Page 8 of His Loving Wife

“Yes,” Kate said, her voice so low she wasn’t sure either of them heard her.

“When is the last time you saw him?” Marsh asked Andrew.

Kate, still facing the front lawn, closed her eyes. She winced as her mind took her back.

Six months ago. She was at Andale’s, her favorite post-work restaurant. She made a habit of going there when she wasn’t already committed to the kids’ activities. She was sitting at the bar, halfway through a margarita, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

At first, she expected to see a stranger, but after a few seconds, familiarity set in. She recognized the dark hair, still thick after all this time. She remembered his dimples.

“Paul?”

“I thought that was you.”

She stood and hugged him. His gait, his smell, the texture of his denim jacket worked in unison to take her back to the last time she had seen him. Senior year of college.

He pulled away, looking her up and down. “Kate Richards?”

“Kate Brooks now.” She wiggled her left hand, then immediately regretted it. Paul was who she’d been dating when she met Andrew all those years ago, and even now the comment felt too forward.

Paul seemed unfazed. “Talk about a blast from the past.”

It was exactly the kind of corny line she’d expect him to use. “What about you? Married? Kids?”

“No.” A subtle sadness fell over his face, then he smiled again. “Am I interrupting you?”

“No. Please. I’m just grabbing a quick dinner.”

They rambled through the basic introductions. Kate: college professor, mother of two, amateur writer. Paul: auto mechanic, divorced, no kids. After they’d sifted through the present, their conversation turned to the past. Old keggers and cramming for finals. They’d shared a lot of memories during college, even if the last one—their breakup—wasn’t her best moment. The fact Paul was an ex-boyfriend struck Kate as an afterthought. Their conversation, which left her giddy with laughter and nostalgia, was catching up with an old friend. Nothing more.

Kate wished she’d never seen him again after that first meeting.

“What about you, Kate?” It was Detective Marsh.

Kate’s mind was still stuck in the memory, on that warm night when Paul came back into her life. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Andrew just said he’s not spoken to Paul since college. What about you?”

Kate’s eyes darted toward her husband. He was waiting for her response, which should have been an easy one. But Andrew didn’t know about the encounter at Andale’s, or about any of the events that followed.

Kate clenched her eyes shut. “Yes, I’ve seen him recently.”

“When?” asked Detective Marsh.

“Six months ago.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Andrew said, now standing.

Detective Marsh looked at Kate with sympathy, like she was a drowning woman in need of a life raft.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Kate said. “At least I didn’t think it was.”

Marsh pulled a notebook out of her blazer pocket. There was a pen hanging from the spiral binding. “I need you to tell me everything.”

Kate took a deep breath, preparing to revisit her story, this time aloud. She had a sinking feeling inside that she should have known it was Paul Gunter all along. Maybe part of her did know but was afraid to acknowledge it.

Kate didn’t want to admit that all of this had been her fault.

Chapter 5

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