His Chosen Wife

That one instant, that one taste—his lips on hers, his scent filling her nostrils—and for a split second she was back in Hawaii, back in PJ’s apartment, back in his arms.

She swayed, stumbled.

He caught her before she could fall on her face. “Are you okay?”

Of course she was, but he kept his arm around her as she wobbled on knees of jelly. And she gripped his shirtfront as she righted herself, then let go as she straightened and pulled away. “I’m fine. It’s the heat. And … and I just t-tripped, that’s all.”

“You sure?” He was so close. She could see each individual eyelash. They were long and thick and wasted on a man. He bent close again, looking worried and solicitous.

Ally stepped back quickly, out of kissing range. Definitely out of kissing range!

“It was hot in the subway. The air-conditioning wasn’t working on the train. Where are we going? Is it far? I need to splash some water on my face.”

“Not far.” He still had his arm around her as he steered her along Flatbush Avenue and into a grocery store.

She frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Just have to get a few things. Come on.” He came back and snagged her wrist to take her with him. She pulled out of his grasp, but followed as he picked some steaks, salad vegetables, a loaf of country bread and fresh olives. Then he hesitated a moment, as if weighing his options, and grabbed a couple of ears of corn on the cob.

Suspicion began to dawn. “Why are you shopping now?”

“Because until an hour ago, I didn’t know I was having company for dinner.”

“We’re not … I mean … you’re cooking?”

“No end to my talents.” He slanted her a grin as he grabbed a fresh pineapple off the display and tossed it to her.

Instinctively Ally caught it but protested as she did so. “You don’t have to cook for me,” she said quickly. “Let’s go out. I’ll buy dinner.”

“No. You won’t. Come on. No trouble at all. I like to cook.”

“But—”

But he was already leading the way toward the checkout. “Hey, Manny. How’s it going?” he said to the teenager who began to ring up the groceries.

“Ain’t. Too hot,” the boy said. “Dyin’ in here. Better outside. Don’t forget. Softball tonight.”

“Not me. Other plans.”

The boy’s gaze lit on Ally and he looked her up and down assessingly. “Nice,” he said with an approving grin.

“My wife,” PJ said.

Ally stiffened beside him. He didn’t have to keep telling everyone.

The boy was clearly surprised. His eyes widened. “No joke?”

“Yep.”

“No,” Ally said at the same instant.

Manny blinked. PJ’s scowl was disapproving.

“Only officially,” she muttered.

PJ’s jaw tightened. “Officially counts.” He pulled out his wallet and paid for the groceries. “Hit a homer for me.”

Manny grinned and winked. “Hit one yourself.”

Ally’s cheeks burned as she followed PJ out of the store. “Why do you keep telling people I’m your wife?”

“Because it’s the truth?” he suggested.

“But not for long.” She practically had to lope to keep up with him.

“You’re here now.”

“Just for the night. I’m leaving Friday.”

“Stop thinking so damn far ahead, Al.” PJ shifted the grocery bag into his other arm and took her by the elbow as they turned the corner onto one of the side streets. His touch through the thin fabric of her jacket made her far too aware of him. And she jumped when his lips came close to her ear and said, “Interesting things can happen in a night if you let them.”

“Nothing’s going to happen tonight,” she said firmly, “or any other,” in case he had any more ideas.

PJ didn’t reply. He led the way with long strides. And keeping up with them reminded her of those bright mornings on the beach when he’d been determined to teach her how to surf and she’d practically had to run to match his strides across the sand.

Just when she was about to say, Slow down, he veered over midblock and steered her up the stairs to a very elegant-looking town house.

“Here?” Ally didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this.

One in a row of late nineteenth-century four-story brownstone-and-brick homes, all of which were as attractive and appealing now as she was sure they had been then. The building PJ was leading her into was a far cry from the grim studio apartment over the garage of Mrs. Chang’s old stucco house.

“My brother Elias lived upstairs from the office where you were today,” he told her. “Antonides Marine owns the building and he fixed up the top floor for himself. It’s pretty spectacular—great view—and when he left he said I could have it. But I didn’t want to. I like being away from the office. I wanted a place I felt comfortable. So I found this.”

He pushed open the ornate oak-and-glass double front door. “I’ve got the garden floor-through—that’s the ground floor front to back—not exactly wide-open spaces, but I’ve got a garden. There’s a hint of green.” He was unlocking the door to his apartment as he spoke. “And, of course, the park is just over there.” He jerked his head to the west. “Coney Island Beach is at the end of the subway line. And, as you can see,” he said as he turned the knob and ushered her in, “I brought a little of Hawaii back with me.”

She stood, stunned, at the sight of a floor-to-ceiling mural that covered one entire wall of PJ’s living room. Even more stunning was that she recognized the scene at once.

It was the beach where she’d met him viewed from above on the highway. There was Benny’s Place where she had worked behind the counter. There was the surfboard shop. There were the rocks, the swimmers and sunbathers, the runners in motion at the water’s edge, the surfers catching the wave of the day.

She was pulled straight across the room to look at it more closely.

“How did you— Did you paint it? It’s amazing.”

“Not me. Not an artistic bone in my body. But my sisters are. Martha, the younger one, did this. It’s what she does. Paints murals.”

Ally was enchanted. “It’s … captivating. I can almost feel the breeze off the sea, smell the surf and the board wax and—”

“—and Benny’s plate lunch,” PJ finished with a grin.

Ally laughed because it was true. “And Benny’s plate lunch,” she agreed, shaking her head. “It’s fantastic.”

PJ nodded. “I think so. It’s a good reminder. Sometimes.”

Ally cocked her head. “Sometimes?”

He shrugged. “Things were simpler then. Hopes, dreams. That sort of thing.” His mouth twisted wryly for a moment, but then he shrugged. “But the memories are worth it, I guess. At least, most of them.”

There was a moment’s silence as Ally stared at the mural and reflected on her own memories of those days.

Abruptly PJ said, “I’ll get started on dinner.”

He vanished before she could say another word, not that she could think of anything to say. She was too captivated by the mural—and by his house.

The furniture here was all spare dark wood and leather. Bold geometric-designed rugs dotted polished wooden floors. The walls, except for the one his sister had painted, were either exposed brick or floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

When she’d known PJ his bookshelf had been four boards and two stacks of milk crates. And the titles, as she recalled, had run to mechanical engineering texts and the latest thrillers.

His library now was much more eclectic. The texts and thrillers were still there. But there were books on woodworking and history, some art tomes and thick historical biographies. She would have liked to explore more, but the mural drew her back. She crossed the room and studied it more closely, noticing that there were people she recognized.

“That’s Tuba,” she said, surprised at recognizing the small figure of an island boy carrying his board on his head as he walked toward the surf. “And Benny!” she exclaimed as she found her boss sitting, as he often did, in the shade of a tree away from the bustle of his lunch shop.

“Lots of people you know,” PJ agreed.

He had shed the suit and had reappeared barefoot, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and dragging a faded red shirt over his head, then tugging it down over a hard flat midriff.

This PJ she remembered—and he could still make her catch her breath. The view of his tanned muscular belly vanished in an instant, but a single glimpse was all it took. Once Ally had seen it, she could still see it in her mind. And once again she remembered things she didn’t want to remember at all.

So she swallowed and dragged her gaze back up to his face, trying to remember what she had been talking about. The mural.

Right.

“Am I in it?” She was avidly curious, but didn’t want to appear as if it mattered.

“Of course.”

She squinted at the beach, at Benny’s. “I am?” She frowned briefly and squinted more closely at it. “Where?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Come on. I’ll get dinner started. Want a beer? Glass of wine?”

“Um, wine, I think.”

Ally wasn’t sure she should be drinking anything. She needed her brain sharp and her wits all under control. But a glass of wine might help her relax. She didn’t want to feel as uptight as she felt right now. She wanted to settle down, take a deep breath, stop making such a big deal out of this.

It wasn’t a big deal, she assured herself. Just a minor bump in the road on her way to marital bliss.

She should know that there were going to be bumps in the road. It was just that in the last few years she had become accustomed to things going her way. In her work, in her life. She’d made them go her way.

But PJ wasn’t quite as easy to steer in the direction she wanted him to go.

She left the mural for later, tempted but at the same time unwilling to explore it further. It spoke too much of the past and she didn’t need to be thinking about the past. She needed to think about the future. So she followed PJ into the kitchen.

He was every bit as intriguing as the mural. Probably more so because he was the same, yet different. In part, he was still the man she remembered—casual, easygoing, barefoot here at home—on some level taking life as it came.

But there were obviously parts of this PJ Antonides that she didn’t know at all. The man who had worn the suit and stood behind the solid teak desk wasn’t a man she’d had any experience with. But he was the man who had said, “No divorce.”

So that was the man she would have to deal with now.

“Right,” he said. “You want some wine.” He removed the cork from a bottle on the counter and poured a glass of red wine, then handed it to her.

“Thank you. You’re very civil.”

He raised a brow. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You weren’t exactly falling all over yourself to be civil this afternoon.”

“You were a bit of a surprise this afternoon.”

“And now I’m not?”

“Now … we’ll see. Won’t we?” There was a wealth of speculation in his tone. But he didn’t challenge her, just reached in the refrigerator and snagged a beer, then popped off the top.

Ally, though, thought she needed to challenge him. “Why won’t you sign the divorce papers?”

“You’ve got a one-track mind.”

“It’s what I came for.”

“Not to see me?”

She flushed at the accusation. “Well, of course I’m glad to see you, but … you’re right. That was my priority.”

“You didn’t think maybe you should get to know me a little better before you decided I wouldn’t suit?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again before she said something she’d regret.

But if she’d expected him to go on, she was out of luck. He just stared at her, waiting for an answer.

“It wasn’t like that, PJ,” she said finally. “I met Jon when I was at the hospital with my dad. I got to know him there. Got to see how hard he worked. How much he cared. I fell in love with him there.”

He didn’t say a word.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and not knowing made her nervous. PJ had always been open and sunny, a “what you see is what you get” sort of guy.

Not now.

She was reminded again of how little she knew of him—of why he wanted her here.

“So we’ll have dinner and get to know each other again, and that will do?” she asked.

“Will it?” He took the steaks out of the butcher paper and set them on a plate, then began husking the corn.

“Stop being cryptic,” she said, annoyed. “What do you want?”

“What do you think I want?”

“I don’t have any idea.

“It should be obvious,” he said. “Time to think. I don’t move fast. I weigh all my options. And I never sign anything I haven’t thought over.”

“Except our marriage license.”

He blinked, startled, then he laughed. “Yeah. Except that.”

“It’s not funny. And if you think it is, you can undo it the same way,” she said impatiently.

“Too soon.”

“It’s been ten years! Since when is there a timetable?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have one.” He finished preparing the corn and, wrapping it in foil, added it to the plate, then carried it out the door to the back garden. “You’re the one who has the timetable.”

“Because I have a fiancé,” she reminded him, dogging his footsteps.

“And a husband,” he reminded her over his shoulder before lighting the grill.

It all came back to that.

Ally sighed. “Yes, all right. I know. I should have done it the other way around. My bad. Honest. But think about it, PJ. I didn’t even know where you were until the article came out. Was I supposed to put my life on hold until I found you?”

“Did you look?”

“I looked there. At the beach.”

“Not very eager to find me.”

She’d been very eager, in fact. And disappointed that he was gone. But she’d been philosophical, too. She’d never really expected him to wait around for her. They’d made no promises.

And she wasn’t admitting anything now. “I would have been happy to find you,” she said politely.

He turned his back to her and put the steaks on the grill. “Oh, right.”

She stared at the hard shoulders, the firm muscles beneath his shirt and felt as rejected as he’d been accusing her of doing.

“Did you?” she asked.

“Did I what?”

“Come looking for me?” Two could play that game.

He turned back to face her. “You mean after you were so glad to see me at the opening? Hell, no.” The word was firm, forceful. No hesitation there.

And that hurt more, even though she’d known what the answer would be. “So you should be glad to get rid of me now.”

“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” He tipped his beer and took a long swallow.

“Is that why you invited me to dinner?”

“Yep.”

“And what can I do to convince you?”

“Give it your best shot.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Tell me about yourself now. I know what you do. I’ve seen your work. I didn’t have to track you down to do that,” he said flatly, she supposed in case she thought he’d been interested enough to do so. “But I don’t know why this sudden shift.”

“What shift?”

“From fiber artist and international businesswoman to little lady in search of a family.” His tone was almost sarcastic but not quite. And she thought maybe if she explained, it would help, that he’d understand.

“I was in Seattle when my dad had his heart attack. I hadn’t seen him in ten years.”

“Your opening—”

“He didn’t come.”

PJ swore. “What the hell was the matter with him?”

Ally shrugged. “He wasn’t ready to let go of his views, still wasn’t ready to believe I could be someone other than the woman he thought I should be then. But he was actually glad to see me when I came home.”

She’d been afraid he wouldn’t be. Afraid he would turn away from her and shut her out in the cold. “We talked,” she told PJ, “for the first time. Not a lot. But it was a start. And I … couldn’t leave after that. He was all I had. I realized how much I’d missed him. How much I missed family. Even when it was just the two of us.”

PJ opened his mouth, then closed it again. He leaned back against the fence and waited for her to go on.

“It was the first time I’d stopped moving, planning, ‘achieving’ in years.” She sipped her wine reflectively and recalled those days and weeks vividly. “Being there with him for days at a time, first at the hospital, then at home, I was forced to stop and think about what I had achieved and what was missing, and—” she shrugged “—I discovered that I wanted to be more than Alice Maruyama, fiber artist and businesswoman.”

It was true. All of it. But Ally stopped, astonished that she had revealed so much. She shot a quick glance at PJ to see his reaction. He hadn’t moved. His eyes were hooded but focused directly on her. He nodded, listening.

That was always the way it had been with PJ. He was also focused, always intent, always listening.

“The steaks,” she said abruptly, seeing the smoke from the grill.

He turned toward them. “I’ll deal with ‘em. Go on.”

“And we talked—my dad and I—about family. About our relationship.” That had been difficult. Neither she nor her father were good at that sort of thing. “And it made me realize how much I’d missed. How much I would continue to miss if I didn’t— Anyway,” she said briskly, “that’s when I met Jon.”

“And fell in love?” PJ said. The edge was back in his voice again.

“And fell in love,” Ally confirmed. “Why wouldn’t I? Jon is great.”

PJ flipped the steaks. He didn’t reply, just concentrated on the steaks, moved the foil-wrapped corn, totally absorbed in what he was doing. So absorbed that Ally wondered if he had even heard her.

Or maybe he had no comment. That was more likely the case.

And really, beyond “Where do I sign?” what did she want him to say?

“Can I help?” she asked. “Make the salad? Set the table?”

“Why don’t you make the salad. Use what I bought and whatever you want from the refrigerator. Stick the bread in the oven, too, will you? Then it will be ready when the steaks are.”

Grateful for something to keep herself occupied, Ally hurried back into the kitchen. Like the living room and the dining area she’d passed through on the way, it had walls of exposed brick, too. The cabinets were a light oak, the appliances stainless steel. They were all a far cry from the apartment-size stove and bar-size fridge he’d had on Oahu, and despite her insistence that she just wanted his signature and then she would be out of his life, she found that she was curious about how he lived, who he’d become.

She set about making the salad, periodically glancing back at PJ, who stood silently watching over the steaks. On one level it seemed so natural, so mundane—a husband and wife making supper at the end of a day.

On the other, to be casually cooking dinner with PJ Antonides, as if they were a simple married couple, seemed almost surreal.

She finished the salad and put it on the table, then opened the cupboards looking for plates. His kitchen was rather spare but reasonably well equipped. Obviously he was no stranger to cooking. Did he do it often? Did he have girlfriends who came and cooked for him?

A vision of Annie Cannavaro flashed through her head.

She’d told him about Jon, but he hadn’t said a word about the women in his life. The newspaper article had made it clear that there were plenty of them. No one special, though?

Would he tell her if she asked?

She didn’t get a chance. When he came back with the steaks a few minutes later, he said, “So tell me about how you got started with the fabric art. I remember you made some funky stuff back in the ‘old days,’ but I was surprised when you turned it into your profession.”

She wondered if he was going to have another dig at her for her behavior at the opening in Honolulu. But he seemed actually interested, and so she explained. “When I was in California and I got a job in a fabric store while I was going to school, it seemed like something to explore further. I had access to stuff I didn’t ordinarily have. So I got to try things. Experiment, you know.”

He put a steak on her plate and one on his, then unwrapped the corn from the foil and added an ear to each of their plates. She dished up the salad, then cut the bread. He refilled her wineglass and got himself another beer. They sat down. “Right. Experimenting. I did that with the windsurfer. I know what you mean. Go on. I’m listening,” he prompted.

She hesitated, torn between wanting to tell him how she’d gone from being a mere girl with dreams to a woman who had realized them and wanting to know more about his windsurfer, which had ultimately brought him here. And of course at the same time she realized that neither one was the reason she’d agreed to have dinner with him.

He gave her a patient smile across the table. “We’ve got ten years to catch up on, Al, minus one night. We’re going to be here a while. So talk. Or are you—”

“—chicken?” she finished for him with a knowing smile.

He gave her an unrepentant grin.

“Fine. Here it is in a nutshell.”

And she began to talk again. Maybe she could bore him into signing the divorce papers. While they ate, she began the canned account of how she got into her business, the one she hauled out whenever she was interviewed.

But PJ wasn’t content with that. He asked questions, drew her out. “Were you scared?” he asked her when she was describing the start-up of her first shop.

“Chicken?” she asked wryly.

“No, really nervous.”

She understood the difference. And she nodded. “Felt like I was stepping off into space,” she agreed, and recounted the scary times she’d spent on her own, learning what she was capable of, learning what she liked and what she didn’t, learning who she was, apart from her father’s not-so-dutiful daughter.

It wasn’t something she usually did. Ally had learned early that too much reflection meant that she wouldn’t get anything done at all. She’d think about things too much, worry about them too much, and so she’d taught herself to weigh her options just long enough to see a clear direction. Then she moved ahead.

She didn’t spend a lot of time looking back or analyzing what she’d done. She’d just done it and gone on.

And while she was busy doing, no one was close enough to her or interested enough to ask.

Even when she’d come home, the questions had been few. Her aunt Grace had been impressed. Her father had been too ill to care, and too glad she was home to do more than give thanks that she was there.

Jon thought anything she did was wonderful. He was proud of her. But he was always busy himself. And Ally knew that saving lives was far more important than her “sewing projects” even though he’d never actually said so. He never said much at all about them.

PJ, on the other hand, kept tossing out questions.

And Ally kept answering.

Maybe she answered so expansively because she was proud of what she’d done. Maybe it was to make sure he understood that she had truly taken advantage of the opportunity he’d given her by marrying her, that she’d built something to be proud of, not merely escaped. Maybe it was to show him that she really wasn’t the immature rude person she’d been five years ago.

And maybe, she admitted to herself, it was what happened when she found someone interested enough to really listen.

By the time they had finished dinner, she was aware that she had talked more than she’d talked in ages—and PJ had said very little. He sat there, nursing his beer, tipped back in his chair, watching her from beneath hooded lids.

Her awareness of his scrutiny had made Ally keep talking. But finally she stopped and said firmly, “Enough about me. Tell me about you.”

It could be opening a Pandora’s box.

She might well be better off not knowing anything more about the man who was her husband. But she couldn’t not ask. Besides, she really wanted to know.

“You read the newspaper article.” He stood up and began to clear the table.