Wife in Disguise

by Susan Mallery

  He couldn’t believe it. “How can you say that?”

  Annie May’s gaze sharpened. “It takes two to tango. Always has. So the problems in the marriage were shared, at least in my mind. You don’t have to agree if you don’t want to.”

  Her tone clearly stated that if he didn’t agree, he was a fool. Del didn’t think anything could shock him, but this did.

  “It wasn’t me,” he protested, knowing even as he spoke that he was yelling into the wind. “She was the one who wouldn’t compromise. What about all the times I suggested we share responsibilities? From the cooking to the laundry, I was willing to do half. Sometimes more. But she wanted it all her way or not at all. What about all the times she wouldn’t admit she was in the wrong? It could never be both of us. In her mind I had to be the one to crawl or it didn’t count.”

  Annie May dismissed him with a wave. “I’m not saying she was a saint. Josie’s many things, but perfect isn’t one of them. She’s as stubborn and difficult as you. But that’s my point. You’re just as pigheaded, only you never wanted to see that. It was always easier to talk about compromise and make all the fuss, knowing you got to be the martyr when she didn’t agree. Besides, why did you marry her?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” He couldn’t keep up with the change in topic. Nothing made sense. He felt as if he’d stepped into a conversational house of mirrors where nothing was as it seemed and even the floor beneath his feet was constantly shifting.

  “You married her because of her stubbornness and her pride. You were attracted to her strength of character, her unwillingness to bend. You liked that she gave 100 percent and was fearless. You preached equality in marriage, singing with the choir. Yet when you married her, you expected her to be just like your mother—catering to you, making sure your needs came first.”

  “You’re crazy. It was never like that.”

  “It was exactly like that.” Annie May poked a finger at his chest. “You talked the talk, but you sure weren’t walking the walk. You expected Josie to cook and clean up after you, and when she wouldn’t, you were left scrambling. You got mad and then you shut her out. You punished her for being exactly what she was and for everything she wasn’t. There was no way for Josie to win.”

  He didn’t like hearing this. Annie May didn’t understand. “What about the compromises? She wouldn’t even start dinner before I got home, even though she got off work first. She said it made her a slave.”

  Annie May poked him again. “Don’t you find it interesting that all the compromises were about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did she ever ask you to cook for her? Did she ever ask you to clean her house or wash her clothes?”

  He didn’t like the direction this was going. “Of course not.”

  “Why?”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “Just what I thought,” Annie May said triumphantly, dropping her hand back to her side. “It never occurred to you that everything was just as much your responsibility. If Josie refused to cook—which in your eyes made her a lousy wife—the compromise was either sharing the cooking or takeout. Interesting that you never offered to do it yourself. Because in your mind all the household chores were her responsibility first, and you were willing to show what a caring husband you were by agreeing to take over half the work. All the while making sure everyone knew you were doing your half, even when she should have done it all.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he told her, even though he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that she might be right.

  “Wasn’t it? How come you didn’t take over the cooking? Josie loved being outside. I bet she would have been as happy as a clam digging around in the yard, taking care of the lawn. Did you offer that as one of your compromises? That she do that while you did the laundry?”

  When he didn’t answer, she shook her head in disgust. “I figured you weren’t bright enough to think of that all on your own. What about Josie’s love of sports? Did you support that? Did you ever once take her up on her request that the two of you get involved in a team sport? Did you ever once play softball or tennis with her? Did you join her on a run? No. Because you wanted her home and domestic. And if she wasn’t doing what you wanted, you made sure the two of you knew that she was a lousy wife. It seems to me you were a pretty lousy husband.”

  He didn’t need to hear this. “All I know is that she lied to me.”

  “Why wouldn’t she? Would you have wanted to see her otherwise?”

  He realized then that Annie May had set him up as the villain. There was no win for him. “I’m done here,” he said, turning and walking away.

  “I’m not done with you, Delaney Michael Scott,” she yelled after him, bringing him to a halt. Damn his parents and their training. He could no more walk away from Annie May while she was screaming at him than he could steal from the local convenience store.

  “Yes, Josie lied to you and that was wrong,” she continued. “But do you have any idea what she’s been through in the past year? Did you know that her walking wasn’t a sure thing? Did you know about all the surgeries, the pain she’s been through? Did you know she’s not finished with it yet?”

  He knew. Or he was beginning to understand. “She told me,” he said quietly.

  “I wonder if she told you all of it. About the loneliness and the fear. About how it all had to change her on the inside as well as the outside. She’s been through a trial by fire and she’s a better person for having survived. What do you have to show for the last year of your life? A series of relationships with big-breasted airheads?”

  He glared down at her. “You’re getting real close to a line you shouldn’t cross.”

  She stomped her foot. “I’m doing this because I love you both. Dammit, Del, can’t you see what’s different about her? Won’t you look at all the places you failed and maybe find it in your heart to change a little? Isn’t she worth it?”

  No. He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell Annie May that her brutal honesty wasn’t welcome in his life anymore. That he didn’t want to listen to her lectures, however well-meaning.

  “I can’t do this right now,” he said instead, moving out of the kitchen and leaving the house.

  He’d come looking for Annie May, expecting a confession and some sympathy. Instead he’d been slam-dunked by a master.

  His fault? She actually thought he was the one who’d been in the wrong in his marriage to Josie? That she hadn’t resisted all his suggestions and acted like a child when she didn’t get her way? That she hadn’t been the one to walk out on nearly every fight they’d ever had? No. As far as Annie May was concerned, he was the bad guy. He could barely believe it.

  He climbed into his truck, but instead of starting the engine, he stared unseeingly out the windshield. He wanted to dismiss Annie May’s words out-of-hand. He wanted to believe with all his being that she was taking Josie’s side because they were women and that’s what women did. He wanted to think this was just another form of male bashing. Only he couldn’t.

  There was a small voice in his head murmuring that Annie May might, just might, have a point. That maybe he’d been the tiniest bit dictatorial when he and Josie had married. His old friend’s crack, about him never offering to cook had made him want to protest. That wasn’t his job. It was…

  What? The woman’s job? Because she was a woman? Josie had worked just as many hours. When she was coaching, she often worked more. So why had he assumed it was her job to take care of him? Because his mom had always taken care of him and his dad? Because it was traditional? Because he was a jerk?

  He didn’t like the last option so he ignored it. Instead he picked up the cell phone and called the hospital. From there he was connected to Dr. Sanders’s office, where he made a consultation appointment for the following morning. Annie May might be wrong about a lot of things, but she was right about one. He didn’t understand all that Josie had been through in
the past year. He wanted the doctor to explain it to him in simple terms. He wanted to know the details of her surgeries and her treatment and he wanted to know what she could expect as she recovered.

  And maybe he wanted to find out if what Annie May had said was true. That surviving the past year had been a trial by fire for Josie—strengthening her and changing her in ways he could never understand.

  “So, you have a car,” Josie said, stating the obvious. Obviously Del had a car. She was sitting in it.

  Still, he seemed to understand her statement. He slanted her a quick smile and nodded. “Sometimes the truck isn’t the best choice. Like now.”

  Meaning that she could no more have climbed up into the front seat of the cab than she could have attempted a decathlon. She rubbed her fingers against the smooth, varnished wood of the BMW’s interior and told herself everything was going to be fine. Except she knew it wasn’t. She hated everything about this situation.

  For the past two days she’d been stuck in a hospital. Now she was finally out only to find herself in the custody of her ex-husband. Dr. Sanders had been firm. She wasn’t to be on her own until she was out of the wheelchair, which could be several weeks from now. She had a list of medical restrictions and instructions including a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night, two rest periods during the day, no walking, except to shower and use the bathroom. She was to attend physical therapy sessions every day and do her stretching and exercises religiously.

  Josie didn’t chafe at the instructions. She knew she should have been more concerned about finding a physical therapist when she came to town and she hadn’t been very good about getting enough rest. But what she really hated was the instruction that she wasn’t to be on her own. And there was absolutely no driving until she was out of the chair.

  Del had left her speechless when he’d volunteered to take her in. Del? The man who still couldn’t look at her without a combination of rage and questions. He hated her. Or at the very least he was resentful of her subterfuge.

  He started the engine, then pulled away from the hospital. In the spacious trunk was the hateful wheelchair. She heard it thunk against the side of the car as they made the turn onto the main street.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, unable to keep the confusion and faint resentment out of her tone.

  “What’s the old saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s either me, or you call your family.”

  She wasn’t about to do that and he knew it. Her relatives had already been inconvenienced enough by her accident. Not to mention the fact that there was a part of her that didn’t want to leave Beachside Bay just yet. There was Annie May, she thought, but didn’t give voice to the idea. Annie May rented several small rooms at the top of an old converted Victorian house. Aside from not having room for long-term company, Annie May was in no position to carry her up and down three flights of stairs every day for her physical therapy appointment.

  She sighed. She was trapped. “I appreciate your willingness to help out,” she said stiffly. “But I still don’t know why. Are you planning to punish me for lying to you? I’ve already tried to explain I didn’t plan it to happen that way. I really thought you’d recognize me.”

  “I know.”

  She looked at him in surprise. He shrugged. “You’re annoying as hell, Josie, but you’re not a liar or deceptive. I almost understand what you were trying to do.”

  She doubted that, because she didn’t understand it. But getting along was better than fighting. So she wasn’t going to push things and she wasn’t going to jump on his “annoying as hell” comment. Although she couldn’t resist a murmured, “You’re annoying, too.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

  There were a few minutes of silence. The shot the nurse had given Josie before she’d left the hospital took the edge off her pain. The good news was that if she was faithful to her therapy, the doctor thought she could get rid of the constant aching completely.

  “I can’t believe I’m back in a wheelchair,” she grumbled.

  “It’s your own fault.”

  “I know. But I still hate it.” If only she hadn’t been so stubborn about coming to visit Del. And if only she hadn’t gotten so caught up in the past.

  “If I can’t get you to therapy, I’ll have someone else drive you,” he told her as he turned into a residential neighborhood that was familiar. “You need to get all your treatments in so you can heal.”

  All the quicker to get rid of her, she thought glumly. “You never answered my question. Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know,” Del admitted. “Maybe because it’s the right thing to do.”

  A feeble answer at best, she thought, wishing she was whole again. She was all mismatched pieces that might never fit together correctly. What must Del think of her? Did he despise her, or worse, pity her?

  She’d handled everything badly from the beginning. She saw that now. She should have told him the truth when she’d first arrived and risked—

  She blinked, then stared at the wide streets and tall trees shading the minivans and station wagons parked in the driveways.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Her chest tightened with the knowledge. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. She wouldn’t survive the experience.

  “Home,” he said, as if the information was of no consequence. “The Victorian house has no furniture, not to mention no kitchen. We couldn’t live there. My house is a better choice.”

  His house. She knew exactly what it looked like. A rambling one-story ranch with plenty of rooms, wide hallways and hardwood floors that would be easy to navigate with a wheelchair.

  He turned down another street and pulled into a familiar driveway. She stared in disbelief at the gray and cream clapboard structure.

  “You said you sold it,” she whispered, hating the way her heart seemed to crack in her chest.

  “No, I told you I’d send you half the profit. I decided to keep the house, so I had it appraised and calculated your share from that. I took out a second mortgage to pay you off.” She felt more than saw him glance at her. “Josie, you signed a quit claim deed. What did you think that was for?”

  “I thought it would make it easier for you to sell.”

  She’d never dreamed that he would keep the house. That he still lived here. How could he stand it, day after day facing the ghosts from their past? Then she remembered all he’d said about her and their defunct marriage. For him there weren’t ghosts. Just easily dismissed memories.

  She stared at the house she and Del had lived in for most of their time together. It was the place where they’d been most happy and the place where their marriage had ended. In the good times they’d made love in every room in the house. In the bad times they’d fought in the same number.

  “Is this going to be a problem for you?” he asked.

  Did it matter? She didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  She looked at the small front porch, the clean windows, the roses bursting with life in the warm spring afternoon. She knew that the exercise room closet door stuck, that the garbage disposal could be temperamental and that when there was a bad storm, they were almost certain to lose their lights.

  She could hear snippets of conversation. How they’d been thrilled with the place when they’d been newly married and house hunting. The excitement of moving in and how, surrounded by boxes and unassembled furniture, they’d stopped to make love in the center of their brand-new living room. So much laughter and so much pain. Angry words came to her along with the happy ones.

  She remembered the last time she’d been inside that house. She and Del had been fighting, again. She’d started to leave. He’d told her that if she walked out on him one more time, he didn’t want her to come back. In the coldest words of anger, she’d told him that her bags were already in the car. And then she’d been gone. Disappearing into the night, so sure leaving him w
as the right thing to do.

  “Josie?”

  “I’m coming back to the scene of the crime,” she murmured.

  “Don’t think of it that way.”

  She looked at him, at the dark eyes and chiseled face. One corner of his mouth quirked up slightly.

  “How should I think of it?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “As a chance to learn how to be friends.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t believe it. Mostly because she didn’t want to be friends with Del. What she wanted was something more. But what did he want? After all this time, after forgetting her so completely and being so sure that their divorce was the right choice, why was he bothering with her?

  Chapter Ten

  Del carried in her small suitcase and the wheelchair he’d rented. He’d already brought over the rest of her luggage from the house. Then he returned to the car and opened the passenger door. Josie looked at him.

  “Why did you take the wheelchair inside?” she asked. “I’ll need it to get in.”

  He jerked his head toward the two steps leading up to the front door. “I don’t have a ramp, and you can’t maneuver over those. I’ll carry you.”

  Before she could protest, he swept her up in his arms. When she was secure, he turned, bumping the door closed with his hip and heading for the house.

  He told himself he was simply being expedient, that holding Josie like this didn’t mean anything. But he couldn’t help remembering all the other times he’d swept her up in his arms. His intent had usually been to get her somewhere private so they could make love. Now he was being a friend. Nothing more. Except he noticed all kinds of details. Like the fact that she felt different in his arms. Soft, rounder. She was a little heavier, though nothing he couldn’t handle. But the scent of her was the same. The sweet fragrance of her skin and her hair. Her arm around his neck felt the same, too. All that was missing was her mouth pressing against his as they stumbled toward their passionate release.