Tidewater Lover by Janet Dailey Page A

eight-thirty-one that evening when Cole's car drove into the garage. Lacey knew exactly because she had been glancing at the clock nearly every five minutes since seven. But she steeled herself to react calmly and casually when he entered the living room. He looked haggard and exhausted, his briefcase in hand.
    "Rough day?" Lacey questioned with pretended idleness. She glanced up from the fashion magazine she was supposedly reading.
    "More or less," he nodded, and sat down in the other sofa.
    "Have you eaten?"
    "What?" Cole looked at her blankly before her question registered. "Oh, yes, I stopped on the way."
    Lacey thought of the dinner she had kept warming in the oven after having eaten her portion, but said nothing. Cole opened his briefcase and took out a sheaf of legal-looking documents.
    It was on the tip of Lacey's tongue to suggest that he should relax instead of doing more work, but she bit it into silence with a firm reminder that it was none of her business if he worked himself to death.
    For all the notice he paid to her the rest of the evening, she could have been another throw pillow on the sofa. She tried to convince herself that she didn't care, but she knew it wasn't true.
    Finally, at half-past ten, she tossed the magazine onto the table and rose. Cole glanced up with a questioning frown.
    "It's late. I'm going to turn in," she said stiffly. "Good night."
    "Good night," he returned indifferently, and looked back at his papers.
    Pressing her lips tightly together, Lacey pivoted sharply. Tears were stinging her eyes and there was a bitter taste in her mouth.
    "Oh, by the way," Cole spoke up and she glanced quickly back to him, "the toilets showed up today."
    "They did?"
    "It seems they've been in the city for the last two weeks—at the wrong warehouse," he replied with thinly disguised impatience. "It's a pity no one bothered to check on them before."
    Anger simmered near the surface as Lacey read implied criticism of her in the comment, but Cole's attention was again riveted to his papers. She checked her biting reply, wondering if he even remembered that she worked for Mike Bowman. Holding her head stiffly erect, she walked down the hallway to her bedroom.
     
    The next two days were a repeat of Monday, with Lacey waking at the buzz of Cole's alarm and Cole returning late in the evening to bury himself in paperwork. Except for the early mornings and late evenings, Lacey could have been staying at the house by herself, since she was either alone or left alone.
    In the mornings she filled her time swimming in the ocean and strolling on the beach. The afternoons she would relax on the shaded balcony and read. Meals were a haphazard affair. She didn't repeat the mistake of the first night by keeping food warm for Cole. Lacey tried not to admit it, but her days were spent waiting for Cole to return.
    On Thursday evening she went to bed as usual some time after ten, leaving Cole in the living room with his papers She fell asleep almost instantly, but it was a restless, fitful sleep that finally wakened her shortly after midnight.
    Her mouth was all woolly and dry. She slid out of bed and padded sleepily to her door. As she opened it, the artificial light glared harshly to momentarily blind her.
    Shielding her eyes with her hand, she started to grope for the switch to turn off the hall light that Cole had left burning, but the whisper of papers being shuffled in the living room halted her hand.
    She walked into the living room, her bare feet making little sound, her eyes still squinting at the unaccustomed light. Cole was sitting on the sofa where she had left him hours ago, going over his papers and making voluminous notes on a long yellow tablet.
    "Haven't you gone to bed yet?" she demanded accusingly in a voice husky with sleep. "It's after midnight."
    Cole glanced up sharply, momentarily startled out of his concentrations. One eyebrow twisted into a frown as he looked from Lacey to the gold watch gleaming below