Worth the Wait (McKinney/Walker #1)

by Claudia Connor

  “Shh. You don’t mean that.” He felt as though her heart were breaking right before his eyes, and no matter how tightly he held her, he couldn’t stop it.

  “I do. I do.” She peered up at him, the misery in her eyes so stark that it ripped through him. “I want her back. I just want her back.”

  “I know. I know you do.” He repeated that and other words he hoped were comforting. He kissed her forehead, her hair, cradled her against his chest and let her cry. What the hell could he do? “I’m so sorry.”

  She deserved so much more. He wished he could be what she deserved. He’d thought at one time he was.

  “If I just knew where she was, that she was okay,” she cried. “The not knowing, it’s killing me, Nick.”

  He held her tighter. He could possibly get the information she wanted, but would that really help her? He wasn’t sure.

  She peered up at him, eyes red, face wet and splotchy, and he wanted her more than anything. Wanted to console her, wanted to rant and rage on her behalf. Would give anything for the chance to slay her dragons, to go back in time and shield her from that pain.

  He’d tried his best to protect her from himself and broken both of their hearts in the process.

  She had this way of looking at him, like he was everything she’d ever needed, the only thing in the world she would ever need. She was looking at him like that right now.

  He brushed his thumb under her eyes. She didn’t look away, and he followed the motion with his lips. He kissed her cheeks and down the side of her face. Her dark, sad eyes met and held his. Seconds passed with no more than a breath between them. He hesitated, not wanting to do anything to hurt her.

  But when her eyelids fluttered closed, he pressed his mouth to hers. Her lips parted beneath his, and she took his breath into her lungs. Then she was kissing him, her fingers clasping the back of his head, twisting in the shirt on his back like she was sliding over a cliff and he was her only hope for survival.

  Chapter 20

  THERE WAS NO KISS like Nick’s. He made love to her mouth with an intensity that tore her down until there was nothing. Nothing but his mouth on hers, his fingers tunneling through her hair. He tilted her back over his arm and feasted like she was everything he ever needed.

  A dizzy, floating feeling drifted through her brain, then even more when he lifted her, cradled her in his arms, and carried her through the home that should have been theirs.

  He laid her down on the bed, and for one sharp second a vicious war battled. Need against fear. His body came over hers, and with just a look from those brown eyes, she was tossed and shaken until she was afraid she would fall and fall until she was lost. Afraid, but willing to risk everything not to lose this moment, this feeling.

  Hot and damp, his mouth skated along her jaw, up to her temple, then teased the corner of her mouth. His barely-stubbled cheek brushed hers, and it was one sensation, one more reminder she was alive. He continued with patience and skill until she wanted to be lost, wanted to go wherever Nick could take her.

  “Let me take care of you.”

  Yes. She tried to push out that one word past the emotions clogging her throat, but he didn’t need it. He was already taking care of her, taking her away in that slow, single-minded, possessive way he had that melted her muscles and made her helpless to him.

  This time their lovemaking was more tentative and tender, more like their very first time so many years ago. A rediscovering with skimming lips and gliding fingers.

  Her body rose up to meet his at the same time he tipped her head back to deepen the kiss. She dragged at his shirt, impatient to feel him, the familiar and the different. Smooth, hot skin over strength and rippling muscle.

  “Please.” There was such an ache, a hole to fill that only he could. He used his hands, his mouth. He had good hands. Strong and skilled and slightly rough.

  Nick peeled off her clothes one piece at a time, then his own, slowing it down, bringing them back. Those strong hands stroked over her, cupping and molding her breasts until her breath quickened and her senses blurred. Reaching under her shirt, he flicked open her bra, tugged it away, then took her beyond the realm of clear thinking. With deep, blinding kisses and skilled fingers, he drove her up until her breath became moans.

  His touch reminded her of the past and all they’d shared. His tender kiss drew her under, and his sure hands held her there. They undid her, reminded her of what had been, then melted and melded into what was now.

  In the dark and the quiet, they took the time to rediscover each other. This was not about the past, she thought. This was now. Two new people coming together, but still achingly familiar.

  Nick caressed her, possessed her, took everything away except for him and them. He traced his fingers along her collarbone, over the swell of her breast and between. His hands were gentle, but his eyes grew hot with his deliberate seduction.

  He covered her and took more, stripping her raw. He made it impossible to hold back, to keep any part of herself safe from him. She burned with his touch, felt his erection press hard between her legs as she clung to him with a desperation that frightened her. Was it the memory of her feelings the last time he’d made love to her like this or the lingering torrent of emotions whipping through her? The years of missing him, of loneliness.

  Or could it just be him? Still, after all this time? She knew it was.

  He closed his lips over her aching nipples, touched her everywhere she needed to be touched, but still didn’t give her everything. She wanted more, needed to be closer. Still afraid to let her heart feel this but wanting him badly enough to face the pain tomorrow.

  “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

  It was true. He had her. She felt every touch, every breath, as surely as if his teeth were scraping along her heart. With each beat, he kissed her longer, harder, deeper. He possessed her heart as surely as he possessed her body. Her breath caught, very near a cry, when he plunged into her. He thrust harder, faster, demanding she give him everything. Everything she had and the enormity of it had tears burning her eyes.

  He raised her hands above her head on the mattress, twined their fingers tightly together. “Hold on to me.” Then he stole her breath and her mind.

  * * *

  AFTERWARD, THEY LAY TOGETHER, Nick’s fingers sifting slowly through her hair like she loved. The past was still there, hanging over them. Old hurts and some new ones. In the quiet, their bodies bare, their hearts stripped. Both painfully aware of what they’d lost but accepting they couldn’t go back.

  They could only go forward to something new if they both chose to. But that would be the future, the great unknown. Before, they’d been young, there had been no fear or uncertainty. They’d come together with both their hearts whole, no bruises or wounds inflicted by life or each other. No regret or forgiveness. There was only love and discovery and more love.

  She didn’t know what they could be now. She only knew what they had been, and her heart remembered every drop of blood shed when it had ended.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  “It was a long time ago.” And she didn’t want to think about it right now. Her cheek on his warm chest and his fingers in her hair felt too good. However afraid she was to need him again didn’t change the fact that she needed him now.

  “Not that, though there’s plenty to be sorry for. I meant the other morning. When you left. I hurt you, and I’m sorry. You don’t remind me of the bad, you just…” His hand paused on her head for a second, and she held her breath until it moved again. “I still wonder. I know I shouldn’t, but I still wonder how things might have been different. It doesn’t help to want to go back and undo it, but I do.”

  “Nick—”

  “No. That’s not all. I didn’t say everything I should or everything I wanted to. I didn’t know how. I still don’t.”

  “I know.” She’d been scared for both of them to travel down an old road. Should have known before she ever walked into his
kitchen that the past would be stirred up like muddy silt on the bottom of a pond. That was the problem. Their past was muddy, dirty. Bloody.

  But he was here now, his hand stroking slowly over her back in apology and comfort. Always the protector. She’d loved that about him, his fierce need to protect. So much to love about this man. She’d fallen hard as a teenage girl, then even more as a woman. It terrified her to think of falling again.

  “I’m sorry for before, too, Mia. More than you’ll ever know.”

  He spoke slowly, his voice deep and filled with so much raw emotion. She’d never wanted to leave him, still made her sick to think about it, but they couldn’t ignore it. She shifted so they lay on their sides, facing. “I went back to the house a few days later,” she said softly, her heart squeezing at the memory of what she’d found. “I didn’t think you’d meant it.”

  “And I thought you had,” he said so wearily she reached out for him.

  There was regret on both parts. She’d never have left if she’d thought for one second he wanted her to stay. And even so, she wouldn’t have left Hannah. So she’d waited, stayed with a girlfriend from the hospital for a couple of days, waiting for Nick to come to his senses. Because it couldn’t be over, not them. Not Nick and Mia.

  Ten years ago, she’d walked out of his kitchen sure he would come after her. Positive he would finally open up and let her in and that in time, the black space of guilt and anger inside him would heal. After two days, she went by the house, disappointed and more than a little scared but needing to see Hannah. And if Nick was home, they would talk; if he wasn’t, she’d wait.

  She’d cook dinner, pick up after everyone, pay bills. All those external things until she could reach inside him to what really mattered. What she found was Zach standing among a scattering of moving boxes. Hannah sat silently on the couch, staring at an old black-and-white movie on the TV.

  “Hey, guys.” She dropped the bags of groceries she’d picked up on the kitchen counter. She plopped down beside Hannah and kissed the top of her head before forcing herself to look at Zach. He was unusually quiet. “Doing some cleaning out?” Zach, the consummate bachelor, spent most nights at the firehouse. He wouldn’t have much to clean out.

  “No. I’m packing up.”

  “Are you moving?” Her gaze tracked to the hallway, where a wall of boxes was stacked. The knot swelled in her chest. “Zach?” If her voice shook a little, it was just because she hadn’t been sleeping well. If her heart pounded, it was just because she was nervous about her talk with Nick. But a boulder-sized knot settled in her stomach.

  Zach ripped off a line of packing tape and smoothed it across the cardboard seam. “You should talk to Nick.”

  “Nick’s not here. I’m talking to you.”

  He wouldn’t look at her, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked guilty—and embarrassed. The fact that she didn’t have a clue what was going on was painful for both of them.

  “Zach?”

  “Nick’s boss thought it would be good for him to get a change of scenery. Get some distance.”

  “Nick mentioned his boss’s idea, but he was totally against it. His boss hadn’t forced the issue. Is he forcing it now?”

  Again, Zach avoided her, stood with the box, and pushed it across the room with his foot. Zach was tall and wide shouldered, and at twenty-seven, he was a well-respected lieutenant at the firehouse. He was still the one with a joke and a quick smile, but she worried about the pain he hid underneath. Nothing significant could happen to one piece of the family without affecting all the others.

  Mia took Hannah’s hand, seeking comfort and holding on to the girl she loved. Hannah didn’t look at her. She rarely gave any sign she noticed Mia was there.

  “Look,” Zach finally said. “All I know is he came by the firehouse and ran this by me, asked me what I thought, if I’d come with them.” He shrugged and reached for another box. “It’s not so hard for me to get a transfer. What do I care?”

  He would care a great deal, she thought. Just because he didn’t take life too seriously didn’t mean he didn’t have ties, friends, connections.

  “I’ll be joining them in a few weeks.”

  “Where?”

  Zach looked away. Did he not want to tell her? Did he think it would be breaking some kind of confidence by telling the woman who’d been with his brother for thirteen years where he was moving without discussing it with her? She felt herself begin to unravel and bit down on her lip. “Where?”

  “Norfolk.”

  She barely registered the answer, because before the words were uttered, she’d realized it didn’t matter. He was leaving, and he hadn’t even told her. Because they weren’t a couple anymore? It was more than she could take. With her heart in her throat she stood.

  “You okay?” Zach reached out a hand to steady her. The boy she’d known since he was fifteen had grown into a man. Still, she saw the teenager she’d kept stocked with Little Debbies and reminded constantly about condoms. For his sixteenth birthday, she’d tried to make his favorite chocolate sheet cake exactly like is mother had. All six feet and three inches of man child had cried on her shoulder like a baby for the parents he’d lost, letting her see his sadness in a way he couldn’t with his stoic older brother.

  She almost couldn’t bear to look at Hannah as she bent to kiss her cheek. She needed to get away before she broke. She kissed Zach’s cheek quickly and nearly ran to the kitchen. There’d be time to get her stuff later. Time for goodbyes.

  She reached for her purse and paused. “When?” she asked without turning around.

  “There’s, um… an opening now that needs to be filled. A guy headed for retirement went out early, and they’re shuffling people, so…”

  “When?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  Mia didn’t sleep for forty-eight hours. Not for one minute. Her head ached from crying and the constant straining to hear a knock at her door or a buzz on her phone. Neither came. And so eventually, she’d moved on. Maybe not very well, at least for a while, but for ten years she’d moved.

  She looked at him now, lying in her bed, his beautiful face just an inch from hers, and tried not to see the man who’d broken her heart.

  “I thought you were done with me, Mia,” Nick finally said. “I know I would have been. You left. I don’t blame you, but you left, and I thought that was it.”

  “You left me long before that in every way that mattered.”

  “I know.”

  “You never came after me.”

  He sighed and rolled until he was staring at the ceiling. “I wasn’t sure things could be any different. That I could be different.”

  “Did you want to come after me?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.” He looked over at her. “And I knew I was. Hurting you. Us. I couldn’t come after you because you were right. Not that I didn’t want you there exactly, but in a way, I didn’t even want myself there.”

  She couldn’t believe he remembered those words. Hadn’t thought he’d really been listening even then.

  “I wanted to turn off like Hannah had turned off, but I couldn’t, so I dialed myself down to the lowest possible setting and still be breathing. There was nothing left for you.”

  “I could have helped dial you back.”

  “Maybe, but…” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t want to be brought back. There was no love inside me. I couldn’t love you. I couldn’t feel anything. Without the anger and the guilt, I was empty inside. Maybe I closed myself off just to survive. I didn’t blame you for what happened. I swear I didn’t.” He rolled back to her and gathered her to his chest. “I don’t.”

  “I know,” she whispered. But she had been late, even if just a few minutes. He’d opened the door for the truth. She forced herself to step through. “I was late, though. I blamed myself for that.”

  His arms tightened. “Mia—”

  “No, I was. Just a few minutes. Eno
ugh to think, ‘what if?’ I wasn’t waiting there at four, like I usually was. I’d been coming from a doctor appointment. I was running late. I’d…” It hurt that what should have been so easy to say, so happy to say, was so very hard. She swallowed. “I’d just found out I was pregnant.”

  Everything in Nick stilled. She felt the shock bounce through him for a moment before he pulled back to meet her eyes.

  “I was pregnant, Nick.” She smiled through fresh tears. “I was so excited to tell you, my mind wasn’t where it should have been. It was on us and our baby. I was so happy, sitting there, waiting for Hannah, imagining how I would tell you. And then…”

  “You never told me.” His voice was soft, shocked, and sorry.

  “No.” She touched his face. “I couldn’t. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t. I kept thinking any day Hannah would come home, and everything would be okay. Then I’d tell you, and we could be happy again.”

  “But it wasn’t. We weren’t.”

  “No.”

  He covered her hand that lay on his cheek with his own, held it there.

  “So I waited. Every day I thought, ‘This will be the day. Hannah will be back, and all this will end,’ but then…”

  “What?”

  “A few weeks later…” She took a deep breath to get out the words she’d never wanted to say. “I lost the baby. I lost our baby.”

  He sucked in a breath, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. He swallowed and took another breath before he spoke. “You didn’t tell me?”

  “And add to what you were already going through?” She bit her bottom lip, shook her head, praying he would understand. “I couldn’t. It happened at work, at the hospital. I thought maybe I’d been working too much, being on my feet. Or the stress of everything, but the doctor said no. She said it happens and we could try again.”

  Nick stared at her until her lips trembled. Please, God don’t let him be angry. I can’t take him being angry with me on top of everything else.