The Husband’s Secret (Colby Agency: The Next Generation #5)

Chapter One

Los Angeles International Airport

Brenda Devers felt exhausted and so ready to get home. She missed her daughter.

Maybe it was the past few weeks catching up with her.

She stared out the wall of glass at the planes taxiing past on the tarmac.

Realistically she understood that it was a number of things combined.

It was the fact that her estranged husband had died just three weeks ago.

They hadn’t lived together in nearly a year, but he had fought the divorce process for the past six months as if their relationship wasn’t over.

Worse, he had flatly refused to negotiate custody terms—at all.

She pushed aside the troubling thoughts and decided she needed caffeine. Desperately. It was way too early to be functioning…even on West Coast time.

Rising to her feet, she reached for her wheeled bag.

She pulled it along behind her as she wove her way through the crowd in search of the nearest coffee bar.

The line was fairly long, but she had time.

Her flight wasn’t until six fifteen. This trip had been a whirlwind.

She had waited until Sunday afternoon to take a flight from Huntsville, Alabama, to Los Angeles.

All day Monday and well into the evening had been spent in meetings.

If she had been able to get on a flight last night, she would be home by now.

But that wasn’t possible. Instead, she had settled for the earliest possible flight this morning, and still it would be midafternoon before she was home.

She missed her little girl. Needed to be there for her child, who was missing her mother as well as her father.

Late last week when Brenda received the request for an appearance at this meeting, she had really wanted to decline. But her agent had insisted that if she wasn’t able to attend in person, things might not go as well. She really wanted Brenda to be there.

Frankly, if Brenda hadn’t so desperately needed this deal to go the right way, she would have just said no regardless of the results.

Who wouldn’t understand that her daughter needed her—she’d just lost her father.

Granted Janey was only four years old, but she fully comprehended the situation.

Her father was dead… He would not be coming back.

Considering his sudden death, Brenda supposed on some level it was a blessing that Scott had moved out of the house they shared all those months ago.

She cringed at the thought. Felt guilty, no matter that none of it was her fault.

As awful as it was for her to think that way, she had to be realistic here.

Obviously their daughter had grown accustomed to only spending every other weekend with him.

If there was any sort of upside to this tragedy, the distance created by the separation had to be it.

Still, Brenda felt like a terrible person for thinking such a thing.

What kind of person looked at death with an eye toward finding the upside?

Anger stirred deep in her belly. Perhaps one who kept her head in books—specifically the ones she wrote—rather than in real life. How many times had Scott said those words to her? He’d accused her of being too busy with her career to be a good wife.

Their world had been picture-perfect, he had insisted, until she decided a separation was in order.

But the truth was, the picture-perfect part had stopped being true five years ago when she’d learned of his first affair—at least she hoped it had been the first one.

Sure, she was a big girl who could overlook one indiscretion—one mistake—if he was truly sorry.

If he genuinely intended to make sure it never happened again.

And particularly since she’d found out she was pregnant with their first child around that same time.

And for an entire year things had appeared to be better. Then came another affair and the subsequent apology. But it wasn’t until that second one—no, that wasn’t right. It was the third one, at the end of his second period of repentance, that she was done.

Brenda rolled her eyes. She had been such a fool. Or maybe just desperate to keep their family together given they had a child. But sometimes a woman just had to admit it was over and move on.

Last year Brenda had reached that place.

Perhaps it was his over-the-top and utterly unreasonable reaction to her book being optioned for a movie only weeks after its release that was the final straw.

Yes, she had been hurt and angry when she wrote The Wife’s Diary.

After two affairs and two promises that it would never happen again, the third affair was reason enough to be both.

Writing the book had been like a balm to her soul.

A way to slough off all the pent-up emotions.

It wasn’t like she had used his name…though she had dedicated the book to him. Maybe it had been just a little nasty of her, but she wasn’t the one who had cheated multiple times.

Since making their separation legal and filing the necessary papers, she hadn’t felt guilty at all…

until the explosion. Having him die suddenly in such a horrific way, of course, made her sad.

She had been in love with him at one time.

Madly in love with him. But he had slowly but surely destroyed that love.

She would not live her life with a man who had so little respect for her that he felt having affairs was completely acceptable as long as he apologized.

Finally, it was her turn to order. Brenda bellied up to the counter and suddenly realized she had no idea what she wanted. She’d been in line all this time and should have figured that out by now, but she had been too caught up in all the awful business of her failed marriage.

“Just coffee,” she finally blurted, her frustration roaring in her brain. She really, really needed to be home with her daughter.

The barista stared at her, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other. “What size?”

The grumbling behind her had Brenda glancing over her shoulder.

She opened her mouth to answer the question, then froze…stopped breathing entirely.

“Short? Tall? Grande?” the barista insisted impatiently.

Brenda walked away from the counter, her gaze glued to the man she had spotted in the crowd.

Her brain refused to analyze what her eyes were telling her.

It was impossible. Of course it was. Her mind…

He was walking away now, only a few yards ahead of her. If she walked faster she would catch up to him and could reach out and… He suddenly paused and glanced toward something or someone across the hospitality area.

Brenda stalled in her tracks.

A woman hurried toward him. Blonde…tall…smiling.

When the blonde reached the man, she kissed him on the cheek.

Brenda’s jaw dropped. This couldn’t be right. Then the man smiled. Brenda only saw his profile, but she knew that lean jaw…that smile so well…

“Scott?”

She had called out his name before she realized she’d opened her mouth.

The man who could not possibly be her dead husband glanced back at her.

Brenda stood there, one hand on the handle of her wheeled bag, like a deer caught in the headlights of a massive truck barreling toward her.

The man blinked and then looked away, put his arm around the blonde, and they continued forward.

The shock holding Brenda in place suddenly fell away like melting ice slipping from rooftops after a winter blizzard. She rushed after the man and woman.

“Scott!” she called again.

The two didn’t slow. In fact, they seemed to be walking faster. Brenda did the same. A crowd of passengers from a deboarding plane abruptly poured from a gate, and Brenda had to weave through the thicker mass of bodies now going in both directions.

By the time she cleared the new throng, the man and the blonde had disappeared.

Brenda stood in the center of the long, wide terminal corridor. Scanning the faces, she turned all the way around.

Where had they gone?

The bank of elevators nearby…the escalators…one of the other gates…the restrooms.

One by one she walked through the waiting areas of each gate. She scrutinized the faces in search of the man who looked exactly like her dead husband and the blonde she had never seen before—but who was exactly his type.

She checked every food service and dining area.

Every single shopping spot. From there she went into each of the ladies’ rooms and checked the stalls—waiting for the closed ones to open.

Then, with a big breath, she entered each of the men’s rooms and did the same.

For the most part people ignored her. She’d expected someone to rant at her or to call security.

Not that she would have blamed them—her behavior was a little disturbing—but she was on a mission.

Ultimately, she had to admit that they were gone. Either the couple had boarded a plane already or exited the terminal.

Brenda wandered back to her gate, her bag trailing behind her.

She surely imagined the whole thing. She’d been thinking about Scott and the past and suddenly there he was.

As a writer, she’d done enough research in the field of psychology to realize that during times of extreme stress and/or emotional trauma the mind could play tricks on a person.

The eyes…the ears…even the heart could be less than reliable during times of anxiety on such a high level.

She lowered into a vacant seat. It was possible the man had only resembled Scott.

But when she’d said his name he’d glanced back, then quickly looked forward once more. In that infinitesimal moment she had seen something in his face. Surprise? Fear? Or maybe some other emotion that wouldn’t have been there if he were a stranger? Recognition, perhaps?

Was it possible he looked like her dead husband and also had his name?

Sure. Obviously it could happen. Seemed a stretch, but life could be surreal like that sometimes.

No. Brenda shook her head. She must have imagined it. She’d been deep in worrisome thoughts about her daughter and her husband’s affairs. The whole thing was likely some manifestation of her anxiety and frustration. This seemed far more logical. More reasonable.

Really, she needed to stop looking back and start looking forward.

This movie thing was really happening. They were months, maybe even years, away, but her novel was being made into a movie.

No more hoping the dream would see fruition—it was a sure thing.

It was a rare privilege to have reached such an amazing milestone.

Whatever the release date, next year or the year after, it was real. A smile pulled across her lips. Her agent had been right. She’d had to be in LA for yesterday’s meetings. And now, she was going home to celebrate with her favorite other human! Janey would be so excited.

No more looking back…only forward.