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“And that didn’t alarm you?” Jack asks. “To get home so late yourself and have him not be here?”
Connie shrugs. “It wasn’t unusual for him to work well into the night or even to spend the night at the office. I thought nothing of him not coming home. Anyway, why are you asking all of these questions? You’re not the police. Don’t tell me the pair of you are playing amateur sleuths on this case.” She sniffs, looking my way. “Darling, I don’t know what my husband may have told you or promised you, but it was all a lie. He was never going to leave me for you or promote you or do anything of the sort. So let the dead rest and move on with your pathetic little life.”
She goes to close the door, but Jack puts up a hand, stopping her.
“Excuse me,” he growls, “but that’s my wife you’re speaking to, so I’m going to have to insist that you be more respectful.”
Seriously, what is this man trying to do to me? He’s been dropping the my wife’s left and right, like some sort of romantic whack-a-mole; just when I think I’ve pounded down the feelings caused by one utterance of the words he goes and says them again.
Truth be told I’m not sure I ever actually squashed down the feelings from the last couple of times he said it.
Which means I am so going to lose this game.
Zero prize tickets for me.
“Your wife?” Connie starts up with her strange blinking again, then coughs. “My mistake, I suppose. I simply assumed she was another one of Ian’s play things.”
Eww. Eww, eww, eww. I suddenly need a shower. There’s a horrible part of my brain that is busy running through all of the women at my office wondering if any of them have had dalliances with Ian. Stop! I command myself. That is not a path I want to go down. I really like most of my coworkers. Sure Frank is a bit persnickety and Cleo–my main competitor for the plastic surgery route–still acts as if we’re in high school and she’s the queen bee, but overall it’s a good group of people. You don’t put up with a volatile boss like Ian for long if you don’t like your coworkers.
“You assumed wrong,” I tell her, being sure to hold my head high. Something ominous flickers in Connie’s eyes; there and gone so fast I can’t be sure if I imagined it or not. Either way it leaves me feeling chilled to my very bones.
If she is the one who moved the body, would that also mean she knows I killed her husband?
Dread pools in my stomach and instinctively I grab hold of Jack, needing his steadiness to anchor me.
Immediately his gaze drops to me in concern and next thing I know his arm is wrapped around me, holding me snug against him, his body a load-bearing wall to my saggy ceiling. I almost sigh from the relief of it.
“Do you think my wife could have a glass of water?” he asks Connie, and I don’t even try to stomp down the feelings this time. Instead, in what I can only call a moment of weakness, I let myself bask in them.
I never even wanted to be someone’s wife, so it makes no sense that the words affect me this way. Yet here we are.
“No,” Connie says flatly. “It’s time for you both to go.” She peers behind us. “How did you two get here anyway? I don’t see your car.” A hand pops up to her waist.
“We parked down the road,” Jack supplies quickly. “Accidentally drove past your house on our way in, then decided to walk rather than turn around.”
“I see.” A catlike smile creeps onto her face. “And here I thought perhaps you’d hopped the fence.”
Jack’s body tenses against me but he doesn’t release his grip on me. I know he must be panicking about her insinuation that she knows about the sweatshirt of his that got stuck on the fence last night, but despite that he’s still taking care of me. Putting my well-being above his own.
I do not deserve this man.
I never have and I never will.
But at least I can try and be there for him in this moment the way he has always been there for me. I snake my arm around his back and let my hand rub up and down it in what I hope is a soothing motion. Then I lift a foot and tap one of his feet with it before setting my foot back down flush against his—restarting our old game of footsy.
I literally feel the tension ease back out of his body. His back muscles uncoil, his shoulders relax, and his foot nudges mine right back.
This is serious business, this conversation we’re having with Connie Wharfman. But that darn foot nudge has sent my mind far, far away from here to a place where Jack and I are in love again. A place where I’d fully be allowed to indulge the desire to kiss him that’s building inside of me.
Although, in present day reality I am his wife, as he keeps reminding everyone. So a kiss really wouldn’t be so wrong.
No. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to recalibrate. Knowing that I have a calming effect on Jack is messing with my good sense. It’s like I’m drunk with power.
And drunk people are notorious for making bad choices.
Time to sober up.
I step out of Jack’s grasp (and the fantasy land it transported me to) and toward Connie, smiling sweetly at her as I say, “Well, this has been…interesting, but we really should be going. Someone actually broke into our garage last night. We’re headed to go file a police report about it.”
