Honor

by Sherryl Woods

  * * *

  “Damn,” Lacey muttered for the tenth time as she paced and waited for Kevin to come back. How had a simple phone call reopened every wound and shattered the cautious tranquility they had finally managed to achieve?

  Because it had been from Brandon, of course. She had heard more than enough to realize he had work for Kevin to do. If she hadn’t guessed, Kevin’s guilty expression would have told her. She suspected there was more—probably unwanted advice about their marriage, if she knew Brandon.

  Even so, it had been stupid to force the issue with Kevin. She couldn’t keep jumping down his throat over every little thing.

  What on earth was wrong with her? Was she so terrified of losing him that she wanted to wrap him in a cloak of that protective bubble wrap and watch over him for the rest of their lives? What kind of life would that be for either of them? Longer, maybe, but rife with tension.

  She was going to have to get a grip on herself. She was going to have to ignore her obviously futile plan to hold reality at bay and start talking. No matter how much the words hurt. No matter how angry they got. They could not allow their pain to fester any longer. Tonight had been proof of that. After a wonderful day of pretending that everything was normal again in their marriage, they had slammed into reality with one phone call.

  Lacey was waiting in the living room when Kevin finally came in. She heard him start down the hall and called out to him. For an instant she was afraid he would ignore her, but finally she heard a cautious movement, then a quiet, “Yes?”

  “Will you join me?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “Please, Kevin.”

  “Why, Lacey? What’s the point?”

  “Our marriage is the point.”

  “Right now I don’t give our marriage a snowball’s chance in hell,” he said with bleak finality. “Maybe I’ll have a different view in the morning, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you.”

  He was gone before she could force a single word past the tears that clogged her throat.

  Chapter Thirteen

  All the pretense, all the games had to end, Lacey reminded herself as she sat at the kitchen table in the morning. She had made a pot of tea and laced it liberally with milk. She didn’t need the jagged edginess of too much caffeine on top of everything else today. Her nerves were already shot and it was barely six a.m.

  She could hear the first faint sounds of the birds as dawn finally broke beyond the horizon. Black became gray, then purple, then softest pink as the sun edged its way up through the clouds. This was her favorite time of day, a time when anything seemed possible. She needed that sense of hope more than ever as she waited for Kevin to join her.

  Lacey thought of all the emotions she’d kept hidden, all the desperate thoughts she had never dared to voice, and tried to pick one above all the others as a place to start.

  It would be so much easier if healing could take place without all this airing of past betrayals, she thought wistfully. But it would be false healing, one that could never last.

  Above all else, she wanted whatever happened today to be the beginning of forever. Her marriage would be salvaged today.

  Or it wouldn’t.

  Either way, she would go on. Both of them would. They were too strong not to fight for happiness—together or apart.

  * * *

  Kevin was wide awake when he heard Lacey leave her room and go into the kitchen. It was still dark outside, too early to be up on a vacation day, far too early to begin dealing with anything that required soul-searching.

  But this was no normal vacation, he reminded himself wearily. He couldn’t begin to recall the last time he had taken one of those. As for soul-searching, what difference did it make if he went over and over things here in his head or voiced them aloud to Lacey?

  Even so, as he lay on the bed, his hands behind his head, he was struck by an odd reluctance to get up and see what form their confrontation was likely to take. After last night, he doubted they would have anything pleasant to say to each other. There was the heavy sense of impending doom weighing him down. He no longer had any idea whether the fault for that was Lacey’s or his own. He just knew, as he expected she did, that they couldn’t go on this way.

  He’d expected something simple to come of this trip, something magical. Instead he’d been faced with a hard dose of reality. For a man who prided himself on having outgrown so many naive attitudes, he’d clung to this one about his marriage for far too long.

  He heard the whistle of the teakettle, a sure sign that Lacey’s distress was as deep and dark as his own. She drank tea only when she needed comfort. He could visualize her sitting at the kitchen table, an old china cup cradled in her hands, her gaze fixed on the splashy display of daybreak, her thoughts…

  Well, who knew where her thoughts were? He definitely didn’t anymore, not with any certainty.

  How he regretted that, he thought with a sigh. He regretted too damned much these days, it seemed.

  Then fix it, a voice inside his head muttered. Fix it now or forget it.

  With understandable reluctance, Kevin finally dragged himself out of bed and pulled on a comfortable pair of soft, well-worn jeans and a fisherman’s knit sweater that he and Lacey had bought years ago on a trip to Ireland. He dragged on socks and sneakers, because of the chill in the air, though he would have preferred to be barefoot.

  He took as long as he could brushing his teeth and shaving. He even ran a comb through his hair. It was a delaying tactic more than anything. His hair had always fallen where it damn well pleased, unless he tamed it often with a short cut. It had grown past taming over the last few weeks and there was too much silver amidst the blond. Funny how there were days when he truly forgot how old he was. Not that forty-eight was exactly ancient, but at times he felt no more than half that.

  Kevin glanced at the bed, considered spending more time making it up, then admitted the one or two minutes it cost him wouldn’t be enough to make much difference. He might as well get into the kitchen and face the music.

  It was going to be even worse than he’d thought, he decided as he saw Lacey’s exhausted expression. She was clinging to that cup of tea as if it were her only lifeline. Her streaked blond hair tumbled loose across her shoulders, inviting his touch, but the look in her eyes when she saw him was forbidding.

  “Good morning,” he said cautiously, noting that she’d chosen a bright yellow blouse as if to defy her mood.

  “Good morning. Would you like breakfast? I could fix you something.”

  “Tea and toast will do. I’ll fix it.”

  As he popped the bread into the toaster, poured the tea, then brought everything to the table, he stole surreptitious glances at her. She was as still as could be, but there was nothing calm about her. He sensed that turbulent emotions were seething just below the surface. Her gaze was mostly directed down at the tea, but he could see the sorrow and wariness whenever she dared to glance his way.

  “Kevin.”

  “Lacey.”

  The blurted words were practically simultaneous. With his glance he indicated deference.

  Given her chance she looked uncertain. “We can’t go on like this. I thought we could, but I was wrong.”

  “I know,” he agreed.

  She looked at him then, straight into his eyes, and to his amazement she looked a little helpless and more than a little vulnerable.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” she said finally.

  “At the beginning,” he suggested, too glibly, judging from the look she shot him.

  “That was too long ago to count,” she said, but her tone was just a bit lighter. “Can you remember what it was like when we first got married?”

  “Yes. At least I think I can. Why don’t you tell me what you remember.”

  “I remember getting up in the morning filled with excitement and anticipation. I remember rushing through the day, remindin
g myself of every detail so I could share it with you that night. I remember how we talked about everything, every nuance of our lives, every decision, every hope, every dream.” She sighed wistfully. “I thought that was the way it would always be.”

  “I suppose I did, too,” he admitted. “It wasn’t very realistic of either of us.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Is that all you want back, Lacey? Just the sharing?”

  “No, of course not.” Her gaze met his, then slipped away. “We had the same vision, then. Somewhere along the way that’s what we lost.”

  “Did we?” he argued. “Don’t we both still want the world to be a better place? Don’t we both care about family more than anything?”

  “I thought we did.”

  “But?”

  “We have such different ways of acting on it. You see a charity, and you need to write a check. You want a home, so you hire people to run it. You believe in family, but not in spending the time it takes to nurture one.”

  “So I’m still the one at fault,” he said, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Only me.”

  “Of course not,” she said at once. “The difference between us is that I’ve tried every way I could think of to tell you what I need, but you’ve never once given me a clue about what you want from me anymore. Whatever the housekeeper fixes for dinner is fine. Whatever I wear is fine. However I spend my days is fine.” Her tone mimicked him. Her chin rose another notch. “Even the sex began to seem more like habit than the spontaneous passion we used to have.”

  Kevin stared at her in astonishment. “That’s ridiculous,” he said defensively.

  “Is it? Is it really?” She drew in a deep breath, then braced her hands against the table, almost as if she needed support for whatever she had to say. “Were you having an affair, Kevin?” she asked point blank. “That would explain so much.”

  Kevin felt as if she’d punched him in his midsection. Shocked, he simply stared at her. He couldn’t imagine an accusation that would have thrown him more.

  “Well?” she demanded defiantly.

  “An affair? Where on earth would you get a ridiculous idea like that?”

  “Come on, Kevin. Don’t act too stunned. You wouldn’t be the first man to have an affair. I can’t even count the number of husbands we know who openly play around on their wives.”

  “Not me, dammit. Not me.”

  When she continued to look skeptical, he said, “Lacey, I can honestly say that I never even contemplated breaking our marriage vows, much less acted on the thought.”

  “Is that the truth, Kevin?” she asked softly, her gaze searching his.

  He realized then that perhaps more than all the other complaints, all the other differences, this was the one at the root of all their troubles. She couldn’t even bring herself to trust him anymore, not even on something as sacred as their marriage vows.

  He could read the vulnerability in her eyes, the fear that he’d turned elsewhere for satisfaction, and the expression in her eyes made him ache.

  “Darling, I love you. Only you. No matter what else has happened, that has never, ever changed. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I wanted you.”

  “Past tense,” she observed ruefully.

  “No,” he swore, leaving his chair to gather her into his arms. She held herself so stiffly, refusing to yield to a comfort too easily offered.

  “Present tense,” he told her. “I want you now every bit as much as I did when we were a couple of kids discovering our hormones for the first time. Couldn’t you tell that last night on the beach, or the night before that and the night before that?”

  Apparently he had found the right words—or the right combination of words and touch, after all. He could see the relief slowly washing through her. The words, though, would never be enough. He had to show her how much he needed her, how beautiful he still found her.

  “Come with me,” he coaxed, brushing her hair back from her face. All thoughts of other issues, other problems faded in his need to convince her of this much at least. “Let me put this crazy notion of yours to rest forever.”

  Lacey was slow to accept, and he thought for a moment that she might not, using who-knew-what this time as an excuse. In that brief instant of hesitation, he weighed the future without her against the past and realized that nothing would ever be the same if he lost her.

  Kevin slid his fingers through her hair until the silky curls tumbled free. The pad of his thumb traced her mouth, the full bottom lip that trembled beneath his touch.

  “Please,” he whispered, unable to hide the faint note of desperation. “I need you, Lacey. I need you now.”

  Her fingers came up and linked with his, and the shadows slid away from her eyes, revealing the sheen of tears. “I need you, too,” she said.

  He would have swept her into his arms in a romantic gesture if he hadn’t caught the forbidding look on her face when she realized his intentions. He grinned ruefully. “It’s only a few feet,” he reminded her.

  “Then surely my knees aren’t so weak with longing that I can’t walk there on my own,” she said, surprising him with the dry humor.

  His low chuckle slipped out and then they were both laughing. He slanted a kiss across her mouth, capturing the much too infrequent musical sound of her laughter and the taste of milky tea.

  “You could always make me laugh,” he said.

  “I know,” she said with a devilish twinkle in her eyes.

  But then her hands were at work on the snap of his jeans and he no longer felt the least bit like laughing. He sucked in his breath when her fingers skimmed across denim seeking the already hard shaft beneath.

  “Wait,” Kevin said urgently, pulling her down to the bed with him and pinning her hands away from him. He touched his mouth to hers, savoring again the taste, the texture, the heat. Her lips, her tongue had always fascinated him. He could have spent hours absorbed in no more than the nuances of her kisses. But all the while, he worked to rid her of her blouse, her bra, her jeans and panties, just so he could skim fingertips over velvet flesh and tight golden curls.

  Soft whispers turned to anxious moans as he came closer and closer to the moist warmth at the apex of her thighs. She struggled to free her hands and when he released her at long last, she used her hands to torment him, to stroke and caress, to soothe and inflame. She slid her hands under his sweater, tangling her fingers in the hairs on his chest, seeking masculine nipples, her gaze locked with his.

  She shifted then, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the pale softness of her hands as they curved around him, stroking until he thought he would explode from the intensity.

  Each of them battled to give, to shower the other with all the love, all the satisfaction that had been withheld for so long. And when the giving pulled them higher and higher, they had to release that last thread of control and learn to accept the unselfish offering.

  Lacey came apart first, her body arching, her skin slick with sweat, her eyes filled with so much joy that Kevin was drawn along with her.

  When both of them had caught their breath, when the caresses had slowed, he looked into her eyes and promised more. This time, joined together, they traveled even farther, soared even higher.

  He couldn’t recall a time when they had asked more of each other or given so much. It was proof, beyond all doubt, that what they had was strong enough to last a lifetime.

  They slept then, close together, their breath mingling as morning turned to afternoon.

  It was only later, in the aftermath of that extraordinary lovemaking, that Kevin said, “This was never, ever the problem between us, Lace.”

  He swept his hand over the curve of her hip, lingered on the fullness of her breast to prove his point. He knew at once when her body tensed, knew instinctively that his meaning had registered in a way that went beyond the reassuring simplicity of the words. He had unwittingly opened a new door, rather than closing an old one.

  “Then w
hat was it?” she demanded softly. “You can’t deny that for a time we never touched, not in any way that mattered. Were you just too busy? Too tired? What?”

  Kevin tried to find the answers she needed to hear. He searched his heart for things he had never before been willing to put into words. Maybe even thoughts he’d never dared to acknowledge, even to himself.

  “Too distracted is probably closer to the truth. I lost sight of what was important,” he admitted slowly, as he carefully sorted through explanations.

  “After all those years of rebelling, of making my own way, I got caught up in my father’s dreams after all. Halloran Industries became important to me. I wanted to make it work. I wanted to have a legacy for our son.”

  Lacey sat up then, dragging the sheet around her and knotting it above her breasts. Sitting cross-legged before him, she watched him closely in the way that she had of trying to read his innermost, unspoken thoughts. Apparently she came up wanting, because she shook her head.

  “But that doesn’t explain it. Why should that have driven a wedge between us? I always wanted whatever it took to make you happy.”

  “You did,” he agreed, “or at least you gave it lip service whenever I tried to discuss my decision about Halloran Industries with you.”

  “Lip service?” she repeated, obviously stung by the charge.

  “Yes. As long as what I wanted didn’t change too substantially, you went along with it. But along the way I did change substantially. Not necessarily for the best. My needs changed and, no matter what you said aloud, I could see the way you really felt about those changes. It was as if I’d betrayed you, as if I’d betrayed what we’d once fought so hard against. You kept your ideals. I caved in. The accusation was there every time I looked into your eyes.”

  As the full meaning of Kevin’s words sank in, Lacey was shocked by his interpretation of what had gone on between them. “Did I ever say that?”

  “You didn’t have to. Like I said, it was in your eyes every time you looked at me. When I went to work for Dad, when I bought the house, I always sensed you were making a judgment and that I was coming up short.”