A Husband By Any Other Name Page 7

  “I am happy," she replied sincerely.

  “You’re so lovely,” he said and threaded her hair back with his fingers. “Can you believe we’re really here? Alone together?”

  A flutter of anxiety swelled in her breast. She loved him. That first time had been hurried and uncomfortable, and she’d tried to overcome the sense of disappointment. Was there something wrong with her? Would he think so?

  “I want to please you, Lorraine,” he said softly. “I want you to be comfortable in telling me what you want and what you like. Okay?"

  “I—I don’t know,” she said, warmth rising up her neck and cheeks. What did he want her to say?

  He scooted closer, stretching his long form the length of the bed, and kissed her.

  The touch of his lips demanded nothing but her full attention. Warm and pliant, they spoke words of wonder and discovery. Since their engagement, he’d kissed her chastely, holding himself back, as if he was waiting for this moment. His kisses had always been pleasant, but this one... this one surpassed pleasant, zinged right past it and headed for exquisite. He cupped her face, tilted his face and adored her with his mouth.

  Lorrie inhaled with surprise.

  “What’s wrong?” he said against her lips.

  “Nothing... nothing.…” She laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that... you’ve never kissed me like that.”

  Beneath her fingers, his shoulder tensed.

  “I liked it,” she admitted.

  He relaxed again. “I’ve never been your husband before,” he said.

  “No. No, you haven’t.” This close, his eyes were deep blue pools of passion and concern.

  She kissed him this time, wrapping her arms around his neck so that he enfolded her in his arms. He lowered their bodies flat on the bed. When his tongue touched her lips, it was a query, not an invasion.

  Lorrie parted her lips and welcomed him, wonderingly enjoying the unrushed build of excitement that shimmered through her body at the sweet thrust and parry of their tongues.

  He lowered a hand, pulled the sheet away and brought her against him, showing her how badly he wanted her, needed her. The display, through his clothing and her nightclothes, excited her inexplicably. She ran her free hand over his chest through his shirt, slid her fingers beneath his collar and caressed his warm neck, fanned her hand along his jaw.

  “Lorraine,” he groaned, pressing his face into her palm, burning her skin with his lips and tongue.

  “Tom,” she’d whispered. His mouth had stilled on her palm, his fingers sliding around her wrist and pulling her hand away.

  What had she done?

  …The bedroom door opened and closed, jarring Lorraine back to the present. The room had grown completely dark while she’d been absorbed in memories of that night so long ago.

  Quietly, Dan used the bathroom, turning the light on and off while the door was shut so as not to disturb her.

  She realized she hadn’t even undressed, hadn’t gotten under the covers. He slid between the sheets several feet from her. She barely felt the mattress move. It was an enormous bed with plenty of room between them for all their pain and disappointments.

  How could she not have known?

  Chapter Five

  Lorraine lay still, pretending she was asleep. A cool breeze drifted in through the sliding screen door she’d left open. She couldn’t remember a time before in their marriage that she’d pretended anything with him. If she was awake when he came to bed, she always snuggled up against him.

  She’d never had to pretend. About anything.

  “Tom?” she’d said that night in the hotel. “Is something wrong?"

  A hurt look had crossed his features, followed by an expression almost like resignation or a measured decision. A sudden fear had gripped her and she’d pulled back.

  “Nothing is wrong,” he’d said.

  She couldn’t make herself meet his eyes. “Did you do this just to please your father? If I thought you’d married me only for our fathers, I’d... I’d die.”

  One hand firmly turned her face up to his. “No. Don’t ever think that again. I married you because I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to be with you. I married you because I love you.”

  However unexpected, his words were so sincere, so direct, she couldn’t doubt them. “Promise?”

  He placed her hand over his heart. “I promise. I’ll prove how much I love you. I’ll get rid of any doubt you ever had."

  And he had.

  He kissed her with affection and intensity and unswerving ardency. He touched her through her clothing, setting her newborn passion aflame. He removed her wrapper and gown, the expression on his face only describable as awe. “You’re so beautiful. I never knew.”

  No, before they hadn’t had time or opportunity for a leisurely perusal of each other’s bodies. Lorrie hadn’t known, as she did now when he shrugged out of his shirt, that the sight of his muscled chest and arms could send a tingle of anticipation from her breasts to her abdomen and lower. She hadn’t imagined that his bare hips and his long legs would entice her hands to explore his supple flesh and learn the wonders of his male body.

  “I never knew, either,” she whispered against his chest.

  With worshipful attention, he stroked her skin in so many places, she marveled at his devoted attention. He kissed her hands, her feet, the sensitive spots behind her knees, the juncture of her thighs, the column of her neck, her lips, her breasts.

  “Don’t make me wait any longer,” she heard herself beg.

  He smiled, a drugged smile of passion and pleasure. “Always tell me what you need,” he said.

  “I need you,” she replied without awkwardness. He wouldn’t allow her embarrassment or hesitation.

  “This is our promise,” he said, lowering his body over hers. “This seals our vows. Now you’re mine.”

  She touched his cheek and opened to him. “And you’re mine.”

  He led himself to her and paused, locking their fingers, palm to palm, and gazing into her eyes with engulfing intensity. “I love you, Lorraine.”

  A thrill of pleasure warmed her. He’d never said those words before. Marriage had brought out a whole new side of him she’d only dared to hope for. She couldn’t reply around the emotion in her throat.

  She hadn’t expected the rush of sensation and the spiraling mixture of delight and agony that shimmered through her. Delight that it was so much better than she remembered or dreamed, and an agony of pent-up need that grew and spiraled and intensified until she couldn’t breathe or speak or feel anything but his damp, hair-roughened skin, the glide of ecstasy against the very core of her being, and his kisses.

  Lorraine burst against him in wondrous release, gripping his hair with her fingers, and straining her body to receive as much of him as he could give. A series of gasps escaped her lips, and a quick rush of tears followed.

  He spent himself inside her, against her, around her, enfolding her in his embrace and kissing the moisture from her lashes.

  “Always remember I love you,” he’d said on a ragged breath. “Always."

  …Lorrie blinked, and realized the tears on her cheeks were real, not a memory. On the other side of the bed, a million miles away, Dan lay unmoving. Was he asleep? Silently, she got up, removed her damp, wrinkled clothing and slipped a nightgown over her head.

  If only she could be sure he was asleep, she’d move over there against him. Comfort herself with his warmth and nearness. Always remember I love you, he’d said.

  Could that love still assure her? Comfort her? Was its meaning lost to her now?

  That’s why she cried. That’s why anger and hurt warred within her—because so much was lost to her. And she wanted it back. But she feared she wanted the impossible.

  Dan slept for a fitful hour, only to wake up unable to go back to sleep. He grabbed a pair of jeans and slipped into the hall. At least she’d agreed not to s
end him away from their room. At least....

  At least they had the pretense of a real marriage.

  He wandered out to the tractor barn and watched a pair of headlights travel the long drive from the house to the road. His Dad and Tom were getting home awfully late. The garage door opened and closed and a minute later the kitchen light went on. About twenty minutes passed and the light went out, replaced by one in the family room, which was quickly doused. They’d had a snack and gone to bed.

  He walked through the fragrant freshly mowed grass to the edge of the meadow behind the house and sat. Their bedroom windows were open, as well as the sliding glass doors. She could hear him through the screens if he called out.

  Was she sleeping?

  A dull ache throbbed from behind his dry eyes into the front of his skull. The light turned off in Gil’s upstairs room.

  What would his dad do when he found out? Would Lorraine tell him? Somehow, Dan didn’t think so. It would be up to him.

  The house had been so quiet without the children. Evenings without them were few and far between, and usually, Dan and Lorraine used the rare opportunities to their fullest. In the darkness, he made out the cushioned furniture on the deck outside their bedroom. More than once they’d snuggled on the chaise lounge.

  His gaze followed the stairs down to the aboveground pool. A couple of times they’d used the time alone to skinny-dip. The memories sliced his already ragged heart deeper. What was the worst that could happen?

  They could go on living like this. They would never be a couple again, sleeping on separate sides of the bed.

  She could leave him.

  She could want Tom.

  What would all of this do to their kids?

  Lorraine appeared at the full-length screen, her long nightgown illuminated by the moonlight. The breeze caught the whispery fabric and sucked it against the screen, then blew it back against her body, forward and back. With one hand, she lifted the hair from her neck and held it on the back of her head, leaning her elbow against the door frame and standing that way, her nightgown billowing back and forth.

  She couldn’t see him down here. She wouldn’t think to look for him at the edge of the yard in the night.

  Dan strained his already aching eyes in the blackness, trying to make out her face, her satiny neck, the slope of her breasts, the curve of her hip. He couldn’t see her feet, but he knew the way she stood with one foot atop the other, her dainty pink toes curled and her knee pointing seductively.

  He’d never told her how sexy that was.

  At last she moved away, and he released a pent-up breath, not knowing he’d been holding it.

  There were a lot of things he’d never told her. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to tell her he was sorry and that she meant everything to him. But his love didn’t mean much to her now. His love had been a selfish love. His love had only ended up hurting her.

  Lorraine was grateful the kids weren’t home. She’d overslept and awakened with a start. She took a cool shower, hoping to revive herself.

  It wasn’t unusual for her to put on makeup when they went somewhere, so she applied foundation and added gloss to her lips. She didn’t know if she’d be going to pick up the kids from her mother’s or not, but after the night she’d just spent, she needed the concealment.

  Dressed in shorts and a sleeveless top, she opened the hamper and reached in. Beneath her nightgown lay his jeans and T-shirt. Lorrie couldn’t stop her hand. It went directly to his cotton shirt and lifted it to her nose.

  That outdoorsy smell assailed her, a little like fresh air and a full day’s work. A lot like man. Tears smarted behind her scratchy lids and she buried the garment deep in the pile of laundry and carried it downstairs.

  Tom was fixing breakfast with his one good arm. Gil sat at the table, and Dan stood staring out the back door with a mug of coffee in his hand.

  “Mornin’, Lorrie,” Gil said.

  “Morning.” She hurried toward the laundry room.

  “Seems strange without the kids, doesn’t it?” her father-in-law called after her.

  She sensed Dan’s eyes following, but she couldn’t look. She mumbled a reply and automatically sorted the laundry, jamming his T-shirt into the washer and running hot water on it.

  “I’ll come in around eleven and we’ll go get the kids,” he said from behind her.

  She nodded. A minute later, she turned and he was gone.

  Tom sat a plate at her place and motioned with the metal spatula. Lorrie slid onto her chair and noted the fried egg with crispy brown edges.

  “Here.” Gil pushed buttered slices of overdone toast toward her.

  “Thanks.”

  The three of them ate together, and Lorrie stole glances at the man she now knew was Thomas. The man she’d wanted to marry. He tried to dunk his toast in the well-done egg, and settled for cutting a piece and laying it on top before he bit it. The man she’d had sex with in the back of her father’s Buick.

  Lorrie’s bite of egg stuck in her throat. She washed it down with bitterly strong coffee. Tom glanced up. He smiled.

  Lorrie returned an embarrassed half-smile. He’d had his hair cut the day before, and the shorter style now revealed silver at his temples, emphasizing the brothers’ likeness. His skin wasn’t as dark. He didn’t eat like Dan. He had that little scar on his chin.

  He looked at her again and she stared back. There was a difference. Something about the set of his eyes that was unlike Dan. And his mouth....

  “Want another egg?” he asked.

  “No, this is fine. Thanks.”

  A red Nebraska cap with a black bill hung on the chair post behind his shoulder. Tom had always liked ball caps. How come she hadn’t noticed when the man she’d married had preferred a Stetson?

  Gil ate his breakfast, blissfully unaware of any change of identity or roiling turmoil in the Beckett household. How could he not have realized Tom was the son who left? Why hadn’t he seen the subtle differences in his sons? Dan could tell their sons apart in a heartbeat.

  Because Gil had wanted to believe Tom had stayed and changed. Just as she had. How it must have hurt Dan to know that.

  She realized Tom had stopped eating and was holding his fork above his plate. Gil noticed, too, and cocked his head. “Dan, you all right?”

  Tom blinked and focused on his father. “The strangest thing just went through my head.”

  “What?” Gil asked.

  “I had a picture of eating breakfast with you, but it wasn’t this kitchen. The table was one of those old round pedestal types and there was a metal cart full of plants in front of the window.”

  Lorrie’s heart skipped a beat.

  “That was the old house. The kitchen at the old house,” Gil said excitedly. “What else?”

  “That’s all. That just came to me and nothing more.”

  Gil grinned and turned to Lorrie. “He just described the old place, didn’t he?”

  She nodded.

  “Your mother loved houseplants,” Gil went on. “She had ’em all over the house. Lorrie kept ’em alive for years.”

  “The philodendron in the family room was hers,” Lorrie added, trying to sound natural.

  As the two men continued their meal, unease crept over her. That little snippet of the past meant Tom’s memories were in there somewhere. Dan had been right in worrying that Tom’s ability to recall them would come back and throw their lives into chaos.

  She finished eating without tasting a bite, loaded the plates and silverware into the dishwasher, and quickly scrubbed the skillet. Her father-in-law and brother-in-law wandered off. She had a couple of loads of laundry folded by the time the back door opened and closed.

  “Let me grab a quick shower and we’ll go.”

  She could smell him. Sunny air and freshly mowed grass, the masculine scent that clung to his clothing. Without turning from the potatoes she was slicing into a casserole dish for that night’s supper, she nodded.

 
; Just before he returned, she found a pair of sandals in the pile of footwear just inside the laundry room and strapped them on. She grabbed her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and walked ahead of him through to the garage.

  Behind her, Dan hit the button for the garage-door opener, while she slid into the passenger seat of their Explorer.

  He climbed in on the driver’s side and automatically fastened his seat belt. Lorrie did the same, the clicks loud in the enclosed space. He didn’t move to start the engine, and she stared ahead, through the opening, at the sunny drive.

  Silence closed in around them.

  Lorrie’s heart beat in a slow, painful rhythm.

  “Lorraine, are you all right?”

  Her heart thudded. His voice sounded exactly as it always had. He smelled the same—like soap and freshly washed cotton. If she turned her head, he would even look the same.

  But he wasn’t. He wasn’t Tom. He was her husband, her lover, but he wasn’t Tom.

  “Lorr-”

  “I’m as all right as can be expected, I guess.”

  Several seconds passed. “Will you look at me?”

  What did he want from her? What did he expect of her? She prepared her heart and turned her head.

  His hat brim didn’t hide the pain or regret in his tortured blue eyes. He hadn’t slept well either. The form-fitting western-style white shirt she’d bought him for Father's Day was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, molding his chest, and he’d rolled the sleeves back over his forearms.

  This was the man she’d lived with. The man she’d loved. The man who’d given her children and built them a house. This was Dan. And he was a stranger.

  He had no words of reassurance to offer her. What could he have said? She turned away and he started the engine. They didn’t speak all the way to Nebraska City.

  Lorrie’s mother, Ruby Loring, had prepared a Sunday lunch for all of them. She was a lovely woman who didn’t look her age, the fact no doubt helped considerably by her trips to the beauty salon to keep her hair the same rich color as Lorrie’s.

  Autumn and the twins hauled their father off to the picket-fenced side yard where they had the chipped and scarred croquet set arranged.