The Second Mrs Adams. Sandra Marton

her tone proper and always polite.

      Until last night, when she’d suddenly turned on him in anger. And then he’d felt an answering anger rise deep inside himself, one so intense it had blurred his brain. What in hell had possessed him to haul her into his arms and kiss her like that? He’d thought she was going to slug him. What he’d never expected was that she’d turn soft and warm in his arms and kiss him back.

      For a minute he’d almost forgotten that he didn’t love her anymore, that she had never loved him, that everything he’d thought lay between them had been built on the quicksand of lies and deceit.

      He turned away from the garden.

      Maybe he should have listened to his attorney instead of the doctors. Jack insisted it was stupid to let sentiment get in the way of reality.

      “So she shouldn’t have any shocks,” he’d said, “so big deal, she shouldn’t have played you for a sucker, either. You want to play the saint, David? OK, that’s fine. Pay her medical bills. Put her into that fancy sanitarium and shell out the dough for however long it takes for her to remember who she is. Put a fancy settlement into her bank account—but before you do any of that, first do yourself a favor and divorce the broad.”

      David had puffed out his breath.

      “I hear what you’re saying, Jack. But her doctors say—”

      “Forget her doctors. Listen, if you want I can come up with our own doctors who’ll say she’s non compos mentis or that she’s faking it and you’re more than entitled to divorce her, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

      “Nothing’s worrying me,” David had replied brusquely. “I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I survived four years being married to Joanna. I’ll survive another couple of months.”

      Brave words, and true ones. David put his empty glass into the dishwasher, switched off the kitchen light and headed through the silent house toward the staircase and his bedroom.

      And survive he would. He understood Jack’s concern but he wasn’t letting Joanna back into his life, he was just doing what he could to ease her into a life of her own.

      She didn’t affect him anymore, not down deep where it mattered. The truth was that she never had. He’d tricked himself into thinking he’d loved her when actually the only part of his anatomy Joanna had ever reached was the part that had been getting men into trouble from the beginning of time...the part that had responded to her last night.

      Well, there was no more danger of that. He wouldn’t be seeing much of his wife after today. Once he’d driven her to Bright Meadows, that would be it. Except for paying the bills and a once-a-week visit, she’d be the problem of the Bright Meadows staff, not his.

      Sooner or later, her memory would come back. And when it did, this pretense of a marriage would be over.

      

      Joanna sat in the back of the chauffeured Bentley and wondered what Dr. Corbett would say if she told him she almost preferred being in the hospital to being in this car with her husband.

      For that matter, what would her husband say?

      She shot David a guarded look.

      Not much, judging by his stony profile, folded arms and cold silence. From the looks of things, he wasn’t any more pleased they were trapped inside this overstuffed living room on wheels than she was.

      What a terrible marriage theirs must have been. Her throat constricted. Dr. Corbett had made a point of telling her that you didn’t lose your intellect when you lost your memory. Well, you didn’t lose your instincts, either, and every instinct she possessed told her that the marriage of Joanna and David Adams had not been a storybook love affair.

      Was he like this with everyone, or only with her? He never seemed to smile, to laugh, to show affection.

      Maybe that was why what had happened last night had been such a shock. That outburst of raw desire was the last thing she’d expected. Had it been a rarity or was that the way it had been between them before the accident, polite tolerance interrupted by moments of rage that ended with her clinging to David’s shoulders, almost pleading for him to take her, while the world spun out from beneath her feet?

      She’d hardly slept last night. Even after she’d rung for the nurse and asked for a sleeping pill, she’d lain staring into the darkness, trying to imagine what would have happened if that passionate, incredible kiss hadn’t been interrupted.

      She liked to think she’d have regained her senses, pulled out of David’s arms and slapped him silly.

      But a sly whisper inside her head said that maybe she wouldn’t have, that maybe, instead, they’d have ended up on the bed and to hell with the fact that the man kissing her was an absolute stranger.

      Eventually, she’d tumbled into exhausted sleep only to dream about David stripping away her robe and nightgown, kissing her breasts and her belly and then taking her right there, on that antiseptically white hospital bed with her legs wrapped around his waist and her head thrown back and her sobs of pleasure filling the room.

      A flush rose into Joanna’s cheeks.

      Which only proved how little dreams had to do with reality. David had apologized for his behaviour and she’d accepted the apology, but if he so much as touched her again, she‘d—she’d—

      “What’s the matter?”

      She turned and looked at him. He was frowning, though that wasn’t surprising. His face had been set in a scowl all morning.

      “Nothing,” she said brightly.

      “I thought I heard you whimper.”

      “Whimper? Me?” She laughed, or hoped she did. “No, I didn’t...well, maybe I did. I have a, ah, a bit of a headache.”

      “Well, why didn’t you say so?” He leaned forward and opened the paneled bar that was built into the Bentley. “Corbett gave you some pills, didn’t he?”

      “Yes, but I don’t need them.”

      “Dammit, must you argue with me about everything?”

      “I don’t argue about everything...do I?”

      David looked at her. She didn’t. Actually, she never had. It was-just this mood he was in this morning.

      He sighed and shook his head. “Sorry. I guess I’m just feeling irritable today. Look, it can’t hurt to take a couple of whatever he gave you, can it?”

      “No, I suppose not.”

      He smiled, a first for the day that she could recall, poured her a tumbler of iced Perrier and handed it to her.

      “Here. Swallow them down with this.”

      Joanna shook two tablets out of the vial and did as he’d asked.

      “There,” she said politely. “Are you happy now?”

      It was the wrong thing to say. His brow furrowed instantly and his mouth took on that narrowed look she was coming to recognize and dislike.

      “Since when did worrying about what makes me happy ever convince you to do anything?”

      The words were out before he could call them back. Damn, he thought, what was the matter with him? A couple of hours ago, he’d been congratulating himself on his decision to play the role of supportive husband. Now, with at least half an hour’s drive time to go, he was close to blowing the whole thing.

      And whose fault was that? He’d walked into Joanna’s room this morning and she’d looked at him as if she expected him to turn into a monster.

      “I’m sorry about last night,” he’d said gruffly, and she’d made a gesture that made it clear that what had happened had no importance at all...but she’d jumped like a scared cat when he’d tried to help her into the back of the