Husbands and Other Strangers Read online

  “House,” he corrected. He’d been living in houses ever since he’d begun renovating them.

  “Whatever,” she allowed, “and I’d be living in mine. But since we both obviously live in that hollowed-out shell, having the rooms separated with tape is the next best thing.”

  There was nothing “best” about having to face yellow police tape snaking its way through every room, Taylor thought grudgingly. But if that was the only way to get her to live in the same house with him, so be it. He had no choice but to agree to her terms, because he needed the proximity in order to make his plan work. As far as plans went, it was a very simple one. If he couldn’t make Gayle remember that there was a place for him in her heart, then he was just going to have to create one there all over again.

  He just hoped he was up to it.

  Placing what was left of her sandwich on her plate, Gayle put her hand out to him. “Do we have a deal?”

  Her eyes were on his face. As if she could gauge if he was telling the truth or not by watching his expression. She didn’t remember how well he could play poker, he thought. She really didn’t remember him at all.

  The thought hit home for the dozenth time. And still hurt just as much as it had the first time.

  Taylor absolutely hated this position he found himself in. Hated having to go through these charades. Hated having her look at him and know that she wasn’t seeing him the way she’d come to see him. That the full spectrum of the past eighteen months they’d shared had completely vanished from her memory and now only existed in his.

  It was almost like being a widower.

  But, damn it, he was going to bring his wife back from the dead.

  Taylor wrapped his strong fingers around the hand that was held out to him. “Deal.”

  It took her a minute to disengage her hand from his. Just for the slightest fleeting moment, as his fingers had joined with hers, she’d experienced a sensation she couldn’t quite label. She’d felt…safe, for lack of a better term.

  But that was just an illusion, and she knew better than to give in to it. If anything it made her feel utterly unsafe the very next moment.

  She threaded her fingers together, forming a bridge before her. “Just so you know,” she told him sweetly, “I’ll cut your heart out if you try anything underhanded.”

  Damn, here was the spirit that had first attracted him. The spirit that kept reeling him in when it was smarter to swim in the opposite direction.

  “What about the old expression,” he posed, “‘all’s fair in love and war’?”

  She waved a hand, dismissing the sentiment. “Coined by an old eunuch.”

  And she was probably the one who had done the honors, he thought. This was going to be one hell of a challenge.

  An unexpected late-summer shower had cast the world into premature shades of darkness and gray by the time he returned to the house he was working on. Because of his mood, Taylor made do with very little illumination. There was just enough to allow him to see what he was doing and no more.

  When Jake found him, he commented that Batman had more light in his cave than was presently available here.

  “I like it dark,” Taylor all but growled as he took one final pass with his sander along the bottom of the door laid out across two sawhorses. The fit was still a bit too snug. Real muscle had to be applied to the door in order to open or close it. The owners weren’t paying him to set up wrestling matches with wood each time they wanted to enter or exit the house.

  “I take it that things aren’t going well on the home front. Sam told me about his suggestion.”

  Retiring his sander, Taylor looked up at him. “She likes the idea.”

  “Terrific. I had a feeling she might come around when he mentioned it to me.” And then Jake paused, reading his brother-in-law’s expression. “But, correct me if I’m wrong, you’re less than thrilled about this.”

  “She’s my wife, Jake. It’ll feel weird treating her like a girlfriend.”

  Jake grinned. “At least you’re not walking into something blindly. Most guys have no idea if they’re compatible with the girl they’re going out with. You already know a lot of things ahead of time.”

  “Yeah, like she’s got a mean left hook once she gets angry,” Taylor muttered, cleaning off the area he’d just sanded.

  “That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,” Jake laughed. He stepped around so that Taylor could see him. “Look, think of it as a way of breathing new life into your marriage.”

  “My marriage had plenty of life,” Taylor retorted. “Sorry,” he apologized the next minute.

  His detective brother-in-law seemed not to hear him. He was obviously still exploring what he’d just said. “A lot of guys start taking their wives for granted. Having to win her all over again will shake things up for you.”

  That was the last thing he needed. “Things are already shaken up,” Taylor pointed out. “And what makes you such a walking expert on marriage, anyway?” he asked, dusting off his hands. “Your longest relationship lasted six weeks.”

  “Nine,” Jake corrected. “And a lot of the guys on the force are married.” The locker room was a regular bull pen of grievances and complaints, whether it was about wives or live-in girlfriends. “It sounds like once they say ‘I do,’ they don’t.”

  Taylor didn’t quite follow. “Don’t what?”

  Jake looked down at the door still lying across the sawhorses. The front had simple but decorative carving on it. “Nice work.”

  “Thanks. You were saying? Don’t what?” Taylor repeated.

  “Don’t enjoy themselves anymore with the woman they promised to love and cherish.”

  Taylor knew the statistics. Knew that half the marriages these days ended up in divorce. People took the easy way out rather than sticking it out and fighting for their marriage. His mouth curved. Gayle certainly had the fighting part down pat.

  “It wasn’t like that with Gayle and me.”

  Jake knew that. As the months of her marriage went by, he’d noticed a new calmness about his sister that he’d never seen before. He figured it had to do with living with Taylor.

  “All the more reason to get her to come around again.” He paused, the detective in him coming out. “Does seem funny, though, her losing her memory of you. Blanking out about the accident is normal. A lot of people suffer from shock after something like that and they block out what their subconscious feels is a life-threatening event.”

  He looked at Taylor. “But to forget someone like a husband… Have you figured out what might have prompted her to do that?”

  “If I did, you’d be the first to know,” Taylor said. “You wanna give me a hand with this?”

  “Sure, where do you want it?”

  “Over by the entrance.” He picked up the end closest to him.

  Jake picked up the other end of the door and started walking backward to the doorway. As he got closer, he could feel the raindrops coming in through the open space. Jake decided to press his point a little more.

  “Everything between the two of you okay?” Taylor raised his eyes from the surface of the door they were carrying to his face. “I’m asking as a friend, not as her brother.”

  “Okay, ‘friend,’” Taylor replied evenly. He knew Jake was just being concerned and while he would rather have kept all of this to himself, he did appreciate the support he knew was there. “Everything between us was fine.” He set the door upright. “Hold it steady for me,” he instructed as he began to put the two bolts back in place. “Oddly enough, given Gayle’s love of combat, there were no knock-down, drag-out arguments preceding her mental holiday. Things were going great. She looked a little off,” he recalled, “but she said it was because of all the road trips she’d put in during the previous month.” Finished, he stepped back to survey his work. “You can let go now.” Jake did as he was told. “Hell,” Taylor said, “we were even talking about having a family.”

  “What? That’s great.” An
d then Jake paused, looking at his brother-in-law, not quite sure of what he was seeing. “That is great, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor allowed. “Eventually. Not right now, though. She loves her job and I want to get some more money into the bank before we have a baby.”

  Jake looked at him incredulously. Gayle had been raking in endorsements ever since she’d won her first Olympics at seventeen. And the colonel had turned out to be a pretty shrewd investor. There was no lack of funds as far as Gayle was concerned. “Tay—”

  Taylor held up his hand, knowing exactly where Jake was going. “Yeah, I know, she’s got a lot of money. But if we’re having kids, I want to be the one who earns it. At least a sizable chunk of it,” he amended. “I’m old-fashioned that way.”

  Jake grinned, shaking his head. He’d always liked Taylor. He’d known he was a man of integrity right from the start.

  “Who’d have thunk it?” He crossed his arms before him. “What did Gayle say?”

  “She agreed,” Taylor said simply.

  Jake’s eyebrows drew together. “She didn’t fight you on it, not even for principle’s sake?”

  “No.”

  Jake’s puzzled expression deepened. “Doesn’t sound like Gayle.”

  Taylor nodded. “That’s what I mean. She was finally mellowing out a little.” He sighed. “And now I’m back to square one.”

  Jake put his arm around his shoulders. He was older than his brother-in-law by two years. And exactly the same height. “You’ll make it, buddy. In the meantime this’ll get the old juices flowing.”

  “Thanks, Dear Abby.” Taylor laughed dryly as he stepped back. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Hey, it could be worse.”

  “How?” Taylor wanted to know. “How could it possibly be any worse than having your wife forget who you are?”

  “She could remember,” Jake teased, tongue-in-cheek, “and hate the sight of you.”

  This time Taylor really did laugh. It helped knock off a little of the tension. “I guess you’ve got a point there.”

  Jake took the tool that Taylor had just picked up out of his hand. “Don’t you have a little woman to be heading home to?”

  “If she hears you call her that, you’ll be the one without a memory. Because she will have ripped your head off.”

  Jake grinned. “She is mild tempered, my little sister.” And then his expression sobered just a little. “Hang in there, Taylor.”

  “Have to,” Taylor told him. “I don’t have any other choice.”

  From the moment he first saw her, standing beside Rico and laughing at something the quarterback was saying, he knew that there was no other choice for him but Gayle. And if the road was bumpy sometimes, well, that just made him appreciate the smooth times that much more.

  Chapter Nine

  As he approached the house, he saw there were no lights on. Granted it was only 6:00 in the evening and this was summer, but the inside of the house tended to be dark. Part of his plan was to put skylights in the living room and the family room to allow more sunshine into the house.

  Uneasiness descended over him as he scanned the outside of the building, looking for a glimmer to indicate she was home. Today was her early day. Someone else covered the sports on the evening news.

  Her car was gone. Was she just out somewhere or had she abruptly decided to leave? And if it was the latter, where did he go to look for her? He had no idea where to start.

  The silence that greeted him as he entered was deafening and eerie. Taylor closed the door behind him, feeling as if he was sealing himself in a tomb.

  She was supposed to be here, he thought irritably. They were supposed to spend the evening together. This “courting” thing was going awfully slowly. He’d been at it for over a week, and the more time they spent together, the more chances he had at getting her to remember him. And love him all over again.

  Parched and angry, he strode into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Which was when he saw it. A note, written on shopping-list paper and posted with a magnet in the shape of a baseball pennant on the refrigerator.

  Taylor,

  Forgot I had a night game to go to. Go Angels!

  Gayle.

  That was it. No real salutation, no small heart drawn at the end of the note the way she always closed her notes to him. Nothing.

  He supposed he should be happy that she’d at least let him know where she was. When they were first going out, she’d balked at that. Said it felt too confining to her. The note was a concession.

  He didn’t feel very happy.

  Taylor crumpled the note and tossed it in the general direction of the garbage pail. He missed, and the misshapen paper ball fell on the floor. Muttering under his breath, he went to retrieve it.

  There was a length of yellow tape right in front of the garbage pail. Taylor ripped it away, uttering a few words he rarely said.

  Saying them didn’t make him feel any better.

  He picked up the crumpled paper and shoved it into the garbage. Damn it, what was he doing, chasing his tail and trying to recapture the past? He sure as hell didn’t need this. But he did need Gayle, and the sooner he stopped letting his temper flare up and get the better of him, the sooner he could reach his end goal.

  He had to reach end goal, he thought. Had to win her over.

  Although he could think of a lot better ways to spend his evening than watching a bunch of grown men waving highly polished sticks at oncoming spheres traveling up to a hundred miles an hour, he was going to the game. Because that was where Gayle was.

  All he had to do was find out where the game was being held. He prayed it wasn’t an away game.

  The newspaper was still sitting on the breakfast counter, its sections haphazardly pulled apart. The sports section was right on top.

  Taylor smiled to himself as he crossed to the counter. Apparently her habits hadn’t changed. At least the ones that didn’t involve him, he thought grudgingly.

  He began rifling through the sports section, vaguely remembering that the times and places for all the games being played today were written somewhere in the front.

  He wasn’t much for sports. The truth of it was he was only marginally aware of the names of the teams domiciled in California. He wouldn’t have known even that if it hadn’t been for Gayle. Early in their relationship, after she’d gotten over the horror of finding out that he didn’t follow sports, she’d attempted to indoctrinate him about the various teams and the rules that went with each game. Most of what she’d told him had barely sunk in and was ready to be dislodged by the introduction of any new, minor passing fact.

  He’d never been a joiner, so team sports were the last thing he paid attention to when he was growing up. And he never had the need or desire to live life vicariously, so turning on his set to watch a game never occurred to him. He followed no team until there was Gayle. Because it was so important to her and because sports played such a significant part in her world, he tried to work up an interest.

  Although she tried to sound impartial when she was talking about a game on the news, anyone with eyes could see that she fairly glowed whenever she could report that one of her teams had won. What Gayle cared about, she cared about passionately. There was no middle ground with her.

  She was the same with people. Having been on the receiving end of her passion this last year and a half, he was acutely aware of its lack. He needed to be on the receiving end of it as much as he needed to breathe.

  Most of all, he needed her to look at him the way she had before the accident.

  The information he was seeking was on the left-hand side of page four. Skimming down the page he saw that the Angels were playing a home game. Taylor stared at the information, thinking. And then he remembered. Home for the Angels meant the stadium in Anaheim, not the one in Los Angeles. That was where the Dodgers played. Any five-year-old kid in Southern California probably knew that, but for him it was a breakthrough.

&nbs
p; He folded the paper, leaving it in a neat pile, and glanced at his watch. According to the paper, the game was scheduled to begin just after five, which meant it was already in progress. He’d missed kickoff.

  No, he amended, that was a football term. What the hell did they call it when they started a baseball game?

  Boring, a small voice whispered in his head.

  But boring or not, that was where Gayle was, so that was where he was going to be. Besides, since it was after six, he wouldn’t have to sit through the whole thing, and he could make points with her for going to the game.

  With his luck, the game would probably go into extra innings.

  Gayle wasn’t conscious of wrapping her arms around herself as she watched the field. The Angels were due up at bat. She could feel excitement radiating through her body.

  God, but she loved the great American pastime. Yes, she loved swim meets and the thrill of covering the Olympics, but for sheer exhilaration, nothing beat watching a good baseball game.

  This, sadly, did not fall under that heading. But there was still time to rally, and she was an eternal optimist. After the winning season the team had had in 2002, she firmly believed that anything was possible.

  Gayle tensed up as the batter came up to the plate. When she was rooting for a team, she felt every swing, every hit, every miss. She cheered, audibly or otherwise, when it was a hit and agonized, secretly or otherwise, when it was not.

  She’d been doing a lot of agonizing during this game. Her beloved team was losing eight to one and it was the bottom of the eighth. The Angels had been hitless for six of those innings.

  Jack Reyes sat at her left. He was the sportscaster from a rival station and only invested himself in a game if he had a side bet riding on the outcome. Or to rub someone’s nose in it.

  His thin lips drew back as he gave her a grin that involved not only his teeth, but his gums, as well.

  “Looks like you’re going to have to pay up, Elliott,” Jack crowed. He rubbed his thumb over his fingers several times, indicating that she might as well separate the bills from her wallet now.