A Marriage To Fight For

by Raina Lynn

  “It’s rather pathetic to feel like I conquered the world when all I did was stand up.” His voice came out in a ragged whisper almost too low to hear as he looked over his shoulder at her. Tears gleamed on his lower lashes. “But, Maggie, I’m standing.”

  She rushed to him, buried her face against his back, locking her arms around his waist. Her own tears dripped down her cheeks and dampened his shirt. “How long have you been doing this?”

  He cleared his throat. “First time.”

  They stood in silence, words inadequate. Living day by day through his recovery had seemed like a lifetime, but given his injuries, he’d come impossibly far in an impossibly short time.

  He still might never walk again, she conceded, but with the feat he had just accomplished, leg braces and crutches were real possibilities. She nuzzled his back and kissed him between the shoulder blades.

  “Babe, I have a problem,” he said uncomfortably.

  Maggie was instantly alert. “What?”

  “My hand is about to give out, and I don’t have a clue how to get down.” It ended on a tremulous laugh.

  Between the two of them, they got him seated in his wheelchair. Garrett covered his face with his hands, rubbing a bit too hard. She almost asked what he was doing, but when she saw his shoulders tremble with silent tears, Maggie knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Not quite aware of how it happened, she found herself locked in a tight embrace. They held each other and cried. Later, they laughed under the realization that there wasn’t a box of tissue in sight.

  “We make quite a pair, babe,” he whispered, brushing at both their wet faces.

  Such love shone in his eyes, and she kissed a salty tear from his cheek. “We always did.”

  Maggie hadn’t thought about how much garbage that remark would dredge up until the words tumbled from her mouth. “There really hasn’t been anyone but you, Garrett.”

  He tipped her face up to stare deeply into her eyes. Was he seeing the truth there? He didn’t answer for so long that she regretted saying anything at all.

  His expression twisted into dismay. “I’m sorry I doubted you, babe. You’d changed. I didn’t know what else to think. Even if you had found someone else, we were divorced. I had no right to hurl accusations.”

  She groaned with relief. “If I thought you’d been with another woman, I’d get a little crazy, too.”

  Shadows clouded his eyes, and she panicked. No! Suddenly she understood his irrational jealousy. It ripped into her so fast, she couldn’t think past the rage and hurt. “Who was it!” She wanted to rip the unknown woman’s lungs out.

  “Babe, I’ve never made love to anyone but you.”

  He’d worded that too carefully for her to trust, like a used car salesman hiding a loophole in a warranty. A distant thread of sanity condemned this whole discussion. He’d just stood up for the first time. Dissecting past fidelity, or lack of it, showed extremely poor judgment.

  She plowed ahead anyway. “You’re lying.”

  Anger flashed. “Maggie, I’ve never lied to you about anything. Never.”

  His offended vehemence startled her, but she conceded that he had the right to be annoyed. He’d diluted the truth a few times, but never lied.

  “You’re not telling me everything, though.”

  He gave her an appraising look, as if weighing how much to say. She thought her heart would break.

  “I want to know.”

  He sighed. “Let it go, babe. Nothing happened.”

  “Then why is it bothering you?”

  “Because I love you, and the situation wasn’t something I’m particularly proud of,” he said exasperated.

  “Tell me.”

  “Why won’t you drop it?”

  She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Would you?”

  “I’d like to think I would, but I know better.” He sighed. “Just remember. You insisted.”

  She held on to him and braced herself.

  “Do you remember the last time I called home on the safe line and you answered instead of Rick?”

  “Yeah.” How could she not remember? He’d sounded so alone her heart started making up all kinds of excuses to ask him to come home. She’d held firm, telling him that unless it pertained to their son, she had nothing to say. After she’d hung up on him, she’d cried half the night.

  “When you wouldn’t talk to me, not even small talk, it hit me pretty hard. Getting you back seemed hopeless, and I felt like a fool for carrying a torch that long. The case had been dragging on interminably, and I was at a real low.

  “There was a woman I’d met during the investigation, not a suspect, just a hanger-on, a wannabe. She’d been rather blatant about wanting to get involved, but I’d pretended not to notice. I ran into her later that night, and we ended up at a motel. I left before anything happened.”

  She couldn’t imagine anyone calling it off after it’d gone that far. “Why did you leave?”

  “When we were getting undressed, she called me Gary. That’s who she thought I was—Gary Reeves, drug trafficker.” Sad mockery dulled his eyes. “She didn’t want me any more than you did.”

  A sob escaped before Maggie could stop it. What she’d put him through, put them both through. How could she live with it?

  He tilted her face up. “I know you, babe. Don’t start blaming yourself. It was my choice to walk into that motel room and my choice to walk out.” Garrett drew her to him for another kiss. When they came up for air, he whispered, “No more dwelling on the past, all right?”

  “Promise.” She poured all her love into her smile.

  He kissed her fingers, his eyes devouring her. “There are a few other things I’d rather dwell on,” he murmured, “but I’m so tired, sleep is about all I can manage.”

  “I’d settle for you holding me all night.”

  “That could be arranged.” When she went to draw her hand away, he grasped it and frowned. “That reminds me. Wasn’t your monthly due today?”

  Maggie felt her smile freeze, and she looked away.

  He drew her face back to meet his gaze. “What is it, babe?”

  She sighed. “It was, and it didn’t happen.” She’d only been late once in her life—with Rick.

  Instead of getting upset as she’d feared, his square-cut features softened. “We’ll work it out.”

  “I bought a home pregnancy test a few days ago, just in case. I’ll use it tomorrow morning. Then we’ll know for sure.”

  Supportively, he squeezed her hand. “I’ve heard that parenthood after thirty can be more fun.”

  Amazed, she stared at him. He had so much to cope with. Yet he was willing to accept more? “You wouldn’t mind?”

  He shook his head in slow, but emphatic, denial. “The timing’s not the best, but in another eight months, our lives should be more settled.”

  They cuddled close that night, enjoying just sharing a bed. Idly, she traced the swirls of soft black hair on his chest, and he caressed her side, his hand coming to rest low on her stomach.

  As impractical as a baby was, she found herself wishing it were true. Irrational, she knew, but how much of life made sense? Would another child be such a disaster? Her salary could handle it, and whatever occupation Garrett decided to pursue would only help. Actually, when she thought about the financial end of things, having babies after thirty made sense. In most instances the parents were financially stable, and they definitely had a lot more life experience to draw from. Garrett seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he kissed her forehead and sleepily pulled her closer.

  “This is where we belong,” he murmured, gathering her to him. He closed his eyes. “Remember that.”

  The words echoed through her mind until apprehension raked her heart with vicious claws. What wasn’t he telling her? She sat up. He’d fallen asleep instantly, and his face wrinkled in protest at the loss of her body heat.

  “What are you talking about?”

 
His breathing slowed to the even rhythm of deep sleep.

  The next morning, Maggie stood in the bathroom, staring at the test kit set up on the counter. “Come on,” she muttered. “Turn blue.”

  “Anything yet?” came Garrett’s soft inquiry from behind her.

  She turned and shook her head. “We’re being really stupid about this.”

  “Having another child with you doesn’t feel that way.”

  Maggie flushed with the primitive desire to give the man she loved a baby. Afraid of the intensity of her feelings, she strove for a nonchalant air. “Watching this thing isn’t going to speed it up. Do you want breakfast?” She tried to squeeze past him, but he captured her by the waist.

  “Yeah, I do, but coffee doesn’t sound particularly appealing.” The naked desire that radiated from him formed a heated knot low in her stomach.

  The prospect of having made a baby added an extra poignancy to their lovemaking, and they accepted the challenges of his body’s restrictions, basking in the freedom of no preset roles or rules.

  The pregnancy test came up negative, and she felt ridiculously disappointed. So did the one the following day. Ten minutes later, she discovered that her period was starting and she hopped into the shower to hide grief she still thought was stupid. By the time she’d shampooed her scalp raw, she was ready to get out. Unfortunately, Garrett waited for her.

  From the disappointment on his face, he’d seen the supplies for the normal monthly maintenance of the feminine body and drawn his own conclusions.

  “I suppose it’s for the best,” he said, obviously talking past a knot in his throat.

  “Probably.” Whether he noticed the puffiness she felt in her face or not, she didn’t know.

  “Mag’s going to carve you up into little pieces,” Blake warned as he negotiated the parking lot. It wasn’t a joke, and he didn’t smile.

  “I’ve never asked her to be anything less than she is,” Garrett said irritably. “If it’s going to work between us, she’s got to accept me for who I am, too.”

  “If you say so.” Blake pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. “I’ve given you my best doctor lecture, and I don’t think you heard a word I said.”

  “Yes, I did,” he countered, wrestling his wheelchair from the back seat. “I just don’t believe you. Not yet, at least.”

  As Garrett transferred neatly from car to chair, Blake snorted, and grabbed a patient file and a tape recorder from his briefcase. “Let a guy stand up once,” he muttered, “and he thinks he’s back to being Dirty Harry.”

  Garrett glowered at him. “Give me a little credit, Blake. There’s no guarantee I can pull this off.”

  “Win or lose, you’re dog chow,” he replied absently, already absorbed in mentally composing a letter to a patient’s insurance company.

  As Garrett headed across the parking lot alone, a grim determination gripped him, just as it had that long-ago day when he’d seen the bomb wired into the instrument panel of the plane. In Garrett’s mind, he could no more walk away from this war than he had that one.

  Chapter 13

  Maggie felt the blood drain from her face. A nameless, seething mass of emotions crushed her chest. Yet Garrett sat in their bedroom as calm and at ease as if he’d just announced he planned to read the newspaper.

  “I know you’re upset, babe,” he said soothingly, “but this is an entirely different situation than before. I won’t be out on the streets at all.”

  “But you’ll still be a cop.” Even to her own ears her voice sounded thready, on the verge of hysteria.

  “A training officer for the city. Nice and safe. No bullet tag with drug dealers as you call it. No cases at all, in fact. You always wanted me to work a nine-to-five job. This solves both our problems.”

  She tried to speak, but only a strangled croak came out. She cleared her throat and tried again, but it didn’t help much. “I’m not hearing this.” Out of the morass of emotion, rage clearly identified itself, and she ran with it. “How can you do this to us? How can you go back?”

  “There’s a big difference between a street cop and what I’ll be doing,” he stated flatly. “You’re not thinking this through.”

  “I’m not thinking this through?” She stared pointedly at his legs then into his face. “You’re just now getting some motor function back in your legs. You aren’t anywhere near ready to return to the workforce—any workforce.”

  “Larsen doesn’t retire for another three months. I have—”

  “Three months? Garrett, your recovery could take two or three more years.”

  He shook his head. As far as she could see, it was a refusal to even consider that she might be right.

  “When you first joined the force, you had to pass a monster physical. Perfectly healthy people fail it all the time. Want to explain how you plan to scale a six-foot wall?”

  “I won’t have to,” he said quietly.

  That stopped her. “Why not? Are the powers that be going to waive it?”

  “They’re working on it.”

  How could he be so calm? Didn’t he realize he was tearing her apart all over again?

  “If they can’t, they’ll try to hire me as a civilian adviser. Either way, because of budget problems they can only put me on for twenty hours a week tops. That will fit well with what I estimate my limitations—”

  “This is insane!”

  “I knew you’d be upset, but you’re reacting, not thinking.”

  “Upset!” she squeaked. “Upset doesn’t begin to cover it.” Hemmed in between the bed, closet, TV and him, she started pacing erratically. “Three times I rushed down to the emergency room because you’d gotten shot or stabbed.”

  His eyes darkened in compassion. She knew he loved her, but he loved being a cop more. And she’d lost to the competition.

  “Maggie, calm down,” he whispered, reaching toward her.

  She recoiled. If she didn’t touch him, maybe this ancient nightmare would go back to the past where it belonged.

  “I’ll be safe. No streets. I promise.”

  He’d never lied to her, not about anything, but she couldn’t believe him, not in this. “No, you won’t. Your safety record speaks for itself. Most cops never get seriously injured their entire careers. Not you. If there’s a way, it’ll happen.” She sat miserably on the bed and buried her face in her hands. “Garrett, I can’t be a cop’s wife again. I just can’t.”

  She heard Garrett sigh heavily and heard the soft squeak of his wheelchair, realizing too late that he was approaching her, not leaving the room. She jumped to her feet. He still managed to grab one of her hands before she could get out of reach. The warmth of his skin deepened the ache in her heart. Hadn’t it been just this morning he’d held her, promising they’d always be together?

  She didn’t want to lose him. Yet how could she stay with him? The pain on his face nearly made her cry.

  “What do you want me to do, babe? Sell shoes? Be an insurance adjuster?”

  The idea made her slightly ill. “I don’t know.”

  He pulled her down to the bed where they could be relatively eye to eye. “You have to trust me.”

  “You want too much.”

  He covered her hand with his bad one. “Do you love me? Or do you love what you want me to be?”

  If he’d stabbed her, it couldn’t have hurt worse or made her feel more guilty. In his mind, she’d rejected him on the most basic level. The pain triggered her temper. She jerked out of his hold so quickly, he couldn’t react fast enough, and she stepped out of his reach. “Why won’t anything else make you happy? People change careers all the time.”

  As she watched him debate how to answer, she felt their love slip further and further from her grasp.

  His chest rose infinitely slowly as he took a deep, silent, controlled breath. “I have to go back, babe. It’s what I am.”

  If her heart bled before, surely he’d cut it from her body this time. “That’s what I t
hought.” Her words came out breathless and weak. She was drained. Yanking open the closet door, she pulled out an armful of clothes.

  “What are you doing?” His own heartbreak tore her up, but she hardened herself to it. Survival depended on it.

  “I’m moving upstairs until you come to your senses.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I worked too hard to free myself of a life where I jump every time the phone rings when I know you’re out there somewhere.” She gestured wildly with a pair of slacks clutched in her hands. “I can’t go back to that.”

  “I love you, Maggie. Don’t do this to us.”

  “Me?” she wheezed. “We’re just starting to be okay again, and now you’re changing things.”

  She sensed the change come over him before she actually saw it. The pain on his face congealed into a resolve that scared her clear to the bone. There was an elemental danger here, and it was focused exclusively on her.

  “I let you go without a fight last time.” He was breathing fire. “I won’t make that mistake again. There’s a Whole Family meeting tonight, and we’re going.”

  “No, I’m not.” She took an involuntary step backward at the determination in his eyes.

  “Then Rick and I will go alone.” He pivoted his chair around and rolled out the door.

  Garrett made his way to the living room, so wrapped up in turmoil that he didn’t immediately see Rick standing by the couch, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

  Not again! Garrett took a steadying breath. He needed time to get himself under control before he dealt with any more, but that wasn’t an option. Maggie’s soft crying from the bedroom didn’t help matters. “What are you doing home this early? It’s barely noon.”

  “Somebody stuffed a bunch of firecrackers in the electrical box at school. It could have burned the whole place down, but it just knocked out the power. They sent us home.”

  Garrett wanted to swear. He needed all day alone with Maggie to straighten things out. That was why he’d asked her to take the day off. He hadn’t allowed for idiot teenagers playing with matches. “How much did you hear?”