Chapter 6

"When do you come back?"

Steve dropped a handful of socks into his suitcase. "Sunday night."

Emma leaned against the wall, watching him move between the dresser and the suitcase balanced on the end of the bed. She was chewing on her lip, trying to hold back the words that were sitting on the end of her tongue. Words of accusation that were just begging to be released. But she knew it would do her no good to release them.

"What kind of conference is this?" she asked for the third time.

"It's a leadership conference, Em."

"In Houston?"

"Yes."

"And you have to go?"

He paused, several pairs of underwear in his hands. "I could miss it, but then I would also miss getting information that might help me in my job. Is that what you want?"

Emma looked at him, looked at the barely contained anger in his eyes. When had this happened, she wondered. When had they become enemies?

She shook her head. "Will you call the boys tonight?"

"Of course."

He dumped the last of his things in the suitcase, quickly gathering his toiletries from the bathroom before putting those on top of his clean clothes and zipping the bag closed. Emma just watched, unable to make herself help him. There was once a time when she would have packed the bag for him as he lounged on the bed and watched. Once a time when they would have made love on top of the pile of clothes she had set out to organize his packing.

That seemed so long ago.

Steve picked up the bag and headed for the door without a backwards glance. Emma followed him down the hall, unable to stop herself from hoping he would turn and tell her how much he would miss her. Instead, he went straight to the front door, walked his bag out to the car, and paused only when he was standing at the open driver's side door.

"I'll call," he said.

Emma nodded. "Be safe."

He hesitated even as his body was partially inside the car. He turned back and looked at her, a strange sadness in his eyes that she could see even in the bright winter sunlight. And then he turned and climbed into the car, speeding off before she could say another word.

Emma lay in bed alone that night long after the boys had gone to bed. One of her favorite movies was on Encore that night, An Affair to Remember. She always cried when Cary Grant realized Deborah Kerr was in a wheelchair.

As the movie ended, Emma reached for the remote, unsure if she wanted to turn off the only companion she had at the moment. She pulled Steve's pillow against her chest and took a deep breath of his scent. He'd worn the same cologne, used the same soap, all the years they had been married. She had come to think of those scents as something unique to her husband even when she caught a whiff of the same scent on a stranger. It had always made her feel safe, protected, when she smelled his scent.

Now, it only reminded her of the angst that seemed ever present between them.

Emma thought of what Jen had said to her over lunch the other day, about the spa she went to in Pilot Point. The idea of a strange man touching her body was not completely foreign. She had massages before. There was a lovely day spa in town she went to from time to time. But the things Jen was suggesting-

Emma was not a prude. She liked sex. She liked sex with Steve. She liked the feel of his hands on her body, the feel of his skin under her hands. She knew every inch of his body, knew where he liked to be touched and where he preferred not to be touched. And he knew those things about her. It was comforting, being so familiar with another human being.

But he hadn't touched her in months. Her body ached from the loss.

She was so afraid that her marriage was falling apart. How could they continue in this way, fighting every time they were in the same room together, never talking, never touching? How could they survive a chasm that seemed too impossible to breach?

Emma wondered, sometimes, if she was the problem. Was she not enough for him? Was she not patient enough? Was she not available enough? Was she not what he wanted? Was he no longer attracted to her?

She was not the same woman he had married. Twelve years ago, she was petite, twenty pounds lighter and a bra size smaller. Pregnancy had changed her body. She thought it was a good thing, thought the extra pounds took away the vaguely anorexic look she had once had. But maybe it was too much. Maybe he missed her thinner curves.

Or maybe it wasn't her at all. Steve had changed, too.

When they married, he was content in his sales job. There was never any indication that he would one day wake up and decide he had to have his own company. There was no warning that he would want to spend the rest of his life making as much money as possible and playing at being a politician.

His body-she really couldn't say the changes there were a bad thing. He was athletic in college. He was a running back all four years. Now he spent most of his athletic energy on a golf course. But he also had a fully equipped gym in his corporation's building. He worked out there four times a week and went jogging most Saturday mornings. He was just as fit now as then, with some added muscle definition that she found sexy.

And she wasn't the only one. Emma often saw women staring at Steve whenever they were out in public together. It had never made her jealous. She trusted Steve. She knew he took their wedding vows as seriously as she did.

But did he? Was he tired of her? Was he tired of their marriage, of his obligations to her and the children? Is that what had caused this tension between them?

She closed her eyes, her thoughts still on the movie she had just watched and the man she loved. Things had to change. Jen had been right about that. But she wasn't sure she knew how to do it.

And then she remembered the lingerie store and Jen's assertion that the flimsy piece of fluff she had bought would help remind her husband why they married. Maybe Emma should do the same.

What could it hurt?