Josie when she was nineteen,” he said slowly. “She was going to college and wanted a part-time job to give her spending money. The rest of her schooling was covered by a full athletic scholarship. Josie was all things physical.”

  Rose didn’t say anything, but he felt her stiffen slightly. Only then did he understand his remark was a little insensitive. “Sorry,” he said quickly.

  “No, don’t be. I asked because I’m curious. So she was an athlete?”

  Del wasn’t sure if he should keep talking or not, but when Rose nodded encouragingly, he continued.

  “She was more than that. Josie was movement. She couldn’t sit still, couldn’t imagine a world without exercise and sports. In a weird way, her athletic prowess got in the way of her being a woman. I’m not saying she wasn’t pretty,” he added hastily. “She was very attractive. But never feminine. She hated dresses and makeup and sexy lingerie. I guess a lot of it comes from her background. She was raised in Texas, on a ranch.”
>
  “More barrel racer than queen of the rodeo?” Rose asked.

  “That’s her. Some of the problem was her dad. He’s a real difficult man—stubborn, opinionated. He raised Josie to believe that emotions were a weakness and that the only thing that mattered was winning—be it a race, a game or an argument.”

  Rose gave him a slightly shaky smile. “Not exactly good background material for a successful marriage. No one can win all the time.”

  “Tell me about it. But Josie was determined to try. I knew that, even before I married her, but we were both pretty young and I was in love with her. I thought we could work things out.” He paused. “I don’t know what she thought about it all.”

  “She was in love with you,” Rose told him. “It’s why most women marry.”

  “Maybe. But I never thought Josie was comfortable wanting to love anyone. She didn’t like showing any kind of weakness. Loving means being vulnerable.”

  “So she kept that side of herself from you?”

  “If she even had it.” He shifted so that he was facing Rose and stretched out one arm along the back of the sofa. “A lot of the blame for the marriage failing is mine. I wanted a traditional wife, and that wasn’t Josie. I knew what she was when I married her and still I tried to change her.”

  “So you were looking for June Cleaver?”

  “Or someone like my mom,” he admitted. “Pretty dumb. In the end, I didn’t get her. Josie wasn’t about to change for anyone—certainly not for me. She wouldn’t compromise, either. She got stubborn about some things. Like doing the laundry or cleaning house. She was so concerned about only doing her half that she wouldn’t start either chore unless I was right there with her, doing my half. It used to make me crazy. She got home from work before me, but she wouldn’t make dinner. She said it made her feel like a slave.”

  He heard a soft sound and glanced at Rose. She tucked her thick blond hair behind her ear. “Josie sounds like quite a character.”

  “She was, but some of it was me. I was too young to know how to handle her, so I pushed back, probably more than I should have. Josie wasn’t one to walk away from a fight. So things got ugly pretty fast. There were times when I wanted us both to admit we’d been wrong, but she wouldn’t have any of that. She wanted me to say I was wrong. Even when it was obvious that the fighting was ripping us apart, she wouldn’t stop.”

  He paused and listened to the sound of his own breathing. Talking about it like that brought back a lot of the emotions from that time in his life. He didn’t like the remembering or the feelings. He’d put all aspects of his marriage behind him, yet it oddly felt so close tonight.

  “At the risk of offending you,” Rose said, “she sounds like a selfish person.”

  The statement made him mildly uncomfortable. “Maybe. Maybe it was how she was raised. All I know for sure is I wanted us to be a team, to learn how to communicate like rational people. She wanted…”

  His voice trailed off as he realized he didn’t know what Josie had wanted from him. “Maybe she was too much like her father, or maybe I wanted someone to treat me like my mom treated my dad. Maybe it was a personality thing and we never had a chance. I don’t know. But she’s gone now, and it’s good that we’re apart. I have a lot of regrets from that time in my life, but being divorced from Josie isn’t one of them.”

  Rose busied herself collecting their plates and dropping them into one of the bags. She seemed stiff, almost embarrassed. Del wondered if he’d said too much.

  “More of an answer than you want?” he asked.

  She gave him a smile that seemed more pain than humor. “Not at all. I appreciate your candor.”

  He wanted to believe her, but he wasn’t sure he could. “What about you? What’s your story?”

  “I, um, was married before.” She cleared her throat. “Nothing much happened. I guess we drifted apart over time. Like you and your ex-wife, we were young. Sometimes that makes things more difficult.”

  Del had the sense that something was wrong. “Did I offend you with what I said?”

  “Not at all.” She touched a hand to her stomach. “I’m suddenly not feeling very well. I guess it’s all the activity from the week catching up with me.”

  Del immediately stood. Disappointment passed through him. While he hadn’t expected anything to happen between them, and even though he’d been telling himself that a personal involvement with a client was dumb, he had secretly hoped that he might get a chance to kiss Rose. Maybe just a quick goodbye peck as he left. But he could tell from the lines of tension around her mouth and the white cast to her skin that she was very close to being ill.

  “Are you going to be all right by yourself?” he asked. “Should I call a doctor?”

  “No. It’s not serious. I just need to rest a little. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

  He wasn’t sure he believed her, but didn’t think he should push the point. So he gave her a nod and headed for the door.

  “I’ll be around all weekend,” he said, as he paused in the foyer. “Page me if you need anything. Even if it’s just to talk because you’re tired of your own company.”

  “I will,” she murmured, but he sensed she was lying. “Good night, Del. Thanks for dinner.”

  He hesitated before letting himself out. Waiting, he guessed, for Rose to change her mind and invite him to stay. But she didn’t, so he stepped out into the night and wondered what had happened to shift things between them. Obviously, he’d said too much about Josie. But it wasn’t just that, he thought as he climbed into his truck and started the engine. He had the sense of having been close to something significant and then of missing the point completely. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he hadn’t been able to see.

  Chapter Six

  Josie sat on the sofa and listened to the sound of the door closing behind Del. She was glad he’d seen himself out because she wasn’t in any shape to stand or walk or even pretend at social niceties. Her mind was racing, and there was a knot in her stomach the size of Montana. She felt hot and cold and mostly she felt sick.

  Humiliation filled her. Sticky, thick humiliation. She wanted to run and hide. She wanted to turn back time and never have come back to Beachside Bay. She wanted to throw something, anything just to relieve the tension building inside of her.

  She lifted her hand as if to do that, only to realize there wasn’t anything worth throwing. The unused paper plates on the small, folding table in front of the sofa wouldn’t be very satisfying. And if she let the Chinese food rip across the room, she would only have to clean it up later.

  “Damn,” she whispered and covered her face with her hands, wishing for once that she was the crying kind. Maybe tears would help. But she couldn’t force them. No matter how she strained, her eyes remained dry. She’d never been one for sob fests.

  Everything hurt. Her body, her heart and especially her soul. She felt battered all the way down to her bones. How could Del have said all those things about her? Worse, how could he have thought them? Did he really think she was so blindly selfish? That she wouldn’t compromise? That she’d cared more about winning than their marriage?

  He’d compared her to Aaron. The memory made her shiver. She hated anyone thinking she was like her father, even if it was true. She made a low sound in her throat and hugged her arms to her chest. That’s what hurt the most, she realized. That it was all true.

  She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed. She’d been a bad wife and partner. There was no way to sugar coat reality. As much as Del’s assessment ripped her apart inside, she couldn’t say he was lying. She hadn’t wanted to be horrible. She’d wanted to be gentle and kind and loving. She just hadn’t known how.

  Josie shifted until she curled up in a corner of the sofa. Memories from the past washed over her. She let them come, watching them like some strange, twisted movie of which she was the star. She wanted to turn away—to hide from the truth—but the past year had taught her there was no way
to do that. If she didn’t feel it all now, she would feel it all later. There was the possibility of postponement, but there was never any escape. The event, be it a therapy session or a recounting of her past, had to be endured in order for her to be healed.

  Things had gone wrong from the beginning, she thought sadly. Del had been right when he’d said he wanted June Cleaver for a wife. She’d been stunned when he’d told her he expected her to do all the cooking and cleaning and to take care of him the way his mother had. She’d proudly announced that she wasn’t anyone’s slave and if there was going to be service provided in their house it would be to her. She’d been horrified by his insistence, and he’d been stunned by her refusal. They’d argued for days. Eventually Del had come to her with a compromise.

  Josie opened her eyes and stared unseeingly at the empty room. Tonight Del had claimed that she had needed to be right, regardless of the cost to the marriage. That she hadn’t been willing to bend or admit they could both be wrong. She wanted to protest that statement, to tell him that she had met him halfway. That many times she’d been the one to come up with a better way for them to do things or to get along. Except she hadn’t. Not even once. She’d wanted everything to go her way.

  She recalled how Del had carefully divided the chores between them. With the hindsight of years and maturity she recognized for the first time that for a man like Del—raised by a woman who had catered to his every need—offering to take over half the household chores was a big step. She saw now how he’d really listened to her complaints and had realized that he was being unreasonable. She’d resisted his division and had refused to do her share unless they were doing the work together. She’d been so worried about not doing one lick more than was necessary.

  Tonight he’d accused her of being unreasonable. Of needing to win every fight. It wasn’t enough for them both to have been wrong—she had to be right. She winced as she remembered screaming at him, slamming doors and walking out. Just like her father.

  How she hated the comparison to Aaron. Yet she knew that his stubbornness, his strength that he’d passed on to her, were the reasons for her determination and victory in her recovery. She wouldn’t have survived the past year without being so tough and unyielding. But what had served her well after the accident had been the downfall of her marriage.