Chapter 1 : Part 2

Still Mr. & Mrs.
by Mary McBride

(Page 2 of 4)

"You might as well use my health club membership while I'm gone, Suze. I'll leave the card on the dresser. Right beside the lamp. Oh, and will you forward any mail that looks important or interesting?"

"Sure. No problem." Suzanne took another bite of yogurt, then cocked her head, grinning. "Can I also have Rod Bishop while you're gone?"

"Rod! Oh, my God!" Angela looked at her watch and swore softly. It was six-thirty, and Rod was sending a limo for her at seven. "I'm supposed to go to his premiere tonight. I completely forgot."

"You forgot something?" Suzanne laughed. "How could anybody forget about going to a premiere, especially when they're Rod Bishop's date?"

Angela shook her head even as she was frantically calculating driving times and distances, no mean feat when freeway traffic patterns corrupted every equation. It was another reason she didn't like L.A. Its sprawl of communities and tangle of highways struck her as disorganized, just plain messy. In her next life maybe she'd come back as an urban planner. Or not. Since this life wasn't working out so well, maybe she wouldn't even bother with a next one.

To the best of her recollection, the premiere was in Culver City. Her flight to Chicago left LAX at 1:00 A.M. If she scrambled into her long black jersey dress and dragged a brush through her hair right now, she could do it. The last thing she wanted to do was stand Rod up on such an important evening.

No. The last thing she wanted to do was admit that she was really looking forward to seeing him, or confess that his sappy campaign to win her heart seemed to be making headway, or-worse-that part of the reason she had accepted the assignment to Half Ass, Illinois, was to put a bit of distance between herself and temptation.

She looked at Suzanne, who was perched on the bed, wearing not the standard-issue sober expression of a Secret Service agent but the fully glazed, semiconscious expression that always came over her whenever the actor's name was mentioned. Suzanne and a couple million other women, no doubt, all of them smitten with Hollywood's Hunk of the Year.

"He's just a guy," Angela said irritably.

"Just a guy." Suzanne sighed like a dopey teenager in the throes of puppy love. "That's like saying an AK-47 is just a gun." Her glazed expression turned slightly elfish. "Or that Rod Bishop puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else."

"I really wouldn't know about that," Angela snapped as she headed for the closet to get her black jersey dress.

"Oh, come on," Suzanne called after her. "You've been seeing him for at least three months now, Angela. The guy is absolutely gorgeous, and he's obviously crazy about you. Are you telling me you're not-"

"I'm married, Suze." She waved her left hand for emphasis before reaching for her dress. "That's a minor detail you seem to have overlooked."

"You're separated," the other agent said. "For an entire year."

Actually, Angela thought, she'd walked out on Bobby eleven months, two weeks, and three days ago, but who the hell was counting? She snatched the plastic hanger off the closet rod with such force that she broke its little plastic neck.

"Well, okay then, if you won't share Rod Bishop, how about if I take Bobby off your hands?"

"We're still married," she snarled, and immediately regretted the harsh tone that sent Suzanne scuttling off the bed and heading back toward the living room. "I'm sorry, Suze," she called to her. "I didn't mean to sound so abrupt."

"That's okay," her roommate called back. "Hey, divorce is tough. Been there. Done it. Believe me, I understand."

No, she didn't, Angela thought. How could her roommate understand when she didn't even understand it herself after all this time? She wasn't divorced. But then, in spite of what she'd just told Suze, she wasn't really married either, was she? She was just . . . well . . . separated.

"Separated? What the hell is that?" her father, the excop, had exclaimed when she told him about her decision last year on the phone. "You're either married or you're not."

Her Little Limbo, as Rod kept calling her situation, much to her irritation. Her Current Confusion. Her Marital Mess. You need to make some decisions, my love.

Yes, she did, didn't she?

Copyright © 2002 by Mary Myers

About the Author

Mary Myers, also known as Mary McBride, is a native of St. Louis, MO, where she lives with her marathon-running husband. A full-time writer, Mary has written 14 books for Harlequin and Silhouette. Still Mr. and Mrs. will be her first mainstream title.