In Your Dreams (Blue Heron #4)(74)

Almost twenty thousand dollars on clothes, shoes and handbags.

Jack found that he was sweating.

After the flights back and forth from Savannah...after spending five months’ salary on a Tiffany engagement ring and a diamond wedding band...after paying for the rehearsal dinner for seventy-five people...after the lavish honeymoon, the new couch, after Christmas in New York City, after all the crap she’d bought for the house...they simply couldn’t afford this. Jack had never wanted for money, but this...this was twenty grand he just didn’t have sitting around.

Worse than the money, though, was the lying.

She’d been lying to him for months.

Jaw locked hard, Jack drove home. She was there, sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space, idly stirring sugar into her tea. “Oh, hey, baby!” she said when he came in. “What are you doing home so early?”

He put the bills on the table in front of her. “Explain,” he said tightly.

She was calm; he had to give her that. Stroked Princess Anastasia and said that, yes, she may have “overindulged,” she shouldn’t have kept that from him, but shopping had always been a hobby. She liked nice things; he knew that. She believed in buying quality. No need for him to have kittens.

He made her show him her purchases, and she sighed and complied. Some were right there in their closet, some in her jewelry box, some hidden in the attic.

Shoes galore. Seven new black dresses, each of which looked identical to the last. Four leather jackets. Five winter coats. More makeup than she could use in years. Special soaps and moisturizers and cleansers and creams. Belts and scarves and gloves. Perfume. An eight-ounce bottle of bubble bath that cost $179. “I thought Faith might like that for Christmas,” she said unconvincingly.

“It’s February.”

“So? I like to shop all through the year.”

“Hadley, we can’t afford this!” he barked, and she folded her arms and stared at him patiently.

“Jack, we can. I know you’re on the stingy side, but that wasn’t how I was raised. Where I come from, a man takes care of his woman.”

“By take care of you mean go into debt?”

“Fine. I did a little retail therapy.”

“Maybe you should try the regular kind.”

“That was uncalled for,” she said. “You have no idea how lonely it is for me! You’re at work all day long!”

“People who work for a living generally work all day long, Hadley.”

“Well, you misled me, then! I thought you were—” She stopped abruptly

“You thought I was what?”

Rich. That’s what she’d thought. And he’d always thought he was—he paid his bills, owned a home, bought a new truck every 125,000 miles, didn’t have debt (until now) and put a modest amount in the stock market and savings.

But he wasn’t rich. Not by Hadley’s standards, anyway.

She looked straight ahead. “I thought you’d value our time together more.”

“How do I not value our time together, Hadley?”

“You always put your family first. You spend more time with your father than you do with me.”

“I work with my father.”

“That Mrs. Johnson growls at me any time I even look at her, and your sisters are horrible!”

“My sisters aren’t horrible, Mrs. Johnson growls at everyone and they’re not the reason you spent twenty thousand dollars on clothes.”

“You’re overreacting. I’m sorry you don’t think I’m worth it, after all I do to try to make you happy.” There was a challenge in her eyes.

“This is practically hoarding, and it’s money we don’t have.” He picked up a pair of long white gloves, the kind a woman would wear to...well, hell, he didn’t know. “You forged my signature on three credit card applications, which is illegal, for one, and for two, means your own credit must be shot to hell. You’re hiding things around the house because you know you shouldn’t be spending so much. This is not how a responsible adult behaves.”

She grew stony and wounded. She said she’d pay off the credit cards by taking on a few clients if money was all he cared about. Apparently, she’d misread him.

Jack loved his wife. He did.

Or you did before you got to know her so well, said a voice in his head, sounding a lot like Honor.

No. He did love her. But it was clear that she wasn’t as straightforward as he’d thought when they first met. And it was also clear that she thought he was a wealthy vintner and not a guy who had to work for a living. Maybe this wasn’t the life she thought she’d signed on for.

“Hadley, if you’re not happy here,” he began as gently as he could.

She jerked as if he’d hit her. “If I’m not happy, what?” she said, and suddenly her voice was shaking.

“Maybe we rushed into this. If you’re not getting what you want—”

“Jack, no! Are you...do you want a divorce? Oh, my God!” She burst into tears, her hands over her face. “Please, Jack! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll return everything I can, but please don’t leave me, Jack!”

He got up and put his arms around her. “Hadley, honey, it just seems like you expected something different,” he said.