The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky Page A

give you the recipe?”
    “No, MaryAnne did.”
    “Ah. Well, that’s okay. MaryAnne gets it right. You know not to use Cool Whip, don’t you? You have to whip real cream, or it isn’t perfect, and you have to do it yourself. Fresh. Canned stuff won’t do. I tried taking that shortcut once and, believe me, you can taste the difference. I’ve made that trifle a hundred times, so if you have any questions, give me a call. Otherwise, I’ll see you Sunday at three?”
    “We’ll be there.”
    Amanda hung up the phone, wishing with all her heart that her mother-in-law’s birthday was any weekend but this one. It wasn’t that Amanda didn’t like Graham’s family. She adored his sisters and brothers and their spouses and children. The problem was Dorothy.
    Kathryn’s exuberance notwithstanding—Kathryn’s manipulation notwithstanding, since she had been the one to say who would bring what—Amanda wasn’t at all sure that Dorothy would be pleased to know that she was the one making the O’Leary family trifle.
    Dorothy had never accepted Amanda. It was almost as though she blamed Amanda for the breakup of Graham’s first marriage, though in fact that marriage had been over and done well before Amanda and Graham met. Even the lengthy process of obtaining an annulment from the church was completed before that day in Greenwich.
    If Amanda were Catholic, Dorothy might have felt differently. Barring that, having an O’Leary baby would help. But it was easier said than done.
    Feeling weary and weak, Amanda went through the darkened hall into the living room and dropped into the nearest sofa. It was a deep, cushiony one, different from the tailored pieces her mother favored, and when she and Graham had been furniture shopping, she had fallen in love with it on sight. His love for it had been more physical; he had gone from sofa to sofa, plopping down, sitting this way and that to assure a generous fit; but the outcome had been total agreement on their parts.
    She sank back now as he had then and let the cushions envelop her. She didn’t turn on a light; the darkness pillowed her mind as the sofa did her body. She was as brain-tired as she was bone-tired. She wanted Graham. She just wasn’t sure she wanted everything that went with him right now.
    When she heard the kitchen door open, she told herself to be grateful that her husband cared enough to come down from his office when she returned.
    “Mandy?” he called.
    “In here.”
    She heard his muted footfall on the adobe tiles in the kitchen, then the hardwood of the hall. They stopped at the living room arch. Had she looked back, she knew she would have seen no more than a handful of inches between the top of that arch and the top of his head. She had watched him there before, had watched from the very sofa she sat in now. She had watched him approach with a hunger in his eyes that translated to sex right here on the Oriental rug. They had made love in most every room in this house. Not lately though. Lately, they did it in bed, every forty-eight hours on the days when she was ovulating and most likely to conceive.
    Now she didn’t look back, didn’t move an inch.
    “Are you okay?” he asked with such welcome gentleness that her eyes filled with tears.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Want some tea?”
    “No. Thanks.” Rolling her head on the cushion, she extended a hand. She didn’t want to argue. She loved Graham.
    Seeming to appreciate the gesture, he closed the distance, took her hand, and brought it to his mouth as he sank into the sofa by her side. His lips were warm against her fingers.
    “Were you working?” she asked, nestling in, feeling his warmth envelop her.
    He tucked her hand to his heart and stretched out his legs. “I tried. I wasn’t inspired. So I took a walk. I just got back and saw your car.”
    “I didn’t see you.” She should have passed him when she’d been driving down the street.
    “I was in the woods. Went right through the graveyard.