“You haven’t lost me,” she whispered, slipping a hand on his arm. “And you never will.”
Coop steeled himself against the truth. Just hearing her say the words meant something, even though he knew they weren’t true. She believed them, and for now, that was enough.
“Come on,” she said, smiling at him and pressing the button again. “Let’s go home.”
“Yeah, home,” he mumbled absently, turning at the sound of the elevator door sliding open. He reached out to help her, but she stopped him.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can do it myself.”
He gave her a tired smile, stepping to one side and making a gallant sweeping gesture with his hands. “After you, madame.”
“You see,” she said, taking a few wobbly steps forward. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?” he said dryly, following behind her.
There were several people in the elevator, and as she moved forward, they all stepped back, giving her a wide berth.
“Yeah,” she continued, making her way inside the elevator. Despite the new cast, it took considerable effort to maneuver in the cramped enclosure. “You’ve been the one doing all the work the last few weeks—taking care of me.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“I know,” she said, smiling at him as the door slid closed. Leaning close, she lowered her voice. “I think it’s time I started taking care of you a little, too.”
Coop felt a lump of emotion form in his throat. “You just concentrate on getting better.”
“I am better,” she insisted, with a boastful shrug. “I’m up, I’m around and...” She wiggled her crutches. “And these things are a piece of cake.”
Just then the elevator jostled slowly to a stop. The movement was leisurely, but enough to throw her off balance. To catch herself, she shifted her left crutch. Unfortunately, instead of the smooth tile of the elevator’s floor, she planted the rubber end of the crutch squarely on the toe of the orderly standing beside her.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, turning quickly.
However, the move made her more unstable. Flustered, she quickly tried to compensate, shifting directions and moving back, only to slap the older gentleman to her left on the backside with the end of her other crutch.
“Oh—oh, my,” she gasped, seeing his shocked expression. “I am so sorry. Please, excuse me. I’m very sorry.”
Coop watched, trying hard not to let the laughter that bubbled just below the surface escape.
“A piece of cake, huh?” he said, offering her a steady arm out of the elevator.
“Just remember,” she warned, seeing his bemused expression and shooting him a killing look. “I’ve got a crutch in my hand, and I know how to use it.”
Kelsey hobbled closer to the living room window, peering out through the darkness to the car that had just pulled into the drive across the street. She knew the couple who emerged from the minivan with their two young children were her neighbors. She knew because Coop had told her, not because she remembered.
She watched as the family made their way up the walk, the little boy running ahead playfully while his baby sister rested a sleepy head on her father’s shoulder as he carried her to the house.
Kelsey searched for something familiar about the picture playing out before her, and the people in it, something that would trigger a memory, bring some recognition, but there was nothing. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to force the memories, couldn’t demand recall. Like it or not, the people disappearing into the house were strangers to her.
“Get used to it,” she mumbled in the darkness, closing her eyes and rubbing them. But she knew she never would. She’d never get used to the black holes and the blank spots, never accept the empty cavities in her past that made strangers out of neighbors.
She opened her eyes, turned from the window and stared at the blackness of the barren living room. There was a lot she would never get used to—like living in a house she had loved, a home she remembered and wondering why it felt so different to her now.
Her eyes followed the stark expanse of carpet that spread unchecked and unused through the room. What could have ever possessed her to get rid of all their things? What had she been thinking?
She thought of the things she’d recovered, the small bits and pieces of the past that were slowly coming back. Someday she would remember, and everything would make sense again. She believed that, trusted it was going to happen. Her memory was coming back, and when it did all the questions would be answered, all the holes filled in, and the blank spots wouldn’t frighten her ever again.
She turned to the window, watching the family inside the house across the street, seeing mother, father and children moving from room to room. She thought of her own house, one empty room after another. The empty rooms bothered her, bothered her the way the empty spaces in her memory did. She wanted all those empty spaces in her life filled in—wanted to fill them with hope, and happiness, and love.
In the distance she heard the sound of the shower, heard the water running, and she felt herself smiling.
Coop. She loved him for so many reasons, but it had been his strength and his caring that had sustained her in the weeks since the accident. It was his love that kept her sane, that kept her focused on the future so the fears from the past didn’t take hold. He made her want to look ahead, made her want to think of the life they had in front of them rather than concentrating on a past she had yet to discover.
She caught a glimpse of movement from across the street and watched as the crazy shadows of father and child danced wildly over a closed drape. She thought of Coop, imagining what a wonderful father he would make. How many times had they dreamed the dream together, talking about the family they would have and the things they would do as parents?
As she watched the figures moving along the window, the smile slowly faded from her lips. Starting a family had been at the top of their agenda before the accident. If she hadn’t gotten hurt, she might have been pregnant by now, might have been carrying Coop’s child inside her at this moment.
She wanted it to happen, didn’t want anything else to get in their way of starting a family. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a birth control pill—memory loss or no memory loss. It was just a matter of time.
She glanced at the cast on her leg. Unfortunately, there was just one small hitch. Mannie Cohen had been properly tactful and delicate, but his message had come in loud and clear—she should put any “marital activities” on hold for a while longer. He’d told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to give herself a chance to heal completely, and not risk her recovery by adding any extra stress to her life.
Kelsey had almost laughed at that. She’d never thought of her love life as stressful, exactly, but she knew Dr. Cohen was simply being cautious. She’d also been a nurse long enough to know that the link between mind and body wasn’t something to be ignored. She was getting better—she was remembering more and more every day, and Dr. Hamilton had said there was a possibility she would have the cast off her leg completely in as early as a couple of weeks.
She thought of Coop and the hospital bed he’d had delivered to their room. She might have been the one injured, the one who had the broken bones and the scrapes and bruises, but the accident had been a difficult ordeal for him, as well.
She knew better than most people how difficult it was to sit on the sidelines while the person you loved was in danger. Coop’s missions as a SEAL had often been hazardous, and she had laid awake more than one night wondering if he would return to her alive and in one piece. She understood his need for caution. She knew his desire to follow the doctor’s orders to the letter came out of his fear and concern for her safety.
She listened to the water running, picturing him standing beneath the hot, steamy spray. His care and consideration during the past weeks had been sweet and endearing, a true act of love. He’d been careful not to push or press he
r to do more than she should. But nights alone on a lumpy futon two rooms away were beginning to take their toll on him.
She remembered the look in his eyes today in the hospital corridor and couldn’t deny it pleased her that he found it difficult to keep his distance. She knew his secret now, understood his frustration—because despite his caution and concern, despite doctors’ orders and his best intentions, he wanted her. She could see it in his eyes, on his face, in every move that he made.
She turned from the window and started through the living room toward the hall. Her crutches were silent on the plush carpet, and she moved through the darkness like a woman with a mission.
She did have a mission. She was going to have her life back, going to restore her past, heal her body and grab at the future. It might be too early to be thinking about throwing away crutches and removing casts, about making babies and planning a family, but she was still a woman, still a wife, and she could show her husband how much she loved him.
Chapter 8
Coop let the water wash over him, the fine spray stinging hot against his skin. It had been a long day—long and emotionally draining. He’d realized today he was still in love with his ex-wife. He’d not only admitted that to himself for the first time, but to Mannie Cohen, as well.
It had been a gut-wrenching realization because he knew how hopeless it was.
He raised his face to the water, wishing he could wash away the heavy layer of sorrow from his soul as easily as he could the day’s dirt and grime from his skin. Except nothing was going to purge him of that particular affliction, not even time. He’d had two years to get her out of his system, to forget and go on with his life, only it hadn’t been long enough.
The only thing he’d accomplished in the past two years had been to fool himself into going through the motions, dupe himself into putting up a front and pretending he didn’t care. But it had been just a front, a ruse, like pretending to be her husband now. The cold, hard fact remained that he did care, he was still in love with Kelsey, and it didn’t matter if he had two years or twenty, that was never going to change.
He reached for the soap, rubbing it between his palms until a rich lather formed. He felt bone weary, the kind of deep-down energy-depleting weariness that happens when the heart and the soul are strained to the limit.
Mannie Cohen’s prediction that Kelsey would recover her memory soon was little consolation at the moment—not when the night stretched out in front of him like a long, lonely road. He needed strength to finish the job he’d started, to stick it out until she had recovered completely. But the way he felt right now, he wasn’t sure from where he was going to summon that kind of energy.
She believed them to be man and wife, believed them to be in love and committed to building a life together. And sometimes; when they were together, when she would look into his eyes and talk about children and a family, he found himself wanting to believe, too. If only he could wipe out the last two years—erase them from his mind and start all over again. If only he could look down the road of his future and see her in it. But that would be wishing on a star, and he had stopped wishing when the love had faded from her eyes.
He spread the lather over his chest, its crisp scent mingling with the steam and filling the shower with a fragrant, misty cloud of mint. He breathed deep, not wanting to think about the heavy scene he’d pulled in the hospital corridor today, not wanting to think what an awkward situation he’d created.
It had been stupid to want her to declare her devotion—stupid and sophomoric. The kind of stunt an insecure kid would pull in school with his first steady girlfriend. Except that’s the way he’d felt just then—like a vulnerable, defenseless, insecure kid. The words she had said, the emotion with which she had said them would mean nothing when her memory returned. They were as fleeting and ineffectual as their charade now.
And yet, for some reason, for some pathetic, inane, ridiculous reason, he’d needed to hear her say the words—despite how temporary, despite how untrue they would soon prove to be.
He closed his eyes again, stepped beneath the spray and let it wash the soap from his skin. He wished he could just shut off his mind, wished he could go to sleep and not lay in the darkness and think about how empty and barren his life would be without her. He didn’t want to think about her alone in that ridiculous bed he’d had delivered, that bed he’d hoped would act like a shield, warning him off, that bed in which she slept each night alone.
He turned the faucet. The water instantly crashed cold against his skin. He needed it cold, as cold and as icy as he could get it to cool the heat gnawing at his insides. Dr. Cohen had cautioned Kelsey against sex in an effort to dissuade her from doing something he knew she would later regret. Only Dr. Cohen should have cautioned him, should have issued him the warning, because he was finding it more and more difficult to stay away from her.
She was the woman he loved, and for the moment, she loved him, too. She was the woman he had married, the woman he would spend his whole life wanting. She looked at him with the eyes of a wife—with love and passion and need. She touched him with the ease and the intimacy of a lover. In her mind he was her husband, her lover, but, he was saddled with the truth—and truth placed the burden of restraint squarely on his shoulders.
The icy water did little to dull the ache in him. It just battered against him, drowning his spirits and making the night ahead seem that much longer.
Maybe that was why he didn’t hear the door open, why he didn’t hear the footsteps cross the tiled floor. It was only when the shower curtain was moved slowly to one side, and he felt the rush of air against his wet skin, that he realized she was standing there.
“K-Kelsey,” he stammered, his voice sounding hoarse and thick. “What are you—”
“Your towel,” she murmured, cutting him off. She lifted the plush terry towel she held in one hand, and with the other she reached inside the stall and turned the water off. “I’ll help you dry off.”
She wasn’t smiling. There was nothing playful or coquettish in her demeanor, no teasing or kidding around. Her beautiful face was rigid and intense, and her eyes moved over him with a raw, salacious look. He wasn’t thinking about modesty, about what should or shouldn’t be done. He wasn’t concerned about his nakedness or making any moves to dissuade her. He was too overwhelmed at the sight of her, too caught up in his reaction to make sense of anything else.
Her hands were on him, dragging the towel up his arms, over his chest, around his shoulders. Her touch was bold and uninhibited, and he felt coherent thought abandon his brain like the beads of water flowing down the shower wall.
Despite the freezing water that had drenched his body only moments before, he was burning up. Her slow, deliberate movements had every nerve in his body alive and quivering. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, wasn’t part of the plan. This was real life—a wife with her husband, spontaneous and genuine. He had no idea how he was supposed to act. What was he supposed to do? How could he respond as a husband when he knew the truth?
“I’ve missed you,” she murmured, dropping the towel as her hands moved over his body. Her arms linked around his waist and pulled him close, forcing him to step from the stall. Pressing her body close, she brought her lips to his. “Missed being with you like this.”
“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice raspy and dry. The thin, wispy silk of her nightgown hid nothing, and he could feel every soft curve, every swell of her beautiful body. Her hands were massaging circles along his bottom, and his thoughts became scattered and confused. He wasn’t sure any longer what was real and what was make-believe what was the truth and what he’d made up.
However, one fact remained clear amid the clouds of confusion in his brain. One reality cut through the darkness like a beacon through the fog. Forever and for always, this was the woman he loved, the woman he would want until his last dying breath. Regardless of divorce papers and legal decrees, Kelsey Chandler Reed was his wife.
&
nbsp; “Kelsey, please,” he whispered, his words sounding more like a plea. The sweet scent of her hair was mingling with the crispy mint of the shower and creating a seductive aroma of desire and need. “W-we can’t. We shouldn’t.”
She brushed her lips against his—a feathery kiss that barely made contact. “We won’t.” She pressed another light kiss against his lips. “That doesn’t mean we can’t touch.” One hand slipped between them, and she found him hard and waiting. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be close.”
Coop closed his eyes at the surge of raw pleasure that radiated from her touch and sent a spear of fire soaring through him. Close. It was a laughable way to describe what was happening to him at that moment. His legs began to tremble, and his lungs felt depleted and in need of air. The trembling in his legs spread to the rest of his body and made it difficult for him to speak. Somehow his hands found their way to her waist, and then up her sides and to her breasts. “Kelsey, I—”
The blaze within him exploded into a fire story, consuming everything in its path, and he caught her up in his arms. Her mouth against his was soft and sweet, and he devoured her lips with a kiss as hungry and brutal as the need within him.
He’d kissed her many times in the weeks since the accident. It had made it difficult to keep perspective, had often played havoc with his emotions and with his peace of mind, but it had also been part and parcel of his role as her husband. But this kiss was different. This was a man kissing a woman, a husband kissing his wife, a need that threatened to rage out of control.
Kelsey surrendered to the kiss, surrendered to the passion and the need. His hands were wild on her, pressing her close—touching and caressing until she felt weak with desire. He’d been so careful since the accident, so reserved and restrained, handling her with kid gloves as though she would break. She had appreciated his care, understood his reserve, but she wanted the gloves off now, wanted to feel his fire and his passion, wanted to feel like his woman again.
Mind Over Marriage Page 11