My Secret Wife

“I don’t know,” Gabe said frankly. “It wouldn’t appear so. Usually senile patients aren’t nearly as well-groomed as this lovely lady is. Which makes me and the other doctors and nurses on staff think her confusion is something new. But to properly pinpoint the reason for her confusion we need to know who she is and what her medical history is. Which is where you come in. We simply want to run a brief picture of Jane Doe in her hospital bed and ask anyone with information about who she is to come forward.”

“I gather you’ve already talked to the residents on Gathering Street.”

“The police have,” Gabe affirmed seriously. “No one in the neighborhood knows her.”

“All right. I’ll instruct my crew as soon as they get here and supervise the filming of the story. In the meantime, as long as we have a few moments,” Lane continued, looking straight at Gabe. “I want you to tell me what’s going on with my wife.”

MAGGIE HAD BEEN SITTING quietly waiting for Gabe to be able to take her home until this point, but now she figured she really ought to be going. Not wanting to witness what might be a very delicate and/or embarrassing conversation between the two men, she rose to her feet. Gabe grabbed her hand and tugged her back down beside him on the tweed sofa. “You can stay for this,” he said firmly, still holding onto her hand.

Suppose I don’t want to stay, Maggie thought rebelliously. But given the grip he had on her, she knew she wouldn’t get out of there without a tussle, and there was no reason to indulge in anything that undignified.

“Why was my wife at your beach house Sunday night?” Lane demanded, point-blank, the time for niceties and business obviously over.

Gabe shrugged and looked at Lane as if Penny’s presence in Gabe’s house overnight were nothing for her husband to be concerned about. “She came over to talk to me.”

“With a suitcase in tow,” Lane pointed out unhappily.

Gabe spread his hands wide. “She didn’t plan to spend the night there. She was going to go to a hotel. But then I got called back to the hospital. She was having trouble finding a hotel room—this being the height of the spring tourist season—so I said she could just stay there.”

Lane’s dark eyes narrowed. “Are the two of you having an affair?”

“No. In fact, I tried to get her to stay with you, or at least not to do anything rash.”

“And?” Briefly, Lane looked hopeful.

Gabe frowned, perplexed. “And all I know is that she got a phone call here at the hospital on Sunday afternoon that seemed to upset her terribly. I saw her crying and asked her if everything was all right, but she didn’t want to talk about it. The next thing I knew she showed up on my doorstep, and she told me she had just left you.” He paused, looked directly at Lane. “I guess I just assumed if someone was having an affair, it was you.”

“No.” Lane sighed, looking even more troubled and distressed.

“Then what could have happened?” Gabe asked in shared concern. “Who could have called her at the hospital and upset her so much she started to cry?”

And what, Maggie wondered, could that person have said to Penny that would have caused Penny to pack a bag and walk out on her husband?

Lane shrugged. His broad shoulders slumped in defeat. “I don’t know what’s going on with her the past couple of days,” Lane confessed emotionally. He looked at both Maggie and Gabe plaintively. “I mean, I know she’s been really sad about not being able to have a baby, and that infertility can make a woman whose biological clock is already ticking kind of crazy. But I’ve told her that I love her, that I’d be willing to adopt, or have a baby via test tube or whatever she wants.”

“Maybe you should do that again, then,” Gabe said, just as earnestly. “Maybe she’s just trying to be selfless in leaving you.”

“Maybe.” Lane stood. “Thanks. Both for the story tonight, and being a friend to me and Penny.”

“Any time,” Gabe said.

Lane Stringfield paused at the door, turned back to Gabe. “Listen, I’ve heard your mom is in town again—apparently for good.”

“Right.”

Lane forged on hopefully. “Any chance she’d consider hosting a local television show now that she’s left the network?”

Gabe shrugged. “I don’t know. I gave up trying to predict what my mother would or wouldn’t do a long time ago. You’ll have to ask her.”

“Will do,” Lane promised.

Lane left and Gabe turned back to Maggie.

Funny, Maggie thought. She’d thought she had a very good idea who Gabe was—the incessantly selfless Good Samaritan who busied himself helping one person after another. Now, having seen a flash of melancholy and pessimism in his personality as he talked with Lane, she wasn’t certain she knew him at all. She studied him openly. “The fact that the Stringfields might divorce really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah—maybe because I just never saw it coming for the two of them. They’ve been married for five years now. I’ve known Penny for just slightly longer. I attended their wedding and have been friends to both of them, and really feel they belong together.”

“Then…?” Maggie asked, confused.

Gabe shrugged. “I can’t explain Penny’s behavior any more than Lane can,” he told Maggie bluntly. “All I know for certain is that my own parents separated abruptly without any explanation and then ended up getting divorced. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to Penny and Lane, because I think they’d end up regretting it the same way my parents have.”

“And yet,” Maggie observed quietly, “you took Penny in Sunday night, knowing how it would probably look to Lane and everyone else.”

A muscle worked in Gabe’s cheek. He looked at Maggie, clearly resenting the implication. “She’s a friend. She showed up on my doorstep crying hysterically and telling me her marriage to Lane was over. What was I to do? Throw her out?”

If that would’ve saved her marriage, Maggie thought, yes, that is exactly what you should have done, Gabe. But out loud, she said only, in a clear, polite tone, “You could have called Lane and heard his side of the story or let him know how upset his wife was and asked him to come over and talk things out with her.”

Gabe scowled. “I didn’t want to make things any worse. And from the way Penny was acting, I thought Lane might have been cheating on her,” he admitted unhappily.

“But you don’t think so now,” Maggie guessed.

“No.” Gabe studied Maggie carefully, obviously wanting her opinion. “Do you?”