Strange Bedfellow by Janet Dailey Page B

as she waved them imperiously into the living room. “Come along. Let's have a sherry and you can tell me about your first day back at the office, Blake.” She rattled on, covering their tight-lipped silence.  
    IT WAS AN ORDEAL getting through dinner and making the necessary small talk to hide the fact that there was anything wrong. It was even worse after dinner when the three of them sat around with their coffee in the living room. Each tick of the clock was like the swing of a pendulum, bringing nearer the moment when Blake's threatened discussion would take place.  
    The telephone rang and the housekeeper answered it in the other room. She appeared in the living room seconds later to announce, “It's for you, Mr. Blake. A Mr. Carl Landstrom.”  
    “I'll take it in the library, Deirdre,” he responded.  
    Dina waited several seconds after the library door had closed before turning to Mother Chandler. “It's a business call.” Carl Landstrom was head of the accounting department and Dina knew that his innate courtesy would not allow him to call after office hours unless it was something important. “Blake is probably going to be on the phone for a while,” she explained, a fact she was going to use to make her escape and avoid his private talk. “Would you explain to him that I'm very tired and have gone on to bed?”  
    “Of course, dear.” The older woman smiled, then sighed with rich contentment. “It's good to have him back, isn't it?”  
    It was a rhetorical question, and Dina didn't offer a reply as she bent to kiss the relatively smooth check of her mother-in-law. “Good night, Mother Chandler.”  
    “Good night.”  
    Upstairs, Dina undressed and took a quick shower. Toweling herself dry, she wrapped the terry cloth robe around her and removed the shower cap from her head, shaking her hair loose. She wanted to be in bed with the lights off before Blake was off the telephone. With luck he wouldn't bother to disturb her. She knew she was merely postponing the discussion, but for the moment that was enough.  
    Her nightgown was lying neatly at the foot of the as she entered the bedroom that adjoined the private bath, her hairbrush in hand. A few brisk strokes to unsnarl the damp curls at the ends of her hair was all that she needed to do for the night, she decided, and sat on the edge of the bed to do it.  
    The mattress didn't give beneath her weight. It seemed as solid as the seat of a wooden chair. Dina was motionless as she assembled the knowledge and realized that the new mattress and box springs she had ordered for Blake had arrived and hers had been removed.  
    She sprang from the bed as if discovering a bed of hot coals beneath it. No, her heart cried, she couldn't sleep with him—not after that last humiliating experience; not with his anger simmering so close to the surface because of today.  
    The door opened and Blake walked in, and the one thing in the forefront of her mind burst out in panic. “I'm not going to sleep with you!” she cried.  
    A brow flicked upward. “At the moment, sleep is the furthest thing from my mind.”  
    “Why are you here?” She was too numbed to think beyond the previous moment.  
    “To finish our discussion.” Blake walked to the chair against the wall and motioned toward the matching one. “Sit down.”  
    “No,” Dina refused, too agitated to stay in one place even though he sat down with seemingly relaxed composure while she paced restlessly.  
    “I want to know why you were meeting Chet.” His hooded gaze watched her intently, like an animal watching its trapped prey expend its nervous energy before moving in for the kill.  
    “It was perfectly innocent,” she began in self-defense, then abruptly changed her tactics. “It's really none of your business.”  
    “If it was as perfectly innocent as you claim,” Blake said, deliberately using her words, “then there's no reason not to tell me.”  
    “What you can't seem