“Stupid, damn tapes!” Ruby Jordan complained aloud as she stomped into her husband’s study to turn off the machine. Rhoda, her ditzy cleaning lady, had probably touched the switches on the complicated deck when she’d dusted earlier.
A killer headache pounded behind Ruby’s eyes, and she knew it would get worse before Jack got home. Would there be another argument?
Ruby stopped short when she saw Jack selecting some of his business motivation tapes and putting them into a briefcase.
“I didn’t know you were home. Why didn’t you—”
“Don’t start on me again, Rube,” Jack Jordon interrupted his wife, a silken thread of warning in his deep-timbred voice. “I’ve had it up to here with the fighting.” He slashed his throat emphatically with a forefinger to make his point.
“Me, too,” Ruby whispered on a broken sigh, then noticed his suitcases lined up next to the door. So, he really was leaving. She’d expected it for weeks, but still tears welled in her eyes.
“Jack, are you sure you want this?” How many times had she asked that question the last two weeks? What a fool to think the answer might be different this time!
Jack straightened from his bent position over the stereo, turned it off and rubbed his eyes wearily with the fingers of one hand before darting an impatient glare at her. He still wore the dark blue business suit he’d donned early that morning.
Ruby knew that the recession-hit real estate market had put him through the wringer this past year. One month they’d even had to use her salary to pay the bills—a walloping blow to his ego. Jack’s wide shoulders sagged now with sadness and exhaustion. He probably hadn’t eaten all day. For a moment, Ruby’s heart softened and she almost asked him if she could fix his dinner. Almost.
“Rube, our marriage sucks. We’ve been hurting each other for a long time, and I’m tired of trying anymore. I’ve got to get on with my life… we both do. These arguments tear me apart… affect my work.”
Ruby listened with rising dismay, and a cold foreboding sealed her lips. When she didn’t respond, he continued in a harsh, pain-raw voice, “I’m thirty-eight years old, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with a woman who gets more turned on by her job and her clients than me.”
“Oh!” she gasped, stunned by his bluntness. “That’s not true. It’s just like you to put a sexual connotation on everything.”
“Hey, that’s about the only thing that works for us anymore, and even that doesn’t happen all that often these days,” Jack said with a wry grin and a shrug.
His smile, as intimate as a kiss, could still make Ruby’s heart do cartwheels after all these years, and Ruby had to steel herself to his charm before asking tremulously, “You’re not saying you’re leaving because of sex problems?”
“You know better than that.” His smile faded as his bleak blue eyes stabbed her accusingly. “We could go upstairs right now and screw each other’s brains out, and it wouldn’t solve a thing.”
“You are so crude!”
“Yeah, well, you won’t have to put up with it much longer,” Jack retorted hotly. His jaw tensed visibly, but then he softened, touching her trembling lips with a fleeting, whisper-soft caress of his fingertips. “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t want things to end like this. Can’t we just part amicably?”
Ruby shriveled inside a little at his words. She tried to picture a future without Jack in it. Anguish tore at her insides with steely fingers, and she had to hold her knuckles to her mouth to hold back the pain.
“Is there… another woman?” Ruby persisted in a soft, faint voice that broke with the emotion she couldn’t hide.
Jack turned on her angrily. “No! I’ve told you that a dozen times.” His glittering eyes challenged her. “You can be sure, though, that I intend to find a woman who won’t consider me a male chauvinist just because I want to take care of her.” Bitterness limned his voice as he took a deep breath and continued, “I’ll tell you something else. Our kids need a full-time mother. Good Lord! How much time have you spent with them lately? They feel as neglected as I do.”