The Millionaire Claims His Wife(23)

"Come and sit down," she'd told him. "I have a couple of packages here that just might interest you."                       
       
           



       

So he'd gone home to Annie with one perfect red rose, a box of candy, a  contract that made all his, and her, sacrifices worthwhile-and  reservations at a resort on Saint John Island.

Neither the poster nor the travel agent had exaggerated the beauty of  the islands. To this moment, he remembered the shock of first seeing the  pale sky, white sand and crystal-clear blue water.

"It's the color of your eyes," he'd whispered to Annie, as he held her  in his arms that first night, in their wonderful hideaway overlooking  the sea. Compared to this, the place had been a shack-but oh, how happy  they'd been there!

Chase smiled to himself. That night had been what he'd come to think of as the Night of the Spider.

He and Annie had made love on the secluded terrace of their little house, cocooned in a black velvet bowl of night sky.

"I love you," he'd whispered, after she'd cried out in his arms and he'd  spent himself in her silken heat. Annie had sighed and kissed him, and  then they must have fallen asleep, there in the darkness with the soft  whisper of the surf seeming to echo the beats of their hearts.

Sometime during the night, he'd awakened to a shriek.

"Annie?" he'd shouted, and though it had taken only a couple of seconds  to race through the little house and find her in the bathroom, his  adrenaline must have been pumping a mile a minute by the time he got  there.

Annie, white-faced, was standing on the closed toilet, trembling with terror.

"Annie? Babe," he'd said, pulling her into his arms. "What is it? What happened?"

"There," she'd said, in a shaky whisper, and she'd pointed an equally shaky hand toward the tub.

"Where?" Chase had responded. All he saw was the porcelain tub, the bath mat, the gleaming white tile...

And the spider.

It was big, as spiders went. Definitely the large, economy size. And it  was hairy. But it was only a spider, for God's sake, and in the time it  had taken him to get from the bedroom to Annie, he'd died a thousand  deaths, imagining what might have happened to her.

So he'd reacted the only way he could, scooping the spider up with a  towel, marching to the back door, dumping the thing into the sandy grass  and then returning to his wife, slapping his hands on his hips and  asking her what in hell was wrong with her, to shriek like a banshee  because she saw some little spider that was probably more afraid of her  than she was of it.

Annie had slapped her hands on her hips, too, and matched his angry glower with one of her own.

"That's it," she'd said, "take the spider's side instead of mine!"

"Are you nuts? I'm not taking-"

"You just think how you'd feel, if you'd come in here, turned on the light and found that-that thing waiting for you!"

"It wasn't 'waiting' for you. It was minding its own business."

"It was waiting for me," Annie had insisted, "tapping its eight trillion feet and waiting for-"

Chase had snorted. "Eight trillion feet?" he'd said, choking back his  laughter, and suddenly Annie had started to laugh, too, and the next  thing he'd known, his wife was in his arms.

"I know it's dumb," she'd said, laughing and crying at the same time, "but I'm scared of spiders. Especially big ones."

"Big?" Chase had said, cupping her face in his hands and smiling into  her eyes. "Hey, that thing was big enough to eat Chicago." He'd stopped  smiling then, and told her what was in his heart, that his anger had  only been a cover-up for the fear he'd felt when he'd heard her scream,  that if he ever lost her-that if he ever lost her, his life would have  no meaning...

"Hi."

He swung around. Annie was standing in the doorway, smiling, and only  force of will kept him from going to her, taking her in his arms, and  telling her that-telling her that...

"Sorry I took so long, but I lost track of the time."

Chase expelled his breath and looked away from her.

"Were you gone long?" he said, with a casualness he didn't feel. "I hadn't noticed."

"I walked through the woods." Annie came closer, peered over his  shoulder at the potatoes and onions and picked up a paring knife. "This  is some beautiful place. I hate to think of it overrun with guys in  three-piece suits."

Chase forced a smile to his lips. "They won't wear three-piece suits  when they come here. They'll wear plaid Bermudas, black socks and wing  tips."

Annie laughed, picked up a potato and began peeling it. "Same  difference." They worked in silence for a few minutes, and then she  spoke again. "I saw an interesting spider on the deck."                       
       
           



       

Chase looked up. "That's strange. I was just thinking about... Did you say, 'interesting'?"

"Uh-huh. It was..." She hesitated. "It was big. You know. Impressive."

"Impressive, huh? And you didn't scream? Seems to me I can remember the  days when creepy crawlies weren't exactly your favorite creatures."

Annie blew an errant curl off her forehead. "They still aren't. But I took this course last year..."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"It was about insects," she said with dignity.

That did surprise him. "You? Taking a course about bugs?"

Annie flushed. "Well, why not? I figured it was stupid to be scared of  things with more than four legs. I decided, maybe if I understood them  better, I might not jump at the sight of an ant."

"And?"

She shot him a sideways look and an embarrassed smile. "And, I learned  to respect creepy crawlies like crazy. There are a heck of a lot more of  them than there are of us, and they've been here longer."

Chase nodded. "I can almost hear the 'but' that's coming."

She laughed and reached for another potato. "But, I'm still not in the  mood for a one-to-one relationship with anything that needs eight legs  to cross a room."

Chase grinned. "It's nice to know that some things never change."

Annie's smile dimmed. "Yes. Yes, it is."

They worked in silence for a couple of minutes, Annie peeling potatoes, Chase slicing onions, and then Chase spoke.

"Annie?"

"Mmm?"

"I, ah, I wanted to tell you... I just hope you know..." He swallowed.  "I didn't mean what I said before. About you taking all those courses to  take digs at me, I mean."

Annie felt her cheeks redden. "That's okay."

"No. It's not okay. I know you enjoy learning all that stuff. The  poetry, the art... It's just not my thing. Heck, if I'd had to take  anything but the minimum liberal arts stuff to get my engineering  degree, I'd never have managed. I'd probably still be digging ditches  for a living."

Annie smiled and shook her head. "You know that's not true." She glanced  at him, then put all her concentration on the potato she was peeling.  "Anyway, maybe-maybe there was some truth to what you said. I mean, I  didn't pick those things to study because I thought they'd, you know, be  about stuff you wouldn't enjoy. I do like poetry, and art, and all the  rest." She bent her head so that her hair fell around her face,  shielding it from his view. "But I have to admit, when you looked  puzzled about some eighteenth century poet, well, it made me feel good."  She looked up suddenly, her eyes bright and shiny. "Not because I felt  smarter or anything but because-because it was a way of proving that I  could hold my own, you know? That even though I was only a housewife,  that didn't mean I was-"

"Only a housewife?"

Annie shrugged as she dumped the potato on the counter and reached for another.

"That's what I was."

"Only a housewife," he said, and laughed. "That's a hell of a  description for the woman who kept our home running smoothly, who raised  our child, who entertained all the clowns I had to butter up while I  was trying to get Cooper Construction moving."

"I guess I wasted an awful lot of time in self-pity."

"That's not what I meant. If anybody wasted time, babe, it was me. I  should have told you how proud I was of all the things you did. But I  was too busy patting myself on the back, congratulating myself for  building Cooper Construction into something bigger than my father had  ever dreamed. Something that would..."

Something that would make you proud of me, he'd almost said, but he  stopped himself just in time. It was too late to talk about that now.

"Well, what's the difference?" he said briskly. "It's all water under  the bridge." He concentrated on slicing the onions, and then he cleared  his throat. "At least now I know that you didn't take all those classes  just to get away from me."