by Cindy Gerard
He pushed away from the rail. Enclosing her small hand in his, he brought it to his lips.
“You’ll stay?”
For long moments she said nothing as she sifted through the emotions the past several hours had kindled.
“Em?” he prompted when he couldn’t stand it any longer.
Slowly she met his eyes. Slower still, she searched his face. “I’ll stay.”
If relief had been sweeter, he would have overdosed on it. If hope had been higher, he’d have taken wing. He wanted to take her in his arms and carry her to his bed and love all their problems away.
But she was as fragile as glass standing there. Still hesitant Still unsure even as she agreed to take this to another level.
Reining in his excitement, he approached her as he would a skittish colt, with patience and with care. “This is a good decision you’ve made. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re not sorry.”
For an instant, for an eternity, their eyes met and held, and then she moved into his arms.
The same desperation that had compelled him to bring her here in the dark of night had him burying his fingers in her hair and drawing her close.
“We’re going to work this out.” He lowered his mouth to the top of her head, fighting a welling of emotion so strong it stung his eyes and thickened his throat. “That’s what this week is all about. We’re going to figure out what went wrong, and then we’re going to fix it.”
Urging her gently away, he cupped her slim shoulders in his palms and spoke from his heart. “I want you back. You. The woman I married. A woman who is strong and loving, a woman who knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to speak it. A woman who stands up for what she believes and faces her problems head-on.”
“And what if that woman’s gone?” There was fear there. Fear and desperation. “What if she’s been replaced by some maniac who goes off the deep end and drugs the father of her child? What if that woman no longer knows what she wants or who she is?”
Her soulful brown eyes met his with equal measures of despair and doubt—both so profound, he physically felt her struggle.
“Then we’ll find her. Here. Together.” He squeezed her shoulders, a gesture of confidence, an expression of hope. “And we’ll find out what went wrong. I let you down, Em. I know that—but not in the way you think.
“I won’t lie and say it hasn’t been hard—knowing that it was easier for you to believe I’d been unfaithful than to deal with whatever else our problems are. But we’ll work through that.”
He willed the right words to come. “I’ve made mistakes. We both have. But I’m not playing games when I say I don’t know what they were. That’s what we need to work on. Before we can, you’ve got to believe that there’s one mistake I’ve never made—never wanted to. There’s never been anyone else. Never.”
She closed her eyes, swallowed hard.
“Give me the chance to make you trust me again. Give us the chance to trust each other.”
“And if we can’t?”
He’d weighed his response to that question a hundred times in his mind. It took all his strength of will to voice it. “Then I’ll sign the divorce papers if you still want me to,” he said finally.
She’d never been able to hide her feelings from him. Her eyes gave her away every time. Right now they were telling him she was scared and about two deep breaths away from changing her mind.
He wasn’t going to let that happen. And to make sure it didn’t, he knew he had to take it slow and easy. This pact they’d made was very fragile. Her feelings were still too raw, too exposed, to explore in depth—not just yet. For that matter, so were his.
Recognizing that, he decided to proceed with caution, give them both a little room. For the time being, it only made sense that they’d both be more comfortable dealing with the mundane. And for now, that was enough for him. Just knowing she was going to stay was enough to raise his spirits to a level he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again.
“You missed breakfast—and lunch,” he said with a soft smile meant to set her at ease and let her know he wouldn’t crowd her. “How about we take care of that first?”
When she cautiously returned his smile, he knew he was reading her right.
Without another word he walked to the door and held it open for her. After a slight hesitation she walked through.
The simple act shouldn’t have held as much weight as it did. They both recognized, however, that it was as symbolic as it was physical. He’d opened a door; she’d walked through it—not just physically but emotionally. His hope grew with his anticipation as she allowed him to place a light hand at the small of her back and steer her toward the kitchen.
Emma let him sit her down at a rough-hewn pine table, then watched on as he dug around in the fridge for the makings for sandwiches.
An overwhelming flood of emotions swamped her. One of them was discovery. She’d found out a lot about herself this morning. It was scary and a little humbling to know she’d been harboring the fear that her marriage might mirror the disaster her mother’s had been. It was also painfully enlightening—and she still had to figure out how to deal with what that closeted fear had done not only to her but to Garrett and ultimately to Sara.
Aside from that, though, relief suddenly—and surprisingly—overrode her regrets and uncertainties. She’d made a decision—the first one that had felt right since the night she’d left Garrett. Whatever happened over the next several days, whatever the outcome, she’d at least find some peace in knowing she had given it a try.
Relief came from another quarter, as well. Now that she thought about it, ever since she’d seen Garrett standing at the top of the loft steps, a sense of safety had worked to erode her anger. In her head she knew she should be outraged with him for kidnapping her. But in truth the knowledge that he cared so much that he’d swept her away like a thief in the night had warmed a part of her heart that had been cold for a very long time. She gave herself a little dispensation on that count.
Was any woman truly immune to the fantasy of being swept away by a dominant male who had risked everything to have her to himself? Especially a male who was as beautiful as this one? The right look, the right touch, and she was in danger of falling into his arms and into the oblivion she sought in his loving.
After all these months of missing him, it was tempting. He was tempting as he moved on bare feet, his jeans hugging his slim hips. He still had the body of an athlete. Had always had the look of an outlaw—all the James boys did—with his dark hair tumbling recklessly over his forehead and eyes that could cloud over with the deep blue of a summer storm, or liquefy to the hazy mist of a distant fog.
The hands that made their sandwiches were big. They were rugged hands, working man’s hands that could be filled with strength, tempered to an uncommon gentleness or heated to sensual roughness. Memories of those hands on her body sent an erotic little shiver rippling down her spine—along with a wake-up call.
She was straying back into dangerous territory. Satisfying physical wants and needs would solve nothing between them. Their problems ran deeper than that. And they had miles to go toward resolving them—if they could resolve them.
The moment called for caution. In fact, it called for information and a safe topic of discussion.
“Are you ever going to get around to telling me where we are?”
Her question brought his head around. He studied her face to test her mood, then, reading it right, relaxed into a grin that was engagingly crooked and just a little coy.
Too quickly, too easily, her own reaction came. Despite her resolve to keep her feelings in check, she couldn’t stall a return smile when his dancing eyes met hers. She’d missed that grin. She’d missed him.
“Got any guesses?”
She shrugged, considered, shook her head. “We’re not in the Tetons.”
“You’ve got that right. We’re in the Wind River Range.”
“Wind River?” She
took another long, slow look around her as the significance of the location struck her. “Then this would be the cabin. The cabin,” she repeated, fairly stunned by the realization. “Which means I’m on hallowed ground.”
He chuckled at the staged reverence in her voice. The James boys had made no bones over the years that they considered the cabin their father had built in the valley an exclusively male domain. Except for their mother, no woman had ever crossed the threshold.
“Haven’t you broken some sacred covenant by bringing me here?”
Before he could answer, another thought struck her. She wrinkled her brow. “I thought the only way into the valley was on foot or by horseba—” She let her sentence trail off when she realized the implication. “You brought me here by horseback and I didn’t even know it?”
He scratched the stubble that darkened his jaw. “You’ve never been a drinker, Em. I guess now we both know why.” Compassion and a hint of humor touched his eyes. “How is the head by the way?”
His compassion resurrected a guilt she’d been struggling with since she’d left him and broke the easiness of the mood. It took a moment, but she gathered her courage and broached a subject she felt compelled to face. “Better than yours, I’d suspect, the morning after... the morning after I left you.”
Remorse for the grotesqueness of the sins she’d committed against him swelled to an awareness so huge it filled her chest to bursting. She’d drugged him. She’d shaved his head. She’d torn his life apart and deprived him of his child—all because of her own insecurities.
Yes, their marriage had been in trouble. And yes, seeing him with that woman that day had been painful and shocking, but it hadn’t given her license to do what she’d done.
She looked at her hands. “I’m...I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I...I still can’t believe I—”
“Hey—let’s not think about that right now.” The firmness in his tone stopped her and brought her head up. Though his voice was hard, his eyes were gentle. “We’ve got all week. Let’s just ease into this, okay?”
She realized immediately that putting off that particular discussion was his way of protecting her. Protecting her had always been one of the things Garrett did best. Letting him, was one of her weaknesses. He’d always had a need to make her feel safe. She realized—to his credit and her shame—that she’d had an answering need to let him. He’d always been so strong and so willing to cloak her in that strength. She suspected now, that her willingness to let him may have contributed to the mess they were in.
But this shouldn’t be about his strength, she thought dismally. It should be about hers. And hers was at an all-time low.
That had to change.
If they were to have any chance of fixing all the wrongs between them, she was going to have to come to terms with her weaknesses.
He was offering her the time to accomplish that—recognizing before she did that what she needed most right now was time.
With a hesitant nod, she agreed. They would have to deal with their feelings about what she’d done to him. There were a lot of things they had to deal with. But it wouldn’t be today. Today they’d get used to being together again.
The silence, however, still hung too heavy with her memory of that day. To shake it, she averted her gaze from his and visually explored her surroundings.
“It’s quite impressive.” A lift of her hand encompassed the cabin. “I’ve always had a curiosity about it. Never figured I’d actually get to see it—not the way you boys guarded its location.”
Sending her a soft smile, he set the bacon he’d fried earlier along with lettuce, tomatoes and bread on the counter. He lifted the coffeepot in invitation. At her nod he pulled out two mugs and filled them.
“Some things are just a little hard to let go of, you know?” He made a lazy, sweeping gaze of the chinked log walls, vaulted ceilings and masculine, rustic furnishings.
“This place has always had a special significance for us. Dad built it. We claimed it as a for-men-only sanctuary—even when we were just boys pretending to be men.”
A wealth of memories warmed his eyes. For a moment she could see they had transported him back to another time.
“Then I guess I should feel honored that I’m here,” she said softly, feeling as though she was intruding on his thoughts.
He only smiled. “Under the circumstances, I’d say honored is a generous attitude.”
He hadn’t meant to but he’d given her another opening to talk about the very topic he wanted to avoid. The fact that she didn’t follow through was a measure of how right he’d been to avoid it for the time being. She wasn’t ready, and she was grateful that he had recognized it.
“And how do your brothers feel about me being here?” she asked instead. “They were in on this, weren’t they?” she surmised when a slow, secret smile deepened the creases in his cheeks. “I should have known. The James boys always stick together.”
“Even at the risk of being charged with kidnapping,” he added as he built their sandwiches.
That notion prompted another—the one she’d been worried about. “My mother—she’s bound to go a little ‘taz’ over this.”
He set a plate in front of her, took a chair on the opposite side of the table and tucked into his sandwich. “Jesse’s taking care of that.”
“Taking care?”
“To set her at ease. Your mother’s always been a sucker for Jess. A little choirboy grinning, some ‘aw shucks, ma’am’ posturing and he’ll charm the socks off her—and in the process, hopefully he’ll convince her you’re fine and in good hands.”
She picked up her own sandwich, picturing Jesse with her mother. “That ought to be a good trick.”
He clashed a quick, confident grin. “I have faith that he’s well motivated. According to Jess, he’s much too pretty to go to prison and become the significant other of someone named Ivan for the next twenty years.”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, she had to smile. Too soon, however, concern edged out her amusement.
“What about your mother?”
Serious now, he rested his forearms on the table. “She said to tell you that she loves you, asked that you forgive her for sanctioning this—and she hopes you like the lingerie she picked out.”
Garrett watched as color spread across her cheeks. He immediately sensed what had caused it. He’d seen the lingerie. He wanted to see her in it. And out of it.
Icing the thought, he dug back into his sandwich to keep his mind from wandering somewhere it had no place going—not yet.
She took a delicate bite then chewed thoughtfully. “I still don’t know how you got past Maddie.”
“That was Clay’s job.”
“Another intriguing prospect.”
“And then some,” he agreed.
When she grinned again, he knew she was finally relaxing. “When I left with you last night, she was winding up to call him everything but a child of God.”
Her smile leveled then faded. “She means well, Garrett.”
“I know. Look,” he said, sensing that they were close to stumbling into that quicksand they were trying to skirt. “I want to propose something.”
Propping both elbows on the table, he waited until she gave him her full attention.
“We’ve got problems, Em. But we’ve got a past together, too. A good one. That day in the park—I asked you to tell me you didn’t love me. You didn’t do it. I chose to believe then that it meant you couldn’t do it. And even though I don’t expect you to say it, I choose to believe it now.”
He reached across the table, enfolded her hands with his. When she let him, he pressed on. “I love you, Em. I’ve never stopped loving you. In the next few days I want to remind you of that—and to try to recapture what we had together.”
“Garrett—”
“No, wait. Let me say this while I’ve got the words together. It’s too hard right now. It’s too hard for both of us to analyze wha
t went wrong. So let’s not start there. Let’s start with what went right. We’ve both lost so much the past few months. Let’s take a few days to remember what we had and let that work for us to get it back.”
Her eyes were sad as they focused on their joined hands. “Going back isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But for now—just for now—I think it’s what we need. We need to get grounded again. We need some time to heal a bit before either one of us is strong enough to tackle the things that need to be fixed.”
She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t withdraw her hands, either. He stroked the back of her knuckles. Felt the moment when the fight went out of her and the compliance eased in.
“How do we do that?” Her voice was soft, wistful with longing. “How do we go back?”
He squeezed her hands, then sank back in his chair with a smile. “You let me worry about that, okay?”
Her expression relayed both confusion and curiosity, and just a spark of excitement that sent his pulse skyrocketing. They’d begun. And he liked the sound of that beginning far more than the sound of an end.
His appetite suddenly ravenous, he polished off his sandwich, then watched with pleasure as she did the same with hers.
Jonathan James had built the cabin in the Wind River Valley as a retreat for himself and his bride. But as their family expanded and the boys had grown in size and activity, the cabin had become more theirs than their parents’.
Jonathan had brought them here for long weekends throughout their youth, and the brothers had gradually staked their claim to it and the land encompassing it. Garrett, Clay and Jesse still spent time here—either together or alone—as men.
Not that a little recent “spiffing up” hadn’t made it habitable for a woman, too. With Logan’s help—who’d turned out to be a closet romantic and a bit of an outlaw himself—Garrett had stocked food, refired the generator so they’d have electricity, run a line to the river so they’d have water and cleaned until the windows shone and the appliances sparkled. He’d even bought new sheets for the loft bed, and after a lengthy self-debate, hauled up the necessities to set the mood to make Emma his again.