Chapter 9
It started as something gentle. Something hesitant.
And then it wasn’t. Not gentle. It was not tame or timid or questioning.
It burned her down to the roots of her soul. It touched something deep and dark and hidden.
Something she’d thought was long since dead and buried and gone.
His tongue slid against hers, stroking to life the very sensations she thought she’d never feel again.
It was electric, the feel of his mouth against hers. The scrape of stubble against her chin, the taste of him. The smell of his skin.
He nipped her. Pinched her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked it. And she sighed at the pleasure, at the raw ache his taste and touch aroused in her, pushing aside the darkness that haunted her.
She felt him. Felt everything. The heat of his skin. The warmth that drew her closer. That made her want to crawl into his lap and unzip his pants and push up that damned flannel shirt until they were skin to skin and there was nothing between them but sweat and heat.
One hand slid down her side. Tugged at her fleece and…
“Dear lord,” he muttered against her lips. “How many layers of clothing do you have on under this thing?”
She smiled. “You weren’t wondering why I wasn’t cold?”
“Well, you’d be a champ at strip poker right about now,” he said dryly.
Then his fingers found her skin, and she was no longer thinking.
He traced the very tips of his fingers over her belly. Light, feathery strokes that made her skin quiver. She gasped when he slipped them higher, finding the swell of her breast. Every cell in her body was alert to his touch, anticipating the next stroke of his fingers.
He lifted his mouth from hers. Pressed his tongue to the corner of her lips before nipping her there.
Then he paused, pressing his cheek to hers. Just for a moment, the world fell away, and he was there, holding her, cradling her, reminding her of everything that was still good between them.
It was a moment before she felt it. His breath teasing the sensitive flesh around her ear. A quiet huff of air against her skin. Her body tensed, waiting for his touch, his tongue.
A delicious torment. An old familiar heat slid through her veins, warming her, pulling her out of the darkness at the bottom of the well.
In the silence of heated desire, of hushed passion, she heard it.
Someone gently rapping on the driver’s side window.
She pulled back, seeing the wanting smile on Patrick’s lips. “Someone’s timing sucks.”
He released her and her skin protested the loss of his touch. She shivered as he rolled the window down.
“Well,” Garrett said, leaning down on the side of the car, “it’s certainly awkward meeting you like this.”
Sam offered a guilty half smile. “I was going to call.”
“Sure. I get that all the time. Anyway, you two probably need to turn around. Bad accident up ahead, and the road is going to be closed until we get it cleaned up. With the storm coming in, you’re not getting by any time soon.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” Sam asked. “I don’t think this thing has four-wheel drive.”
“Well, maybe if you two weren’t making out like a couple of horny teenagers, you’d have paid better attention to the roads.” He pulled a single key off his loop. “My parents’ house is about a half a mile that way.” He pointed back the way they’d come.
She swallowed the resurgent lump in her throat. Her mom had told her about Garrett’s parents last year when it happened. She’d been deployed.
She’d sent flowers from Iraq because it was the only thing she could think to do from half a world away.
Patrick accepted the key.
“I’ll find you tomorrow with the key.”
“Sure.” He stepped back away from the car, using his flashlight to guide them as they turned around. “Now get your asses out of the storm before I have to dig you out in the spring.”
It was easy enough to find the Rierson’s house. Set back in an old field, the driveway that led up to the old log cabin had recently been plowed.
The silence between them was quiet. Comfortable.
And filled with needy tension.
They walked into the old house and Sam felt an aching sense of the familiar twisted now with age and experience. It was the same and not the same. It felt smaller, somehow, from the house she remembered as a teen.
She paused in the entryway as Patrick closed the door behind them. For a moment, the world fell away, taking the darkness and the sadness and the emptiness with it. Leaving a warmth, a sense of being home in its place. Funny. She hadn’t spent time in this house in years but it felt…good.
She glanced over at Patrick. Saw him watching her. Standing close, too close and not close enough. She met his gaze and in that moment, realized with aching clarity that they were alone.
Really alone.
Her mouth went dry.
He waited. In the shadows and the snow by the door, he waited.
She wanted him to move into her space and kiss her and make her feel alive again.
But she knew this man. Despite the chasm that had grown between them, she knew him.
And she knew that he would wait. Would stand quietly by until she made that first choice.
She would never be alone.
But that first hesitant step, she had to make by herself.
He wouldn’t force her.
It was one of the things she loved about him. He was steadfast and loyal and good.
And she was losing him through her own inaction.
She stood there then, taking in the sight of the man who’d stood by her the day she’d told him she was pregnant with someone else’s child.
The day he’d held her hand and told her he’d always be there for her.
The day he’d gone with her into the hospital and went through labor and delivery to bring their daughter into the world.
He’d never left her alone.
Not even now when she’d left him alone in the cold and the dark.
It was a long moment. The storm whipped against the outside storm door, slamming it open, then shut and startling them both.
Shattering the moment and leaving a chill between them. She shivered at the suddenness of the feeling.
He stepped to her then, running his hands down her arms. “I’ll start a fire.”
She let him go because she was a coward. Because she was afraid. Afraid of what he made her feel.
Of what her life would feel like without him.
Of what her life would feel like if all the emotions she’d locked away came tumbling out.
The fire was warm on his face. It penetrated the flannel and the wool and heated his skin.
But it didn’t heat the fear in the seat of his soul that said he was losing her. That she was slipping further away.
He’d hoped she would make that step. That after the car and the changing room, she would trust him enough to let him help with whatever was eating at her.
But she hadn’t moved, and it had hurt.
He hadn’t been prepared for the hurt. He should have expected it. He knew she didn’t do impulsive or rash. She always looked before she leaped.
He was asking her to leap. Without saying the words, asking her to take that step, out of the darkness and back into the light.
And so to avoid the hurt, to avoid saying something that would set his campaign back a dozen lifetimes, he let her be.
He made the fire instead and hoped that maybe this storm was a blessing in disguise. That maybe this time alone was something they’d both needed and hadn’t realized it.
Because maybe they’d gotten so caught up with being Captain Samantha Egan and Major Patrick MacLean and Mommy and Daddy that they’d forgotten how to be Sam and Patrick.
She walked up behind him. “Beer?” She held out a dark glass bottle.
“Thanks.”
“I figure we’ll replace it tomorrow when we find Garrett and give him the key.” She sank down on the floor next to him, leaning back on the old worn couch.
“Sounds like a good plan. Did you call your mom?”
“Yeah. Natalie’s being funny. She didn’t even ask where we’d be.”
He twisted off the cap, turning it over in his fingers before taking a long pull. “You know she called me, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s conspiring to get us together,” he said quietly.
“I fail to see how an eight-year-old can do that.”
He shrugged. “I won’t go so far as to say she’s got a direct line to God, but I’ll definitely give her some credit in this whole scheme. I mean we wouldn’t be snowed in if she hadn’t called me.” He glanced over at her. The firelight danced over her skin, teasing him with orange and red and glowing shadows and light. “She’s a pretty perceptive little bugger.”
“You know she hasn’t said a word about why we were here without you.” She twisted the cap off her own beer, nestling the bottle between her bent knees. “And I wasn’t ready to explain.”
“What did you tell her when you left?” Because he needed to know.
“That you had to work.” She lifted her gaze to his. “A convenient lie.”
It was Patrick’s turn to look away. To avoid the hurt that rose sudden and sharp inside him.
“She figured it out anyway,” he said when he could speak.
“Yeah. She did.”
They sat in silence, the fire crackling and snapping in front of them. She shifted after a bit until their shoulders were touching. Until her thighs pressed against his.
He didn’t move. Didn’t take advantage of her closeness.
He just savored it. Savored the fact that she was there. That she’d moved closer.
That she hadn’t run away.
He’d expected her to.
“I remember the day you told me you were pregnant with her.” His voice was hushed, now. Calm.
“I thought you’d leave. Any other guy would have.” She looked into her beer, rubbing her thumb over the condensation. “Not my proudest moment.”
“It was a pretty rough day for a month-old relationship, I’ll give you that.”
She glanced at him, the fire reflecting in her eyes. “Why are you so damn patient? And calm. I’ve never seen you not calm.”
He took a long pull off his beer. “You didn’t see me the day you left.”
Quiet words. Filled with hurt and pain and grief.
“I spent two days at the bottom of a bottle.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk.”
He raised his beer in mock salute. “I save getting plastered for special occasions.” She snorted quietly. He looked over at her once again.
“When I came home after that last tour, I couldn’t wait to see you. I was so goddamned happy to be alive.” He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the label. “Part of me, though, whispered that you wouldn’t stay if you knew about my accident. I was ashamed of that voice, those whispers. They weren’t me. They lied.” He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t shut them down, though, until I recognized what they were.”
She closed her eyes, letting his words sink in. Turning them over, inspecting them. Weighing them against the truth of her life for the last few months. “I couldn’t—I can’t—believe that I won’t always feel this way.” An admission laced with guilt. With fear.
He shifted then, resting his hand on the back of the sofa where they leaned against it on the floor in front of the fireplace. He brushed her hair gently away from her neck. “You can get better. This stuff—it’s just post deployment stuff. You went through an incredibly dangerous experience. This—what you went through, what I went through—it took me a while to learn that it’s a completely normal reaction to a completely abnormal situation.”
“What if it’s not?” Fear, dark and powerful, laced those words. “What if it doesn’t get better? What if talking to Doc and taking meds and getting sleep—what if nothing helps?”
“What if it does?” He leaned closer then, brushing his lips against her forehead. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see how hard this was for you,” he whispered.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat was tight, her heart pounding violently in her chest. The voice in her head told her he wouldn’t—he couldn’t still love her after this. But it was wrong. He was there, standing strong and steady with her, just like he always was. She just had to trust. To ignore the whispers that told her she was a broken, useless thing. That he would be better off without her.
After a moment she set her beer on the edge of the hearth. Pale golden light danced in the glass.
And then she moved. Urged his knees down and slid into his lap until she straddled him.
He froze. Unwilling to move or unable, she wasn’t sure.
He set his beer down and lowered his hands to the floor. Just near her hips.
And waited.
For an explanation. For answers. For any sign that she heard what he said and believed he’d meant every word.
Neither of them were perfect. Neither of them was without sin in the decay of their relationship.
* * *
Sitting there, the woman he loved straddling his hips, her hair surrounding her face in a chestnut halo, he waited. It was the longest wait of his life but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t risk screwing up and shattering the tentative bridge spanning the distance between them.
Until she was ready.
And prayed that she would make the leap.