Just the Two of Us
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Brenda Novak
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CHAPTER ONE
ELIZABETH O’CONNELL WASN’T sure she could tolerate another minute. This was her fifth blind date in as many weeks, and each of them had been significantly worse than the one before.
“I heard what happened with your ex-husband.” Carter Hudson, the tall, dark-haired man seated across from her at the new Dundee Inn and Steakhouse reached over to touch her hand. “It must’ve been a terrible ordeal.”
With light-brown eyes and strong, rugged features, Carter wasn’t unhandsome. But the way his thumb rested against the pulse at her wrist gave the impression he didn’t care so much about what she’d suffered as he did about pretending to commiserate with her—to make sure this night ended in as friendly a way as it could. Besides, his New York accent grated on her nerves. Almost everything about him grated on her nerves.
Looking for a distraction, she glanced around the dining room to see if she could spot someone she knew. She’d lived in Idaho for less than two years, but Dundee was a town of only fifteen hundred people, and she’d already become acquainted with many of the locals.
Unfortunately, it was a Thursday in late May, the height of the tourist season. She saw no one familiar. City slickers and yuppies drawn to the area by the Running Y Ranch, which offered visitors an authentic western vacation, filled the steak house.
Liz, while stubbornly keeping her smile in place, wished the waitress would arrive with their dinners and tried to focus. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “But it’s over now. Thank God.”
Carter didn’t take the hint. “And yet you’re on friendly terms with him. Wasn’t he on the phone a moment ago?”
Keith, her ex, was attempting to fix the wall at her new store. She knew she probably shouldn’t allow him to do her any more favors. But she’d relied on him for so long that it was still easier to accept his help than refuse it. And he was the father of her children. If The Chocolaterie proved as successful as she hoped it would, they all stood to benefit. With Keith working at the hardware store, it wasn’t as if he could provide her with much child support. “Yes.”
“You spoke to him as if you are good friends,” he marveled.
It seemed that every man she dated either wanted to discuss his past relationships or hers. And once what had happened to her was out in the open, she faced a million questions.
She used the excuse of taking a drink of water to shift her hand. “I don’t see any reason to be the stereotypical ex-wife.”
Carter relaxed in his chair with easy grace. Judging from his build, he could move with impressive coordination and speed. But Liz doubted Carter ever really exerted himself. “That’s pretty forgiving. I’m sure it doesn’t sound very nice, but if I were you I’d make him pay—whether I was being stereotypical or not.”
Her grip tightened on her glass. Her emotions were complicated when it came to Keith, and Carter’s negativity wasn’t helping. “Why, when we have so many friends and loved ones in common? Maybe it’d be different if we lived in a big city. But in a town like this, we have to deal with each other every day.”
“You’re serious? You can take what he did as though it was nothing?”
“We have two children together,” she said, hoping he could understand the point of that, if nothing else.
Carter reacted with a snort of incredulity. “From what I’ve heard, he has three more with your brother’s wife.”
Liz told herself to count to ten. She itched to get up and walk out. Without an explanation. Without a backward glance. But she couldn’t. She loved Senator Garth Holbrook and his wife, Celeste, who’d set up this dinner date. She didn’t want her behavior to reflect poorly on them. Maybe if Carter was only a casual acquaintance of the senator’s, she wouldn’t have to be so careful. But he’d just opened a field office for Garth and still worked with him. “She wasn’t my brother’s wife at the time,” she said.
“No, you were both married to Keith.”
The waitress approached, carrying two plates, and Liz sat back in relief. But the arrival of their food didn’t distract Carter. He simply dodged the waitress’s movements and continued to talk. “How long did he lead this double life—wasn’t it close to eight years?”
Liz couldn’t imagine Senator Holbrook sharing such information with someone she didn’t know. Not when his daughter Reenie had suffered because of Keith, too. “Who told you about it?”
“Everyone who gets the chance,” he responded, adjusting the napkin on his lap.
“You’re talking about Keith, aren’t you?” the waitress said.
Liz had met this woman at the salon when she was getting her hair cut, and had seen her around town several times since. Her name was Mandy something, and she always stopped Liz to marvel over what had happened as if they were good friends when, in reality, Liz barely knew her.
“What an incredible story,” she went on before Liz or Carter could respond. “That he was able to maintain two separate families without giving himself away is amazing. I still can’t believe he didn’t go to jail for what he did.”
“The state has too many violent criminals to spend money prosecuting someone like Keith. He didn’t marry me to commit fraud, and he’s always taken care of his children.”
“Still. It’s amazing.”
“Yes, it is,” Carter said dryly.
Liz ground her teeth. These people had no idea what she’d been through—or why. “Maybe if you knew Keith, you’d understand. He was gone half the time because of his job. I had no reason to suspect him of being unfaithful.”
Carter drew forward in his seat. “Unfaithful? He had a whole other family.”
“He wouldn’t strike you as the type of person to do what he did.”
“You were living with him,” he pointed out.
The waitress, who’d been struggling to light a candle on the table finally managed to succeed. “Yeah, but she and Reenie were two states apart. Otherwise, they probably would’ve found out sooner.” She put her lighter back into the pocket of her burgundy apron and smiled engagingly at Carter. “By the way, I love your accent.”
Liz had no patience left and ran over Carter’s polite acknowledgment as she tried to make her point. “Keith has a strong sense of responsibility. That’s partly what got him into trouble.”
The waitress toyed with the salt and pepper shakers in a rather obvious attempt to stick around, but when Liz leveled her with a meaningful look she finally seemed to realize she had no business there.
“I’ll check back in a few,” she said, belatedly snapping into work mode.
“Thank you,” Liz said and picked up her fork.
Mandy hurried off and Carter cut into his steak. “If you ask me, lying and cheating is what got your ex-husband into trouble.”
There had been a time when she wouldn’t have attempted to justify Keith’s behaviour. But now that she’d put some emotional distance between the revelation that had caused her divorce and herself, she could almost understand how her ex-husband’s particular strengths and weaknesses had combined to turn a simple affair into an even bigger mistake. In any case, she felt more loyalty to Keith than she did this stranger. Had Keith not married her, Mica wouldn’t have had the family she’d known for the first eight years of her life and Christopher never would have been born.
“How can I blame Keith for loving Reenie, when my own brother couldn’t resist her?”
“Your brother married her almost as soon as she was divorced from Keith, right?”
She bit back a sigh. “Right.”
“So you came first?” Carter asked. “He met the senator’s daughter after?”
Liz cleared her throat, struggling with the shame that so often engulfed her. She hadn’t come first. Keith had already been married to Reenie for three years when Liz met him on that plane. She hadn’t been aware of this, of course. She and Reenie had lived in parallel universes, unknown to each other until Liz’s brother had uncovered the truth eighteen months earlier. When Isaac spotted Keith at the airport, traveling to Idaho the very day he was supposed to be in Phoenix, her world had come crashing down around her.
“No. But I had no idea he was already married.” She’d been pregnant with Mica and head-over-heels in love.
“It came as a complete shock.” Carter continued to look disbelieving.
She nodded.
“Wow.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “You’re remarkably forgiving to be on speaking terms with him.”
Liz could feel Carter’s disapproval, despite the fact that his remark appeared to be a compliment. “You’ve never been married, have you?”
He held his fork halfway to his mouth. “What makes you think so?”
His inflexibility had given him away. He still believed he could call all the shots in a relationship, live in a world of absolutes and straightforward decisions. If she had her guess, he’d never been deeply in love or deeply hurt. So he had the luxury of believing he didn’t have to compromise.
“A good guess.” She swallowed her bite of garlic mashed potato without tasting a thing. He’d learn someday, she told herself. She didn’t have to worry about it. This man wasn’t right for her. She wanted to steer the conversation back to neutral ground until they could part ways amicably.
Evidently, however, her tone had revealed more irritation or been more challenging than she’d intended, because his expression darkened and became guarded.
“Senator Holbrook said you’re from Brooklyn,” she said, trying to fill the sudden silence.
“That’s right. I grew up there.”
“How are you surviving in such a small town? It’s got to be a shock.”
“It’s different.” He shrugged as if he accepted the shift in topic, but the wariness that had become so noticeable following Liz’s comment about marriage clung to him like frost. “I’m not convinced it’s all bad.”
“You’ve only been here a few weeks.”
“Are you telling me it’s going to get worse?”
She couldn’t help wishing his Dundee experience wouldn’t be entirely positive. “You haven’t been through a winter yet.”
His lips, which she would have found beautifully sculpted had she been willing to admire them, quirked. “Do you mean to give the impression you’re trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m just doubtful you’ll like it here, that’s all,” she said, as if her feelings were really that simple.
He started to eat again, chewing slowly, his actions deliberate. “You’re from Los Angeles. How do you like it?”
It had taken a significant adjustment. If not for the desire to see her children grow up with their father nearby, she would’ve returned to L.A. long ago. But now…
She surveyed the familiar dining room. She didn’t want to tear Mica and Christopher away from Keith, and she couldn’t imagine leaving her brother, Reenie or Reenie’s three girls. She was also afraid of what she might do if she were to go back. Trouble waited for her there in the form of her former tennis coach.
Briefly, she wondered if her infatuation with Dave Shapiro, seven years her junior, was the cause of her less than enthusiastic response to the much more eligible men she was dating in Dundee. “It’s becoming home.”
“You don’t think the same thing will happen for me?”
“I doubt it.” She pushed at her potatoes with her fork, avoiding his gaze. “I’m guessing you’re too ambitious for these parts, too interested in climbing the ladder of success. Which means you won’t be staying long.”
“You say that as if ambition is bad.”
“Not necessarily. As long as you don’t mind temporary relationships.”
“Dundee’s not a real hot spot,” he agreed, washing down another bite of meat with a sip of wine. “But there’s nothing wrong with temporary relationships. People pass in and out of other people’s lives all the time. You never know what you might learn from someone, how a particular person can enrich your experience, even if they don’t become a permanent fixture.”
She chuckled softly. At least this guy made no apologies for who or what he was. She had to respect that. “Your words sound an awful lot like that country song, ‘Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do.’”
He laughed out loud. Feeling triumphant at seeing through him so quickly, she was tempted to let her lips curve into a smile. But she suspected that his motivations weren’t quite that simple. He just wanted her to think so.
She buttered a sourdough roll. “How’d you meet Senator Holbrook in the first place?”
“When I went to college—”
“Where’d you go?”
“Harvard.”
Liz refused to let that impress her.
“Anyway, I thought I wanted to go into politics, so I interned for a state senator in Massachusetts. After I graduated, he hired me full-time and I ran his first campaign.”
“But then?”
“But then I took a different career path. When I eventually decided to get back into politics, I contacted him. He didn’t have an immediate opening, but he asked around and almost before I knew it, I was flying out here.”
“I see. So you’re looking for someone to help stave off the boredom while you’re in Dundee? Is that it?”
“I’m interested in company,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not sure about anything else.”
“By anything else…you mean a relationship?”
He chewed thoughtfully before answering. At last, he said, “Probably.”
“Well…” She gave him a confident smile. “You don’t have to put me on notice.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
A dimple flashed in his cheek, seeming rather out of place amid the hard planes of his face. “Interesting you think so.”
“Why?”
“What I’ve heard so far wouldn’t lead me to believe that.”
Her knife scraped against the surface of her plate. “Because my husband cheated on me?” she asked, forcing herself to stay calm.
“He was husband and father to another family through your entire marriage and you never suspected it. That’s a pretty big thing to miss.”
Senator Holbrook’s new right-hand man certainly didn’t sugarcoat his thoughts. “If you’re intimating that I didn’t see the truth because I didn’t want to, you’re wrong.” Liz was tempted to tell him how devoted Keith had been, how he’d never even shown interest in another woman when he was in her presence. Reenie hadn’t suspected, either. But why waste her breath? She wasn’t ever going out with this man again.
“If you say so.”
“Are you trying to offend me, Mr. Hudson?” she asked.
“I’m trying to figure you out.”
She forked another bit of potato into her mouth and swallowed without tasting. “Don’t bother.”
He poured her more wine. “Too threatened by taking a hard look at yourself?”
She felt her eyebrows draw together. “Excuse me, but this is a first date.”
He studied her. “And that means what?”
“I’d rather pretend I’m having fun.”
She expected him to be offended. But her words seemed to have the opposite effect. He actually chuckled as though he approved of her response. “So you do have a backbone.”
“You were checking?”
“I was curious. Something has to explain what happened.”
“That’s it.” She nearly spilled their drinks as she shoved her chair away from the table. “I’m finished here.”
“Just because I won’t play according to the rules, Ms. O’Connell?”
“The rules?” she echoed, standing over him.
He didn’t bother getting up. “Stick to tedious small talk. Never say anything that evokes an emotional reaction. Be as solicitous and fake as possible. Those rules.”
“Maybe I like playing by the rules.”
“Then you’re smart to call it quits, because I value my time too much to waste it on superficial encounters.”
She blinked, surprised that he’d come right back at her. Earlier, she’d been halfway convinced he wanted to take her home with him. She’d had no plans to comply, but his willingness to let her go so easily still came as a shock. “That’s it?”
“If it’s all you can handle,” he said.
She stared at him. For the sake of her friendship with Reenie and Reenie’s parents, she knew she should sit back down. But she couldn’t. She had more than enough to worry about, getting her new business up and running. She didn’t need this.
“Fine, no problem,” she said and stalked off.
* * *
KEITH WAS BUSY TAPING the wall he’d just fixed when Liz came in through the back of the shop.
“Hey, that’s not bad,” she said.
The surprise in her voice made her ex-husband scowl. “You didn’t think I could do it?”
“You’ve never been known for carpentry. But most computer guys aren’t,” she added.
“I’ve been working at the hardware store ever since…Well, for a while,” he said, obviousy choosing not to refer to the reason he had given up a $190,000-a-year job with Softscape, Inc. to work for twelve dollars an hour in Dundee.
Liz was grateful he hadn’t reiterated what had caused the destruction of the life she’d previously known. She didn’t need to be reminded of the fact that he’d abandoned her in an effort to save his marriage to Reenie. Carter had already done that.
“I’m getting the hang of being a handyman,” he added.
She didn’t think he’d ever be much good at manual labor. It wasn’t in him. But she was grateful for his efforts, all the same. She’d sunk every dime from the sale of the house they’d shared in California into her new candy-making business and she didn’t have money left over to hire extra help.
“You’re learning.” The improvements to the premises she’d leased three weeks earlier lifted her spirits despite her frustration and anger toward Carter Hudson.
Pausing from his work, Keith ran his eyes over the simple coral-colored linen dress she’d worn for her date this evening. “You’re back awfully early.”
Liz didn’t want to admit that her encounter with Senator Holbrook’s new aide had been a flop, so she shrugged off the comment. “I’m tired.”
“You cut the evening short?”
She met his gaze. Dating was relatively new to her. Only in the past six months had she felt sufficiently recovered from her divorce to meet other men. “We’d already had dinner.” Part of it, anyway, she added to herself.
“So you didn’t like him.”
Her ex-husband’s apparent relief made her supremely conscious of how much Keith seemed to want her back. Sometimes she was tempted to relent, to do what she could to rebuild their relationship. With his chiseled features, deep brown eyes and dark blond hair, he’d always appealed to her on a physical level. He appealed to her in a lot of other ways, as well. Memories of better days occasionally teased her into wondering if she could reclaim what they’d once had.
But then she remembered that he’d loved Reenie more—that he’d been willing to give up Liz and their two children if it meant he could keep his other wife—and she couldn’t summon the trust. With Keith, she’d always be second best. He was only hoping to get back with her because Reenie was no longer available.
“I liked him fine,” she lied.
He wiped his hands on a pair of faded, holey jeans. “Garth acts as if Hudson’s the most brilliant man in the world.”
He was a Harvard graduate, which was impressive. “He’s candid and confident.”
“Do you think he’s handsome?”
She pictured the dark-haired man she’d left at the steak house. “He’s okay, I guess.”
Keith squatted to scrape the edge of his trowel against the lip of the bucket at his feet. “Reenie claims he’s one of the best-looking men she’s ever seen.”
Wanting to make sure the plumber had installed the new sink, Liz went into the small bathroom in the back corner. “Reenie’s a lot more enthusiastic about him than I am,” she called.
Evidently he heard her, because he answered right away. “Why?”
“He has a New York accent.”
“You said that as if he has an unsightly mole covering half his face. What’s wrong with an accent?”
She wasn’t sure. It was just something she’d focused on. Maybe it was easier not to find him appealing if she dwelled on the blunt, unfamiliar feel of his voice and language instead of his attractive features. “It’s pretty strong.”
“I heard he grew up in Brooklyn. What else would you expect?”
She didn’t answer. She was too busy trying out the new sink.
“What does he look like?” Keith called.
Satisfied that the sink worked, she came out of the bathroom. “Do we have to talk about Carter?”
“I’m curious,” he insisted.
“Okay, he’s tall.”
Keith flicked some plaster off his forearm and stood. “Taller than me?”
She quickly tried to compare the two. “Maybe by a couple of inches.”
“That would make him nearly six foot four,” he said, skeptically. “He’s not that tall, is he?”
Hearing the jealousy in Keith’s voice, Liz grabbed a broom and started sweeping up the dust and dirt left behind when they ripped out the old cabinets. She didn’t want to analyze Carter Hudson. Especially with her ex-husband. She had a lot to do if she hoped to open The Chocolaterie by Memorial Day. Although a candy shop had been Liz’s idea, when Mary Thornton, who’d recently opened a gift store next door, had heard about it, she’d decided to sell chocolate, too. Mary was busy building her business while Liz struggled to finish the improvements to her space.
“Is he?” Keith prompted.
“I don’t remember. He’s a big man, okay?”
“Big as in fat?”
With a sigh, she faced him. “No. Big, as in muscular. Big, as in he has broad shoulders, a well-defined chest and a flat stomach. Big, as in—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” he grumbled, holding up a hand to stop her. “Jeez, I thought you couldn’t remember.”
“You wanted details,” she said, and could’ve given him a few more. She hadn’t mentioned that Carter had a soccer player’s build, with nice long legs and large, rugged hands. Or that, judging from the golden color of his skin, he spent a fair amount of time outdoors, which she definitely hadn’t expected from a political aide. But she’d said enough.
“Have you heard from Mica and Christopher?” she asked, changing the subject.
“No, was I supposed to check on the kids?” He wiped a bead of sweat from his temple.
“Not necessarily. I’m sure they’re fine. They love it at Reenie’s.”
“You’d know, since the two of you are such good friends,” he said flippantly.
The pique behind those words confirmed what Liz already knew. Keith resented the closeness between Liz and his other ex-wife. Liz supposed she could understand why. After having the love and attention of both women for so long, he was suddenly the odd man out, and that wasn’t likely to change. Not now that Reenie had married Liz’s brother. It probably didn’t make the situation any easier for Keith that Isaac was also the man who’d found him out and revealed his duplicity. Liz considered it ironic that, prior to Isaac’s spotting Keith at the airport catching a plane to Idaho when he was supposed to be in Arizona, Isaac hadn’t really been involved in their lives. He’d spent much of the previous eight years researching pygmy elephants in Africa. And when he was in the States, he’d lived in Chicago, where he taught biology at Chicago University. If not for that fateful visit to Liz and Keith’s home in L.A. following one of his research trips, Liz might still be married to Keith and living in California, believing it was only her husband’s job that took him away.
“Reenie and I are more than friends. She’s my sister-in-law, remember?” Liz said, using a dustpan to empty her sweeping into the wheelbarrow Keith had brought with him.
“I’m not likely to forget,” he mumbled. Dipping his trowel into a bucket of compound, he smeared more taping mixture on the wall. “Is this Carter guy planning on running for office someday?”
“I don’t know.” Liz’s mind had already shifted to what remained to be done at the shop. “I hope the other display case I ordered will be big enough.”
“You didn’t ask?” Keith said.
“About the display case?”
“Whether or not Carter Hudson is someday planning to run for office.”
Carter again. Liz propped the broom against the wall. “No, I didn’t ask. Thanks to you, we talked mostly about me.”
The hand holding the trowel stopped moving, then began to scrape along the mended Sheetrock. “What’d he want to know?”
She gathered up the ceiling tiles they’d torn down. “Like everyone else, he was curious to know how you managed to get away with having two families for so long. And how you and I could still be friends.”
“That’s none of his business,” Keith snapped.
Liz ignored his response. “But he’s not as generous as some people,” she continued. “He seems to think I’m a fool for not realizing I was being duped.”
“Then, it didn’t go well between you.”
That was all that registered from what she’d shared? Closing her eyes, Liz shook her head. “No,” she finally admitted. “It didn’t go well.”
“Good. Maybe, even though he’s big, as in muscular and well built, I won’t be as easy to replace as you thought.”
“Keith—”
He lifted his arms as if her pointed stare was a gun. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“You’ve said it before. As much as I wish it wasn’t so, it’s too late for us.”
“With a little forgiveness, it doesn’t have to be,” he murmured.
The look on his face might have stirred something inside her once. It had been a long time since he’d touched her—since any man had touched her. In a way, she wanted to turn back the days and months, to feel the old excitement. But as handsome as Keith was, she had so little feeling left for him.
“Thanks for fixing the wall,” she said. “I’d better go pick up the kids.”
Keith let her slip out without saying another word, for which she was grateful, relieved. But when she reached her brother and sister-in-law’s small farm, she found the porch light on and a note taped to the door.
Liz—We’re at my parents’. Stop by, okay?
“Great,” she grumbled, crushing the paper in her hand. She was going to have to give an account of her date to Senator Holbrook and his wife before she could take her children home.
