by Marie Force
It took everything she had, along with a reserve pool of strength she didn’t know she possessed, to refrain from laughing at the expression on his face.
“If you laugh, I’ll divorce you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of laughing. It’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t. Something is wrong with me. How can I be naked in a bed with you and not be hard as a freaking rock?”
Janey knew she needed to be very, very careful about what she said. “Um, I don’t know? Would it help if I, you know, gave him some special attention?”
“It might.”
“You aren’t doing this on purpose to get me to do that, are you?”
“Have I ever needed to resort to tricks to get what I want from you?”
“No, but we’ve never had postpartum sex before either. You—and he—might be afraid I’m going to turn into one of those wives who forgets all about her poor husband after she gives birth.”
The look he gave her was positively hilarious, but again, she didn’t dare laugh. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“One of those wives who forgets all about her husband after she gives birth?”
“How could I ever forget about you?” She coaxed him onto his back and began with a light massage of his chest and the six-pack of muscles that rippled under her touch. “You’re supposed to be relaxing.”
“I am.”
“Close your eyes. Don’t think. Just feel.” Janey continued the massage, adding a string of kisses across his lower abdomen. When that didn’t work to arouse him, she lowered herself until she was on top of him, with his penis cradled in the valley between her breasts.
He pulled in a deep breath and held it.
“Relax.”
“I can’t relax when you’re doing that.”
“Yes, you can.” She continued to kiss him, adding some tongue action that usually made him crazy, but not tonight. Nothing was working.
“It’s broken. That’s got to be it.”
“You’re thinking, and you’re not relaxing. How can I be expected to work under these conditions?”
“Come up here, will you?”
“I’m not finished here. I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.”
“Please?” He held out his arms to her.
The pleading tone of his voice had her giving in to what he wanted. She crawled toward him and loved the feel of his strong arms encircling her. She always felt so safe—and so desired—in his arms. That there could be something actually wrong between them was so unimaginable, she couldn’t bear to even think about it.
“I’m sorry,” he said grimly.
“Please don’t be. We’ve had so much going on, it’s a wonder we aren’t both drooling by now.”
“I hope you know it’s not because I don’t want you. I’ve been dying for you.”
“I do know that, it’s just… Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t do that. Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”
Janey propped her chin on her hands and studied his face, which was tight with the kind of tension she hadn’t seen since the day their son was born under dramatic and frightening circumstances. “The way everything happened with P.J. It’s got to be on your mind that it all began right here with you and me in a bed together, making love. And I’m just wondering, if it’s possible, that you’re so afraid of getting me pregnant again that it might be messing with the equipment.”
Joe began to protest but stopped himself, sighing and closing his eyes. “Yeah, it’s possible.”
“Do you know that in all the weeks since P.J. was born, you’ve never told me what that day was like for you?”
“Because that doesn’t matter now. You’re both safe, it’s in the past, and there’s no need to relive it. Once was more than enough.”
Janey wished he could see how tormented he looked at the reminder of what had to be one of the worst and best days of his life all rolled into one unforgettable twenty-four-hour period. “I think you relive it every day and suffer in silence over it because all the focus has been on me and the baby—”
“Which is exactly where it should be. You’re the one who went through the trauma of emergency surgery.”
“I had it easy, Joe. I was unconscious and had no idea what was happening until it was all over and everything was fine. That’s not how it was for you, is it?”
His jaw pulsed and clenched as he struggled to retain his composure. “I don’t want to talk about this. Why are we rehashing the past when it doesn’t matter now?”
“It does matter if it’s still weighing on you so heavily.” She moved farther up to kiss his unresponsive lips. “Joe, honey, talk to me. Tell me what you went through so we can get past it and move on. Don’t keep it all bottled up inside.”
He turned them so she was on her back and got out of bed, pulling on a pair of shorts with hasty, jerky movements. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to relive it, and if you’d been awake, you wouldn’t want to either.”
Janey held out a hand to him. “Come back.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I heard you.”
He took her hand and reluctantly allowed her to guide him back to bed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bite your head off.”
“It’s okay. I get it. But I have all these blanks, you know? One minute I was napping in Mac’s guest room, and the next I’m in Providence with a new baby and a traumatized family all around me.”
“It’s better that you don’t remember it. Trust me on that.”
“I do trust you. I wish you would trust me enough to talk to me about how it was for you.”
“Don’t make this about trust, Janey. That’s not fair. I trust you more than I trust anyone.”
“I know you do, so trust me to help you get past this by talking to me about it.”
He raised both his hands to his head, running his fingers through his hair repeatedly until the short strands stood straight up. “You’re really going to make me do this?”
“Afraid so.”
“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.”
He was quiet for a long time, so long she wondered if he’d changed his mind, and then he began to speak in a dull, flat tone that was nothing like his usual animated speech. “The one image I’ll never get out of my head was how much blood there was. I went up to wake you because Blaine and Tiffany were on their way over after their wedding at the lighthouse, and I thought you’d want to be there when they arrived. I couldn’t get you to wake up. I thought you were just really asleep, but then I touched you… You were really cold, and for a minute, I thought…” His voice caught and his eyes filled. He covered them with his hands as if to hide his anguish from her.
With her heart breaking for him, Janey wanted so badly to hold him, but she didn’t dare touch him.
“I pulled back the covers, and there was just so much blood. I almost passed out at the sight of it, but I forced myself to move, to scream, to call for David. Thank God he was there. I’d spent so much time—years—hating him for what he’d put you through and then to have him right there when this happened... There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him after what he did for you, for me, for P.J. He was… He was incredible.” Speaking in a whisper, he added, “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life, Janey.” Tears rolled down his face, but he made no move to deal with them as he stared up at the ceiling. “Not even when my father died.”
She went to him then, putting her arm around him and laying her face on his chest.
His arm locked around her. “It was a fucking nightmare, from the second I saw the blood until you woke up in Providence four hours later. The whole time, I thought I was going to lose you—and the baby. David and Victoria operated right there in the clinic, and even though I was completely panic-stricken, I knew they couldn’t possibly be equipped for an emergency of this magnitude. And it turns out,
they weren’t, but they made do with what they had because they didn’t have any choice. From all accounts, David was fucking amazing during a surgery he’d never done by himself before. Victoria and Mason both made a point of telling me that later. Without him…” He released a deep breath. “We were so lucky he was dating Daisy, and she brought him to Mac’s, otherwise he never would’ve been there. I would’ve lost you because we wouldn’t have had time to track him down, to get you help. That’s the part that haunts me, how your life—and our son’s life—came down to shit luck. The randomness of it all is hard to live with.”
“We were very lucky that day,” Janey said softly. “But we’ve been very lucky for a long time when you think about it. We were lucky to be born to great parents who loved us, to have an amazing life on this island we love so much, to have wonderful friends and families who love us. We’ve always been surrounded by good luck, so it stands to reason that our luck would hold when we needed it most.”
“I suppose.”
“I’m really proud of the way you held up during all of it. From what I heard, David wasn’t the only one who was amazing. You were, too.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“How can you say that? You got me help when I needed it and stayed strong during a crisis. You’ve been my rock through it all.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew everything.”
“What don’t I know?”
Joe rubbed at the late-day stubble on his jaw. “When David was taking you into surgery… I told him… I said…”
“What did you say, Joe?”
“That if it came down to a choice—you or the baby—I wanted him to save you. And now I look at our beautiful son, and I remember how easily I chose you over him, and I hate myself for that.”
“Joe, God, I would’ve done the same thing. You hadn’t even met him yet, and you’ve loved me for years. Anyone would’ve done the same thing.”
“Still… It makes me sick to think about it now that I can hold him and touch him. Now that I love him, too.”
She put her hand on his face and turned him to look at her, brushing away his tears as she kissed him. “I love you so much. I love the all-consuming way you love me. I’ll never forget that day on your deck when you told me you’d been in love with me for years. I was shocked and not shocked at the same time. With hindsight, I think I’d known all along that you loved me like that. To hear that in the midst of the biggest crisis of your life you picked me above everything else only makes me love you more than I already do. It doesn’t mean we don’t love P.J. with all our hearts. It only means that he got lucky to be born to parents who love each other so much.”
He hugged her tightly as the tears continued to roll down his cheeks. “I don’t think I can do it again, Janey.”
“Do what?”
“Have another baby after what happened this time. To spend almost ten months living with that kind of fear… It would kill me.”
“Then we won’t have another one. We’ll be very thankful for the wonderful son we have and be grateful for all our many blessings.”
“You’ve said you don’t want him to be an only child.”
“I wouldn’t have chosen that for him, but he’ll be surrounded by cousins who’ll be like siblings to him. That’ll have to be enough for him.”
“Do you mean it? You’d really be okay with just having him?”
“I’d be okay with it. If we’re being entirely honest, the whole episode scared the hell out of me, too, and I only heard about it after the crisis had passed. If we’re just going to have P.J., maybe next year I could go back to school and finish my degree. I doubt I’d ever get around to finishing if we decided to have more kids.”
“I’d love to see you finish school. I’d be all for that.”
“Do you feel better at all after sharing it with me?”
“A little. You might’ve been right about something…”
“Just one thing?”
His laugh let her know he was really okay. “Subconsciously, me and my boys might’ve been worried about getting you pregnant again.”
“I’ll talk to Vic about getting on something to keep that from happening. In the meantime…”
“I’ll buy some condoms.”
“I should get Mac to buy them for us. He owes me from when he was dating Maddie and made me get them for him so no one would know they were sleeping together.”
“That would be funny, but I’d rather not have your brother in our business, if it’s just the same to you.”
“So I can’t torture him even a little bit?”
“Oh, all right, have your fun, but leave me out of it.”
“I will. Let’s meet right back here tomorrow night and see how things go.”
“It’s a date.”
Relieved, Janey closed her eyes and held on tight to him, thankful that he had shared his pain with her.
“Janey?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for not dying on me. I never would’ve been able to live without you.”
“I’d like to say no problem, but that doesn’t seem appropriate since it was apparently a huge problem for you and David and many others.”
“They would all agree with me that you and our beautiful son were well worth it.”
Chapter 11
Owen was being hunted. Pursued. Chased. His father was home and looking for him, and there was nowhere to hide from his wrath. He’d done something to make him mad again, and there’d be hell to pay. He made himself as small as he could get and hid behind the bunk beds in the room his sisters shared. They weren’t home, so maybe his dad wouldn’t look for him there.
In the distance, he could hear his mother screaming and crying, telling her husband to leave Owen alone. It hadn’t been his fault that the window had got broken. All the kids in the neighborhood had been playing basketball in the driveway when one of them hit the window.
The crack of flesh on flesh ended his mother’s cries and forced Owen to hold back one of his own so he wouldn’t be found. He’d hit her. Again. Every time she tried to defend him or his siblings against his father’s rage, he’d strike out first against her. Even knowing what was coming, she still tried to stop him. But nothing could stop Mark Lawry when he was in one of his rages.
“A man comes home from work and wants to relax a little, and what does he find? A broken window he has to deal with because his goddamned kid can’t control his friends. Well, I don’t think I should have to deal with it when I wasn’t even here when it happened.”
“I’ll get someone out to fix it,” Sarah said in a small voice. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
“And who’s going to pay for that?”
“It’s glass, Mark. Glass breaks. Things happen.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
Owen began to cry, silently pleading with his mother to do as his father told her and shut up. All her begging wouldn’t change the inevitable and would only get her another slap or punch. Mark Lawry was enraged, and someone had to pay. Owen would rather it be him than one of his younger siblings or his mother.
Someday, he’d be bigger and stronger than his father and be able to fight back. He lived for that day. He dreamed about being able to flatten his father with one punch. In gym class, he took every chance he could get to lift weights so he’d get bigger and stronger faster. He lifted rocks in the backyard and concrete cinder blocks that sat outside his friend Jimmy’s house.
“Where is he?” Mark asked in the rage-fueled tone that had Owen shrinking back against the wall, wishing it would open up and swallow him.
“I don’t know.”
“He’d better show his face, or I’ll go looking for one of his brothers. How do I know it wasn’t one of them who broke the window?”
“They weren’t even here!” Sarah cried. “Leave them alone. Leave them all alone.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you useless, worthless bitch. If you had the first ide
a of how to discipline them, I wouldn’t have to do it.”
“I hate you.”
“What did you say?”
Owen bolted from his hiding place and ran for his mother. “Get off her, you miserable bastard!”
He woke up, gasping and sweating and crying. Jesus. His heart was beating so fast, he feared he might be having a heart attack. Thankfully, he was alone in bed, so he had a minute to collect himself. Where in the name of hell had that come from? He hadn’t thought about the broken window in years or the hellish beating he and his mother had both withstood that day.
The goddamned trial was dredging up all sorts of shit Owen had thought he’d buried a long time ago.
He ran his hands over his face and took a series of shuddering breaths, trying to calm himself before he got up to find Laura. A sound from the bathroom had him sitting up and getting out of bed. He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and headed for the bathroom. Tapping lightly on the door, he opened it a crack. “Princess?”
“I’m okay. Go back to sleep.”
Owen went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him so they wouldn’t wake Holden.
“You’re not going back to bed,” she said weakly as she rested against the wall between bouts of vomiting. She took a closer look at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He sat next to her and took her hand. “It started early today.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It never really ended yesterday.”
“I don’t mean to beat a dead horse or anything, but how are you planning to manage feeling this way while we’re in Virginia? It’s bad enough when we’re home.”
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll manage it. Somehow.”
“Laura…”
“Owen…”
“How did I end up shackled to the most stubborn woman in the history of the universe?”
“You fell in love with me.”
“Yes, I did.” He released her hand so he could put his arm around her. “Best mistake I ever made.”
“This is where I fell in love with you. Right here on the floor of this bathroom, when I was so sick with Holden.”
