Debbie Macomber - This Matter Of Marriage

After all those years together, Mary Lynn could read him like a book. He took a certain perverse pride in that. “I need someone to fill in for a few days until I can hire a new secretary.”

“What about getting a temporary?”

“Sure, I could call an agency and they’d send someone out, but I’d rather give you the money.”

“I’ve got school. It isn’t easy for me attending classes all afternoon plus keeping up with the kids and the house, you know.”

“I realize that, but it’d help me out considerably if you came in for a couple of days, just in the mornings. That’s all I’m asking.” Since paying for her education had been part of the settlement, he was well aware of her schedule.

“You always say that!” she snapped.

“What?” This conversation was quickly taking on the same tone as their arguments before the divorce. He’d say or do something that irritated her, and for the life of him, he wouldn’t understand what he’d done.

“You say you realize how difficult my schedule is. You don’t.”

“I do, honest.”

“If you did, you’d never ask me to pitch in while you take your own sweet time finding a new secretary. I know you, Steve Marris. Two days’ll become two weeks and I won’t be able to keep up with my classes. That’s what you really want, whether you know it or not. You’re trying to sabotage my schoolwork.”

Steve choked back an argument. “I understand how important your classes are,” he said. And he did. What he failed to understand was why her getting an education precluded being married to him. Not only that, he wondered what she intended to do with a major in art history. Get a job in some museum, he supposed—if there were any jobs to be had. But he certainly couldn’t say that to her.

“Do you really, Steve?”

“Yes,” he said, still struggling to show his respect for her efforts. “It’s just that I thought since your classes don’t start until one, you might be willing to help out, but if you can’t, you can’t.”

She hesitated and he closed in for the kill.

“All I need is a couple of hours in the morning. And like I said, if you can’t do it, that’s fine. No hard feelings.”

“Do you realize how much reading I have, how many assignments?”

“You’re right, I never should have asked. I guess that’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she agreed sharply. Then there was a pause. And a sigh. “I guess I could fill in for a couple of days, but no longer. I want to make that perfectly clear. Two days and not a minute longer, understand?”

“Perfectly.” Steve wanted to leap up and click his heels in the air. Calling Mary Lynn had been one of his better ideas. He was confident it wouldn’t take long to make her forget all about this other guy.

“I hope you don’t want me there before eight?”

He let the question slide. “You’re wearing the pink nightie, aren’t you?”

“Steve!”

“Aren’t you?” His voice grew husky despite his attempts to keep it even. Some of their best sex had come after the divorce. It was so crazy. Mary Lynn wanted him out of the house but continued to welcome him in her bed. Not that he was complaining.

“Yes, I’m wearing your favorite nightie,” she whispered, her voice low and sexy.

Slowly his eyes drifted shut. “I’m coming over.”

“Steve, no. I can’t. We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because we shouldn’t.”

Steve was instantly suspicious, convinced her decision had something to do with what Kenny had told him. “Why?”

“We’re divorced, remember?”

“It hasn’t stopped us before. I could be at the house in fifteen minutes. You want me there, otherwise you’d never have told me about the pink nightie.”

Mary Lynn giggled, then altered her tone. “Steve, no, I mean it,” she said solemnly. “We’ve been divorced for a year now. We shouldn’t be sleeping together anymore.”

His jaw tightened. “When did you make that decision?”

“Since the last time.”

He exhaled, his patience fading fast. He did a quick review of their last rendezvous. It’d been late morning, before her classes and while the kids were in school. He’d invented some excuse to stop over. Mary Lynn knew what he wanted, and from the gleam in her eye and the eager way she’d led him into the bedroom, she’d wanted the same thing.

He couldn’t imagine what had changed, other than her dating this Kip character. Unfortunately he couldn’t ask her about it or let on that he knew. The last thing he wanted was to put his children in the middle, between two squabbling parents, something he’d seen other divorced couples do all too often. The divorce had been hard enough on Meagan and Kenny without complicating the situation. So their private lives, his and Mary Lynn’s, would stay that way—private. At least as far as the kids were concerned.

“What happened to change your mind about us sleeping together?” he asked, instead.

Mary Lynn sighed. “Nothing. Everything. We have to break this off. It’s over for us, Steve.”

Steve didn’t say anything. He knew his wife—ex-wife—well enough not to argue. Something else he knew about Mary Lynn—she possessed a healthy sexual appetite. As strong as his own.

“You’ll be here in the morning, then?” he said, just to be sure.

“I suppose. But remember I agreed to two days, and two days only.”

“Bring along the pink nightie.”

“Steve!”

“Sorry,” he murmured, but he wasn’t.

He hung up the phone a few moments later, his mood greatly improved.

The rest of his day was relatively smooth. The transport company located the lost shipment in Albuquerque. The parts were guaranteed to be delivered within the next forty-eight hours. The majority of his orders came from a major aircraft builder in the area, for whom he supplied engine mounts, but he also did lathe work, blanchard grinding and other steel-fabrication work for a number of customers. His company was growing, taking on larger and larger orders, and he employed almost a dozen people now.

On the drive home that afternoon, Steve’s gaze fell on his hands—clean hands—gripping the steering wheel. He used to have grease under his fingernails, and that had always bothered Mary Lynn. The irony didn’t escape him. The last year and a half, he’d spent the majority of his time in the office and rarely dirtied his hands. She’d always wanted him to have a white-collar job; when he was finally able to grant her wish, she wanted him out of her life. Damn it all, the machine shop had been good to them—it had bought her house, supported the kids, paid for her education. A little grime around his fingernails seemed a small inconvenience.

The January drizzle grew heavier, and the truck’s windshield wipers beat against the glass, slapping the rain from side to side with annoying regularity. He exited the freeway and headed down the west hill toward Kent. He hadn’t been keen to buy the condominium. If he’d had a choice, he’d be moving back in with his family, but it was going to take longer than he’d first thought for that to happen.

He probably wouldn’t have moved into this complex if he hadn’t grown tired of apartment living. A small apartment was no place for kids, and Meagan and Kenny spent almost every weekend with him.

He would have preferred a real house but living on his own, he didn’t want the bother that went along with it. The condo was a decent compromise. A friend who sold real estate had convinced him it was a good investment. In addition, the builders were offering an attractive buyer-incentive program. The condo was just as nice as the house Mary Lynn and the kids lived in. Not quite as big, but that was okay. The kids liked it, and they’d managed to make friends with his next-door neighbor in short order too, he mused, as he switched off his windshield wipers. The rain had tapered off to almost nothing.