by Anne Hope
She watched him, waiting for a reaction he couldn’t give. Then her shoulders sagged with defeat and she dug into the box again. She withdrew an old college T-shirt and hugged it the way she would a person, with both arms crossed over her chest.
“I wasted so much time hurting,” she said, “being angry. I pushed everyone that ever mattered to me away. I just wish—” Her voice faltered. “I wish I could tell her how sorry I am.”
He slid his hand up her back. “You don’t have to. Lindsay knew how you felt about her. That’s why she entrusted you with her children. Every time you smile at Noah or take Kristen’s hand or rock Will to sleep, you’re making amends.”
With a jerky nod, she lowered the T-shirt onto her lap and folded it. “Do you mind if I keep this?”
“Go right ahead. I kept several things myself. I even put some aside for the kids.”
She traced the college emblem with her index finger. “Kristen sleeps with Lindsay’s favorite sweater.”
“I know.” His sides throbbed, as if he’d just taken a swift jab to the ribs. “I’ve seen her.”
She closed her eyes, inhaled deep and hard. “How will they ever survive this?”
Zach let his arm fall away. Bitterness slid down his throat to burn a hole in his stomach. “They just will. They don’t have a choice.”
Rebecca never realized how loud children could be, especially in the small confines of a car. She’d just picked up Noah and Kristen from summer camp, and they hadn’t clammed up for a second. Every scream echoed off the glass and ceiling to pummel her brain. Every whine nudged her anxiety up to a perilous high.
“Look, Aunt Becca,” Kristen’s excited voice trilled from the backseat. “I’ve got wak in my ear.”
In the rearview mirror, Rebecca saw Noah roll his eyes. “It’s wax, not wak.”
His sister ignored him and dug her pinkie into her ear canal for another scrumptious find. “Look, more wak.”
“Wax!” Noah insisted.
“Is wak bad for you?”
“Yeah,” her brother piped up. “It makes you deaf. I told you it’s called wax.” He then leaned over and knocked her across the head. “That’s a whack.”
At which point Kristen let out a howl that made the car shake and Rebecca’s head throb. She made a mental note to pick up a lifetime supply of Advil the next time she was at a drugstore.
When they finally got to the townhouse, an insane rush of relief flooded her system. Bolt greeted them at the door with a wet tongue and a frantic wag of his tail. The children, ecstatic to see their new pet, took off at a dash, apparently having forgotten their little disagreement in the car.
If only life could be that simple for adults.
Rebecca dragged herself to the living room and collapsed into the nearest armchair. Seconds later Zach popped in to say hi, with a drooling Will perched in the crook of his arm.
“How was pick-up duty?” he asked.
“I think I’d rather schedule a root canal tomorrow.”
He laughed, and the walls of her heart gave way at the seams. She’d always loved his laugh. It was deep and gravelly and soulful. The mere sound of it made her body grow warm and molten.
She dug into her bag to distract herself. “I picked up the pictures at Wal-Mart.” She withdrew several thick stacks from her purse. “How many did you have developed?”
“Almost all of them.”
“I figured as much. They gave me over twenty envelopes. I barely managed to fit them in my purse.”
He placed Will on the rug, and the toddler wasted no time staggering to his feet. “Really? I would’ve bet good money you could fit an entire filing cabinet in there.”
“Very funny.” She dropped the envelopes on the coffee table, then selected one and began rifling through the prints. “You actually went through all these photos? There are hundreds of them.”
“I didn’t open each and every file. I just selected a bunch of them and sent them off. Knowing Liam, I figured he would have deleted anything not worth printing.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that. “He was pretty anal, wasn’t he?”
A lopsided grin tugged at his sensual mouth. “He preferred the term organized.”
“Yes, of course. That’s precisely what I meant. Organized.”
Will hobbled to the coffee table, grabbed one of the thick envelopes, and began chewing on it. Zach snatched it from his eager little fingers. “Oh, no you don’t. Chew on this instead.” He handed him a fat carrot. Will wailed in frustration and pitched the vegetable. It spiraled through the air and landed in Rebecca’s lap.
“He’s got quite an arm,” she quipped. “I see baseball in his future.”
“Not to mention a food fight or two.”
The lighthearted banter felt good. It had been years since they’d been at ease with each other. There was a time when she could talk to Zach about anything. They hadn’t only been lovers, but friends. After they’d separated, that friendship was one of the things she’d missed the most.
He crept up beside her and glanced over her shoulder at the snapshots. Silence congealed around them as they both gazed down at happier times. Most of the photographs were of the children, but occasionally Lindsay’s or Liam’s face would smile up at them. It was hard to look at them, but she forced herself to do just that. She never wanted to forget her best friend or the times they’d shared, no matter how much it hurt to remember.
She tossed the pictures back into the envelope and selected another one. This stack held a few older shots. There was one of her and Zach taken a few Christmases ago. Her fingers curled around the edges of the photograph as she absorbed the sight of herself snuggled against the husband she’d adored. Funny, from the way he was looking at her, she almost believed he’d loved her, too.
“We always did look good together.” His words made the air above her head shiver.
“It takes more than looking good together to make a marriage work.” Bitterness slid into her voice. “A lot more.”
“If I remember correctly, we had it all for a while.”
Her fingers stilled. She tilted her chin upward to look at him. “Did we?”
“I always thought so…until—” He paused.
“Until I ruined everything by wanting children?”
“No, until you decided to throw it all away by swallowing a mouthful of pills.” There was steel in his tone, peppered with disappointment and an unvoiced whisper of anger.
“So we’re back to that again.” She threw the pictures onto the table, but her aim was off and they fluttered to the ground. “What will it take for you to believe me?”
“It doesn’t matter what your intentions were. The result was the same. You nearly died…in my arms.”
Rebecca fell to her knees and began gathering the photographs she’d dropped. The task kept her hands occupied, but most importantly, it kept her from seeing the unmasked recrimination in Zach’s gaze. “I didn’t.”
“You could have. If I’d gotten home a few minutes later—”
“I made an error in judgment. How long are you going to punish me for it?” Her insides shook with pain and rage.
He squatted beside her, gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Punishing you? Goddammit, Becca, I saved you.”
Pure bafflement swept through her. “Saved me how?”
“I set you free. As long as we stayed married, you would have longed for something that could never be. It would have destroyed you. Hell, it almost did. So I crushed the dream before it could swallow you.” His expression darkened, and the truth glimmered in the ocean-blue depths of his eyes. “And after all is said and done, you still have no idea what it cost me.”
Shock erupted inside her. He really believed what he was telling her. Had he actually abandoned her out of some idiotic sense of valor? How could he have convinced himself that pulverizing her heart would save her? The stupid, stupid man.
He palmed her cheek, stroked her with his thumb. This was one of those rare times when naked vulnerability shone on his face. The thin thread of restraint inside her snapped. Tossing the pictures aside, she bracketed his jaw and kissed him. She kissed him long and hard and tender. She kissed him until he stopped fighting the crazy attraction between them and kissed her back.
He tumbled to his knees as he continued drinking from her mouth. His arm swooped around her waist, and he drew her hard against him. She felt the outline of every delicious muscle on his chest, the rippled surface of his abdomen, the tremor of desire that speared through him. His hands explored her back, the length of her arm, the curve of her butt. Years of pent-up need buffeted them, and they forgot all but the fire consuming them.
His hips fused with hers, and the insistent bulge of his erection dug into her belly. Somewhere in the muddled haze of her mind she knew they had to stop, otherwise they’d end up naked on the living room floor. But she couldn’t bring herself to stop kissing him. For the first time in years she felt alive. Frissons of pleasure danced across her skin. Like a flower unfurling its petals to the sun, her defenses crumpled, leaving her wide open and frightfully exposed.
He tasted like mint and Zach, like everything she’d denied herself for so long. She wanted more. She wanted everything she’d lost. She wanted him naked, at her mercy, crying out her name…
“Uh, guys?” At the sound of Noah’s voice, they both jerked apart. “Will’s eating the remote control.”
Rebecca’s glance darted to the toddler. She hastened to straighten her clothing, then patted down her hair and rose. With as much dignity as she could muster, she walked across the living room and took the remote from Will.
Behind her, she sensed Zach get to his feet as well. “Anything else we should know about?” he asked Noah. A note of frustration tinkled in his voice.
“Yeah,” the boy replied. “Bolt just crapped on the kitchen floor.”
Needless to say, the mood was blown.
Chapter Fourteen
Zach was playing a perilous game. Becca hadn’t been here a week and he’d already kissed her twice. He’d nearly made love to her. If he didn’t pull himself together soon, he’d do something they’d both regret. The moment they had sex, she’d start obsessing about getting pregnant again. She’d start timing her cycle—even if she didn’t openly admit it. She’d die a little more inside every time she got her period. He couldn’t put her—or himself—through that again. But how was he going to keep his hands off her?
He considered spending a few nights at his condo, but that would mean leaving Becca alone with the kids. He wasn’t sure she was ready for that yet. Plus, the whole breaking-and-entering thing still had him a little on edge. He’d had an alarm installed the previous day while the kids were at camp, but it still failed to reassure him.
Like it or not, he was stuck here…with her. Guess it was time to exercise that iron will of his. He hadn’t been nicknamed the Iceberg for nothing. He could cool things down between them, even if it killed him.
The kids were all asleep, so he went to the kitchen and indulged in a beer. He didn’t drink alcohol often, but tonight he needed it. His nerves were bunched so tight nothing short of a miracle would loosen them. Maybe he should do the guy thing—drink beer and watch a football game. Becca never could stand football. If there was anything that would compel her to make herself scarce, it was that.
He strolled into the living room. She kneeled on the rug, organizing the photographs. Ignoring her, he dropped into the couch and began channel flipping. The only thing on the sports channel was the PGA Championship. Golf wasn’t his thing, but what the hell.
He felt her gaze drill through him, so he pretended to be riveted by the game.
“Since when do you watch golf?”
He took a swig of his beer. “Since always,” was his muffled reply. “Great sport. It’s all about strategy and precision.”
She watched him dubiously. “Uh huh. How exciting.”
She returned her attention to the thick pile in her lap. Her fingers worked quickly and efficiently. She had great hands—strong and competent, yet soft and feminine. Erotic images of those hands on his body flared in his mind. She’d always known just how to touch him, just how to please him and drive him insane. He’d give anything to feel those hands on him one more time.
Downing another mouthful of beer, he tried to focus on the golf game…and failed. His gaze kept straying to Becca. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but notice the way her hair brushed the soft swell of her breasts. The way she suckled her lower lip, made it gleam like honey. And those hands—he could all too easily picture them closing around him, stroking…
Jesus, he was losing it. Two years of abstinence could do that to a man. He needed to get out of this house. He stood decisively and slammed the beer can on the table so hard it startled her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just going to go for a drive.”
A frown tugged at her brows. “At this hour?”
“Would you rather I go when the kids are up?” The need to escape suffocated him. “I’m going stir-crazy in here.” And with that, he barreled out of the living room, yanked on his shoes and, grabbing his keys from the console by the door, shot out into the warm, balmy night.
Rebecca figured her ex-husband had finally gone and lost his mind. First golf, and now this. Granted men didn’t take too well to confinement, but this display of cabin fever was a little over the top, especially for him. Zach didn’t lose his cool, and yet he seemed to be doing just that lately.
With a shrug, she switched the television channel, settling on a rerun of Desperate Housewives. She only half-watched the episode, preferring to flip through the photographs instead. Bolt curled into a ball beside her and dropped his furry head in her lap.
“Guess it’s just you and me,” she said to her scruffy companion.
The puppy whined, so she scratched him behind the ear. His expression went hazy and he leaned into her palm. “So you like that, huh?” She swallowed a chuckle. “So does Uncle Zach.”
Thoughts of what he’d revealed to her earlier today continued to trouble her. She’d spent the last two years convinced that he’d walked away from their marriage because he didn’t love her enough. Now she wondered if maybe he’d walked out on her because he loved her too much. Life had a way of throwing you a curveball when you least expected it, and she wasn’t quite sure how to react to this unexpected revelation. Part of her wanted to jump right back into the game, to put her marriage back together and fix what was broken. But another—the part that still suffered from the sting of rejection—was scared witless. What if they failed to make it work the second time around the way they had the first? What if her heart shattered all over again?
“Who ever said love was easy?” she reminded herself. “The question is, is it worth the risk?”
Bolt gazed up at her with adoring brown eyes. A whimper sounded deep in his throat. Rebecca smiled and began to slide the photographs into the envelope when something caught her eye. One of the prints wasn’t a picture at all, but a document. It looked like some kind of birth certificate, only it didn’t belong to anyone she knew. Perplexed, she rifled through some more snapshots to find several others like this one. Then she came across a list of names, contacts for some organization called the Broken Angels.
Probably related to Liam’s work, she thought. She withdrew the peculiar shots from the stack and shoved the rest in the envelope.
“Guess Liam wasn’t as organized as we thought,” she told her long-eared pal.
She stood and carried the pictures to the office, where she placed them on the desk. Directing another curious look at the prints she’d withdrawn, she tossed them into the trash.
Then she headed back to the living room to cuddle with the dog and finish watching what was left of Desperate Housewives.
When Zach returned that evening, Becca was in bed, probably fast asl
eep. A hollow quiescence filled the house, peaceful yet unnatural. He’d become so accustomed to the cheers and yells of the kids, the chime of Becca’s voice, the intermittent barking of the dog that silence now seemed odd to him, lonely and stifling.
As if to appease him, Bolt yipped from behind the closed basement door, so Zach crept downstairs to give the dog a chance to greet him and hopefully settle down. He scratched the puppy on the rump, and the animal wagged his butt with the gusto of a hula dancer.
“Goodnight, fleabag.” He gave Bolt a final pat, then mounted the steps to his room.
He hadn’t planned on stopping outside Becca’s door, but as he passed her room, it seemed as if gravity suddenly grew so fierce it nailed him to the floor. Fighting the urge to turn the handle and enter, he pictured her lying in bed. He knew exactly how he’d find her—on her side, the sheet pressed to her chest like some kind of shield. Even in sleep she refused to let her guard down. Becca was always waiting for the other shoe to fall. She’d never placed much faith in herself, or in life. That was one of the things that had ultimately broken her—her lack of faith, her unwavering belief that the universe was out to get her.
When he’d left here tonight, he’d gone to his favorite Irish pub, where he’d nursed the same beer for four hours and contemplated all the reasons their marriage had fallen apart. Becca’s fatalistic attitude had topped the list, along with his inability to understand and comfort her. He doubted anything had changed.
Sure, they still had loads of chemistry, but that had never been one of their problems. The attraction between them had always been nothing less than explosive. That was what originally compelled him to ignore the warning voice of caution and jump, head first, into the yawning mouth of the volcano.
He’d known even then that the consequences could prove disastrous. Most relationships went down in flames, and in this particular case the ramifications stretched far and wide. By loving Becca, he’d cost his baby sister her best friend. She’d never gotten over that loss, and he would bear the stain of that on his conscience for the rest of his days.
