Just one moment

by Poppy J. Anderson

  As soon as he’d given her the first kiss, which couldn’t have been more tender or cautious, he was overcome with the yearning to pull his wife into his arms and never let her go. Cupping her face, he intensified the kiss, then slipped his hands away to wrap his arms around her and pull her into a tight embrace. In this moment, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if Barbara had protested. But James could feel her clinging to him with a despair that made her return his kiss with the same fevered intensity.

  His head spun at the speed of light.

  When the walls that had separated them from each other during the past years finally crumbled and broke, he could no longer process a rational thought.

  When he bent his knees to lift Barbara into his arms, she didn’t put up any resistance but continued to kiss him enthusiastically. Even when he carried her to the staircase and proceeded up to the bedroom, she didn’t stop him. Instead, she sighed his name and nestled against him.

  Chapter 13

  She couldn’t believe that she and James were lying together, naked, in their former marital bed, her head resting on his shoulder, and that she had just had sex with him.

  She was still trembling and panting, feeling so sleepy and relaxed now that she could have fallen asleep easily—with her ex-husband next to her, also panting, while his hand drifted across her arm light as a feather and he used his other arm to pull her closer.

  It came as a sort of shock to realize how familiar it felt to lie naked next to James, to snuggle up against him, to sleep with him. His kisses had felt so familiar, as if she had finally come home.

  Every single moment since she’d lifted her face to him downstairs had felt so damned right—from the second they’d kissed to the second James had undressed her with great tenderness and laid her on the bed. Everything had been perfect. And when James had undressed himself, kissed her, and then entered her, Barbara had finally felt whole again.

  “That’s not the reason I came here,” James whispered into the silence of the bedroom, her hair drifting in the air from his lips.

  She put a reluctant hand on his broad chest, which was still rising and falling in short intervals. “Do you regret it?”

  “No, of course not,” the father of her children replied with gravity in his voice. “I just hope you don’t think I came here just to have sex with you.”

  “Mm-hm.” She nestled even closer against him. “What else would I think?” she teased.

  His fingertips slowly felt their way down her spine. “Good question, my love.”

  Feeling satisfied and comfortably tired, she yawned. “James, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  She licked her lips quickly. “Did you go out with Scott’s teacher?”

  Apparently, James had to take a breath first, but then he calmly explained, “No, I didn’t. Running into her was sheer coincidence, and I didn’t call her afterward or anything. Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes.” She stroked his chest. “And, just for your information: The day of the soccer tournament, I told Marcus I wouldn’t go out with him again.”

  “Okay.” Strangely, James didn’t sound all that surprised. “What was the reason, if I may ask?”

  “Isn’t that rather obvious now?”

  He let out a soft giggle. “A little, I guess. But when I first heard Marcus Lindsay had been seen out with another woman, I wasn’t sure I was the reason.”

  Now Barbara was surprised. She tilted her head back to look into his face. “Does that mean you came here because you knew I wasn’t going out with Marcus anymore?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No, I came here because today is the anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, and I didn’t want you to be on your own.”

  Unfortunately, old habits died hard. Barbara gave him a suspicious look. “You can’t blame me for being suspicious. Over the last two years …” She stopped herself then, for she didn’t want to start an argument.

  But James didn’t seem to be able to let it go. In a very reserved voice, he asked, “What about the last two years?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged a dismissive shoulder. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “No, I want to know what you were about to say.”

  Crestfallen, Barbara watched James sit up and rob her of her comfortable snuggling position. She had no choice but to sit up as well, pulling the bed sheet up over her breasts. It didn’t help that he was sitting naked next to her like a young god and staring down at her with a dark look.

  “Well?” he prompted. “What did you want to say to me?”

  She wanted to bite her nails to calm her nerves. “Listen, James, the past two years have been complicated. All I really wanted to say was that we haven’t been very considerate of each other. I didn’t mean to voice an accusation or anything.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  Barbara gestured nervously. “You know full well.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  An irritated sigh escaped her lips. “People who get divorced tend not to treat each other in the best way—”

  “Which has been especially evident in your behavior,” he snapped suddenly.

  “What?”

  His scowl was deeper than she’d ever known was possible. “You should think of yourself when you’re talking about us being inconsiderate of one another. For my part, I know I always thought of you.”

  Whoa! Where had that come from? Barbara was gobsmacked. “Are you implying I was the only inconsiderate one in this situation?”

  His silence spoke volumes.

  They were sitting in their former marital bed—both of them naked, both of them angry.

  Or, rather, furious. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!”

  “And that means?” he demanded.

  “May I remind you of the reason we got a divorce?” Though she hadn’t intended to bring up that particular part of their past, he’d brought them to that point.

  “Barbara …”

  His accusatory tone didn’t intimidate her but instead made her even angrier. He had no reason to be mad with her, after all. She hadn’t been the one who cheated! “In case you don’t remember,” she spat, “I didn’t have an affair.”

  His features turned to stone. “Do you have to start this again?”

  “It’s rather difficult not to mention when you accuse me of being inconsiderate.” She took an angry breath. “I wasn’t the one who happily screwed his coworker while his wife was sitting at home grieving for her dead baby!”

  His gaze was heated and his voice cutting as he said: “Happily? Do you really think I was feeling happy?”

  “How else would you have felt?”

  The nervous rumbling in her stomach could probably be heard all the way to Canada, Barbara thought, as James slipped away from her and sat on the edge with jerky motions that gave away his ire.

  “You know what?” He threw her an angry glance over his shoulder as he grabbed his boxers from beside to the bed. “I’ve eaten humble pie long enough, Barbara! I’m sick of being the asshole who cheated on his wife. Have you ever wasted even a single thought about how terrible I was feeling at the time? No, you didn’t pause for a second to think about that.”

  Even if Barbara was able to reply to that, James didn’t give her a chance. He slipped into his boxers, rose from the bed, and loomed over her.

  Daunted, she pressed the sheets to her chest and watched, wide-eyed, as her half naked ex-husband put his hands on his hips and glared at her. She had no idea what had brought on this sudden outburst of pent-up frustrations.

  “I did everything I could think of to make you feel better. Goddammit, I didn’t even allow myself to grieve for our daughter, because I didn’t want to burden you with my sorrow on top of your own! For months, I slunk around, kept my distance, tried to reach out, but received nothing but icy rejection. Do you really think the situation was such a walk in the park for me? Or that I was even remotely okay, let alone ha
ppy? Did you ever think about how hard that ordeal was for me? The position you put me in?”

  She stared at him, frozen, hearing her own heartbeat thudding in her ears like the thunder of a cannon. “What … What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean?” He snorted scornfully and leaned over, looking her straight in the eye. She had never seen him this upset. “I mean that I was on my way to the airport when your mother called me to tell me in a panic that you’d been rushed to the hospital. When I arrived, they told me the baby barely had a chance and that you would die if they didn’t perform surgery right away.” He was trembling all over now, balling his hands into fists so tightly, Barbara could see every strand of muscle in his upper body.

  His voice vibrated with pent-up emotions when he continued. “The doctors were pushing for an emergency caesarean while you were begging me not to let them do it. What was I supposed to do? All I could do was sit by your side, hold your hand, and plead with God not to take you or Elizabeth.” Suddenly, tears started to pour from his eyes. “Barbara … all I could … all I could think about was that I couldn’t lose you! And at the same time, I couldn’t bear losing our baby! I’d painted her nursery just a few days before, and there I was holding this tiny body in my arms as she died.” He faltered for a heartbreaking moment. “Do you think that even one minute of that day was easy for me? I was holding our dying daughter in my hands as some nurse told me you’d lost a lot of blood and it didn’t look good.”

  Torn between disbelief, shock, and disconsolation, Barbara stared into his face. “You were with Elizabeth when she died?”

  James threw up his hands. “Of course I was with her! I couldn’t have borne the thought of her dying alone! Jesus.” He shivered as he wiped away a tear. “She was our daughter. How could I not be with her?”

  Barbara pressed a hand against her mouth, sure she would burst into sobs at any moment. All this time, she’d thought her baby had died all alone. She’d driven herself crazy, torturing herself with the thought that the tiny infant had lain alone in an incubator as she slipped away from life.

  That fact that James had been with Elizabeth when she died was the single most comforting thing Barbara had ever heard.

  But James was crying unrestrainedly, his blond head shaking, his voice distorted with pain as he whispered, “She was so perfect. Her small ears jutted a little, so delicate they were translucent, and her tiny mouth looked just like yours.” His voice trembled. “She was so beautiful.”

  Barbara started to sob. “James.”

  “I wanted to tell you about her, wanted to describe every single detail of her face to you, but you didn’t let me.”

  Grief-stricken, she looked up at him, searching his desperate face and reaching out toward him, but James didn’t make a move to come closer. He just stared into space, lost in his painful memories.

  “When you finally got out of the operating room, I just held your hand for hours,” he said, “so damned happy I hadn’t lost you. But then …”

  She whispered his name again, wishing she could take him into her arms, but the tension in his posture kept her from acting on the impulse.

  He was panting, as if the words he was forcing out were like knives in his throat. “Suddenly you didn’t want to look at me anymore, and you weren’t talking to me, either.”

  “I was so unhappy,” she whispered tearfully, as if that could justify how cold she’d been to him.

  “What do you think I was feeling?” He took a deep breath. “I was miserable, too, Barbara!”

  She trembled and clutched the sheets with both hands. “You … You told the doctors to do everything they could to … to save me. But that meant Elizabeth …” She broke off into sobs. “I … I couldn’t forgive you for abandoning her. It hurt so bad … Just a few hours earlier, I’d felt her kick in my stomach. My baby.”

  “I didn’t abandon her!” he flared desperately.

  “No, you didn’t,” Barbara sobbed. “But I didn’t know … I thought you didn’t love her.”

  His chin was trembling. “You really believed that?”

  “Not anymore, James. Not anymore.”

  He averted his eyes. “For more than six months, I walked on eggshells, gave you space, lived like a scared cat,” he murmured despondently. “All I wanted was for you to feel okay again, but you were acting like you detested me. Do you have any idea how that felt? My own wife hated me, when all I wanted was to see her smile again. Just once. And I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I couldn’t talk to anyone about Elizabeth!

  “And then you demanded I move into the guest room. I was so scared I was going to lose you, Barbara, and at the same time I knew I couldn’t make things right in your eyes.” He swore under his breath. “When I was in Toronto, there was finally someone who asked me how I was doing, what I was feeling, and for the first time, I was able to talk about Elizabeth. I didn’t have to feel guilty when I told Anna how deeply I grieved for our baby, and I didn’t have to fear she’d turn her back on me if I spoke to her.”

  Each of his words cut her to the quick. She suddenly remembered the countless times she’d given James the cold shoulder, or rejected him, or refused to even look at him. Like Scott’s birthday, when James had pulled her into an embrace, and she had resolutely pushed him away. He must have suffered like a dog, she thought, her chest tightening.

  “James, I didn’t know that.” She shrugged helplessly, feeling a tear roll down her cheek.

  His nostrils flared. “It was never about the sex—all I needed was some comfort.”

  “Still,” Barbara whispered, “you shouldn’t have slept with her.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have.” His shoulders sagged. “I shouldn’t have slept with another woman because I was unhappy. But you should have given me a chance to apologize.”

  Sick with anxiety, Barbara swallowed hard and studied every inch of his face. “But can’t you understand how it was for me?” she asked shakily, wanting—needing—to justify her behavior. “I wasn’t able to protect my baby, and was left feeling that my husband, my best friend, the man I trusted the most, had abandoned me. By the time I got home, even the room we’d prepared for the baby had disappeared, and you were acting as if our baby girl had never existed.” She gingerly scooted closer to the edge of the bed, where James was still standing, looking down at her with a deep frown. “I was grieving, angry, and hurt—and I blamed you for it. That was wrong of me, James.”

  His face wet with tears, James stood silently, imposing with his broad shoulders and strong arms, arms that had held her in this bed only ten minutes before.

  “Say something, please,” she pleaded softly.

  He shook his head. “The last two years have been like hell on earth, Barbara.”

  “They were for me as well,” she murmured, cautiously reaching out her hand, interlacing her fingers with his. “A few weeks ago, you told me that you still love me.”

  Barbara watched James lower his head and stare at their intertwined hands. But his thoughtful face frightened her. In that moment, the thought of losing James was unbearable—losing him truly and irrevocably. She had always loved him and had missed him those past two years, even if she’d wished he would go to hell at the same time. But the truth was out now. She had done him terribly wrong. He’d made mistakes, too, but it was her own grief that had made her completely unreceptive to his feelings. Shame flooded her as she squeezed his hand.

  “Barbara, I love you,” he professed in a hoarse voice. “I always have, but …”

  Her heart beat painfully against her rib cage. “But what?”

  He slowly let go of her hand. “But I can’t bear any more of the way you’ve treated me over the last two years. I want you to love me as unconditionally as I love you.”

  “But I do,” she whispered helplessly, searching his face for a smile. Surely those words would make him smile.

  He shook his head, his eyes veiled. “We both failed our first real test of faith. I don’t kno
w what that says about us.”

  “It says that we were both extremely unhappy,” she choked out, “and that we both made mistakes, James. But we can learn from those mistakes.”

  His face remained serious and grave. Only his Adam’s apple moved when he declared flatly, “I need a little time to think.”

  She wanted to stop him, ask him to stay with her. But her voice wouldn’t work. She merely watched him in silence as he got dressed and slipped from her bedroom—their bedroom. And that was the moment Barbara realized it wasn’t James who’d failed the first test of faith. It was her.

  She’d been the one who’d only been thinking of her pain and her grief. She hadn’t even tried to put herself in James’s shoes even for an instant.

  He’d wanted comfort and solace, just like she had, but she’d denied him that.

  She closed her eyes in shame and vowed never to push her husband away again—if he was willing to return to her at all.

  Chapter 14

  Monday wasn’t exactly James’s favorite day of the week. Rush hour was a disaster, the mood in the office was terrible, and the prospect of a crazy-busy workweek was a horror when you knew there was no end in sight. Plus, there was never anything good on TV on Mondays, which amounted to the ultimate worst-case scenario for a single man.

  To make matters worse, his current Monday was a whole lot more terrible than an ordinary Monday. He hadn’t really slept for two nights straight, so he was feeling irritable and so distracted that he was causing chaos in the office instead of containing and dismantling it.

  He couldn’t think straight and hadn’t been able to ever since he’d stormed from Barbara’s bedroom on Saturday evening. Even the basic act of reversing his car out of the driveway had proven too complex a task for him this morning, and he managed to take out his mailbox while his mind replayed the conversation he’d had with Barbara in their—her—bed.

  Then, on the way to work, he’d been pulled over for speeding, almost rear-ended another car once he was released by the cop, and when he’d finally pulled into the underground parking garage of the office complex, he’d opened his car door with a little too much verve, hitting it on a concrete column.