Dead Ringer. B.J. Daniels
just don’t know what I would do if I lost you,” he was saying. “When I thought you were dead... Abby, I love you so much. Sometimes I do stupid things. I lose my temper or—”
“Well, fortunately, you didn’t lose her,” his father said from behind him in the doorway. Neither of them had heard Huck, so she didn’t know how long he’d been standing there.
Her husband surreptitiously wiped at his tears but didn’t get up. Nor did he let go of the one hand he held of hers too tightly.
“In fact, son, she looks like she feels much better,” Huck said as he entered the hospital room. “But you should have gotten those jars from the garage when she asked you to. I’m sure you won’t make that mistake again.”
Wade squeezed her hand even tighter. “No, I won’t,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I swear.”
“Then let’s get this woman home. Can’t let crime run rampant because of peach jam,” Huck said with a laugh.
Wade got up slowly as if he had a terrible weight on his shoulders. Abby watched him use the wheelchair arms to support himself as he lumbered to his feet.
She’d blamed his job at the sheriff’s office for the change in her husband, but as she felt the tension between Wade and his father, she wondered how much of the change in him was Huck’s doing. Her father-in-law often talked about making his son a man. It was no secret that he thought Wade wasn’t “tough” enough.
The doctor came in then to talk to her about her recovery. He still questioned whether she should be going home. She could tell that he was worried about her—and suspicious of her accident.
But Abby found herself paying more attention to what was going on out in the hallway. Huck had drawn Wade out into the hall. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but just from her husband’s hunched shoulders, she knew that Huck was berating him. Talk about the kettle calling the skillet black, she thought.
* * *
“STOP YOUR DAMNED BLUBBERING,” Huck said, taking Wade’s arm and halfway dragging him down the corridor. “You didn’t do anything wrong, remember? So quit apologizing.”
“Easy for you to say,” Wade said under his breath.
“You need to be more careful. If the doctor had overheard you...” His father shook his head as if Wade was more stupid than he’d even originally thought. “On top of that, the nurse said that Ledger McGraw stopped by to see your wife after you left,” Huck said.
Wade swore and kicked at a chair in the hallway. It skittered across the floor, before Huck caught it and brought it to a stop with a look that told him to cool it. Wade wanted to put his fist through the wall. “He just won’t stay away from my wife.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Huck asked, sounding as angry as Wade felt.
“I’m going to find the son of a bitch and kill him.” He smacked the wall hard with his open palm. The pain helped a little.
“This is your problem—you go off half-cocked and just screw things up,” his father said. “Listen to me. You want to get rid of him? I’ll help you, but we won’t be doing it when you’re out of control. We’ll plan it. As a matter of fact, I have a way we can be rid of Ledger McGraw and the rest of them, as well.”
Wade stared at his father. “What are you saying?” He narrowed his eyes. “This is about the long-standing grudge you hold against Travers McGraw.”
“What if it is? I don’t just whine and cry. I take care of business.”
He shook his head at his father. “I know you said you used to date Marianne before she married Travers, but—”
“But nothing.” Huck wiped a hand over his face, anger making his eyes look hard as obsidian. “She was mine and then he had to go and marry her, and look how that turned out.”
“You might be crazier than she is,” Wade muttered under his breath, only to have his father cuff him in the back of the head as they headed back to Abby’s room.
* * *
ABBY LISTENED TO the rain on the roof for a moment before she realized that she was alone. She rolled over to find the bed empty. More and more Wade was having trouble sleeping at night.
He’d said little after bringing her home from the hospital. Once at the house, he’d insisted she go to bed. He’d brought her a bowl of heated canned soup. She’d smelled beer on his breath, but had said nothing.
“I’ll let you get some rest,” he’d said after taking her soup tray away.
Sometime during the night she’d felt him crawl into bed next to her. She’d smelled his beery breath and rolled over only to wake later to find his side of the bed empty.
Now she found him sitting outside on the covered porch. He teetered on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees, head down as if struggling with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Abby approached him slowly, half-afraid that she might startle him. His volatile mood swings had her walking on eggshells around him. The floorboards creaked under her feet.
Wade rose and swung around, making her flinch. “What are you doing?” he demanded gruffly.
“I woke up and you weren’t in bed. Is everything all right?”
“I just needed a little fresh air. You don’t have to be sneaking up on me.”
Abby desperately wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, to plead with him to tell her what was making him so miserably unhappy. She blamed herself. They’d been good together once. Hadn’t they?
But clearly he was in no mood for the third degree. Also she’d learned to keep her distance when he was drinking. But she knew he was hurting. Because of her fall? Or because of something else?
It was raining harder now. She hugged herself, the damp seeping through her thin nightgown. There’d been a time when he would have noticed just how thin the fabric was, how it clung to her rounded breasts and hips. Back then he would have pulled her to him, his breath warm against her neck. That husky sound in his voice as he told her how much he wanted her, needed her. How he couldn’t live without her.
Wade didn’t give her another look as he sat down again, turning his back to her. “You should go to bed.”
She felt tears burn her eyes. Wade kept pushing her away, then losing his temper because he thought some other man might want her.
“I saw Ledger McGraw looking at you when you came out of the grocery store,” Wade would say. “I’m going to kill that son of a—”
“You can’t kill every man who looks at me,” she would say.
“You like it when he looks at you.”
She would say nothing, hoping to avoid a fight, but Wade would never let it go.
“He wants you. He isn’t going to give up until he tears us apart. Not that he would ever marry you. He had that chance already, remember? Remember how he lied to you, cheated on you—”
There was nothing she could say to calm him down. She knew because she’d tried. “Wade, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Right, I’m ridiculous. I’m no McGraw, am I?”
“I married you.”
“Only because you couldn’t have Ledger.”
She would try to hug him and he would shove her away, balling his hands into fists. “You never got over him. That’s what’s wrong with our marriage. You’re still yearning for him. I can see it in your eyes.”
He would shove her or grab her, wrenching her arm. It would always end with him hurting her and then being sorry. He would berate himself, loathing that he was now like his father.