MIRROR IMAGE

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Since they were scheduled to leave very early that morning, Avery got a head start by waking up before Tate. She disentangled their limbs. Getting her hair unsnarled from his fingers wasn't easy, but she finally managed. She glanced over her shoulder at him as she left the bed.

He was beautiful when he slept, one leg sticking out of the covers, his bearded jaw dark against the pillowcase. Sighing with the sheer pleasure of looking at him, and with the stirring memories of last night's lovemaking fresh in her mind, she crept into the bathroom.

The  water taps screeched  when she turned them on. Avery winced at the noise. Tate needed as much sleep as he could get. Today's agenda was arduous. He would spend hours in an airplane. In between, he would be delivering speeches, pressing hands, and soliciting votes.

This day before Election Day was possibly the most important one of his campaign. Today the fence-straddlers, vital to the outcome of any election, would make up their minds. Avery stepped beneath the pounding spray. After shampooing her hair, she lathered her body. It still bore traces of Tate's fervent lovemaking. His mouth had left a faint bruise on her soft inner thigh. The hot water stung her whisker ­rasped breasts.  

She was smiling over that when the shower curtain was suddenly whipped back. "Tate!"

"Good morning."

"What—"  

"I thought I'd shower with you," he drawled, smiling lecherously. "Save time. Save the hotel some hot water."

Avery stood quaking, as guilty in her nakedness as Eve must have been in Eden when God spotlighted her iniquity. The jets of hot water seemed to turn icy and sharp; they pricked her skin like frigid needles. Color drained from her face. Her lips turned blue. Her eyes seemed to recede into her skull, making the sockets appear huge and cavernous. She shivered.

Puzzled, Tate cocked his sleep-tousled head to one side. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Did I scare you?"

She swallowed. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't form a sound.

"Carole? What's the matter?"

He looked for something amiss. His eyes scaled down her pale, trembling body, then back up. Avery's heart sank heavily in her chest as she watched his baffled gaze move down her once again. It was arrested at her breasts, belly, pubis, thighs—places only seen by a lover's eyes, a husband's eyes.

He saw the appendectomy scar, ancient and faint and almost undetectable unless bared to clinical fluorescent lighting. Avery had wondered, but now she knew. Carole had never had her appendix out.

"Carole?" His voice echoed the mystification in his eyes.

Though the protective gesture was a dead giveaway, Avery covered her lower body with one hand and extended the other toward him in appeal. "Tate, I ..."

As sharp and deadly as swords, his eyes slashed upwards to clash with hers. "You're not Carole." He stated it softly, while his brain still sifted through conflicting facts. Then, when the impact of it hit him full force, he repeated with emphasis, "You're not Carole!"

His arm shot through the shower's spray to grab hold of her wrist and yank her from the tub. Her shins banged into the porcelain; her wet feet slipped on the tiles. She emitted a tortured cry, more of the spirit than the body.

''Tate, stop. I'll—"

He slammed her wet, naked body against the wall and pinned it there with his own. His hand closed tightly around her neck, just beneath her chin. "Who the fuck are you? Where is my wife? Who are you?"