He was astonished to feel the beginnings of a smile.
“What on earth could you possibly find amusing?” Her own fury was rising to displace the devastation.
“I’m not amused.” How could he be, with a heart breaking? “But it’s good to encounter the woman who’d as soon spit in my eye as give an inch. Who’s broken a cabinet’s worth of crockery over the course of our life together.”
Fire sparked in her eyes. Her fingers twitched as if they longed for something to throw. “How could you?” A growl. A curse. “You bastard. You—”
Then all the fight fled from her, and her frame collapsed in on itself. “You…hurt me, James. Hurt us. Killed my hope that we’d ever find our way—” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
He reached for her, and she flinched.
He’d thought he’d hit bottom, but he’d been wrong. Nothing could wound him worse than having the love of his life reject his comfort.
As the instrument of her pain, he’d lost the right to extend it. He wanted to, desperately, nonetheless.
But he was not the answer.
However bitter the knowledge, he had to try once more. “If you remember that, do you recall the rest? How much we loved each other? All the good years, happy years we had? What an incredible family we were?”
“Were,” she said dully.
“Are, Bella.” He leaned forward. “All that love isn’t gone.”
But she shook her head over and over, denying him even an inch.
He could deal with her stubbornness, wait her out. They would stay here until she saw reason.
When she sank to the floor, though, back bowed in despair, he was afraid of what this would do to her health.
Then he knew what he had to do. “I’ll return you to him. Sam.” Every word was a knife in his chest. He should be her refuge.
But he’d forfeited that privilege. “Despite the storm, if I drive slowly, we should make it.”
She didn’t respond, and everything in him longed for her to refuse.
Finally, she nodded. “All right.” Straightened and wiped at her eyes.
However much she loathed him, he despised himself more. With leaden steps, he began preparations to leave.
Silently, she did the same. They might as well have been on opposite sides of the moon.
He stood at the door with his raincoat to put over her to keep her dry. He didn’t care, just now, what happened to him. The rest of his life spread out before him, an endless desert.
She paused over the album and retrieved it, closed it gently. Picked up one of the loose photos of their once-happy family and traced each of their faces, even his.
For a second, faint hope fluttered.
Then she set it on the table, facedown.
Turned her back on their past.
And stepped, deliberately, on the photo that had brought everything crashing back.
THE TRIP DOWN the mountain was silent and cold. The anticipation that had accompanied their ascent only hours earlier as dead as the ashes of their love.
Once at the garage apartment, she hesitated, fingers white on the car-door handle. “Go on home, James.”
As he heard the finality of her tone, something stirred him from his despair. “Bella, we have to talk about this. We’ve shared too much to give up.”
She retreated into the rain. “Not now,” she said, her gaze as anguished as his soul.
“When?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“I don’t know.” She stood there, getting drenched, and seemed to feel none of the downpour. “I have to think.”
“I’ll wait for you. I won’t leave until—”
“No. You have a business to save. And children who need you.”
“None of that matters,” he said bitterly. “Nothing but you. I love you.”
You should have thought of that before you betrayed me. He waited for her to say it. He’d earned it.
But she only regarded him sadly. “I loved you, too.”
He closed his eyes as grief settled into his bones.
Loved. Past tense.
He opened them, bent forward. “You still can, Bella. We’ve had so much joy together, and we can have more. Don’t throw it all away over what meant nothing.”
At last, her eyes sparked again. “If you say that one more time, I cannot be held responsible for the consequences.”
Most sane individuals would find her threat alarming. He was admittedly barely sane just now, after all they’d been through.
But despite everything, his heart lifted, just a little.
If she was angry, she wasn’t indifferent.
“I’m not going anywhere, Bella.” When her jaw set, he elaborated. “I’ll leave you alone, but I am not running home like a whipped dog.” He gentled his voice. “Go on, get inside. You’re soaked.”
She seemed ready to argue, then changed her mind and walked away.
He watched her through the downpour, and rolled down the window, shouting to be heard. “I may be one stupid son of a bitch, Isabella Rosaline, but I am also a man in love who understands what he’s lost. I am going to fight for you. Just you wait.”
Then, though he wanted badly to follow her inside and make certain she was dry and warm and safe, he forced himself to throw the vehicle into Reverse and drive off.
But then he saw, in his rearview mirror, Dr. Sam the Opportunist sprinting from his house toward her apartment.
All control vanished. He jammed on the brakes and whipped a U-turn. Closed the gap in seconds and charged from his vehicle, not even bothering to shut the door. Rain was the least of his worries. “Get away from there,” he shouted.
Lincoln paused. “What have you done to her?” He swiveled back. “Jane, are you all right? Let me in. Did he hurt you?”
“She’s not Jane.” A haze of rage dropped over James’s vision. “You got that?” He grabbed Lincoln’s shoulder and whipped him around. “She’s my wife, not yours. Leave her alone.”
Lincoln tried to shrug him off, but James could not be moved. He was fighting for his life, his love.
“Jane!” Lincoln shouted. “Tell me you’re okay.”
When she still didn’t answer, the mild-mannered doctor vanished. He grasped for the doorknob.
James lost it. Jerked the man back and slammed a fist into his face.
Lincoln came up swinging. They lost footing in the mud, but Lincoln didn’t seem to care, and James sure didn’t. He hadn’t taken a punch in too many years to count, but his helplessness to sway Bella was swallowed up by the welcome heat of battle. Here was something he could do—beat the hell out of the guy who wanted to steal her from him.
The one she trusted instead of him.
Lincoln landed a good one, and James went down on his back. Just as quickly, he lunged and brought his opponent to the ground with him. They rolled and punched and grunted, but neither man yielded. Lincoln probably had fifteen years on him, and James would feel it later, but in this instant, all he could register was that he was fighting for Bella.
For the life he’d let slip away.
Not one more bit would escape from his grasp, he thought, and reared over the other man, fist drawn back—
“Stop it!” Bella cried. “Both of you!” She waded into the middle.
James shifted to keep her out of harm’s way—
And Lincoln caught him square on the chin.
James dropped like a rock.
WHEN HE AWOKE, his body was a mass of sore muscles and bruises. He wrinkled his forehead, winced at a tightness and realized his head had been bandaged. His lip was split, and his right hand was swathed in bandages, too.
He glanced around the strange room that he thought might be part of Lincoln’s house. He levered up—
And groaned. Hard. Tomorrow would be a bitch.
Then he recalled Bella rushing into the fray and his attempt to save her.
“Bella?” He scanned the room frantically for a sight of her. “Bella, where are you?” No
answer, so he made his way painfully to his feet.
As he trudged toward the door, he heard raised voices.
“Do not phone the sheriff, Sam. Let James be.”
“Jane, it’s not for my sake—it’s for yours. I can tell that he hurt you somehow, even if you won’t explain.”
“I told you to call me Isabella. And this isn’t your business, Sam. This is between us.”
Isabella. Heartened, James made his way down the hall and into the kitchen, where they stood.
But if he’d thought he’d get a welcome from her, he’d been wrong. “What are you doing up?” Her tone was frigid.
Lincoln picked up the phone and dialed.
“Sam, no—” Bella grabbed for the receiver.
“Let him,” James said. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“You should be, you bastard,” said Lincoln, and wheeled on him.
“Bring it on.”
“Stop it!” As before, Bella jumped in between them. “Both of you.” She poked James in the chest and did the same to Lincoln.
James refused to quit glaring at Lincoln.
Until he noticed tears in her eyes. “Sweetheart—” He moved toward her.
She held out a palm. “Get away from me. You, too,” she said to Lincoln. “Just—just leave me alone. I’m sick to death of—” Her voice broke, and she ran.
James wanted desperately to follow, but he forced himself to stay. When Lincoln moved, James grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t. If you care about her, don’t make it worse.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Too much to forgive,” James answered. And with that, his hopes faded. He headed for the door. Lincoln tried to prevent him, and James shook him off. “I’m not going to her, much as I’d sell my soul for her to wish for me to.” He faced the man whose record with her was a clean slate. “You intend to move in on her the second you find an opening. I understand that. She’s the most amazing woman in the world.” He reached to rake his fingers through his hair and winced. “But I’m asking you to give her room. She may not want me anymore, and I can’t blame her. I’ve loved her with everything in me, but I’ve also wronged her. Taken what we had for granted. She’s been through a lot—”
The anguish of knowing she wouldn’t seek comfort from him, that his offer of it would be rejected again, was killing him. Of all the things he couldn’t bear, leaving Bella alone and wounded hurt him worse than anything he’d ever experienced. “I’m asking you, for her sake, not mine.” He met the other man’s eyes. “If she decides you’re better for her than me, I love her enough to let her go, even though I’d rather someone just put a bullet in me. But if you ever hurt her, there will not be a place on this earth for you to hide.”
“I feel the same.” The light of battle flared again.
“Then we understand each other,” James said grimly. He walked to the backdoor and paused, his gaze fastened on the glow in the window that might as well be a universe away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A FAINT KNOCK at the door had Bella stirring. “Go away,” she said, and buried her face in the covers.
“It is afternoon,” said Luisa. “I have food for you.”
She had no interest in talking to anyone. She didn’t even want to think. She’d spent hours going around in circles last night, trying to sort out all that had fallen in on her like some collapsing ceiling. “I’m not really hungry,” she said to the woman who only meant to be kind.
“Hiding will do you no good, you know. However long you wait.”
Bella sighed. And smiled a little. She’d learned enough to understand that Luisa was relentless when she had her mind set on something. “All right, I’m coming.” As she emerged, her gaze settled on the wet pile of clothes, garments that had accompanied her through sweaty, beautiful sex, through heartbreaking discovery, through mud-stained battle and tear-drenched bandaging.
And maybe through the end of a marriage.
She yanked open the door, desperate to think of anything but James. “I’m not up for company.”
“I really don’t care.” Luisa smiled at her, both challenge and sweetness.
Bella couldn’t help smiling back. Then bursting into tears.
“Oh, child.” The much smaller woman embraced her as though their sizes were reversed. “That’s right,” she soothed. “Cry it out.”
Bella did, a storm of weeping that seemed endless. Finally, empty and hopeless, she collapsed on the bed and held her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What is it you wish for?” Luisa stroked her hair.
She could only shake her head as the jumble of thoughts threatened to overwhelm her again. “To hate him,” she whispered. “And not to know what he did. To believe in what we once had.”
“Balance is everything, cara. In a long marriage, there are peaks and valleys. You understand this, in your heart you do.”
“This is no valley. This is the depths of hell.”
“Is it?”
Bella’s head jerked up. “He betrayed me. He cheated on me. Made a mockery of our life.”
“Shh. I am not excusing him. What he did was wrong. But does it negate everything between you? If you tallied up the pluses and minuses, even this gigantic one, are you so certain how they would weigh out?” She paused. “And what if he did the same? Can you say that you played no part in where you two found yourselves?”
In that instant, she would have liked to lash out at Luisa, to point to all the ways in which she was clearly the injured party. What he had done was wrong, completely wrong. Unforgivable.
“I don’t wish to speak to him now. Maybe ever.”
“You could not, even if you liked. He is gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
“I have no idea. He left in the night.”
“He went home,” she said. “To Alabama, like I told him to.” Even though he’d said he would fight for her.
“I wonder. Your daughter called here, seeking him because he did not answer his cell phone.”
A dart of worry speared into her misery. “What is he playing at? He won’t get my attention like this.”
“I do not think a man with a broken heart plays games.”
Regardless of the state of his heart, James did not play—at anything. Luisa was right about that. The only times he relaxed were when she coaxed him into it. He was always so serious, so responsible.
I believe too many people depend on him, she’d told Sam. I suspect he doesn’t allow himself to think about what he wants because he’s so busy taking care of others.
He hadn’t asked to be excused for being worried about the fate of the company and missing the signs that they’d been in trouble.
And she hadn’t been there for him, too swallowed up in her grieving over her babies flying the nest. She’d accused him of being too busy to pay attention to her, but in fact, she’d done the same.
She understood, better than anyone, what a worrier James was. How readily he shouldered burdens, no matter his own needs.
He was a protector, a guardian. The one everyone turned to.
Including her.
And when he’d been alone with his worries, she’d been too caught up in her own sorrow to notice.
Another woman had.
He shouldn’t have faltered. Ought to have run, far and fast, back to her. Demanded that she not rush to judgment.
But that was not James. He was a giver. She was the one who made demands. She had the temper; he possessed the patience.
Yet he’d hurt her. So badly. And lied about it.
Then she recalled all the times since he’d been in Colorado that he’d seemed so sad. Appeared to be battling himself. Had started to say something. Bella, I should tell you—
“Too late,” she said.
“Is it? When there is true love, is it ever too late?” Luisa asked. “Look at me, Bella.”
She didn’t want to. Her head was spinning with turmoil.
&nbs
p; “I said, look at me.” Luisa grasped her chin with a tone that brooked no nonsense. “Has he ever done such a thing before?”
Rebelliously, Bella raised her eyes. “No.”
“You are angry, but so am I. Do you have a clue what I would do for one more second with my Romeo? Any idea what I would forgive rather than lose him?”
“He didn’t cheat on you,” she said hotly.
“Did he not?”
Bella gasped. Grabbed her wrist. “Tell me. How you could forgive him. If you did.”
“Do not be such a child.” Luisa’s tone was scathing. “Do you think such love is easy to come by? Do you imagine that it’s only good when it’s not tested?”
“We were tested. Many times.” But nothing that hurt like this.
“My story is my own. I doubt that you wish to discuss yours, either. It only digs deeper, the more you think on it.” Her expression relented. “I did not say forgiveness was simple. I realized, however, that if I had not allowed distance between us, he would not have strayed. I made him give up on me. Perhaps, however, you are completely innocent and your James fully evil.”
“You know he’s not. But—”
“No buts, cara. I did not say you would forget—either of you. Such a thing would be very nice. But there are trees that are scarred and grow bark over the wound and still live to provide shade and beauty. If your love is worth saving, you can do the same by working through this with him.” She stepped away. “Or perhaps you prefer to decide that what you had is not worth the battle. You are free to make a new life and leave this one behind. You are a beautiful woman. There are men who will desire you.”
Maybe before she’d remembered, she could have walked away from everyone without the tearing that she felt now, imagining living her life without the only real home she’d ever had.
Without the man who’d been that home.
She lifted brimming eyes to the older woman. “But I’m just so…angry.” She stood. Paced. “So furious. I’d like to—”
“Slam a skillet up the side of his head?”
She couldn’t help her choked laughter. “It’s not funny.”
“No.” Luisa let her smile fade. “It is not. But throwing things is helpful, is it not?”
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