by Elle James
It was a cliché, but she really did feel as though she’d walked into a play where everyone knew their lines except her. In fact, she was reminded of a movie about a man whose entire life was a TV show, and he was the only one who thought it was his real life. She almost glanced around to see if she could spot hidden cameras.
Across from her, Tristan sat, staring into his mug. She studied him as long as she could, which was only a few seconds, then looked away. If she looked at him for longer, it did awful, painful things to her insides.
But his tortured expression wasn’t the worst thing. Nor was the fact that he looked so tired and sick she couldn’t believe he was upright. It wasn’t even that she could feel his pain. No. The worst thing was that her heart and head and gut throbbed with anger at him.
“You said if I hadn’t gotten up you’d have been in and out in a few minutes.”
Tristan glanced up. “I did?”
“You know you did. What were you doing here? Obviously you didn’t come to tell me that you are still alive and doing fine.”
He looked down. “I had to get something,” he muttered.
“What? Tris, look at me.”
“I said I had to get something. San—”
“Don’t San me. When exactly did you think you’d let me know that you didn’t die?”
“Look, I’m sorry, but there are other things to consider here.”
“Other things? Other things? You mean than letting your wife know you’re alive? Or coming home to your unborn child? If I had any sense I’d kill you myself, right now.”
His gaze flickered downward to her tummy and an expression of longing and sadness crossed his face. Sandy almost reached out to him, but then he looked away and muttered something she couldn’t understand.
“Would you speak up? What did you just say?”
He waved a hand. “Nothing.” He went back to staring into his mug.
“I think I hate you,” she said, her voice as flat and cold as an iceberg. It made her shiver. She squeezed the mug more tightly, until her fingers ached.
Tristan nodded sagely. “Trust me, San, I know.” He lifted his mug to his lips, then frowned and set it down. “I kinda hate me, too.”
“Well, you should.” Sandy stood. She couldn’t look at the changing expressions on his face. If she did she’d start feeling sorry for him and that would lead to feeling other things and she was not about to get sucked back into the evocative vortex of loving Tristan. She couldn’t. Not now, when he’d proven that, even after a lifetime of love, he wasn’t the trustworthy protector she’d always depended on.
She picked up his mug and took it to the sink along with hers. With her back to him, she blinked and looked up, trying to force the tears to flow backward, back to where they came from. But as usual, they were determined to fall. She rinsed the mugs and then splashed cold water onto her face.
Picking up a dish towel, she turned around and leaned back against the counter. Water she’d splashed onto the countertop seeped into her pajamas, wetting her lower back and sending a chill through her.
“So, wh-where have you been?” she stammered. It was the first question she wanted to ask and the last answer she wanted to hear.
She was dying to know, but she knew when he told her it was going to break her heart.
At the same time, a sickening dread told her she didn’t have to wait to find out. She already knew what he was going to say. All this time, while she mourned him and ached for him and lay in her lonely bed, he was less than a mile away, at Boudreau’s.
She waited for him to tell her that, but he didn’t answer. He stood and limped over to stare out the French doors.
Sandy tried not to compare him with the man she’d last seen three months ago when he’d left for his monthlong work shift on the Pleiades Seagull. That man had been irritating, grouchy and depressed, but he’d been healthy and handsome and sun-browned despite the sunscreen she tucked into his duffel bag every time he headed back out to the oil rig. His hair had been streaked with golden-blond highlights put there by the sun, his shoulders had been broad and he, for all his faults, had been the man she knew and loved better than anyone in the world. The man she’d always known she could trust.
This person, although he sported Tristan’s blazing dark brown eyes, straight nose and wide mouth, was not him. When that thought hit her, she sobbed. It was a small hiccup that barely made a sound, but Tristan’s head turned toward her.
She put a hand over her mouth. That stiff, strong back, the lines of pain that scored his face from his nose to his chin, told a story of horror that she had not been a part of nor could ever understand. And that horror, those two long months of suffering, had changed him. His dark eyes were wide and too bright above sunken cheeks and pinched nostrils. His hair was too long, mousy brown and lifeless.
His back was ramrod straight, with a desperate dignity she’d never seen in him before. He’d lost at least fifteen pounds, maybe more, from a frame that had always been lean.
Her gaze traveled down his straight back and she pressed her hand hard against her lips and teeth, swallowing another sob. The pants he wore were too big, held up by a belt that had been tightened to the very last hole. The material was cotton and soaking wet, so it clung revealingly to his thighs and calves. She could see exactly what had happened to his right leg. Beneath the material, the right calf was no more than half the size of his left.
She remembered what Zach had told her about the strip of calf muscle that had been recovered from the water and identified as coming from Tristan’s body. Just one of the several things that had convinced the authorities that Tristan could not have survived.
Sudden nausea, hot and sour and insistent, swept over her. She barely had time to turn to the sink before she threw up. It took forever for her stomach to stop heaving and spasming.
When she was done and had rinsed her mouth with a handful of water, she reached for the dish towel. With a shuddering moan, she dried her face and held the towel against it until she was certain that the spasms were dying down and she wouldn’t gag anymore.
When she turned around and lowered the towel, Tristan was facing her. His face wasn’t just ghostly—it had turned a sickly shade of green.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
His gaze dropped to her swollen belly. “You still have morning sickness?”
She shook her head.
“But—” he gestured vaguely.
“That? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a combination of no dinner, finding an intruder in my house and seeing my dead husband.”
“How’s—” His hand reached out, but stopped in midair. He stared at her baby bump, looking slightly bewildered.
“The baby?” she said, irritation rising and pushing the nausea away. “The baby is fine.”
“San? I didn’t mean for this to happen. I wasn’t— I couldn’t—” He stopped. Moving awkwardly, he stepped close to her. He lifted a hand and brushed her hair away from her forehead.
His hand was surprisingly warm, given his drenched state. Her head inclined naturally toward it. “Oh, Tris, I missed you so,” she whispered.
He bent his head and pressed his forehead against hers. “I’m so sorry,” he said, then pulled back. “Is it okay if I touch you?”
“You want to feel the baby?” she asked. “He kicks all the time these days.”
Tristan gingerly laid his palm against her swollen tummy. Again, she was surprised at how warm it was.
He stood there, his hand caressing her belly, for a long time. “I can’t believe it’s been two months,” he murmured.
Immediately, her anger swelled again. She pushed his hand away. “Two months in which I mourned you and thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without you. And if you’d had your way, I’d still think y
ou were dead. I can’t believe you came here and expected to leave without waking me.”
She drew a shaky breath. “I don’t understand why you didn’t want to see me. To tell me you were alive. My husband would have crawled here if he couldn’t walk, to let me see him and know that I had not lost the love of my life. My husband would not have made me grieve and mourn and hurt for two months.”
“San, listen to me,” Tristan said. “I was unconscious—”
“That is no excuse. What about Boudreau? Why didn’t he come and tell me? A true friend of my husband would have let me know.” She sucked in a harsh breath.
“Don’t blame Boudreau.”
“So, that is where you’ve been all this time? Right across the dock at Boudreau’s cabin, less than a mile away? Oh, get out! Get out of here!” she cried, knowing as the words left her mouth that she didn’t mean them.
Tristan stepped backward, away from her. He stared at her for a moment, then nodded to himself as if he’d made a decision or come to a realization.
He smiled, but that wasn’t aimed at her, either. It was the subtlest, saddest smile she’d ever seen. It made her want to cry, to go to him and take him in her arms and promise him that everything was going to be fine, even though she knew it wasn’t.
Just about the time she’d decided he was too sick and wounded and in too much pain to be sent out to make his way back to Boudreau’s, he turned and twisted the knob on the French doors and opened them.
“Tristan?” she said hoarsely. “Where are you going?”
He turned to look at her. “Back to Boudreau’s,” he said.
“Fine. Go. Stay there.”
Awkwardly, he bent over and picked up a carved walking stick that she hadn’t noticed on the floor beside the doors.
Once he had the stick and was leaning on it, he raised his gaze to her. “You said he.”
“What?”
“You said he kicks all the time. The baby’s a boy?”
His face was suddenly so filled with hope and longing that she thought her heart would shatter. “That’s what the doctor said.”
“A boy,” he repeated, his voice tight. He turned back toward the door.
“You’re still going?” she asked, surprised.
He didn’t answer. He just stepped through the French doors and headed toward the overgrown path.
* * *
HE’D WALKED OUT. Now if he could just keep going. He hadn’t wanted to leave. What he’d wanted to do was hold his wife, breathe in the sweet, familiar scent of her hair and touch her petal-soft skin.
He wanted her to wrap her arms around him and welcome him back. But even more than that, he’d wanted to lay his palms on her tummy and feel their baby—their son.
But she’d been so angry and hurt. He could not, would not, force himself back into her life.
He walked slowly and awkwardly across the patio and onto the slippery wet grass in the yard, hoping he could make it out of her sight before he collapsed from pain and fatigue.
There was no way he could make it over to Boudreau’s cabin.
He heard Sandy’s voice behind him.
“Could you come back in here, please?” she asked harshly. “You can’t get up that hill tonight. Not with your leg in that condition. And even if you could, it’s pitch-dark out there. You’re liable to slip and end up drowning in gumbo mud. I don’t want to be responsible for you really dying this time.”
“You’re not responsible for me,” he yelled. “So don’t worry about it.”
“Not re—” She laughed bitterly. “What about those vows? Did they mean nothing? Of course I’m responsible for you. You’re my husband. I—”
Tristan knew what she’d been about to say. I love you. But she hadn’t been able to force out the words. That disturbed him. She’d never been shy about saying it. She’d sung it in the middle of church one Sunday when they were around ten years old. She’d written it on the chalkboards in their classes several times every school year. And she’d had it printed on a huge banner that hung suspended over the pulpit on the day of their wedding.
So it was ominous that she couldn’t bring herself to say it on the night that her dead husband reappeared, alive and well—or almost well.
“Okay, then,” she said, apparently taking his silence for agreement. “Get in here and let’s get you settled in. Maybe you’d be comfortable in the guest room,” Sandy said. “That way—”
“Wait a minute. I didn’t say I’d stay.” He couldn’t spend the night anywhere close to her. Just a few whiffs of her hair had nearly driven him crazy.
His calf muscle cramped and the leg nearly gave way, a not-so-gentle reminder that no matter what he wanted, how much he longed to be close to her, no matter what seeing her did to him, the simple truth was that in his current condition, even if he wanted to make love with her, even if she invited him to, he couldn’t. He was still weak, and his leg couldn’t take the workout involved.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to tell her that he was fine and that walking through the overgrown paths that led to Boudreau’s house wasn’t a problem, but at that instant it began to rain hard. He grimaced.
“Well, you can’t go now,” she said ungraciously. “The ground will be even more slippery.”
“I’ve got to get back. I need—” He stopped himself. He’d almost told her he needed the concoction that Boudreau had brewed up. It was a mixture of natural herbs and substances. According to Boudreau it had a natural painkiller, natural immune-system boosters and something to help him sleep. Without realizing on a conscious level that he’d moved, he found himself walking back across the patio and through the French doors.
Sandy handed him a towel. He took it while continuing to protest.
“Boudreau needs me,” he said and saw in her face that she didn’t believe him for a second.
“Boudreau needs you,” she stated wryly. “He needs you? Come on, Tris, don’t give me that. I’m looking at you.” Sighing, she spread her hands in a supplicating gesture. “There was a time I believed every word you said. And it wasn’t that long ago.”
Tris saw her eyes begin to shine more brightly.
“Sandy, don’t complicate this. I haven’t been on my feet but a few days. There was no big conspiracy to keep me hidden. Certainly not from you. I came here as soon as I could walk this far.”
She stared at him, shaking her head. “Right. You already told me you came here to get something. You probably thought I was still in Baton Rouge.”
He shook his head. “No. I told you. It’s very simple. Boudreau told me you were back.”
“Damn it, Tristan, you’re doing what you’ve always done. You’re simplifying the situation beyond belief. You’re acting like we’re nine years old and you’re trying to convince me that my dad won’t hit me if I just go on and tell him it was me who dented the car with a baseball, if he’s not drinking. Trouble is he was never not drinking. So you were wrong about that and you’re wrong about his. You let me think you were dead. This can’t be solved with a little strip bandage or a kiss from Mommy or a great, big I’m sorry, pumpkin from Daddy Dearest.”
“Really, San? You think I’m oversimplifying anything? Look at me. Look. At. Me.” He reached for her arm.
She recoiled, her eyes wide.
“You really believe that I think a little bandage will solve anything? You know me better than that. Or at least I thought you did. But you were never happy that I went to work on an oil rig, were you? You thought you were going to get a veterinarian and all you got was a blue-collar worker.”
“I did hate you working offshore. And it was bad enough when you were just working there. When you started working for Homeland Security and were not only gone all the time, but distracted and worried when you were here, I hated it more.�
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He was surprised and she saw it in his face.
“That’s right. I figured out what you were really doing on that rig. I don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me, but I can respect that you had to keep it secret. But letting me believe that you died? That was low.” She studied him and her big blue eyes filled with tears. “Great, now I’m crying.”
Tristan almost smiled. It didn’t matter what was going on—wedding, funeral or silly movie, Sandy cried.
“I see that. I’m a little surprised, though. This isn’t exactly a Hallmark commercial.” He winced internally when he heard the sarcastic tone in his voice.
Her jaw tensed and she glared at him. “No. It’s real life and it’s not going away. We still need to talk about it.”
“Talk about it?” His tone grated. “You mean like this? This isn’t talking. You want to talk? Let’s talk about this—you going back to Baton Rouge and staying with my mom. You’ll be safe there.”
“Safe? From what?”
“Did you miss the part where somebody tried to kill me? Or here’s an idea. You and Mom should go somewhere, then. Somewhere nobody can trace you. Maybe go to DC and stay with Zach until I can clear all this up.” He liked that idea. His old friend from childhood who’d become an NSA undercover agent would know how to keep them safe.
But Sandy’s instant anger told him that he’d made another mistake. He could almost see smoke coming out of her ears.
She put one hand on her little baby bump and raised the other, her index finger pointing at him. “You’re crazy if you think I am going to go away somewhere and leave you with Boudreau to take care of you.”
“He’s done okay so far,” Tristan interjected.
“What? Look at you. You can barely walk. You’re at least fifteen pounds—maybe more—underweight. Just where is the good job he did?”
“Right here.” Tristan jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Right here. If it hadn’t been for him I would be dead now.”
Her eyes widened for an instant. “Oh, please, Tris. He’s crazy and he’s Cajun. That in itself is a lethal combination. What did he do? Give you a potion, then touch your forehead and say, ‘Stand up and walk, I guarantee’?” Her tone was bitter as she mocked Boudreau.
