This was not the wedding day he wanted for himself. He had waited for the doubts to come all week, as he watched the girls scramble around to make the wedding preparations, but they didn’t. He thought they would come when Mike had pulled him aside to ask him if he was sure about marrying her. Even then they hadn’t come. He wanted to marry Charlotte Rudy. He wanted her as his family. He could see a life spent with her.
And as if on cue she walked into the room on Mike’s arm. Music started to play. She was beautiful in her wedding gown. The buttery soft skin on her arms and shoulders was exposed. Her long wild hair was loose and tamed in soft curls, and even though she thought she was far from graceful she kind of glided down the aisle toward him. His bride. He smiled at her but she didn’t smile at him. Her eyes didn’t even lock with his. She looked right through him.
She doesn’t want to do this.
The thought had been going through his mind all week, but he ignored it. Marriage was the right thing to do. They had a baby coming. He wouldn’t be like his parents. His child would be raised in a happy home.
That’s impossible if the wife is not happy.
It was too late for doubts. Too late because the music stopped and she was standing beside him.
“How are you, love?” he whispered to her. He cupped her cheek unable to keep himself from touching her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Nausea rolled in his belly. His head spun. Only one thought rolled through his mind.
Please don’t do this to me.
It wasn’t for fear of embarrassment. It wouldn’t be a shot to his pride. But one to his heart.
“Love.” He took both her cheeks in his hand and kissed her forehead. There was nothing else to say. Words wouldn’t come. It was probably a good thing. He knew he couldn’t convince her to marry him if it was the wrong thing to do.
“I wish she was here.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate his ears. This was about Yuliana. She was still so sad about her passing.
His eyes shot to hers. His hands fell from her face. Maybe he should stop this. It wasn’t the right time. It was all too soon.
“I’m ready,” she said. She looked over to the justice of the peace. The choice was taken out of his hands. They were getting married.
CHAPTER 17
Family Values
Colin watched his wife as she stared at the armoire she was supposed to be painting. They had been married three days and she hadn’t smiled once. He knew she was missing her gran, that she hadn’t properly mourned for the woman who raised her, but this … This Cherri wasn’t his girl. She barely spoke or moved, going through the day as if she were a zombie.
That was his fault. He was supposed to protect her, take care of her, but he was selfish. He wanted to be married to her, to call her his wife. Want was probably the wrong word. Need was better. He felt like he needed her to marry him, to prove Mike wrong, to prove to himself that somebody actually wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. His friend’s words still haunted him.
You ruined her life.
He hated to think that, but maybe he had. He had never once forgotten to use protection. It was safe sex or no sex—but not with Cherri. He took her virginity and got her pregnant. Now she was stuck with him and a baby. He wondered if she would be like his mother, just pick up and leave one day.
No.
He shook his head as he watched her stare off into space. She wasn’t like his mother. She wouldn’t leave her baby. He trusted that about her. He wasn’t like his father, either. They would be all right. They had to be.
But she hasn’t moved her stuff in yet.
That thought kept playing in the back of his mind. She had lived in his house since the day after they got engaged, but she’d never moved her things in. Just her clothes. Not her painting supplies or artwork. Not the photographs of her friends and family. Nothing personal or important.
He had asked her if there were things that she wanted him to fetch from the home she’d shared with her grandmother. But she always told him she had what she needed. It was almost as if she wasn’t planning to stay; wasn’t willing to make this her home. And that bothered him. They were married now. They had a baby on the way. They needed to make a home together.
He walked over and ran his fingers through her thick hair, needing to feel some connection to her. She barely reacted to his touch, only looking up when he touched his lips to her forehead. “You feeling okay, my love?” He gently kissed her. “You look tired. Why don’t you go upstairs and take a nap.”
“Hmm?”
“Go upstairs and take a nap.”
She nodded and got off the stool. There was no argument, no telling him she was fine. She just left the room. He thought about following her, thought about laying her down on the bed and sliding inside her until she was moaning and breathless. They hadn’t made love as a married couple yet, and more than consummating their marriage, he wanted to make her feel something different from what she was feeling right now.
His cell phone went off, causing him to tear his eyes off the doorway his wife had just left through. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down at the screen. It was his father. Two weeks of unreturned calls and now he decided to ring.
Where the hell were you? “Hello, Pop.” His father had not shown up too many times before. He was fed up with it.
“Hello, my lad! I see you were trying to get in touch with me. I was caught up in a bit of Latina fluff, if you know what I mean. I love South Beach. I think I found my new favorite kind of women. I like ’em hot-blooded and in teeny little string bikinis if you know what I mean.” Magnus laughed his booming chuckle. “So how are you, son?”
“Married.”
“Come again, lad? Did you just say you were married?”
“Yes. I’ve been trying to call you for two weeks to tell you I was getting married. I wanted you to come, but you were so deep in tits and ass you couldn’t pick up your fucking phone.”
“Oh, lad.” He was silent for a long time. “I-I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you leave that in a message? I would have come for that. I’ve always wanted to see my boy get married.”
“You’re a selfish wanker, Pop. You shagged my first real girlfriend. You didn’t come for my college graduation. You didn’t come when I opened my shop, or when I won that award. And now you missed my wedding. I don’t know why I’m surprised. You were always too busy with some slag to give a shit about what I was doing. I never come first for you.”
“I’m sorry, lad. I would have shown up for you this time. I would have.”
“Whatever, Pop. Have a good life.”
* * *
Cherri hadn’t lifted the fork to her mouth more than once or twice during the entire dinner. Colin watched her as she sat beside him, pushing the food around her plate. He’d sent her upstairs early to nap but he knew she didn’t sleep. He’d heard the theme song for The Bold and the Beautiful coming from the guest room.
“Do you want to talk about it, love?” He put down his fork, unable to stand the absolute silence a moment longer.
“What?” Her eyes focused on him. “Oh, no thank you.”
She was being polite. Painfully so, treating him like he was a stranger and not her husband. He thought he married his friend, but three days in he hadn’t seen one trace of the girl he knew.
“You know, Charlotte. You might never hear those words out of my mouth again. You should probably take me up on my offer.”
“I’m fine,” she said softly.
She wasn’t and even though he knew the reason why, irritation still passed through him.
Give her time, you wanker. Her gran just died.
But as much as he reminded himself of that the little burn in his gut didn’t go anywhere. He was her family now. In the back of his mind he knew he was still bothered by the conversation he’d had with his father. He needed to let it go. To let Cherri be for now. She would come around in her own time.
>
“Well, if you’re not going to talk, how about you eat something? I can’t have you wasting away. It’s not good for the baby.”
“I ate earlier. I’m really not hungry, Colin.”
He sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “If you want to starve yourself that’s fine, but you’ve got my baby inside of you and I’m having a bit of a hard time sitting back and letting you do this to him.”
She stiffened and looked him in the eye. “Why do you care?”
Something inside him snapped. “Because I’m your husband, damn it, that’s why. We’re having a baby in seven months and I refuse to let you hurt him because you’re too sad to pick up a fucking fork.”
He wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them but he didn’t get the chance because she said, “I shouldn’t have married you.”
“What?” Her words were like a blow to the chest.
“I shouldn’t have married you,” she snapped. “You didn’t marry me because you love me. You married me because you pity me. Poor pathetic Cherri. Dead grandmother. No family. No life. I’ll marry her. But I don’t need pity from you, Colin O’Connell. You didn’t have to martyr yourself for my benefit. I can take care of myself.” She put her hands on her belly. “This is my baby and I refuse to let you ruin my life because you think you have some kind of misguided claim on us.” Her eyes filled with tears. Her voice broke. “She wrote me a letter, you know. She wrote me to tell me that she felt it was okay to die because I had you now. She died because she thought you loved me. She died because she thought you would take care of me. But nobody bothered to ask me what I wanted. And if I had the choice to live in that little shitty house with her or be stuck here with you, I would choose her every time.”
“Cherri—” Despite, his bewilderedness, despite the harsh words she said, he reached for her when a sob tore from her chest, but she didn’t let him comfort her or even come near enough to touch her, because she ran out of the room.
And not for the first time, he wondered if his lack of self-control had ruined her life.
* * *
It was almost like he was living by himself again. Three days and he hadn’t seen many signs that his wife still lived there, but she did. He peeked into her bedroom at least once an hour. Her bedroom. She hadn’t slept in the same room as him since their fight. Of all the images he’d had in his head of what married life would be like, he’d never thought it would be like this. Him walking on eggshells. Her so depressed that she barely left her room. He had no idea what to say to her, no clue how to make things better. He tried yelling at her. Reasoning with her. He called her friends, hoping they would have some kind of solution, but they were just as clueless as he. He even spoke to her doctor and slammed the phone into the wall when she couldn’t give Colin an answer, either.
“She’s hormonal,” the woman said. “And depressed. You have to understand how she felt about her grandmother.”
He did understand. He knew what it felt like to have nobody there for him, but it pissed him off that she didn’t realize he was there for her. No. It pissed him off because she accused him of marrying her to martyr himself. God knows he hadn’t married her for that reason. But when he asked himself why he had married her, he couldn’t come up with an answer.
She said yes, damn it.
She could have said no. It would have been easier if she’d turned him down. She could have walked away a hundred times before the wedding. Even the day of the wedding. He would have preferred that. He would rather be alone than with somebody who hated him. But she’d gone through with it. They were married now. And unless she walked out the door, he would take care of her like a husband should take care of his wife. He didn’t want to be like his father, still chasing ass, still alone after all these years, both his children giving up on him. He wasn’t going to allow his lad to be a stranger to him, even if Cherri decided she wanted out.
He was just going to have to convince her that she wanted to stay.
He wiped his hands over his face. His damn head was throbbing. His throat was dry. His body ached. It was from lack of sleep. Too many nights in a row lying awake thinking about her. When he took a deep breath, promising himself he would sleep tonight, even if he had to take a pill to do it, he smelled her scent. She walked into the kitchen, her normally shiny mass of waves looking dull and dry, matted to her head. Her face was gaunt. Her skin was gray. His chest tightened. If something didn’t change soon he was going to drag her to another doctor.
“Hiya, love,” he greeted her.
She looked up at him as if surprised to see him in his own house. “Hi.”
At least she had ventured out of her bedroom. Every time he had looked in on her she was staring out of the window, looking at nothing. He was dying to know what was going on in that head of hers.
“Are you hungry?” He stopped himself from ordering her to eat for the baby’s sake. He was excited about the baby, but truth be told the baby didn’t matter as much as his wife did at the moment. “I could make you something to eat.”
She sat down on the stool at the island and nodded. Small as it was, satisfaction filled him. There would be no fight. “Do you want eggs and toast? I’ve got bacon in here. You want a sandwich, maybe a BLT?”
“Milk.” She swallowed then cleared her throat. “Can I have some milk, please?”
“Yes. And to eat, love?”
“Eggs.”
He scrambled to the refrigerator and pulled out the eggs, butter, bacon, and cheese to make her a filling breakfast. His hands shook slightly as he placed the plate in front of her. He watched unable to breathe until she put the food in her mouth.
He sighed. She chewed slowly, three, four bites. He watched the food slide down her throat and then she reached for the milk, draining the glass quickly. He couldn’t help himself: He reached over, brushed the hair off her face, and kissed her forehead. “I’m glad to see you out of your room, Charlotte. I’m missing my best mate.”
CHAPTER 18
Keep on keeping on …
Cherri felt a small warm body climb into bed beside her. Her eyelids felt almost too heavy to open, but the smell of dog shampoo made her snap them open. The little thing nuzzled into her chest certainly wasn’t her husband. He hadn’t tried to crawl into her bed even once.
“Rufus?”
His warm wet doggy tongue came out and lapped at her face, her eyes, her mouth, her cheeks. She was never a fan of wet doggy kisses, but these were nice. These were from her boy.
She couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. A sob tore through her throat and she sat up, grabbing him, hugging him close. She missed him. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him until this moment. He was a piece of her old life. He was a piece of Baba. He was good memories and love and home all wrapped into one.
“Oh, boy. I missed you.”
A rustling by the door pulled her attention away from the dog for a moment.
Her eyes shot to Colin.
“Thank you, Colin. I—I…”
He nodded once and walked away. She wasn’t sure why, but it physically hurt to watch him go.
* * *
Cherri went to find her husband after spending another hour in bed with Rufus. He used to sleep in her bed sometimes. He used to nudge the basement door open and sneak down the stairs. Sometimes she used to wake up and find him there. Baba never let him in her bed, and on cold nights or if it rained he would find her. Why had she let her boy go to somebody else in the first place? Baba would have hated that.
She needed to thank Colin. Rufus made her feel better and made her remember what it felt like to love. Made her remember that she was going to be a mother. Made her realize that her life was only going to be what she made it.
She ran her hands through her wet hair before she stepped outside. She had hopped in the shower a few minutes before and scrubbed off all the yuckiness she was feeling. A week of heaviness had washed down the drain, and when she got out of t
he nearly scalding shower she felt ready to stop feeling so shitty and get on with her life. Baba was gone. She’d known it was coming. The old woman would have smacked her silly if she saw the way she was behaving.
Live your own life, dumb-dumb. And she was going to. The first thing on her list was to talk to Colin. He was in his workshop, his back was to her, but instead of busily working on his latest project he was just sitting on a stool.
“Colin?” She touched his shoulder to find it damp.
He turned, his eyes looking glassy, his face drawn. “You’re up.”
“You’re sick.” She placed her hand on his forehead, and then her lips.
“I’m fine.” He tried to push her hand away. “It’s just a bit of a cold. Don’t touch me. You’ll get sick.”
“No.” She tugged him off his seat. “You’re burning up. We need to get you in bed right now.”
* * *
“Stop trying to get out of bed, damn it! You have a hundred-and-three-point-two fever.”
He lifted his head to protest but it fell back on the pillow too weak to do anything else. “Don’t want you to get sick. Get out.”
“No.” She crawled in bed beside him with a glass of orange juice and some flu medicine. “I’m going to take care of you, dumb-dumb. It’s my job. Now be a good lad and rest your head on my thigh.” She put the glass to his lips, holding his head while he swallowed the pills. “Go to sleep now, honey.” She ran her fingers through his hair. His skin was so hot, she worried for him.
“Don’t leave,” he mumbled just when she thought he was falling asleep.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“No, I meant don’t leave me ever. I want to be married to you.”
Suddenly the words she’d yelled at him a week ago came crashing back to her. She was scum and she had some making up to do.
* * *
Four days after Cherri forced him into bed, Colin emerged. He still felt as if somebody had rubbed three pounds of sand in his eyes, but he didn’t feel as weak, or hot, or cold or as miserable as he had the past few days. He was never one to stay in bed unless a warm woman was beside him. He worked with a broken hand, an eye infection, and impacted wisdom teeth, but for the first time since he’d opened his shop he hadn’t worked on anything. His projects were backed up. He had deadlines for certain pieces. He couldn’t believe he’d let the flu keep him in bed. But all that was over now, and no matter what Cherri said he was returning to his shop.
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