Snowstorm Confessions

by Rachel Lee

  “You’re not wrong,” he roared. “I am!”

  Her head jerked backward. “You?”

  “Yes, me. I would love nothing more than to make love to you right now. If I could, I’d stand up and sweep you off to bed. But you know what I keep seeing?”

  “What?”

  “All the empty spaces in our marriage. All the silences. All the unspoken words. All the buried feelings. Making love won’t cure any of that. God, did it ever strike you that we had some kind of addiction?”

  “Addiction?”

  He wished there were more light, because right now he thought her lower lip was quivering, but he couldn’t be sure. “Addiction,” he repeated. “You’re a nurse. What do you tell people with a drug problem? Certainly not to take the cure by repeating the mistake.”

  “Good God,” she whispered. “You think we were addicted to sex?”

  “I think we were addicted to each other in that particular way, yes. And I’m still an addict. Living with you has been like a trial by fire. That part of our relationship never faded, Bri. The craving is as strong as ever.”

  “But that doesn’t mean it was wrong?”

  “It was never wrong.” God, could he get any more ham-handed with this? “It was always right. Too much of the rest of it was wrong. Like I said, empty spaces we never filled with things we should have said.”

  He decided it was time to shut up and listen. If she would talk, that was. She’d shared a surprising bit with him tonight, but it couldn’t end there.

  “You’re confusing me,” she said finally. “Addiction or not?”

  “Considering the strength of the craving we still feel after all the hurt there was between us, maybe it’s an addiction. I don’t know. I just know that it’s nothing to build on. There’d have to be more. And I’m not sure I want to love you unless I think there’s at least a possibility of more. Of a future.”

  He heard her draw a sharp breath. This was it, the telling moment. He felt as if he sat on pins and needles waiting for what she might say.

  Her voice was quiet when she answered. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there are no guarantees. If you’re saying you want to take a stab at putting us back together...well, I’ll consider it. But I can’t promise. The old problems are still there. You traveling and me keeping too much to myself.”

  Silence fell between them. The wind picked up again, a banshee’s keen around the house. The weather guy looked as cheerful as a kid on Christmas morning.

  The phone rang. Everything inside Luke stiffened. There went the moment. There went the chance. She was being called in, and he’d sit here the rest of the night wondering if he’d handled this all wrong.

  She rose and went to get the cordless set that had wound up on the bed table beside his computer. “Hello?”

  Moments later, “Okay, then. Call if it changes.”

  She hung up and he waited.

  “That was the hospital. They’re holding the night shift over because they don’t want staff taking risks on the road.”

  “You weren’t going in anyway.”

  “No, but basically they’re cutting back to minimal operations unless all hell breaks loose.”

  “What’s that mean exactly?”

  “That a lot of people are going to take turns on the cots in the break room. They’re safer staying there, and the rest of us are safer at home.”

  She went to the window and pulled the curtain aside again. “I can’t believe how fast those icicles are growing. This is bad.”

  “Not according to the TV guy.”

  She laughed. “Way too cheerful under the circumstances. More coffee?”

  So she wasn’t going to barrel out of here. And coffee suggested she was willing to continue talking. Okay, then. He’d better be very careful. He didn’t want to leave her any more scarred than she was.

  Although he already knew that he wasn’t going to escape unscathed. Too late for that.

  The guy on the TV thought it was really cool that this storm was breaking records. Luke sat wondering about an entirely different kind of storm.

  * * *

  Bri preferred a small coffeepot these days. She only brewed four to six cups at a time, partly because she often only had time for a cup or two, and partly because she preferred it fresh-brewed. At least it gave her some time to consider what was happening here.

  Her cheeks heated as she thought about so blatantly telling Luke she wanted to have sex with him. That had been no secret in the past, and she was kind of surprised that she felt so exposed now for having admitted it.

  But fear of exposure had kept her silent for many years, and speaking out had felt good. If only briefly. Now she was back in the cycle of wondering if she should have just kept her mouth shut after all.

  She had revealed her own pettiness, as well, resenting his absences, feeling as if she lacked support when he was away. It all sounded so childish. Maybe it was. How would she know? She’d even thought she was being a bit childish at the time, yet the resentments had grown.

  Half of her didn’t want to go back in there and face him after all that. Another part of her felt drawn, as if it was something she needed to do regardless of consequences.

  Face it, she ordered herself. Just face it. This kind of thinking had probably magnified all her petty resentments, rather than banishing them in the adult way: by dealing with them and talking them through.

  If nothing else came out of this, perhaps she could learn a good lesson: swallowed resentments festered.

  She returned to the living room with two fresh mugs of hot coffee. This time, though, after she set them down, she scooted her chair closer to Luke. She could tell he needed another bath, but his aroma was purely masculine, as if the pheromones had multiplied. He smelled so good she almost didn’t want to wash it away. But she also knew that even though it hadn’t been that long since his last bathing, he was probably feeling a bit uncomfortable. During their marriage she had learned he was never one to skip a shower. Even that night when the power had gone out and the temperatures in the apartment had dropped to near freezing, he’d still jumped into the icy shower.

  Invigorating, he had called it. She had her doubts.

  “Do you want a light on?” she asked.

  “Not especially. It’s easier to talk, don’t you think?”

  “Depends on how much face-reading you want to do.”

  “And that depends on how much you’re comfortable with.” He paused, then surprised her by reaching out to take her hand. The meteorologist on the screen still extolled the wonders of the worst ice storm to hit Wyoming since they started keeping records. “I’ve been thinking of my own mistakes, too. My failings.”

  “It wasn’t you, Luke.”

  “Oh, yes it was. Quite a bit of it was me. I sensed your unhappiness, but I was awfully quick to let it blow away. If I had the brains of a billy goat, I’d have pressed you a bit, tried to find out what was going on instead of being so self-centered as to think it couldn’t have been important. Obviously it was.”

  “I never thought of you as self-centered. I thought I was.”

  “Maybe we both were.”

  A thought flashed across her mind and she decided to share it. Maybe she was evading again, or maybe she just desperately needed some levity. “I know a guy who raises goats as pets. A billy goat is pretty smart, Luke.”

  A short laugh escaped him. “Okay, if I’d had more brains than lichen. Anyway, you weren’t the only one evading. I see that now. I’m willing to take my full share of blame.”

  She turned that around, thinking about it. Maybe he had had a share in the making of the mess, but she still felt she had been the biggest cause. A few good fights, even over silly things, might have made a difference.

  Certainly digging a deeper hole through silence had only created a grave.

  “My resentments were silly,” she said finally. “I look back at what I remember now and can only think I was being c
hildish.”

  “That’s one of your parents speaking. Let’s leave them out of this. I was gone forty-eight weeks of the year. I missed holidays. I basically left everything on your shoulders. That’s okay for a bachelor, but not for a married man.”

  “But it was your job.”

  “Yeah, but I could have changed jobs. I was all caught up in the travel to exotic places, like some kind of adventurer. I said before and I’ll say it again, I could have done something else and been content. I like working outdoors, I like building things, I’m endlessly fascinated by geology. But that doesn’t mean I have to live out of a suitcase and never be home. It’s different for you. You absolutely love your work, and you couldn’t go bouncing around the world with me. Not and do what you love.”

  “Maybe I could have, if I’d thought about it. There’s a call for nurses everywhere.”

  “In lots of places I wouldn’t have taken you. And there was never a guarantee you’d get hired somewhere.”

  She didn’t respond immediately. He had a point. Some of the places he worked weren’t friendly to women. She’d have been stuck in a compound, unable to go out and see the world, never mind working. She’d looked into an overseas job, then dropped the idea when she realized she’d have had to sign a contract for a year. That still would have separated them.

  But she still felt many of her resentments were childish. “Military wives handle separation all the time.”

  “Some do. Some don’t. No sweeping statements here. You needed more from our marriage than a few weeks a year. I don’t think that’s childish. It was a legitimate need on your part. But there was more, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly. “The future. Somehow with time that seemed to get bigger.”

  “We never talked about it,” he admitted.

  “No. I wanted to have children.”

  It was his turn to take a deep breath. “Something else we never mentioned.”

  “I know. My fault. I kept thinking it wouldn’t be fair to have a couple of kids who’d never see their father. Damn it, Luke, they’d have practically been raised by strangers. Day care, almost from birth. That seemed wrong to me.”

  “It would have been. But if you’d gotten pregnant...”

  “What?” Her heart had begun to really race now. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this even after all this time.

  “I’d have found a job that would keep me at home. Kids need parents, if they’re available.”

  “Some might be better off without them,” she said drily.

  He cracked a laugh. “Sadly true.”

  Her mind was wandering the byways of the past again, trying to remember all the issues she’d had, or thought she’d had. She wondered how trustworthy memory was. The last couple of days, it all seemed to be taking on a different color.

  “I’m not even sure,” she said slowly, “that I remember all that I was feeling or resenting. Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  “I don’t know. Depends on whether it pops up again.”

  She faced him squarely. “Why would it? I live here now, and I love it. I grew up in this town, and coming home felt exactly like that.”

  “Then you’ll stay here. And maybe I can stay, too.”

  “Quit talking like we have a future. You ever break a vase? You can glue it together, but it’s never the same.”

  “I’m not talking about gluing something together. I’m talking about trying out something very different.”

  His hand tightened around hers, and she wondered if they were both losing their minds. Get past all that ugliness that lay behind them? Not likely. She had wanted to slam the door in his face the instant she clapped eyes on him. Instead she’d been suckered into taking him into her home.

  But that had been professional. What they were talking about now was very different, and frankly it terrified her. Sex was one thing. Sorting out some kind of relationship with an eye to a future was a whole different proposition.

  She remembered all too well the pain and anguish that had dogged the last months of their marriage, how much the divorce had hurt on so many levels. She couldn’t risk that again, and with Luke it would be a distinct risk because they’d mucked it up once before. Could both of them have changed enough to start anew?

  People didn’t change, she reminded herself. Not really. Look at her: stuck in a rut that had begun in early childhood. Breaking free of it a few times didn’t mean she had changed. The old temptations to minimize her feelings remained. Already they were tugging at her, telling her she had been childish before. The only place in life where she had ever felt certain of herself had been in her job.

  But for once she decided to face her demons head on. “I’m terrified,” she announced.

  “Of me?”

  “Of us. It hurt so bad before, Luke.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I remember.”

  “I don’t... I’m not sure I can change enough to make a difference.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. I can guarantee that it won’t happen overnight, although I think we both made some great strides tonight.”

  “Maybe.”

  He lifted her hand and began to stroke the back of it, lightly. A sizzle of electricity ran through her. He could so easily fill her with desire for him. That ought to terrify her, too, considering it had wound up being the major part of their marriage.

  “The question,” he said a minute later, “is if you’re willing to give it a try, scared or not. I’m not exactly overwhelmed with confidence myself. I was never any good at pushing you to talk. I was too self-centered. And I’d have to start looking for a way to make a living here.”

  There weren’t a whole lot of opportunities for that. Another big question mark. Her world was suddenly full of questions.

  “I don’t know,” she said plaintively. “I just don’t know. All these years I’ve been trying to convince myself that I was glad to be rid of you, but it was never true, Luke. Never.”

  “Then let’s try.”

  He made it sound so damn easy.

  * * *

  Jack verged on going crazy. The ice storm outside had him locked in his little home at the edge of town. The roads were being closed by cops, who were telling the occasional car to get off the road.

  Walking in this would be insane. He knew that. Freezing rain, sleet, deepening ice, even snow would make any path he chose treacherous. Putting tire chains on his truck wouldn’t help, either. The damn things made enough noise to wake the dead. If he went anywhere near Bri’s house at this hour of the night, people would know it.

  Lights seemed to be on everywhere, too, as if folks had been wakened by the wind and rattling of sleet against their windows and were watching the ice swallow the world.

  No one was going anywhere.

  Which meant he’d stick out like a sore thumb if he even managed to get to Bri’s place. And in an honest moment he had to admit that he’d probably kill himself if he tried to climb the tree to her attic. He’d need to be able to ice skate vertically.

  So he sat, filled with anxiety, and it wasn’t helping a whole lot to look at the clock and figure that even if he got into that attic it was likely all he would see would be two people watching the storm or sleeping. Man, it was the freaking middle of the night. Bri had worked that day. He’d almost bet she was sound asleep in her own bed, and from what he’d seen, Luke was still pretty much trapped in his hospital bed and wheelchair.

  So why was he unable to settle and wait? Because he was growing increasingly terrified the Luke might win Bri back. Oh, he claimed to have come to build the resort, but Jack was more suspicious than that.

  He was certain Luke had come for Bri. What man wouldn’t want that woman?

  Maybe he’d taken things too slow with Bri. Maybe he should have asked her out months ago. But Jack was no fool. He knew he didn’t immediately appeal to most women. They had to get to know him first, to recognize his sterling qualities.

 
; He’d been determined to do it all the right way this time, to give her a chance to appreciate him before he even tried to suggest they have lunch together.

  But he might have waited too long. He sure couldn’t ask her out now, not with Luke there. And while Luke had been nice to him, even kind of offering him a job, he sensed something else in the man. Luke was highly protective of Bri, maybe even a bit jealous of her.

  So he stared out at the icy night, stymied in every direction. In theory, Luke should move out of Bri’s house soon as soon as he could crutch around safely, which meant the weather had to improve.

  Everything seemed to be conspiring against him. Why couldn’t the man have died when Jack pushed him? That would have solved everything.

  Instead, his competition was firmly embedded with Bri, and Jack was out in the cold.

  He couldn’t take a second attempt at Luke. That would raise too many questions. But of one thing he remained sure in the depths of his heart: nobody else was going to get Bri. Nobody.

  He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do about it, but ideas had begun to grow in the back of his mind. He tried to ignore them, but when he remembered how easy it had been to push Luke over that cliff, he figured it wouldn’t be much harder to deal with Bri.

  She would be his or she would be no one’s. There were only two ways out of this. He hoped Bri had the sense to pick him.

  Chapter 12

  The weather report continued to worsen. Nothing at all was going to be moving in this part of Wyoming come morning. Roads were being closed. The police were out shepherding stray travelers to safe places to wait. It had now become the storm of the century. Or more, depending on which cautiously intoned forecaster was talking.

  “I can’t stand this,” Bri said finally. “I am not going to sit like a lump all night listening to this.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Let me give you a bath. At least I’ll feel productive.”

  “I’d appreciate one,” he admitted.

  “I can imagine. I remember the two-showers-a-day guy.”

  He laughed. “Mostly because when I was in the field a shower was a luxury I couldn’t often enjoy.”