David about their daughter's threat to get pregnant. They would have groaned and laughed together over another episode in what they'd labeled "Teen Theater." But talk of teen pregnancy seemed too awkward a topic right now.
"And the boys?"
"They made buddies with a pair of cousins on vacation up the beach."
David nodded, then scanned the sand and the nearby houses. Tess followed his gaze, though she skipped over the firefighters who were gathering on either side of a volleyball net. "What number did we honeymoon in?" he asked.
A pang stabbed Tess's heart. She'd told herself she had come to Crescent Cove because Griffin was here, but was it really something else? Had she hoped to recapture the magic of those three days and nights following their courthouse marriage? That's all they'd been able to afford, since David had been adamant about saving for a down payment on a house. He'd been so serious, eight years her senior, already settled in his career. She'd been nineteen, unfazed by the brushes with celebrity she'd had as a commercial actress, native Los Angeleno that she was, but simply dazzled by the look on a particular man's face.
Dazzled by him.
You're her, he'd said that morning in the glitzy Century City office building. He'd been in a suit and tie then too, his brown hair cut business-short, his features regular yet unremarkable. But his eyes...oh, his eyes had made Tess quiver, their color a golden whiskey-brown that only little Russ had inherited. Her other children claimed the baby was her favorite, and, like every good mother, she denied it, but his eye color was definitely her favorite, because it was his daddy's eyes that looked out from her smallest boy's face.
"What's that guy doing?" David suddenly rose, then stalked to the rail.
"What? Huh?"
"There's a guy over there on the volleyball court staring at us. Staring at you."
Tess pretended she didn't know who he was talking about and glanced over her shoulder. "Oh," she said, shrugging, "that's little Tee-Wee White. We knew him when we were kids. I think Gage put him upside down in a garbage can the first day he showed up on the beach."
David grinned at that, looking more like the man she'd married. "Speaking of Gage...have you heard from him lately? Is he okay?"
"Griffin says so. He's the one I'm worried about...." Tess frowned, letting that thought die off. In the old days, she would have discussed this with David too. Her concern over how her brother wasn't coping with his year's experience in Afghanistan. But her husband had turned away from her now, and she didn't feel like talking to his back.
She'd spent too much time at their home in Cheviot Hills talking to his back.
"He's still staring," David muttered.
Tess gazed at the stretch of her husband's shoulders beneath the smooth poly-cotton - light starch, she always told the dry cleaner - wider now that he'd become a dedicated gym rat. "I'm thinking of getting back into commercials," she said.
The sudden turn in conversation had him spinning. "What?"
"I've been thinking about it a lot. I could do it. You know my agent calls me up twice a year - "
"Your agent! I never liked him when he worked at Wallis-Downs. He's worse now that he's on his own. That dirty old man calls you up twice a year just so he can drool - or worse - to the sound of your voice."
"Ew!" She glared at him. "That is not true." And his derision only made her more determined to pursue the idea.
David appeared to read the intention on her face. "Who would watch the kids?"
He wouldn't, she thought. "Day care. A nanny, maybe." David wanted distance from her and their children. He'd proved it, with all those weekend work lunches, all those spin classes and bench presses. Then conscience pricked her a little, because he was here, after all, to take Duncan and Oliver to soccer.
"Did you tell the boys to track down their shin guards and cleats?" she asked, her voice warmer, because he had followed through on his promise.
"Yeah." David nodded. Hesitated. "But could you pick them up afterward, Tess? There's this spin class I'd really like to make."
Again, her temper spiked but then was washed cool by a wave of chilly disappointment. She just stared at him, gritting her teeth to hold back her tears. Where did you go? Where did my wonderful husband and dedicated family man go?
She tried tracing back the change for the hundredth time.