kissed her nose; then he got up and took off for the water.
Tracy wondered exactly what she was getting herself into. Then she asked herself if she really wanted to know.
Wanda did some shopping before she left Tampa, which meant she hit rush hour. Summer traffic clogged the roads going south, and an hour from Palmetto Grove, she was so hungry she had to stop for dinner.
Then she had a flat.
By the time the road service came and changed the tire—no way was she going to ruin her nails—the sun had gone down. She tried Ken, but cell service was spotty, and she was disconnected twice, just as she reached their voice mail. By the time she was able to try again, her phone battery was dead.
She cruised into her driveway about ten. Ken’s car was there, which surprised her. Assuming he would go back to work after he let the dog out and made himself something to eat, she hadn’t been concerned enough to find one of the last of that vanishing breed—telephone booths—to leave a message. She figured she would be home for the night before he came home for good.
All the lights were on when she walked in, and Ken was standing just a few feet from the door. Chase was on the sofa, head on his paws as if he were waiting for disaster to strike.
“Where have you been?”
She blinked at the lights. “You know where I went.”
“I know where you went this morning.” He slashed a hand through the air as he spoke, an uncharacteristic gesture.
“Well, Kenny, that’s where I’ve been.” She started into her litany of woes, but he cut her off with another slash.
“You couldn’t call me? You thought that wasn’t important?”
“If you would let me finish? I tried. Twice. No cell service, then my battery was dead. And where do you get off yelling at me? You’re the one walks out of here any time of the day or night and doesn’t look back. How many nights do you think I’ve had to wonder where you were?”
He turned and stomped into the kitchen, but Wanda followed.
“An answer, please,” she said. “Exactly why is this so different? I wasn’t trying to worry you, things just happened.”
“You know I can take care of myself!” He spun and faced her.
“I can take care of myself, too. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been the only one taking care of me for a very long time.”
When he didn’t answer, she gave up and stormed into the bedroom, where she stripped off her clothes, pulled on a robe and went into the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth. She was hot, tired and pissed. She had begun to hope maybe things between them were improving, but now it looked like they were moving from silent mad to yelling mad. Considering that she was bone-deep tired of mad in general, she wasn’t going to take well to this new stage. She figured their relationship might be at the very end, stage four malignant marriage. A breath short of terminal.
When she went back into their bedroom to get her nightgown, he was sitting on the side of the bed. She was so tired she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, and she wished he had taken off for wherever, like so many other nights. The one night she didn’t want him here, there he sat.
She dropped her bathrobe and shrugged into a thin little nightie that made the hot nights and hot flashes bearable.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep,” she said. “I’ve had a long, hard day, and I want it over with fast.”
He got up, and she got in bed, expecting him to turn off the light and leave. Instead, he turned off the light, slid out of his clothes, letting them drop audibly to the floor beside the bed, and got in beside her.
She turned over so her back was to him. She expected him to do the same. They’d been sleeping that way for what seemed like a hundred years now. But Ken didn’t turn over. She felt him lying rigidly on his back, probably staring up at the ceiling.
“Wanda?”
“Just say it. Whatever it is, so I can get some sleep.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
For what seemed like a long time she lay there, wondering if he had. She didn’t dare tell him. She wasn’t even sure she should speak.
“Come here,” he said, at last. Then he reached out