In Confidence

Francine stood up, laid her napkin on the table and groped for a small Chanel handbag on the seat of the chair. “I’ll wait for you outside,” she said to Ted, and walked away without once looking at Rachel.

“This is not the time or place, Rachel,” Ted said, with a warning look toward the other diners. A few nearby had picked up on the unfolding drama and were openly curious. Some watched with amusement, enjoying the show.

“What is it if it isn’t what I think?” Rachel demanded in a low but fierce tone.

Ted had his wallet in his hands now, pulling out cash. He dropped a number of twenties on the table and reached for her arm, intending to guide her out of the restaurant. “Rachel—”

Rachel jerked away. “Don’t…touch me.” Lifting her chin, she turned on her heel and strode through the tables, mortified beyond anything that strangers had witnessed her humiliation. Her color high, she looked neither right nor left until she cleared the room. Now at the entrance, she pushed blindly at the double doors before Ted could assist her, desperate to breathe fresh air. She was aware that he said something to her before addressing the attendant who’d valet-parked his car, but she was intent only on escape. Almost running now, she sought the refuge of her car and dashed across the circular drive into the parking area. In her shocked state, however, she forgot where she had parked.

She reversed direction suddenly and almost ran into Ted, who’d caught up with her. “What are you doing here?” he asked tersely.

“Looking for my car.” Rooting through her handbag, she found her car keys and, in a panic, pushed the remote. Somewhere to her left, she heard the chirp of her vehicle.

“I mean, what are you doing at this restaurant? How did you—”

“Find you?” Heading for her car, she simply shook her head. “What does it matter, Ted?”

“Were you following me?”

She stopped then and looked at him. “I didn’t think until ten minutes ago that I had any reason to follow you, Ted.”

He gave a sigh and, bending his head, began to rub a place between his eyes. Ted was prone to migraines and she suspected he’d be in real pain by nightfall. Come to think of it, his migraines had come more frequently in the past few months. She thought back rapidly—six months? Longer? “How long have you been seeing her?”

“This is not the time, Rachel.”

“How…long?” she repeated deliberately.

“Awhile.”

She felt a pain in her chest that was as sharp as if he’d actually struck her. He wasn’t denying it. Had she been thinking there was any other explanation for finding him in so compromising a situation?

“We were planning to tell you soon,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

“Tell me what? That you’re having an affair with the wife of your partner and friend in your practice? That you’ve decided to ignore the fact that you’re a married man? Were you going to tell me that you’ve broken the vows you took to be faithful?”

It was midday and sunny. Overhead, the vast Texas sky was a surreal blue with stunning formations of soft white clouds. Ted’s brown eyes crinkled at the corners as he squinted upward. “I know it looks bad,” he said. “Francine and I—well, we didn’t plan for this to happen. We tried to fight it. We—”

“You tried to fight it.” She gave him a look of disgust. “I didn’t see any sign of struggle when you swiped her palm with your tongue a few minutes ago. I haven’t noticed any battles with your conscience when you’ve made excuses to miss Nick’s ball games or Kendall’s recitals. And I’ll bet you haven’t fought the urge to hop into bed with her, either, right? So just what do you mean, you’ve tried to fight it, Ted?”

“Would you keep your voice down, for God’s sake? We’re in a parking lot, Rachel. I know we’re going to have to talk about this, but not here, okay?” He drove his fingers through his expensively styled hair. She suddenly recalled finding the two-hundred-dollar charge on their American Express card at one of Dallas’s premier hair stylists. She’d teased him about it, as his hair was obviously thinning and she’d assumed it was simply male ego. Well, it was ego and a lot more, she knew now.

She felt tears well up and she looked away quickly, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt. Through a haze, she saw Francine standing beneath the canopy at the entrance of the restaurant. She noted the trim black suit, the sleek, long legs made even more stunning by shoes with three-inch heels that had cost at least two hundred dollars. Rachel could afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes, too, but she felt there was something intrinsically…vulgar in such self-indulgence. Obviously, Francine felt no such reluctance.

“Is there an internist from Baylor interested in joining the practice,” she asked quietly, “or was that a lie, too?”

“He was interviewed last night.”

She nodded, her gaze still fixed on Francine now being helped into Ted’s car by a valet. They were so comfortable in their illicit affair that they didn’t even bother coming in separate vehicles. Where did they meet in Rose Hill? she wondered. Had Ted found time when she was at school to screw Francine in their bed at home?

She turned back and looked her husband in the eye. “Why, Ted?”

“He’s qualified. He’s young. He’ll build up a nice patient base in no time flat.”

“I’m not talking about the internist. I’m talking about us. Why? How did this happen?”

Now his gaze found Francine, who watched him from the passenger seat of his Lexus. It was a long moment before he shrugged and said, with his eyes still on his lover, “I couldn’t help myself.”

Rachel drove back to Rose Hill with a silent and sullen Jason Pate. He sat slumped in the seat beside her, the headset of his CD player vibrating at a decibel level that was certain to damage his eardrums. Accepting the silence as a missed opportunity on her part to try to do some good with the boy, Rachel’s own emotions were also in turmoil, and it was all she could do to hold herself together.

Actually, she felt numb. But she knew, as a professional, that when something shocking or hurtful or grievous strikes an individual, going numb is a temporary coping mechanism sometimes necessary for survival. She needed time to decide how best to deal with this. A part of her was still clinging to shocked disbelief. To denial. Ted couldn’t possibly be serious. This was a crazy, midlife crisis thing and he would get over it. Then, maybe the horror of telling Nick and Kendall, destroying their illusions about their father, would not be necessary.

On the other hand, if he was determined to carry on the affair, what then? She hadn’t asked him if he was planning on getting a divorce. In the first shock of discovering Ted’s infidelity, she didn’t think she was ready to consider ending her marriage.

Definitely denial.

Considering she’d left Dallas later than planned, she didn’t arrive in Rose Hill until after school was over for the day. She’d reached Nick on his cell phone after arranging with her friend, Marta Ruiz, a teacher at Rose Hill High, to pick up the kids and see that they were settled at home until she got back, leaving Nick in charge. Marta had been happy to oblige. Widowed after a brief marriage and childless, Marta had been Rachel’s friend since her first day on the job at Rose Hill High. At thirty-three, Marta was an award-winning honors English teacher and a great favorite with the kids, even while forcing them to read Thomas Mann and Shakespeare.

“Is everything okay?” she’d wanted to know. “You sound funny, Ray.”

“Everything’s fine,” Rachel had lied. “It’s been a hassle fighting bureaucrats in the Texas legal system.”

“We’re bureaucrats, too,” Marta pointed out dryly. “I’d think you’d have a leg up, being entrenched yourself.”

“Yes, but we don’t have to deal with lawyers,” Rachel said. “Anyway, I’ve got Jason now, and after I drop him off at school where Coach Monk awaits, I’ll go straight home. Are you sure it’s not an inconvenience to pick up the kids and drop them at my house?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll even stay awhile and watch Kendall if Nick wants to hang out with his buddies.” She paused. “I guess Ted couldn’t get away.”

It wasn’t exactly a question. “No, he’s tied up…into the evening.”

“Hmm.”

Marta never bothered to hide her disapproval of Ted. She considered him neglectful as a father and selfish as a husband. “It’s a doctor-thing,” she was fond of saying. “They’ve got too much ego and you’re so attuned to everybody else’s needs that you never stop to consider your own.”

“I don’t have any needs that go unfulfilled,” she’d disputed on the day of that conversation, “or at least none that cause me much heartburn.”

Now, recalling her words, she felt like a complete idiot. Of course she had needs, and now that she’d been slapped in the face with her husband’s infidelity, she admitted to sensing something wrong in her marriage for quite a while. Was this the prelude to divorce? Were she and Ted destined to go their separate ways? Would Nick and Kendall wind up as part of two “blended” families one day?

At a traffic light, she fought off a wave of despair. One thing she had decided during her soul-search on the way home—she wasn’t going to mention anything to the kids just yet. Before tearing their lives apart, she and Ted would have to talk, but it would not be tonight. She was too filled with conflicting emotions to face it tonight.

Her cell phone rang as the light turned green. She reached for it, glancing at the number without recognition. “Hello?”

“Is this Rachel Forrester?”

It was a man’s voice. She frowned, trying to place it. “Yes, who is this?”

“It’s Cameron Ford. Dinah gave me your number,” he said.

Cameron Ford. She was momentarily speechless. Why would he be calling her? They hadn’t spoken since that distressing confrontation in her office five years ago.