This Matter Of Marriage. Debbie Macomber

for a divorce. Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, they’d each hired lawyers and were soon standing in front of a judge.

      By that time, with attorneys involved, things had gotten heated, and he and Mary Lynn were more at odds than ever. It’d taken over a year to even start repairing the damage the attorneys and courts had done. He was sick of living apart from his family. He wanted his wife back.

      Never mind what Todd had said—he would ask Mary Lynn to fill in for Danielle. Just until he could hire another secretary. Just until he could convince her that being apart was pure insanity.

      Feeling pleased with himself, he reached for the phone. Mary Lynn answered on the third ring. “Hello,” she murmured groggily.

      She never had been much of a morning person. “Hi. It’s Steve.”

      “Steve. Good grief, what time is it?”

      “Nine.”

      “Already?”

      He could hear her rustling the sheets in an effort to sit up. During their marriage, he’d loved waking her, having her cuddle against him all soft and warm and feminine, smelling of some exotic flower. Their best loving had been in the mornings.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked, and yawned loudly.

      “Nothing. Well, my secretary quit.”

      She went very quiet, and he could almost hear her resentment over the telephone line. “I don’t type, Steve, you know that.”

      After all those years together, Mary Lynn could read him like a book. He took a certain perverse pride in that. “I need someone to fill in for a few days until I can hire a new secretary.”

      “What about getting a temporary?”

      “Sure, I could call an agency and they’d send someone out, but I’d rather give you the money.”

      “I’ve got school. It isn’t easy for me attending classes all afternoon plus keeping up with the kids and the house, you know.”

      “I realize that, but it’d help me out considerably if you came in for a couple of days, just in the mornings. That’s all I’m asking.” Since paying for her education had been part of the settlement, he was well aware of her schedule.

      “You always say that!” she snapped.

      “What?” This conversation was quickly taking on the same tone as their arguments before the divorce. He’d say or do something that irritated her, and for the life of him, he wouldn’t understand what he’d done.

      “You say you realize how difficult my schedule is. You don’t.”

      “I do, honest.”

      “If you did, you’d never ask me to pitch in while you take your own sweet time finding a new secretary. I know you, Steve Marris. Two days’ll become two weeks and I won’t be able to keep up with my classes. That’s what you really want, whether you know it or not. You’re trying to sabotage my schoolwork.”

      Steve choked back an argument. “I understand how important your classes are,” he said. And he did. What he failed to understand was why her getting an education precluded being married to him. Not only that, he wondered what she intended to do with a major in art history. Get a job in some museum, he supposed—if there were any jobs to be had. But he certainly couldn’t say that to her.

      “Do you really, Steve?”

      “Yes,” he said, still struggling to show his respect for her efforts. “It’s just that I thought since your classes don’t start until one, you might be willing to help out, but if you can’t, you can’t.”

      She hesitated and he closed in for the kill.

      “All I need is a couple of hours in the morning. And like I said, if you can’t do it, that’s fine. No hard feelings.”

      “Do you realize how much reading I have, how many assignments?”

      “You’re right, I never should have asked. I guess that’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it?”

      “Yes,” she agreed sharply. Then there was a pause. And a sigh. “I guess I could fill in for a couple of days, but no longer. I want to make that perfectly clear. Two days and not a minute longer, understand?”

      “Perfectly.” Steve wanted to leap up and click his heels in the air. Calling Mary Lynn had been one of his better ideas. He was confident it wouldn’t take long to make her forget all about this other guy.

      “I hope you don’t want me there before eight?”

      He let the question slide. “You’re wearing the pink nightie, aren’t you?”

      “Steve!”

      “Aren’t you?” His voice grew husky despite his attempts to keep it even. Some of their best sex had come after the divorce. It was so crazy. Mary Lynn wanted him out of the house but continued to welcome him in her bed. Not that he was complaining.

      “Yes, I’m wearing your favorite nightie,” she whispered, her voice low and sexy.

      Slowly his eyes drifted shut. “I’m coming over.”

      “Steve, no. I can’t. We can’t.”

      “Why not?”

      “Well, because we shouldn’t.”

      Steve was instantly suspicious, convinced her decision had something to do with what Kenny had told him. “Why?”

      “We’re divorced, remember?”

      “It hasn’t stopped us before. I could be at the house in fifteen minutes. You want me there, otherwise you’d never have told me about the pink nightie.”

      Mary Lynn giggled, then altered her tone. “Steve, no, I mean it,” she said solemnly. “We’ve been divorced for a year now. We shouldn’t be sleeping together anymore.”

      His jaw tightened. “When did you make that decision?”

      “Since the last time.”

      He exhaled, his patience fading fast. He did a quick review of their last rendezvous. It’d been late morning, before her classes and while the kids were in school. He’d invented some excuse to stop over. Mary Lynn knew what he wanted, and from the gleam in her eye and the eager way she’d led him into the bedroom, she’d wanted the same thing.

      He couldn’t imagine what had changed, other than her dating this Kip character. Unfortunately he couldn’t ask her about it or let on that he knew. The last thing he wanted was to put his children in the middle, between two squabbling parents, something he’d seen other divorced couples do all too often. The divorce had been hard enough on Meagan and Kenny without complicating the situation. So their private lives, his and Mary Lynn’s, would stay that way—private. At least as far as the kids were concerned.

      “What happened to change your mind about us sleeping together?” he asked, instead.

      Mary Lynn sighed. “Nothing. Everything. We have to break this off. It’s over for us, Steve.”

      Steve didn’t say anything. He knew his wife—ex-wife—well enough not to argue. Something else he knew about Mary Lynn—she possessed a healthy sexual appetite. As strong as his own.

      “You’ll be here in the morning, then?” he said, just to be sure.

      “I suppose. But remember I agreed to two days, and two days only.”

      “Bring along the pink nightie.”

      “Steve!”

      “Sorry,” he murmured, but he wasn’t.

      He hung up the phone a few moments later, his mood greatly improved.

      The rest of his day was relatively smooth. The transport company