His Ordinary Life by Linda Winfree Page B

to find a way to fix it without the answers she didn’t want to give him. “I’m lost, Barb. What were you scared would happen if you didn’t fall in with what I wanted?”
    “I was afraid I’d lose you.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and stared at him with defiance. “There, I said it. Happy now?”
    “You thought…baby, that doesn’t make—” This time, he shut his mouth on the words. Better not to go there. “I live for you and those kids. The only way you could lose me is if…”
    He swallowed. The only way she could get rid of him was the one way she had—by pushing him away, cutting him out of her life.
    “Right.” Censure soured her voice. “Look what happened the one time I didn’t go along with what you wanted.”
    The one time? Confused, he frowned. “What are you talking about?”
    “What did you do when I tried to talk you out of this whole investigations thing?” She crossed her arms over midriff.
    Oh, shit. Go easy there, Del. “What did I do?”
    “You left,” she said in a choked, hush murmur.
    “I couldn’t stay.” He glanced away from the curves revealed by the maillot she wore under the terry robe. He needed answers, not the distraction of how badly he wanted to run his hands along the indention of her waist, the flare of her hips. “You think I left because you disagreed with me?”
    “Didn’t you?”
    He flinched from the heavy sarcasm that coated the question. “No.”
    “No,” she echoed. Her strangled sob vibrated with anger. “You tell me why then. Why you left. The real reason, not that song and dance about investigations.”
    He shook his head. “It wasn’t a song and dance. There was a job—”
    “That meant more than we did.”
    “No.” He shivered in the breeze. “Hell, Barb, I always intended to come back home, once you cooled off. The next thing I know, you’re talking divorce. I didn’t expect you to see a damn lawyer like that. What was I supposed to do? You obviously didn’t want me back. I had to have a freakin’ place to live and I couldn’t exactly afford the rent on an apartment, the mortgage on this place and pay child support on an insurance investigator’s salary. That’s why I stayed in sales. I needed the damn commission work and sales bonuses.”
    “Who said I wanted you to leave?”
    “You helped me pack.” He kept the words level, didn’t let the sarcasm or the pain escape. “You acted like…I felt like it was nothing to you that I was going.”
    “How could it be nothing?” Her eyes glittered, tears sparkling on her long lashes. “You were leaving me. I helped you pack because I kept hoping…” She closed her eyes, the tears slipping down her cheeks. “I wanted you to change your mind.”
    “Oh, Lord.” He groaned and cupped her face in his hands, thumbs caressing the wetness from her cheeks. The urge to pull her close and wrap himself around her wracked him. “Baby, why didn’t you say anything?”
    She grasped his arms, trying to push away. “Would it have done any good?”
    “All I wanted to hear was two words.” He slid his hands to her shoulders, pulling her closer. Heat radiated from her body, warming his chilled skin. He lowered his head, his mouth a breath away from hers. “Don’t go.”
    Her eyes wide, she looked up at him, her lips parted. She shook her head, tugging away from him. “Stop. You’re not going to stand there and pretend you didn’t want—”
    “Look at me.” He reached for her again, but she evaded him. “Tell me the divorce is what you really wanted, that you wanted me gone, and I’ll let this go. That’ll be the end of it.”
    Anger sizzled in the glance she shot his way. “This is pointless. I’m going back to bed.”
    She walked away.
    “I don’t want a divorce,” he called after her, hearing the desperation in his own voice. She froze, halfway across the deck, her body vibrating with visible tension. Del swallowed, a cold fear trembling along his