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Second Honeymoon
Laura Abbot
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Meg with a baby carriage.Once upon a time, Meg and Scott Harper had it all. But then life got in the way, and they lost sight of what was important. Each other.Now twenty years have passed, and they seem to be just going through the motions. Is it finally time to call it quits? But before they can make that decision, they are confronted with a crisis…one they can only get through together.
“What are you suggesting? That we cut right to the divorce?”
Scott nodded. “One incision. Swift. Neat.”
Like hammer blows his words penetrated Meg’s consciousness. Her throat clogged with sudden tears, and she struggled to keep her voice even. “Is that what you want, Scott?”
Head down, he marched another thirty yards, then stopped and whirled to face her. “Want? I’ll tell you what I want. I want the girl I married.”
Anger replaced shock. “What’s that supposed to mean? Am I so awful?”
“You’re not awful.” His shoulders sagged, and he ran a hand tiredly through his hair. “You’re just…different. Meg, we started out with big dreams, and, hey, we’ve even achieved a lot of them.”
“But apparently they didn’t buy happiness.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t, does it?”
“That’s up to you,” she said.
Laying his hand on her shoulder, he sought her eyes with his. “No, Meg. It takes two of us. But is there any us left?”
Dear Reader,
In most of my previous books, setting has been an important element. I’ve enjoyed researching various areas of the country and discovering how my characters not only belong in their particular environments but are molded by them.
This story, however, could take place anywhere in suburban America. The landscape is not one made up of mountains and rivers or rolling farmland. Rather, it is the territory of family.
Often when we think of romance, we envision the thrill of attraction and courtship or dewy-eyed newlyweds walking dreamily into an everlasting sunset. Yet the most enduring love stories are not always pretty. Sometimes it is not until a relationship is tested in the crucible of real-life crises that a genuine, lasting understanding of love and commitment is forged. This, then, is a love story that unfolds in the most important place of all—within a marriage.
In Second Honeymoon, Meg and Scott Harper are not unlike many of us who face the challenges of work commitments, child rearing, social obligations, community involvement and responsibility for extended family. As life grows more complicated, Scott buries himself in work, Meg devotes herself to their children and, along the way, they forget that marriage is a lifelong effort and that love can never be taken for granted. Bur where there is a spark, there can be fire. I hope you’ll enjoy discovering how Scott and Meg learn to tend the flame.
Laura Abbot
P.S. I enjoy hearing reader comments. You may write me at P.O. Box 373, Eureka Springs, AR 72632, or access the Superromance authors’ Web site, www.SuperAuthors.com.
Second Honeymoon
Laura Abbot
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my tolerant, accepting and loving daughters-in-law,
Lailan and Lynne.
Thank you for being such blessings to me and our family.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Early September
WHEN THE AUDITORIUM LIGHTS flickered, Meg Harper twisted around in her seat, scanning the latecomers straggling in the door. Where was Scott? He’d promised her. Promised their son. She glanced at her watch. Two more minutes.
The seat beside her remained conspicuously empty, but what else was new? She watched other children’s parents—other children’s fathers—scurry to find seats before the program began. Meg faced the front again, her eyes darting to the stage where in a few moments Justin would lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Her manicured nails bit into the flesh of her palms. She didn’t ask much of her husband, but Scott should be here supporting his son, and later accompanying her to the classrooms for the middle-school open house.
She craned her neck toward the door again. Her tennis partner, Jannie Farrell, and her lanky, absentminded husband, Ron, scuttled in just as the lights dimmed, leaving behind a deserted lobby. Meg’s jaw tightened in anticipation of Scott’s apology. Sorry, babe, something came up at the last minute. As if his son were a mere afterthought to some business deal. In all honesty, she hadn’t expected Scott to show up. But that didn’t make her disappointment any less painful or quell the childhood memories of all the times she’d searched the audience for the father she knew would never come, the father buried in the cemetery on the hill.
The balding principal stepped up to the podium, greeted the assembled parents and uttered the usual platitudes about the school year getting off to a great start. When he finished, he introduced Justin, who strutted with his athlete’s swagger toward the microphone, his baggy khakis bunching at his ankles, pretty much obscuring the new Nikes he’d insisted on wearing. “Please stand and join me in the Pledge,” he croaked into the mike.
As the crowd stood, Meg moved to the left for a clear view of her son, his spiked black hair, so like Scott’s, gleaming in the spotlight; his tall, skinny body braced at attention. He looked angelic, a far cry from the mouthy thirteen-year-old who, only an hour ago, had resisted wearing the freshly-ironed dress shirt she’d laid out for him. He’d held it up as if it were some odious life-form. “This is nerdy! I suppose you think I’m wearing a tie, too.” After a brief battle, they’d achieved a compromise. The shirt, yes. The tie, no.
Yet watching him now, seriously intoning the Pledge of Allegiance, she could almost believe that one day he’d grow into a responsible young adult.
As the audience sat back down, Meg felt a tap on her shoulder. Her neighbor Carrie Morrison leaned forward. “Justin did great,” she whispered. Then came the infuriating question Meg had heard all too often in the past several months: “Where’s Scott?”
WHEN SCOTT PULLED his SUV into the garage of their two-story Tudor-style house, he noted Meg’s missing Lexus. He slumped over the wheel. Hell. The middle-school open house. He buried his head in his hands, as if that act would both absolve his oversight and wipe away the exhaustion riddling his nerves. It would be only a matter of minutes before Meg returned and recited the litany of her complaints: his thoughtlessness, his forgetfulness, his self-absorption, his selfish disregard for her, his willingness to sacrifice his family on the altar of his ambition. He’d heard it all. And then some.
What was it about his goals she didn’t understand? She had no concept of the pressure he was under at the agency or how responsible he felt for his employees. Beyond that, didn’t she know that the reason he worked so hard was to support her and the kids in the lifestyle to which they’d grown all too accustomed?
Wearily, he picked up his briefcase and headed into the house, which was for once blessedly quiet. He set down the case and loosened his tie while he sorted through the mail—all of it bills, except for the monthly country-club newsletter and a cruise brochure from his university alumni association. It was no mystery why the brochure was prominently displayed instead of thrown in the trash. Meg’s suggestions that he needed a break had become tiresome. She kept pointedly reminding him that the Farrells took annual trips, just the two of them.
He slung his suit jacket and tie over the kitchen bar stool, grabbed a beer from the fridge and plopped down on the family-room sofa, foraging under the cushions for the TV remote. Tuning into the replay of a golf tournament, he took a swig of beer and rested his head against the sofa back. He felt burdened by challenges on all sides. The Atkisson project had hit a huge snag, John Miller’s sudden resignation had left the firm perilously shorthanded and there was the unsettlingly provocative behavior of his colleague Brenda Sampson. On the home front, he and Meg couldn’t have a simple conversation without its deteriorating into an argument. The subject didn’t matter. Child-rearing practices, social obligations, current events, the household budget. The list of triggers was never-ending.
Hoisting his beer, he watched Phil Mickelson sink a putt, then chugged half the can. As for sex? What was that? Either he was too tired, Meg was too tired or one of them was angry with the other. Would a cruise change that? Or would it just put a further dent in their savings? A romantic getaway was idle speculation, anyway, because he couldn’t afford to take time off from the advertising agency he and his partner, Wes Williams, had built from small capital and big dreams.
Meg needed to get a grip. His eyes swept across their expensive furnishings and decorative accessories. Did she think the good fairy made all of this possible? Just once he’d like a little appreciation.
Over the sound of the golf commentator, he heard a car door slam, followed by the front door opening. “I’m home,” his fifteen-year-old daughter, Hayley, shouted.
“In here,” Scott said.
“Where’s Mom?” Hayley looked around the room.
Who was he? A giant dust bunny?
“She’s at your brother’s school open house.”
“Ha! I can’t wait to hear what the teachers said about dork boy.”
“Is that any way to talk about your brother?”
She flopped in the armchair, her low-rise jeans revealing an expanse of bare flesh that caused him to gnash his teeth. She and all her friends made themselves fair game for every horny punk in the county. How often had he heard, Chill out, Dad, it’s the style?
“He needs to get a clue. Sports are all he’s got going for him. It’s sure not his grades.”
Scott tried to conceal his disappointment, but he had to acknowledge Hayley was right. His son wasn’t much of a student. Still, boys often lagged behind academically, or so he’d been told. “Hey, why don’t you try looking on the bright side for a change?”
Tugging on her thick, dark French braid, she gave a wry grin. “There is one?”
Sibling rivalry. Some things never changed. “Of course. Without Justin, you’d be an only child.”
“I wish!”
Scott decided to ignore that response. “Where have you been?”
“Cheerleading practice, then at Jill’s for supper.”
“Where’s your homework?”
“I finished it at school.”
He didn’t know whether to believe her, but until her grades dropped, he’d have to trust her. Lately she’d become more uncommunicative. Typical teenager behavior? Or something more?
She stood, her navel exposed in all its questionable glory. “Gotta call Jill. See you later.” She took the stairs to her room two at a time.
He shook his head. Why would she have to call Jill? She’d just been with her. A few seconds later, his tranquility was shattered by the reverberations of music—or what passed for it—blasting from Hayley’s CD player.
The half hour chimed on the hallway grandfather clock. Nine-thirty. Meg should be home soon. Would she be accusatory or icily stony?
Did it matter? They’d already discussed the S word. Separation. He didn’t know what had happened to the connection they used to have, the dreams they’d shared. They’d been so good together, once. There’d been a time when he couldn’t wait to get home from work. Now? They were hardly more than a habit to each other. And not a particularly pleasant one, either.
He missed their old closeness, but couldn’t begin to put his finger on when things had started to go south. The kids were the glue that kept them together. But at what cost?
Although he’d never imagined it would come to this, he had to admit the prospect of some time apart held a certain appeal.
But it was a big step. Maybe an irreversible one.
The whir of the garage-door opener soured his stomach. He knew that no apology, regardless of how sincere, would suffice. Meg would come in poised to take the offensive.
SCOTT IGNORED Meg’s withering gaze and went straight to his son, clapping an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, buddy, sorry I couldn’t be there tonight. How’d it go?”
Justin stiffened. “Good.”
Scott winced. Increasingly, Justin limited his responses to monosyllables. “Were you nervous?”
“Come on, Dad, everybody knows the Pledge. It was no big deal.”
Scott wanted to disagree. Justin needed as much affirmation as he could get. The big deal was being selected in the first place. “It was to me. I’m proud of you, son.”
Justin wriggled out of his embrace and grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry. Scott strained to hear his muttered words, which sounded ominously like “If you’re so proud, why weren’t you there?”
Meg shot him a scathing look as if echoing their son’s question, then picked up the phone and turned her back on him. Justin carried the chips into the family room, where he collapsed on the sofa, gangly legs splayed. Scott stood in the middle of the kitchen, abandoned. Persona non grata in his own home. Meg’s falsely cheerful voice rang in his ears as she called a list of soccer parents to inform them of a change of playing field.
Scott’s stomach growled, and he moved to the refrigerator, rummaging for cold cuts. He’d skipped dinner and was suddenly ravenous. He slathered two pieces of bread with honey mustard, unearthed a limp leaf of lettuce and a single slice of Swiss cheese and slapped the sandwich together. Meg glanced up, her brow furrowed, and mouthed, “I could’ve done that.” Wonderful. Now, on top of everything else, he had to feel guilty for making his own dinner.
He grabbed another beer and took his meal into the family room where he settled in his recliner, aware of the jarring sounds of both his son’s action movie and Hayley’s stereo. Chewing the sandwich, he thought about asking whether Justin had any homework, but why add to his troubles? Justin would be resentful and Meg irritated that he didn’t trust her to oversee their son.
Meg carried the phone with her as she paced back and forth in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. Between her chirpy voice and the clang of silverware, he longed for his earlier solitude.
He’d just finished his sandwich when Meg entered the room, phone held between her chin and shoulder, and stood behind the sofa. “Justin, did you finish the notes for your oral book report?”
He stared at the TV. “Yeah.”
She gave her son a you-better-be-telling-the-truth glance before strolling back to the kitchen. “I know, I know,” she clucked, “that coach just seems to have it in for our boys.”
Scott rolled his eyes. Women micromanaging sports. It didn’t seem right. Scott faced Justin. “What book did you read?”
“Huh?”
“For your book report.”
“I dunno. Everybody’s reading different books. Mine’s something about a dog.”
