A Husband By Any Other Name Read online

  “He had Dad’s attention, he had the orchards. He had you... but he didn’t want any of it. Don’t you remember how Tom avoided this place? How the trees and the work bored him? How he talked of getting away? If the real Tom had stayed, would he have suddenly grown a love for the orchards? Would he love this place like I do?”

  “Why wouldn’t we have noticed a change like that?” she asked, more afraid than ever.

  “Because you wanted to believe it. Because my father wanted to believe it. If the real Tom had stayed, would he have loved you like I do?” he added.

  “You’re frightening me,” she whispered.

  He touched her face and his hand shook.

  “How could we not have known?” she asked, as though still merely considering whether this could truly have happened.

  “Once he was gone, it was easy to be more like him,” he said. “People see what they want to see. Except my mother. She knew."

  “She knew?” Lorrie echoed. Like she herself instinctively knew her own boys apart?

  He nodded and, to her distress, tears came to his tortured blue eyes. “She couldn’t talk, and it was so unfair of me to make her suffer like that, but it was done. In the space of a heartbeat, I made a decision that will hurt all of us until the day we die.”

  His voice trembled and her heart quaked.

  “But, Lorraine?” he said and met her stare. To her pure horror, pain and regret were reflected a thousandfold in his eyes. “I can’t really be sorry. I treasure every moment I’ve spent with you in all this time. You’re my life.”

  It hit her then, like a wrecking ball toppling a building. He was dead serious.

  And he wasn’t insane.

  Her heart stopped.

  “You’re telling the truth,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t marry Thomas Beckett.”

  “No.”

  “You’re Daniel.”

  “Yes.” He released a breath almost like a sigh of relief.

  For several minutes she didn’t really feel anything. She could smell the earth, feel the grass beneath her, hear the birds in the branches nearby. But she’d lost all emotion.

  Tom sat back on the ground in slow motion. Not Tom. Dan.

  “What about—him?” she asked. “Your brother.”

  “He’s the only person on earth besides myself who really knows,” he said. “And he can’t remember.”

  “But when he remembers, he’ll know he’s—Tom."

  He nodded.

  Slowly the numbness dissipated. An ache she knew could never be soothed gaped in her chest. Horror filled her vision and denial sprang to her lips. She leapt to her feet. “You’re lying!” she screamed. “You’re lying!”

  “No, Lorraine.” He rose to his knees again.

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this! You’re crazy! Or you’re sick! This is some crazy, sick joke, and I’m not going to listen to any more of it!” She spun on her heel and ran blindly toward the house.

  “Lorraine!” he called.

  She ignored him and ran on.

  “Lorraine!”

  She stumbled and sprawled in the grass.

  “Lorraine, honey,” he crooned, kneeling over and reaching for her. His hat tumbled over her head. “Baby, I—.”

  “No!” She rolled aside and scrambled to get away from him. “You’re lying!”

  They both stood. “You know it’s the truth,” he rasped. “You know it.”

  Anger exploded inside her. She balled her hands into fists at her sides. “You’re a liar!” she screamed.

  He faced her. “Yes.”

  “You lied to me,” she said, her voice quaking with fury. “You lied to me every minute of every hour of every day! You made our whole life a lie!"

  “Yes,” he said.

  Everything had been a lie. Her marriage was nothing but a mockery. All this time he had deceived her. All these years she’d thought she was married to a man only to learn it wasn’t really him. Why? What had he hoped to gain from the travesty? “You’re a selfish, lying bastard,” she hissed.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  She reached out and slapped him hard.

  As if it were his penance, he stood there, with his face turned to the side, a red welt forming across his cheek.

  She slammed both fists into his chest and he staggered. She hit him again. And again. He held his mouth in a firm line, but didn’t flinch.

  Lorrie thrust her fingers into her hair and clutched her scalp painfully. “Oh, no,” she wailed, dropping to her knees.

  He reached for her.

  “Stop it!” She slapped his hands away. “Don’t touch me!" Anger dissolved into wretched grief. On her knees, she curled her fingers into the grass and sobbed, her hair falling loose and hanging to the ground. “No,” she cried helplessly. She sobbed until her throat ached and her eyelids felt like sandpaper.

  Finally, what seemed like hours later, she sat back on her haunches, raking her hair back with one hand. He sat a few feet from her, legs bent, his head buried in the arms he’d crossed over his knees. At her silence, he raised his head. He looked like she felt, lines etched beside his mouth, his eyes red.

  She’d thought she knew every line and plane and curve of his beloved face. She’d loved every familiar expression. But she’d been in love with an illusion. She didn’t even know who he was. He was a stranger.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked around the despair in her throat.

  He rested his head on his hand. “I don’t know.”

  “What did you think would happen?” she asked incredulously. “Whatever crossed your mind to consider such a cruel thing?"

  “I didn’t do it to be cruel, Lorraine.”

  “Then why? Why did you do it?”

  “I thought it would break your heart when you found out he left. I thought it would break my father’s heart. I had made up my mind to tell you, but then... then you came to me that night... and you were so frightened. I couldn’t do it.”

  “So you spared me a broken heart?”

  Obviously not. He didn’t have an answer.

  “What do you think this feels like?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  They sat in silence for endless minutes.

  “You felt sorry for me?” she asked finally, never having felt so ashamed, so humiliated and embarrassed.

  “No, Lorraine,” he said, raising shimmering eyes. “I loved you.”

  A long silence followed, while both of them thought and hurt and wondered if their lives would ever make sense again.

  “So,” she said, thinking aloud. “You pretended you were—Tom, and we got married.”

  He remained silent.

  “And on our wedding night... ”

  He looked up.

  “That was the first time we...?”

  He nodded.

  She actually felt embarrassment warm her skin. “And I didn’t know the difference.”

  “I thought you would,” he said. “I was terrified you’d know then.”

  She shook her head, more of it making sense to her now. How could she not have realized? He’d been more reverent... more respectful... and she should have known something that important—that personal. “He and I only... it was just that once... in the dark and it was over quickly.”

  “I couldn’t believe you didn’t know,” he said.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t have much to compare it to.”

  “I was so afraid of—of giving myself away somehow. But amazingly, it didn’t happen. I figured if I could get through that, I could get through anything,” he admitted. “The times you mentioned—being with Tom, I died inside. I pretended to know what you were talking about, but I hated the thought of you and him.”

  “I thought getting married must have made all the difference,” she said. “What a fool.”

  He straightened his shoulders as if he expected her to hit him again. As though he deserved it. As though it would make her feel a
ny better.

  She brought a hand to her mouth and caught a sob she hadn’t known was left inside her. “Oh, please don’t let this be happening.”

  She collapsed on her back and stared sightlessly at the blue sky overhead. She’d built her whole world around this man. This intimate stranger.

  A fluffy white cloud passed overhead. The breeze ruffled her hair.

  “I had to tell you,” he said. “I couldn’t live another day wondering... waiting... knowing that he could remember at any minute... and then you would hate me.” The grass rustled as he moved closer. “Lorraine, do you hate me?”

  He remained close without touching. “I don’t know,” she answered, truthfully. “I really don’t know anything right now, and I never did. I can’t tell what I think or how I feel.” She sat up. “No, that’s not true,” she said, hearing her voice grow stronger. “I’m madder than hell. The only thing I’m sure of about you is that you’re a liar, and you can’t be trusted.”

  She stood, not caring how hurting her words were. “I’ll never forgive you.”

  She didn’t want to look at him—couldn’t. Leaving him sitting in the grass, she ran back to the house.

  He entered the silent house at mealtime, not really expecting anything as normal as supper. He found her slumped on the window seat in their bedroom, still wearing the same grass-stained jeans, her hair still uncharacteristically tangled across her shoulders. “Are you all right, Lorraine?”

  She stared out the open window without turning toward him. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. “He used to call me Lorrie. Dan—you... you’re the only one who ever called me Lorraine all the time.”

  Because he’d always thought of her as Lorraine. Mysterious. Feminine.

  He perched on a white overstuffed chair and glanced around at the pieces of their history, the furnishings they’d chosen together. The lamp from an auction. He thought it looked like something from a Star Trek set, but she loved it. The armoire they’d inherited from her aunt and refinished together. The white stone fireplace sat as cold and empty as his heart now, but he couldn’t count the times they’d cuddled before its warmth, made love with the heat of its fire caressing their bare skin.

  They’d planned this room together, going over all the special details with the contractor. After sharing a small, drafty room with a crib in the old house, this had been their haven.

  “How are we going to handle this?” he asked.

  She turned to him, her lovely eyes dull, the lids puffy. “You expect me to help you figure out how to fix this mess?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “One of us has to move out of this room.”

  No words had ever hurt him more. Nothing could have. “We can’t do that,” he objected with a desperate edge. His heart pounded. This couldn’t happen. He needed time to show her he loved her, make her understand. “What would the kids think? It would scare them.”

  She turned her gaze back to the meadow beyond the house. After a long minute she sighed. “You’re right.”

  Relieved, he stood.

  “Why couldn’t it have been another woman?” she asked.

  Dan thought he’d hurt as much as was humanly possible, but the flat tone of the question defined her hopelessness and told him he’d committed the worst possible sin.

  “I could have forgiven you for a woman,” she said.

  It had hurt when Tom had left, but he’d gone on. He’d been wrong all those years ago when he’d thought Tom was his other half. Lorraine. Lorraine was the air he breathed, the life-giving water for his thirsty soul. Her words tore something vital from inside him. The distance she was placing between them filled him with desperation. He’d never truly known what hurt was until this moment.

  He moved to leave the room.

  No. He had to remind himself it wasn’t her reaction that was the problem. It was what he had done. He’d brought it all on himself.

  He deserved whatever happened.

  “Lorraine,” he said, turning back from the doorway. She hadn’t moved, didn’t look up. I love you. I’m sorry. He had nothing to say to her, nothing to take away the vile thing he’d done and give her back her happy life. They were living his worst nightmare.

  He left silently.

  Lorraine turned listlessly to the empty doorway. Getting up, she closed the door and lay on the bed—their bed. They’d picked it out together after the new house was ready to move into. It was a king-size, and Tom—she caught herself—he always kidded that they might as well have bought a twin for as little space as they used for sleeping. When they weren’t sleeping, she’d countered, that’s when they’d gotten their money’s worth.

  Tears from a seemingly endless well rose again and she curled into a ball and pressed her fists to her eyes. The fleeting thought that this was an awful nightmare and that she’d wake up came and went.

  No, she was awake. Outside, the sun was low in the sky. The quilted comforter beneath her was soft; that pillow beside hers—his pillow—lay where she’d placed it that morning.

  All these years. All these wonderful, horrible years of deception. All the times she’d made love with him, slept beside him, washed his clothes, cooked his meals, borne his children.

  His children.

  Lorrie opened her eyes and stared sightlessly at the room. Their children. He loved them as much as she did. He was a wonderful father. Hell, he was a wonderful husband! He’d been so frightened when she’d had so much difficulty giving birth to Autumn. The love in his eyes had gotten her through the ordeal. And afterward he’d tended to her like a queen. He’d taken more than his share of 2:00 a.m. feedings. Autumn couldn’t have had a more adoring father.

  While Lorrie recuperated, he’d seen to it the boys were fed and bathed and that they didn’t feel left out. He was wonderful with the twins. Having been a twin himself must have given him more insight and understanding into Bram and Jori’s individual needs, because he always had time and encouragement for them both.

  And Thad. Well, of course, Thad had been their firstborn, so he’d been special from the beginning. Lorrie would never forget how proud... Dan—the name would never feel right—had been to take the children places and introduce them and show them off.

  From the beginning, from that very first pregnancy, he’d shared in the wonder and the excitement. He had been there for her in the hospital, coaching her, holding her hand, telling her when to breathe. When Thad had come into the world, all slippery and funny-looking, with a head too big for his scrawny newborn body, Dan had cried. He still looked at Thad with wonder and amazement in his eyes, as Lorrie herself often did, marveling at the fact that they’d created such a fine son together.

  Lorrie’s thoughts drifted back sleepily, remembering snippets of their cheerless conversation that afternoon. Dan had deceived her because he couldn’t bear to tell her the truth that long-ago night, and because he loved her. What kind of love was that?

  The thought of her having been with the real Tom that one time had tortured him.

  Lorrie’s eyes flew open.

  Thad. He thought Thad was Tom’s son, because he thought she’d been pregnant when they were married. This new realization compounded the ache in her head, and she pressed her palms to her forehead.

  Her own tiny deception had never mattered. Never mattered.…

  Until now.

  She hadn’t lied to him that night. She’d really believed she was pregnant with Tom’s child. She knew now that stress and fear and the pressure her father placed on her had delayed her period.

  Once she’d discovered her mistake, she’d been afraid to tell him. What if he’d thought she’d tried to trick him into a proposal?

  Shame coursed through Lorrie in a wave. She hadn’t told him. They’d married immediately, been so physically attracted that they hadn’t kept their hands off each other, and she’d quickly gotten pregnant.

  To her husband’s knowledge, Thad had only been three weeks late, which was not
all that uncommon for a first baby.

  All these years. All this time, every day, every time he saw him, Dan had believed Thad was Tom’s child.

  She pressed a hand to her mouth and wondered for the first time how Dan must have felt all those years pretending to be Tom. How much guilt and shame had tortured him? How many times had he wondered if she suspected, and what would happen when she found out the truth?

  How had it been possible for them to live together all that time with a secret of this magnitude between them? If the real Tom hadn’t shown up, would he have ever told her?

  Hers was an honest mistake. She’d really believed she was pregnant. Dan hadn’t really believed he was Tom. Her deceit didn’t carry nearly the repercussions that his did. A shudder passed through Lorrie’s body.

  How could she not have known?

  On their wedding night, he had checked them into a nice hotel in Kansas City and they’d had a lovely dinner in the plush restaurant with a waterfall and a pianist in the background. Later, they’d had drinks in the lounge, danced for an hour or so, and taken the elevator up to their room.

  Lorrie had gone into the bathroom and dressed in the simple ivory silk peignoir set her sister had given her, belting the sash at her waist. When she returned, the television set was playing softly. The maid had turned back both of the beds, and he sat, both pillows propping his head. He’d removed his tie and shoes, but still wore the light blue dress shirt and dark slacks.

  His deep blue gaze touched her hair, her body beneath the silk and the length of her legs.

  Embarrassed, uncertain, Lorrie moved to the other side of the bed and slid her legs beneath the sheet.

  “Lorraine,” he said and she looked at him. “I know we’re young."

  She studied his dark hair, his handsome jaw and expressive mouth.

  “But we’re going to be very happy together,” he promised. He took her hand in both of his and reverently brushed his fingers over the back. "All I want is to make you happy.”

  The sincerity in his eyes caught her breath. How could she be so fortunate? Yes, their fathers had pushed them together in the beginning, but they had fallen in love of their own accord. To see love in this man’s eyes filled her with hope and happiness.