Just Married...Again (13 page)

Maddy arched against him and gave in to the sheer pleasure of his lovemaking. She was surprised when he rolled over and pulled her on top.

Michael gritted his teeth as his wife tossed aside her inhibitions. Her body gripped his so tightly; it almost brought tears to his eyes. She exuded sensuality, with her wild blond mane and her swaying breasts. Her head fell back, baring a slender white throat, and he raised one hand and stroked it with his index finger. Her climax was a thing of beauty, something to behold. Her lips parted softly, she whimpered, and as she coasted over the edge he felt her take a piece of his heart with him. His own orgasm was powerful and moving.

Michael could not remember ever feeling as content as he did at that moment, lying there with his wife in his arms. He adjusted the covers, taking care to see that she didn’t catch a chill. He noted how quiet she was.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked, after a moment.

“I’m just tired,” she said in a voice that seemed far away. “You probably don’t remember, but lovemaking always makes me sleepy.”

He pondered it. Now, what had made her say that? The Maddy he’d known had never wanted to rest afterward. On the contrary, she often jumped from the bed feeling happy and energetic. But he wasn’t in the position to argue that point, since he was still pretending to have amnesia. It was probably safe for him to start remembering things now that they had reached this level of intimacy.

He weighed it in his mind. “Maddy, we should talk.”

She yawned. “Can’t it wait until after I take a little nap?” she said. “I suddenly feel very tired.” She winced when her voice broke.

Michael raised up on one elbow and studied her, a perplexed look on his face. “Look at me,” he said. When she didn’t make a move to do so, he took her chin between two fingers and turned her head. Her eyes glistened with tears. “What is it, babe?” he said. “Didn’t you enjoy our lovemaking?”

“Of course I did. How could I not? You were always an expert lover. I suppose you don’t remember that, either.”

Michael stared at her in utter bewilderment. He wanted to gather her up in his arms, but the look on her face told him it wasn’t a good idea. “Maddy, I don’t like seeing you this way. Not after what we just shared.”

“Please don’t make a big deal out of it, Michael,” she said. “Try to see it for what it was.”

The muscles in his stomach tensed. “And what was it?” he asked, not sure he wanted to hear her answer.

“It was cold and dark, and I was scared we were all going to die before help arrived. I was reaching out for a warm body and someone to take my mind off my fears.”

“And just now?” he asked. “What was that about? And don’t tell me you were still scared.”

“I was …” She paused and inched her chin higher. His mood veered sharply to anger. “Well, then. I’m glad I could be of service.” He climbed from the bed and reached for his boxer shorts.

Maddy saw the hurt in his eyes and felt crummy for putting it there when the person she was really angry at was herself. She had let physical need get in the way of common sense. Now she would pay the price emotionally. Some people could sleep with another human being and not let their hearts get involved; she was not one of them. She could already feel the old wounds opening, gaping wide, and leaving her as vulnerable to him as she’d been in the beginning.

“I wish you’d try not to get so upset over this,” she said after a moment.

“Don’t tell me how to feel, Maddy.”

“Okay, be as upset as you like. It’s
your
blood pressure.”

“Oh, I get it. You just don’t want to have to feel guilty when you cause me to have a stroke.”

“If you have a stroke, it’s not going to be because of me. Please hand me my pajamas,” she said.

He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her. “If you want ’em, come get ’em.”

She glared at him, remembering with lightning clarity how angry he could make her when he put his mind to it. She had always felt things more passionately with him, and it irked her to no end that he still had that kind of power over her. As he stared back at her Maddy knew he would gnaw his arm off before he’d retrieve her things. She had committed the worst kind of sin, wounding that fragile male ego.

Giving a snort of disgust, she swept the covers aside and climbed from the bed. “This is so infantile,” she said, marching over to where her pajamas lay. She could feel his eyes ravishing every inch of her, but she was determined not to let him know how much it bothered her. She leaned over and reached for her panties. Without warning, he smacked her hard on the bottom. Maddy gave an indignant squeal and whirled around. She was too shocked and angry to do anything more than sputter a mouthful of obscenities.

“Nice butt,” Michael said, then strolled toward the door as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He suddenly wasn’t as mad as he’d been a few minutes earlier. She, on the other hand, appeared furious. She hurled a sneaker at his head, and he ducked. It bounced off the door. He let himself out and closed the door behind him, then cracked it and peered through the opening.

“You’re going to have to watch that hair-trigger temper, Maddy,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that kind of language in front of the kid.” He saw her pick up the other sneaker, and he closed the door quickly.

Maddy came down the hall a few minutes later and herded her dachshunds into the laundry room to use their litter box. Once she’d disposed of the soiled papers, she washed her hands and offered them a doggie treat, all the while ignoring Michael, who waited beside the coffee maker in his sweatshirt and boxer shorts.

“What happened to your jeans?”

“I gave them to Rambo. He was attached to them, so to speak.”

“Michael, that’s ridiculous! He’ll chew them to shreds.”

His smile was chilly. He wasn’t angry anymore, but he could feel himself getting depressed over his situation. “What can I say? The dog reached out to me in the cold, dark night, and fool that I am, I gave him what I thought he wanted. I’m just waiting for him to kick me in the teeth like someone else I know.”

“Uncle Michael?”

“What?” He turned at the sound of his nephew’s voice. The boy was holding his jeans.

“I found them in my sleeping bag this morning. They’re a little wrinkled, and the hem is kinda ragged, but—”

“Thanks.” Michael took the jeans from him and stepped into them. Once he’d zipped and buttoned them, he turned for the coffee maker and filled his cup. Maddy covered her mouth when she saw that a large part of the seat had been chewed out. Danny opened his mouth to say something, and then glanced at his aunt, who shook her head.

Sipping his coffee, Michael walked to one of the windows. It was snowing lightly. Not enough to amount to anything, but he was sick of looking at it. He was sick period, but mostly he was sick at heart. What a fool he’d been to think Maddy would still have feelings for him. What a joke. He wondered what would have happened had she reached out during the night and found a stranger beside her. Would she have made love to
him
so eagerly?

He walked to the sofa and sank onto it. He was still sitting there staring into the fire when Maddy announced breakfast.

“I’m not hungry,” he said, reaching for his coffee. He took a sip and was surprised to find it was ice-cold. The fire had died down as well, and he hadn’t even noticed. How long had he been sitting there? he wondered.

“Go ahead and eat your oatmeal, Danny,” Maddy whispered, rising from the table. She carried her coffee cup into the living room and sat down on the sofa beside Michael.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” she said. “It was not my intent. But you’re going to make life miserable for the rest of us if you carry on like this.”

He looked at her. She had showered and changed into black leggings and a fire engine red sweater. Her hair was tied back, drawing attention to her delicate cheekbones and a perfectly carved mouth. She was so damn pretty; it almost hurt to look at her. And to think, at one time she’d loved him as much as he loved her.

“How do you expect me to feel?” he asked, trying to keep his voice down so Danny couldn’t hear.

“I’m not listening, Uncle Michael,” the boy called out, “so you don’t have to talk so low.”

Michael sighed and shook his head and wondered why everything was going wrong for him. He started to take another sip of his coffee, remembered it was cold, and set it on the coffee table. “You’ve obviously lost all feeling for me,” he whispered.

“What?” Maddy leaned closer.

“I said, you’ve lost all feeling for me.” When she continued to look baffled, he almost shouted the words. “You don’t give a damn about me anymore, Maddy! Did you hear that?”

“I’ve finished my oatmeal,” Danny announced, shoving his chair from the table so quickly, it almost toppled over. “I’m going to read my detective magazines. I’ll be in the bedroom if anybody needs me.” He carried his bowl to the sink and whistled for the dogs. They followed him down the hall. He closed the bedroom door a moment later.

“He’s being too nice,” Michael grumbled. “I don’t like it.”

“Maybe he’s learned a big lesson since running away.”

He snorted. “Yeah, like don’t get married.”

“That’s not fair to couples who’ve been happily married for many years.”

“I don’t have to be fair, Maddy.”

“I really don’t see what all the fuss is about, Michael. You don’t even remember me. You don’t know what flavor ice cream I like, you don’t know what type of books I read, and you know nothing about me.”

This amnesia business was really beginning to work against him, he thought. But he couldn’t conveniently regain his memory just because it had served his purpose for a time. He would have to start remembering things gradually, or she’d suspect the truth.

“I may have temporarily forgotten bits and pieces of our life together, Maddy, but my heart remembers. Why do you think making love to you last night and again this morning was such a natural thing for me? I seriously doubt either of us have ever shared that level of intimacy with another person. And you can give me that crap about being cold and reaching out to someone all you want, but you still feel something for me or you would never have given of yourself the way you did.”

He stopped talking when he noted her bowed head and clenched fists. “What’s wrong, Maddy?” He put a finger beneath her jaw and lifted her head so that he was looking directly into her face. Her eyes were bright and glistening with tears. They trembled precariously on her eyelids before falling to her cheek. “What’s wrong, babe?”

She gulped back a sob. “Why are you doing this to me?” she cried. “Why are you punishing me?”

He shook his head. “I’m not trying to punish you,” he said emphatically.

“You have no idea what it’s like being married to a person who doesn’t even know you’re alive.”

“That’s not true, Maddy!”

“How do you know? You can’t even remember how badly you treated me.”

He gritted his teeth. How the hell could he defend himself when he was supposed to have amnesia? He stared back at her. “How badly I treated you?” he echoed. “Please be kind enough to fill me in.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She started to get up.

He pulled her back down beside him. “That’s too bad, because you’re going to talk about it until I have a clear understanding of what a rotten husband I was to you. Now, then, did I cheat on you? Was there another woman?”

She sniffed. “No, it was nothing like that.”

“Did I beat you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I suppose I wasn’t a good provider.”

She was getting tired of his questions. “You were an excellent provider. We had everything we needed.”

“I was a lousy lover, is that it?”

She glared at him.

“Surely, I did one nice thing during our marriage,” he said, determined to make her remember the good times they’d shared.

She heaved an enormous sigh. “You attended a few plays with me,” she said. “And a couple of artsy movies. You didn’t enjoy them, but you attended anyway and never complained. Satisfied?”

“That’s it?”

“You said name one, and I named two.”

“If that’s the only thing I ever did for you, then I’d want out of our marriage, too.”

“What’s the point of all this, Michael?” She saw that he wasn’t going to give up. “Okay, I suppose you want a blow-by-blow of every little thing you did for me. If that’ll make you feel better, fine, but it’s not going to make a difference to me because I’ve already decided what I want and don’t want in life.”

“Fair enough.”

“Let’s see now.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “You always got involved in the charities I was interested in. You worked with me every year to collect food and toys at Christmas, and you hounded everybody at work to give. You always collected more money than anybody else when we walked for the March of Dimes. And you always gave blood, even though you don’t like needles.” She looked at him. “I’m sure I’ve missed something, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. Let’s suffice it to say you were a good neighbor to those in need.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Well, that’s fine and dandy, but I was more interested in hearing if there were things I’d done for you personally.”

She glanced away quickly. “Of course there were,” she said, trying to sound casual about the whole thing. “I just can’t remember them at the moment.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

She didn’t answer.

Michael stood and walked over to the fire. He grabbed the poker and stirred it, then placed a fresh log at the top. He continued to stand there and stare at the flames, wondering where their conversation was leading, afraid it might not lead anywhere. He couldn’t force Maddy to love him any more than he could force the sun to come up in the morning. For someone who’d always needed to be in charge of his life and the situations around him, he suddenly discovered he was helpless. He could feel himself getting angry because of it.

“When my car’s air conditioner went out last summer, you drove my car for a couple of days until it could be fixed. You didn’t want me to have to deal with the heat.”