of the time when women are in labor,” Harlan Patrick said. “I’ve been at the hospital on a few occasions waiting for various kids in this family to be born. Most of the men got cursed out to their faces. Ten minutes after they held the baby, though, it had all blown over.”
“Yeah, but with Suzanne and me, it was the beginning of the end. When I think back, it’s probably a wonder our marriage lasted as long as it did after Annie came along. Suzanne was the kind of woman who required a lot of attention. I wasn’t around to give it to her, and once Annie started school, they couldn’t stay on the road with me.”
“That’s a concern you’d never have with Val,” Harlan Patrick noted, as if it were only an idle observation. “Woman’s as independent as they come.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Slade said, and let it go at that. Val might claim to be interested in him, might even turn up at his table for dinner most nights, but she could vanish without a trace for hours on end. She didn’t need him, not really. He was still struggling with himself over whether that was good or bad. Sometimes he found it more annoying than he cared to admit.
“Does that bother you?” Harlan Patrick asked, zeroing in on his thoughts as if able to read them.
“Of course not. She’s entitled to a life of her own. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Is that so?” Harlan Patrick inquired, his voice laced with skepticism. He grinned. “You are in such deep denial, it’s pitiful.”
Slade’s head shot up. “Denial about what?”
“The way that woman gets to you.”
“Don’t go getting any ideas,” he said, much as he did to Annie almost daily.
The trouble was, he was the one getting ideas. Some had to do with getting Val from the dinner table straight into his bed. Some had to do with the kind of permanence that scared him to death. Generally speaking, he figured it was better not to think about her at all. Unfortunately, ever since she’d taken over his kitchen, that had proved to be next to impossible.
Even on those occasions when she disappeared before he got home in the evening, her scent was everywhere. So was her touch. The table always had a bouquet of flowers on it. She and Annie had made curtains for the windows, sheer things that reminded him all too vividly of that provocative cover-up she’d worn at Annie’s party. The magazines he’d tossed on the floor late at night sat in a neat little pile on a table.
A few weeks ago he might have accused her of trying to take over his life. Now he saw it as taking care of him...and Annie, of course. Instead of blind panic, a warm feeling settled over him as a result of her subtle improvements in his living conditions. The house suddenly felt a lot like a home, the kind he remembered from his childhood, not the kind he and Suzanne had shared on the rare occasions when he was there. The ever-present tension between him and his wife had robbed their home of any warmth or affection. Val made sure there was plenty of both. Sometimes her casual, innocent touches just about drove him to the brink.
The whole thing was worrisome, though. He was getting used to these feelings of being settled, getting used to her. Defenses rock-solid a few weeks ago were crumbling now. If he wasn’t very, very careful he was going to forget all about his resolve to keep his distance—emotionally and physically.
With Harlan Patrick’s warning still ringing in his ears, he reminded himself that that could be very risky in more ways than one.
* * *
Her plan to insinuate herself into Slade’s life wasn’t going the way she’d planned at all, Val concluded after several weeks of staring at him across the dinner table. They chatted politely. They laughed. They even exchanged long, heated looks once Annie left the table.
But when the dishes were done and Annie had retreated to her room, Slade all but escorted her out the door. He’d come close to slamming it in her face a couple of times. If he hadn’t looked so panicked, she might have taken offense. Clearly the man didn’t trust himself to be alone with her. His obvious skittishness, which was increasing almost daily, should have been reward enough, but she wanted more. A lot more.
Steering clear of Slade had worked the