“She wouldn’t like it. You know how women are. She wants to be all fixed up before she meets the family, so she can make a good first impression.”
“When do you think that’s going to be? Now that Mom and Dad are back in town, they’re champing at the bit to meet her. And Annie’s really rubbing it in because she’s seen her and we haven’t.”
“It’s not my fault all of you chose now to go gallivanting around the country.”
“I’ve been back from my ski trip for three days.”
“Yeah, well, it’s like I told everybody when I came over for dinner last night, Jane got sick right before you got back. Damned flu. She should be feeling better in a few days—next week at the latest—and then I’ll bring her over to the house. But don’t expect to see much of her. Her work’s real important to her, and she can’t spend too much time away from her computer right now.”
Ethan was only thirty, but he regarded him through old, wise eyes. “If you need to talk, C-Man, I’m willing to listen.”
“There’s nothing for me to talk about except the way everybody in this family wants to stick their noses in my business.”
“Not Gabe.”
“No, not Gabe.” Cal jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I wish he would.”
They each fell silent, preoccupied with thoughts of their wounded middle brother. He was down in Mexico, on the run from himself.
“I wish he’d come home,” Ethan said.
“He left Salvation years ago. It’s not home to him anymore.”
“I guess no place is home without Cherry and Jamie.”
Ethan’s voice tightened, and Cal looked away. Anxious to break the mood, he began picking up the contents of Jane’s purse. Where was she? These past two weeks he’d forced himself to stay away and let his temper cool.
He also wanted her to feel her isolation and understand that he was the one holding the key to her prison. Unfortunately she didn’t seem affected.
Ethan came over to help. “If Jane’s flu is this bad, maybe she should be in the hospital.”
“No.” Cal reached for a small calculator and pen so he didn’t have to look at his brother. “She’s been pushing herself pretty hard, but she’ll feel better as soon as she gets some rest.”
“She sure doesn’t look like one of your bimbos.”
“How do you know what she looks—?” He lifted his head and saw Ethan studying her photo on the driver’s license that had fallen out of her wallet. “None of the women I dated were bimbos.”
“They weren’t exactly rocket scientists.” He laughed. “This one practically is. I still can’t believe you married a physicist. The way I remember it, the only thing that got you through high-school physics was the fact that Coach Gill taught the class.”
“You’re a damned liar. I got an A in that class.”
“Deserved a C.”
“B minus.”
Ethan grinned and waved the driver’s license. “I can’t wait to tell Dad I won my bet.”
“What bet?”
“The age of the woman you married. He said we’d have to schedule the wedding ceremony around her Girl Scout meetings, but I said you’d come to your senses. I believed in you, bro, and looks like I was right.”
Cal was irritated. He hadn’t wanted everybody to know that Jane was twenty-eight, but with Ethan staring at the date of birth on her driver’s license, he couldn’t deny it. “She doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”
“I don’t know why you’re so sensitive. There’s nothing wrong with marrying someone your own age.”
“She’s not exactly my age.”
“Two years younger. That’s not a big difference.”
“Two years? What the hell you talkin’ about?” He snatched the license away. “She’s not two years younger than me! She’s—”
“Uh-oh.” Ethan backed away. “I think I’d better go.”
Cal was too stunned by what he saw on the license to hear the amusement in his brother’s voice, nor did he notice the sound of the front door closing a few moments later. He couldn’t take in anything except the date on the driver’s license he held in his hand.
He scrubbed the laminate with his thumb. Maybe it was just a smear on the plastic that made the year of her birth look like that. Or maybe it was a misprint. Damned DMV couldn’t get anything right.
But he knew it wasn’t a misprint. There was no mistaking those grim, condemning numbers. His wife was thirty-four years old, and he’d just taken the sack of a lifetime.