Marriage On The Edge

by Sandra Marton

  "I never had the heart. I took the tires off and parked her in the old barn, asked Abel to turn the engine over from time to time. I called him tonight and he, put her back together, ready to go." Gage opened the door. "Come on, babe. Get in."

  Natalie hesitated. There were so many memories in that car, all of them sweet with the promise of youth and hope ...

  "What are you worried about, Nat?" Gage flashed a grin.

  "I figure she'll hold out for the trip to Superstition Butte and back."

  Natalie looked at the old Chevy. The car probably would hold out. But would she?

  "Nat?"

  She looked at her husband. His smile was soft with promise, the way it had always been when he'd come by to take her out, more than a decade ago.

  "Wanna go for a ride?"

  His husky voice sent a rush of. anticipation through her blood. The invitation was the same, too, and the implied promise.

  She knew she ought to say no, tell him that what she wanted was to get on the plane and go straight back to Palm Beach ... but suddenly there was something magical in the night, something magical happening right here, and only a fool would have done anything to spoil it.

  It was almost as if the old car knew the way to the butte all by itself.

  The road was the same as it had been, years before. It was a one-lane dirt track that cut through the heart of Espada, then wound into the hills to end high atop a red-rock butte with only the stars and the moon for company.

  When they reached it, Gage shut off the ignition.

  Silence, broken only by the sigh of the night breeze and the soft hooting of an owl, settled over the car.

  Gage took a deep breath and turned to Natalie. "Remember what we said this afternoon? About the Landons, and how sad it was when two people who love each other lose their way?"

  She nodded and looked down into her lap, at her tightly folded hands. Her hair swung over her cheek, hiding her face.

  "Yes. But sometimes .... Sometimes, it's a lot more complicated than that."

  Gage reached out and touched his hand to Natalie's cheek, gently pushing back her hair so he could see her.

  "Yeah. You're right. And I don't understand how that happens, babe. I mean, just look at us. When we started out, it was all so simple."

  Natalie sighed. "I know."

  "A boy, a girl..." He smiled, leaned back in the seat and looked up at the moon. "Do you remember coming up here?"

  "Of course."

  "Damn, but it's a miracle we didn't turn this old car into a heap of smouldering ashes." He chuckled, reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers. "All those nights ... " "Gage, I don't think it helps to talk about-"

  "And even that one afternoon." He looked at her. "You remember that afternoon, babe?"

  Did she remember? Natalie felt the colour rise in her cheeks. "- remember."

  "We must have been crazy, drivin' up here, makin' love out there, on that old blanket, with the sun beatin' down ... " She didn't want to smile, but she had to. "Don't look now, cowboy, but your drawl's back."

  "What drawl?" Gage said. "Why, darlin', ah doan have no drawl. None A-tall." He smiled at her, his heart soaring when she smiled back, and then he cleared his throat. "I didn't really bring you here to talk about old times."

  Natalie caught her lip between her teeth. "I didn't think you had. It seems an awfully long way to go, just to play 'remember when,' especially when we-when we won't want to remember all this in just another few-"

  Gage stopped the terrible flow of words with the gentle brush of his fingers across her mouth.

  "Don't say it." His voice was gruff with emotion. "Not until you've heard me out."

  "Gage." Natalie's voice quavered. She took a breath and began again. "Gage, talking won't change anything."

  "Answer just one question, Nat." He shifted in the seat, cupped the nape of her neck with his hand and looked into her eyes. "Will you do that for me?"

  She hesitated, then nodded. "All right. One question." Gage's gaze seemed to bore into the depths of her heart. "A couple of hours ago, I asked you if you still loved me.

  And you said you did. Is that true?"

  Natalie swallowed hard. "Yes. I-I'm willing to admit, I still-I still feel something for-"

  He kissed her. Lightly, gently, his mouth as soft as silk on hers.

  "And I love you," he whispered.

  Natalie's eyes filled with tears. "I know. But love isn't-" Gage kissed her again. And, despite everything she'd told herself, she couldn't keep from responding to the kiss.

  She" drew back, lifted her hand, touched it to his face, then dropped it back into her lap.

  "Love-love isn't always enough," she said, her voice trembling.

  "Love is everything," he said harshly. "Love is all there is. All the rest doesn't mean a hill of beans."

  "That's not true. Not even love can keep a dream alive, Gage."

  "What dream? Dammit, the only dream" I ever had was you."

  "At first. But then-then you wanted other things. And I don't blame you," she said quickly. "A man needs to-to leave his mark on the world, and Baron Resorts is your mark, one you can be proud of."

  "Is that what you think Baron Resorts is, Nat? A monument to my ego?"

  "No. I didn't mean-"

  "I built Barons for us." Gage's mouth twisted. "For you and me. Yeah, I'm proud of what I've done but I thought you were proud of it, too."

  "I was. I am-"

  "Are you telling me wanting to succeed was wrong? That I shouldn't have gotten pleasure out of being able to give you the kind of life you deserve?"

  "I'd have been happy if-if the life you gave me meant living in that apartment in Manhattan."

  Gage snorted. "The roach palace?" "Our palace. Our home."

  "Oh, right. Some home that was. The rug we bought second-hand. The furniture we picked up at that yard sale in Brooklyn ... '

  "It wasn't perfect."

  "The understatement of the year," Gage said.

  "At least we chose those things ourselves, instead of letting some-some tender-toes decorator do it for us."

  Gage blinked. "Tender-toes?"

  Natalie flushed. "Maybe you like all that stuff. The tiny chairs nobody can sit in. The leather couches so big people slide off them when they sit down. All those miserable mirrors, the ones that let you see that last night's mousse is already sitting on your hips-"

  "Are you serious?"

  "Of course, I'm serious." "You don't like our house?"

  Natalie sighed. "It's not the house, it's the things in it. I know I'm hurting your feelings, but-"

  Gage laughed. "Oh, babe, if you only knew how I despise all that stuff." He took a lock of her hair between his fingers and let the softness of it slip against his skin. "Maybe not the mirrors," he said with a little smile. "It's kind of nice, getting to see my beautiful wife in triplicate as she steps out of the shower."

  Natalie blushed. "I hate those mirrors," she said firmly. "Okay. The mirrors go. What else?"

  "Gage, this is pointless. Refurnishing the house won't-" "You like the kitchen, don't you?" He sounded almost desperate. "All those-what do you call them? Those state of-the-art appliances?"

  '''All those appliances Luz uses more than I do."

  "Hey." Gage's brows drew together. "You're not going to tell me you didn't want Luz, either, are you?"

  "Luz is wonderful." Natalie lifted her chin in defiance.

  "But you seem to think I prefer going to silly charity luncheons to making a meat loaf. Well, I don't. Didn't. I mean, it isn't important anymore, now that we're-now that we're getting divorced, but I really liked to take care of our home, Gage. I didn't need Luz to do everything for me."

  Gage blew out his breath. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me you hate our house. You don't like Luz doing things instead of you. You think those luncheons are silly. And you're not exactly ecstatic about the life I've given you."

  "No. I never said-"
<
br />   "That's right. You never said, not one damned word." His mouth thinned. "What else have you been hiding from me, Natalie?"

  "Me?"

  "Yeah, you. Because there are only two things I haven't told you. One is that I always hated the way that jerk decorated our home. The other is that I don't ever want to lose you. Not ever." Gage cleared his throat. "So the only secrets left are yours, Natalie."

  "I don't have any secrets-"

  "You damn well do. At least one, babe. The one that's making you leave me, even though you love me."

  Natalie bowed her head. "It's too late," she whispered. "The hell it is!" Gage caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. "Tell me what's hurting you and we'll work it through."

  "We can't." Her voice broke. "We can't work it through, because it's something we don't know how to talk about it. We both know what it is-"

  "I don't know, dammit!"

  "You do! Oh, it doesn't matter. No amount of talking could help us, Gage, because this is about my dream, not yours. It's the reason my heart is breaking, the reason we can't make our marriage work ... "

  She twisted away from him, opened the door and flung herself from the car. Gage cursed, threw open his door and went after her.

  "It sure as hell is worth talking," he roared when he caught her and spun her towards him, "because I'm lost here, Natalie. What's this dream? What is it that you want that I haven't given you?"

  "Your child!" The words tore from her throat and flew into the hot silence of the night. "Your baby, Gage-yours, and mine."

  Gage stared at his wife in disbelief as she buried her face in her hands, her sobs racking her body as if they came not from her throat but from the very depths of her soul.

  "A child?" he said. "Our child?" He stared at her.

  "But... but... but... "

  He clamped his lips together in frustration. Was that all he could say? He was not a man who was ever at a loss for words but, right now, he could find none.

  Natalie wanted his child? She'd left him, because she wanted his child? Because he hadn't given her the one thing she wanted, the one thing he wanted?

  He wanted to shake her. To yell at her, for not telling him.

  To hurl invectives at the sky, because of the months and years of stupid, painful misunderstanding ... but most of all, he wanted to take his wife in his arms and kiss her. Tell her that her dream was his dream, that his heart was almost bursting with happiness.

  He reached for her, then pulled back his hand. Whatever he said now would be far more important than anything he'd ever said to her in all the years they'd been together. He knew that, just as surely as he suddenly knew that they were not at the end of their marriage but at the beginning.

  "Nat," he said softly, "you're wrong. Sweetheart, you're wrong. We can talk about it. We must talk about it."

  Natalie lifted her head. Tears were streaming down her face and her nose was running. He pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her, and thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

  "Don't say anything you'll regret," she said hoarsely.

  "Don't make any promises for my sake. It's why I never spoke about-about the baby we lost, Gage, because I knew that if I-if I let you know how badly I ached for him, how desperately I wanted to become pregnant again, you might give in and say, okay, we'll have a child, if that's what you want, the same way you-you went along with my pregnancy that first time."

  "What?" he said. "What?" Anger roughened his voice.

  He caught hold of her, forgetting about his sprained wrist, and a sharp pain shot up to his shoulder but he didn't care. Enough was enough. "I went along with your pregnancy? Is that what you think?"

  "Yes. And I know it wasn't easy. It meant a change in the way we lived, that I wouldn't be able to travel with you-" "Dammit, Natalie! Where did you ever get such a crazy idea? I walked on air for days after we found out we were having a baby."

  Natalie blinked. "You did?"

  "Hell, I was so excited, I drove everybody nuts. 'I'm having a baby,' I'd say in the middle of a board meeting." Just for a second, a grin tilted across his mouth. "And they'd all look at me as if I'd gone crazy until finally Johnny Miller cracked, 'Did you tell your wife?'"

  "But-but you never said ... " "I didn't think I had to."

  "Actually-actually, I thought you were happy about the baby. I didn't realize the truth until-until after I lost it."

  The remembered guilt of that day rocketed through him. "I wasn't there. I know, babe. And I've been trying to make peace with it ever since. I should have been home. I didn't want to be away from you but I figured it was best to get the travelling done before ... " He swallowed. "Before our baby came."

  Natalie stared at him. "You did?"

  "I didn't want to be the kind of father Jonas had been. I wanted to be there for my kid, you know, go to school plays, to ball games, read him bedtime stories. I know it was crazy but I had this idea in my head that I could get everything out of the way so I could be there from the minute our child came into the world, until... Nat? Sweetheart, don't cry."

  "Oh, Gage ... "

  "It damn near killed me," he said gruffly, "when I realized you didn't want to try again."

  "I did. Oh, I did. I thought you were the one who didn't."

  Natalie smiled through her tears. "The first time you used a condom, I cried my heart out after we'd made love. I told myself it would be all right, that I could live without having your child. And maybe I could have-but you and I kept growing further and further apart. You travelled more and more ... "

  "Because it killed me, to see how you kept me at a distance, when I was home."

  "I thought you wanted that kind of life. And-and I began to hate you for wanting it instead of a family."

  Gage bent his head and kissed her mouth. "I love you," he said huskily. "I always have. I always will. Do you understand that, sweetheart?"

  Natalie laughed, and her tears glistened like starlight in her eyes. "Yes," she said, "oh, yes."

  They kissed again, and then Gage tucked Natalie's head against his shoulder.

  "You remember the things we used to do up here?"

  She drew back and looked up at him. "Picnic, you mean?"

  Laughter danced in her eyes.

  "Yeah. Picnic. And-other stuff."

  "Not really," she said solemnly. "I think you're going to have to remind me."

  Gage kissed her again. Natalie made a soft little noise in her throat, one that had always made his pulse beat quicken. His tongue slipped into her mouth and she wound her arms around his neck.

  "Umm. I think I'm beginning to remember ... "

  He nuzzled her hair from around her throat and nipped gently at the tender spot behind her ear.

  "Good," he whispered. "Let's see if we can stir your memory a little more."

  He looked deep into her eyes. Then, slowly, he undid the buttons on her blouse, fumbling a little because of his injured wrist. The blouse fell from her shoulders. The rest of her clothing followed until, at last, she was naked.

  Gage looked at his wife, his beautiful wife, and felt the sudden tightness in his throat.

  "Natalie. Sweetheart, I've missed you so terribly."

  "Touch me," she whispered. "Gage, please. Touch ... " Her breath caught as he cupped her breast and bent to it.

  He drew the beaded tip into his mouth, then kissed his way down her body and dropped to his knees before her. Natalie's head fell back as his mouth sought and found her, and she cried out her pleasure to the stars.

  Gage stood up and kissed her, so that she tasted their mingled passion on her lips.

  "Undress me," he said softly.

  Natalie did. She unbuttoned his shirt, smoothing her palms over his hard, muscled chest. She opened his belt, the fastener at the top of his fly ... and hesitated.

  "Are you sure you're up to this?" she said in a breathless whisper, and he laughed softly, caught her hand, and brought it to the powerful swell o
f his arousal.

  "You tell me, sweetheart."

  When, together, they'd stripped away his clothes, he took her hand, kissed the palm, and led her to the old Chevy.

  "Unless I miss my guess, babe, our old blanket's still in the trunk. But you'll have to help me. It'll take more than one hand to make us a bed in the grass."