Kimber sighed as she heard the front door open and close, signaling the fact that Luke had returned home. She took a deep breath and let it out, wondering if she was ready to face him. But as he entered their bedroom, she realized that she hadn’t been ready. He looked so damned handsome that it made her want to cry even more.
She turned away from him as he reached to embrace her, feeling tears sting her eyes. Luke put a hand on her shoulder. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
Kimber turned to face her husband, wondering if the anger she knew was bound to come out would be any better than the pain she was feeling. She felt like such a fool.
“What’s wrong Luke, is that I received a phone call while you were out. Well, she wanted to talk to you actually, but of course you weren’t here. I knew you were acting strange after you came back from meeting with that stupid pop star that wanted you to write that ridiculous song. Why didn’t you just tell me Luke? Why did you have to go on pretending that I was the person you wanted to be with when it was always her?”
“What are you talking about Kimber?”
He was turning his wedding ring around on his finger. Most people didn’t notice Luke’s nervous habits, but Kimber knew them like the back of her hand. She had thought that she’d known Luke, especially after all the therapy sessions they had attended after the possibility that their son Halden could belong to another man had come to light. But looking at him, looking at the handsome face that she had memorized every detail of, she realized that he might as well have been a stranger since the day she had met him.
“Don’t give me that bullshit Luke. A woman named Jess called our house. She’s a bartender in some shithole town. I’m sure you probably remember it. Or were you too drunk? Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this woman is pregnant. Not only is there the possibility that the child could be yours, though she did tell me that her fiancé is willing to raise the child like his own and the baby might be his anyway, but she told me that you opened up to her. Told her that you love your wife, but there’s another woman you will always love more. She said you told her that when I was pregnant with Halden, you wished sometimes that he was Paul’s.”
The color drained from Luke’s face. To Kimber, he looked like what she felt like right about then. She felt a little splash of triumph, but it faded quickly. She didn’t know how she was going to explain to their children that Mommy and Daddy weren’t going to be living together anymore.
“Kimber, I said a lot of things to Jess that I shouldn’t have. You will never know how sorry I am.”
“Please give me the courtesy of being honest for once. I think you were more honest with this woman than you’ve ever been with me. It’s really sad to me that you can tell a woman you spent one night with the truth when you’ve been lying to me for years. This is it. I’m calling a lawyer first thing in the morning. We’ll work out custody of the kids. Take what you want and get out. I don’t want you in my house anymore.”
“Kimber.”
Kimber gave him a look and he shut up. She left the bedroom, glad that both of the kids were gone for the night. She didn’t think she could face them right now and that hurt even more. Knowing that she was going to see Luke in their children every time she looked at them. Well, Kimber thought, stifling what felt like a completely inappropriate laugh, at least she hadn’t made the colossal mistake of actually marrying the idiot she’d been engaged to until shortly before she’d met Luke.
She slumped onto the couch, wondering what was going to stop her from getting completely shit faced as soon as Luke was out the door. She figured that there wasn’t much. The kids were well taken care of, and she was going to be alone. The thought that Luke’s side of the bed was going to remain empty hit her then. She put her head in her hands, trying not to cry. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
He passed by her fifteen minutes or so later, his arms so full that she almost got up and opened the door for him. But he said nothing to her as he tried to shift what was in his arms so he could open the front door. Finally he gave up, put some of what he was holding down and then opened the door. He didn’t say goodbye. Kimber didn’t know who she was angrier with when she heard the well-tuned engine of his Mustang start, him or her. There was a part of her that wanted to go after him.
But she didn’t. She made herself a light dinner that she didn’t each much of since her stomach felt like it was tied in knots, called to make sure that everything was well with Alexis and Halden, and then set about getting drunk.
Luke
Luke didn’t say anything to Kimber when he left the house. He figured at that point there wasn’t much he could say that wouldn’t make things worse. It was hard to leave Kimber because he did love her, but he also knew that he had never been fair to her. He had never wanted to make her feel like his second choice, but the reality was that she had been.
As much as he loved Kimber, he would never love her like he loved Sierra. It hit him as he unlocked the door of the anonymous motel room that he had checked into simply because it had been the first place he had seen with ‘vacany’ lit up on the sign that he should have been honest with Kimber from the beginning.
He had come to that realization before of course. It had hit him hard when he had seen Sierra again. But the fact that it had hit him hardest when he had been with Jess that night was what bothered him. He had known that night that there was no going back from the things he had said, what he had done. And Luke knew that if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, a part of him had felt as if it was worth it. He believed that every person that cheated had to have some feeling, even if it was buried, that being with that other person was worth losing the person that they were with or they wouldn’t have done it.
He half hated himself as he shoved his clothes into a dresser that looked like it had come from the 1950’s. He felt like a selfish piece of shit for having sex with Jess. The idea that she carried a child that could be his turned his stomach. He knew that he could never be any kind of a father to her child, so even with as fucked up as it sounded to his own ears, he knew he wasn’t going to contact Jess. He didn’t want to have another child unless it was with Sierra.
He wondered what Sierra was doing at that moment as he lay back on the bed staring at the ceiling. The mattress seemed to be in less than stellar shape and it made a noise like it wanted to be put out of its misery as he rolled over. Luke sighed and lit a cigarette as he crossed to the dorm sized refrigerator, pulling out one of the beers he had bought at the liquor store on the way to the motel.
The cigarette tasted like shit and he was reminded of another reason he had decided to quit smoking as he put it out in the ashtray beside the bed. He thought briefly that a joint would be great right about now. He smoked occasionally since it helped him with his song writing at times, though it was yet another thing he had kept hidden from Kimber.
He shook his head at himself as he drained the beer. He was such an ass. His wife had just kicked him out of the house for good reason and he couldn’t stop wondering what Sierra was up to. Shouldn’t he be more concerned about how Kimber was feeling because he did love her and he knew that he had put her through a lot, than with what Sierra was doing? Sierra could be in bed with her husband right now, giving him a blow job Luke thought with a snort as he lit another cigarette, popping the top on another beer.
Luke wasn’t feeling much by the time he went to bed that night. He had downed a twelve pack of beer and half a bottle of tequila. He figured he was going to wake up with a hell of a hangover, but he would take it as it came. He would figure it all out in the morning.
Sierra
“Paul are you fucking kidding me?” Sierra Brooks looked at her husband, wondering when things were going to be easy between them. She loved Paul, but he drove her so damned crazy sometimes that she wanted to kill him.
Paul sighed. “No. I’m not kidding Sierra. This is going to be good for us. I promise.”
Sierra sho
ok her head. “Dammit Paul. I just started this job. I can’t leave now and expect to be able to get a job anywhere else. It was hard enough to get this job after I’d been out of the work force for so long.”
Paul shrugged. “So what? You don’t need to work. This job comes with a nice raise. They’re taking care of our moving expenses too. I already found the perfect house.”
Sierra shot daggers at Paul with her eyes. “Already house hunting without even bothering to tell me huh? How long have you known about this?”
Paul wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Not long Sierra. I swear.”
“Yeah right. You never could lie to me. This job is important to me Paul. You knew that I didn’t want to be a stay-at-home Mom before we had Nathan.”
“My job is important too Sierra. I can’t pass up this opportunity.”
“So that’s it then? We’re moving and I have no say in the matter? Dammit Paul. I hate it when you do things like this to me.”
Paul snorted. “Do things like this to you Sierra? What about what you did with Luke?”
“What about what you did with Kimber? At least Luke and I were smarter than you two. It still blows my mind that two highly intelligent people could do something so damned stupid. We’re not talking about that bullshit right now. We’re talking about how you always make the big decisions in our lives without ever bothering to think about how they might make me feel.”
“It wasn’t bullshit Sierra and you know it. I saw the way you looked at Luke when we went to get the results of the paternity test. You still have feelings for him.”
“Was it him that I spent all night after making love with? Don’t try to change the subject Paul. You have made every major decision in our marriage and I am damned tired of it.”
“You know what I’m tired of Sierra? I’m tired of feeling like you’re comparing me to Luke every time we have a problem. I know you do it. I can see the wheels turning in your head after I’ve disappointed you in bed, or after I’ve done something to piss you off like now. You wonder about what things would be like if you’d married him instead of me.”
“Shut the fuck up Paul.”
Sierra turned away from him. She wanted to ring his neck and she was glad that Nathan wasn’t home to hear them yelling at each other yet again. Things had been good for them for a while, especially since she had started working again. But it seemed as if every time things were going well for her and Paul, something had to come up that threw a wrench in the works. This was just another example.
She couldn’t believe that he wanted them to move again. She didn’t care if he would be making more money. She thought their present house was too big and filled with a bunch of expensive stuff they didn’t need already. And she knew that the “perfect” house Paul had found probably had at least four bedrooms like this one did, leading her to believe that he was going on another campaign to try to turn her into nothing but a baby maker. Sierra loved Nathan more than she’d ever loved anyone, but her job was important to her too. While she seemed to understand that she could have both, Paul had never seemed to.
“Sierra, does this really have to turn into another shouting match? I am so damned tired of arguing with you.”
“We don’t need to argue about this Paul. I’m not going.”
Paul narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you mean you’re not going?”
Sierra shrugged, dismissing him like he had seemed to dismiss the idea of her having a job without a second thought. “I mean exactly what I said. I am not going. You can stay or you can go and take this wonderful job with money that we don’t need that is probably less than what I make anyway. Do what you want like always.”
Paul laughed. “The raise that comes with this job is actually closer to twice what you make in a year Sierra. You shouldn’t dismiss something so easily when it’s going to have a huge impact on our children.”
Sierra snorted. “We only have one child. And if you don’t start thinking about me before you make decisions that affect all of us, Nathan is the only child that we are ever going to share.”
“Don’t threaten me Sierra. Though you don’t seem to have much leverage anyway.”
Sierra closed her eyes. She had the thought that if she had to look at Paul again, she really was going to strangle him. So she avoided looking at him as she crossed to the closet, pulling out her rolling suitcase, and tossing things in without really thinking about it. Paul was silent until she zipped the suitcase and tried to roll it out the bedroom door.
“Sierra what are you doing?”
“I am leaving. So that I don’t go to jail for domestic violence for beating the shit out of my selfish husband. The husband who has never seemed to care about what I want in my life.”
“It’s our life Sierra. Of course I care about what you want.”
Sierra shook her head. She had a sinking feeling in her heart. She had worried before that her marriage would end, but now it seemed inevitable. It had been spur of the moment when she’d told Paul that she wasn’t going with him when he moved, but now she realized that she really wasn’t going with him. She would be miserable if she did, and no matter how much she loved him, it had never dawned on her more that she would never be the kind of wife that he saw himself growing old with.
She turned away from him again, tears stinging her eyes. “I need time to think Paul.”
“Sierra please. This is a big opportunity for me, but you’re my heart. I need you by my side. I love you.”
“I know you do Paul, but maybe it’s time that we both stop trying to fool ourselves. If you don’t understand why I can’t go with you, understand why my job is important to me too, then maybe we’d both be better off in the end if you did leave without me.”
Not giving Paul time to say anything, Sierra picked up the suitcase and carried it down the stairs and out the front door. She sat for a moment in her car, wondering if he would try to stop her. It reminded her of the night she had sat outside Luke’s house wondering if he would come after her, and she stifled the laugh that started to bubble up. She wondered as she backed out of the driveway if Paul was right. Would she always compare him to Luke?
Paul
Paul wanted to go after Sierra when she left the house, but there was a part of him that was afraid he had already lost her. The fact that Sierra had a temper and he’d already pissed her off didn’t help either. The way he saw things, his new job was the best thing that could have happened to them. He’d be making good money, the new town was much nicer than where they were living now, and he’d already made sure that the schools were good. When Nathan started Kindergarten he wanted to be able to say that his son was going to one of the best schools in the country. He wanted a good life for Nathan, for all of them.
Paul always thought of his family before anything else, and he didn’t understand how Sierra couldn’t see that. Then again he thought, she had such a temper that she almost always had to get her being angry with him out of the way before she would listen to reason.
He made himself a drink, wondering how long it would take him to convince Sierra that the move was the best thing for all of them. He didn’t like to think of himself as someone who would make his wife feel as if she didn’t have a real say in the important decisions in their lives, but Sierra still tended to be a little impulsive. It was one thing for him to admit that being impulsive was okay when it came to sex, it was another thing completely for him to be okay with the fact that she made such rash split second decisions about important things in their lives.
But Sierra was Sierra and she was always going to be. And Paul did love her for who she was. She may have been quick to anger and stubborn as the day was long, but she was also so passionate about the things that she cared about that it almost made up for the rest. She used to be that passionate about him too, or at least he’d thought so. Until lately. Lately it seemed as if they were going back to the routine of walking on egg shells around each other so that one of them didn’t explode
like they had been when Sierra was pregnant with Nathan. When she’d had her affair with Luke.
Paul sighed as he thought of Luke. He drained the last of his drink and made himself another, glad that Nathan hadn’t been home when he and Sierra had had their latest blowout. He didn’t want his son to see them bickering, acting like they were forever stuck at the ages they’d been when they’d met in college. But he had been honest with Sierra when he’d remarked to her that he was afraid she was forever comparing him to Luke. He’d seen a strange look pass through her eyes when she’d seen Luke when they’d gone to hear the results of the paternity test.
He didn’t think he’d ever been more thankful for the results of any test in his life at that moment, and had vowed that he would do whatever it took to make his marriage work. Now though, he was truly beginning to wonder if he and Sierra would ever be on the same page. He knew that he would never enjoy sex as much as she did, he knew that her job held some importance to her that he would never understand, and he knew he would always wonder if she was thinking of Luke.
As Paul lay down to sleep that night, he wondered how such a good thing could be the final nail in what suddenly felt like the coffin of his marriage.
Kimber
Kimber woke up with a hell of a headache, but she didn’t let it bother her. She knew that if she didn’t do what she needed to do now, it was only going to be harder on her, on all of them in the future. So she popped a couple aspirin and made the phone call that would start the process of ending her marriage to Luke.
It was a busy day, and while Kimber tried not to let the fact that she knew she would miss Luke get to her, it did get to her. Her house felt strangely empty once the kids were in bed. It hadn’t been easy to explain to eight year old Alexis and three year old Halden that Mom and Dad weren’t going to be living together anymore. Alexis promptly burst into tears and Halden followed, though Kimber was sure that it was more due to the fact that his big sister was crying than the fact that he understood any of what was going on.
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 28