He looked lost and lonely. Confused. Maybe his absences would have been easier to bear if there
had
been women or he’d had a gambling or drinking problem. Instead his mistress had been his job, his vice the adrenaline of working a dangerous job.
“Time,” she finally answered. “I wanted your time.”
“I gave you my time, Tess. Every minute not spent working, I spent with you.”
“I got what was leftover and only on the condition that work didn’t need you.” Painful memories of the times she’d needed him crowded her thoughts. There had been several, but two stood out among them.
“That’s not true.” His tone was angry. He always got angry when they discussed this.
“Yes. It’s true.”
“When? When was I ever not there for you?” He held up his hand to forestall her response. “Apart from the baby.”
Ah, the baby. Here was where the water got deep, but she pushed those thoughts away. “I asked,” she whispered. “So many times. Remember the lake?”
His brows creased and her heart sank. Of course he wouldn’t remember the lake.
“I asked you to go to the lake with me. I was… I needed you, Alex. I needed you with me. I needed to talk to you.”
“I had to work, Tess. I took the time off, but work—”
“It was always work. Don’t you see that? You used it as a crutch, as an excuse not to be with me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Do you know why I asked you to move out, Alex? Do you really want to know why? Because I was already living alone. Because you had left me a long time ago.”
“Ah, Tessie. That’s not true.”
“It is.” She wiped the tears off her cheek and looked at the Christmas tree of memories. “I’m sure I wasn’t the perfect wife. Maybe I asked too much. Maybe I was too clingy. Too needy.”
“No. I didn’t…” He cleared his throat and looked down. “I didn’t know what to say to you after. I didn’t know what you needed from me.”
“You never asked. You just closed yourself off and never asked. Never spoke of…her.”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
“I felt like you just wrote her off. That you didn’t care.”
His head jerked up. “Of course I cared. My God, Tess, what do you think I am? Some monster?”
“No. Not a monster.”
In her heart she knew it hadn’t been his fault. A quirk of fate. At the same time their daughter was sliding out of her body, way too early to survive on her own, Alex had been in a field, chasing a felon. During the foot race he’d lost his radio.
When he finally came, his grief had been written in the shadows of his eyes and the tremors coursing through his body. He’d held her and apologized, but already her heart had begun to harden. In her own grief, she’d lashed out, irrationally believing if he’d been there, she wouldn’t have gone into premature labor in the first place.
Moreover, it was still there. That anger. That grief. “Say her name,” she said. “I’ve never heard you say her name.”
His jaw muscle clenched and he looked away. “I can’t.”
“You can’t, what? Say her name?”
He shook his head, one quick jerk. “I’ve never said it out loud. I can’t.”
Thousands of times she’d cried over the fact she’d never hear the word “Mommy” from her firstborn’s lips. She’d never stopped to wonder if Alex mourned the loss of his first “Daddy”.
“Margaret,” she whispered. “Maggie.”
He blinked rapidly, as if clearing tears from his eyes. Tess didn’t have his self-control. Her tears rolled down her cheeks.
“There’ll be others,” people had told her. It’d taken two years for her to get pregnant with Maggie. Yes, maybe there could have been others, but there’d never be another Maggie.
She’d begged him for another baby, knowing only the need to fill her empty womb and her aching arms. Alex had argued it was too soon. Her persistence eventually wore him down, but their attempts proved unsuccessful.
“Did I push too hard?” she asked. “Wanting another baby? Did I do something wrong to push you away?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t you. I should have been there,” he said, the words coming out strained, barely audible. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It just…is.” She’d said those exact words to herself so many times, but actually saying them out loud and to Alex made a difference somehow.
“We’re still married,” he said, repeating his earlier statement.
“Yes, we’re still married.”
He took her hand in his and squeezed. “I intend to keep it that way.”
“Alex—”
He pressed a finger on her lips. “I’m just giving you fair warning. I moved out once, but I have no intention of doing it again. I love you.” He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “And that’s a good place to start.”
Chapter Twelve
Alex pulled his hand from Tess’s and stood. “I’m going to bed. Would you care to join me?” Seductive invitation laced his words and brightened his eyes.
They’d talked and it had been a positive step forward, but they still had so much to work out. Was leaping into bed with him going too fast? Even though technically they were still married, she felt like they were in the beginning phases of a new, very fragile relationship. Would sleeping with him tip the scales in their favor, or push them toward something they weren’t ready for?
“I’m going to stay up a little longer,” she said finally.
His smile wavered and he nodded.
Tess stared at the tree as he made his way to his room. Each ornament symbolized a happy time in her life, but in between there had been sadness and heartache, fights and recriminations.
Could they be happy again?
Could they make their marriage work a second time around?
Would it be easier to play second fiddle to his career now that she had a burgeoning career of her own?
In the beginning, the Christmas tree had merely been a symbol of the season. Now it represented a lifetime of memories and heartache. A life she had once lived and, for some time, wanted to get away from.
She’d thought she’d been solving her problems by asking for a divorce, but now she wondered if she’d tried hard enough. Maybe Alex really didn’t understand how lonely she’d been. Maybe instead of shoving him out, she should have talked more.
She walked into her bedroom—the room Alex was using and the room they’d spent the last two nights in together. His clothes lay on the floor, right where he’d tossed them. Dirty socks sat next to the clothes hamper instead of inside it. Shoes were scattered everywhere. Believe it or not, she’d missed this. Maybe not the picking up of his stuff, but the mess of another person. The signs of another human being living in this house. She opened the bottom drawer of her dresser where she kept her summer T-shirts and shorts, listening with half an ear to Alex brushing his teeth. She searched by touch until she found what she was looking for.
With the box clutched to her breasts, she approached the tree. Alex had placed the ornaments in chronological order, starting at the bottom with the oldest and moving toward the top with the newest. Last year they hadn’t added a new ornament. There’d been too much heartache and maybe they’d both sensed the approach of the end.
With shaking hands, Tess opened the box, pulled the ornament out and carefully placed it near the top. The pink ball swayed and twisted, catching the light from the fireplace. With the tip of her finger, she traced the
M
engraved on the ball.
Maggie’s First Christmas.
She had bought it as soon as she discovered they were having a daughter. It had been her way of telling Alex. Maggie had died soon after.
She hugged her arms to her chest and glanced at the closed bedroom door. For two nights she’d slept in his arms. For two days he’d cared for her with tenderness and love. She ached for the touch of his hands on her bare skin, for the feel of his lips on hers—for the closeness they had once shared. She’d felt it, just a little, over the past two days when he was taking care of her. And she was adult enough to admit she wanted more. Always had. That’s what their problem had been. She’d wanted more. He was only willing to give it under certain conditions.
Would things be the same after they’d made love? Probably. But tonight she felt as if they’d made some progress. They’d talked about Maggie. They’d talked about the divorce. There was more, but Alex was right, everything couldn’t be resolved in one night. It had taken months for their marriage to fall apart. It would take months to rebuild it.
If they were both willing. Which it seemed they were.
Another step in the right direction would be making love. A reconnection of something they both missed. A joining of past and present to make a new future.
Alex lay in bed and looked through the darkness at Tess standing in the doorway. She stood just inside the door, the light from the hall outlining her, turning her hair to fire. Like an angel. A Christmas angel.
Because he was so attuned to her emotions, because he loved her so much, he sensed her hesitation and held his breath in anticipation.
Waiting.
Wondering.
Hoping.
Praying.
For what seemed like an eternity, she stood perfectly still.
When she finally stepped inside, Alex released his breath, knowing he had somehow won this round in her internal debate. He didn’t know what had tipped the scales in his favor. It was enough she’d chosen to come to him.
He raised himself up on his elbows and stared at her.
She held her hand out to him. “Make love to me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He heard in his heart the emotional appeal and the walls of her resistance crumbling. In answer, and because he didn’t trust himself to speak just yet, he pushed the covers off and stood beside the bed. His knee ached, but he ignored it and the cane beside the bed.
She led him into the living room where the fire burned brightly and the lights on the tree twinkled. A comforter was spread on the floor, Othello curled in the center of it. Tess laughed and nudged the dog with her toe. He gave a big yawn, stood, stretched and wandered away.
Alex’s heart took permanent residence in his throat. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe as he gazed at his wife.
With shaking hands, he drew her to him. “I meant it when I said I’m not leaving again.”
“I know.”
She pressed her nose into his T-shirt and he bit back a groan. He’d buried his emotions deep and held his desire in check for so long that his body trembled and he didn’t know if he had any restraint left within him.
He ran his hands up and down her arms, loving the softness and warmth of her even through the thick flannel pajamas.
Slowly he sank to the floor, but it wasn’t a graceful movement. His knee gave out and he fell on his ass, taking Tess with him. They laughed. Any other time he would have been mortified and ashamed that he couldn’t even get to the floor to make love, but tonight he didn’t care. None of that mattered now.
Tess wrapped her arms around his waist and rolled, pulling him on top. He planted his hands on the sides of her head and lifted his weight off her. He’d wanted to make love to her almost since he’d moved back, but he also knew that making love wasn’t going to solve their problems. What if he did the wrong thing? What if he drove her away again?
His erection brushed against her thigh and his thoughts went south. She reached for him and he grabbed her hand. “Only if you’re sure,” he said, though the words about killed him.
Her fingers flexed. “Oh, I’m sure.” She lifted her hips to tug at her pajama bottoms and Alex pulled his T-shirt over his head. She had to help ease his shorts over his knee, but he didn’t mind that either. It was strangely erotic.
Slow, Juran. Take it slow. Don’t scare her with your sex-deprived mind.
Keeping his hands to himself proved impossible, especially when a naked Tess was beneath him. He touched a rosy nipple and it sprang to life. His breathing hitched and he leaned in to lick the aureole. She arched against him and grabbed his ears, making him chuckle.
“Lord, Tess, I want to go slow, to make it special. But I don’t know if I can.”
Her smile was sweet and seductive. What little sanity he managed to gather shattered in the face of that smile.
“Forget about slow, Alex. There’s time enough for that later.”
Alex buried his face in her hair. Later. For six months there had been no later. Now, maybe…
His thoughts trailed off. He surged inside her and paused to savor the tightness, the wetness and the eagerness of his beautiful wife.
His knee set up a symphony that drowned the pleasure. He cursed then groaned, this time in pain.
Tess stiffened. “Oh, God, your knee. I completely forgot. I’m sorry.”
He rolled to his back, gritting his teeth—angry, frustrated and with his cock pulsing with each beat of his overactive heart. She pushed out from underneath him and scrambled away.
“You can’t leave me like this, Tess.”
A smile curved her lips and her eyes twinkled with mischief. She trailed a finger along his straining erection. His penis jumped beneath her hand and he sucked in a breath.
“I guess then we’ll have to do something about this…er…
little
problem,” she said.
“Mmmmm.” Speech proved impossible. He clutched the comforter in both fists and gave up any control he thought he might have possessed.
Her fingers, feather-light on his skin, made his hips arch off the floor in silent invitation for more, less, anything she was willing to give.
“I love you, Tessie.” The words hovered in the air, caught on the currents of their desire.
Her gaze, soft and moist, lifted to meet his. “I’ve always loved you, Alex.”
A weight that had been sitting on his shoulders disappeared and he felt free for the first time in a year. For now the guilt, the sorrow, the pain was gone.
Her soft curves fit into his angles and grooves, as if she’d been born just for him. The feeling was not a new one. He’d thought it a thousand times in the past as she’d lain on top of him, but this time the long absence from her body and the realization that what they had could so easily be taken away again made it more real.