A Husband's Regret

by Natasha Anders

  “Smile, sweetheart,” he urged into her ear, and she was startled into obeying. The tourist took three pictures in quick succession before handing the camera back to Bryce.

  “You have a great-looking family, mate,” he said in a thick Aussie accent before handing back the camera and heading off with a wave.

  When they left the aquarium, Bryce pushed Kayla’s cart while Bronwyn tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow to maintain contact. Cal and his team were taking their brief to remain discreet so seriously that Bronwyn didn’t even see them. Bryce led the way toward one of the many restaurants dotting the waterfront, a Greek place that served fabulous food, and they sat down at a table beneath one of the umbrellas out in the early autumn sunshine. They were quiet for a while, watching the world go by, until Bryce broke the silence.

  “Thank you.”

  She lifted surprised eyes to his solemn face. “For?”

  “Earlier.” He cleared his throat and she watched his Adam’s apple bob sexily as he swallowed. “Thank you for earlier. Crowds are . . . difficult for me. Ever since the accident I can’t stand being in large crowds. It’s so bizarre. There I am with all these people around me and I know there should be noise, voices, footsteps, and laughter, but instead there’s nothing. It’s like being in a huge void, until I’m jostled and then it feels like being ambushed because I didn’t see or hear it coming. After the accident I was so paranoid, I kept wondering who was behind me, kept imagining someone was there, and I’d turn around so quickly that I’d startle everyone around me, only there’d be no one there, but I’d immediately get the same feeling and turn again. I knew that it would only be a matter of time before it would get to the point where I’d just keep turning round and round and round until I went insane. So before that could happen I . . .”

  “You shut yourself in,” she completed, and he nodded.

  “It’s crazy, I know,” he confessed, and she smiled with a shake of her head, covering his lightly trembling hand with her own.

  “No, it’s not. You lost one of your senses, Bryce. Naturally there’d be physical, mental, and emotional repercussions. I read that people go through the stages of grief after losing their hearing. Did you . . . did you talk to anyone after the accident?”

  “You mean a psychiatrist?” he clarified dryly. “I was seeing one for nearly a year; it’s because of him that I was able to even contemplate coming out today. I was so much worse immediately after the accident and I very stubbornly refused to talk to anyone. Yes, I was in denial and furious that something like this could have happened to me, but I shoved it aside because I had something bigger to take care of. I was adamant that talking to shrinks could wait. But Pierre and Rick kind of forced my hand. They blackmailed me into seeing someone.”

  “How?” she asked, curious. One thing she knew about her stubborn husband was that when he made up his mind about something, it was very difficult to get him to change it again. He cleared his throat and gulped down a healthy mouthful of white wine.

  “At the time, my sole purpose was to find you,” he admitted. “But I was so incapacitated and the only two people I trusted to help me with that were Rick and Pierre. They had private detectives working on it and because of my antisocial phobias, they were the ones who dealt with those detectives. They threatened to stop acting as liaisons between the detectives and me if I didn’t see someone. I couldn’t let that happen, and since I knew I wouldn’t be able to deal with the detectives myself, I had no choice but to comply with their demands. I resented the hell out of them for imposing that ultimatum, but in the end, Bron, they saved my sanity.” They remained silent for a while after that, while Bronwyn thought about everything that he had revealed.

  “And the . . . the deafness is permanent?” She asked the question that she had been too scared to broach before and winced at the immense of amount of pain that darkened his eyes. “There’s nothing they can do about it?”

  “To put it in the simplest of terms, I suffered major nerve damage in both ears. I hit my head so hard that the doctors told me I was lucky that deafness was my only major, lasting injury. Lucky, can you believe that?” His voice rang with outrage at the memory, and he shut his eyes briefly before shaking his head and meeting her eyes again. “They told me that the damage to my right ear is less catastrophic and said that an operation might restore some of the function.”

  “It didn’t work?” she asked sympathetically, aching for him. What he had done to her was unforgivable, but he had paid in spades for it already, and she found herself unable to hate or resent him any longer. She just felt numb and confused.

  “I didn’t have the operation,” He shrugged and she blinked. Stunned by that information.

  “What? Why?”

  “It seemed pointless.” His jaw was set, and while she longed to prompt him for more information, she sensed that he wouldn’t be receptive to any more questions. She sighed, his stubbornness and uncommunicativeness merely serving to remind her of why she felt their marriage no longer stood a chance of working. Yes, he had paid for his unforgivable and baffling reaction to her pregnancy, but they had so many other insurmountable problems.

  “I’m sorry that this happened to you, Bryce,” she said earnestly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not the only one who suffered, Bron.” For the first time since it happened, he was brushing it off because there was so much more he needed to know about what had happened to her during those lost years. “After you left the hospital, what happened? Where did you go? Who took care of you?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about this,” she began hesitantly.

  “Please.” The single, softly spoken word undid her more than any other could have, and she lowered her eyes to her peacefully sleeping daughter before lifting them back to Bryce.

  “Thanks to selling the car, I had enough money for a few months’ rent and food. Luckily Kayla was a healthy baby, and I didn’t have to worry about extra doctor’s bills.”

  “What about you? How were you after her birth?”

  “We coped, Bryce,” she said. “I stayed home for a month and a half and my next-door neighbor, Linda, would often drop by to do some of the cooking for me. The first few times I went out job-hunting, Linda babysat Kayla for me. Eventually I got the job in Plettenberg Bay, where I ran into Rick and Lisa, and the rest is history.” The censorious glint in his eyes told her what he thought of the huge gaps in her story.

  “Where did Kayla stay while you were at work?”

  “Linda usually took care of her but Linda was elderly, and she . . . she died just before Rick found me. I got sick soon after her death, and the day I ran into Rick was my first day back at work. I hadn’t found a replacement for Linda and had to hire a babysitter for the day.” Her situation had been utterly desperate. Heartbroken over her friend’s death, broke, and sick, she was at her wits’ end. If Rick had not found her that day, she didn’t know what she would have done. Odds were she would have lost her job that day anyway as she had been making too many mistakes.

  Bryce didn’t need her to spell it out to understand how bad the situation had been, and a grim silence settled over them while they contemplated their roast lamb and potatoes, appetites lost.

  “How was your health after her birth, Bron?” he asked again, alerting her to the fact that he had noticed her earlier evasiveness on that matter.

  “It was . . . I wasn’t . . .”

  He maintained steady eye contact, and she bit her bottom lip before shrugging and giving him the brutal, unvarnished truth. “I was often sick. I was weak after giving birth and didn’t get enough rest after taking Kayla home from the hospital. I was up at all hours, feeding and changing her, and then I was back at work. I never fully recovered and couldn’t afford health care for myself since all of my money was assigned to buying food and clothes for Kayla. I ate leftovers at work whenever I could and the od
d sandwich when I couldn’t. It sounds worse than it was, Bryce.”

  “So when you got the flu . . .” He left the statement unfinished and she nodded.

  “Yes, it raged out of control because my immune system had taken such a beating in the past. The day Rick found me, the only reason I was at work was because Gerhard would have given my job to someone else if I’d missed one more day, and I wasn’t getting paid for staying at home. I couldn’t afford the doctor and had been fending off the flu with cheap over-the-counter stuff.”

  “Bron,” he began.

  “I know it was irresponsible, Bryce. I know that I had a baby to take care of and I could have gotten seriously ill or worse—”

  “You were seriously ill,” he interrupted, but she continued as if there hadn’t been an interruption.

  “But I was taking care of her the only way I knew how; I was keeping her fed, healthy, and happy. I needed to work, you understand? I’d made arrangements in case anything happened to me; I made sure that the authorities would know to call you, for Kayla’s sake. I wouldn’t have left her alone. I knew that you’d take her if I wasn’t part of the package. I knew that you’d love her and take care of her.” He seemed at a loss and frowned down at his plate before sighing tiredly and scrubbing his hands over his face.

  “God,” he groaned wearily. “How did we ever get to this point?” He reached over and stroked one long finger down the side of her face. “Eat, sweetheart. I never want you to go hungry again.”

  “I’m . . .”

  “Please?” She couldn’t resist the naked pleading on his face, and she smiled before nodding and lifting her fork, her appetite restored. He remained quiet for a while longer, breaking the silence to tell her an amusing story about taking Kayla into the office the previous day. He peppered the story with wry humor, and she found herself laughing more than she’d laughed in a long time. Eventually they started talking about other things—university and work—and for a short while, it felt as companionable and comfortable as it had been in the past.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Is she asleep?” Bryce asked when Bronwyn joined him in the den after putting Kayla down for the night. She nodded in response to the question and tried not to let the intimate domesticity of the scene unnerve her too much. He was sprawled on one of the huge comfortable sofas that Bronwyn had begged him to buy when she had first seen it, four years ago.

  “Yes, she was still going on about ‘Nebo’ when she dropped off.”

  He smiled faintly at that.

  “I don’t think she’s going to forget about today too quickly,” he murmured, fingering the rim of the glass of scotch he had poured for himself, indicating a glass of red wine on the little table beside the sofa. “Wine?”

  Not wanting to refuse and end the comfortable atmosphere between them just yet, she nodded and curled up on the opposite end of the large sofa, tucking her feet beneath her.

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if today turned out to be her first real memory?” He smiled faintly at her dreamy question.

  “It would be a happy one for all of us,” he agreed. He tilted his head to look at her appraisingly, and she met his eyes with a laugh.

  “What?”

  “What’s your first memory?” he asked, and she giggled.

  “Chasing a butterfly around our backyard, tripping over the puppy and falling down, hard. According to my Gran, I was three when it happened. She remembered because it was at my birthday party and I made such a fuss because I thought I’d hurt the dog. Apparently I insisted that we take him to the ‘doggy doctor’!”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners.

  “What about you?” she asked him, still smiling at her own memory. “What was your first memory?” The smile faded from his eyes to be replaced by a somber frown as he shrugged.

  “I don’t remember.”

  She laughed at that. “It’s your first memory. By its very definition you should remember it.” He looked uncomfortable and refused to meet her eyes. Realizing that something was wrong, she tried to catch his eye.

  “Bryce?” she prompted, waving her hand to get his attention and not expecting much in the line of a response from him. If this followed the old pattern of their marriage, he would freeze her out and retreat back behind the walls that seemed to have been specifically designed to keep her out. It amazed her now, how little she actually knew of the man and merely brought home the fact how much was still wrong, how much would always be wrong, with their relationship. She was just resigning herself to watching him get up and leave when he unexpectedly spoke, still not looking at her.

  “My first memory is of my father. He’s shouting at me and angry because I’d accidentally dropped his wristwatch into a toilet bowl. Can’t really blame him—it’s a gold watch. Of course, I wasn’t aware of the significance of that at the time. I was three as well. I know because that was the same day I broke my arm . . . so there are records of the date,” he said it almost absently, and Bronwyn’s brow furrowed.

  “How did you break your arm?” she asked, but he wasn’t looking at her and didn’t see the question. She reached over and in a gesture similar to the one he’d used on her the previous night, gently tilted his jaw so that he was looking at her. She repeated the question and he seemed to shake himself out of his reverie, but when he spoke again, his voice was so horribly empty.

  “He was very angry,” he said with a shrug.

  “Your father broke your arm?” She needed clarity on this point and wasn’t sure she understood. He nodded abruptly before draining his glass.

  “I’m exhausted,” he muttered gruffly. “I was wondering, would you and Kayla like to go to the beach with me tomorrow? I’ll fix a picnic lunch. Unless you’ve moved your ladies’ get-together to tomorrow? Since you missed it today?”

  “A couple of the others had other plans this weekend as well, so we decided not to meet until next week. Anyway, the beach sounds nice,” she agreed absently, not really paying attention, her mind on what he had just revealed. He smiled before getting up abruptly.

  “Great.” He sounded pleased. “It’ll be an early-ish start. I think eight o’clock should do it.” He turned to head out of the door, then hesitated and turned back to her. He leaned over her.

  “Thank you for today, Bron,” he said sincerely, bending down to drop an unexpectedly sweet kiss onto her opened mouth. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “No, wait. Bryce . . .” But he was already striding away, leaving her to fret over the unexpected information he had divulged about his father. Had it been an accident? Or deliberate? The latter possibility left her cold and unable to fall asleep for the longest time.

  Bronwyn woke to the conspiratorial sound of whispering just outside her door, and a bleary-eyed look at her bedside clock told that her it was seven thirty a.m. She groaned at the thought of getting Kayla up and ready in time for Bryce’s early start. She was exhausted after an uneasy night’s sleep. She cleared her throat and frowned when the whispering outside her door continued. She pushed herself up when the door handle turned slowly and braced for an energetic wake-up call similar to the one Bryce had received the day before. She leaned forward when nothing happened; the whispering continued for a few more moments before her daughter’s dimpled face appeared around the door. When the little girl caught sight of her mother, she gasped and abruptly jerked back out of sight.

  “Mummy not sleep!” Bronwyn heard the toddler hiss frantically before she was shushed by an unmistakeable, deep voice that always managed to send delicious shivers down her spine. Intrigued now, Bronwyn leaned even farther forward, wondering what they were up to. After another few moments of whispered exchanges, Kayla stepped around the door, already dressed in a pair of pink denim dungarees, a yellow-and-pink T-shirt, and her favorite pair of red squeak sneakers. In her hands she solemnly clasped a handful of multicolored autumn flowers, wh
ich Bronwyn recognized from the garden outside.

  “Hello, Mummy.” She grinned.

  “Good morning, sweetheart. What do you have there?” The little girl solemnly handed her the flowers before leaning up on tiptoes to kiss her mother on the cheek.

  “Happy Mummy day,” the little girl said carefully in a well-rehearsed way.

  “Mummy’s day? But . . .” She glanced up to see Bryce standing in the doorway with a tray clasped in his hands, her eyes huge and vulnerable in her face as she tried to figure out what on earth was going on here. “Bryce, it’s not . . .”

  “Yes it is. You’ve missed out on two, so Kayla and I are making up for lost time.” He placed the tray in her lap and removed the flowers from her numb fingers to place them in the empty vase on the tray, before moving the vase to her nightstand. He dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Happy Mother’s Day, Bronwyn.”

  Kayla solemnly held up a small gift-wrapped box, and when Bronwyn opened it she frowned in confusion.

  “What’s this?” It was an electronic beeper-like device nestled in a custom-molded Styrofoam cushion.

  “The smart key to your new car,” he informed with a slight smile, and her eyes widened when she turned the small device over and spotted the prominent BMW logo on the other side of the key.

  “Bryce, this is too much,” she protested helplessly.

  “This is nowhere near enough,” he interrupted gruffly. “Nothing I do can ever be enough.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said, unable to read his mood and not sure how to react.

  “You don’t have to say anything.” He grinned, flashing a dimple identical to his daughter’s and looking just as mischievous as the toddler. “Just enjoy the car. It’s not quite as sporty as the last one you had; I wanted something bigger and safer because of Kayla.”

  “But when did you . . .” She couldn’t seem to gather her thoughts, and his smile widened.