Page 78 of The Wrong Track

I was. He was my husband, and we were a family.

∞

“You’re doing it again.”

I looked up at Annie. “What? What am I doing?”

“You’re getting that newlywed look again.” She smiled and made a face that looked like she was on something really good. Of course, she wouldn’t have known what that felt like.

But I had been thinking about Tobin. Mostly, I’d been thinking about how he’d said goodbye to me that morning. He’d held my hands over my head and pressed me back against the wall. One of his thighs had slipped between mine and as he kissed me, he’d moved it, rubbing…

“Oh, I don’t know if I can watch your face as you think about my baby cousin!” Annie laughed. “Is it that good between you?”

I laughed too. Yes. Yes, it was. When I left her office, I thought more about him, all the way home. He was already there with Ella because he had the night off and I wanted to feel his mouth again, to feel his hands. They’d roamed over my hips and my butt, they’d held my waist, they’d slid up to my ribs so that his thumbs had brushed against the bottoms of my breasts.

I opened the window and let the wind blow in. It was a beautiful day, and I could feel the heat in my cheeks. I didn’t want to have “the newlywed look” on my face again as I went into the house.

“Hi, Remy.” Tobin looked up at me from where he and Ella were both doing tummy time on the floor, and he smiled.

Christ. I got the look again. I felt it through my whole damn body. “Hi,” I breathed out.

But I needed to get my hands on the baby, of course, because it had been two hours since I’d seen her and she already seemed smarter and happier. Maybe she did have Tobin’s temperament, like Mrs. Schumer had said. We all sat down to have dinner together, two of us with pasta and one with a bottle of formula.

“How was Annie?” he asked me.

“Good, I guess,” I said slowly as I thought, and then added, “No, she’s fine. She’s talking to me more about the assistant job. Even if I do it part-time, she thinks it will be better than no one doing it at any time. I just don’t get why she wants me, in particular.”

“She likes you. You’re smart and organized. Fun to be around. Hot.”

“What?”

“You’re beautiful and you have a quality that makes me want to strip you down and put my tongue…” We both looked at the sweet, innocent baby. “Annie thinks you’re imminently qualified,” Tobin said after clearing his throat. And then I asked about his day, instead, and didn’t undress him with my eyes at all. Minimally.

He told me about work, his early shift, and then how he’d taken the afternoon to do research and make calls. “I was looking up Virginia statutes,” he mentioned, and I sat very still, the fork halfway to my mouth. “I read that there’s no limitation on when charges can be brought after sexual assault.”

“What?” My voice sounded faint.

“It means that if you want to press—”

“No. No, I…Lily is still at that school. And I don’t know if I can…I don’t think that I can…”

“Ok. I just wanted you to have the information. In case you ever do, the possibility is there.” He leaned across the table and picked up my hand.

I put my face against Ella’s dark hair. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’m not pressuring you to do anything. I just want you to have options. What happened to you wasn’t fair and it isn’t fair for people to blame you. They should know the truth.” He got the stubborn look that I had come to know. “They should understand. Your sister is old enough to understand.”

I stared at him and had a terrible thought. “Tobin, what did you do?”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he started to say and I stood up.

“Did you talk to my sister?”

“No. No, but I sent her an email. I said that I was your husband. Which I am,” he put in. “I gave her my phone number. I said there were circumstances about you leaving which she didn’t know and that I hoped she wasn’t angry at you, because you were trying to act in her best interests. I said you love her and you miss her. All of which is true.”

“But you shouldn’t have done that!”

“Why?” he asked me. “Why? If I saw Ella struggling, I’d want to step in. If I see you hurting so much, then I have to…oh, hell.” He stopped and stared at me, his expression horrified. “I’m my mother. Is that right? I’ve turned into my mother.”