A Husband for the Holidays (Made For Matrimony 1) (12 page)

“Oh, Cheryl. She’s gorgeous. She looks just like you!”

“Thanks, Darce. This is my husband, Jake, and daughter, Olivia. We met at college. Been married five years.”

Yes, Darcy knew that. Marla had told her, had sent the invite on, and of course Darcy had sent her regrets. “I remember.”

Cheryl let it go. “Can I have your number? I’d love to get together for coffee if you’ve got time.”

Darcy’s first instinct was to say no, as much as she wanted to reconnect with her old friend. All these connections were like a vine, binding her to this place, holding her back when she knew she had to leave. But at the same time— She pulled out her phone. “Sure. I’d like that.”

Mack caught her eye over Cheryl’s head as Darcy slid her phone back in her pocket. He’d seen. He’d know what it cost her to connect. He gave her a private little smile and her heart flipped.

She got through the rest of the day and headed up to the house after. It was cold, colder than it’d been yet. It made the air dry, and the snow was squeaky under her boots. She’d managed to avoid Mack, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t last for long.

He could be determined.

She went in the kitchen and peeled off her layers. She usually just wore a thermal undershirt, a fleece jacket and a vest. Today it’d been cold enough for the full-on parka, even in the shelter of the barn. She unlaced her boots and left them at the door, and peeled out of her wool socks. She had cotton ones on under them, and long underwear under her jeans.

In the kitchen, her aunt and uncle smiled at her, and she pushed down thoughts of Mack and all the stupid feelings he invoked in her.

“Pretty cold,” Joe commented, and she plopped into the seat opposite him, handing the papers to him over the cracked and worn linoleum table.

“Yes, but it didn’t keep people away,” she said simply. “They’re just more likely to choose a precut tree rather than go tromping around in the woods.”

He grunted. “Mack had extra cut?”

“Of course,” she said, getting up to pour a cup of coffee. Decaf, of course, but it smelled good enough she didn’t care.

Another grunt, this one of approval. “Smart boy, that one.”

In some things, maybe. But Darcy wasn’t going to go there. “You trained him, Uncle Joe.”

Her uncle laughed, and she smiled back. He was looking better. His color was better, and while still he tired easily, he was coming back pretty good. Marla set a steaming plate in front of her. Chicken, sure, but also mashed potatoes and gravy. Her mouth watered. Darcy knew if she kept eating like this, she’d need a whole new wardrobe come the first of the year, but she couldn’t bring herself to care when she was this hungry.

“How is Mack?” Marla’s question was conversational, but Darcy sensed the potential minefield.

“Fine,” she said as she dredged a bite of chicken through the potatoes and gravy. “This is excellent, Aunt Marla.” She popped the bite in her mouth, hoping her dodge worked.

“Thank you, dear,” Marla said. Joe had retired to the living room and his favorite chair and was poring over the records. It appeared he’d pulled out last year’s, as well. He was oblivious to the twist in conversation. Marla folded her arms on the table and leaned forward earnestly. “I have to ask. Are you and Mack considering reconciliation?”

Darcy opened her mouth, then shut it again. She pushed a few peas out of the gravy river on her plate. “No. I don’t believe we are, Aunt Marla.” The words were surprisingly hard to say. Because she wanted it to be true? Or because it hadn’t occurred to her?

Who was she kidding? Of course it had occurred to her. How could it not?

Marla sat back. “I will say that’s too bad. He’s a great guy and you deserve the happiness you had with him.”

Darcy shoved her plate away, all appetite gone. No, she didn’t. She’d tossed it away as if it didn’t matter. Made no difference at this point if it was true or not—he believed it was. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Aunt Marla. You, of all people—you know that.” She’d been the one to pick up the pieces. Or as many pieces as Darcy had allowed.

Compassion softened her aunt’s features. “I do know that, honey. I know that very well. But a lot of things brought you back here. If there’s a chance, an opportunity, why not take it?”

It wasn’t too far from what Darcy had been thinking, yet worlds away. She hadn’t been thinking in terms of reconciliation. She’d been thinking of apologizing, maybe getting him to understand where she’d been coming from. Somewhere along the line that had changed. And she hadn’t even realized it until now.

“Too much time has gone by,” she said simply. “We’re different people now. That’s not a bad thing.”

Marla shook her head. “No, it’s not, that’s true. But you’ve locked yourself down so tight, you won’t let anyone in. How is that a good thing? You’re so young.”

Darcy gave a little shrug, as she had done when she was a teenager and pinned in the corner by her aunt. She didn’t like being cornered. But she wasn’t going to explain herself. She didn’t think she’d shut herself down that tightly. She was practical, sure, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It’d gotten her this far in life.

In her bed that night, she listened to the wind howl. It battered snow against the window—in this kind of temperature, it was little more than hard kernels of snow—and just seemed to underscore her loneliness. She was under the quilt in her old bedroom in her childhood home, instead of in the bed of the man who’d loved her. Who’d married her and done right by her when she got pregnant.

And she’d left him.

She curled onto her side and slipped into dreams of what could have been.

Chapter Twelve

T
he next couple of days were busy. She and Mack had fallen into a kind of truce. She didn’t know what he wanted, but he wasn’t pushing her. He was friendly, sometimes flirty, and every time he gave her that slow smile, her insides turned into a total puddle. Was he waiting for her to come to him? That didn’t seem likely. Mack wasn’t a game player. He was straightforward and solid. But he was clearly holding back. Waiting for her to make the next move?

Racking her brain meant she wasn’t paying attention. And not paying attention meant she was recruited to go with Mack out to the far field to check one of the warming stations.

“I can just go,” she offered, and saw him cock his eyebrow. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.”

“Let’s go,” he said, and walked to the ATV. She trotted behind, mentally kicking herself for thinking she could get away from him.

They got in, and while she was grateful for the roar of the engine, she was pressed right up against him in the little vehicle. This was really a one-person ride, not for two, especially when the past of those two people crowded in and seemed to both shove them apart while cementing them together.

She tucked her face in the neck of her zipped-up parka, trying to protect against the stinging wind.

At the station he cut the engine and got out almost before it came to a stop. She hopped after him, feeling resentful and angry and knowing it wasn’t his fault.

No, she wanted more and was angry with herself for wanting it.

She restocked while he checked the errant coffeemaker. She loved that he was so handy, had always been, and that didn’t appear to have changed at all.

By the time he’d finished she was done. “Why am I here?”

“That’s a good question,” he said mildly, and all it did was make her madder.

“Mack. You didn’t need me out here. And you won’t talk to me—”

He was in front of her in about two strides. She gasped and backed up, but the wall was behind her and he’d planted both arms on either side of her, caging her in but not actually touching her. The look in his eyes was molten and she swallowed hard. He didn’t say a word, just kept his eyes on hers until the last moment when his mouth came down on hers. Hard. There was no mercy in his kiss. He didn’t touch her, but she felt the tension and hardness of his body even without the contact. She fisted her hands at her sides and kissed him back, giving as good as she got. Then she stopped thinking altogether.

He pulled away and the only sound other than the blood roaring in her ears was the rasp of their breathing in the quiet of the cabin. She lifted her fingers to touch her mouth, realized they were shaking and dropped her hand again.

“Damn it, Darcy,” he said, but there wasn’t any heat in the words. “You’ve got it all wrong.” He stepped back, his eyes still on hers, and she could barely breathe. “All wrong,” he repeated, and turned away.

She moved quickly and grabbed his arm. “What? What do I have wrong, Mack?” If he could tell her, if she could know, it would make all this so much easier.

He shook his head. “I just wanted to love you. But you wouldn’t let me, then or now. Why is that?”

She stared up at him. It had never been that easy. “Because that’s not how it worked for us. And, Mack, come on. We have too much baggage to make anything work. It’s better left behind.”

“Not a day goes by, Darcy, that I don’t think of you. Of the baby. That I don’t wonder what if. If we’d stayed together, would we have more? What would they look like?” His voice was so raw tears burned in her eyes and she knew what she had to do.

“I can answer part of that. No. There wouldn’t be any more.” Her voice was shaky and the words almost stuck in her throat. But it had to be said and it had to be said now.

“Because you didn’t want them?” There was bitterness in his tone, and it made her heart ache even more that he’d think that of her, even if it was in anger.

She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “No. Because I can’t have any more. I can’t get pregnant, Mack.”

* * *

Mack’s ears were ringing. Darcy stood in front of him. Her mouth was still forming words, but he wasn’t hearing any of them.
Can’t get pregnant.
“What do you mean, you can’t get pregnant?”

She lifted her chin. “From the damage of the miscarriage and the accident, the odds of me ever conceiving again are nearly zero. I’m more likely to be struck by lightning.” Her tone was nearly expressionless.

Shock was reverberating around in him, making her words bounce around in his brain like a bunch of loose Ping-Pong balls. He moved away from her and she stayed where she was.

“Mack. I’m so sorry.” Now there was pain in her words, regret and sorrow. She’d known this for how long?

“How long?” The words ripped from his throat. “How long have you known?”

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. And he knew.

“You’ve known since you left,” he said, almost wonderingly. “And you never said one word. Not one.” And hell if he’d ever thought to ask her. He’d said, over and over, they could have another baby. How much he wanted to have a baby with her.

And she’d said nothing. Why not? If she hadn’t been able to tell him, why hadn’t the doctors told him?

She looked away and he saw her visibly fighting for control of her emotions. Then she looked back at him. “Yes. I knew the possibility was there. And it was confirmed later.”

“After you’d already left.”

“Mack, the doctor said there was a chance I couldn’t get pregnant again! Remember? But you were so dead set on having another one, when I wasn’t even out of the hospital yet.”

She was already moving toward the door. “I’m walking back up. There’s nothing more to say about this. I’m sorry. I really am. But I didn’t see any reason to tell you when it was clearly over with us.”

It wasn’t until she’d left and the swirl of snow she’d let in on her exit had settled that he realized what she’d said.

* * *

It’d been a long time since Mack drank enough to, well, get drunk. And he was only half surprised when Chase showed up on his doorstep, grim-faced and tense.

Mack let his brother in and went back and collapsed on the couch. He could still feel, damn it. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to fill the hole Darcy’s words had made in his heart.

“Why are you here?” Or at least that was what he meant to say. It seemed to come out a little slurred.

“Darcy called me. Told me I should check on you.” Even in his state, Mack could hear the bitterness in his brother’s voice. “What the hell did she do to you?”

He let his head loll back on the couch. Closing his eyes was bad. Things started to spin. Maybe he’d had a little more than he thought. “Nothing.”

The crash and clink of glass pierced his mental fog. “All these say otherwise,” Chase said as he left the room, the bottles clinking in his hands. “Tell me,” he said quietly when he came back in. “It must have been bad if she called me.”

Something seemed off about that, but Mack wasn’t quite tracking well enough to get it. Wait. There it was. “Darcy called
you
?” Wow. Cold day in hell, and all that.

“Yeah,” he said. “She asked me to check on you. Why?”

“She told me she can’t have any more babies,” he blurted, then winced. Even in this condition, he didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t Chase’s business. He wasn’t sure it was even his own. Not anymore.

“Okay,” Chase said, his voice level. “But you’re not together.”

Nope, he wasn’t far enough gone to muffle the pain of those words. Damn it. “No.”

Chase didn’t say anything else. He got up, and when he came back he had a sandwich, which he handed to Mack. “You need this more than another beer.”

Mack took it, but he wasn’t so sure. What he really needed he was afraid he’d never have again.

His wife back.

* * *

The next morning Mack’s head pounded. He’d earned the headache. He dragged himself through his day at his vet practice, and while he was perfectly pleasant to his staff, his patients and their owners, his office staff had clearly caught his underlying mood and were handling him with kid gloves.

He went out to the tree farm because it wasn’t in his nature to shirk his duties just because it was awkward. He could handle it. Unless it came to his ex-wife, of course. It was becoming crystal clear he had no idea how to handle her.

He didn’t see her when he first pulled in. Then he spotted her in her navy fleece jacket and red vest, a bright red hat covering her copper hair. He swallowed hard. She looked up then, spotted him and said something to Wendy, who laughed as she walked away.

Now she was walking toward him, her stride long and purposeful. He didn’t move, just shoved his hands in his pockets and let her come, let her make the move. It wasn’t in his court. This was all her.

“Can we talk?” Her brown eyes searched his and he saw the shadows on the fine skin under her eyes. She hadn’t slept any better than he had.

He was tempted to say no way, but he didn’t want to hurt her more. There’d been too much pain between them already. “Sure.”

She turned and headed out the door, toward the house. He caught up with her and they walked, wordlessly, through the dark to the house.

* * *

Darcy was nervous. Her fingers shook as she unzipped her fleece jacket. She went into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” he said, and his voice was quiet and cautious. She didn’t blame him. She’d undone everything they’d rebuilt in the space of a few minutes last night. Again. Clearly, this was not meant to work out. Not ever.

She prepared the mugs and handed him one, unable to hide the fact her hands were shaking. The coffee sloshed in the mug but didn’t spill. He took it with no comment other than a murmured “Thanks.”

The best way out is through.
She’d always loved the line from Whitman and it steadied her now. She sat and gestured for him to do the same.

“I’m sorry I sprang that on you like I did last night,” she said. This needed to come from the heart, for her sake and his. “And I’m even more sorry I didn’t tell you what the doctor said all those years ago.”

Maybe it would have been easier for him if he’d known they could never be what he wanted so badly. Help him understand why she’d left. Tears burned her eyes. She’d thought she was done crying over this. But the magnitude of their loss hung between them now and she finally saw it differently. She’d held on to it as
hers
for so long she’d forgotten it was really
theirs
.

He sat back, his expression shuttered, his untouched coffee steaming on the table between them. She couldn’t read him, wasn’t sure what was going on in his head. “It was a lot to take in,” she said quietly. “And I handled it all badly.”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah, we both did.” He sat forward, and rested his arms on the table, gaze on his fingers. She wanted to take his hand in hers, but instead threaded her fingers together tightly in her lap, so tightly it hurt. “Darce. I just wish you’d have told me. Let me carry some of it with you.”

The dark thing, the deepest secret she held, battered against her chest. She wasn’t going to tell him all of it. They had a chance to make a fragile peace. Telling him it had all been her fault wasn’t going to help that, help him. And she owed him the chance to move on. So she said simply, “Me, too.”

Because that was true. If she’d let him take some of it from her, would she have been able to stay? Hard to tell. She’d been a physical and emotional wreck at the time. She’d come back here, to the farm, to recuperate. He’d tried to get her to come home, but she’d refused. And he had eventually stopped arguing with her. Her physical injuries had healed, but her emotional ones ran much deeper. So deep, she didn’t think she’d ever get around them. It was an ache she doubted would ever go away.

They sat for another few minutes and Darcy would have given almost anything to know what he was thinking. Then he said, “We need to get back.”

Relieved it was over, she pushed back from the table and stood, reaching for his mug. But he caught her hand as he rose from his chair and tugged her around the table toward him. She stood in front of him, inhaling his scent, close but not close enough. She knew it’d never be close enough. Not now. He bent and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. Then he dropped her hand and stepped back.

She put the mugs in the sink and they walked, wordless, back to the farm. The cheery, noisy bustle of happy families and Christmas music carried down the lane and for a minute Darcy felt suspended between two worlds—the one she had and the one she could have had if she’d stayed.

It was an eerie, unsettling feeling.

* * *

They managed to work around each other, but Darcy found the fragile peace they’d forged exhausting. She just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. Until the day after Christmas, when she could finally go back to Chicago.
Home.

Or was it?

She missed Chicago, but she’d begun to realize it wasn’t quite home. Not the way this place was. Was that because she’d grown up here? Or because she still had some kind of feelings for Mack?

It seemed best to just admit it. That there were clearly lingering feelings, but it was in no way enough to move forward on. If either of them had wanted to. And she did not. There was too much pain in the past that would bleed through to their present.

“It’s not enough,” she said out loud to the spruce tree in front of her.
There, I said it.
Now all she had to do was hang on to that for the rest of her stay and she could escape mostly unscathed.

Some things just couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much you wished otherwise.

* * *

The next morning, Darcy disconnected her phone and set it on the table in Java, the coffee shop that had become her closest thing to a home office.

So far, things were moving fairly smoothly in Chicago. Mally had things well in hand, which didn’t surprise Darcy. She opened her laptop to check for the file Mally had emailed during their conversation. Perusing her assistant’s work, she realized that Mally didn’t need Darcy’s direction. She knew exactly what she was doing and was in fact fully qualified to take over Darcy’s position if she wanted to step down.