Wife On Approval. Leigh Michaels

I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

      “For what?”

      “For assuming…” She realized too late that she had an extra—and very interested—listener, and tried to be oblique for the sake of the eavesdropping child. “It never occurred to me…I mean, that it might not have been divorce. Why didn’t you bother to correct me, Austin?”

      Austin shrugged. “I suppose because it didn’t matter.”

      He obviously wasn’t saying that his wife’s death didn’t matter. So, since it was perfectly clear what he was thinking, Paige told herself irritably, he might as well have just come straight out and said it. Because it doesn’t matter what you think of me.

      She felt awkward. “Of course not,” she said quietly.

      “As long as…I mean, before it comes up again…perhaps we should talk about how to deal with the past.”

      “Our shared past, you mean? Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that? You seem to have made your choice already this evening when you referred to me as Mr. Weaver.”

      “Oh. I suppose so, yes.” She paused beside her van, fumbling with her keys. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

      Austin walked on toward the Jaguar parked just behind her van, then turned to face her once more. “I don’t suppose it’s any of my business,” he said finally, “but why haven’t you told them? Your partners, at least?”

      Paige didn’t look at him. “Because it wasn’t important for them to know.”

      “Really?” He opened the back door of the car for Jennifer and closed it behind her. “That’s very interesting.”

      “I don’t understand what you mean.”

      “Just this.” He took a few steps toward her and leaned against the front fender of his car, arms folded across his chest. “If the fact that we were once married isn’t important, Paige, then why on earth are you choosing to make a state secret of it?”

      CHAPTER THREE

      WHEN Paige came in the back door of the little bungalow, pausing to hang the minivan’s keys on the hook in the entryway, her mother was in the kitchen, stirring a saucepan of soup on the range.

      The flickering light of a muted television set reflected off the chrome frame of Eileen’s wheelchair as she turned to face her daughter. “You were in such a hurry to take out the garbage this morning, Paige, that you forgot and left the milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator again. You know I can’t reach all the way up there to get it.”

      Hello, darling. Did you have a good day? You look worried.

      I am, Mother. Austin Weaver showed up in my life again. You remember Austin? The man I thought I loved?

      Paige smothered a twinge of regret at the thought of a conversation that would probably never happen. It was hard sometimes for her to remember the woman Eileen had once been, before the debilitating effects of her illness had made her so negative, so hard to please.

      “I’m sorry to have caused you the inconvenience, Mother.” Of course, Paige thought, considering the state of mind she’d been in this morning—knowing she would be spending the day among Austin’s possessions and in Austin’s new home—it was a wonder she hadn’t put the garbage in the refrigerator and the milk on the curb.

      “Because of your thoughtlessness, I had to eat my cereal dry.”

      “I’m sure Linda next door would have been happy to help.”

      “You know how much I hate asking for favors from anyone.” Eileen cleared her throat and went on with a determined note in her voice. “At any rate, it’s done now, and there’s no point in dwelling on it. You were obviously too eager to get away from here even to notice what you were doing. I can’t help wondering, though, what you had on your mind this morning that was so important to you.”

      So much more important than I am. She didn’t say it, but the hint was apparent in Eileen’s tone.

      Paige picked up a stack of pink message slips from the desk in the corner of the kitchen. “I knew it was going to be a busy day, that’s all.”

      “It must have been. You’re quite late.”

      “I stopped to try on my dress for Sabrina’s wedding.” Eileen shook her head. “I wish you weren’t going to be part of that circus.”

      “She’s one of my two best friends in the world, Mother. And despite the sheer number of guests who’ll be attending, she’s planning a simple and very tasteful wedding. There will be no elephants, no lion-tamers, no cotton candy, and no sequined top hats—I promise.”

      Elaine sniffed. “I notice you didn’t bring the dress home. Does that mean you don’t want me to see it till it’s too late to object?”

      “No, it just means I forgot it.” Paige flipped through the bits of paper. Most were requests from Rent-A-Wife clients for errands to be run or small jobs to be completed. There shouldn’t be anything urgent in this stack; if someone had called with a time-critical job, Eileen would have passed on the message to one of the partners immediately.

      Eileen’s gaze sharpened. “Forgot it? I suppose she chose it at that lingerie place she likes so well. No doubt you’d be better covered in a swimsuit.”

      Paige began sorting the messages into stacks. “Thanks for taking such good care of the phone calls today, Mom.”

      Eileen shrugged. “What else do I have to occupy myself these days? That pest called again this afternoon.”

      “Which pest? Do you mean we’re getting prank calls?”

      “I suppose you could call it that. I’m talking about Ben Orcutt. The message he left is in there somewhere.”

      “I suppose his dishes need washing again.” Paige sighed. “Sometimes I wish he hadn’t taken Sabrina seriously when she suggested that if he called us more often instead of letting the mess pile up to the ceiling, he’d have visitors on a regular basis.”

      “Lately,” Eileen sniffed, “he seems to want visitors about three times a week. It would have been more useful, you know, if Sabrina had taught the man to wash his own dishes—but I don’t suppose she’s practical enough to think of that. You could certainly do without him as a client, now that you have plenty of others.”

      “Even if she’d given him lessons, Mother, he’d still be a client. He would just have to come up with another excuse to call. He’s lonely, that’s all.”

      Eileen sniffed. “Most men are incapable of amusing themselves. To say nothing of actually seeing and taking care of what needs to be done. Your father, for example—”

      With the ease of long practice, Paige sidetracked the conversation. “I can’t quite read this sentence. The message from Carol Forbes—what kind of paper does she want me to pick up? Wallpaper?”

      “No—an issue of the Denver Post that had an article about her nephew.”

      “Oh, that’s right. I see the date now. If you wouldn’t mind, Mother, we could use a hand with the phones again tomorrow. Cassie’s going to try to decorate Christmas trees for four clients tomorrow, and I have to work on arrangements for the staff holiday party at Tanner.” She set the message slips aside.

      Eileen shrugged. “I certainly don’t have anything better to do these days, while I’m sitting at home and waiting for you.”

      Paige reminded herself that just because her mother handed her a ticket didn’t mean she had to take the guilt trip. “I thought perhaps you and I could go out this weekend to choose our tree.”

      Eileen shrugged. “Not a lot point in having one. I don’t care much about Christmas, anyway, and