TWO HOURS LATER, Keith sat at the desk of his home office, staring blankly at his computer screen. He had so much to do, but he couldn’t concentrate. He’d just received word from Softscape that they were running into a glitch on the new inventory control program he’d created for large merchandisers and needed him to return to L.A. right away. After spending nearly twelve hours at the airport yesterday and barely getting to see Reenie and the girls, he hated the thought of going back so soon. But he knew better than to put the company off. When Softscape first moved their offices from Boise to L.A. nine years ago, everyone had been grateful that he was willing to commute. He’d been with them almost since the company first started. But management had changed since then, and his new boss wasn’t particularly pleased with the amount of time he spent out of state. Charlie was looking for any excuse to insist he move to L.A. and appear at the office five days a week like everyone else; Charlie acted like Softscape owned Keith.
Because he was earning almost as much as Charlie, the company basically did own him, Keith thought with a frown. There was little chance he could support two families working anywhere else.
We need you here by Monday. The words of the e-mail he’d just read seemed to grow and then shrink. It was Friday now. That gave him only two days in Dundee. What was he going to say to Reenie come Sunday?
He could hear his wife talking to Old Bailey in the kitchen as she fed him the table scraps from breakfast. After getting the girls off to school, she’d made Keith some pancakes, eggs and sausage, and brought him coffee. But the food was growing cold at his elbow. He had to figure out a way to tell her he was leaving again, a way that wouldn’t upset her too much. This morning she’d actually mentioned splitting up.
The panic he’d felt in that moment rose inside him again. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her or his girls.
“How’s it goin’ in here?”
Swiveling in his seat, he found Reenie standing at the door wearing only the see-through lingerie he’d removed—far too quickly—last night. With her long, shiny dark hair, deep blue eyes and small, compact body, she was certainly striking. Every bit as pretty as Elizabeth. Only in a completely different way. Reenie was a nature lover—earthy, real, demonstrative. She felt every emotion to the extreme, argued passionately and made love the same way.
Liz, on the other hand, behaved like the typical upper-class city girl she aspired to be—reserved, refined, elegant. She was a generous lover, but there was some small part of her she held in reserve. Sometimes he found himself saying things to her, hurtful things, just to see if he could pierce that protective shroud, get as close to her as he felt to Reenie. But Liz avoided emotional extremes as much as Reenie embraced them.
Eventually, he had to figure out a way to let Liz down easy, to tell her that he’d made a dreadful mistake, that he already had a family in Dundee. He knew he couldn’t live the way he’d been living forever. But he couldn’t even begin to imagine how Liz—or Reenie, for that matter—would react.
Feeling the onset of the panic that overwhelmed him so of-ten of late, he took a deep breath. He’d fix everything next year, he decided. Or the year after that. It would be a lot easier when Christopher and Mica were older.
“Wanna take a shower with me?” Reenie asked, her voice sultry, her grin suggestive.
Keith let his eyes lower over her soft round breasts, her small waist, the flare of her hips—and felt his body react. He really should’ve taken more time to admire her in that sexy lingerie last night. But he was always too eager when he first came home. He had to feel her beneath him right away. Her warm response reassured him that she still believed in him, that she was still in love with him. Once he knew that, he could relax and slow down when they made love again.
She came toward him, and he quickly stood to block her view of the computer. He’d tell her about his summons to L.A. later. After they made love. Or tomorrow. He didn’t see any reason to ruin the little time they had left. What she’d said this morning had really frightened him.
Bending his head, he kissed her exactly the way she liked. He needed to give her something she couldn’t get anywhere else. “You wouldn’t really leave me, would you?” he asked when they finally made their way into the bedroom. “You’ve never even slept with anyone else.”
“I know.”
“Tell me you love me,” he said.
“I do.”
“We’re a family, right?”
She threw her head back as he kissed her breasts, touched her elsewhere. “Right.”
“And families stick together,” he murmured against the skin of her throat.
“For better or for worse,” she repeated as she wrapped her arms around him. But when he pulled back to look in her face, he saw the sad little smile those words engendered, and the fear returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chicago, Illinois
KEITH’S CALL CAME on Saturday, catching Isaac in his car on the way to the university.
“Hey, why are you coming to Phoenix?” his brother-in-law asked, as engaging as ever. “I thought you had work to do at home.”
Isaac marveled at the fact that Keith sounded perfectly normal. Was it only the night before last that he’d seen him with another woman? “I figure another week off work won’t matter. I haven’t been golfing since before I went to Africa. And the weather in Phoenix is pretty good, isn’t it? This time of year, it’s got to beat Chicago.”
“It’s beautiful here,” Keith said without hesitation. “Not a cloud in sight.”
God, he was a good liar. Isaac wondered if it was still raining in Idaho. “So what do you say? Can you do it?”
Would Keith squirm? Make up some excuse?
“I’d love to, man, I really would,” he said. “But I won’t be here. I have to head back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Isaac struggled not to sound suspicious.
“My company’s having trouble with a new piece of software I developed. They need me there to work out the bugs.” Keith sounded sincerely disappointed.
“Do they call you home early very often?”
“Not often, but occasionally. L.A. is our base.”
Isaac pictured the blurry shape of the female he’d seen through the window of the modest white house—the house with the childish note that had acted like a talisman against his intrusion. “What about the, um—” he cleared his throat “—people you were supposed to train in Phoenix? They won’t mind letting you go?”
Keith’s laugh sounded rather uncomfortable. “They won’t be happy about it, but…I don’t really have a choice.”
Maybe the woman’s husband had returned. “Does Liz know you’re coming home?”
“I’m just about to call her.”
Keith had to be telling the truth. He knew it was likely that Isaac would be speaking to his sister in the next few days. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear the news.”
“Now I can watch Mica in the spelling bee.”
Isaac slowed as he approached the exit that would take him to the university. “Mica’s a great kid.”
“She is. So smart. But Chris is, too.”
Were the children the only reason Keith kept coming back to Liz?
Isaac’s call-waiting beeped. Glancing at the screen, he realized it was