Jagged Ink: A Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs Novel

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  She was always so cautious around him.

  Where had the woman gone who was such a force? Where did the woman who couldn’t keep her hands off him—just like he couldn’t do with her—go?

  “I am.”

  He didn’t know what to say after that. How could he not know what to say to the woman he loved with everything he had? What the hell was wrong with them?

  Or rather, what the hell was wrong with him?

  He just needed to open his mouth and say something. Anything. Tell her how he felt. That he loved her. That he wanted to work this out. That they could figure out whatever this was. But he didn’t know how to do that. Not when she looked so unhappy, so…not Roxie around him.

  He didn’t want to force her to love him. Didn’t want to push her to be with him. To speak to him. To tell him her fears when he knew deep down that he was her fear.

  He was going to lose everything he’d ever wanted, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with that. It wasn’t like he was dealing with it well at the moment.

  Carter looked into her deep blue eyes and willed himself not to beg. It wouldn’t do either of them any good, and with the pain meds he was on, he was afraid he’d say something senseless.

  When she came to sit down next to him, he just turned his head and stared at her, wanting to keep her on his mind and in his memories, feeling like the time was too short for them. Seconds and moments were passing in a blink, like sand between the fingers as it fell, and he couldn’t hold on any longer.

  She reached out and put her hand on his, and he almost moved his away, startled at not only her movement but also his reaction. He turned his hand over and clasped hers as if knowing it might be forever if he let go.

  “The doctors said you would be okay. That you can come home soon.” She wasn’t looking at his face but their joined hands.

  He didn’t want to let go.

  He never wanted to let go.

  He cleared his throat and looked at her face, willing her to look at him. “That’s what I hear. Maybe another night or two while they get me ready for PT and are sure that I don’t catch an infection, and then I can come home.”

  She gave him a tight nod, still not looking directly at him. “I’m…I’m glad.” She cleared her throat again. “I…I’m so sorry you got hurt, Carter. I can’t believe it all happened like it did. I don’t know what I would have done if—” She didn’t finish her statement, but she didn’t need to.

  He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her either.

  Just thinking those words made him want to throw up.

  “I’m okay, Roxie.”

  She looked up at the sound of her name, and he realized he hadn’t said it aloud in far too long. He needed to change that. Needed to change a lot of things.

  But, sometimes, there was no going back.

  “I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

  “I don’t like being hurt.”

  “Thank you.” She licked her lips. “Thank you for saving my sister.” She wiped away a tear, and it wasn’t lost on him that he hadn’t seen her cry for him, but for her sister. Maybe it was all too much for her, or perhaps it was because she didn’t love him enough to break through that barrier of hers.

  “Thea’s family,” he said, watching Roxie’s face for her reaction.

  She just nodded, still looking partly down at their clasped hands. “And you’re the kind of guy who will throw yourself in harm’s way for family, for strangers, for…everyone.” She let out a shaky breath. “You’re a good man, Carter.”

  He didn’t know why those words hurt. They shouldn’t. But then again, most things hurt these days.

  They sat in silence for a few more moments and then talked about the family, never themselves. They were good at that. Talking without saying anything. He didn’t know how to fix things without hurting her.

  He’d just hurt himself instead.

  It took five more days for him to go home, and he knew PT and recovery wouldn’t be easy. It was going to take time. Time he didn’t have with his shop, though his crew was working hard for him. Time he didn’t have because he knew it would be hard on his wife.

  But he’d push through.

  It wasn’t like he had a choice.

  Roxie drove them home, having told the rest of her family she could handle it. He didn’t mind since he didn’t want to deal with the others watching them, trying to see what was going on beneath the surface. He just wanted to be alone, wanted to heal. And he wanted to fix what was going on between him and his wife.

  When they walked inside, he winced every few steps, going slow as he tried to catch his breath.

  “Here, let me help,” Roxie said after she’d closed the front door. She slid under his good arm and pressed against his unmarred side, taking some of his weight. “Lean on me, I’ve got you.”

  Oh, how he wished that were true.

  Because he wasn’t looking at her now.

  Wasn’t even truly feeling her.

  Instead, he looked at the hutch to the side of the entryway, to the stack of papers and folders that hadn’t been there before he was hurt. To the mail that had been delivered in pristine and professional envelopes.

  He knew that company.

  Knew the name on the label.

  And he knew exactly what it was.

  He couldn’t look at his wife. At his Roxie.

  Because he’d been right.

  She wasn’t his.

  Because those papers meant it was over.

  “Were you going to tell me about the divorce papers, or were you just going to wait and see if I saw them?” he asked, his voice devoid of emotion.

  When she didn’t say anything, he moved away from her, walked away.

  He couldn’t fix this.

  No one could.

  He’d lost his Montgomery, his heart.

  And there was no going back.

  Chapter 2

  Roxie Montgomery couldn’t breathe. How could she have been so careless? So damn stupid. In her rush to get to the hospital to pick Carter up after work, and dealing with issue after issue, she’d forgotten that she’d tossed the mail on the table without even looking at it.

  How could she have missed the heavy weight of the decision on her heart and in her hands as she rushed to Carter’s side?

  Roxie looked to where Carter slowly limped away and forced herself not to run after him. Forced herself not to give him an explanation. Because it wasn’t like she had one to give.

  Her head hurt, her body ached, and she hadn’t slept well in what felt like years. But she truly hadn’t slept well since hearing that Carter had been hurt. It didn’t matter that her mother had tried to tuck her in like she was a little girl and tried to make her go to sleep so she would have enough energy to deal with what was to come. But there wasn’t enough fortitude in the world to deal with what was to come. After all, she barely had enough to deal with what was happening now.

  She couldn’t believe that she’d left the paperwork out, couldn’t grasp that she hadn’t even noticed it. She’d had to head into the office because she needed to send out a few year-end things that she couldn’t get out of. They were a small group, and she had to work longer hours than most to make sure she could rise up in the company ranks—and even just to prove to herself that she was good at what she did.

  And though she could have handed the paperwork off to someone else, she either couldn’t let anyone else handle it, couldn’t do that to her clients, or she was afraid of what would happen as soon as she walked into Carter’s room.

  Because it was always so awkward with him lately, even if she didn’t mean for that to be the case.

  She hated awkward. Hated what had become of them. And now it was only going to get worse.

  But after she did what she needed to do, she had run from her office, the place she had gone to for a single client, a single piece of paper, and had gone to Carter’s side again so she could help him come home. He hadn’t wanted her by his
side anyway, hadn’t wanted her near him when he was trying to heal.

  She didn’t know if it was because he didn’t want her to see him weak, because Carter was anything but weak, or if it was because he just didn’t want her there at all.

  Because she knew the way things had been for the past few months, she was afraid it was the latter.

  She was always afraid it was the latter.

  So, after she had come home for just a few minutes following the office before going to get Carter, she had checked the mail but just tossed it on the entryway table. She hadn’t even noticed that the bundle was heavier than usual—the envelope she had been waiting for far heavier in weight of memory and meaning than the paper itself.

  She hadn’t noticed any of it because she had been too worried about Carter and what she was going to say if he really was able to come home.

  All she could do was picture him lying on the bed, sleeping, his face relaxed. Because he never looked relaxed these days. Between work and everything going on between them, there was always that little furrow between his brows as if he were thinking about something that made him hurt. Thinking so hard that he didn’t know what to say to her. But it wasn’t like she knew what to say to him either.

  They weren’t the same people they were when they got married. Weren’t the same people they had been when they went on their first date.

  And, apparently, they weren’t even the same people as before the accident.

  Roxie’s hands shook. She quickly reached up to wipe away a tear, annoyed with herself for even letting the pain show. She couldn’t cry over him, couldn’t let herself feel anything more than she already did or she would break. Because she missed him so much—everything about him, even just the idea of him. And she’d almost lost him.

  Not only had her sister nearly died, but Roxie had almost lost her husband, as well.

  The husband she didn’t know anymore.

  The husband that she was afraid she would have to say goodbye to because there wasn’t much left to hold onto.

  People said it was easy just to talk out your problems, that everything could be fixed with just a simple conversation. Well, that wasn’t the case. Because the hard part was determining what the other person would say once you talked to them. And Roxie didn’t want to know.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  She already knew.

  And she was afraid that once she heard those words, she wouldn’t be Roxie anymore.

  And that was selfish.

  She needed to grow a pair and not be selfish.

  But…but it wasn’t that easy.

  She didn’t want to hear the words that he didn’t love her anymore. Didn’t want to hear the words that he didn’t know the person she’d become. She didn’t want to hear the words that the reason they had gotten married wasn’t there anymore and there was no use pretending that everything they had wasn’t balancing on a precipice, looking out over an abyss, praying there was light in the darkness.

  When people told you that you just needed to talk out your problems and that everything would be smoothed over, they weren’t the ones who actually had to speak. They weren’t the ones who had to form the words. They weren’t the ones that had to figure out what to say to discover how they were feeling or sit there and listen when someone told you they didn’t love you anymore.

  Or, maybe, that love wasn’t enough.

  Because Roxie thought Carter might still love her, though maybe not the same her that she was now.

  Because after everything that had happened, she couldn’t be the same.

  She couldn’t be the Roxie that had started the relationship. She couldn’t be the woman that had first formed the attraction.

  And she didn’t know if she wanted to be that person anymore.

  But she also knew that she didn’t like who she was now. If she didn’t like herself, how was Carter supposed to?

  So, she pushed those thoughts out of her head and traced her finger along the envelope that told her that her marriage was over. Because Carter had seen it. There was no going back.

  She had to let him go because she loved him with every ounce of her being. Because, sometimes, fighting just ended up being even harder.

  Because, sometimes, fighting meant breaking yourself in two, and Roxie didn’t have much of herself left to give.

  She hadn’t meant for him to see the paperwork this way, although she hadn’t been able to figure out how to show it to him at all. Things just weren’t working for them, and it was better to cut their losses before they ended up hating each other or hurting each other even more than they already had. It would be easier for both of them if they just walked away. Because they hadn’t gotten married for the right reasons, and she sure as hell didn’t want to stay married for the worst of them.

  But before she could do any of that, she needed to make sure Carter was okay. Because he had almost died to save her sister, and she’d be damned if she forced him out of the house, or forced him to stay in this house alone while he was still healing. He deserved far more than that because he was still the man she married—at least parts of him were.

  She could figure out the rest later.

  After all, that’s what she had been telling herself every day for over a year.

  She rolled her shoulders back, ran her hands down her blouse, trying to straighten out the wrinkles that weren’t there, and made her way back to where Carter had gone.

  The master bedroom was on the second floor, and she wasn’t sure that he had the energy or the strength to make it up there.

  So, he’d gone to the guest room. She didn’t know why that hurt so much.

  It wasn’t as if they had touched when they had slept together in the same bed recently. They had been two strangers sleeping side by side, trying not to talk about what was important while ignoring everything that was.

  Roxie hated that she couldn’t tell Carter what she thought, because the problem was, she didn’t know. Maybe if she had some space, she could figure it out. But there wasn’t time for that. She wasn’t going to force him to be with her when, in the end, they’d break each other. They needed the space they so desperately tried to avoid.

  She swallowed back a sob, just like she had before when it came to him. She couldn’t cry. Not now. Not ever. Her feelings didn’t matter here. Just making sure that he was healthy and alive. Once that happened, they could figure out the next step.

  It didn’t matter that she hated herself with each passing day.

  It didn’t matter that she felt that he was going to hate her.

  Because that’s just who they were. They were Roxie and Carter, the enigma of the Colorado Springs Montgomerys.

  And she wasn’t sure they actually loved each other anymore.

  She loved the idea of him, but she didn’t really know him anymore. So how could she fall in love with someone that she didn’t know?

  How could she stay in love with a man that she didn’t recognize?

  “Carter?”

  “Back here,” he said from the guest bathroom. She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her, and made her way back to him, toeing off her shoes as she did.

  “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Not sure what I need you to help with.” His voice was rough.

  “Carter,” she whispered the word, not sure what else to say.

  “Not really sure what you could say right now to make anything better, Roxie. But that’s our problem, isn’t it?”

  She froze, trying to figure out what he meant by those words. Because that was the first time he’d ever actually talked about anything having to do with what was wrong between them. They were so good at tiptoeing around the issues and making sure the other was okay. But she loved him enough to let him go. Though, before she did that, she needed to make sure he was okay.

  With those thoughts, she started to hate herself even more. And because of that, she knew that she truly needed to walk away. Because she wasn’t s
ure she could like herself if this was the person she was becoming. A person who didn’t speak and sank into herself. A person that was icy and cold. She didn’t like that, and so, in order to make sure that didn’t happen, she would ensure that the person, the thing that was causing the change within her, wasn’t there anymore.

  And that wasn’t Carter.

  It was her. It was Roxie when she was around Carter.

  “Let me help you with your bandages since the nurses taught me how. And then we’ll get you into bed.”

  “I’m not going upstairs, Roxie.”

  “I know.”

  He let out an awful breath. “Yeah, I guess I should be sleeping in the guest room anyway, right?” He didn’t sound angry, didn’t sound snide. The fact that there was a lack of emotion in his words cut even deeper.

  But this was what she wanted, right? To let him go. To let him be the man he needed to be, so she could figure out the woman that she was.

  Even if a little part of her broke, shattered into a thousand pieces, with every word that he spoke.

  “It’s on the first floor, so I figured it would be better for your leg while you’re still healing.”

  “Are we just going to ignore the divorce papers sitting out on the table, mocking us?” He wasn’t facing her, but he was looking directly at her in the mirror. She could see the stoniness of his expression, the darkness in his eyes. He didn’t look angry, didn’t appear sad. He just looked like the Carter she had seen for so long now. The one she couldn’t read.

  She didn’t know if he was protecting himself or if he just didn’t care.

  She wasn’t going to walk away when he was beaten down like this, though. Once he was strong, she would figure out the next step.

  But they had to get there first.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Carter. It’s not like it should be a surprise.” She didn’t know whose voice that was, the cool and collected, calm and almost icy one. That was not the Roxie she knew, but she couldn’t stop it. It was like a defense mechanism, and she hated it.

  “I see.” His fingers tightened around the basin of the sink, and she almost reached out to put her hand on his back to soothe him like she used to. But she stopped herself. He didn’t want her touch right then, and she wasn’t sure if she could handle it either.