Honor

whatever we feel like doing. For starters, there’s a stack of new books in the living room. And since it looks as if it’s going to pour any minute, that makes this the perfect day to curl up in front of the fire with a good book.”
“Sounds good to me. Did you bring that new management book? I haven’t had time to get to it yet.”
Lacey shot him a disapproving frown. “No management books. Try mysteries, political thrillers, maybe a biography, as long as it’s not about some titan of industry. Remember when we used to spend all day sitting out back, doing nothing more than reading and sipping iced tea?”
“Vaguely. Are you sure I wasn’t reading management books?”
She grinned. “Positive.”
“Political tracts?”
“Afraid not.”
“I was reading fiction?” He was incredulous.
She nodded. “At the beach you read fiction. Actually I take that back. If I recall correctly, you fell asleep with the books in your hands. I can’t swear that you read any of them.”
“No wonder not one single plot comes back to me.”
She smiled, then, and leaned closer. To his surprise she laced her fingers through his.
“It’s going to be okay,” she promised. “This awkwardness will pass.”
“Will it?” he questioned doubtfully. “Sometimes I feel as if I’m an amnesiac trying to recall a part of my life that’s completely blanked out. You seem to have such a vivid recollection of the way things used to be.”
Lacey sighed and withdrew her hand. “Maybe I do live too much in the past. Maybe it’s wrong to want to go back. But I think about how perfectly attuned we were, how much we treasured quiet moments, and I can’t help having regrets. Now we can’t even get through a single evening without arguing.”
Kevin couldn’t deny the truth in that. “We aren’t the same people we were when we met. Lacey, we were eleven years old. We were kids.”
“We were the same way when we were twenty-one, even thirty-one,” she reminded him, suddenly angry. “We were on the same wavelength. We shared everything. We could practically finish each other’s sentences, though thank God we didn’t. It all started to change—”
“When I went to work at Halloran,” he finished for her, his own temper flaring. How long did she intend to throw that decision back in his face? “Why is going to work for my father so terrible? Jason’s there, too. I don’t hear you criticizing him for making that choice.”
“It was his choice, Kevin. It was what he always wanted. You were railroaded into it by Brandon.”
The last of Kevin’s patience snapped. “Was our life so rosy before that? Don’t you remember the way we had to squeeze every last penny out of every dollar we made? Don’t you remember the nights I came home so frustrated and angry that my jaws ached from clenching my teeth? Don’t you remember how we both woke up one day to the fact that no matter what we did, no matter how hard we worked to fight the system, the system wasn’t going to change unless we worked within it?” He slammed his fist down on the table. “For God’s sake, Lacey, we aren’t idealistic children anymore.”
Her eyes widened during his tirade, then slowly filled with hurt. “Is that what you think, that I haven’t grown up? Is that it, Kevin? If so, then maybe we’re wasting our time here, after all.”
Her jaw set, she picked up the breakfast dishes and carried them to the counter. Her back to him, he could see the deep sigh shudder through her in the instant before she slammed the dishes down so hard it was a wonder they didn’t shatter. She grabbed her jacket from a peg by the back door and stormed out, leaving him filled with rage and the uneasy sense that this brief but cutting argument might well have been their last.
He hadn’t meant to accuse her of immaturity. It wasn’t that at all. But it was true that she tended to cling to ideals, rather than deal with the practicalities. Looking at Halloran’s bottom line had put things into the right perspective for him. He’d been able to provide for his family, give them the way of life they deserved. He had helped Brandon to make the company even stronger, kept him from at least some of his own wild schemes that would have cut deeply into their profits. Jason would have a legacy now, as would his child. What more did Lacey want from him?
Kevin waited anxiously after that, starting each time he thought he heard a sound. He wanted to finish the argument, make her see his point of view for once.
His frayed nerves grew worse with each passing hour. By mid-morning, with rain pelting the windows with the force of sleet, he was worried sick. Where was she?
He consoled himself with the thought that no one would stay outdoors in weather like this. Surely she had taken refuge with one of the neighbors. He glanced repeatedly out the front window to reassure himself that the car was still in the driveway, that she’d hadn’t taken it and fled.
When Lacey wasn’t back by noon, worry turned to anger. She had to know what she was doing to him, he thought. She could have called, let him know that she was safe and dry.
As quickly as the fury rose, though, it abated. What if she weren’t safe? What if she had fallen and hurt herself? What if she were cold and wet, stranded on the beach somewhere, caught by a rising tide? What ifs chased through his mind and turned the canned soup he’d forced himself to eat into acid in his stomach.
It was nearly one o’clock when Kevin heard Lacey’s footsteps on the back porch. He threw open the door and found her standing there looking soaked and bedraggled. Even as he met her gaze, he saw her shiver, her whole body trembling violently. The patches of color in her cheeks were too vivid. Her