You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,140
get the hell out. Why are you hanging around, still fantasizing about a woman who everyone else thinks is a toehold away from a complete and utter mental breakdown?
Because he didn’t believe it.
With his knowledge of her past through records and articles on the Internet, and glimpses past the frail shell-shocked person she’d become to the hard-edged woman lurking beneath the surface, he thought there was a chance Ava would come around.
She’s still married.
And that was why he had to wrap this up fast. He had a phone call to make, a report to give, so he turned his collar to the damp night, the dog at his heels, and started for his apartment.
Wyatt had taken off a few hours ago to retrieve his wife.
Soon the happy couple would return, Dern thought sarcastically, and told himself he had no claim to that woman. No claim whatsoever.
Now, if he could just convince himself it were true.
Wyatt caught up with Ava at the dock.
“Hey . . . look . . . I’m sorry,” he said, and this time when he touched her shoulder, she held her ground and didn’t draw away.
“You don’t get to do that,” she whispered. “Attack hard, then apologize like everything’s okay.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” he said, and for the first time that night, she actually believed him. “You’re slipping away, not trusting me, going to all lengths to avoid me and even fantasizing about another man. You do crazy things and then fire your therapist after accusing her of having an affair with me.”
“She quit.”
He turned her shoulders so that she had to face him, to look into his eyes, illuminated only by the streetlamps and the bulbs strung over the marina. “Don’t you love me anymore?”
“I don’t know you anymore.”
Deep brackets appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I could say the same. I would do anything to see you get better,” he said, and something inside her wanted to break, to still believe in him even though she knew better.
“I hired Dern as a ranch hand, yeah,” Wyatt admitted, “but I asked him to look out for you, that’s all.”
She doubted that.
“And you’re right. I do like Evelyn McPherson. A lot. I think she’s done wonders for you. But that’s as far as it goes.” The wind blowing in off the sea ruffled his hair and chilled Ava to the bone. “And I did have an affair a long time ago, but it’s over and I thought, I mean, I hoped, we were past that.” He dropped his hands. “I just want my wife back. Is that too much to ask?”
“It’s not enough,” she said carefully. “You need to want your son back, too.”
His head snapped up. “That goes without saying, Ava.” Then a spark of accusation in his eyes again and his spine stiffened slightly.
She wasn’t going to back down.
“Come on, let’s go home. Let me take those.” He reached for the bags.
“I can handle them,” she said tautly, then, unwilling to have him even speculate for an instant that she had something to hide, she reluctantly handed him the larger, plastic sack and kept the one with the broken handle. Hugging that bag close to her chest, she said, “Fine. Let’s go.”
Heart in her throat, she continued onto the dock and even allowed him to help her into the boat. It rocked a little, and the sharp pain in her knee reminded her of her fall. Looking across the water, she wondered nervously how easy would it be for there to be an accident that took her life?
He could say she jumped into the water. His wife was just crazy enough to do something so bizarre and risky; she’d proved that often enough before. Or, he could say it was an accident. They’d hit choppy water and she’d fallen overboard, never to be seen again. Ava, like her brother, Kelvin, would die in the frigid salt water, the result of a tragic chance event. Her mind raced with scenarios in which she never made it to Neptune’s Gate.
When Wyatt stepped into the boat after her, she nearly bolted. Being alone with him on the boat was insane!
Don’t make him mad. Just play it cool . . .
Her mind flashed back to the night Kelvin died, to the pain and the freezing waters that surrounded her, the fear that had enveloped her when she thought she might drown.