Wife in Disguise

which could be several weeks from now. She had a list of medical restrictions and instructions including a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night, two rest periods during the day, no walking, except to shower and use the bathroom. She was to attend physical therapy sessions every day and do her stretching and exercises religiously.

Josie didn’t chafe at the instructions. She knew she should have been more concerned about finding a physical therapist when she came to town and she hadn’t been very good about getting enough rest. But what she really hated was the instruction that she wasn’t to be on her own. And there was absolutely no driving until she was out of the chair.

Del had left her speechless when he’d volunteered to take her in. Del? The man who still couldn’t look at her without a combination of rage and questions. He hated her. Or at the very least he was resentful of her subterfuge.

He started the engine, then pulled away from the hospital. In the spacious trunk was the hateful wheelchair. She heard it thunk against the side of the car as they made the turn onto the main street.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, unable to keep the confusion and faint resentment out of her tone.

“What’s the old saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s either me, or you call your family.”

She wasn’t about to do that and he knew it. Her relatives had already been inconvenienced enough by her accident. Not to mention the fact that there was a part of her that didn’t want to leave Beachside Bay just yet. There was Annie May, she thought, but didn’t give voice to the idea. Annie May rented several small rooms at the top of an old converted Victorian house. Aside from not having room for long-term company, Annie May was in no position to carry her up and down three flights of stairs every day for her physical therapy appointment.

She sighed. She was trapped. “I appreciate your willingness to help out,” she said stiffly. “But I still don’t know why. Are you planning to punish me for lying to you? I’ve already tried to explain I didn’t plan it to happen that way. I really thought you’d recognize me.”

“I know.”

She looked at him in surprise. He shrugged. “You’re annoying as hell, Josie, but you’re not a liar or deceptive. I almost understand what you were trying to do.”

She doubted that, because she didn’t understand it. But getting along was better than fighting. So she wasn’t going to push things and she wasn’t going to jump on his “annoying as hell” comment. Although she couldn’t resist a murmured, “You’re annoying, too.”

He chuckled. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

There were a few minutes of silence. The shot the nurse had given Josie before she’d left the hospital took the edge off her pain. The good news was that if she was faithful to her therapy, the doctor thought she could get rid of the constant aching completely.

“I can’t believe I’m back in a wheelchair,” she grumbled.

“It’s your own fault.”

“I know. But I still hate it.” If only she hadn’t been so stubborn about coming to visit Del. And if only she hadn’t gotten so caught up in the past.

“If I can’t get you to therapy, I’ll have someone else drive you,” he told her as he turned into a residential neighborhood that was familiar. “You need to get all your treatments in so you can heal.”

All the quicker to get rid of her, she thought glumly. “You never answered my question. Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Del admitted. “Maybe because it’s the right thing to do.”

A feeble answer at best, she thought, wishing she was whole again. She was all mismatched pieces that might never fit together correctly. What must Del think of her? Did he despise her, or worse, pity her?

She’d handled everything badly from the beginning. She saw that now. She should have told him the truth when she’d first arrived and risked-

She blinked, then stared at the wide streets and tall trees shading the minivans and station wagons parked in the driveways.

“Where are you going?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Her chest tightened with the knowledge. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. She wouldn’t survive the experience.

“Home,” he said, as if the information was of no consequence. “The Victorian house has no furniture, not to mention no kitchen. We couldn’t live there. My house is a better choice.”

His house. She knew exactly what it looked like. A rambling one-story ranch with plenty of rooms, wide hallways and hardwood floors that would be easy to navigate with a wheelchair.

He turned down another street and pulled into a familiar driveway. She stared in disbelief at the gray and cream clapboard structure.

“You said you sold it,” she whispered, hating the way her heart seemed to crack in her chest.

“No, I told you I’d send you half the profit. I decided to keep the house, so I had it appraised and calculated your share from that. I took out a second mortgage to pay you off.” She felt more than saw him glance at her. “Josie, you signed a quit claim deed. What did you think that was for?”

“I thought it would make it easier for you to sell.”

She’d never dreamed that he would keep the house. That he still lived here. How could he stand it, day after day facing the ghosts from their past? Then she remembered all he’d said about her and their defunct marriage. For him there weren’t ghosts. Just easily dismissed memories.

She stared at the house she and Del had lived in for most of their time together. It was the place where they’d been most happy and the place where their marriage had ended. In the good times they’d made love in every room in the house. In the bad times they’d fought in the same number.

“Is this going to be a problem for you?” he asked.

Did it matter? She didn’t have anywhere else to go.

She looked at the small front porch, the clean windows, the roses bursting with life in the warm spring afternoon. She knew that the exercise room closet door stuck, that the garbage disposal could be temperamental and that when there was a bad storm, they were almost certain to lose their lights.

She could hear snippets of conversation. How they’d been thrilled with the place when they’d been newly married and house hunting. The excitement of moving in and how, surrounded by boxes and unassembled furniture, they’d stopped to make love in the center of their brand-new living room. So much laughter and so much pain. Angry words came to her along with the happy ones.

She remembered the last time she’d been inside that house. She and Del had been fighting, again. She’d started to leave. He’d told her that if she walked out on him one more time, he didn’t want her to come back. In the coldest words of anger, she’d told him that her bags were already in the car. And then she’d been gone. Disappearing into the night, so sure leaving him was the right thing to do.

“Josie?”

“I’m coming back to the scene of the crime,” she murmured.

“Don’t think of it that way.”

She looked at him, at the dark eyes and chiseled face. One corner of his mouth quirked up slightly.

“How should I think of it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “As a chance to learn how to be friends.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t believe it. Mostly because she didn’t want to be friends with Del. What she wanted was something more. But what did he want? After all this time, after forgetting her so completely and being so sure that their divorce was the right choice, why was he bothering with her?

Chapter Ten

Del carried in her small suitcase and the wheelchair he’d rented. He’d already brought over the rest of her luggage from the house. Then he returned to the car and opened the passenger door. Josie looked at him.

“Why did you take the wheelchair inside?” she asked. “I’ll need it to get in.”