by AliyahBurke
“Yes. Very much so.”
“The ocean agrees with ya. At last I finally get to see a smile on that lovely face of yours.”
“I love it so. So endless, so free.” She looked at the guy that walked up next to her. He was taller than her with a head of thick black hair. His eyes were as green as hers and he was quick to smile. Lithe and agile, he was a man any woman would be proud to stand beside. His body was handsome and strong from the work he did with his family. His name was Seamus O’Grady. He was a man she truly enjoyed spending time with.
“Tell me, lass,” he said as he tugged her down onto the gray stone bench beside him.
“What do you want to know, Seamus?”
“What it is that ya are runnin’ from so hard?”
With a sad little smile, she answered, “A broken heart.”
“Who would hurt ya?”
“My ex-husband.”
“Ya were married? And he let ya go? Is he daft?”
“No. He wanted another woman on the side. I guess I wasn’t enough for him.” Tears sprang unbidden at the painful memories.
“Bahh, dinna fash yerself. You’re more than enough woman for any man. What happened?”
“I married out of my league. He was rich, disgustingly so. And white. For someone like me that is not something that is attainable.”
“And? What happened? What the hell does him being white have anything to do with it?”
“I’ll tell you if you give me a second. Skin color has everything to do with it. I mean, look at me.”
He chuckled and waited for her to continue.
“We spent quite a bit of our marriage apart, on separate coasts, because of work. I was cast as a gold-diggin’ black chick that needed some rich man to take care of me and my bad habits. I was handling that okay. After the holidays he was sent back out there and I had told him when I was coming to visit, but I really was going a day early. Imagine my surprise when I got to his room in time to hear him tell someone he was all alone. After that some bimbo came out of the bathroom dressed in some skimpy teddy and called him “lover.” I dropped my things and ran, without looking back. Been running ever since.” She leaned her head back to the cloudless skies and soaked up the gentle rays of the sun.
“The next day I went to a bank and cashed in some of my bonds and took the money. Went to a divorce lawyer and signed the papers, put my wedding rings in an envelope and arranged for it to be hand delivered to him within the next two days. Left everything to him, I wanted out. Wanted to be able to start over someday. Somehow. Then I traveled some and eventually I came here.”
Her body chilled as she remembered the woman in her husband’s room. Well, ex-husband. “I don’t think I have ever hurt so much in my entire life.” Lord, you shouldn’t make love hurt that bad. It’s not right. Sorry, I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.
“The man is a bloody fool. Lass, I am looking at you and all I see is a woman who is stunning and beautiful beyond words. That is all anyone worth their weight would see. I wouldn’t leave you to go across the country, not e’en one the size o’ Ireland. If he was so rich why did he go, why dinna he find a way to stay?” Seamus shook his head. “What will ya do now?”
“I don’t know. He loves what he does and I know he wanted to build his business on his own merits and not because of his money.” That was one of the things she admired so much about him. “As for me, I want to go home, but I don’t want to see him. Not to mention I don’t have a home to go to anymore. I keep forgetting I gave it all to him. My dream home, everything. Wasted.”
“Do ya still love him?”
“I don’t know, Seamus. I don’t know.” Of course you know I do, but I don’t know how to get past the betrayal. Part of me hates him for that and yet, my body cries out for his. At the same time, in her mind she wondered if it was betrayal. She had been the one to run.
“Aw, lass. It’ll all work out. Give it some time. Now come on. Let’s go, I got something to show ya.” He pulled her up and dragged her off down the path to what he wanted to her to see. Seamus took her to a small cottage by the sea and told her if she liked it she could rent it for a while. “Just until ya come to a decision of what to do.”
So she stayed. The country agreed with her and as a result of that, she thrived. Sanura immersed herself into the culture. She learned how to make their foods and loved it. Seamus was always around to keep her company and make sure she didn’t feel lonely.
It was only at night she did. Her dreams were filled with memories of a tall man that had taken her to the stars and beyond. A man she was still in love with. A man she realized she should have fought for. Sanura came to hate the night as it often found her wondering aimlessly along the crags of the island.
As the months passed, Sanura changed. She cut her hair short so now it only reached her shoulders, having begun to grow out. Her words had picked up the Irish brogue but she still spoke it with a hint of the south in her words. Her body slimmed down as she lived a different life than she had before. The only thing she did for Gavin was send him a typed note to tell him she was not pregnant.
One day in mid-September Sanura and Seamus were outside her cottage. They were planting some rosebushes and were covered in dirt. There was a table set out with tea and biscuits but they were so busy having a dirt clod fight, it sat ignored in the late day sun. Well, dirt and water. Soon it was a mud fight. They had mud everywhere and were laughing and enjoying themselves when a car pulled up on the narrow dirt road and stopped.
They didn’t notice because they were too busy running around screeching, laughing and having a grand time. The man that exited the car noticed them, however. His six-foot, five-inch frame clad in black jeans, white t-shirt and cowboy boots, tensed with anger as he watched them wrestle together.
He took in the overly familiar way the man touched the woman and his eyes burned hotter, bordering between ultimate possession and retribution. When the man grabbed the woman around the waist, picked her up and tossed her into the makeshift mud hole he charged down the hill.
There was no warning for either of them before a strong fist plowed straight into the muddy man’s face. “I’ll kill you, you bastard,” was all that was roared before the two men were rolling around fighting. Sanura looked up as Seamus went flying by her with a larger man on top of him.
Slogging out of the mud, she searched frantically for something to break up the attack on her friend. Her eyes lit on a two-by-four and she picked it up and swung it at the brawling boys who were in the mud.
“Stop it!” she screeched. “Stop it both of you! Get off of him.” She swung the board and it clipped them both, making them cry out.
She dropped it and went for the bucket of water and tossed it on the man who was soundly beating Seamus. As the water sluiced off his face and took off the mud, her breath caught in her throat. It was Gavin.
“Gavin! Stop it. Stop it! Right now. Leave him alone!” She launched herself back in the mud between the two battling men and grabbed a hold of one of his arms. If she had thought it through she would have realized how futile it was for her to think she could stop his strength. As it was, all it took was the simple touch of her body on his to bring Gavin to a standstill.
Seamus rolled to his feet, balanced on the balls of them and stopped as he saw Sanura in between them both, one hand on the unknown assailant. “Get outta the way, lass. This man and I have some unfinished business.”
“I should kill you for touching her,” Gavin growled even as Sanura held onto him.
“Seamus, are you alright?”
“Dinna worry me about me, lass. Who is this fool?”
“I’m her husband,” Gavin thundered in his deep voice. “What the hell are you doing rolling around on the ground with this man, Sanura? And why do you care if he is alright?”
She spun around and shoved him so suddenly he fell back into the mud hole. Then she went to Seamus and touched his face as she asked again, “Are you truly
okay, Seamus?” She wiped off the blood that had begun to mix with the mud on his face. “I’m so sorry about this, Seamus. So sorry.”
“If you wish that man to live, kitten, step away from him now and get your hands off of him. Do not touch him.” The warning came in a low snarl.
Sanura turned to face her past. There was a fire within her that burned hotter than any fire Hephaestus himself could have created in his forge. “You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do. We are not married. Not anymore.”
Gavin rose to his full height. God, he was beautiful. His black jeans rode him like a second skin and his shirt made her want to touch him all over again, especially with the shreds that showed his chest. Large hands were clenched into fists that cried out for blood.
His voice lowered to a dangerous purr, “Don’t be too sure about that, kitten. Believe me, we are still very much married.”
* * * *
“No.” She wiped a hand down her face smearing the mud there. “I sent you the papers. We are through. Do you hear me? We are through!” Her voice had risen to a near scream with each word.
“They tell me you are planning on marrying this . . . this man. I won’t let you. You are still my wife and I will not give you a divorce.”
Her body began to sag with the overwhelming emotions that surrounded her. Seamus put his arm around her and that didn’t sit well with Gavin.
“Don’t touch my wife.” He stepped forward with all the lethalness of a jungle cat and stopped when she shrank back against the black-haired man for protection.
Seamus glanced between them. But he didn’t speak.
“Lass, ya need to talk to him. If what he says is true, you can’t get married until he gives you a divorce.”
“I sent him the papers. I haven’t been married for over seven months,” she mumbled. Then, as if a stone wall settled around her, she straightened and nodded at Seamus. “You’re right, Seamus. I have to get this over with, before I can move on. But I think this is something I need to do alone. Can you give us some privacy?”
“Of course, lass. You know where to find me.” He kissed her cheek and left as the tick in Gavin’s jaw grew.
Lord, please give me the strength to do this without showing him how weak he makes me. “Say your piece and leave, Gavin Rawlins.”
“Sanura, don’t be like this. Do you know how hard I looked for you? I have been looking ever since that day in California. Please.”
“I don’t think you know what love is. I finally realized what you wanted and it was in your room when I got there. Remember? Blonde, thin, wearing next to nothing. There is nothing else to be said between us. I get it. I was a taste of something taboo, the forbidden. Congrats. Good for you. Leave.”
His eyes narrowed and he stalked her. Her insides quivering like a leaf, she bravely stood her ground and raised her chin in defiance. “You will hear me out. I’ll tell you what I would have told you if you hadn’t run away. That woman in the room was a setup. She admitted it later.”
“Must be pretty convenient to have your hussy—excuse me, mistress—admit to a setup after your wife catches you with her. Give me some credit.” Her eyes flicked to her watch as if he were keeping her from something important. Not like she could read her watch for it was covered in mud. “Is that all?”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“What difference does it make to you?” Please let it make a difference to him, Lord.
“They said in the town you two are an item. Is that true?” His muscles rippled as he clenched and unclenched his fists waiting for her answer.
Sanura lifted that infuriating brow at him and stared in silence.
Gavin erupted. He moved like lightning. In a millisecond she was tossed over his shoulder and he strode inside the cottage, kicked open her bedroom door with one swift kick and he tossed her muddy body down on the bed.
He followed her down and imprisoned her body beneath his powerfully built one. Her legs were locked between his granite-like thighs, his groin pressed intimately into her own. Those unyielding arms of his were planted on either side of her head, and his hands had grabbed her hair holding her head stock-still. His eyes were full of raging emotions from fear to despair to uncertainty to rage.
“Did you sleep with him?” His face was an intangible distance from hers as he growled his question. “That what you promised to me before God, did you give to this other man?”
“Leave. Just leave, Gavin, go back to your other woman.”
“Answer me.” His voice became gravelly as he released her hair, stepped back from her body, jerked her upright and shook her shoulders.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Gavin clutched onto her body, lifted her straight up into his arms. He sat on the bed with her on his lap and buried his face into her muddy neck. Tighter and tighter he squeezed as he fought to regain control. His whole body shook and it didn’t take Sanura long to realize what the cool wetness on her neck was from.
He was crying. The untouchable, wealthy Gavin Rawlins was covered in mud with his head hidden in her neck, crying. It was an unthinking response, a reaction, but her arms stole around his body and tightened about him.
“I’m so sorry, Sanura. This is not how I wanted to have our marriage be. I never touched her. Ever. I never touched any woman since I met you. I will find a way to accept you slept with another man if you will only come home.” Intense shudders still racked his body as he spoke to her neck.
“Tell me we can begin again. We can start over. Please. I love you, Sanura.”
Her shoulder nudged him in the face so he pulled back reluctantly. “I don’t know what to say. I am so confused. Do we have a future? I’m so uncertain of what I have to offer you.”
His eyes closed as the finality of her words fell on him like daggers. “So it is over for you then? That’s it? No second chance, nothing?”
“There is a lot we have to discuss.” Unable to stop herself, Sanura reached out and cupped his cheek and ran her thumb under his eye and wiped away the tear tracks. Lord, how can it be that I still love this man so much? It feels so right to be in his arms. Will I ever find the confidence in my own self-worth?
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“Why don’t you tell me what you came to say.”
His arms tightened around her and pulled her back in to his chest. “I have to explain this to you. But will you believe me?”
“Won’t know until you try.”
“Okay. Do you think I could get cleaned up first?”
“Is that more important?”
“No! Nothing is.”
* * * *
He tipped her face up and saw anger smoldering again. Gavin knew he was losing her fast and so he began to talk.
“Like I said before, that woman admitted to being paid to do it in front of you. Someone was following us and set the whole thing up. Someone doesn’t want us to be together. Mother is working on finding out whom. After the hotel thing I went straight home where I hoped to find you. The next day or so I got the papers. I didn’t sign them. We are still married. I couldn’t sign them. I still love you and believe you still love me. I went and contested the divorce and since you didn’t appear it got put off. Like I said, we are still married.” He spoke with intensity.
“I have spent the last seven months trying to find you. I’m going to kill Bryce for teaching you how to hide so well. I got worried you were hurt somewhere or needed money, since you didn’t take any I had given you. I would still be out there looking if not for Allison. She went against Bryce and told me about this place and some guy that had wanted to marry you before. So I flew here. Showed your picture around and heard that you and some guy named Seamus were thinking about getting hitched. I won’t let you go without a fight. Hell, I won’t let you go period. You are my everything, kitten.”
He took her hands and stared directly into her eyes. “Please give us another chance. I need you in my life.�
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He pulled away from her and took something off his neck to put in her hand. Gavin closed her fingers around it and pushed it back at her chest, his eyes never leaving hers for a second.
Sanura blinked, opened her hand and looked down. In her hand sat her rings. Her wedding set. They were on an old chain of hers. She glanced across to him.
“I’ve never given up hope on us, Sanura. I know you’re unsure about us, but I’m not. I have worn them around my neck since the day I got them back. They belong on the hand of my wife.”
She contemplated him for a second before they focused back on the jewelry in the hand between them. She closed her fist back up, one finger at a time, slowly as if it pained her to do so, turned her hand over so it was palm down and dropped the chain and rings back into his hand.
Gavin shut his eyes briefly and when he opened them, she saw the pain her wordless gesture caused him. She waited.
He couldn’t hold her gaze and so he looked down. And she held still until he figured it out, her left hand outstretched to him. Fingers spread as they waited to be dressed once again.
Fumbling more now than he did at the wedding Gavin took the rings off the chain, wiped them clean on the inside of his shirt and slid them together back onto her ring finger. He raised it to his lips and kissed it.
Unsure, Gavin looked back into her eyes.
* * * *
“I never stopped loving you, Gavin. I’m so…” she stopped talking. Her gaze flickered to the rings on her hand and back to his face as her words sank in. Lord, I may be a weak woman, but I love my man too much. I don’t know how I ever thought I would be able to live without him by my side.
He wrapped her tight to him. Gavin anchored her legs between his and banded his arm around her upper body, pressing her as close as they could be as he laid them out on the bed.
After more than seven months of searching, both of them had finally found out what their hearts had always known. The two lovers fell asleep on the white bedspread, covered in drying mud, limbs entwined. The hands that bore their wedding bands on them were caught between them and pressed to each other’s hearts. Darkness had fallen when they stirred from a sleep that for each was the first restful one they had had in months. The air was chilly with the fall temperatures. Sanura woke to find a pair of aqua eyes gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful work of art in the world. She tried to smile but felt the hardened mud and stopped.