One True Thing

by Marilyn Pappano

  “What was your major?”

  “Education.”

  “You don’t like kids so you got a degree to teach them?”

  “Maybe,” she said primly, “the not-liking-kids came after the teaching degree. Besides, teaching doesn’t automatically mean kids. There’s middle school, high school, college, adult ed….”

  “What did you teach?”

  “Mostly English and history. No math, though. Creative people often aren’t mathematically gifted.”

  He raised one hand to his back to scratch absently. When he’d asked her about her prewriting career on the way to Reese’s, she’d listed everything under the sun except teaching. Was she lying then or now?

  Damned if he wasn’t tempted to find out.

  Chapter 5

  He parked beside his cottage, the truck’s engine coughing spasmodically before sputtering into shuddering silence. The pale thin moonlight gleamed on the silvered wood of the house, hiding the myriad flaws that came from cheap construction, lack of maintenance and old age, giving it a certain charm, a sense of enchantment almost, that was lost in the bright light of day.

  The night had a sense of enchantment, as well, the air cool and only faintly moist with humidity, the sky dark and velvety soft, the sounds of the forest muted and peaceful, as if all its inhabitants were settling in for a night’s rest. It was the sort of night that made Cassidy want to open her arms wide to embrace it, to slowly twirl in the dew-damp grass in a lazy dance with the sky, the stars and the moon, or to strip off her clothing and dive into the still-warm water of the lake, naked and sleek, just another of its myriad creatures.

  What if she did just that? she wondered. What would he do? Shake his head at her foolishness and go inside, leaving her to herself? Take a seat in the damp grass and watch? Shuck off his own clothing and join her in the water? And when their limbs grew tired, would he help her out of the water? Would he pull her close and look at her through those midnight-dark, mysterious eyes of his and make heat stir in her belly and dampness pool at the juncture of her thighs as he reached out to caress the firm globe—

  “Hey. Are you coming?”

  Startled, Cassidy gave a shake of her head to clear it, took in a deep breath, then moved away from the SUV. Jace had parked next to his own cabin and was now waiting to walk her across the footbridge to her house. She went as far as the steps that mounted to the bridge, then turned and faced him, forcing him to stop abruptly to keep from running into her.

  “You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

  “I know.” But he showed no sign of backing off.

  She appreciated the gesture. Her father was a gentlemanly sort who had always required such courtesies of David and, later, Phil. She was comforted by men who opened doors, gave up their seats in crowded places and met a woman at and returned her to her door. Besides, going home alone after dark ranked near the top of her Things I Hate list. She’d left a light burning in the living room, but the reassurance of a lamp was a poor substitute for that of a living, breathing man.

  Deciding to be gracious for once, she nodded, then turned again. The boards on the bridge creaked and shifted but held steady under their combined weight. Still, she felt a bubble of relief when her feet were on solid ground again.

  A breeze quickened as they climbed the steps onto the deck. She tested the doorknob to make certain it was still locked before fitting the key, then swinging the door open. The lamp illuminated the living room and a good portion of the kitchen and showed nothing out of place. The computer was still turned on, the screen saver adding its own pale light. Her tea glass still sat on the coffee table on a cork coaster, the ice melted and warmed enough to avoid condensation.

  The place appeared undisturbed. No one had visited while she was gone. No one—please, God—was lying in wait for her.

  She tossed her purse on the sofa before turning to say thanks and good-night to Jace. Without making a sound, he’d moved from the threshold where she’d left him and was standing next to the dining table. He nudged the computer mouse enough to make the screen saver disappear, then studied the photograph that served as wallpaper on the screen. “Who is this?”

  Quickly she crossed to his side, intending to push down the screen. Anticipating that, he stopped her by catching her hand. “I’m not asking for details. Just generic information. ‘This is my sister and her husband’…but you don’t have a sister, right? So ‘It’s my brother and his wife’…but a few days ago you didn’t have a brother, either. Maybe they’re total strangers whose pictures you got off the Internet and claimed for your own—you know, like keeping the picture that comes in a new frame.”

  His fingers were loosely clasped around her hand—long, slender, warm, deceptively gentle. They gave the impression she could pull away with the slightest effort, but she had no doubt she would free herself only if he let her. She suspected he wouldn’t do that until she answered his questions, one way or the other. Truth or lie.

  “That’s me,” she said, gazing at the photograph. Younger, happier, more innocent, more naive, more trusting—more everything that was good.

  Jace looked from her to the screen, then back again, his gaze sharp, shrewd. She had the uncanny certainty that in those few moments, he’d cataloged every difference between her past self and the present. She was ten years younger in the photo and twenty pounds heavier. Her brown hair reached halfway down her back, heavy and smooth, and her eyes— She studied them intensely, wondering if their blue shade was really so noticeable or if it seemed so only because she knew they were blue.

  She looked so young, so full of hope and expectancy and joy. Exactly the way a woman should look on her honeymoon. The poor fool that she’d been hadn’t had a clue about the turns her life would soon take, or she would have run off screaming into the ocean behind her to drown.

  “You’re prettier now,” Jace remarked thoughtfully. “Though I like the brown hair, too.”

  Despite its throwaway nature, the compliment warmed her more than was reasonable. It had been such a long time since any man had told her she was pretty—since any man had even noticed her as a woman. She’d missed that. Missed the relationship stuff, the someone-to-snuggle-with-on-cold-nights, the comfort of a lazy morning with someone who didn’t require conversation, the knowing someone was waiting for her at home and missing her when she was gone.

  She really missed the sex stuff.

  “Who’s the guy?”

  And she would continue to miss all those things. Because the guy was a reminder—to not get involved. To not let anyone into her life. To not risk such sorrow again.

  “He’s…” Would it be an obvious untruth if she claimed him as her brother? Was there too much affection in the way they looked, the way they touched?

  Drawing a breath for courage, she quietly replied, “He was my husband.”

  Jace’s dark gaze cut to her. “But you said—” Then his expression gentled. So did his voice. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Finally she pulled her hand from his, grabbed the mouse and clicked through the steps to shut down the computer. As soon as the screen went dark, she walked into the kitchen, wishing for a good stiff drink, settling for water instead.

  It had been stupid to leave that photo on the computer, but in three years, Jace was the first to see it, and she’d thought she needed the reminders. Of course, she hadn’t. How could she forget that her husband was dead? That, thanks in part to her, two more people had died? How could she ever forget that people out there wanted her dead, too, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way?

  “What happened?”

  She knew from the sound of his voice that Jace was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, blocking the only exit, and she figured from experience that he wasn’t about to politely move aside and let her walk away just because she asked. Gripping her water bottle tightly, she turned to face him, the refrigerator at her back, the length of the small kitchen between them, and she f
ormed her words deliberately, harshly. “He was murdered.”

  His impassive expression didn’t change. He didn’t look surprised or horrified or shocked. He didn’t exclaim, “Oh, my God!” or “I’m sorry” and he didn’t drop the subject. He simply, quietly, asked again, “What happened?”

  She could refuse to answer on the grounds that it was too upsetting, or she could lie. Telling the truth wasn’t an option, and this time, neither was a lie. Creating a lie of this sort would be best done in bright sunlight, when she had things to do or places to go, when she didn’t face a long, lonely night of heartache and might-have-beens. She needed strength to lie about Phil’s death, and at the moment she was feeling just a tad vulnerable.

  “Someone shot him. He died.” And she had been on the run ever since.

  She shrugged, but there was nothing of the casual fluidity she’d been aiming for in it. The movement was taut, jerky, uncontrolled, and made her feel uncontrolled, as well. “I really can’t talk about this right now.”

  She closed the distance between them, hoping he would move, go home and leave her alone, resigned to the fact that he probably wouldn’t. He had more questions than anyone she’d ever known who didn’t wear a badge or have a byline in a newspaper.

  As she approached, he took a step back, then another. Pivoting on his heel, he headed for the door. “Thanks for having dinner with us this evening. I’ll see you later.” An instant later the door closed behind him, and an instant after that, the sound of his footsteps faded as he moved from steps to ground.

  His giving in so easily and leaving so abruptly took her by surprise. She stood rooted to the kitchen floor, water bottle still clutched in one hand, and stared at the door. She was relieved, she told herself. Glad he was gone. Glad this long evening was almost over.

  But the emotion swirling in her belly and tickling around her spine felt suspiciously like disappointment instead of relief. Had she secretly hoped he would stick around and ask more questions—display more interest? Had she subconsciously wanted to extend their time together, to delay the time when she would be alone—again? Had she wanted him to coax her into telling him about Phil? Not everything, of course. She couldn’t tell anyone everything. But just…what had he called it? Generic information.

  Had she wanted, in some dark, lonely, empty place inside, to think he cared?

  She was as big a fool as the twenty-one-year-old bride on the computer screen. The last thing she needed in her life was to confide even generic information to anyone, and the last thing she could have in her life was caring. Not unless she wanted more deaths on her conscience…including her own.

  After an hour or so—more likely, a few minutes—she forced herself one step at a time into her nightly routine. Lock the door. Retrieve her book and glasses from the coffee table. Shut off the lamp. Brush her teeth. Wash her face. Change into her cotton gown. Remove the contacts that turned her blue eyes brown. Open the windows.

  Before lying down, she slid one hand under the edge of the mattress, made contact with the items hidden there, then crawled into bed. She stuffed the pillows behind her back, then tried to get involved with the book, but it was tough to get swept away to 1812 England when her attention kept wandering across the inlet.

  Finally she set aside the book and the glasses and shut off the light. She curled up underneath the sheet and pretended, as she had for years, that it was just the normal end to another normal day, that tomorrow would be just one more normal day with one more normal end. It was how she made it through. Pretending. Faking. Lying.

  It wasn’t much of a life, but it beat the alternative.

  Tired but unable to sleep, Jace shut off the television at two-fifteen and booted up the computer in his bedroom. When he turned on his cell phone, the message flashed that he had new voice mail, but he made no effort to retrieve it. The only people he wanted to talk with knew where to find him and knew he wouldn’t bother with his messages. Everybody else could go to hell.

  He connected the phone and the laptop, then signed on to the Internet. He had e-mail, too, which he also ignored in favor of typing a name into his favorite search engine. Cassidy McRae. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to find—truth, he guessed. A mention on some book review site, a newspaper article about her husband’s murder, something connecting her to UCLA or Lemon Grove.

  He didn’t find anything of the sort in the handful of entries that popped up.

  Okay. If she wrote under a pen name, maybe she’d managed to keep her real name so private that none of the book sites associated it with her. So to find out her pen name…he did a search of the Library of Congress Copyright Records and came up empty. Either she had incorporated her writing career under a name other than her own or she’d never registered a copyright.

  He wasn’t up on copyright law—those were federal statutes enforced by federal agents—but he supposed it was possible she’d chosen not to register her copyrights. As far as he knew, it was an option, not a requirement, though he didn’t understand why an author would decide against it, since it was for the writer’s own protection.

  It was little time spent, but all of it wasted. There was no telephone listing, no address information at all. He couldn’t check UCLA’s alumni list for her without calling the registrar’s office, which would have to wait until Monday. Though the search didn’t turn up a single news article about her, the list of free searchable newspaper archives was far from extensive. It looked as if he would have to call an old cop buddy who was now an FBI agent and had access to the Lexis-Nexis database. If it didn’t have anything on her, she didn’t exist.

  He smiled faintly as he signed off. She existed, all right, though possibly not in the world she claimed as her own. Dissatisfied with her real life, she could have created an entire fantasy life, from the career to impress people to the murdered husband to gain sympathy. It was entirely possible that not one single thing about the woman next door was real.

  Except the fact that he wanted her. Whether she was who or what she said.

  Was that proof of what an attractive woman she was? he wondered.

  Or how boring and empty his life had become?

  Sunday morning Cassidy watched out the kitchen window as Jace putted past in his boat, the space beside him filled with a rod and reel and a tackle box. Remembering his offer—We’ll give it a try sometime when you don’t mind being distracted—she sighed heavily. She would have appreciated a distraction this morning to drag her away from the computer and the old memories trying to escape through her fingertips onto the screen.

  After refilling her glass with peach-flavored tea, she returned to the table, sat and read what she’d written.

  Like so many brides, my wedding day truly was the happiest of my life. If I’d had any hint how thoroughly the mere exchanging of Idos would change my life, that it would lead to betrayal, death, deception and heartbreak, would I have gone through with the ceremony?

  She wished like hell she could say no, that she would have kissed Phil goodbye, mourned him for a while, then gotten on with her life. She just couldn’t be sure it was true. She had loved him—truly, committedly, permanently. Didn’t the past prove that?

  But she’d hated what he’d done to her—the danger he’d put them in, the unbearable situation she found herself in after his death. If only he hadn’t died…if only he’d taken her advice…if only he’d admitted just once that his judgment was flawed….

  She could spend the rest of her life lamenting if onlys, but it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t magically solve her problems and put her life back to normal. Nothing would, short of a miracle.

  She positioned her fingers on the keyboard, smiling faintly. When she’d learned to type back in ninth grade, she’d thought she would use the skill only to get through school, typing reports and papers. What use did a fourth-grade teacher have for typing, beyond occasional letters? She’d never imagined that someday she would use her less-than-competent typing abilities to write
her life story. Hell, she’d never imagined she would even have a life story.

  But here she was, doing just that. Even if no one ever read it, she would feel better for doing it.

  She passed the next few hours typing, getting lost in the memories, then typing again. When she heard a boat approaching, she glanced at the clock, realized it was past lunchtime, then went to the kitchen to find some food. Not to watch as Jace steered the boat toward his cabin.

  There was no dock or beach over there. He pointed the nose toward a grassy spot, increased the power and ran the front half of the boat onto the shore before cutting the engine. Once he climbed out, he dragged the boat a few feet farther onto land, then picked up his tackle box, a string of fish and his pole and turned.

  For a moment he looked toward her cabin, forcing Cassidy to automatically take a step back. She couldn’t begin to guess whether he could see her through the window at that distance, but if he could, she didn’t want him to think she had nothing better to do than to watch him.

  Though watching him was certainly a pleasant distraction. Today he wore ragged denim cutoffs that made his legs look ten miles long and a white T-shirt that fitted snugly and all but gleamed against the dark bronze of his skin. The Royals baseball cap looked as if it had survived a few dunks in the lake as well as a few close encounters with the ground. It hid his eyes and nose in shadow, but revealed the thin, flat set of his mouth and the strong, square lines of his jaw.

  He had the long, lean look and the grace of a runner, but she had yet to see him do anything so physical. He was probably one of those lucky few blessed with a great body by nature and not through his own hard work. Phil had been like that, too, eating everything he wanted, sitting behind a desk all day, but never losing the muscles he’d earned as a high-school football player. Her brother, David, on the other hand, had the tendency to go soft if he slacked off on his workouts even occasionally.