Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (3 page)

Which she usually was.

Pushing open the front door, she spotted her husband stretched out on the sofa. He’d probably been drinking, as usual. He usually fell asleep on their couch, the TV on and his smelly work boots lying haphazardly on the stained carpet.

Ashley set her purse on the floor near the door and shrugged out of her coat. Tonight her darling husband hadn’t even managed to turn on the television. She swallowed, wondering who Brad had been sitting with at Larry’s. The few times they went to the bar together, she noted jealous looks from several of the women who frequented the place. The very idea that her husband might take up with one of them nauseated her.

After stepping out of her black work shoes, Ashley padded across the floor toward the kitchen. Though she worked at a restaurant, she was always hungry when she got home. Seeing the pile of dishes in the sink, her heart fell. Didn’t Brad understand how busy she was—working like a maniac to get all her necklace orders filled before Christmas as well as laboring nearly forty hours a week at the country club? Couldn’t the man lift a finger in the kitchen?

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp …”

Ashley paused at the counter bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. That didn’t sound like Brad’s usual snore. This was deeper and stuffy with congestion. Despite her irritation, she felt an instant stab of worry. What if her husband was sick? In some strange way, she almost wished he would be. Then she could make him some chicken noodle soup and cuddle up with him on the couch. He wouldn’t be able to go to Larry’s, and they’d be together like in the old days before things turned lousy.

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp …”

Concerned, she tiptoed back across the room to where he lay. It was hard to see in the faint moonlight that filtered through the window. Ashley usually left on one light—or more—when she went out. She hated coming home to a dark house. Brad’s snoring disturbed her, though it came regularly with each breath.

Kneeling beside the sofa, she leaned over and turned her ear to his chest.

“Barp?”

At the yelp, something damp, furry, and ratlike moved against her cheek. With a shriek, she tumbled backward onto her heels and hit the floor with a thud.

Brad shot up off the couch.

“What?” he blurted out, his eyes bleary. “What is it?”

“It’s
me
.” Ashley reached over and switched on a lamp. “Who did you think it was? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? You’re the one who’s screaming.”

“What was that thing?” She shuddered. “There was something lying on you, Brad. I felt it.”

“Oh no.” He leaped up and began throwing pillows off the couch. “Where’d he go? Come here, boy!”

Ashley got to her feet as Brad worked his way around the living room, looking behind the sofa and lifting the curtain hems off the floor.

“What are you
doing
?” She felt a familiar choking sensation rise in her chest. “Bradley Hanes, how much did you drink tonight?”

Straightening, he looked her in the eye. “I did not drink a single beer. And for your information, there is a puppy hiding somewhere in this house, and you had better help me find him.”

“A
puppy
?”

“Wow!”
The sharp, high-pitched yelp sounded from the kitchen.
“Wow, wow, wow!”

Spinning around, Ashley barely beat her husband past the bar. As she came to a halt, she spotted a small, shapeless mound of matted, dirty fur seated beside a puddle on the floor. From somewhere beneath the fur, a tail began to wag.

“Aw, man!” Brad pushed past her and scooped up the creature. His voice softened as he stroked the puppy’s head. “That’s a great way to introduce yourself, you little yapper. What’s she gonna think now, huh? She’ll boot you right out the front door, and then what will happen to you?”

Ashley stared at her cooing husband, a state of mild shock numbing her senses as he cradled the puppy in one hand and ripped off a length of paper towel with the other. A few quick swipes, a spray of disinfectant, and that spot of linoleum floor was cleaner than it had been in weeks.

Who is this man?

“You planning to be nice now?” Brad asked the wad of tangled hair. He held it up and pointed its wet black nose toward his face. “You can’t mess on the floor, pooch, you hear me? You have to let us know when you want to go outside. Like this.”

In his stocking feet, Brad strode into the living room, knelt on the floor, and lifted the puppy’s paw to the door. First he demonstrated by scratching the wood himself. Then he put the dog’s nails against the door and they practiced a few times.

“See?” he murmured, his cheek pressed against the gray fluff. “That’s how you do it. No puddling, piddling, or anything else inside the house. If you can’t figure out the rules pretty fast, kiddo, you’ll have to go back to the box in the parking lot. You don’t want that, do you? I didn’t think so. You be a good boy.”

So exhausted she felt as if she were dreaming, Ashley watched her husband—muscle-bound former football jock, deeply tanned construction worker, beer-guzzling good-time man—kiss a dog right on the nose.

Looking up at his wife, Brad gave her a lopsided grin.

“What do you think?” he asked, holding out the puppy. “Pretty cute, huh? Is he a keeper?”

Ashley studied the man she had married, the man who had disappointed and failed her in nearly every way possible. Blue eyes soft, he rubbed his hand over the puppy’s matted fur.

Was there anything left between them? Anything worth saving?

The dog sighed and settled into the crook of Brad’s arm. In a moment, its eyes closed.

“Brrrp … brrrp … brrrp …”

The gentle snore brought the hint of a smile to Ashley’s lips. She nodded as she gazed at her husband. “He’s a keeper.”

CHAPTER TWO

B
rad dipped a spoon into the box of chocolate ice cream tucked under his arm like a football. Ashley was undressing—always a favorite activity for him to observe—only now the puppy kept nipping at the legs of her black slacks or snatching a sock and racing around the bedroom with it.

“Stop him!” she said finally, turning on her husband. “I’m too tired for this. You have to lock him in another room. And put down some newspapers, too.”

“Lock him up? Are you kidding?” The image of the dog crouched alone in a corner brought back memories of Brad’s own childhood punishments—dark closets, his father’s belt, a slap across the face. “He doesn’t mean anything by it, Ash. He’s just playing with you.”

“I don’t want to play, Brad. I want to go to sleep.”

“Yeah, you never want to play anymore. I figured that out months ago.”

She shot him a dark look as he set the ice cream box on the dresser and picked up the puppy. “And don’t let him lick your spoon like that,” she added. “Chocolate is poisonous to dogs.”

“You don’t think I know how to take care of him, do you?” He put the dog on the floor and sank down onto the edge of their bed. “Admit it.”

“Brad, all I’m saying is dogs can die from eating chocolate.”

“But you said we could keep him, right?”

“I don’t care what you do with him. Just don’t let him chew on me. And you’d better give him a bath. Tonight. He’s probably got fleas and ticks and worms and who knows what else. You’ll need to get him neutered, too, or he’ll run all over the neighborhood looking for females. If he digs in someone’s yard, they’ll be furious. I guess you’re planning to foot the vet bill out of your paycheck.”

Brad stared at his wife. She was letting down her hair, a cascade of thick red-gold waves that tumbled to her waist. Any other time, he would have been unable to resist throwing his arms around her and easing her onto the bed…. But now Ashley wadded up her slacks and hurled them into a plastic basket in the bottom of the closet. Boy, she was in a fine mood.

“If he’s
our
dog,” Brad said, “we’ll pay for him together. That’s what married people do, remember?”

“
I’m
not the one who has forgotten he’s married. I don’t hang out at a bar with my high school buddies all night, staring at girls. I work two jobs so I can pay the bills we owe. The bank already repossessed your truck. What do you want me to do next—sell the junker I’ve owned since my sophomore year in high school?”

She balled up her shirt and threw it into the closet.

Uncertain how to respond to this tirade against him, Brad studied the puppy. The dog had sunk his tiny teeth into the toe of Brad’s sock and was backing up in a mighty effort to tug it off. Though he wanted to grin at the little rascal, Brad knew there was nothing amusing about Ashley’s accusations.

After nearly a year of marriage, they still hadn’t figured out how to blend their incomes. When they were getting along, they agreed to put everything into one account and pay bills from it. But when they got angry, both decided their own paychecks were private. Money flowed and ebbed at the bank. Mostly ebbed. Credit card charges gradually mounted, and the company kept upping the interest rate while requiring timely payments to avoid hefty late fees. Worst of all, the mortgage check often failed to make it into the mail on time.

“Listen, Ashley, you’re the one who’s always ordering supplies for your bead business.” Brad gave in and let the puppy have his sock. “I don’t know why you blame me for all our problems. You’ve run the credit card up so high we’ll never get it down. And you don’t give a rip about our utility bills. I came home tonight and found every light in the house blazing like it was Christmas.”

“Christmas?”

At that, she bit her lower lip and jerked on her favorite blue-flowered flannel nightgown—a garment he hated with a passion. Without speaking, she turned on her heel and headed for the living room. With a
yawp!
of delight, the puppy scampered after her.

Brad looked down at his one bare foot.

He had no idea what to do. What could a man even say to a woman like this? Ashley was so emotional. If she wasn’t laughing, she was crying or angry. Usually he couldn’t even begin to figure out why.

“These are the papers you’ll need to put down whenever you leave the house,” his wife said, reentering the room with a stack of advertising tabloids in one hand and a bowl of water in the other. “And don’t you dare let him into the new room. That’s the only good thing we have. I don’t want that dog chewing it up.”

“
That dog?
What are you so mad about, Ashley?” Brad stood and followed her into the bathroom. “You should be happy. I didn’t go to Larry’s tonight. I didn’t look at any woman except my wife—who put on her dumpiest gown just in case I might be feeling a tiny bit of what’s left of my desire for her. In fact, I came into an empty house with nothing to eat but some kind of leftover junk out of the freezer. I don’t see what I’ve done that’s so awful.”

“You
exist
, Bradley Hanes!”

She paused, her back to him, and stiffened. A sob echoed off the tiled walls. With a loud sniffle, she dropped to her knees and set the bowl of water by the sink. Then she began spreading the papers across the floor.

Fighting the anger that roared through his chest at her declaration of disgust for him, Brad saw a tear fall from Ashley’s cheek onto the ad sheet. Then another. She leaned her back against the bathroom wall, curled her knees to her chest, and buried her head in her arms. As her shoulders shook, Brad hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and stared at her. How had he managed to be so stupid as to
marry
that huddled mass of hair, tears, and ratty old nightgown?

“I’m sorry.” The muffled words emerged from Ashley and gradually began to seep into Brad’s consciousness. She inhaled deeply. “I’m so sorry, Brad. I shouldn’t have said that. I just can’t believe our marriage is … I can’t believe we … Oh no! A flea!”

She bolted up off the floor, her index finger and thumb squeezed together. Covering her eyes with her free hand, she held the other out in his direction. “It’s a flea! It was on my arm. I don’t know what to do with it! Oh, yuck. This is disgusting. Here, take it. Take it, take it!”

He reached for the miniscule pest. The moment Ashley opened her fingers, the flea vanished. Brad looked down to find the puppy staring up at him, tongue hanging out as he panted happily.

“We have to wash the dog,” Ashley announced. She bent over the tub and began running warm water. “Pick it up and put it in here. We’ll use your shampoo. Ugh, this creeps me out. What if the fleas get everywhere in the house? Pick it up, Brad!”

“
It?
” He looked into her red-rimmed brown eyes. “The dog is a male. And I’m going to bed.”

“No, you’re not!” She grabbed his shirtsleeve. “Put that puppy in the bathtub, Brad, and I mean it. I hate fleas. I can’t stand bugs. I’m going to ask Jay which exterminator they use.”

“Who’s Jay?” Brad demanded as he lifted the puppy and set him in the tub. “You never mentioned Jay.”

“He works at the club. He’s in charge of customer relations.”

“How old is this guy?” Dread dropped like a stone into the pit of Brad’s stomach as he pushed the puppy toward the stream of water running from the faucet. In the time he’d known Ashley, she had never mentioned any men at the country club other than the bartender, the chef, and the busboys—all of whom were too old or too young to attract her interest. Knowing how hard he was fighting his attraction to Yvonne Ratcliff, Brad suddenly realized he ought to keep his eye on his own wife. If he could feel so strongly about—
“Yow!”
As the puppy slid under the warm cascade, he let out an ear-shattering yelp, spun around, and began trying to run in the other direction. Tiny claws clattering on the tub’s porcelain surface, he made no progress whatsoever to get away from the water.

“Yow! Wow-wow-wow!”
Wailing piteously, he slipped and fell belly-first into the puddle that had collected around the plug. Trying to stagger to his feet again, he clunked his head on the side of the tub.

“Oh, my goodness!” Ashley lifted him out of the water with both hands and gathered him in her arms. “Are you okay? That was a bad bump. Let me see.”

Dumbfounded by his wife for the umpteenth time that night, Brad watched as she carefully examined the puppy’s furry little head. Finding nothing wrong, she pressed her lips to one floppy ear. The dog licked her cheek, and she giggled.