Morgan's Marriage

by Lindsay McKenna

  Laura tried to shift her focus and allow the healing beauty of Oak CreekCanyon to soothe her senses. Sunlight danced through pine boughs, dappling the bare, white branches of the gigantic sycamores that followed the curve of the bank. Morgan had found a large, oval sandstone boulder at the water’s edge and taken a seat on it. She absorbed his rugged profile as he sat, legs drawn up, his massive arms encircling his knees.

  Noting the unhappy line of his mouth, she realized that he, too, was suffering in his own private hell. What had it cost him to reach out to her? No longer did she ask herself each time something happened if an old memory from their past had jogged loose. Her hope on that score had been savagely reduced with every passing minute since his return. The psychiatrists said his memory was gone—forever. Only Dr. Parsons held out a ten-percent chance that some of it might be intact. But which parts? The Marine Corps experiences? The loss of his entire company on that hill in Vietnam? His years in the French Foreign Legion? Or—her fingers curled at her sides as she carefully made her way toward him—his memories of her, their family and their seven wonderful years together?

  Life was so tenuous, Laura decided as she halted by the smooth sandstone boulder where Morgan sat. He turned his head, his gaze penetrating her like a laser. Laura felt the scorching quality of his eyes. When he looked at her like that, her entire body responded to him. How she ached to kiss him now that he was conscious. She was sure he didn’t remember her kisses when he’d first roused from the coma.

  “Sit down,” he invited quietly.

  Laura didn’t sit too close to Morgan, although a healthy part of her cried out to do that very thing. He’d gestured where she should sit, so she did. It would do no good to crowd him. In fact, it might do more harm than good. Laura knew she couldn’t make Morgan love her. She had to let him make the moves, no matter how hard it was not to reach out and tousle his hair or throw her arms around him as she would have before the kidnapping.

  The boulder was sun-warmed, and Laura enjoyed the feel of it as she sat a foot away from Morgan, her legs crossed, her hands resting on her thighs. In front of them, Oak Creek, about a hundred feet wide and perhaps eight to ten feet deep, flowed strongly. The water was clear and she could see white, red, gray, yellow and black stones shimmering in the depths of the rushing cascade as it funneled, bubbled and frothed around the few larger boulders scattered along the creek bed.

  Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the late-afternoon sun. Soon it would dip behind the canyon walls on its winter orbit, and the boulder would become shaded. For now the sunlight warmed her cold, cold soul, and she reveled in the creek’s laughing burble and the chirping of many birds she couldn’t identify. For now, she decided, just feeling Morgan’s nearness was enough.

  Laura was aware of his magnificent bulk; much of the weight he’d lost was quickly returning. Morgan possessed a vibrancy she had always been aware of—and learned to depend on. She wondered if he was aware of his masculine vitality and decided he probably wasn’t. So much of Morgan’s life revolved around his company—worrying about his mercenary teams and their missions rather than himself or his personal needs.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  Laura smiled softly, her eyes remaining closed. Morgan’s voice was husky and intimate. “I was thinking of you, of how deeply you care for other people before yourself.”

  Morgan scowled and played absently with a small pine branch he’d picked up on his way to the boulder. “How do you mean?”

  A breeze caressed her, and her lips parted as she pretended it was Morgan reaching out for her. “You always cared deeply for others, Morgan. I think after you lost your men in Vietnam, you made a promise to yourself to never again allow anyone you had responsibility for to die.” She opened her eyes and turned her head in his direction. His eyes were a smoky gray, and she knew he was thinking about what she’d said. “The guilt you felt over the loss of those men’s lives has always been with you,” she continued gently. “There were nights, after we were married, when you’d be up all night, pacing in our living room, worried about some team you’d sent out on a dangerous mission.”

  “I’d wake you up?”

  Laura turned and faced him, careful to maintain the distance between them. “I pretended to be asleep, but I always woke up when you left my side.” She smiled sadly and ran her fingertip across a tiny crevice in the boulder between them. “I knew you didn’t want me up with you. You worried about waking me. When we first married, your PTSD symptoms were obvious. You had insomnia and bad nightmares and would toss and turn all night. At first you wouldn’t let me sleep with you, but I persisted.”

  “What happened when I did?”

  Laura met his somber gaze. “You started sleeping better.”

  “I see….”

  “Holding someone you love can be healing,” Laura said.

  “I guess so.” Morgan stared bleakly down at the small branch in his hands. He’d been stripping the bark from it systematically. “So, I’d get up and pace all night because I was worried about my employees?”

  “Yes. And—” Laura drew up her legs, putting her arms around her knees “—when it was a really bad mission and you were particularly worried, you’d stay at the office. Sometimes I wouldn’t see you at home with us for two or three days.”

  He stared at her. “I can’t imagine being away from you for that long.” The words came out of nowhere and Morgan stared at Laura, surprised by his own admission. He saw her eyes flare with equal surprise, then grow a misty blue as tears formed. Looking away, he suffered for her. He hadn’t slept with her since coming out of the coma. Nor could he.

  “I don’t know where that came from,” he said gruffly, tossing the stick into the stream.

  Laura self-consciously dashed away the tears, her heart swelling with incredible joy at what he’d said. “You used to come home after a two-or three-nighter like that, and I’d be in bed. First you’d check on the kids. Then you’d come in, sit on my side of the bed, and…” Her voice faltered. She felt Morgan’s gaze burning through her. “And you’d run your fingers through my hair.” She fingered strands of hair at her temple. “I used to love your touching my hair like that. It was a wonderful way to wake up. You always loved to touch my hair. Often you’d brush it for me at night before we turned in.

  “Sometimes when you came back after being gone for a while, I’d awaken and turn over. You’d put your arm around me and lean over and tell me you were crazy to stay away so long from me…from us….”

  “Were you upset when I was gone like that?” Morgan held her dreamy gaze. He ached to reach out and untangle her thick blond hair from its ponytail. Some internal knowing was driving him, and for the first time, he began to understand what Dr. Parsons meant about feeling his way back into his lost memories. Something inside him knew his pleasure in brushing Laura’s hair—and hers in having him do it.

  “No. I understood your need to be with your people, to keep them safe. I know you would never have forgiven yourself if something happened and you weren’t there. Even if a team was half a world away, you wanted to be as close to them as possible when danger threatened.” She smiled softly. “That’s one of the many things I’ve loved about you—your loyalty and care for others. I used to worry when you first created Perseus, because you’d go through such angst whenever you sent a team on a mission.” She looked down at the boulder. “We had many, many discussions about your fears, your feelings, and how they were affecting us and the children.”

  Morgan digested Laura’s admissions. It was the first time she’d talked intimately to him about the details of their former life together. Before, she’d limited herself to small talk with no real substance behind it. He dragged in a deep, ragged breath and continued to study Laura’s profile as she watched the water rushing over the rocks in front of them. Jake was right: it was time to focus his attention on someone other than himself. Obviously, the old Morgan had attempted that care in a way he
wasn’t. Morgan wasn’t sure what might have caused the change.

  “Sitting here with you,” he began in a low tone, “and talking like this, feeds me. I feel like I’ve been missing something. Starving for something I couldn’t define—didn’t know existed.” He shook his head, unable to continue. This was what he’d been missing, he realized. He lifted his head and stared at Laura long and hard. It was her.

  Laura felt heat tunnel through her like a beam of pure sunlight shafting through her heart at Morgan’s words. His eyes were very clear now, a pale gray that told her how deeply he was forging a link with her. She not only saw it, she felt it. Something was happening. The old Morgan she knew and loved so fiercely was here now with her, even if he didn’t realize that what he missed was her. Did she dare hope some small bit of their connection had survived the trauma he’d endured? That alert, hawklike gaze, that invisible energy that now swirled and danced around her, making her feel as if she was the very center of his universe, like a healing unguent to the psychic wounds she’d sustained throughout the past three months.

  And Laura began to understand what had helped forge the link once again between them: her honest sharing of the tiny, daily details that had made up the fabric of their life together. Trying to quell her excitement at the discovery, she said in a husky tone, “There were nights that you’d come home, Morgan, and you’d be completely exhausted. You’d tousle my hair and wake me up, and I could see the dark circles under your eyes. Sometimes you hadn’t shaved in days, and sometimes I knew you’d been crying.”

  Laura hesitated and slowly stroked the boulder’s smooth surface with her fingers, fighting the insane urge to reach out and stroke Morgan’s skin. “I knew if I awoke and saw your red-rimmed eyes, something had gone very wrong. I’d get up, and we’d go to the kitchen, and I’d make tea. I would watch you wrestle with your pent-up emotions. One part of you wanted to cry out your pain and loss, while the other part, the military part, would try to jam the sorrow and tears deep down inside. I’d ask you about the mission, about what had happened. Little by little, I’d see you stop gripping the mug in front of you, and I’d see the tears start slowly forming in your eyes.

  “I would get up, put my cup down on the table and come to your side. Usually, I’d press your head against me, put my arms around you and just hold you. I’d gently touch your hair. Then I’d feel this awful struggle begin within you. I’d feel a sob wanting to tear free, but you’d fight it with everything you had. Finally, you’d trust me enough, and you’d bury your head against me, wrap your arms around me and cry.” She pressed her lips together and held his gaze. “You’d cry long and hard because someone you had known, someone you’d wanted to keep safe, had died.”

  Laura continued to stroke the stone absently, lost in the memories, closing her eyes as she shared them with him. “I’d rock you and hold you. You were so strong that sometimes I was afraid you would squeeze me in two, you held me so tightly….”

  Taking in a ragged breath, she whispered, “Afterward, we’d go to the master bathroom. We have a Jacuzzi in there, and I’d take off your clothes and get you in that hot, bubbling water. Water has always had a healing effect on you, Morgan. I would get you in there, sponge you down and we’d…well, we’d relax….”

  In that instant, Morgan knew that he’d made love with Laura at those times. He saw the shyness in her face, heard it in her whispered tone as a pink flush stained her cheeks. She was staring down at her hand on the rock, unable to meet his gaze.

  An intense, burning sensation began to coil and tighten in his lower body. How he ached to love Laura! But from his perspective, it was a physical attraction he didn’t dare indulge. She deserved so much more. Frustrated, he watched the slight, inconstant breeze move tendrils of her blond hair against her flushed cheeks. He wanted to reach out and touch those golden strands, run his scarred fingertips across the slope of her cheek. What did Laura’s skin feel like? Was it as soft as her voice, which reminded him of a summer’s breeze? Was it as velvet as it looked? Aching to find out, and knowing it would only raise unfair hope in her, he jammed his hands between his crossed legs.

  “It sounds,” he said, groping to find the right words, “as if we had a pretty close relationship.”

  Laura smiled brokenly and moved her hand gently across the rock. “Yes—we did.”

  “And it sounds like I got a hell of a lot from it. But what did I ever do for you?”

  Laura smiled to herself. She lifted her head and met his burning, nearly colorless gaze. “When I got hit by that car at NationalAirport, you were an absolute stranger, and you rode in the ambulance to the hospital and hung around until I became conscious.” She opened her hands and gave him a strained smile. “Maybe that’s what I love about the military so much, Morgan, I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I worked within that industry, because my father was a marine. Even though I was adopted, he had a kind of loyalty to my mother and me that I saw didn’t often exist out in the civilian world. I grew up feeling very loved and cared for.

  “When I awoke in the hospital—blind—and you came in, I knew in my heart everything was going to be all right.” She touched her eyes with her fingers. “I was scared to death not being able to see. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. My parents were dead by then. I had no one, but suddenly there you were, bigger than life, coming into that room, grabbing my hand and telling me you weren’t going to leave me.”

  Morgan saw the warmth and tenderness in Laura’s eyes. He felt it like a glowing fire kindled within him, making his heart swell in some unknown but powerful emotional knowing. Though he had no conscious memory of what she was telling him, he felt a strange sort of inner connection to the incident. “What happened next?”

  Laura smiled fondly. “I hate hospitals—like you—and I wanted to leave. The doctor got angry and said I had to remain under observation for at least two days. You saw my need to go home and understood that at home, I’d feel safe and be able to recover more quickly.”

  “So I took you home.” He shook his head. “I’m amazed you’d trust a complete stranger like that.”

  With a small laugh, Laura dangled her legs over the edge of the boulder. She gave him an impish look. “You still don’t get it to this day, Morgan. You didn’t at the time, and after we were married, I tried to make you understand, but you just didn’t.”

  “What didn’t I understand?” He liked the way her eyes were dancing with a childlike delight. It was good to see her lips curve upward. Something about her laughter, her smile, made him feel damn good about being a man and being with her.

  “Your effect on me. On everyone. You’re completely oblivious to it, Morgan. You forge an immediate bond of trust with anyone who comes in contact with you, and you don’t even realize it. It’s the mark of a natural leader. That’s why you were so good in the Marine Corps and the French Foreign Legion. People trust you. We instinctively know you’ll go through hell and back for us. We sense it, and if we’re privileged enough to be around you, we see it in action every day, in large and small ways.

  “You didn’t abandon me—or take advantage of me—in my darkest hour of need, Morgan. You took me home, nursed me and cared for me. You took care of my baby robin that had fallen from its nest, and you took care of Sasha, my Saint Bernard. To me—” she smiled gently over at him “—you’re like a big old teddy bear, the kind you can cuddle up to and hold and feel safe with.”

  His mouth quirked. “A teddy bear, huh?”

  Laughing lightly, Laura nodded. “You gave Jason one shortly after he was born, and when Katherine Alyssa came, she got one, too. Didn’t you know? That bears are healers who protect their own?”

  “No…” He stared down at his hands. The sun slid slowly past the canyon rim and he felt an immediate drop in temperature. Laura wasn’t wearing a jacket, and although he was still comfortable, he wondered if she was. Rousing himself, he said, “Let’s get back to the cabin. It’s going to get dark pretty soon.”r />
  Laura swallowed her disappointment. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself after she slid off the rock. Waiting, she watched Morgan move a lot more slowly from his perch. She knew from Dr. Parson’s examination that he had been so badly tortured that even his joints, especially his knees, were still healing. He reminded her of a huge football player who had been in too many games, and never been given the time or care to recover sufficiently from all those powerful, bruising hits.

  Swallowing hard, Laura decided not to wait for him. Maybe he would read her waiting the wrong way. Right now, they’d just forged a link between them for the first time, and she didn’t want it destroyed by some mistake on her part. As she carefully picked her way through the pebbled area, she hoped she wouldn’t accidentally slam the door shut on what they’d just achieved. She had no manual to follow on how to handle this situation, and right now she was extremely fearful of making a mistake.

  The cabin was cool. An earth stove stood in one corner, and she saw that someone had thoughtfully placed a box of chopped wood nearby so they could start a fire. The living room was long and rectangular, and the dull shine of the pine floor complemented the brown leather couch and forest green chairs.

  “Will you start a fire?” she asked Morgan as he entered. “I’ll go look in the fridge and see what Rachel left for dinner.”

  He nodded. “Sure, go ahead.” Closing the door, he watched Laura move to the kitchen. She seemed happier. Or was it his imagination? He felt happier. Why? Because of their intimate conversation on the rock? Possibly. It was the first time they’d been able to sit down and really talk. Moving to the stove, he opened the door and wadded up a bunch of newspapers, deep in thought.

  What were they going to do tonight—with one bedroom and two beds less than six feet apart? His sleep had been light and sporadic in the hospital. As he placed wood in the stove, his frown deepened. Part of him, a very primal part, considered Laura’s proximity strictly on a physical level. How he wanted to love her! Did she realize how peaceful he felt in her sunny presence? She fed him in some invisible way he couldn’t explain. His body knew and was in a constant, aching knot, obviously recalling a great deal more than his damned brain did about Laura and how he felt toward her.