Mirror Image

for Mandy. You put on quite a show for her last night.”
    “It wasn’t a show.”
    He ignored her denial. “You’d damn sure better plan to follow through with the maternal act until she’s completely cured. She couldn’t take another setback.”
    “You sanctimonious…” Avery was getting angry in her own right. “I’m as interested in Mandy’s recovery as you are.”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “No.”
    “That’s not fair.”
    “You’re a fine one to talk about fair.”
    “I’m worried to death about Mandy.”
    “Why?”
    “Why?”
she cried. “Because she’s our child.”
    “So was the one you aborted! That didn’t stop you from killing it!”
    The words knifed through her. She actually laid an arm across her middle and bent forward as though her vital organs had been impaled. She held her breath for several seconds while she stared at him speechlessly.
    As though loath to look at her, he got up and turned his back. At the counter he refilled his coffee cup. “I would have found out eventually, of course.” His voice sounded as cold as ice. When he turned back around to confront her, his eyes looked just as piercingly cold.
    “But to be informed by a stranger that my wife was no longer pregnant…” Seething, he glanced away. Again, it was as though he couldn’t bear looking at her. “Can you imagine how I felt, Carole? Jesus! There you were, close to death, and I wanted to kill you myself.” He swung his head back around and, as his eyes bore into hers, he clenched his free hand into a fist.
    Out of her cottony memory, Avery conjured up voices.
    Tate’s:
The child… effects on the fetus
?
    And someone else’s:
Child? Your wife wasn’t pregnant.
    The fractured conversation had meant nothing. Its significance had escaped her. It had blended into the myriad confusing conversations she had overheard before she had fully regained consciousness. She had forgotten it until now.
    “Didn’t you think I’d notice that you failed to produce a baby? You were so eager to flaunt it in my face that you were pregnant, why didn’t you let me know about your abortion, too?”
    Avery shook her head miserably. She had no words to say to him. No excuses. No explanations. But now she knew why Tate hated Carole so.
    “When did you do it? It must have been just a few days before your scheduled trip to Dallas. Didn’t want to be hampered by a baby, did you? It would have cramped your style.”
    He bore down on her and loudly slapped the surface of the table. “Answer me, damn you. Say something. It’s about time we talked about this, don’t you think?”
    Avery stammered, “I… I didn’t think it would matter so much.” His expression turned so ferocious, she thought he might actually strike her. Rushing to her own defense, she lashed out, “I know your policy on abortion, Mr. Rutledge. How many times have I heard you preach that it’s a woman’s right to choose? Does that pertain to every woman in the state of Texas except your wife?”
    “Yes, dammit!”
    “How hypocritical.”
    He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. “The principle that applies to the public at large doesn’t necessarily carry over into my personal life.
This
abortion wasn’t an
issue.
It was my baby.”
    His eyes narrowed to slits. “Or was it? Was that another lie to keep me from throwing you out, along with the other trash?”
    She tried to imagine how Carole might have responded. “It takes two to make a baby, Tate.”
    As she had hoped, she had struck a chord. He released her arm immediately and backed away from her. “I sorely regret that night. I made that clear as soon as it happened. I’d sworn never to touch your whoring body again.
    “But you’ve always known which buttons to push, Carole. For days you’d been curling up against me like a cat in heat, mewing your apologies and promises to be a loving wife. If I hadn’t had too much to drink that night, I would have recognized it for the trap it was.”
    He gave her a scornful once-over. “Is that what you’re doing now, laying another trap? Is that why you’ve been the model wife since you got out of the hospital?
    “Tell me,” he said, propping his hands on his hips, “did you slip up that night and get pregnant by accident? Or was getting pregnant and having an abortion part of your plan to torment me? Is that what you’re trying to do again—make me want you? Prove that you can get me into your bed