Fire

by McAdams, Molly

  “Do you know why I can’t?” she asked.

  I hadn’t realized until she spoke that she hadn’t made it out of the kitchen. I looked over and found her standing in the archway, holding herself up against it and facing away from me. Back and shoulders still moving in these great heaves as she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Because I hurt you,” I said softly. “I broke your trust and did exactly what I’ve promised not to.”

  Her head moved in a bouncing sort of nod as she turned to look at me, one of her hands resting on her stomach. “That . . . yes, but it’s so much more than that. You explained things tonight, and they made sense. Like, of course you’d been trying to bring Madi back—that time now makes more sense because you were absolutely furious when she left. And why wouldn’t you try to stop Hunter or fight back? It’s you. I’ve always known who you are. I never wanted to change you, Beau, I just wanted a life with you. And the path you’d been going down led to you in prison or fighting the wrong person and ending up dead.”

  Blurs of fights and hours and nights in holding cells flashed through my mind as she continued.

  “But the thing is, I made that decision. I made that choice for us, and you agreed to it. And even though this fight with Hunter makes sense, do I let it go? Because almost all of your fights when we were younger made sense. So, what happens the next time, and the next?”

  “There won’t be a next time,” I said gravely.

  “And I believe you because you’re saying it,” she shouted. “Everything you said tonight, I believed—and that’s just it. That’s why I’m struggling with this. I have felt so stupid and naïve these past weeks because I believed you when everything happened back then.” She shrugged, her jaw wavering as she struggled to hold it together. “And I kept telling myself I would never be able to believe you again, but the problem is, I do.” A soggy laugh fell from her lips. “And that scares me, and it hurts, and I am so afraid of finding out there is more you’ve hidden from me and lied about. Or that you really are having an affair with Stephanie Webb.”

  “I’m not,” I said on a heaving breath.

  “I know. I knew when you told me.” Another one of those laughs left her, sounding like it wrecked her. The hand on her stomach lifted to her chest. “I am so afraid of losing you, but I am also afraid of being hurt by you and having my world ripped apart all over again. That’s why I can’t get past this . . . because I am absolutely terrified to.”

  I waited to see if she would go on and tried to absorb what she’d said.

  I understood . . . I did. And I hated that I’d done this to her. I hated that it left us in the same place.

  “What scares you more?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly. “The things we’ve both said and the things I’ve done scare me. But I’ve made sure I wouldn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, and when I found out I—” Her eyes shut tightly and she leaned heavily against the wall as both hands gently fell to her stomach. “I already felt like I was losing control on keeping everything together, and then you were here, and I just . . .” One of her shoulders lifted. “I fell apart a little more each day.”

  I nodded as I pushed from the island, grabbing her plate and water and walking over to the kitchen table. After I had her stuff in front of the seat she liked, I sank into a chair a few away from hers so she’d have space. Stretching out with my feet propped up on one of the other chairs and dragging a hand over my face as all the exhaustion from these weeks wove through me. When I was folding my arms over my chest, she joined me. Moving all kinds of graceful and sensual the way she always had, even when we were in the middle of hell.

  “When we were, uh . . . sixteen?” I thought for a second before nodding. “Yeah, sixteen. It was right after the first time we’d snuck in here when you said you wanted to elope. You remember that?”

  She made an acknowledging hum around a bite of the sandwich.

  “I went to your house when you were at dance and asked your parents for their permission to date you.”

  Her chewing slowed and her eyebrows pulled together. “What?” she asked around the bite.

  “They said, ‘no.’ Not that I expected anything different and not like we hadn’t already been together. But I told them about our dream for this place and your dream wedding. Told them how you wanted to give that up to elope just so they couldn’t keep us apart anymore and how I wasn’t gonna let that happen. Said that I’d be there, asking for their permission until they gave it to me.”

  “What’d they say?”

  A huff left me. “They were pissed, but I got their permission eventually.”

  She inhaled softly. “That night the Rowes had you arrested.” When I nodded, Savannah asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

  My stare shifted from the table to her. “I’m trying to think of absolutely anything I’ve kept from you throughout our lives.”

  She studied me for a while, looking torn as hell before offering a subtle nod.

  “The house,” I said after another minute. “When we got married, I told you I’d gotten permission to buy the house, and I had. But I’d already had it for a while . . . months.” At her shock, I explained, “I wanted it to be a gift, and I wasn’t buying it without you.”

  “But months?” she asked. “It could’ve been an early wedding gift.”

  “You really think a few months would’ve made a difference?”

  She huffed and rolled her eyes. “No, and it was perfect, and you know that,” she mumbled before taking another bite.

  The corner of my mouth tipped up. “Besides, I got permission the afternoon of my last fight,” I said, the low words filled with meaning. “I could barely figure out a good time to tell you we could use the back for our wedding. It wouldn’t have been the right time to tell you it was ours.”

  “No,” she agreed after a moment. “I guess you’re right.” Her stare darted between her plate and me a few times as she picked at a piece of fruit. “What else?”

  I shrugged as I thought. “I don’t keep things from you,” I said, feeling that weight press down on me all over again because what I had kept from her was now out in the open and had brought us here. “Other than the Madison shit, the only other things I can think of are what I just told you. Things that were for you—for us.”

  I eased deeper in the chair and fought the pull of sleep when this moment with her was so necessary.

  But being in our home and beside her was the most relaxed I’d been in so long.

  “Hunter,” I said suddenly. “Hunter and I didn’t talk for all that time because, in the beginning, I couldn’t stand to see him without wanting to die. Then when he came back, he brought back all that guilt and pain that I’d had to push aside so we could move on with our lives. So, I made sure I didn’t see him.” I met Savannah’s disappointed stare and said, “Made sure he wouldn’t wanna see me.”

  “Beau . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does he know that now?”

  I lifted my chin in acknowledgment. “We talked when I took the kids over there this weekend.”

  “That’s good,” Savannah mumbled, her stare unfocused as if she was thinking about something else. “And Madi’s there?”

  “Hunter said she’s living with her parents, but she’s been there every time I’ve gone over. But they’re engaged, so, I dunno. She’ll probably move in soon.”

  Savannah’s eyes widened and snapped to me. “They are?”

  “I thought you’ve been talking to my brothers.”

  “I have been,” she said, the words slow and wounded. After a while, a huff punched from her chest. “They probably knew I didn’t want to know. Or wasn’t ready.” She lifted part of her sandwich and dropped it back to the plate, focusing intently on what she was doing when she asked, “Have you talked to her?”

  “Barely,” I mumbled. “I went there a couple weekends ago when I was in a bad place. I hadn’t heard from you, and I wa
s yelling at Hunter. Madison was standing behind him. I said something to her about how what we’d done hadn’t ruined all of us, it’d only ruined you and me. I haven’t said anything to her since.”

  I watched the way Savannah absentmindedly nodded, her eyes filling with tears before one rolled down her cheek.

  I let my feet fall to the floor and sat up, leaning forward and reaching across the table even as the next heavy tear ripped through me, slaying me with all that grief.

  With what I’d done.

  “Savannah.” My hands curled into fists as the need to hold her and comfort her overwhelmed me, as her pain mixed with my own and kept me in place. “I’m sorry,” I said when her head lifted and glassy eyes met mine. “I’m so fucking sorry. If I could go back and change everything, you have to know that I would.”

  She blinked quickly and hurried to wipe at her cheeks as if she’d just realized she was crying, her head moving in hard and fast shakes as she pushed back in her chair.

  “Savannah—”

  “No, it’s, um . . . I’m tired.” Her hand gestured between us. “We’ve said so much tonight, and I’m just overwhelmed by everything and whatever happened upstairs earlier. I need to go to sleep.”

  I dropped my head into my hand, nodding and gripping at my hair. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.” I stood from my chair and reached for her dishes, but she grabbed them.

  “I’ve got it, it’s fine,” she said quickly as she pushed to her feet and moved through the kitchen, dumping what she hadn’t eaten and putting everything in the dishwasher.

  When she finished closing it, she turned to face me and stopped, wide-eyed, when she found me grabbing my keys off the island. “You’re still leaving,” she said, fear and hurt wrapping around the words even as she tried to sound unaffected.

  I gestured to the ceiling. “We keep the guest rooms locked.”

  “Right,” she said with a relieving breath, but disappointment clouded her expression.

  “Unless . . .”

  “No.” The word burst from her, her golden eyes going wide and darting away, looking anywhere but at me as a blush crept up her neck. “No, of course not.”

  “Of course not,” I murmured, then nodded at her. “I’ll get everything taken care of down here. You should go on up.”

  Her head bobbed quickly, her lips shaping into a forced smile as she turned to go.

  I waited until I heard her climbing the steps before going through the downstairs, closing all the blinds and turning off the lights, and then headed up after her. Feeling like I’d slammed into a wall when I automatically turned the way that led toward our side of the house and remembered that wasn’t where I’d be sleeping. Rocking back, I headed toward the guest side of the house and found one of the rooms already open. And on one of the chairs, some of my clothes.

  And everything about it shredded me.

  It was more painful than being kicked out of the house because this was us pretending for everyone else that we were okay. This was handing me hope that things could change, that I could fix this, and then being slammed with the harsh reality that I was still losing my wife.

  “Tell me there’s no one else. That there’s never been anyone else.” Her voice was a whispered plea, twisted with every pain we’d been surrounded in these weeks.

  I looked over my shoulder to see her in the doorway, trying to stand so tall and looking like she was on the verge of shattering.

  Turning to face her fully, I swallowed past the knot in my throat as I studied the woman I’d loved for so long. “Never,” I vowed. “From the day you fell into my life, it has only been you.”

  A soggy laugh tumbled past her lips. “Tell me I’m not stupid for believing you.”

  I pressed a hand to my ruined chest and then gestured to her, wishing more than anything I could give her what she was asking. “I can’t. That’s something you need to decide for yourself when you’re ready. But know that I can’t handle the guilt of lying to you, of keeping something from you. And the times I have, it’s almost destroyed us. You’ll know if I am.”

  She nodded shakily and took a step into the room. “Tell me you won’t hurt me again.”

  The plea was so raw and vulnerable that it nearly brought me to my knees. “Savannah, the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I . . .” A defeated breath ripped from my lungs. “I can’t promise that. But I will do whatever I can to spare you any kind of pain.” I took a step of my own toward her, my voice rough and low as I went on. “I know what I’ve promised you in the past, but if someone’s hitting me, I can’t promise I won’t hit them back. If y’all are in danger, I can’t promise I won’t do whatever I have to to keep y’all safe. But I can assure you, I am absolutely in control. You and our kids are everything to me, I wouldn’t do something to jeopardize that.”

  The hushed sound that left her was all understanding and acceptance mixed with the remnants of her sorrow. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  Her head bounced softly before quickly shaking. “Why are you still over there?”

  I was across the room and pulling her into my arms in the time it took my wrecked heart to thump out a pained beat. Crushing my mouth to hers in a searing kiss that I felt in my soul.

  It was sorrow and pain. Claims and vows and forgiveness.

  I knew a kiss would never mean as much.

  Lifting Savannah into my arms, I pressed her against the wall and savored the whimper that crept up her throat. The way she arched against me and wrapped her legs around my back in moves that were so familiar but still had such a profound effect on me.

  “Fuck, Savannah,” I ground out as I moved my mouth to her jaw. Gripping her hips tight in my hands.

  Needing to feel her.

  Taste her.

  Know this was real when, just minutes before, I’d been shattering under the excruciating knowledge that I’d ruined my marriage. Betrayed the girl who had always been my everything in irredeemable ways.

  I dragged my teeth across the sensitive skin beneath her ear. “Every last breath.”

  She trembled against me, weaving her fingers through my hair to lift my face back to hers. “I love you too.”

  Our next kiss was fire.

  All demanding lips and punishing bites as we tried to heal hurts. As we tried to form the shattered pieces of us back together.

  “Need you,” I breathed against her lips.

  An echo of her pain bled free, her head nodding quickly as she attacked the kiss with renewed fierceness between her claim. “I’ve always needed you.”

  Sliding one of my hands up her back, I pulled her away from the wall, keeping her in my arms as I left the room. Moving with quick and confident steps across the house to where we needed to be.

  In a space that was solely our own—not somewhere I’d been about to spend my nights without her.

  And then I was laying her on our bed and curling my fingers around hers. Slowly removing her hands from where they’d been secured in my hair to pin them to the bed and nipping at her bottom lip as I leaned back. Staring down into golden eyes, all wild with need but looking at me in a way that ripped at my chest.

  Like she was afraid I might disappear.

  Like she’d been suffering under our separation as badly as I had.

  “Together,” I said, the word nothing more than a rasp as I grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled it off, letting it fall to the floor. “That’s how we’re making it through this, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as she reached up, letting the tips of her fingers trail over my chest and down my stomach before reaching for the button on my jeans.

  Everything about her touch so different from just minutes before. Slower, softer . . . easy. But that wild look in her eyes was closing in on frantic as she lifted up to capture my mouth while pushing my jeans and boxer briefs down.

  Sitting back, I slowly dragge
d my fingers up her body, taking my shirt she’d been wearing higher and higher and following the path with faint kisses along her bare skin. Teasing her breasts and savoring every whispered moan and the way she began moving beneath me—little shifts that said exactly what I was doing to her.

  Once the shirt was joining mine on the floor, I leaned over her, letting my lips hover above hers. Every breath causing them to brush and making me ache to close that distance.

  To bury myself in her.

  To make her mine all over again.

  But the parts of me that had always been tied to Savannah knew I had to let her take this at her own speed.

  “I need you.” She forcibly swallowed. “I need to feel you—I need this,” she begged, voice slightly desperate as she pushed my pants farther down when her body was asking for something else.

  All those slow movements and soft touches.

  Grabbing up her hands in mine, I lifted them between us until they were resting on her bare chest. “I’m here.”

  Her breath caught and her eyes searched mine, fear and sorrow and soul-deep need swirling within them. “I’m sorry,” she said, lips trembling. “I’m sorry for kicking you out and keeping you from the kids. I’m sorry for refusing to talk to you—to listen.”

  “Savannah . . .” I released one of her hands, cradling her cheek when her head began shaking.

  “I’m sorry I gave you my rings.” She blinked quickly when her eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Everything I said to you, I just . . .” Her shoulders bunched up, and she looked at me helplessly. “It’s like I heard myself saying these things to you, and I couldn’t stop even though I was so horrified by them. And I felt like I was dying when you said you were gonna move out, but I didn’t know how to tell you not to. That I wanted you home. And every chance to tell you, I pushed you back instead because I got so in my head with everything until it felt like I was drowning. And that . . .”—she nodded fiercely—“that’s what terrifies me most—you leaving because I made you go. You not being here because I let you go. Not being able to tell you that I didn’t mean any of the things I said—I’ve just been scared and hurt, and I’m sorry.”