Rachel stared at the muddy sneakers in her hand, thinking back to that time. “Jack just didn’t strike me as suicidal, Mom. I must have spent a hundred hours going over those last few weeks of his life. There was something troubling him, I knew that. His grades were slipping and he seemed distracted. His teachers had noticed a change in him. Of course, he was adjusting to a new school in a new state. Big difference between New York and Texas. And his parents were recently divorced, so he had a lot to contend with. It made sense that he was unhappy. Almost any teenager would be. I had a talk with him the day before he…before it happened. Why didn’t I see it coming? If I could have just—”
“Could just what, Rachel? Live that day over? Be all things to all kids?” Dinah removed her socks. “This wasn’t the first tragedy that will happen on your watch, hon. And it won’t be the last. Cam is unable to let it go and maybe that’s understandable, but you’re in a different place. You must let it go.”
Rachel drew in a deep breath and managed a fleeting smile. “I know.” She scooped up the overalls that Dinah had tossed on the bed. “I’ll put these in the washing machine for you and then I’m going to make you an omelette before I leave. And don’t bother arguing, Mom.”
“If you must.” Dinah rolled her eyes and pulled her T-shirt over her head. “May as well throw this in with everything else.” Then, as if still trying to put her finger on something else in Rachel’s mood, she added, “Is everything okay with you and Ted?”
Rachel stopped with the washables bundled in her arms and smiled brightly. “Define ‘everything.”’
Dinah frowned in the act of donning a robe and looked hard at her. “You tell me, Rachel.”
“Maybe, as you say, Mom, I am feeling a little neglected.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Dinah said flatly. “You’ve been willing to put your own needs aside to accommodate Ted almost from the moment the two of you met. I’ll always resent that you dropped your own plans for medical school to help him get his M.D. and a specialty. And now, after all you’ve done—” Dinah was pacing, her hands waving and slashing with heartfelt emotion. It was no secret that she’d long believed Rachel’s sacrifice of her original plan for a career in medicine was a big mistake. She stopped suddenly. “You know what the problem is, Rachel? You’ve spoiled Ted rotten. You haven’t demanded enough from him. I’m happy to hear you finally say you’re feeling neglected. All you have to do now is tell him that.”
Rachel made a short, futile attempt to laugh. “Yeah, that’s all I have to do.”
Dinah gave her a hug. “Go home, hon. Forget my laundry and the omelette. Tend to your babies and then take a long, hot soak in the tub and practice how best to let him have it. I promise you won’t have another call to the ER about me.”
“You should have told me about the onset of hypoglycemia, Mother,” Rachel said with a chiding look.
“I know, but that would be just one more thing on your worry list.”
“You’re my mother. I’m supposed to worry about you.”
“Not if I can help it.” She gave Rachel a gentle shove toward the stairs. “Kiss the kids for me and tell that spoiled rotten husband of yours when he finally gets home that there’re going to be some changes made.”
Rachel wasn’t the only one thinking of changes. Ted stood at the glass doors in the master bedroom of the lake cabin in deep thought. Moonlight dancing on the surface of the lake hinted at the chill of the night, but inside it was cozy. He’d built a fire in the fireplace and had knocked back a couple of stiff drinks. It had helped erase the bad taste he had in his mouth over the scene with Rachel at the restaurant, but he had a headache now, not the beginning of a migraine, which struck him sometimes in the throes of stress or crisis, but a nagging, unpleasant nuisance of a headache. And the euphoria he usually felt when he was with Francine hadn’t quite anesthetized it.
He should be feeling good, he thought. The moment he’d dreaded for months had come and gone. Rachel knew about the affair now. She’d been shocked, as expected, and mad as hell, as she’d had a right. But all in all, it hadn’t been as difficult as it could have been. For a moment, in the parking lot, he’d thought she might turn really mean, but it hadn’t happened. There had been a horrific incident a couple of years ago in Houston when a woman caught her husband with another woman and after an argument in the parking lot of a swank restaurant, she’d climbed in her car and run him over. Not satisfied that she’d hurt him enough, she’d backed up and rolled over him again, killing him. No chance of that with Rachel. She was too practical to do something that would jeopardize the kids and their future. Or herself, for that matter.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he turned away from the view. The site for the cabin had been carefully chosen by Rachel when they’d decided to invest in real estate on the lake. She’d researched every lot available, looking for just the right one, and she’d hit a home run, as usual. She was good at that sort of thing. She managed time and her responsibilities so well that he often thought she could run the Pentagon if she wanted. The trouble was that she wasn’t what he wanted anymore. The type of person she’d been when he was in med school and then setting up the practice was okay, but now he wanted—needed—a woman who was more feminine, more hip, sexier. A woman who needed him and made him feel as if he was special. Sometimes he thought Rachel went for weeks without really looking at him. But when Francine gazed up at him, impressed by his opinions, interested in his experiences, and so damn responsive as a lover, God, he felt incredible.
She stood smiling at him now, shedding the black suit one piece at a time, moving slowly, her body language sensual and provocative. Apparently, she wasn’t feeling the same conflicting emotions as he about having their affair out in the open, but then they hadn’t faced the major hurdle of telling Walter yet. When she wriggled out of her skirt, all she had left were thigh-high stockings—black—a wisp of a bra and thong panties. When he looked at her delectable little ass in that thong, it never failed that his dick went hard and his mouth went dry.
Like a cat, Francine put a knee on the bed and with a playful growl began a provocative crawl over the mattress toward him. “You’re looking too serious, sugar,” she murmured, puckering her lips at him in a wind-kiss. “Get naked and let me make you smile.”
His brain went numb and his erection throbbed at the look of her stalking him across the bed, her sweet butt in the air and the heavy globes of her breasts threatening to burst out of that excuse for a bra. He knew she’d had breast enhancement, but it only made her more voluptuous, sexier. She was a wet dream come to life and she was his.
He pressed a palm against his erection and pushed thoughts of Rachel and Walter from his mind. Francine was across the bed now and her hands were at work unfastening his belt. Next, she’d have him freed of his pants, and with her already in position, one touch from her pink tongue would send him over the edge. He wondered if she gave Walter…
“Wait, Franny,” he told her as she reached for the zipper on his pants. “Hold on, baby.” He caught her hands and squeezed them, stopping her.
She looked up at him, moist lips parted. Seeing his expression, she sighed with resignation and rested her forehead against his abdomen. “What?” There was impatience in her voice. She didn’t like being interrupted.
“We need to talk about it, Franny.”
She moved away, drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Her sexy mouth was now in a pout. “What’s to discuss, Teddy? She saw us, she knows now. There’s no turning back. It’ll make everything easier.”
“How do you figure that?” he asked. “Walter will find out, my kids will soon know. Everyone in the practice will be buzzing with it. Hell, within twenty-four hours, all of Rose Hill will be buzzing with it, trust me.”
“They’ll get over it, Teddy,” she said,