Bride for Keeps

by Nicole Helm

  “It hurts more than a little.” It hurt like it’d never heal. Like she’d always be this cracked apart and alone.

  “Love is in the hurts—as much as it’s in the way you come away from the hurts. Life is hard. It throws a lot at you, and love is just another way to lose. That’s true. But it’s also the only way to win. Love does make you better. I think, even if you don’t realize it or feel it, loving someone makes you a better person.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” She didn’t feel like a better person. She felt as mixed up as she’d always been, with a heaping dose of you don’t deserve him on the side.

  “Sierra, I don’t know what’s happened between you and Carter. I do know… We didn’t used to talk. You used to not be able to be in a room with Mom and Dad without completely losing it if they dare suggest you do anything. I’m not saying because of Carter that happened, but maybe loving Carter helped you love us a little more, open up to us a little more. I think sometimes when you learn to love one person, it can’t help but spread. I know that’s what happened for me.”

  It was…true. Weirdly. Inside she felt like she hadn’t changed at all, but Kaitlin was right. All they used to do was fight or say snide things to each other, and that hadn’t been all Sierra. Kaitlin had been judgmental and mean all on her own, but she’d mellowed in the past year. Love had changed her.

  Then there was her parents. All Sierra had done with them for years was snipe, try to protect herself by lashing out.

  She hadn’t felt compelled to engage in either behavior with her family in quite a while. Had she really changed? Grown? It made sense, and she wanted to blame the kind of maturity that came with age, but it was hard to deny that learning to handle how much she loved Carter had taught her some things about love and people in general.

  “The thing is, and again, I speak from my own narrow experience here: the problem is not in being strong enough or good enough or right enough to love Carter. You love him anyway, or you wouldn’t be this miserable. The problem is you have to figure out how to love yourself, because it’s really hard to build a relationship, a partnership—marriage and parenting—when you’re busy thinking they shouldn’t be giving you all you’re giving them. It’s awfully hard to build a partnership on unequal footing.”

  “How could I ever be on equal footing with him? He’s smart and driven and—”

  “And didn’t he not talk to you for practically months because he couldn’t deal with his family stuff? Sorry, Sierra, he might be a great guy, but he isn’t perfect.”

  Lina had basically said the same thing. And it was particularly weird because up until these past few weeks she’d never heard anyone talk bad about Carter. He and Cole hadn’t gotten along, but she’d figured it was in the same way she and Kaitlin hadn’t. Good and bad. Right and wrong.

  Not that this was talking bad exactly, but Kaitlin was being critical of Carter, the way Lina had been, the way her parents had been, when before this breakup people were usually only critical of Sierra.

  But that was awfully simple, wasn’t it? She’d expected adulthood and love to be simple, but… What would ever be simple about two separate people joining lives? What would ever be simple about dealing with parents’ illnesses and time demands from jobs or what have you? If she really thought about what the future held, there would be nothing simple about raising a child. Even for Carter.

  “Think about it this way, Sierra. I love you. Carter loves you. Mom and Dad love you. Luke loves you. You’re close with Carter’s sister too, right? And Jess Clark. I’d be willing to bet they love you too. Are we all so wrong?”

  “You might be,” Sierra muttered.

  “We’re not. You’re funny and I always admired how you followed the beat of your own drum. I was jealous of it. You aren’t perfect, but neither am I, and most definitely neither is Carter. It’s a process, and it’s not all at once nor does it need to be, but you need to learn to love yourself. Because he loves you, and you love him. Which means you’re both worth that hard work to make your relationship work. Maybe you have to make some changes, and you definitely have to work together to communicate what you need, but if he loves you, Sierra, if he’s fighting for you, wanting to make it work, that’s the only thing you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to be torn apart again. Have him turn away from me because…” Carter had admitted he’d been wrong, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it again. Of course, he wasn’t in the habit of saying things he didn’t mean. But still, there were things that would happen that would hurt and… “I can’t do it. I can’t watch him look at me and know he thinks I’m less, even if I am.”

  “Sierra. He doesn’t think you’re less. He married you, and he clearly doesn’t want to divorce you. You think you’re less, and that’s something you’re going to have to deal with. Because he can’t make you think you’re more. You have to decide you are.”

  She’d come here for Kaitlin to confirm her concerns, not… Not turn it around so she was responsible for doing some changing.

  “And even beyond being enough or less or not…” Kaitlin reached out and touched Sierra’s stomach. “I hate to break it to you, and I know I’m still new to this motherhood thing, but Mom warned me. Your kids are going to hurt you. Over and over again. When they don’t know any better, and then when they do, too. Because they’re their own people. They get to make their own choices and you can’t control them, or make them what you want them to be. You love them with everything you are, want to save them and protect them and give them everything. And it’s never going to work.”

  “Great pep talk, Mom,” Sierra muttered.

  Kaitlin laughed. “God, it sounds awful, doesn’t it? I think her point was to not put stress on myself to do all the right things. Because motherhood, and life, don’t work that way. What I’m trying to impart to you, not so well, is that you can’t insulate yourself from hurt. You’re going to be a mother. Things are going to be hard and they’re going to hurt. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong or it’s not worth it. Because the thing that makes it worth it all is love, and this I know even after a few days. The love you feel for that little baby you’re growing in there will knock you flat.”

  Sierra would have put her hand over her stomach, but she was holding Ellie with both arms. “How am I going to survive that?” Sierra whispered.

  “The same way women always survive it. Working hard, loving fiercely, and asking for help when you need it.”

  “So, maybe calling someone when you have to pee and you’re afraid to put the baby down?”

  Kaitlin wrinkled her nose, but her mouth curved. “It’s a work in progress. And that’s life too.”

  A work in progress. Now that, that made a certain kind of sense. Maybe she didn’t even have to feel like she was good enough for Carter, or comfortable with showing him her cracks, or ready to face everything she was going to have to face.

  But maybe she could try. And keep trying. Progress, not perfection.

  Because, much to her surprise, she did have a whole legion of people who loved her. Who supported her. If she’d opened up to any one of them before she’d been completely at rock bottom, what might have changed?

  What might still change?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lina had driven Carter back to Marietta. They’d gone up and down just about every street and side street. He’d had Lina drive by Sierra’s parents’ house, the florist shop where Kaitlin and Beckett lived, and even passed Sierra’s brother’s house. But Carter hadn’t spotted his car anywhere.

  “Where the hell could she be?” Carter muttered. “Has she texted you back?”

  “No. She knows I’m with you though, or at least might assume since she called me to pick you up. We could stop by the hospital and try to catch Jess. Sierra might respond to Jess.”

  “Just…take me home.”

  Lina spared him a glance. “So, you’re giving up?”

  “No. I’m starving and I have a headache. I�
��m going to go home, eat something, take an aspirin, and then I’ll call her parents. If they don’t know where she is, well, then I get to worry.”

  “You shouldn’t worry them. Wherever she is, she’s fine and she’ll let you know when she’s ready—”

  “Just take me home, Lina. I’ll handle the rest.”

  She huffed out an irritated breath and rolled her eyes, scowling as she headed for his house.

  He wasn’t sure what compelled him when his sister was so completely Team Sierra and prickly at best and he’d never been her favorite person, but he didn’t think that should be the last thing he said to her today.

  “Thank you for your help. It means a lot.”

  She shrugged jerkily. “Whatever.”

  “No. Not whatever. You took time out of your day and life to come pick me up then drive me around, and I know it’s because you care about Sierra. I appreciate that.”

  “I care about both of you, dumb ass,” she grumbled, eyes firmly on the road ahead of her.

  “I care about you too.”

  “Carter. Look.”

  He looked away from her to the view ahead of them. As they approached his house, he could see what Lina wanted him to look at.

  His car. Parked in the drive. The car Sierra had taken this morning. Lina pulled up next to it and Carter simply sat there.

  “Do you think she’s here?” Lina asked incredulously. “After all that, she was here all along?”

  “The lights are on,” Carter noted. It wasn’t dark yet, but the afternoon had turned the kind of gray that made it feel much later than it was. “I didn’t leave the lights on.”

  “Well. Are you going to go in and find out or are you going to sit here?”

  He felt rooted to the spot. Hope a terrible thing bubbling through him, because she might not be in there. Or she might be in there, just gathering up her things to leave again. There were so many ways she could crush his hope, and as much as he’d determined to keep trying, he needed to be ready to face possible disappointment. Tamp down this surging, desperate hope. “I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “Nope,” Lina agreed, too readily for his tastes.

  “She probably just got a bunch of her stuff and left,” Carter decided, because if he said all the negative possibilities out loud he’d be ready for them. He could roll with the punches.

  Funny all the ways actually communicating had the potential to help.

  “Probably,” Lina agreed again, but when he still just sat there she sighed. “Or, she’s in there. So, why don’t you go find out?”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “It’ll be okay either way. Because you’re not giving up, right? So, even if it doesn’t go well like this morning, you’re going to…” She waved a hand between them. “Keep trying or whatever.”

  “Even when it’s hard. Even when I fail,” he said, more to himself than Lina.

  “Then get the hell out of my car.”

  Yes. He needed to move. It took a while to get his head and his body on the same wavelength, but eventually he got out of the car. It felt like his body was weighted with lead. Even his heart beat faster and harder against all that.

  He didn’t have his house keys, he realized, because Sierra had taken his entire key ring to drive his car. So, if she wasn’t here, he was kind of screwed.

  On a deep breath, he raised his hand to knock. “Screw that,” he muttered. It was his house as much as hers, and she’d walked out on him this morning. He could damn well walk into their home.

  As long as it wasn’t locked. He tested the knob and when it gave he felt some kind of relief. There was a bone-numbing fear there too, but he brazened through it, striding into the house.

  He wasn’t sure where he expected to find her. He had an image of her in their bedroom completely clearing out her side of the closet instead of just the missing chunk he’d been staring at for days. Another of her dumping all of her toiletries into a bag and sailing out of the house.

  If he pictured them, he could survive them. Or so he told himself.

  But instead of any bad scenarios, she stepped into the space between the living room and the kitchen, staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

  It reminded him of that night all those weeks ago. He’d come home simply to change, exhausted and numb. All he’d wanted to do was curl up in bed with her, but Mom had been demanding she needed him or she didn’t know what she’d do.

  Sierra had stood right there, staring at him with that same unreadable cast to her features. Then she’d followed him into the bedroom. He’d been weighed down by that numb feeling, but she followed and when she had, the pain leaked through.

  It was why he’d stayed silent and distant for all that time. He couldn’t be strong around her, couldn’t keep it together. So, he’d had to keep her at arm’s length, to keep the pain and confusion from pouring out and into her. But then she’d kissed him and…

  A better man would have resisted, or so he’d thought at the time. Now, knowing it had given him the opportunity to be a father, a chance to come out of that horrible fog, well, maybe he’d been the best man he could be.

  “Hi,” she finally offered, still standing where she was, still expressionless.

  “You’re here.”

  She stood there looking… He didn’t have any words aside from perfect. Wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday, her hair pulled back sloppily. She still had that paleness to her, a weariness. But she was here.

  “I’m here,” she said carefully. Too carefully.

  He couldn’t take it. What did he care if he was strong? What did it matter if she stomped all over his heart again? He didn’t have to be strong for her. He had to be honest. “I’m going to need you to tell me right here, right now, if you being here means something.”

  “I’m not sure it means everything,” she said, her voice quiet and wavery. “But it means something.”

  That was all he needed to cross the distance, pull her into his arms, and kiss her with every last ounce of relief that coursed through him.

  Without a hint of hesitation, she kissed him back. Soft and sweet and, hopefully not just his wishful thinking, filled with her own relief. All through last night he’d thought he was getting through to her, reaching her, but he’d known, ignored but known, she’d been holding pieces of herself back.

  Because this, this was everything. Soft and relaxed, honest and pure. This was hope.

  “Carter,” she said, holding him off though not pushing him away. “We have to talk.”

  “I know. God, I know. Just once more.” And he gave himself leave to kiss her until he shook, until she trembled, and until the entire world seemed so far away they both had to blink when they pulled away as if coming back to earth.

  Her eyes glowed something like golden, wet with tears, but her mouth wasn’t that horrible desolate frown from the past few days, months if he was honest with himself. And boy was it time to be honest with himself, and her.

  “I am so sorry for shutting you out. I know I hurt you, and I couldn’t see past my own hurt to see it in you.”

  “And I didn’t tell you I was hurting. Not…really. We retreated into our shells, and I blamed you and you…”

  “Being around you hurt, because I wanted… You are life, my life, and I didn’t want to have to figure out how to live a life where I wasn’t his. But that was stupid. Because I’m yours, and you’re mine.”

  Her mouth curved at that. “We should get that tattooed on our foreheads.”

  He grinned in response. “Sierra, for you, I’d get it tattooed anywhere.”

  But she looked down, some of that humor leaving her face. Still he held her, and he waited, because that was marriage, and he was learning to be a hell of a lot better at it.

  *

  Sierra swallowed at the nerves coating her throat. Just because she’d decided what to do didn’t make it easy.

  She just had to say it. It couldn’t be worse than lo
sing him. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be. She could choose to make it what she wanted it to be. “I don’t think I’m good enough for you.”

  “I think that’s bullshit,” he returned emphatically.

  She raised her gaze to meet his. She liked this new fierceness to him, and she knew she’d find some of her own. Because that was love. She’d teach him fun. He’d teach her fierce. And so on, forever and ever, till death did they part.

  Because she and he would choose to make this work. Here. Now. Doubts were for voicing, for talking through. Then they didn’t have any power.

  “But your family doesn’t think it’s bullshit, and I know they’re your family, and I’m not saying you have to cut them off, but it’s hard to believe in yourself when you’re constantly dressed down by someone you know the person you love loves. If that makes sense.”

  He listened to her carefully, and she knew the difference because he didn’t always. She was under no illusion that he’d start being perfect. She certainly tuned him out when he got going on about something medical she didn’t understand, but maybe if they learned to recognize it in each other, ask for the attention to be paid…

  It was daunting all the work that would need to be put into her marriage now. When she’d said ‘I do’ to Carter she thought it would be fun and easy. She thought love was a cure-all for life’s problems.

  Cure-alls didn’t exist, but love did cushion the blows. It held you up and kissed you and made you laugh, and if she had to work to have those good things when the hard times inevitably rolled around again, and again, it’d be worth it.

  She’d somehow come to believe in the course of these past twenty-four hours it would be worth it. Some mix of Carter’s love, and Kaitlin pointing out Sierra already was a better version of herself, and then Beckett coming home and scooping up Ellie and kissing Kaitlin and looking at them both with such awe.