The First Wife

“Six weeks.”

“They’ve had enough time to go over the body, then. Did they find anything to indicate that she’d been pushed?”

“The prosecutor, a Sheila Grant, said that the coroner found fingerprint-shaped bruising beneath the skin on her back.”

Brad practiced family law these days, mostly representing abused women, but he’d also done a stint as a prosecutor, so he was familiar with the challenges Sheila Grant could be facing. From everything Jane had heard, he’d been a great prosecutor. And he’d been stifled by politics and people above him who were apt to seek convictions and sentences based on factors other than the severity of the crime. Especially if there was an election or a point to prove.

A breeze blew through, rustling leaves and cooling clothes still damp from the sweat she’d worked up on their hike. Chilling her skin.

“What exactly does Ms. Grant want from you?”

And that’s where her throat froze up.

“Jane?”

“She wants me as a character reference.”

Brad studied her from below his lowered eyebrows and she could almost hear that talented brain of his whizzing along. A prosecutor would only seek character testimony from someone who had information that would support the murder theory.

“Did you tell her you would testify?”

“Yes.” And then she quickly added, “But I don’t know what good I’m going to be. It’s not like I expected something like this. I’m in total shock. The James I thought I knew was weak and selfish, but he wasn’t a murderer.”

“Very few people have any idea someone they loved is capable of murder,” Brad said, taking her hand in another unusual show of physical support. Something she rarely needed.

She let him link her fingers with his and held on.

“I come up against it again and again,” he was saying. “The shock. The disbelief. You know this as well as I do. With all of the articles Twenty-Something has done, your volunteer work and the editorials you’ve written, you’re as much an expert on domestic abuse as I am. I’m sure you can quote statistics.”

Probably. Being the CEO of a start-up magazine focusing on issues facing today’s young women did have its benefits. And what she hadn’t gleaned from her work on Twenty-Something, she’d learned through her years of volunteering.

Domestic abuse. Brad’s words, couched in generalities, lay between them. She’d told Brad her ex-husband had been unfaithful. His infidelity had been the reason for their divorce.

She’d told him the truth. At least, as much of it as she’d known.

“Sheila Grant told me this morning that James is a bigamist. And that I’m one of his victims.”

A victim. Jane hated the sound of that. The feel of it. As though she’d been branded.

Brad leaned back, staring at her. “You’re still married?”

“No!” Shaking her head, she squeezed his hand. And still didn’t let go. She’d been hanging out with Brad for a couple of years now and this was the first time they’d held hands. “My divorce is perfectly legal,” she said. “But it hadn’t happened yet when he married Lee Anne. He wasn’t just having an affair with her—he’d taken her to Vegas and married her.”

“Then, he wasn’t really married to her at all.”

“Apparently he’d asked her for a church wedding, complete with an Ohio marriage license, after our divorce, still without telling her about his first marriage. It was for their anniversary. He told her the Vegas wedding didn’t feel legitimate enough.”

“What a guy.”

“Yeah and it gets worse. He married a third time, about eighteen months ago.”

“Let me guess, he didn’t bother divorcing Lee Anne first.”

“Right.”

Brad frowned, taking on the look she’d seen him wear in the courtroom. His thinking face. “If he doesn’t want her around anymore, why not just divorce her?”

Jane relayed what Sheila Grant had told her about the triangle in Chandler, Ohio. Some supposition. Some not. Brad seemed to agree with the prosecutor’s blackmail theories, but Jane didn’t know what to think. The whole thing—James being a bigamist, her not knowing that her husband was lying to her in such a fundamental way—was just too unbelievable.

A lot of men could pull off an illicit relationship on the side. But a second marriage? And she hadn’t even suspected?

Where was the strong, capable woman who’d been given the chance to head up a new national magazine? Who stood at the head of a Chicago boardroom and justified spending thousands of dollars on copy and cover art, layout and gloss? Who, in her spare time, helped vulnerable women find their feet?

Could the real Jane Hamilton please stand up? A mental version of the old television show To Tell the Truth played in her brain. Or should that be, Could the real Mrs. James Todd please stand up?

She was spiraling out of control. Didn’t know herself. Didn’t know what—

“Did he hit you, Jane?”

Brad’s softly spoken question broke through her internal torment.

“No! Of course not.” She’d have known what to do about that.

They stood there, peering into each other’s eyes. She tried to smile at the man who’d become such an important part of her life.

“But he hurt you.”

Of course he had. He’d been unfaithful to her. He’d been her mentor. Her professor. And then her friend and lover and husband. She’d looked up to him. Learned so much from him. And…

Was she really so pathetic that she’d overlooked enough lies that he’d been able to hide a second family? Had she been that desperate to keep James in her life?

Brad was watching her and the idea of him seeing her as a helpless victim felt far too threatening.

For no reason. Her sense of self-worth came from within.

Still she broke away and dropped down to the blanket. She held the container with the fruit they hadn’t yet eaten, but didn’t open it.

“I wasn’t abused.” The constriction in Jane’s throat lessened. “There were a couple of accidents that were blown out of proportion. That’s all. Sheila Grant got hold of some old police reports.”

Brad sat down beside her, his long frame seeming to take up far more of the blanket than it had earlier.

“You called the police?”

She shook her head. “I told you, they were accidents. Which the doctor in the emergency room felt compelled to report. The police asked some questions, and they left. No charges were filed.” Holding the container of fresh strawberries in her lap, she glanced up at him. “God knows, I appreciate the law that requires medical personnel to notify police whenever they see something that suggests abuse, but in my case, those calls just caused a lot of embarrassment. James was a professor at the local university. Well liked. Respected. He was not a wife beater.”

Brad’s expression remained completely focused. “Do you have any idea why Ms. Grant would be interested in the reports?”

“Apparently they were filed with suspicion.”

“Meaning that while no one was charged, the investigating officer wasn’t convinced a crime hadn’t been committed.”

Right. So Sheila Grant had explained, though that morning had been the first Jane had heard of any suspicion.

“What happened? Tell me about the accidents.”

“I fell down the stairs once and before you say anything, yes, I’m positive I tripped. James did not push me, though the doctor, and the cop, too, for that matter, kept trying to get me to say he did.”

“So James was there.”

“Yes, we were going downstairs together. And no, we weren’t fighting.”

His head slightly lowered, Brad watched her with a sideways glance. “And you’re sure there’s no way he pushed you.”

“It would have been physically impossible. I was behind him. As a matter of fact, he helped break my fall.”

“And the other time?”

“We were playing tennis. We had one of those machines that shot balls over the net to us. He was demonstrating. I ran into his swing and caught his arm with my nose.”

“How were things between you then?”

“He was wonderful, picked me up and ran me to the car, not caring that I was dripping blood on his new upholstery. He rushed me to the hospital and was everything any wife could want in a loving husband.”

“I meant before the incident. How were things between you on the tennis court?”

Oh. Jane thought back, her chest getting tight again. And then she reined herself in.

“I think we were fighting,” she said slowly. “Or had been. It’s hard to remember. There were so many times we were at odds there toward the end.”

“And he never lifted a hand to you?”

“Not once. Ever. He never backed me into a corner, or even touched me in anger.”

Brad moved and Jane jumped. Reaching toward her, he tucked a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “If the suspicions are false, why was it so hard for you to tell me about it?”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to know that I considered myself in love with a man who was so not in love with me that he was actually married to someone else at the very same time he was married to me?”

Brad frowned and she continued, “After Sheila Grant first called this morning, I started thinking about my marriage. Looking for signs James might have given of what he was doing, clues that I missed. Something to restore my faith in my judgment. And it took me right back to square one. Before, I thought I’d only missed the signs of him being unfaithful—having a girlfriend. That kind of thing happens all the time. But bigamy? I missed the fact that James was someone else’s husband at the same time that he was mine. Why didn’t I see it before? And how do I know I wouldn’t miss something that big in the future? How could I ever trust myself to know? The phone call also confirms that I wasn’t such a great wife. Not only did my husband seek sex elsewhere, he sought a wife elsewhere, too.”

How much of that had been Jane’s fault? James had obviously loved her at some point—he’d wanted to marry her. What had she done to cause him to lose interest?

“By all accounts that man is sick, Jane. His choices are no more a reflection on you than they are on the other two women he lied to.”

“Which doesn’t negate the fact that I didn’t see what he was doing. Didn’t even suspect. I was an easy target.”

“You were a young woman, a student, who trusted her mentor. And later her husband.”

“I trusted an untrustworthy man.” Jane hated being unsure of herself. It reminded her too much of her life with James.

Her life before Twenty-Something.

“The way Emily trusted me.”

Emily. Brad’s ex-wife and his biggest scar.

“That woman adored me,” he continued. “And you know I say that with shame, not ego. I loved her, but not any more deeply than I’d loved other people.”

He’d told her all about his guilt over drinks after their first time in court together with a Durango resident.

“I cared enough about Emily that I stayed, even after it became obvious to me that our relationship had run its course. I kept trying to be as happy in our marriage as she needed me to be. As happy with her as she was with me during those times when she believed I loved her. She stayed because she kept hoping that, with time, our relationship would grow and we’d find the closeness she craved. I hung on for several years trying to fall in love with her as much as she loved me. A lot of people were hurt over my inability to give up. I robbed her of several years of happiness, of the chance to find someone who could love her more deeply than I could. And still Emily hung on, waiting. Believing in me, in the vows we took. Does that make her somehow less?”

“No.” Jane got his point. But she wasn’t Emily. “There’s a major difference here, Brad.”

“What’s that?”

“She was married to a good and decent man who was trying to love her the way she needed him to.”

“And you thought you were, too.”

“Right, but the guy I was married to was apparently a two-bit schmuck.”

“His problem. Not yours. It sounds to me like you were a faithful wife, committed to the marriage. Nothing more.” With his arms resting on his bent knees, Brad glanced straight at her again. “Unless there’s more. Sheila Grant seems to think so…”

“Why are you trying so hard to paint me abused?” He hadn’t actually said as much, but she knew what he was implying. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Indignation was good for the soul. Or at least for distracting her from her own weakness.

“I’m not sure,” he said, as frank with her as ever. “Maybe because I’ve seen that frightened look a hundred times before but never in your eyes.”

The compassion in his voice brought her close to tears. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Being a friend?”

“Climbing inside my head.”

“I don’t know,” he said again. After a moment of silence, he added, “You’re struggling. And I care.”

She needed him to care and was glad he did. But he was pushing. And they didn’t pressure each other. It was part of what made their unique friendship so successful.

“It occurs to me for the first time—” Brad paused, and Jane braced herself “—that things about you fit the profile of an abused woman.”

They did not. He was just wrong about that. If she fit the profile, he’d have seen that before today. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that in the two years I’ve known you, you haven’t been on a single date.”

“Come on, Manchester. It’s a new world out there. One where a woman doesn’t need to have a man to be complete.”

“No, but she doesn’t generally need to avoid them, either.”

“I’ve been busy getting a magazine off the ground, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You stay busy, and yet you’re the most isolated person I know. You have a lot of acquaintances, a lot of people who look up to you and care for you, but none, that I know of, other than me, with whom you’re really close. You help them, but who helps you?”

“I’ve always been a bit of a loner. And a nurturer. I know what I want and that’s okay.” She knew herself. Liked herself. Was overall happy with who she was and where she was in her life. “There’s nothing wrong with being different as long as you’re happy that way. Look at my mom.”

Jane’s parents hadn’t been married. Brad not only knew the story, he’d met her mother once.

Her dad, a professional military man, had traveled constantly, moved all over the world, and her mother, a small-town girl, hadn’t been able to sign on for that kind of life. They’d continued to love each other, to see each other occasionally, until he’d been killed in the Gulf War when Jane was twelve.

Later, her mom married a local man, a single father with one son a few years younger than Jane. Her husband had eventually retired from the manufacturing firm where he’d worked all his life and taken her to Alaska to live with him on a fishing boat. Jane heard from them a few times a year, when they were in port.

The important thing was, they were happy. They’d all been happy.

“Besides, you’re one to talk. I don’t see any real relationships in your life, either. And I’m not calling you abused.”

“I hurt a sweet woman very badly,” Brad reminded her. “I can’t even think about getting serious with anyone unless I’m positive that I can give her my whole heart.”

Jane stared at him. “So you do want to marry again someday?” She’d been worried about him. Worried he was going to waste his life on one-night stands. Which would have been fine if it made him happy, but it didn’t seem to. He tried too hard to stay busy—as though he was outrunning his dissatisfaction.

Brad’s mother had been killed in a car accident when he’d still been too young to remember her. And his father had passed away four years before, from a massive heart attack.

Aside from a few distant cousins, he was alone in the world.

“I want a family, sure,” he said. “But not unless I meet someone I know I can love forever.”

So maybe his constant dating was more than she’d realized. Maybe he was searching…

“Do you think that really happens?” Jane asked, curious—and also relieved to be talking about something besides her.

“I like to believe it can,” he said and then sent her a grin. “I’m certainly doing extensive research on the topic.”

That was more like the Brad she knew. “Well, spare me the details, but do tell if you find a definitive answer.”

And then, just like that, his face grew serious once again. “I’m more interested in finding answers for you, right now,” he said. “I’m concerned about you, Jane.”

“And I’m telling you there’s no reason to be. The phone call shocked me today. I need some time to get used to the idea of having been a bigamist’s wife. But I’m fine. Really.”

“Okay, but I want you to think about something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Durango’s number one profile characteristic of an abused woman.”

The list was posted in the main gathering room at the shelter. Jane knew it by heart.

And at the top:

She lives in denial.

Damn him.

CHAPTER TWO

BRAD WASN’T SURE why he was pushing so hard. The whole reason he and Jane were good together, the one thing that had allowed their unusual friendship to work, was the lack of expectation for more than either wanted to give.

They cared about each other, they were open to soul-deep confidences, to emotional intimacy, but they didn’t require it of each other. And they never got personal, physically.

Other than that time she’d had the flu and he’d taken care of her.

And the lump. Brad had been in the shower and found a lump in his prostate. He’d called Jane first, his doctor second. And a day later she’d treated him to drinks at their favorite neighborhood pub to toast his perfectly normal good health.

As he recalled, she’d laughingly left him to it that night when he’d spotted a red-haired beauty sitting alone at the bar….

With so much unsaid between them, they sat on their picnic blanket silently staring out over a land that didn’t really hint at all the danger that lurked in the world. Not that Brad spent a lot of time pondering life’s dangers. He knew the dangers would find them without their help.

What they needed to figure out was how to be happy regardless of the dangers.

Jane was eating a strawberry; juice dripped off her lower lip. Funny, he’d never noticed how full her lips were…

Maybe he should stick to figuring out how, on Monday, he was going to fight a client’s husband for the support she deserved after having put up with his emotional abuse for more than twenty years.

“You’re wrong, you know?”

“About what?”

“About me being abused.”

Brad met Jane’s gaze and saw that she meant it. So why didn’t he believe her?

“After the tennis incident…I wasn’t sure. The doctor made such a big deal of the direction of the blow. He said that James would’ve had to pull his elbow back into my nose to have broken it the way he did, not going forward for a shot as he claimed.”

“How did it seem to you?”

Jane’s pause unsettled him. He dealt with similar silences too often. With intelligent, strong women who’d been so emotionally broken down that they second-guessed themselves in spite of their abilities.

“I honestly couldn’t say.” He wished her words surprised him. “One minute I was standing there, the next minute I was on the ground in the most excruciating pain I’d ever known. My head was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see.”

“Did you tell the police you didn’t know what happened?”

“Not at the time. I was too out of it. I just went with what James told me had happened. But a few days later, after James and I went back to work, I kept thinking about how angry he’d been, and what the doctor had said. The doubts set in. James left for a graduate study trip and while he was gone I went to the Victim Witness office in town, just in case I was reading things wrong. Since their sole purpose is victim support, I figured they’d know if I needed help. I told them everything. They said that there was no evidence of abuse.”

“Even with what the police and doctor had said? Even with your doubts?”

“They said that my doubts were indicative of a problem in my marriage, but that as far as obtaining a protection order was concerned, I didn’t have enough evidence.”

Jane was fiddling with the lid of the strawberry container. Opening and closing it. Watching the movement. Not at all the head-up-and-shoulders-straight woman he knew.

“Maybe they were wrong.”

“I don’t think so, Brad. I think my doubts were a result of professionals who had to do their jobs or risk potential lawsuits. While I was at Victim Witness another woman came in. She was bruised and swollen and she’d been sitting in the outer office, waiting for the counselor to be done with me. She could hardly speak. She was crying, but one eye was so swollen the tears couldn’t escape.

“She had two little kids with her, younger than four. They huddled against her and even as scared as she was, she protected them fiercely.

“Seeing them was a life-changing moment for me. That was what abuse looked like. I couldn’t get that family out of my mind and from then on I quit feeling sorry for myself. I made the decision that I was going to spend my life helping women not to live like that. I started volunteering as a receptionist at that office the very next week.”

Jane had never told him how she got her start with the women they helped. He’d never asked, assuming that she’d somehow fallen into it through her work—as he had.

“James and I had some bad fights after that,” she added, her voice soft and distant. “And not once did I get hurt. Nor was I ever physically afraid of him. Like I said. The incidents were accidents.”

Brad didn’t believe her. But he didn’t have any real reason not to, so kept his thoughts to himself. Maybe he’d seen too much of the other side. Maybe knowing that, statistically, one in two women suffered some form of spousal abuse had clouded his judgment. Maybe his perspective was too jaded.

And maybe not.

“Besides, one thing I know is that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself and those around me.”

Jane’s description fit the woman he knew.

“I’ve always had preservation instincts,” she continued, her voice going stronger. And when she smiled, Brad smiled with her. “I remember when I was a kid and I couldn’t wait for my dad’s visits. He’d only be with us a few days or weeks at a time, and those were the highlight of the year. For both my mom and me. Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“He used to tickle me to the point that it hurt. I hated that. And the more I struggled, the more he tickled. It was a game to him but it wasn’t one I enjoyed playing. But I wasn’t strong enough to get away.”

Brad didn’t like the game at all. The older man had been way out of line, holding his own daughter captive.

“It didn’t take me long to figure out how to save myself, though,” Jane continued, not sounding the least bit put out or scarred by the incidents.

“How?”

“I’d scream at a really high pitch. My mom couldn’t stand the noise and would tell my dad to stop in that voice that meant he’d better do it now.”

“And did he?”

“Of course. Every time.”

And so she’d solved her problem. A little girl figuring a way to get the best of a grown man. That was his Jane—if one way didn’t work, she’d find another. Maybe he’d been worrying about nothing. Though that wasn’t like him.

They were silent for a long time, each lost in his and her own thoughts. It was a comfortable silence, one they shared a lot when they were together like this. And then Jane said, “I am afraid of something, though.” The tentative tone in her voice got his full attention.

“What’s that?”

“The picture you painted of me—alone—I didn’t realize it was so obvious.”

“That you keep yourself detached from all of us?” Not from him—except physically.