The Other Woman

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.”