Snowstorm Confessions

by Rachel Lee

  “Needs must, as the saying goes. You have no idea how hard it was to let you bathe me, then make you stop at my hips. I wanted you to go all the way.”

  “I thought about it,” she admitted. “Briefly. It was so unprofessional of me I cut it off.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t your usual patient. You’re allowed to have lascivious thoughts with me.”

  She’d always had lascivious thoughts with him. That had never been the problem. Unfortunately, she was tired, and it seemed too much effort to explore anything intense right now. “I need to make us dinner.”

  “Another evasion.” But he was smiling. “Hate to tell you, but someone named Di dropped by this afternoon with a ton of food she put in the refrigerator. We had a nice chat, but the main purpose was she felt you might need a break from cooking under the circumstances. I’m not sure which circumstances she meant.”

  “Di’s my best friend.” Bri suspected she wanted a chance to see Luke, too. “How many blanks did she try to fill in?”

  “Very few. She’s either a very sensitive friend or you’ve talked about me a lot. Not one intrusive question beyond how I was doing and why would anyone shove me off a cliff. So everyone in town must know I was pushed.”

  She nodded. “You came into the E.R. bellowing about it. The cops came. In this town, there’s almost always someone who will talk.”

  “What about patient privacy?”

  “I’m not sure that extends to the claim that someone tried to kill you. Besides, how many people might have heard you beyond the medical staff?”

  She pulled off the icepack and reached for the neoprene wrap, which she expertly placed. “All set. I’ll go see what Di brought us to eat.”

  And she’d also get a pair of sweatpants out, because she could still feel Luke’s hand running along her leg, like a brand.

  But sex wasn’t enough. It simply wasn’t enough, as they’d proved.

  He was right. She needed to talk, however silly or ungrateful or ugly it made her sound. The air needed clearing.

  But it wasn’t going to be easy. Not at all.

  Chapter 11

  Despite a relatively active day, Luke had trouble sleeping. Dinner conversation had been desultory. Either Bri hadn’t been kidding that she was too tired, or she’d gone back to hiding. He’d have given even odds for either possibility.

  He stared into the dark, trying not to think about how Bri was only two rooms away. Trying not to think about how much he wanted her. Maybe he’d been a fool, but he hadn’t expected the rebirth of their attraction when he’d first sought her out. Yeah, he’d been living with a lot of messed-up feelings because he never really understood how everything had fallen apart, and he’d sure been furious that she believed he had cheated on her, but he hadn’t realized that nothing had died.

  Not the pain, not the desire, not the caring. Maybe the love was gone, but the rest of it remained like a ghost from the past popping up at unexpected moments, grabbing him in a vise that hurt.

  What was a guy to do? Leave town? He couldn’t. Even if he hadn’t been laid up this way, he had a job he was fighting for. Move back to the motel? He couldn’t do it right now, and despite his independent streak, he had to admit it. Crossing that state highway, whether on crutches or a wheelchair, would be an exercise in suicide. He couldn’t look after some of his most basic needs, either, like cleaning himself. He supposed he could hire someone, but what kind of care would he get? In that motel. With that creepy bathroom. He needed someone with Bri’s expertise, and he just had to face it.

  Maybe it was time to let her know how much he needed her, at least right now. Then a thought pierced him. Had he ever made her feel needed? His inclination toward independence might not have been a strength in their marriage. She had to know he wanted her, but had she ever felt that he needed her?

  The night seemed to stare back at him like a living thing, full of hints of mistakes made, errors committed, and perhaps worst of all a string of omissions.

  It was too easy, he supposed, to presume that when you said “I love you,” all the rest was obvious. Maybe it hadn’t been obvious at all. As it was, he’d been gone so much he couldn’t blame her if she had wondered just how much she really mattered to him.

  Nor was the excuse that they both had jobs satisfying him right now. Yeah, they had jobs. Yeah, both of them had insisted on keeping their careers. But that left a whole lot of blanks that had never been filled in.

  All well and good to blame her for never telling him what was wrong, but he should have recognized some of it all on his own. The lacks, for example. A dozen roses didn’t make up for six months away, followed by another departure in two weeks. It didn’t make up for never being there to deal with all the stuff that made up day-to-day living, good or bad. Or all the things they’d never discussed, like the future, or a family, or eventually settling down to a less mobile life.

  Hell, he wished he could climb out of bed right now and go wake her, just to talk to her. To tell her how sorry he was. He had personified the absentee husband to perfection. Even when he’d known she was unhappy, he hadn’t questioned her. He’d waited. Always waited to see what she would say. But she never spoke, and the tough moments passed like a quick summer thunderstorm.

  He supposed that put him up for an award as a fool. He’d been too quick to assume that if it passed, it had nothing to do with him, or it was unimportant. The test of time had proved him wrong. Very wrong.

  He opened his computer and glanced at the time. Bri had turned in at nine, but it still wasn’t quite three in the morning yet, and even so he didn’t want to disturb her sleep. She had seemed tired. He wondered how many times he’d failed to notice how much a twelve-hour shift took out of her. Or how many times he hadn’t been there to see. More often than not when he was home, she took vacation time.

  Now he was seeing the way it really was for her. Her dedication impressed him. Something else he’d never told her before.

  He sighed, facing his own failures. There were a lot he’d never told her, he supposed. A lot he’d never seen or understood. They’d been moving in separate worlds most of the time, intersecting only briefly, filling their time together with lovemaking and romantic little stuff, as though they were still dating. Except they’d gone past dating, and at some point their relationship had needed space to grow. They’d denied it that space, for what seemed like good reasons. Hardly surprising it had died like an undernourished plant.

  He heard the wind keen. Unable to stand lying in the bed any longer, he levered himself into the wheelchair and over to the front window. God, it looked like another blizzard.

  He turned to the TV, which he’d only switched on a few times to watch the news, and hunted for the weather station Bri had turned on the night of the big snow.

  “Holy crap,” he said moments later.

  “What?”

  He twisted, astonished to see Bri just inside the living room. Even in the flickering light of the TV, she looked adorable in a flannel nightgown and fuzzy slippers. “More blizzard. I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

  “I heard voices and I wondered if you needed help.”

  “I’m fine, but take a look at this.”

  She came to stand beside him, while a weather forecaster made this mess sound like the best and most exciting news he’d had in a while.

  Bri spoke. “I’d like that guy better if he didn’t sound as if this was making him happy.”

  “I hear you.”

  She dropped into her office chair and walked it over to his side. “This is awful. Tomorrow’s going to be a bad day at the hospital.”

  “Maybe folks will get a clue and stay home.”

  “You’d think.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to have tomorrow off?”

  “Not if we get some real trouble.”

  He knew that, and wondered why he was making empty conversation. Because he didn’t want her to go back to bed?

  “You should get some sleep, then.�
��

  “I’m wide-awake. So are you, apparently.”

  “Should I make coffee or warm milk?”

  She shook her head and rose. “Coffee for me. And I’m hungry. I guess I didn’t eat enough dinner. How about you?”

  Twenty minutes later, with warmed-up leftovers and coffee on tray tables in front of them, they watched the storm reports.

  “Sleet and freezing rain,” she remarked. “Worse than heavy snow, I guess.”

  “It’s sure going to make a mess of the snow that’s still there. How fast will your sand trucks get out?”

  “They’re probably already starting, but this is supposed to go on all day. I don’t know if they’ll be able to keep up.”

  “I seem to remember there’s a temperature below which salt won’t even clear the ice.” He pointed to the screen. “Ten below? Some spring.”

  “We’ve all been saying that. The trees had finally just started to bud out. I hope this doesn’t kill them.” She shook her head. “The past couple of years, winters seem to be lasting longer. It’s weird. I keep hoping it’ll go back to normal.” Then she looked his way. “It’ll be good for your ski resort, though.”

  “That depends. You need powder for skiing, not sleet and ice.” Then, “I hope you don’t get called in.”

  “Me, too.”

  It was the only opening he was going to get, so he dove into it. “I want you to know something. I never realized before how hard you work, and how much it takes out of you. I was gone most of the time and had no idea. I’m sorry I didn’t know, because I think you’re admirable.”

  He heard her draw a quiet, sharp breath, but then an annoying beeping from the TV interrupted any response she might have made. Across the bottom of the screen the winter storm warnings began to run, an endless list of dangerous conditions, advice not to drive at all, to stay indoors...

  “I hope everyone listens,” she said presently, then rose to clear away their dishes. When she returned, she freshened their coffee.

  The moment had been lost. He had no idea how to reopen the conversation between them. Her mind appeared to be firmly fixed on the weather, and he could almost see her pondering just what kind of catastrophes would face her today.

  He wished he could take her off duty, sweep her away from such thoughts and provide her with a much-needed break, but he couldn’t think of a way.

  All right, maybe she hadn’t been the only one with a communications problem in their marriage. Man, he ought to be able to think of something to say, something to turn her attention back to them and all the empty spaces they’d created. Spaces that they needed to fill at least somehow.

  But then she astonished him. She turned to look at him. In the flickering light from the TV screen her eyes appeared wide, almost frightened.

  “I may have only a short time,” she said. “If people don’t heed these warnings when they get up, there’s going to be trouble.”

  So he said the generous thing, even though his instincts wanted him to follow an entirely different direction. “Then you should try to get more sleep.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  He arched a brow. “What are you?”

  “Horny.”

  The bluntness of her declaration astonished him, but he liked it. “I haven’t stopped wanting you since I set eyes on you. But, Bri...”

  “I know. Sex won’t fix anything. It sure wasn’t enough the first time around. But it’s what I’m feeling. You told me to be honest.”

  “I’m loving it,” he admitted.

  “Then don’t complain. We can have at least this much before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Maybe that won’t happen.”

  “I don’t believe that anymore. It always happens, sooner or later.” She went to the window and looked out. “Nobody should go out in this. Nobody. Look, the icicles are already coming back. If you don’t have livestock, you should stay inside.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  She dropped the curtain and faced him. “But they’ll still go out. They’ll be afraid of losing jobs. Some folks coming down the highway won’t even know this is hitting until they run into it.”

  He nodded, watching her closely, wondering what was going on and where she was headed with it.

  The TV beeped again and he wished it to hell. She leaned over, took the controller from him and switched it off. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Has it occurred to you that you should maybe not even drive to the hospital in this?”

  “Oh, yeah. And they may be hoping they don’t have to call anyone in. But if they have to save lives, they will. It’s the job, Luke. You understand that.”

  For the first time he considered which of them had the really important job, and he squirmed uncomfortably as he realized that he’d always thought what he was doing was important. Building resorts for the wealthy? It didn’t rank anywhere near the importance of the work this woman did.

  “I was never fair to you,” he announced. “I considered both our jobs important, but I never really thought about how much more important your work is.”

  To his surprise, even in the nearly dark room, he could see her lips curve faintly upward.

  “Bri?”

  “You’re right. It was one of the things I resented.”

  He felt punched in the gut. “Really?”

  “You bet. Do you remember how you’d fly in and I’d try to take the time off, but sometimes I got called in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You never seemed to really understand why I had to go. You made me feel small for leaving you.”

  He swore, with a lot of feeling. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “And I wondered if I was wrong, if I wasn’t caring for you well enough. If I really wasn’t as important as I thought.”

  “No wonder you hated me.”

  “I never hated you. Never. Well, maybe for a while after Barbara. But I wondered if I was overemphasizing the importance of my job.”

  His hands had clenched into fists. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Talk about oblivious and self-important.”

  “I thought I was the one being self-important.”

  “Saving lives versus running around the world building resorts? I don’t think there’s even a contest there.”

  “Maybe not, but I was uncertain, feeling like maybe I was being a bad wife. Then there were other times when I needed someone and you were halfway around the world. I resented that, too. I’d come home from a day like the other day and there wasn’t even anyone to hug me. Or pull off my shoes. Or help me to bed where I could forget.”

  He drew a deep breath, facing his own failings for the first time. Really facing them.

  “I thought I was being a baby about it. It wasn’t fair to you, was it? You had to travel. But sometimes I felt as if when I needed you most you weren’t there. I kept pushing the feeling aside, because it was stupid to feel that way. I’d managed before you, so what had changed?”

  “Maybe that having a husband meant you had a right to some support from him.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, the list went on, it seemed to grow with time, and I got to the point where I couldn’t even see a future with you because we weren’t building one. How’s that for a dump?”

  “Keep going.”

  But she flatly refused. “This is meaningless right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we still don’t have a future. But we have a past, it’s getting in the way, and right now I want to pretend it doesn’t exist and just lie in your arms with you, naked. Loving. Finding the one thing we ever did right.”

  With that she put him squarely on the horns of a dilemma. He didn’t want to hurt her again, and this had the serious potential to be hurtful. Nor did he want to resurrect the old, bad habits, like tumbling into bed and forgetting everything else in the world. But at the same time he burned for her. He wanted her so much his skin seemed to tingle with electricity, and his groin throbbed painfully.
/>
  “Bri...”

  “What?” she asked quietly. “You don’t want me anymore?”

  “I already told you that I do. But what you’re suggesting... Damn it, it could mess us up all over again. We were always good in bed. It was the other part of life we kept messing up.”

  “What difference will it make? You’re going to be leaving again soon anyway. And this time you won’t be coming back at all.”

  That felt like a spear to his heart. Such a hopeless vision, but probably true, which made it all the harder to hear.

  “We’re a mess,” he said finally, utterly without other words to capture anything else.

  “We always were. We just didn’t know it.” She sighed and flipped the TV on again, as if closing the subject. The cheery forecaster resumed predicting an icy apocalypse.

  A bubble of anger burst in him then. He’d asked her for honesty, for her feelings. She’d given them to him, however limited, and he was turning her down? Pushing her away? Rejecting her as he apparently had so often without realizing it?

  Except this time he realized it. What’s more, judging by the way she had turned on the television again, she had once more shut down. Because of him. Because of the way he had responded to the truth she had offered him.

  Hell. Was he renewing her childhood experience? Was he protecting her in the wrong way?

  He stared at the side of her head and wondered what he was supposed to do. This conundrum approached the point of the impossible. How to deal with it? He suddenly wished he were a psychologist instead of a geologist.

  “Bri.”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “No!” His voice thundered and for once he didn’t care. She was twisting him into knots again, probably twisting herself into her own set of them, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow this to continue.

  “Don’t yell at me.”

  “I’m going crazy and you’re putting me there. I asked you to express yourself. Now all I seem to be doing is messing things up more because I’m trying not to do the wrong thing.”

  “The wrong thing for who?” She was mad now, too. “I told you what I want. Apparently you don’t. So I guess I’m wrong again.”