Dane's Storm

by Mia Sheridan

  Audra inhaled a big shaky breath, giving me another stunned look of stark pain. She opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it, shaking her head as if rejecting whatever she’d been considering. Then she turned again, heading the few feet to our clearing, walking slowly this time. I let out a deep sound of frustration, gripping my hair in my hands and staring at the sky for a moment. Finally, I followed along behind her, walking in her footsteps.

  She was sitting on a rock near the fire—the fire that had died and was now nothing but smoldering ash.

  “Ah, fuck!” I yelled, kicking at the snow and then picking up a handful and throwing it at the fire. The spray bounced off the cold wood and flew at Audra and she flinched back, drawing in a surprised breath.

  My heart dropped. “Oh, God, Audra, I’m sorry, I . . .”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  But she didn’t even glance at me, and the words died on my lips. She was gone again. Back behind her wall.

  Fuck this.

  We were never going to mend . . . us. I’d told her I still had feelings for her, bared my heart, and yet she sat there, unable to look at me, that stubborn chin set, her shoulders rigid. Maybe I’d never get through to her. Maybe, if there ever had been a chance, it had come and gone long ago. Was there too much resentment between us, too much time and too much pain? My anger faded and suddenly I just felt defeated. Defeated and fucking sad.

  “I’m going to get some wood. We’ll have to try to light another fire.”

  I turned, not waiting for her reply, if she even planned to give one. I wandered farther than I had before, past the trees we’d already stripped of lower branches, more deeply into the forest. As I walked, I was mindful of the fact that we were on the edge of a cliff. But I figured if I stayed where trees grew, I was probably safe.

  A shot of brown fur surprised me, eliciting a yelp as I stumbled backward. But just as quickly as I’d seen it, it was gone, moving through the thick trees. A wolf? Hopefully it was scared to see a human in this remote forest, but even so, I decided to turn back. My arms were full of wood and I figured it’d be enough for now.

  When I stepped through the clearing, Audra was sitting on the same rock she’d been on when I left. She was shivering with cold and she looked utterly devastated. For a moment I just stared, uncertain what to do. She lifted her head and her eyes met mine and slowly, her face crumpling, she lifted her hand in the air, two fingers in a v.

  For several beats, I was confused. And then my mind snagged on what that sign meant to me, of how it had been my siblings’ code if we had become distressed when swimming across the pond. How we’d used the sign to indicate we were in trouble.

  It meant we needed help, but couldn’t form the words to ask for it.

  Ah, Audra.

  Jesus.

  I dropped the branches in my arms and rushed to her, falling on my knees in front of her and taking her into my arms as she let out one small cry, burrowing her face into my chest. “Audra, sweetheart, I’m here. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know what to do, how to—”

  She shook her head, stopping my words, turning her face to mine, her expression one of such agony that it felt like a punch to my gut. “I do want to talk about it, Dane. I just . . . I just don’t know how. I’ve felt so alone, held on to so much pain. And I don’t know how to let it go.” She let out small sobbing gasps between her words and I pulled her closer, simply holding her for a moment, such profound relief pulsing through me that I felt weak with it.

  “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re not alone anymore.” Never again. I’ll never leave you alone again.

  She gripped my jacket in her fists and cried, tears that I suspected had been dammed up for far, far too long, all rushing forth in one torrent of agony. I held her closer as she sobbed, a wailing sound of profound devastation, an ancient cry of unthinkable pain that only mothers who’ve said goodbye to their child can know. It rose from her soul, from the mountain beneath us, from all things unchanging and immovable that you cannot fight against no matter how hard you try. It pierced my heart. It strangely filled me with an excruciating honor. This woman in my arms, who I knew I loved with all my heart and soul—was finally, finally trusting me with her deepest pain. And with God as my witness, I was going to be worthy of her faith.

  I stroked her back, her hair, holding her tightly as her sobs turned to small gasps that eventually became tiny intakes of breath, fading to silence, the steady beat of her heart right against my own. “I didn’t take care of him,” she whispered.

  Confused, I tipped her chin up. She looked exhausted, and still sad, but the devastation had left her expression. “What?”

  She shut her eyes for a moment. “You said when you moved to San Francisco, you felt comfort in knowing I’d take care of him. Of Theo.” A single tear spilled from her eye and rolled down her cheek. “But I didn’t. I haven’t even gone to visit his grave. All these years. I . . . couldn’t. All his things . . . they’re in a box in the attic. And I hate myself for that.”

  I used my thumb to wipe the tear from her cheek. “Shh. You don’t have to go to his grave to visit him. I talk to him sometimes when I’m driving in my car.”

  “I talked to him when the plane was going down. It was the first time I had since we lost him.”

  “He must have heard you.”

  She sniffled, and then gave me another lip tilt. “Then maybe we should be asking him to get us off this mountain.”

  “Or maybe we’ll look back at this as the best thing that ever happened to us. Our second chance.”

  She chuckled through another sniffle. “I don’t know that I’m quite that optimistic.”

  “Then I’ll be optimistic for us both,” I said, moving her hair back from her face, kissing her forehead, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for turning away when I saw your pain. I convinced myself you didn’t need me, that you had closed yourself off, to justify not making more of an effort.” I breathed in, long and deep. “The truth is, I was hurting so damned much, and I didn’t think I could take on your pain as well as my own. And so I managed what I could—school, my job, the house, and I left you to your grief when we should have been grieving together.”

  She remained silent for a moment, sniffling quietly, digesting my words perhaps. “We lost each other,” she murmured after a moment before tipping her head back again. When she did, there was something in her eyes, some clarity, a bit of relief perhaps. “You were right to say I walled myself off, Dane. I did close doors, but I desperately hoped you’d try to open them, hoped you’d bang them down if necessary. Because up until then, you’d been my biggest supporter. You were my person, my only safe place, and then . . . and then you weren’t. And I grew resentful. But that wasn’t fair. I didn’t know how to ask for your comfort, and so we grieved separately, the distance between us growing until there was no way to bridge it. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  “I think so, honey, yes.”

  She bit at her lip, her eyes soft and thoughtful, and despite her tear-streaked face and her reddened nose, in that moment she looked so damn pretty. “When the darkness began clearing, we were already so . . . separate. And I knew how much you’d given up to marry me.”

  What?

  She took a deep breath, averted her eyes briefly. “I heard you and Dalila in your office one night discussing the fact that Luella had cut you off completely. And I felt so guilty. You said that when I told you I was pregnant, everything, your whole damn future went up in smoke.”

  “Audra—”

  “Let me finish, Dane. Please.”

  I nodded, but felt sadness and shame. She’d carried so much weight—both hurt and false blame—on her slim shoulders. And she was finally expressing both.

  “We never talked about it because we found out about Theo’s heart condition just days afterward.” She paused. “When we lost him, I guess I convinced myself that, since there was no baby, there
was no reason for you to stay married to me.”

  “Ah, Christ, Audra. I was planning to tell you about that after Theo was born. And then . . . well, once we found out the situation with him, it didn’t seem important. But . . . did you think I cared more about my family money than you?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. I didn’t think that. But after we lost Theo, it seemed like an unnecessary sacrifice.” She sighed. “Or maybe that’s what I told myself. Maybe I was just so angry and hurt, and looking at you day after day kept me stuck there. So instead of trying to draw you closer, I pushed you further away.”

  I sighed. “I hold some blame there too. It was almost easier”—I grimaced, because it was the truth—“less painful, not to be around you at all. Your very presence brought up the pain of our loss and I, Christ . . .” I let out a sharp breath, but I owed her the truth. If we had any hope of working through this, we had to be completely honest with each other, reveal every ugly secret. “When you asked for a divorce, I was angry and hurt, but I almost thought . . .”

  “It would make things easier.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And so I didn’t fight you on it as hard as I should have. But I would have stayed, Audra. I swear to you. I vowed to love you for life, and I meant it with my whole damn heart. I’m just so fucking sorry that I didn’t love you enough when you needed it most.”

  “I don’t know if it’s that you didn’t love me enough. Maybe we just didn’t know how to love each other through our tragedy. We were both just kids.” She paused. “We really fell apart under pressure, didn’t we?”

  I smiled, pushing a strand of hair from her face. “Not this time, though.”

  She smiled back, a real one. “No, we seem to be doing a little bit better this time. So far.” She shivered gently and I realized I was freezing too, so I unwrapped her from my arms, standing on stiff legs.

  “Want to work our fire magic again? And I need to change pants. These ones are soaking wet.”

  She looked down at the snow where I’d been sitting this whole time with her curled in my lap and winced. “God, I didn’t even think about the fact that you were sitting on the ground. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Not in the least.” I felt happy and hopeful and like a weight had been lifted I hadn’t even realized was there. I was also exhausted . . . emotionally. We’d needed to talk things out, and in our current state of utter fatigue and lack of nutrition, we’d done well to keep talking. Particularly Audra, and how long she cried. Although, I was learning that was nothing compared to how long she’d carried such grief. We needed rest.

  I used my forearm to wipe the layer of snow off my duffle bag and grabbed a pair of jeans. “Sorry about getting pant-less out here for a second, but I don’t really have a choice.” Our sleeping shelter wasn’t tall enough to stand up in. But Audra shot me a smile, her cheeks tingeing slightly. She didn’t look uncomfortable.

  “Here,” Audra said, walking over to me and handing me a garbage bag.

  “Thanks, I guess I will need that, won’t I?”

  “Unless you want to get your socks wet.”

  “Definitely not. Thank you.”

  I took off my shoes, removed the sodden pants, holding them over my arm so I wouldn’t get the other clothes in my bag wet, and began pulling on my jeans.

  Audra eyed me over her shoulder, her eyes roaming downward and landing on my thigh. She turned, her expression concerned. “Let me look at that.” She took the couple of steps to where I stood, wearing only boxers, my jeans pulled up to my knees, and bent to look at my stitches. Her brow furrowed. “It looks red around the edges and there are red streaks . . .” She traced one with her finger.

  “Yeah, I noticed that. I think it’s just part of the healing process. It might be a little bit irritated, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Hmm. Well that’s good.” She bent a little close. “The bottom stitch is torn, though.”

  “I know. I ah, did that climbing the hill to the plane.”

  “Days ago?” She stood, putting her hands on her hips. “Dane, you should have told me. I’d have fixed it.”

  I pulled my jeans up the rest of the way and stuck my feet in my shoes. “Listen, Dr. Frankenstein, I appreciate that, but really, it’s fine.”

  She snorted, turning away. “All right, then, get me warm, because I’m freezing.”

  **********

  She was crying, but she was still asleep. I’d woken to stoke the fire and add wood to it, the sky between the breaks in the trees catching my attention as brief streaks of light illuminated the dark forest.

  When I heard the tiny whimpers coming from our shelter, I ducked inside, whispering Audra’s name, touching the wetness on her cheeks, my heart constricting painfully. She gasped out another sob, shuddering, and I put my arms beneath her, scooping her up and ducking back out through the door where I straightened.

  Audra’s eyes opened blearily and she blinked up at me, her gaze disoriented and teary. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling closer. “Dane?”

  “Shh, I’ve got you,” I said, adjusting my arms beneath her body so I had a better hold of her. “I have plastic over my shoes and you don’t. Let me hold you. There’s something I want you to see.”

  She sniffled again but didn’t ask any more questions, resting her head on my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck.

  When I stepped into the clearing, it was just in time to see a blazing golden streak as a shooting star shot across the sky. “Oh,” Audra breathed, tilting her head to the heavens as another star followed. She gasped, a sound that turned into a small sob as she pressed her face to my neck. “I want him back,” she cried, the wetness of her pain sliding down my skin.

  “I know,” I whispered. “I do too, honey. I do too.”

  She shuddered as another sob tore from her chest. “I didn’t get to hold him long enough.”

  I pulled her even closer, nuzzling the side of her head, kissing her temple. “Nothing but forever would have been long enough, sweetheart.”

  She cried as I held her, releasing more of her pain as dazzling light fell from a black sky, the earth proving that there was no such thing as complete darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Audra

  Morning had broken. The new glow of dawn filtered into our shelter, and I blinked at the rock wall directly in front of me, light and shadows dancing together. A waltz of sorrow and joy.

  I’d somehow grown used to waking here. We’d been on this mountain long enough that I no longer had to orient myself when morning came. The fire outside snapped and crackled, and the winter birds were waking in the trees, singing their greeting to the brand new day. Despite the fire, the air in our shelter was still cold, but my body was warm. I snuggled against the heat of Dane at my back, recalling the day before and then the night. The shooting stars, the way my heart had swelled in a way I didn’t completely understand at the sight of those brilliant flashes of falling light. The way Dane had cradled me in his arms as I’d cried. The way he’d carried me.

  I thought about all we’d said to each other: the revelations, the confessions, and truths. And I suddenly saw the situation with Dane—our marriage and the demise of us—in a very different light. We’d both made mistakes, both withdrawn from the other in our own ways, but we’d been so young, struggling with something for which there was no guidebook. But there had never been a lack of love, despite it all. We just hadn’t known how to access it. We hadn’t known how to offer it.

  I loved him. I’d never stopped. And that had also been a small part of the reason I’d been so unwilling to venture back to the past in my mind. My heart had known that to do so would be to admit it still belonged to the man I’d once pledged my life to and meant it with every ounce of my being. The man I’d willingly given up, though never in the deepest part of my soul.

  Dane sighed in his sleep and I smiled, scooting against him even more. He was so very warm,
so solid and yet so soft to snuggle against. I was hungry, my bones sharper than they’d ever been, and uncomfortable to lie on, and yet for the moment, I felt relaxed, safe even. He let out another soft moan and I realized I was wiggling against another part of him that felt decidedly solid. For a moment, I froze, but then a warm flush rose from my toes to my cheeks.

  I loved him.

  I wanted him and that’s all there was here in this small shelter from the brutal cold—love, desire, and yes . . . trust. I hoped desperately to be rescued, but until we were, I wouldn’t want to be weathering this storm with anyone but him.

  A peace fell over me, inexplicable considering our circumstances, and yet it felt so good, I held on to it tightly, unwilling to let it go just now. Later . . . later we could deal with the very real challenges we faced. But here, now, I needed him. I needed to love and be loved, to remind myself why giving up was not an option.

  I turned in the intimate shelter of Dane’s arms, his eyes just blinking open as he smiled sleepily at me. I put my hand on his bearded cheek, smoothing my thumb over his lips, and then his cheekbone, more defined than it’d been when we’d boarded that plane. I didn’t speak but he must have seen the desire in my eyes because he moved forward, pulling the blankets up to our necks.

  I wrapped my leg around his, bringing our pelvises flush against each other. Dane gave a low growl of masculine pleasure and it shot straight between my legs like electricity. I answered Dane’s moan with one of my own, bringing my mouth to his. The kiss was slow and deep, a gentle dance of lips and tongue. It felt almost leisurely, but for the coiled tension I sensed in his body, in the way he pressed himself against me, hot and hard, his breathing ragged when he pulled his mouth away to kiss and nip at my throat. I leaned my head back, a smile on my lips, allowing myself to enjoy the physical expression of this man’s love for me.