The Husband She Never Knew. Cynthia Thomason

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СКАЧАТЬ me. She’ll come through this storm in fine style.”

      “You speak of your boat as if it were a flesh-and-blood person,” Vicki said. A wife, for instance, she added to herself, remembering Bobbi Lee’s words.

      He chuckled. “I suppose there was that same sort of period of adjustment for the Bucket, and me, as there is for a pair of new roommates.”

      The masculine furnishings of the houseboat did not suggest a woman’s influence. But if Jamie had taken another wife at some time in his past, and if Vicki was going to weather a storm with him in this confined space, she had to know it now. “May I ask you something?” she said.

      “Anything at all. There should be no secrets between husband and wife.”

      She shook her head. “Right. Are you married?”

      Jamie’s initial response was a bark of laughter, a most inappropriate reaction to a serious question. Vicki opened her mouth to tell him so, but his phone rang, prohibiting her from expressing her opinion.

      Jamie picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Ma,” he said. “I just heard it on CNN. Now don’t you go worrying about me.”

      Vicki relaxed a little. A man whose mother called to show her concern was probably not a homicidal maniac.

      “Do you have everything you need in case you’re holed for a day or two?” he asked.

      He sat back on the sofa. After a minute he looked at Vicki and touched his fingers to his thumb repeatedly in that gesture men use when a woman is talking too much. “Sure, I’ll be fine, Ma. Got plastic on the roof, and I’ll be putting shutters at the windows just as soon as I can get off the phone.”

      A long pause. “Yes, plenty of food. I was at the supermarket yesterday.” He moved his head up and down in time to his mother’s conversation. “I can’t do that, Ma. Luther’s already blockaded the road. I’ll call you when it’s over.”

      He set the receiver back on its cradle and looked at Vicki. “That was my mother,” he offered unnecessarily. “She lives in Bayberry Cove—another result of our wedding vows for which I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

      “Me? Why?”

      “When you married me, you cleared the way for me to bring my mother over from Ireland. I was able to get her an immigrant visa and apply for her permanent residence once she got here. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t become a citizen first.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “So, does that answer your question about my state of wedded bliss?”

      “No, it doesn’t. I meant, are you married to anyone besides me?”

      For a second he looked truly shocked. “Where would you get an idea like that?”

      “From a waitress in town. When I asked directions to Pintail Point, she made sure I knew that you were married.”

      “Was she a blonde with an hourglass figure that might require more room at the bottom for the sand?”

      Vicki nodded.

      “A good woman, Bobbi Lee is. But she has it in her mind that every little detail of my life should be her concern.”

      Vicki wasn’t fooled. She’d seen Bobbi Lee’s disapproval firsthand. Plus, when a man made a statement like that, he was obviously hiding something, and what Jamie was probably hiding was that he and Bobbi Lee shared more than a casual relationship.

      “But back to your question,” Jamie continued. “Yes, indeed I have a wife, and by some miracle I’ve yet to understand, I’m looking at her now for the first time in thirteen years.”

      “Do you tell people that you’re married and I’m your wife?” If he did, then the honesty of such a declaration was ironic in light of Vicki’s own deception.

      “Not exactly. I tell people I’m married is all, and that’s the God’s truth. And for what it’s worth, Vicki, you’ve been nearly the ideal mate.”

      She sank into one of the leather chairs. “That’s silly. We don’t even know each other.”

      “Not so silly when you compare our marriage to others you know of. You never nag me. I can leave my socks in the middle of the floor. And if I want to watch a football game, you never utter a complaining word.”

      He flashed her a crooked grin that under other circumstances might have been charming. And Vicki decided that Jamie Malone was not at all sinister. A man with an indolent dog, a caring mother and an ancient houseboat he lovingly tended, was strange perhaps, but not evil.

      “’Course I can’t really say that the lovemaking has been very satisfying over the years,” he added.

      He was, however, something of a smart-ass. Vicki’s cheeks flushed as she remembered again that she and Jamie had told an INS interviewer that they made love every day. Then she pictured Bobbi Lee with the wide smile and lavender-shaded eyes. And the tapping pencil. “I’m sure you’ve compensated in other ways,” she said.

      He nodded. “A man makes do.”

      The phone rang again, dispelling the very clear image in Vicki’s mind of how Jamie and Bobbi Lee “made do.”

      At the same time, Jamie spoke the waitress’s name out loud. “Hello, Bobbi Lee. Yes, I heard, first on CNN, and then Ma called to tell me.” There was a long pause during which another of Jamie’s women monopolized the conversation.

      “You’ll be fine,” he encouraged. “Make sure Charlie and Brian bring in the patio furniture. No, you shouldn’t need shutters on the mainland.”

      He listened more and then looked over at Vicki and grinned. “What do you mean? Who would be fool enough to come to Pintail with a storm brewing?”

      Vicki did indeed feel like the fool Jamie suggested she was, both for getting herself stuck in a hurricane and for eavesdropping on a one-sided conversation between her husband and his girlfriend.

      “Yes, I’ll call when I can get through,” he said. “But we might not talk again very soon, Bobbi. I expect I’ll lose phone service if it gets bad.”

      He hung up and leaned back into the sofa. “She was fishing to know if you were here,” he said. “And no doubt who you are and why you’ve come.”

      “Why didn’t you tell her?”

      He answered with another of those complacent shrugs that suggested nothing much bothered him. “If I had, she would have spent hours shut in her house fretting over it. And besides, she didn’t come right out and ask.”

      “But if she had, would you have admitted that I’m the other half of this perfectly satisfying marriage you claim to have enjoyed all these years?”

      “I would have told her you’re my legal wife, yes. I don’t think I could get Bobbi Lee or anyone else in Bayberry Cove to believe more than that.”

      “I think your wedding license has been a convenience, Mr. Malone. I think you tell people you’re married when it suits your purposes or when you have something to gain by admitting it.”

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