Keeping Score

Warrick shrugged. Since she was no longer armed, he took the chance of moving closer. “I live here.” He almost smiled at the confusion that blinked across her honey features.

Marilyn’s brows knitted. “You said I could move back in.”

“You can.” Warrick stopped less than an arm’s length from Marilyn, crowding her. He leaned a hip against the island.

Marilyn stepped back. “But you’ll be here, too.”

He searched her chocolate eyes. They were wary but warm. “It’s a big house, Mary. You’ll have as much—or as little—room as you’d like.”

Marilyn dragged a hand through her glossy, dark brown hair. “Rick, I need time to think about where we’re going—and what we’re going to do about us.”

He moved closer. Her jasmine scent teased him with memories of happier times. “Why do we have to be apart for you to do that?”

Marilyn walked away from the island in the center of their silver and white kitchen, increasing the distance between them. “Because I can’t think when you’re around.” She stood with her back to him.

Her voice was low and frustrated. But her words were like an aria to his soul.

“Then maybe we’re supposed to stay together.” Warrick’s gaze moved over the green T-shirt hugging her torso and the black biker shorts tracing her curves.

She sighed. “Rick ...”

“We’ve been apart for four weeks and you haven’t made a decision. You need a new strategy.”

She threw him a skeptical look over her right shoulder. “What would you recommend?”

Two long strides carried him to her. “Instead of thinking about the things that are trying to tear us apart—and I’m not minimizing them—remember why we got married in the first place.”

Warrick drew his fingers through her loose hair. Marilyn’s sharp intake of breath made his knees weak. He wasn’t too late. He hadn’t already lost his wife.

But did he have what it took to keep her? He didn’t even know what that was.

Marilyn turned. Her movement brought her closer to him. Warrick wrapped a loose embrace around her waist. She could pull away from him if she chose to. She didn’t move.

“I remember. But I don’t know if it’s enough.”

“It is for me.”

Marilyn’s gaze shifted from his, then returned. Her eyes were dark with uncertainty. “I need to decide on my own, Rick. I don’t want you to influence me.”

But it was all right for Emma to influence her?

Warrick crossed to the kitchen doorway. “Like I said, Mary, the house is big enough for both of us. I’ll stay in the guest room until you make your decision.”

“I need to be alone to think.” Marilyn’s voice followed him down the hallway.

Warrick strode to the staircase. “Then you can leave.”

“And go where? I can’t stay with Em any longer.”

Warrick’s shoulders relaxed. A small victory. He mounted the steps. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You’re not being fair, Rick.” Marilyn climbed the stairs behind him. “You let me think you’d move out so I’d move back into the house.”

“I never said I was moving out. You made that assumption on your own. I can’t control what you think.” If he could, he wouldn’t have been sleeping alon

e for more than a month.

“You lied to me.”