Finding Home

All right, she’d give him points. He was trying. Guilt did that to a man sometimes. Made him easier to work with. And right now, she wasn’t above using that guilt to her advantage.

Once she moved the serving dish right next to a front burner, she took a pot out of the lower cupboard and spooned in two servings of stroganoff, then added one more for good measure in case Brad was really ravenous. The linguine stood in the bowl where she’d placed it earlier. Stacey dumped that into another pot, poured water over it and set it on the burner beside the stroganoff.

“Five minutes for the linguine, ten for the stroganoff,” she announced. Then, taking a chilled bottle of wine out of the refrigerator, she poured some into a long-stemmed glass and handed it to him. “You can have this while you’re waiting.”

“You’re a life saver.” He murmured the words to her back as she filled a second glass for herself. Brad took a long sip and let the red liquid pour itself through his veins. For a moment, his eyes had fluttered shut. “God, that feels good.”

Stacey felt a slight pinch in the pit of her stomach. There was a time when Brad had said that after they had finished making love.

To her “good” was a paltry word, hardly fit to describe their lovemaking. Though never frequent because of the demands of his work, when they had occurred, the sessions had been nothing short of spectacular. He’d always teased her that it was quality, not quantity that counted, and he’d certainly made a true believer out of her. At least, until the occasions grew fewer and fewer, moving further apart until eventually, it felt as if she was faced with neither quantity nor quality.

Stacey offered him a smile that involved mostly her lips and not her heart. And was then surprised when Brad touched his half-empty glass to her full one.

“To another twenty-five years,” he said before taking another sip.

Her heart twisted a little. “Twenty-six,” she corrected.

“Twenty-six?” he repeated, furrowing his brow. “Has it been that long?” He tried to think back to the actual year. For a second, nothing came to him. He drew a blank. “Are you sure?”

Did he actually think she didn’t remember when they had gotten married? That he’d forgotten cut her to the quick. It was all she could do to keep the hurt from registering on her face.

“I’m sure,” she answered with a cheerfulness that rang hollow to her own ear. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

He knew her inside and out and he knew that hurt tone. He couldn’t fault her, he supposed. But by now, he would have thought that she understood. She shouldn’t need the outward trappings, the constant assurances. Shouldn’t she just know that he loved her without wanting to be shown, without having him jump through hoops all the time?

Weren’t women ever satisfied?

He sought what little patience his day had left him. “Stacey—”

“I’ll get dinner,” Stacey told him, cutting him off as she turned away. That was his I’m-lecturing-even-though-I-don’t-consider-this-a-lecture tone. She didn’t want to hear it. The way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure if she could hold her tongue, and once things were said, they couldn’t be unsaid.

“You know, I think I like stroganoff better after it’s been warmed up once,” Brad told her a few minutes later as they sat at the dining room table.

Stacey looked at him over the unlit candles. She’d begun to light them once she’d brought his dish to the table, only to have him stop her. There was no reason to light candles, he’d told her. After all, the power hadn’t gone out.

But it has, she thought now as she watched him eat. It’s gone out of our marriage, Brad. You just can’t see it.

“Good,” he murmured, raising his fork as if in tribute. “After all these years, you haven’t lost your touch.”

How would you know? she wondered as she nodded in response with a half smile. Try as she might to connect a date, an event, to the last time that they had touched each other, she found that nothing came to mind. It had been so long, she couldn’t remember when.

But that was going to change tonight, she promised herself.

They went to bed shortly after ten, after narrowly avoiding getting into a heated argument about Jim. She’d mentioned that he hadn’t said anything about Jim not being around, and he’d responded by saying that he was savoring the quiet. It made her feel that he was happy to be rid of their son. The fact that they were so far apart in their feelings about Jim bothered her to the very depths of her soul.

She would have loved to have resolved something, but that wasn’t going to happen. She’d finally tabled the discussion when it looked to be in danger of escalating into a full-blown argument. She desperately didn’t want to argue on their anniversary, even though she felt that Brad was just as wrong in his attitude toward Jim as Jim was in his attitude toward his father.

As Brad got into bed, she quickly slipped into the bathroom and put on the sexy black nightgown she’d bought earlier in the week. Running a comb through her hair, she checked over her makeup, opting to leave it on tonight rather than run the risk of looking like someone who’d fallen into the river and been dragged out, pale and ghastly.

When she came out less than five minutes later, Brad already looked on the verge of falling asleep. She purposely jostled the bed as she got in.

His eyes opened. Good.

Curling up beside him, she ran her hand slowly along the ridges of his chest.

“You still have pretty decent pectorals,” she commented with a smile. Slowly, she strummed her fingers along the outline of his muscles. Brad was blessed with good genes, she thought, genes that allowed him to retain the physique he’d worked to create more than two decades ago. He still had a membership to the gym, but by his own admission, he had no idea where the card was any longer, or when he’d been to the gym last.

Brad shifted. When she continued running her hand along his chest, he covered it with his own. And then moved it aside.

“Stacey, don’t.”

Instantly, she could feel herself stiffening inside. But she refused to believe that he was saying what she thought he was saying.

Still, her throat felt tight as she asked, “Don’t what?”

He looked at her and frowned reprovingly. By now, she should have known better. Wasn’t a wife supposed to be able to read the signs?

“Don’t start.”

God, but she hated the way he made her feel. Like a lowly supplicant, begging for a crumb of affection. Stacey sat up and looked at him. “Start what?”

Brad seemed more weary than annoyed. “You know what I’m talking about, Stacey. You’re starting in and I’m tired tonight.”

Starting in. Like making love with her was some kind of a hardship for him that he was forced to endure out of a sense of duty. She couldn’t keep the note of bitterness out of her voice, even though she fought it. “Why should tonight be any different?”

He covered his eyes with his hand, like someone gathering what little strength he had left. “Don’t do the guilt thing, Stacey. I was on my feet for four hours, trying to save this kid’s legs.”

“And did you?”

The question surprised him. “I think so.”

“Good.” And she meant that. Because she was proud of him, proud of the fact that he helped people. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want something for herself, too. “So how about trying to save our marriage?”

“Our marriage doesn’t need saving,” he told her with a dismissive air, as if she was babbling nonsense. “And it doesn’t depend on sex.”

“Thank God for that,” she quipped, “because if it did, it would have died a long time ago.”

This was old ground. They’d danced over it before. He saw no reason to rehash anything tonight. He had no desire to get into an argument on their anniversary.

“You get it often enough,” he assured her. He tugged the sheet up over him, rolling over as he closed his eyes. “I’ll owe you,” he told her. “I’m good for it.”

“You know, if I ever decide to collect on that, you’re going to be making love to me for at least six months straight.”

“I look forward to it,” Brad murmured. He was already drifting off to sleep.

“That makes two of us,” Stacey answered.

But she was talking to herself and she knew it. With a sigh, she leaned over, switching off the lamp. And then watched as the darkness swallowed up the room with one bite.