by Gina Wilkins
But every time she tried to talk to him, he changed the subject. Cracked a joke. Suddenly decided to play tickle the baby. Anything to avoid letting her get too close to him.
Tom was a man of action, not words.
Apparently, it was time for her to take drastic action.
The future of their marriage depended on his reaction.
Tom came home from work Friday with a smile on his face. That, he reflected, was becoming an increasingly familiar habit.
Work was finished for the week. It was someone else’s weekend to be on call. Two entire days stretched in front of him to spend enjoying his wife and kid. His life was getting better all the time.
His mom had offered to baby-sit tomorrow evening, and Tom had decided to surprise Leslie with dinner in a fancy restaurant—just the two of them, for the first time since they’d gotten married. He thought maybe she’d like that. Lately, he’d gotten the impression she wanted to talk. They could talk at the restaurant, over a candlelit dinner.
Serious talks seemed easier in public places, for some reason.
Satisfied with his planning, he entered his house. There was no aroma of dinner cooking. Maybe Leslie wanted to order takeout tonight. Or maybe she’d decided it was his turn to cook. Only fair.
“Les?” He wandered through the living room and kitchen, then checked the baby’s room and found it unoccupied. He finally located his family in his bedroom. Kenny was lying on his back at the foot of the bed, playing with his toes and gurgling contentedly.
Leslie was packing a suitcase.
Tom went very still. “What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“I can see that. Why?”
She calmly rolled a sweater and slipped it into the case. “There’s no reason for me to stay here any longer. I have a job again now, and Steve has dropped all threats of a custody suit. Now that everything is settled, I’m giving you your freedom back.”
Tom could think of nothing he wanted less than his freedom. “Where are you planning to go?”
“My old apartment is available. It turns out that the last tenant moved out just last week. I always liked the landlady there.”
He stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. “So you’re just going to move out of here? Tonight?”
She smiled too brightly. “No reason to waste time, is there? It’s not all that late. Barely six. And I still haven’t gotten all my things from Chicago, so there’s not that much to move. I’ll take what I need tonight, then pick up the rest this weekend.”
A spark of anger ignited somewhere deep inside him. It almost overpowered the pain. Not quite. “You didn’t think we should discuss this?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to bring it up all week. You haven’t been in the mood for discussions, apparently. Besides, I knew you wouldn’t mind. It’s not as if you actually wanted to marry me.”
“Of course I wanted to marry you,” he snapped. “I did, didn’t I?”
Why couldn’t she see how obvious that was?
“You very kindly did me a favor in answer to my request,” she corrected him, reaching for another sweater. “I came to you, remember? I practically begged you to marry me. You would have had every right to toss me out on my ear, but I knew you wouldn’t. You’re a very nice man, Tom Lowery. A good friend.”
A good friend. Some might have considered it a compliment. But as far as Tom was concerned, that was the second worst thing she’d said tonight—right behind that bit about giving him his freedom.
He looked at the baby, who was lying so contentedly on the bed, talking to his toes. He looked at Leslie, so calmly stripping Tom’s room of all signs of her brief residence there. They’d been a family for only three weeks, and already he couldn’t imagine his life without them. Didn’t want to imagine it.
Why was Leslie doing this to them?
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, bewilderment mingling with the hurt and anger. “Did I say something to hurt you?”
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she answered in a flat, almost accusatory tone that only confused him more. “You’ve said nothing to hurt me. You’ve hardly said anything at all, for that matter.”
“Then why the hell are you walking out on me again?” The words exploded out of him, just short of a shout. They were loud enough and forceful enough to cause Kenny to look at him in surprise.
Leslie stood beside the open suitcase, a blouse in her hands, hugged to her breasts like a shield. All of a sudden her expression was vulnerable; she looked much less serene and confident than when he’d come in. “I’m leaving this time,” she said quietly, “for the same reason I left last time.”
Tom’s hands clenched into fists at his side. She was about to answer a question that had haunted him for more than a year. And he suddenly wasn’t at all sure he wanted to hear the answer. “Why?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“You haven’t asked me to stay,” she answered simply.
Leslie watched her words hit Tom like a slap in the face. He stared at her, a frown carved between his eyebrows, disbelief the predominant expression in his piercing green eyes.
Whatever he’d expected her to say, it obviously hadn’t been that.
He shook his head. “That’s not why you left before,” he refuted flatly. “You left because you wanted to. Because you couldn’t turn down the offer you got from that firm in Chicago. Your career was more important to you than I was. You chose to leave.”
She set the blouse on the suitcase. “You didn’t ask me to stay,” she repeated. “Not once. Not the day I told you I’d had a job offer. Not the day I left. You never even said you wished I wouldn’t go.”
And it had broken her heart that he didn’t even seem to care whether she stayed or left.
“Leslie, that’s ridiculous. I had no right to ask you to pass up a career opportunity like that. It was entirely up to you whether to accept it or decline.”
“We were lovers, Tom. We’d been together for months. Yet never once did you tell me what you felt about me, other than desire. When I told you that I was considering moving hundreds of miles away, all you did was shrug and say, ‘I’ll miss ya, kid. Have a good life.’”
“I never said that.”
“Maybe not in so many words. But that was the message I received from you.”
“You wanted me to forbid you to take the job?” he asked, his tone heavily sarcastic.
“I wanted to know you cared,” she shot back. “I needed to know I mattered to you.”
“Of course you mattered to me.” He sounded utterly baffled that they were even having this conversation. He reached out a hand to support himself against the doorjamb; he hadn’t even come all the way into the bedroom with her, she realized. He’d seen that she was leaving, and he’d reacted the same way he had before. He’d drawn back, out of her way.
“How was I to know that?” she challenged him. “Was I supposed to read your mind?”
“Leslie, we were lovers. We’d been together for months. I hadn’t even looked at another woman the whole time we were together. You practically lived here—your things hung in my closet, your books and papers and stuff were scattered all though my house. But you weren’t a prisoner here. You were always free to leave if you wanted to. And obviously, you did.”
She shook her head, saddened by his deliberate obtuseness. “You just don’t get it, do you? I needed to know the commitment went both ways. I needed to believe that you wouldn’t be the one to simply walk out one day because there was nothing holding us together. I couldn’t be the one to take all the emotional risks.”
“Does this have something to do with your father?” he asked suddenly.
Oh, Lord, the male mind, Leslie thought with a shake of her head.
“Of course it has to do with my father,” she answered in exasperation. “All my life, I watched him live with women—marry women—without ever really committing himself to any of them. It was always so easy for him to mo
ve on, because he never really cared enough to stay. He’s funny and charming and romantic and dashing—like you—but his philosophy has always been to love the one he’s with at the time. Permanence isn’t even a part of his vocabulary. How was I to believe you were any different, when you never seemed to be interested in talking about the future? When you never seemed to look past a day at a time? For all I knew, you found someone else a week after I left. For all I knew, I was no more special than any of the women who proceeded me, as easily replaced and as briefly lamented.”
He scowled. “You make it sound as though there was a whole string of women before you. There wasn’t. I’d dated, of course, but I’d never lived with anyone before you.”
“We weren’t living together, Tom. We simply had a long series of sleepovers. Living together implies that a decision was made, a question asked and answered. That never happened between us. Not until I came back into your life and asked you to marry me.”
He sighed loudly. “What ever happened to that old saying about actions speaking louder than words? Not everyone is comfortable talking about his feelings, Leslie. I married you because I wanted to, not just because you asked me to. I’ve told you I want to adopt Kenny—and that’s most definitely a permanent commitment. Everything I have is yours as much as mine now. Doesn’t that say anything to you?”
“It tells me that you’re a very kind and generous man. It doesn’t tell me how you feel about me.”
“Damn it, Leslie, you’re my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my father’s had a bunch of those,” she replied bitterly. “And he never seemed to have any trouble walking away from them. None of them really mattered to him.”
“I’m not your father,” Tom said between gritted teeth. “And I’m not the one walking away. You are.”
“Physically, maybe. You do it emotionally, every time you hold your feelings inside yourself.”
“I’m not comfortable with flowery speeches. You know that.”
She sighed. “You can say anything you want whenever you want. I’ve heard you charm little old ladies and schmooze at a party like a career politician. People come to you with their problems because they know you’ll listen and give advice and encouragement. I knew when I came to you for help that you wouldn’t turn me away, because that’s the kind of guy you are. You’re always there for everyone else. Always the rescuer, the hero, the one with all the answers. But you never seek advice for yourself. You never ask for anything from anyone. You can’t—or won’t—admit weakness or vulnerability.”
She pushed a hand through her hair wearily. “You’re always there when someone needs you, Tom. But I refuse to be the only one with weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I need to be needed, just as much as you do. I need to know that I matter.”
“Leslie—”
His face was blurred, and she realized that she was seeing him through a film of tears. She’d been so determined to play this scene calmly. Rationally. It was how things had always been between them. How they’d both wanted it before. But somewhere along the way, Leslie had changed. She’d chosen to throw away the fears of her past and face the risk of making a permanent commitment. Of opening herself to heartbreak and disappointment for the sake of love.
But she couldn’t do it alone.
“I don’t know why you need to be so strong. Why you have to always be the rescuer. Maybe it’s because you grew up as the man of your household, feeling some responsibility to take care of your mother, despite her obvious ability to take care of herself...and of you. Or maybe it’s something else, I don’t know. I’m no psychologist. But it’s so strong in you that when you thought of yourself as damaged and weak—it changed you. You weren’t even the same man. You couldn’t deal with it. And then Kenny and I came along, and we needed you. And a house burned, and you found that you could still save people, no matter what the cost to yourself. This past week, you’ve almost been your old self again. The joker. The golden boy. The local hero. You don’t need me. You don’t need anyone.”
She turned to pick up the baby, hugging his warm, chubby little body close to her. “We’ll be fine now,” she said in a near whisper. “We’ll get out of your way so you can find someone else to rescue.”
Tom stood very stiffly in the doorway, his fingers clenched so tightly on the doorjamb that his knuckles were bone-white. “I don’t want you to go.”
He’d spoken in a mutter, barely audible. Leslie cradled the baby and blinked back a new wave of tears. “I have to go,” she whispered. “I can’t stay in a relationship that isn’t equal.”
“Leslie, I need you. Please don’t leave me again.”
She closed her eyes, feeling a few tears escape to roll slowly down her cheeks. “I would have given anything to hear you say those words before. But not like this. Not just because I’ve asked you to say them. It isn’t just the words I want from you, Tom. I need to believe them.”
“Then tell me what I have to do to convince you. Because, God help me, I can’t go through this again. It almost ripped my heart out when you walked out on me before. There wasn’t one day you were gone that I didn’t miss you and want you back.”
She was frozen in place by the look in his eyes, the raw edge to his voice. He sounded so sincere. Yet she was so afraid to believe...
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked, making no effort to hide her doubt
“I thought I was being noble,” he said, his mouth twisting. “I thought I was doing what was best for you.”
“You could have asked me.”
“And would you have stayed?” he demanded. “Would you have turned down a job that was everything you’d always trained for and hoped for?”
She’d asked herself that same question many times. She’d wondered what she would have said if given a choice between advancing her career or staying with Tom. She’d tried to decide if she would have been able to overcome her mistrust of a man’s promises, her old fears of abandonment. If she would have stayed. And she always came up with the same answer.
“I would have stayed,” she whispered. “I loved you.”
A muscle spasmed in his jaw, tightening his mouth, narrowing his eyes. “Oddly enough, I loved you enough to let you go. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t share my feelings, was I?”
“No,” she admitted. “I was afraid of rejection.”
“I guess I was, too. I’d never really failed at anything before. I didn’t think I could handle failing with you.”
“Did you marry me only to rescue me?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.
“No. I married you because I wanted you to be my wife.” He searched her face. “Did you marry me only because you needed to be rescued?”
“Asking you to marry me took every ounce of courage I had,” she replied. “It was a way for me keep Kenny, but mostly it was an excuse for me to come back into your life. I wanted another chance to show you how good we are together. How much we need each other.”
“I love you, Leslie. And I need you.” The words came easier this time. He dropped his hand and moved toward her, his slight limp doing nothing to diminish the overall effect of solid, strong, virile male. “Please don’t leave me.”
Holding Kenny in one arm, she reached out to him, the tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. “All you had to do was ask,” she managed to say. “Oh, Tom—”
He kissed her roughly. Deeply. Thoroughly. “I love you,” he muttered against her lips. “I always will.”
“I love you, too. Always.” She pressed her mouth to his again.
Kenny made a gleeful grab for Tom’s hair and spewed a noisy, wet raspberry, which effectively interrupted the most romantic moment of Leslie’s lifetime.
Faces still close together, Tom and Leslie broke into laughter.
Wincing as Kenny tugged firmly on his hair, Tom shook himself free, then leaned over to kiss the baby’s forehead. “Give me a break, Ken. I’m baring my soul here.”
“P-b-b-b
-t.” Pleased with the attention he’d gotten the first time, Kenny had decided to try it again.
“I love you, Son.” Tom kissed the baby again. And then he kissed Leslie. “I love you, Wife. I’ll try to remember to say it often, okay?”
Still misty-eyed, she smiled and nodded. “So will I.”
“Great. Now, why don’t you unpack this suitcase while I make dinner? I’m starving.”
Leslie sighed. So much for romantic moments.
She thought of what Tom had said earlier. In his case, actions really did speak louder than words. He’d given her so much—his name, his home and now his heart. She would be content from now on to know that everything he did for her and for Kenny was based on love.
But she would also insist that he say the words at times. They were so very nice to hear.
Tom took Kenny out of her arms. “C’mon, kid,” he said, moving toward the doorway. “I’ll let you sit in your seat and watch me make chili. I don’t want to brag, but I make the best chili this side of the Texas border.”
Leslie watched her husband and son with a heart so full of love she thought it might burst. “Hey, Goose—” she said, forcing the words past the sentimental lump in her throat.
Tom glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Easy on the peppers, okay? Last time you made chili for me, you nearly set my mouth on fire.”
His grin was broad, beautiful, unshadowed. “That’s okay. I happen to have a lot of training in putting out fires.”
Leslie fanned her face with her hand when she was alone. Her husband was also very good at starting fires, she mused, feeling the heat rise inside her in response to that sexy grin of his. Her own smile felt wicked. As soon as Kenny was in bed, she planned to ignite a few fires of her own.
Wiping the remains of tears from her cheek with the back of one hand, she turned back to the suitcase and began to unpack. She was home. And this time, she was here to stay.
Tom needed her.
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