Blaire's Ambushed Heart

by Marlene Bierworth

  “I heard that already, but, you’d best hurry, darling. I wouldn’t want you to be late for your dinner date.”

  Lyle reached out in what felt like an attempt to get a better grip on Blaire, but she shouldered past him, flattening him against the wall, marched into the kitchen, grabbed the vase of innocent fresh-cut daises and dumped them ceremoniously into the trash bucket. The air suddenly stunk of deception. Blaire refused to allow the false scent of blissful summer days or the loving stage she’d set to help welcome her bubbling news to dwell in her kitchen that night. The empty dinner plates delicately etched with the eternal ring pattern—the inheritance given her by her happily married deceased grandmother smashed to the floor, the shatter amplifying through the eternal chasm separating Blaire from knowing such happiness.

  “Sit down, Blaire,” Lyle said. “You can clean the kitchen later.”

  “How silly of me,” Blaire chuckled hysterically as she slammed the cupboard door. “I forgot that my evening has freed up, quite suddenly. You’re going out, yes? Not to see an emergency patient, for that would be too normal. It’s an unexpected rendezvous with the type of woman you always claimed to detest—until tonight, of course. It looks as if your past drips with contradictions.”

  Lyle gripped Blaire’s arm and swung her around to meet his eyes. “It’s not a rendezvous or a dinner date. I need to talk to her, the same as I need to talk to you.”

  Blaire felt all the fight in her suddenly evaporate when she stared into the watery depths of her husband’s eyes. She was afraid of the mystery woman’s hold on her man. And didn’t want to hear his explanation about the gorgeous, upper-class blonde that had successfully ruined their evening. She didn’t want to know what had given that woman the right to call Blaire’s Lyle “darling,”

  Blaire allowed him to steer her into a straight-backed chair. She sat on the edge of it, equally rigid.

  “It’s a long story,” Lyle began.

  One last spark of rebellion escaped Blaire’s lips. “I’ve got time, darling, but remember: your clock is ticking.”

  “You’re not making this easy.” His anger seemed to immediately dissipate when he bent on one knee and rested a sweaty palm over her hand. “Forgive my reaction. It was thoughtless.”

  She withdrew her trembling hands abruptly from his grasp and squeezed them beneath her thighs to fake an element of control, no matter how pretentious. His nearness left it hard to concentrate. His face remained inches from hers, intimately close—breath-stopping, chokingly close.

  “Blaire,” his story began, “I was eighteen when I met Liza-Mae. She was rebelling from her norm, and I simply slid into her bizarre idea of freedom, which basically boiled down to getting her folks riled up. California tended to breed that sort of behavior—summer-time-fun, beach bums, and dreamers with gold and riches top the agenda. She was from a wealthy family, and I was her happy-go-lucky Lyle who helped her to break all the rules. We did whatever suited our moods, and one day we carried it to the extreme. Liza-Mae was a fleeting moment in my life, a bad one. Believe me, that I came to regret the impulsive decision the first week after we’d married.”

  “Married?” Blaire barely whispered the word. The room seemed to spin out of control. She had to find an open window before she tumbled into a heap on the floor. Blaire pushed wildly at his groping hands and bolted to her feet. The quick movement finished her off, and she fell helplessly into his waiting arms.

  Chapter 7

  When she awoke, Lyle was gone. She sensed it before she opened her eyes. She lay there, numb, unwilling to face whatever came next. Her stillness took on the form of a breathing corpse. All of the life had been sucked from her, and the heaviness of it consumed her entire body. Finally, she allowed her tortured mind to open her eyes.

  Her new best friend, Marnie, was sitting in Lyle’s place. “Lyle was sorry he had to leave, but you wouldn’t wake up, and he had a meeting. He said he’d be back soon.” Marnie reached for Blaire’s hand. “What happened when you told him your news?”

  “I haven’t told him yet, and neither will you.”

  “Why not? You were ecstatic this afternoon.”

  “Were—note that the keyword is past tense.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t expect you to,” Blaire said. “Lyle should never have called you over.”

  “He was worried about you. You wouldn’t wake up.”

  “I was awake; I just didn’t want to talk to him.”

  “What’s got into you? You’re his wife!”

  “Another keyword: wife.” Blaire’s voice broke, finally releasing the dam of tears. Her eyes gushed uncontrollably, and she hated herself for showing weakness. The nurse within her reasoned that the hysteria was probably the pregnancy wreaking havoc with her emotions. Usually, she was a take-charge kind of person, but today, she longed for that redeeming strength of character to manifest itself. It eluded her when she needed it most.

  Marnie gathered Blaire into her arms, and Blaire sobbed until her throat ached. She somehow couldn’t utter the truth that was tearing her apart. Besides, the earth-shaking development was not hers to tell the community that loved him, but her husband’s responsibility alone. Husband—that was another loose term and one she would never have the right to claim again.

  The unveiling of wife number one had taunted her heart mercilessly, and her mind refused to erase the look of longing she’d seen in her husband’s eyes while gazing upon Liza-Mae’s female perfection.

  When the tears dried up, Blaire pushed herself away from her friend’s embrace. “Thank you for coming, Marnie, but I really want to be alone now.”

  “You’re in no condition to be alone, and besides, I promised Lyle I’d stay with you until he came back.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Blaire threw the covers off her sweat-drenched body and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I am going to clean my kitchen, have a torturously cold bath, and go to bed. I doubt Lyle will be home early, and I will not be found hanging out at the doorway like a doting puppy.”

  “I’m confused,” Marnie said.

  “That makes two of us.” Blaire witnessed the hurt in her friend’s expression. “Please, Marnie, don’t be angry with me. I will explain later, after it has registered inside my thick brain. Lyle should never have tried to ease his guilty conscience by involving you, but right now, I need to be alone.”

  “All right. I suppose I’ll have to settle for that,” Marnie said.

  “Thank you.” Blaire fled from the room, determined to give her friend a semblance of reassurance. In the kitchen, she dug into the cleanup.

  After a few minutes, an uncertain voice sounded from the doorway. “Well, I’ll be leaving now. I’ll check in on you tomorrow, all right?”

  “Tomorrow will be great. Thank you, Marnie.” Blaire buried her head inside a cupboard to avoid eye contact, her barrier of pretense near the breaking point. When she heard the front door click shut, she dropped into a nearby chair, her resolve having been weakened by her deception.

  Once again, that one word returned to torture her mind: wife! Lyle had been married to that woman. And now they were eating together, remembering romantic times at the beach together, remembering…God only knew what details that conniving woman might resurrect in an attempt to revive an old flame.

  Blaire cringed at the picture forming in her mind. The woman had the ability to sweep her stable husband right off his feet and leave him groveling. She’d seen proof of it. Past mistakes made by a man at the age of eighteen, might not be so easily forgotten under the spell of a bewitching woman like Liza-Mae. Blaire wondered about the wife’s sudden appearance, but she did not doubt for a minute that Liza-Mae had set on a course to steal her man. Some things a woman just knew and judging by the short time they’d stood in the front entrance, her brazen, manipulative moves clearly revealed her motives and exposed the effects she had on Lyle.

  She swallowed hard, dragged her reluctant body
to her feet, and set about cleaning the kitchen, right down to scrubbing the floor. When satisfied and exhausted, she headed for the bathroom. The original idea of a cold bath went by the wayside, deciding what she really needed was heat to stop the shivering that had laid claim to her body.

  Blaire filled the tub with hot water from the reservoir and added only enough cold to allow the steam to subside. After dumping lavender oil into the tub, she crawled in and slipped under the surface, only to emerge seconds later, gasping for air.

  “Whoa, that’s hot.” She realized it was not nearly as hot as the jealousy burning inside her. Scrub as she might, she could not erase the pictures playing repeatedly in her mind.

  Later, she watched from the window as the fiery red sun disappeared behind the horizon. She wondered if dreams could also disappear quite so absolutely.

  Much later, snuggling under the layers of blankets to insulate her tremors, she heard the front door open and then close gently. Likewise, the bedroom door squeaked open, just a crack.

  In the darkness, she chanced to look at him.

  Lyle’s shoulders leaned despairingly against the doorframe, and Blaire’s heart sobbed silently for the man who seemed to have aged in a matter of hours. He inched closer as if afraid she’d jump up and bite, stretched his hand toward her, and sniffled. His fingers barely touched her damp hair and abruptly withdrew.

  She lay completely still, barely breathing, trickles of tears running down her cheeks.

  He turned and walked toward the door, closing it firmly behind him with a heavy sigh.

  In the morning, Blaire found him curled on the sofa that was far too short for his long legs, fully dressed, and wound tightly in a comforter one of his patients had given as a wedding gift. How ironic—one perfect lie wrapped in another. His dark hair was flattened against the pillow, and his puffy face was streaked with dried tears. Blaire’s heart almost surrendered, but then he started to move, and his deceitful past reared up to slap her in the face.

  When he noticed her standing above him, Lyle jumped to his feet. “Blaire—how are you feeling?”

  She swallowed hard, and her stomach screamed to vomit. These days, the morning hours were not her favorite, and that day was no exception, but instead of spitting up morning sickness, she allowed her words to spit out the vile. “Fine, considering the fact that my husband has been keeping secrets from me, dating ex-wives, and sleeping on the sofa, wilting in a pool of guilt.”

  Blaire bit her tongue, wishing her voice hadn’t sounded so bitter. “We do have guest rooms,” she said, hoping to sound more sympathetic than she felt, but her heart contradicted her best compassionate efforts, and in her fragile state, Blaire knew she wished to hurt him the same way he’d hurt her.

  Lyle groaned. Even after witnessing regret swimming in his eyes while his face looked on her with the same love it had yesterday, she could not surrender. She’d waited so long to find this perfect life, and in a few short minutes, the dream had been ripped from her clutches. How could she ever return to what they had before?

  “I wish I could say I have good news for you, that this nightmare faded when the sun came up, but it appears I have found myself in quite a mess,” Lyle said.

  Blaire felt weak, realizing there were more details, more words she didn’t want to hear.

  “You never even told me about a previous wife, and that wasn’t fair, Lyle. I told you all of the miserable, disappointing details of my life, and you led me to believe you were perfect, my knight in shining armor—it wasn’t fair, Lyle.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I should have told you, but it was a disastrous year that I just wanted to forget.”

  “Well, it does not appear the lady wants to forget.”

  “She’s supposed to be dead. After I recovered from the accident, her parents told me I’d missed the funeral, and I couldn’t wait to hit the road. We were not happy together, not like you and me.”

  “She is very much alive.”

  “I can see her with my eyes, but I can’t accept it as true. I took them at their word that she’d drowned,” Lyle said. “You have to believe me.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you thought or if I believe you—none of it changes the fact that she is here, on your doorstep, wanting to pick up where you left off.”

  “Living with Liza-Mae was like trying to avoid being trampled by a wild stallion. When I decided I wanted to study medicine, settle down, and live a normal life, she reared. I couldn’t tame her, and I just wanted off her back. I’d grown to hate the upper-crust, old-money mockery—the whole scene sickened me—and it’s tough to admit, but I was grateful when she died. It gave me an excuse to leave California.”

  “Your wife is not dead, Lyle. You need to face that,” Blaire whimpered. The truth of her statement penetrated deep into Blaire’s mind. She hadn’t died, and that had made their marriage in Pelican Rapids a farce.

  Lyle buried his face in his hands. “I never thought to question it. Why would anyone lie about something like that?”

  “Maybe they just wanted to get rid of you as much as you wanted to be rid of them,” Blaire said.

  “And now Liza-Mae claims that since we never divorced, and she is obviously still alive, she is still my legal wife.”

  Wife. The room spun again. This couldn’t be happening. Her feet were paralyzed while her stomach heaved in mighty waves. Morning sickness mixed with heart sickness, until she finally doubled over and relieved her queasiness all over the hardwood floors. Blaire didn’t pull away from his touch while he tended to her, gentle and caring as with all his patients, for that was the extent of their relationship now—she was simply another patient.

  Lyle carried her back to bed, and within five minutes, had brought her a cup of weak tea. She sipped while he talked, non-stop, trying to water down the truth separating them like an abyss.

  She listened, avoiding his eyes, feeling numb and lifeless. It all boiled down to one stark reality: she was living in sin with another woman’s husband, and their child would not inherit its father’s family name. To add to her shame, visions of Blaire’s father’s I-told-you-so tormented her mercilessly, and she knew he would surely be disgusted when she was forced to crawl back to him.

  When she could absorb no more, she squeezed her eyes closed, turned her back to Lyle and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.

  She awoke an hour later to the shuffling sounds of Lyle packing. When she moved, his head jerked in her direction. This could not be happening. She didn’t want him to go, but at the same time, she cringed at the sight of him. Her head and her heart battled for the man, but in the end, the choice was not hers at all. His decision had obviously been made.

  “I thought it would be best if I left,” he said.

  “Without consulting me?”

  “I’ll work this out,” Lyle said. “There will be talk if I stay—Liza-Mae will see to that.”

  “We can’t have our reputations totally destroyed now, can we?” Blaire said, fully realizing that her reputation was already on a downward spiral. She felt dirty, used, and heartsick.

  “I take full responsibility for this, Blaire,” Lyle said. “Nothing was your fault.”

  “Nothing was my fault?” Her rebellion against her father extended its familiar claws, strangling her from within as she muttered in submission, “That would be a first.”

  Lyle hurried over and knelt by the bedside. “Promise me, Blaire, that you will keep hoping and trusting. I will work this out, and then—”

  “No! Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep. When you walk out this door, you’ve made your choice.”

  “It’s not like that, Blaire. I love you. There is nothing between me and Liza-Mae but paperwork.”

  “Does the lady understand that?”

  “Not right now, but I’ll make her see we are no good for one another. Surely, you must understand how vulnerable she is, searching the country for her husband only to find him living with another woman.�
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  She could hardly believe her ears. He’d swallowed her sympathetic act like a naïve teenager. Liza-Mae had played her cards well, and she had definitely won the first round. Lyle had no idea what he was up against, and Blaire feared she had already been eliminated from the game.

  Blaire felt lethargic, and when the dizziness returned, she felt the urge to belch again. Lyle appeared unaware that she might be expecting a baby, and she resolved he would never know—she would not trap him like that. She buried the joy she would’ve experienced sharing the news of the coming child deep inside a bottomless pit within her. She turned away from Lyle and swung her legs over the other side of the bed, keeping her back to him to conceal the tears threatening to fall.

  The determination on Liza-Mae’s face had been scorched into Blaire’s memory, and try as she might, she could not picture the woman as the poor emotional victim Lyle described. He was a pitiful, disillusioned man, and Blaire felt certain he would not escape easily from her claws.

  He finished packing while she sat perched on the edge of the bed. Blaire stiffened when he touched her shoulder, and she bit her lip when he swore once more of his undying love for her. Then, he was gone, and she cried. There appeared to be no end to the tears.

  CHAPTER 8

  Blaire wondered if there was an end to what a person could endure. The question haunted her as she clung desperately to her mere existence. She needed to go on for the sake of the wee life growing within her body, but how could she embrace motherhood when the main dream feeding all her goals had simply walked out the door? Her heart had been savagely ripped from any dwindling hope for her future. The fragments lie shattered by the wayside, and it was fast becoming too much of an effort to retrieve them.

  Where does one find the strength to go on, to dream new dreams and rebuild a life? Her soul said to turn to the Heavenly Father, but her inner child could only see her earthly father’s great disappointment. She’d left Kentucky on bad terms with her parents, and although she’d leaned on God for all of her twenty-four years, the harshness of the cold hard facts of life had left her faith hollow and empty.