The Other Man

He lounged by the large potted palm, hands in his cotton Dockers, looking tall and imposing in the small entryway. Familiar yet alien. Overpow-ering. Dangerous.

He didn’t even look like the man she remem-bered. The beard stubble gave his face something faintly sinister. His clothes were new, but were just the standard cotton trousers and striped, short-sleeved shirt available everywhere. The man she re-membered had worn expensive, designer clothes, had had immaculate haircuts and a clean shaven chin. And a smile in his eyes. There was no smile now. His eyes were a disturbing gray that shrouded darker emotions.

“Hello, Gwen,” he said evenly. “I thought it was you.” His voice, deep, masculine and intimately familiar, slid like expensive brandy through her system—smooth and fiery, spreading a treacherous heat.

It took a moment before she could make her tongue move. “Hello, Aidan,” she returned, hearing the odd, husky tone in her own voice.

For a timeless moment they stared at each other, the heavy silence ripe with old memories and new emotion.

“How have you been?” he asked at last, his tone cool and polite. Yet deep in his eyes she saw a dark turbulence that contradicted the calmness of his face and voice.

“Fine.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself. Cooking smells wafted in from the kitchen—garlic, grilled seafood, some-thing fruity. “I didn’t know you were back.” Of course she didn’t. There was no reason for her to know, no way she could have known. Twelve years had gone by since she’d last seen him and the only information she’d had about him she had found in a newspaper article. As a doctor he’d made an in-ternational name for himself in tropical pediatrics, working with children in hospitals in poor, Third World countries. At the time of the article, he and his wife, also a physician, were heading up an im-pressive medical research project in Asia.

And now he was back in Oregon.

“Just for a few months,” he said. “I’m staying at the summer house.”

His parents’ summer house by the beach, a few miles to the south. Not your average, simple summer cottage, but a luxury beach house high on a cliff with lots of glass affording magnificent views. She’d stayed there, slept in the big bed with him. Was he sleeping in the same bed now with his wife? Don’t think, don’t think.

“How are your parents?” she asked, putting herself on automatic pilot, trying to be polite, steering away from the personal.

“They’re doing well. Just embarked on a cruise around the world.” A small pause. He rubbed his chin, something dark and unfathomable in his eyes. “I understand your mother died.”

He hadn’t liked her mother. She swallowed. “Yes.” She’d become seriously ill a month after Aidan had left the country twelve years ago and had died three months later. “It’s a long time ago,” she added.

Only it didn’t seem like it, not now, standing here, seeing him again. All the feelings were still there, all the anguish, as if it had been days instead of years. How could that be, how could that be?

“Yes,” he said. His gaze swept over her with cool appraisal, taking in her silk dress, the jewelry, her expensive shoes. “Life appears to have treated you well,” he stated. There was no inflection in his voice—his words just a simple, clinical obser-vation, yet the slight, downward tilt of the corners of his mouth gave him away.

“Yes.” It was the truth, yet she could well im-agine the things he was thinking, seeing her like this, knowing what he knew. She swallowed hard, not knowing what else to say, wanting desperately to get away. She felt young again, and awkward and confused and she hated herself for it. She was almost thirty years old, not eighteen.

“I have to go,” she said.

He made a gesture with his hand, indicating the dining room. “Is he your husband?”

So he had known. Somebody had told him she’d married. But obviously his information wasn’t up to date.

She shook her head. “No. Marc…my husband died a year and a half ago.” Her voice trembled. “I’ve got to go.” She didn’t want some polite platitude he’d utter for the occasion. She fled back into the dining room and sat down across from Joe, almost tipping over the wineglass as she reached for it clumsily. From the corner of her eyes she noticed Aidan sitting down again at his own table across from his wife.

“I was about to send out a search party,” Joe commented, his brown eyes searching her face. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine now,” she lied.

“Your soup’s cold.”

“It doesn’t matter. I had most of it. It was de-licious. Now tell me more about your ideas for another book.” She sat back, determined to give him her full attention, determined not to look again in Aidan’s direction.

In August their first book would come out. She had collected the migrant children’s stories and drawings, he had taken the photographs. It was a beautiful, poignant collection eliciting smiles, laughter, anger and tears: the stories of forgotten children.

No matter how hard she tried, her mind was not on the book. She was acutely aware of Aidan sitting only feet away, afraid to look up and see his face, see the woman sitting across from him. Afraid to see some small intimacy—a smile, a hand touching the other’s. Private gestures that had once be-longed to her.

She felt as if she were suffocating. She had to get out of the place, away from Aidan.

She looked up into Joe’s face. “Would you mind terribly if we left? I don’t feel right being gone. I need to get back to the baby.”

It was an excuse, and she felt vaguely guilty. Alice, the baby-sitter, was a nurse and the mother of three healthy grown children. The baby couldn’t be in safer hands.

She managed to leave the restaurant without looking at Aidan. Outside the wind whipped at her hair and clothes and she dragged in a deep breath of the damp, salty sea air. Joe opened the car door for her and she settled herself in the passenger seat.

For a while the road followed the rugged coastline, offering dramatic views of the wild sea and jagged rocks on the one side, and the wooded mountains on the other. Angry clouds streaked through the sky and violent waves tormented the rocks and beaches. Gwen shivered, feeling a sense of foreboding slithering through her.

Half an hour later she was home, the scent of Poison greeting her as she entered the living room. Alice was sitting on the sofa, feet up, dressed in old jeans and a T-shirt stretched tight across her ample bosom. She was doing a crossword puzzle and the television was off.

The baby was asleep, and had been all the time Gwen had been gone, Alice said, looking distinctly disappointed. “I’d hoped for a bit of cuddling,” she added, and gave a long-suffering sigh. Coming to her feet, she gathered her purse and half-finished crossword puzzle. “By the way, do you know a country in Asia that starts with a B? Ten letters.”

Gwen’s heart made a painful lurch in her chest. “Bangladesh,” she said promptly.

“Wow, you’re good!” Alice scribbled in the word and frowned. “You didn’t even have to think about it.”

Gwen shrugged lightly. “Just happen to know.”

Alice left, not fazed by the rain, back to her husband of twenty-seven years. The house was silent. Gwen walked aimlessly around, nervous, tense. A big, beautiful, silent house. Marc had de-signed it for them. He’d been a talented, creative architect who’d designed many beautiful houses for private clients all over the state, Utah and California. Homes built with natural materials that fit the landscape and seemed part of it.

Thunder rattled the windows. She heard the baby cry and ran up the stairs to the room, picking her up out of her crib, holding her close. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’m here, don’t cry.” She stroked the dark hair, kissed the soft, warm cheeks. The small body squirmed against her, as if fighting a frightening dream. She felt so light, so fragile-much too small for a child of eight months. A lump formed in her throat and she felt overwhelmed by love and tenderness and fear.

She switched on a small light and changed Churi’s diaper. She warmed a bottle of milk and sat in the rocking chair, feeding the baby until she fell back to sleep. She sat there for a long time, cradling the warm body against her breast, while tears ran soundlessly down her cheeks.

“I lied, Aidan,” she whispered. “I lied.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ecf6a2c4-22c0-56be-a9c0-78cb936ae3fa)

“YOU LOOK awful,” Alice informed her the next afternoon. “What are you having done? A root canal?” She’d come over to baby-sit Churi while she had her nap so Gwen could go to the dentist. Gwen had planned it that way; she’d be back by the time Churi would be awake again. It made her uneasy to be away when Churi was awake.

“Just a regular cleaning and checkup. I’m fine.” Gwen made a casual gesture. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

Alice grimaced. “That storm was a zinger. The whole house was rattling.”

Gwen grabbed her keys and purse and made for the door before Alice would ask more questions. It had not been the storm outside that had kept her awake, rather the storm inside her head that had prevented her from sleeping.

It was a wonderful sunny June day and she opened the roof of the Porsche and drove away. Signs of the storm’s destruction were everywhere. The sprawling, neatly manicured gardens around the luxury houses located off the wooded road looked disheveled from the storm’s onslaught. Branches and twigs had been ripped off the trees and shrubs and littered the grass. Blooms lay broken and wilted in the flower beds.

Inside Gwen felt as ravished as the gardens. A tight knot of tension in her stomach was growing ever larger. All she’d been able to think about was Aidan, think about that night, twelve years ago, remember the look in his eyes, the sound of his voice, her own.

“Tell me you don’t love me!” Aidan’s hands hard on her upper arms, eyes wild. “Tell me, dammit!”

Anguish searing through her. “All right! All right! I don’t love you!” Tears running down her face. Sobs racking her body. “I don’t love you! I don’t love you!”

She stared blindly ahead of her at the curving road. “Stop it!” she said to herself. “Just stop it!”