Sarah cupped both hands over her stomach. “Well, I ate enough for both of us. I’ll go with you and burn off some of those calories as we walk.” She grabbed some clothes and disappeared into the bathroom.
Crap
. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Louisa felt like she were in the middle of a slapstick movie comedy. Glancing at the closed bathroom door, she picked up the phone and dialed Gabe’s cell. No answer. She sighed.
She knocked on the bathroom door. “I’ll meet you downstairs, okay?”
At Sarah’s affirmative, Louisa raced out of the room and down the stairs. Beyond the front windows of the B&B, Gabe waited by his car on the street.
He looked up as she ran toward him. “Come on!” She motioned with her hand for him to follow her to the side of the house, out of site from the street and the courtyard.
She stopped behind a blooming butterfly bush, confident they were now safe from prying eyes.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Louisa pressed her hand against her chest, feeling like she’d just run a mile. Was it her frustration over not getting Sarah and her brother together, or being in such proximity to Gabe? She decided to believe the former. “I told her I was taking a walk, and she decided to come with me.”
Gabe peered around the corner. “Where is she?”
“Getting dressed. She’ll be down in a minute.”
He shook his head and scratched behind his ear. “Boy, it’s curveball after curveball, isn’t it?”
“Maybe it’s a sign, Gabriel. Maybe we should just give up.”
“You don’t believe in signs, remember?”
She didn’t want to think about that and looked away.
“And it’s not like you to give up,” he added.
She met his gaze. “Well, sometimes it’s time to face the facts and recognize you’ve come to a dead end.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about us, aren’t you?”
Was she?
She didn’t quite look at him as she said, “I need to go. Sarah will be down any minute.” She started around the corner of the old house.
“Lou, wait.” Gabe grasped her arm. She immediately pulled away. “Is it just me, or has our relationship taken a step backward? I thought we’d agreed to relax around each other.”
She wanted to tell him where to go, but then she sighed. “I can’t relax around you. I try, and it works for a little while, but then I—”
“Then you what?”
She straightened her shoulders and her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Then I remember what it’s been like for me since the accident, since you left. You hurt me, Gabriel. For whatever the reasons, you deserted me. I thought for a while I’d have been better off dying in that accident, too.” A tear fell down her cheek. She didn’t brush it away. “So, you’ll forgive me if I can’t just forget about all of that. You can’t force me to relax around you.”
Louisa saw the light go out in his eyes. As she watched, a familiar blank mask erected itself over his features, closing off all expression and all outward thought. He’d worn that look a lot after the accident. It had become a permanent fixture in the weeks before he’d left. She’d always thought it seemed so cold, so distant, so unreachable.
She took a backward step, intending to leave this shadowed area beside the house, to move away from this man who had caused her so much pain and would only cause her more if she let him.
An older couple, about the same age as her parents, came up the sidewalk. The man’s arm draped affectionately across the woman’s shoulders. He threw back his head and laughed at something she said, drawing the woman close to his side for a squeeze.
The couple noticed them. “Beautiful night for a walk, isn’t it?” the man called out, before passing through the gate and heading into Smith House.
Louisa brought her attention back to Gabe. His profile was to her as he watched the couple disappear into the house. The butterfly bush bathed his face in shadows. The outer corners of his eyes seemed to pull down a little more, the lines of his face a bit more pronounced, the set of his mouth more grim.
Had he always looked this…sad? It was more than the just the shape of his eyes, which naturally turned down slightly at the corners. Had she just never bothered to look past that stony expression to see it?
Some of the icy fingers around her heart pulled away. Maybe this weekend
was
a good idea. Not for the reasons Gabe talked about, fate and all that. It was something more. They’d shared so much at one time, after all. Perhaps she would start to feel like she knew him again. Maybe she could find the man she had married, not the stranger he’d become after the accident. Maybe they
could
become friends again.
She stepped toward him, brushing aside a wayward sprig of purple flowers. When he turned toward her, his eyes were a flat brown. Expressionless. Where was the hurt she’d seen in them only moments before?
“Enjoy your walk, Louisa. I’ll see you in the morning.” With that, he spun on his heel and vanished into the long shadows of the garden.
The flowers there didn’t look so bright now.
****
Sarah stared at her reflection in the mirror as she blew dry her hair. Louisa was right. She did look horrible.
Circles shaded her under-eye area from lack of sleep, and her skin was pale. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself.
She turned off the dryer and set it on the counter to cool. Louisa had meant well by bringing her here, but Sarah needed to see her husband. She’d been selfish to get mad at Arty. She’d wanted someone to be mad at, to blame for her own inadequacies and she’d taken it out on him. Poor Arty had had to deal not only with the fact that he’d never have a biological child but also that his wife hadn’t had faith in him. She should be ashamed of herself. She
was
ashamed of herself.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she snatched up her phone and dialed her husband.
He picked up on the third ring, right when she thought it would go to voice mail. “Hi Sarah.” He didn’t sound thrilled to hear from her. She couldn’t blame him in the slightest.
“Hi.” Silence. She didn’t know what to say. “How are you?”
“Fine. And you?”
Sarah sighed. “Fine.” This couldn’t be any more awkward. “I miss you,” she finally said. “I want to see you. We need to talk.”
Silence reached over the line. “I’m not ready to see you yet, Sarah. I’m still too—” He cleared his throat. “I’m just not ready.”
Sarah closed her eyes, fighting back tears. She’d hurt him by not trusting him. She’d probably still be mad, too, if the situation was reversed.
“Besides, I’m not even in Seattle right now. Gabe and I are in Port Townsend for a few days. I…needed time to think. I needed to get away.”
A slow burn traveled up Sarah’s spine. “Port Townsend, eh? Staying in a quaint bed and breakfast on the hill by any chance?”
“Well, yes, but—”
She didn’t hear the rest of his words as she hung up and threw on her clothes, not caring that nothing was tucked in, she had no makeup on and her feet were bare. She charged out of the room and almost slammed into Louisa on the stairs.
“What took you so long? I was waiting—”
“Where is he?” Sarah demanded. “What room is he in?”
Louisa’s eyes grew wide, and at first she looked ready to deny it. Then her shoulders slumped and a guilty expression crossed her face. She told Sarah the room number. “It’s one of the bungalows off the courtyard.”
Adrenaline, anger, and hope carried Sarah out of the main house and into the courtyard, her bare feet barely registering the uneven brick path underfoot.
She came upon Gabe entering one of the bungalows.
“Uh, Sarah,” he said, clearly shocked to see her.
She pointed her finger at him. “I’ll deal with you later,” she snapped, and marched past him.
Finding Arty’s room, she pounded on the door, to hell with lady-like manners. When he opened it, shock registered on his face. “Sarah. What are you doing—?”
“You and I are going to talk, buster, whether you’re ready to or not.” She pushed on his chest, shoving him back into the room and slamming the door behind her.
****
It was too early to sleep, not even dark yet. The sky was a deepening blue, with smoky clouds trailing across. The evening air hung heavy and quiet.
For a while this evening, the loud voices from the room next door, Arty’s room, had driven Gabe out on a moonlit stroll, feeling like he’d been eavesdropping. But now, as he returned, all was quiet. He hoped this meant the newlyweds had made up.
Gabe sat on the wooden bench outside the door of his bungalow and kicked back against the wall, the old joints of the chair creaking with his weight. A slow breeze ruffled the garden in front of him, the flowers and greenery bending and swaying. His gaze traveled to the tree swing in the middle of the courtyard. It moved gently in the wind, and he pictured Louisa on it, kicking up her heels, laughing a carefree sound like he hadn’t heard from her in so many years, since they were newlyweds—a sound he’d hoped to hear lots of this weekend.
This weekend had been a mistake. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. Once again, he was forcing his ideals on her, trying to make her see things his way. He had no right expecting, or even hoping for, anything from her. If he were in her shoes, he’d want nothing to do with him.
She was right about what she’d said earlier. He’d left her when she’d needed him most. It didn’t matter that he’d seen no other alternative. It didn’t matter that the photography apprenticeship was a once in a lifetime opportunity and that she had preferred to stay near family rather than support his dream. It didn’t matter that their marriage was basically over at that point anyway, that they didn’t sleep in the same bed together, and that they hadn’t made love in ages.
None of that mattered.
He’d
left
her
. There was no getting around that.
Glancing to the second floor of the main house, he saw a light on in her window. She passed in front of it, undoing the scarf around her hair before disappearing. She crossed back again, her hair now a jumbled dark mass around her shoulders, and stopped directly in front of the window, her slight silhouette not coming close to filling the frame. She stared out a moment, her face turned toward the town, then she started to close the ruffled curtains. Before they shut her off from his view, she noticed him. He couldn’t read her expression from this distance, but it didn’t matter. He could
feel
it.
The curtains fell shut, and the ache inside him deepened.
****
Sarah lay wrapped in her husband’s arms, his warm breath in her hair. She felt whole again, at peace.
She’d come to Arty’s room with a big speech laid out, but ended up bursting into tears the minute the door shut behind her. Arty finally took pity on her by holding her, rubbing her back as she cried into his shirt.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she’d sobbed. “I mean, all we t-talked about was having kids. And then you mentioned wanting to carry on the family name and your f-father brought that up, too, saying how important it was for him, then your parents gave us that big h-house with all the bedrooms for their future grandkids, and I—”
His gentle kiss had cut off the rest of her rambling…and now here they were. Together. As a husband and wife should be.
“Promise me something?” Arty whispered in her ear.
“Anything.” She snuggled against his chest.
“Don’t ever keep something like that from me again. Know that, no matter what, I’ll love you. Okay?”
She turned in his arms, peering up into his face. “I just feel so…inadequate as a woman. As a wife.” Her voice caught.
“Listen. You’re the only one who thinks you’re inadequate in any way. I married
you
, not your womb.” He kissed her. “We’ll make it through this, Sarah. Everything will be okay. If we stick together and trust each other, we can get through anything.”
They were silent a long moment, and Sarah reveled in the feeling of being in her husband’s embrace again. Then she sobered.
Arty must have felt her stiffen. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking. I bet Louisa and Gabe felt that way, too. About being able to get through anything.”
Arty shifted and rose up onto his elbow. “What are you saying? That you don’t think we can get through this?”
Sarah cupped his face in her hands and kissed the worry from his eyes. “No. I’m just saying…” She cleared her throat. “They went to a lot of trouble to get us here, and I can’t help thinking we owe them one. I mean, can’t you just feel it in your soul that they’re meant to be together again? That somehow we need to show them that they
can
get through this?”
“I don’t know about feeling it in my
soul
—” He grabbed his crotch.
Sarah punched him in the shoulder, knocking him off balance, and he fell onto his back.
He chuckled. “Okay, okay. I do think they’re meant to be together.” He pulled her on top of him. “But I don’t know what
we
can do.”
“Maybe we could—”
He cut off her reply with a kiss. “I love those two, but I really don’t want to talk about them right now.”
“But—”
He cut off her protest with another kiss. “Later, Mrs. Rhodes.”
How could a good wife object to that?
Chapter Twelve
A flash of light illuminated Gabe’s room through the wispy curtains. Combined with the booming crack of thunder, it was enough to jar him awake. He sat straight up in bed and took a minute to catch his breath. The room flashed white again, and thunder rattled the small bungalow. The flash of lightning brought to mind another stormy night long ago, a night that had haunted him through nightmares—
The ringing phone startled him. He glanced at the bedside clock as he answered the call. 2:36. “Hello?” he said, sounding more awake than he was. Middle of the night phone calls were never good news.