Debbie Macomber: Debbie Macomber Navy Series Box Set

“If you’re searching for traces of Todd, let me tell you right now, you won’t find any.”

He had the good grace to look mildly chagrined. “I suppose I should apologize for that remark.”

“I suppose I should accept.” She pulled out a chair and sat.

Steve claimed the one directly across from her.

Neither spoke, and it seemed to Carol that an eternity passed. “You wanted to talk to me,” she said, after what felt like two lifetimes.

“I’m not exactly sure what I want to say.”

She smiled a little at that, understanding. “I’m not sure what I want to hear, either.”

A hint of a grin bounced from his dark eyes. “Forgiving you for what happened with Todd …”

Carol bolted to her feet with such force that her chair nearly fell backward. “Forgiving me!” she demanded, shaking with outrage.

“Carol, please, I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then don’t start one. Don’t come into my home and hurl insults at me. The one person in this room who should be seeking forgiveness is you !”

“Carol …”

“I should have known this wouldn’t work, but like a lovesick fool I thought … I hoped you …” She paused, jerked her head around and rubbed the heels of her hands down her cheeks, erasing the telltale tears.

“Okay, I apologize. I won’t mention Todd again.”

She inhaled a wobbly breath and nodded, not trusting her voice, and sat back down.

Another awkward moment followed.

“I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, or how you feel about … what happened,” Steve said, “but for the past ten days, I’ve felt like a leaf caught in a windstorm. My emotions are in turmoil … I can’t stop remembering how good it was between us, and how right it felt to have you in my arms again. My instincts tell me that night was a fluke, and best forgotten. I just wish to hell I could.”

Carol bowed her head, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. As you said when you left, we should chalk it up to the love and goodwill that’s synonymous with the season. But the holidays are over and I can’t stop thinking about it, either.”

“The loving always was terrific, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t sound as though he wanted to admit even that much, as if he preferred to discount anything positive about their lives together. Carol understood the impulse. She’d done the same thing since their divorce; it helped ease the pain of the separation.

Grudgingly she nodded. “Unfortunately the lovemaking is only a small part of any marriage. I think Christmas Eve gave me hope that you and I might be able to work everything out. I’d like to resolve the past and find a way to heal the wounds.” They’d been apart for over a year, but Carol’s heart felt as bloodied and bruised as if their divorce had been decreed yesterday.

“God knows, I want to forget the past …”

Hope clamored in her breast and she raised her eyes to meet Steve’s, but his gaze was as weary and doubtful as her own.

His eyes fell. “But I don’t think I can. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get over finding Todd in our bedroom.”

“He was in the shower,” Carol corrected through clenched teeth. “And the only reason he was there was because the shower head in the other bathroom wasn’t working properly.”

“What the hell difference does it make?” Steve shouted. “He spent the night here. You’ve never bothered to deny that.”

“But nothing happened … if you’d stayed long enough to ask Todd, he would have explained.”

“If I’d stayed any longer, I would have killed him.”

He said it with such conviction that Carol didn’t doubt him. Long before, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t defend her actions again. Todd had been her employer and her friend. She’d known Todd and his wife, Joyce, were having marital troubles. But she cared about them both and didn’t want to get caught in the middle of their problems. Todd, however, had cast her there when he showed up on her doorstep, drunk out of his mind, wanting to talk. Alarmed, Carol had brought him inside and phoned Joyce, who suggested Todd sleep it off at Carol’s house. It had seemed like a reasonable solution, although she wasn’t keen on the idea. Steve was away and due back to Seattle in a couple of days.

But Steve had arrived home early—and assumed the worst.

The sadness that settled over her was profound, and when she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “You tried and found me guilty on circumstantial evidence, Steve. For the first couple of weeks, I tried to put myself in your place … I could understand how you read the scene that morning, but you were wrong.”

It looked for a moment as though he was going to argue with her. She could almost see the wheels spinning in his mind, stirring up the doubts, building skyscrapers on sand foundations.

“Other things started to add up,” he admitted reluctantly, still not looking at her.

Carol could all but see him close his mind to common sense. It seemed that just when they were beginning to make headway, Steve would pull something else into their argument or make some completely ridiculous comment that made absolutely no sense to her. The last time they’d tried to discuss this in a reasonable, nonconfrontational manner, Steve had hinted that she’d been Todd’s lover for months. He’d suggested that she hadn’t been as eager to welcome him home from his last cruise, which was ridiculous. They may have had problems, but none had extended to the bedroom.

“What ‘other things’ do you mean now?” she asked, defeat coating her words.

He ignored her question. His mouth formed a cocky smile, devoid of amusement. “I will say one thing for ol’ Todd—he taught you well.”

She gasped at the unexpected pain his words inflicted.

Steve paled and looked away. “I shouldn’t have said that—I didn’t mean it.”

“Todd did teach me,” she countered, doing her best to keep her bottom lip from quivering. “He taught me that a marriage not based on mutual trust isn’t worth the ink that prints the certificate. He taught me that it takes more than a few words murmured by a man of God to make a relationship work.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. Your jealousy has you tied up in such tight knots that you’re incapable of reasoning any of this out.”

Steve ignored that comment. “I’m not jealous of Todd—he can have you if he wants.”

Carol thought she was going to be sick to her stomach. Indignation filled her throat, choking off any possible reply.

Steve stood and walked across the kitchen, his hands knotted into fists at his sides. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, he looked like a stranger, his inner torment was so keen.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said unevenly. “I don’t know why I say such ugly things to you.” Carol heard the throb of pain in her voice. “I don’t know why you do, either. If you’re trying to hurt me, then congratulations. You’ve succeeded beyond your expectations.”

Steve stood silently a few moments, then delivered his untouched coffee to the sink. His hesitation surprised Carol. She’d assumed he would walk out—that was the way their arguments usually ended.

Instead he turned to face her and asked, “Are Todd and Joyce still married?”

She’d gotten a Christmas card from them a couple of weeks earlier. Until she’d seen both their names at the bottom of the greeting, she hadn’t been sure if their marriage had weathered better than hers and Steve’s. “They’re still together.”

Steve frowned and nodded. “I know that makes everything more difficult for you.”

“Stop it, Steve!” This new list of questions irritated her almost as much as his tireless insinuations. “All the years we were married, not once did I accuse you of being unfaithful, even though you were gone half the time.”