Can't Lose Me

by Amanda Torrey

  He didn’t want a relationship with her. They weren’t a family. She had failed.

  And though she didn’t expect him to forgive her just because she reappeared at his door, she couldn’t get past the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to ask why she had left in the first place.

  She tried to make her breathing sound like sleep-breathing so he wouldn’t suspect that she had noticed him watching her.

  He didn’t go away. Instead, he stumbled further into the room.

  The smell of beer overpowered the normally delightful smell of Gabe. Her Gabe.

  No. Her Gabe didn’t drink. Her Gabe had made a vow not to, knowing the hell she had gone through with a father who put drinking beer ahead of the well-being of his family.

  But this Gabe—this obviously intoxicated, disrespectful Gabe—settled himself on the floor next to where she slept. Where she had previously felt safe, if not wanted.

  He brushed the hair away from her closed eyes. She melted a little, but only out of habit. His touch had a way of soothing her, of making her feel loved, even if it was an illusion.

  His fingers drifted down her cheek, pausing at the corner of her mouth. She resisted the instinctive urge to kiss his fingertip, but her lips twitched at his tentative touch.

  With what seemed like great reverence, Gabe ran his rough thumb over her bottom lip. Her mouth flooded with saliva, but she fought the need to swallow, not wanting to alert him to the fact that she was awake.

  If she opened her eyes, she’d kiss him.

  She couldn’t do that.

  He was drunk, and she was handy. She had made her desire for him known, but he had, in turn, made his disdain clear.

  “I’ve missed you, Kenz.”

  Her body warred with her brain as the words she had wanted to hear washed over her, veiled by the odor of the alcohol.

  The beer was speaking, not Gabriel.

  Tears prickled her eyelids, but she kept them shut, praying no evidence would leak out.

  His forehead leaned against hers, and her heart threatened to revolt if she didn’t give it what it so badly desired.

  As she pretended to sleep, Gabe placed kisses on the tip of her nose, across her cheeks, and at the corner of her lips—the sensitive juncture where he had so often tickled her senses alive and made the rest of her body weak.

  “I hate myself for wanting you so much.”

  At his pained tone, her eyes opened, meeting his directly and without a trace of sleepiness. His were bloodshot and gloomy, as if he had escaped the worst sort of torture and desperately sought comfort from his abductor.

  She wanted to be the one to soothe him, to comfort him, to drive away the pain of their shared past.

  But she also wanted to thunk him over the head with a frying pan, and the longer he looked at her like he wanted to consume her and then spit her out in disgust, the quicker the frying pan of her fantasy went from stainless steel to cast iron.

  “Mackenzie.”

  The longing returned to his slurred speech, and he fumbled his fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes, pleasure rolling down her spine and into the swollen juncture between her thighs. She could give him what he wanted.

  Except tomorrow he’d hate her more than he already did.

  If he couldn’t want her when he was sober, she couldn’t allow this to continue.

  His lips fell to hers, and there was no hesitation on his part. No slurring, no fumbling. As if their kiss was committed to muscle memory, he exerted the precise amount of pressure needed to elicit the greatest sigh from her.

  She could almost ignore the putrid taste of the beer on his tongue when it was ensconced in the otherwise deliriously appealing scent of Gabe.

  Her hands lifted to his chest, and feeling his hardness beneath her palms nearly made her hesitate.

  But this was wrong. All wrong.

  She shoved against him, easily knocking him away considering his state of inebriation.

  He looked at her through hooded, blurry eyes. He said nothing.

  She rolled over on the couch and covered her head with the blanket, hoping beyond hope that he couldn’t hear the sobs she tried so hard to stifle.

  When she finally heard him shuffling away, she started to get up. She had to go after him. To tell him she wasn’t pushing him away.

  She made it halfway across the room before she realized that her reassurances would be lies.

  Because as much as she had wanted Gabe when she had made the decision to come back to Healing Springs for their seven-year anniversary, she had to admit that she didn’t want the man she was beginning to know.

  Chapter Seven

  Gabe struggled through his day with the hangover headache of the century and the painful realization that he had been the biggest prick in all of Healing Springs. Possibly all of New England.

  Who was he kidding? The way his balls climbed inside him at the thought of what he had done to Kenzie, he knew he was the biggest asshole in the entire frigging country.

  He owed her an apology. He had been so pissed about the interference of the mediator that he had picked up a case of beer after he left his poker game with the sole purpose of pissing her off.

  He remembered the day he had promised to never touch the stuff, but he also remembered the day she had promised to live her life with him forever.

  The ink cartridge he was trying to install snapped in his hands, staining his skin and his shirt on contact.

  As he cleaned up his mess, he formulated a plan for cleaning up the mess he had left on the home front.

  While taking a brief lunch, Gabe called the local florist and asked them to deliver their largest bouquet, along with a note.

  He carefully dictated the words.

  And he hoped his apology and his invitation to dinner was better received than his sloppy attempts at drunken intimacy the night before.

  ***

  Mackenzie held back her irritation when Mr. Clark grabbed her arm unexpectedly. She had let down her guard and had turned her back on him. She had known he suffered from dementia and had been having a bout of instability. She had known better. She had failed him.

  The head nurse heard the commotion and ran into the room. Together, they managed to release Mr. Clark’s fingers from Mackenzie’s arm and get him subdued and in bed.

  “You’ve got to file an incident report. We can’t be having this kind of behavior, and the director needs to start taking it seriously.”

  “It was my fault. I set him off. Now I know better than to make small talk when I’m pouring his water.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mackenzie didn’t appreciate Betty’s tone, but she managed a smile and kept her own tone level.

  “He doesn’t hear well. When I’m facing away from him and speaking, he can only hear what must be an annoying murmur. It frustrated him and set him off. He was trying to get me to turn to him, but he didn’t realize how tight his grip was.”

  “Don’t make excuses for him,” Betty snapped. “He’s getting more dangerous every day. When you go in to speak with the director, don’t you dare minimize the aggression.”

  Mackenzie watched as the bruise set in on her arm. It would be a good one.

  But she had no desire to throw poor Mr. Clark into the pit of vipers. Not when she now realized how to avoid angering him.

  “Now go change Room 3’s bedding. Antoine will be back by the end of your shift.”

  Antoine wasn’t back by the end of her shift, but Mackenzie wasn’t about to leave and allow Betty to give the report without her input.

  Mackenzie found tasks to complete around the nursing home while she awaited Antoine’s return. She had nothing to rush home to, anyway. The longer she stayed at work, the longer she could put off seeing her husband.

  Her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

  Mackenzie scrubbed the spot on the wall harder.

  How had her life turned into this mess?

  How had she gone from happy to
regretful so fast?

  “Antoine will see you now.”

  Betty’s grim voice startled Mackenzie. She slipped off her gloves, tossed them in the trash, and straightened her shoulders. She’d need all the confidence she could fake to go up against Betty’s wishes.

  She hoped they didn’t decide to end her temporary employment. But if they did, at least she could say she went down swinging.

  That was something she had never been able to say about anything else in her life.

  ***

  Gabe didn’t know why his heart pounded so fast. He had been with Mackenzie since he was seventeen and she was fifteen.

  And he hadn’t been this nervous since the first time he had asked her out.

  The fantasy of her smiling, adoring face had danced around his head all day. She loved when he randomly brought her flowers. She wanted their marriage to work.

  He didn’t share that goal.

  He had no hopes for their marriage—it was broken. Irrevocably.

  But he had been a dick, and she didn’t deserve that treatment. She had always been a vulnerable soul, and he knew she would have been wringing her hands all day and trying to figure out a way to make him happy again, even though he was the one to have hurt her. This time.

  Her car wasn’t in the driveway when he pulled in.

  Strange.

  Maybe she was out shopping for a nice dress to wear for their dinner together. Maybe something sexy like what she had worn when she showed up at his house on their anniversary. Maybe underneath she’d wear those hot little panties that had made his own pants too tight.

  Dammit. He hadn’t seen her yet today and he was already ready to jump her.

  He had to fight that impulse. They’d have a nice dinner to show the courts they were “trying,” and they’d go home and find a way to live without tearing each other’s throats out for the next couple of months.

  Getting intimate would only complicate things.

  And lead her on.

  Better to keep things clean and simple, with no exchange of bodily fluids.

  On the porch table, next to the front door, the flowers he had sent greeted him. Mocked him.

  They were supposed to have been delivered before noon.

  Where had she been all day?

  Gabe let himself in the house, fear making his mouth dry.

  Had something happened to her?

  There was no note. No sign of anything strange. Her bag still sat on the floor next to the couch. Her blanket remained folded on the end of the couch, on top of the pillow.

  Probably spent the day with her mother.

  That made sense.

  He had hurt her feelings last night. Probably scared her. She’d want to be with her mother.

  Gabe dialed her mother’s number—a number he had known by heart for well over a decade.

  His mother-in-law answered on the second ring, coughing into the phone before saying a hoarse, “Hello?”

  Gabe asked for Kenzie and was met with silence, then a coughing fit, and then hesitation.

  “She’s probably working late, hon. Did you call her?”

  Working? Where the hell was she working? And why?

  “I tried your house first. Figured she’d be there.” He cleared his throat, feeling like a complete idiot for not knowing that his wife had a job. “Where is she working?”

  More silence.

  “She didn’t tell you she took on a job?”

  He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His jaw had tightened to the point that he wondered if he’d ever manage to unlock it.

  “I have to tell ya, I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. She was all excited about it.”

  He managed a grunt. Why the hell would she get a job when she would be leaving in less than two months?

  “I thought you kids were working things out?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “All right, none of my business. I’m just the mother here. Well, she’s working over at the nursing home on Oak Street. She should have been out by three, I think.”

  Kenzie’s mother took an audible breath before releasing the contents of her lungs into the phone. He jerked the handset away from his ear.

  “If I hear from her, you want me to call you?”

  Gabe closed his eyes and tried to contain his ire.

  “No.”

  He said a quick goodbye and resisted the urge to slam the phone. Wasn’t her mother’s fault. She had always been nice to Gabe. She had welcomed him into her home when Kenzie left. She had been as distraught and bewildered as he had been.

  He was the one who had cut off contact.

  When he looked into her kind eyes, he had always seen too much of Kenzie.

  Gabe reevaluated his options. He had planned to have a nice dinner with Kenzie and to make amends. Now it would turn into an interrogation dinner. Yeah, he’d apologize for his dickishness, but then she owed him some explanations.

  He hated to be dramatic, but this town was only big enough for one of them, and he wasn’t the one who had fled.

  Practically in a trance, he drove himself to the nursing home on Oak Street. He released a breath when he saw her car parked there. All sorts of horrible thoughts had been prancing through his mind. A car crash. An abduction. Her running off without saying goodbye.

  All the same thoughts he had suffered with a year ago.

  He took a moment to get control of himself, gripping the steering wheel and tightening his shoulder muscles.

  Fuck, this was hard.

  He waited for a while, but as six o’clock turned into six fifteen and his hunger intensified, he decided to go in and see if he could talk to her. He had tried to call her cell number. Had tried to text her. She hadn’t responded to anything.

  No one came to the door when he opened it, even when the bells rang.

  He followed the signs to the check-in area, where he was greeted by an empty reception desk.

  He peered around. The place was eerily quiet.

  He heard the vague sounds of a piano playing from down a hall, followed by jubilant applause.

  She must be down there. Gabe began to follow the sound of the group, but stopped short when he heard her voice coming through a partially open door. On the door was a nameplate. Antoine Suarez, Director.

  He listened for a moment as Kenzie, in her soft, quiet voice, explained something to, apparently, the director.

  A harsh female voice interrupted. Gabe fisted his hands. He hated the idea of anyone speaking that way to Kenzie.

  He expected to hear whimpering. Or for Kenzie to withdraw from the conversation.

  That’s how she normally behaved.

  She had always been on the shy side. Easily taken advantage of. More sensitive than anyone he had ever met.

  His fierce drive to protect her startled him. Clearly he hadn’t outgrown that, even in her absence.

  “Actually, Betty, if you’d let me finish…”

  Was that her? Kenzie? Sounding assertive?

  He stepped closer to the door. What was happening?

  A deep male voice that Gabe guessed belonged to Antoine intervened.

  “I’d like to hear from Mackenzie.”

  Kenzie thanked him in her sweet voice, and he imagined her blushing and looking away.

  Jealousy twisted his gut. He didn’t like the idea of this Antoine guy standing up for her when that was Gabe’s job. Didn’t like the idea of Antoine being on the receiving end of Kenzie’s appreciative smile. Despised the idea that Antoine would be as enamored by Kenzie’s pink cheeks as Gabe had always been.

  About to knock—or push his way in and punch Antoine in the face—Kenzie’s voice returned.

  “With all due respect, I believe we owe Mr. Clark the kind of respect he deserves. We don’t serve children here. We shouldn’t treat these residents as if they are.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Gabe could imagine Betty as a stern nurse from the fifties, with a starched cap and a look of ou
trage.

  He wished he could walk into the room.

  “Betty, I admire you. There’s so much I can learn from you. But I believe there are things you could learn from me, too, and how to treat Mr. Clark with dignity is one of those things.”

  Whoa. Ten points for his little wallflower.

  Antoine’s voice erased Gabe’s proud smile.

  “Thank you for the report. I will take this under advisement.”

  Betty piped up again. “Antoine, you can’t allow this kind of behavior.”

  “I’ll decide what I can and can’t allow, Betty.”

  Gabe didn’t miss the fact that Antoine’s voice was harsher and more direct when he spoke to Betty. Softer and gentler when speaking to Gabe’s wife.

  As their conversation wound down and Antoine told Kenzie to put in for the extra time she had stayed, Gabe slipped away and out the front door.

  He suddenly felt like a dumbass for tracking her down at work. He felt like even more of a dumbass for eavesdropping on her at work. And he felt like the dumbass of the century for not barreling into the office and laying claim to his woman.

  Only she wasn’t his woman and he wasn’t a caveman.

  But still. Antoine shouldn’t be flirting with an employee.

  Gabe stopped to grab some take out from the fancier restaurant in town.

  As he drove home, preparing to bring the dinner date to her, he marveled at how strong she had sounded.

  So sure of herself.

  So protective of whatever resident she had been standing up for.

  Gabe had loved Kenzie since he first met her.

  But he had never seen her in this light.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabe checked the clock again. He had expected her to beat him home since he had stopped for the food.

  His stomach growled, but he waited.

  He refilled his water glass when he heard her pull into the driveway, not wanting her to think he had been eagerly awaiting her arrival like a loyal dog.

  Even if the thought of her made him pant.

  He watched her enter the house, waiting for her eyes to light up when she noticed the two plates at the table.