of this bleeding,” he mumbled. Face down, he ducked past his family. “Sorry.”
“I’m right, huh, Mom?” Nick persisted as Ted escaped. “He’s fooling around with Francine.”
Rachel took one of each of her children’s hands and paused for a moment, praying that she’d be able to tell them what was necessary in a way that would do them the least harm. “Sometimes,” she began, “people who are married to each other discover that even though they have many good things together, such as wonderful children and a lovely house and good jobs, that somehow they need something different. A change, maybe. Your…your dad—” she cleared her throat as it threatened to close “—your dad is experiencing something like that.”
“So the something different Dad needed,” Nick said, cutting to the chase as always, “was an affair with his best friend’s wife? Have I got it right?”
Rachel closed her eyes in momentary pain. “It…it appears that…he and Francine are involved, yes. At the moment.”
“What a dumb shit!” Nick stood up abruptly. He hadn’t put on a shirt before heading downstairs, so he wore only the bottoms of his Joe Boxer shorts. His sleek young torso heaved with emotion. Arms stiff at his sides, he clenched both hands into fists, working them open and closed. “Dr. Walt should have done more than coldcock him one. What he should have done—”
“Nick.” Rachel held up her hand. “It might feel good to rant and rave at your dad for the moment, but he is, and always will be, your father.”
“He’s sure acting like a piss-poor one, then,” the boy said bitterly.
“I don’t understand,” Kendall said, her small brow wrinkled in confusion. “What’s Daddy doing that’s wrong?”
“He’s fooling around with Dr. Walt’s wife, brat. That’s a big no-no.”
“It’s not okay for Daddy to be friends with Ms. Francine?” Kendall looked in bewilderment first at Rachel, then at Nick.
“They’re more than friends, Kendy,” Nick said, softening his tone.
“Dad and Ms. Francine have special feelings for each other,” Rachel explained. “They want to be together…like Nick says…as more than friends.”
“But what about you if they want to be together like that?” Kendall asked, her frown returning.
“Dad has decided that he wants some time to live apart from me right now, Kendall. He’ll probably move to our cabin on the lake, so he won’t be here with us like he has been.”
Kendall’s eyes widened. “He’s going to sleep there and eat and…and everything?”
“For the time being, yes,” Rachel said, nodding. “But he’ll be close by when you want to see him. The cabin is only an hour from Rose Hill. It’s just that he won’t be living in this house.”
Kendall studied her mother’s face for a long moment. “Are we getting a divorce?”
Rachel brought the little girl’s hand up to her cheek. “Who said anything about a divorce, sweetheart?”
Kendy looked worried. “But you won’t, will you, Mom? I have friends who’re divorced and it’s not good.”
How Rachel wished she could make that promise. “I don’t think your dad is going to move to Dallas or any place other than Rose Hill, Kendy,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “His practice is here and he won’t be leaving that. So even though he’s living at the lake, he’s still here for you when you need him.”
“Yeah,” Nick muttered, glancing at the door where Ted had escaped. Then he added in a tone not overheard by his little sister, “Just don’t count on him when the going gets tough.”
“Francine? He’s having an affair with the wife of his partner?” Marta stood up and began pacing the length of the sunroom. “Has he lost his freakin’ mind? Walter Dalton will kill him!”
“He came close to it this morning,” Rachel muttered dryly.
Marta stopped. “What? Walter knows?”
Rachel sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. “He appeared before seven today, not ten minutes after Ted, who’d spent the night at the lake cabin. And you’re right. He was so furious when Ted didn’t deny the affair that he lost it, Marta. One minute he was hurling threats and insults and the next, he was at Ted’s throat, literally. If Nick hadn’t appeared just then and helped break them up, I don’t know how the fracas would have ended.”
Marta motioned toward the coffee table. “Is that why you have a coffee table with no top?”
“Glass went everywhere. They were like two schoolboys, Marta. It was dreadful. And to have Nick and Kendall see it all made it ten times worse.”
“They fought in front of the kids?”
Rachel sighed. “Kendall took pictures. You know she carries that camera everywhere she goes.”
“Oh, boy.”
Rachel rested her cheek on her knees, looking beyond Marta to her beautifully landscaped yard. “I had no choice but to tell them, Marta. Or, at least, I had to try to give them some kind of explanation once they saw what happened between Ted and Walt, plus they heard what Walt said. I’m not sure they’re convinced things are as dire as they really are, but personally, I believe Ted’s serious.”
“Classic male midlife crisis,” Marta muttered with disgust. “Or just your basic male propensity to cheat.” Marta, who had been engaged several years ago to a cop, had walked into his apartment unexpectedly one day and found him with his partner, a pretty brunette rookie fresh out of the police academy. She’d immediately broken the engagement and in less than six months had married Jorge Ruiz, a quiet, mild-mannered music teacher at RHH, who’d died of Hodgkin’s disease eighteen months later.
“Whatever you call it,” Rachel said, “he’s definitely infatuated with Francine right now, so much so that he seems blind to what it ultimately means to his children.”
“Or to you.”
“That, too.”
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “What can I do? I think I owe it to the kids not to do anything rash just yet.”
“You mean in case he changes his mind and decides to let you forgive him and y’all just pick up where you left off?”
“I guess I’d be a dope to do that. You certainly didn’t give Pete a second chance.”
“Ted’s the dope, not you,” Marta said. “And Pete didn’t ask for a second chance, not that I would have considered it for one minute.” She reached over and patted Rachel’s knee. “I know you’re hurt and in a state of shock right now, Ray, but for too many years Ted’s been a selfish, narcissistic bastard—pardon me, but it’s true. You’ve spoiled him rotten.”
“Now you sound like my mother.”
“An astute woman. At least she’s never looked at Ted through rose-colored glasses.”
“The feeling was mutual,” Rachel said, thinking of the tension that had existed between the two for years. It had been difficult, as she’d felt pulled in opposite directions. “Mom and Ted are almost always disagreeing over something.”
“The miracle is that Ted’s found someone else willing to put up with his ego. I give it six months, max.” Marta straddled a chair and folded her arms on the back. “Can we assume this is the first time he’s cheated?”
That thought had been on Rachel’s mind ever since the scene in the Dallas restaurant. “I’m not sure,” she murmured, recalling the sexy, young workout coach Ted had been very friendly with at their club a few years ago. Rachel, whose weight had