Married...Again

by Stephanie Doyle

  “Yeah, well, if that scientist walked through the door...” She stopped herself when she heard how ridiculous it sounded. The poor woman was dead.

  “It says something, Nor. About us. That even though you left, even though you thought I was dead, there was something keeping you from moving on to the next thing.”

  “Yes. My company,” she insisted. “Which I was beginning to realize was a problem, which is why I agreed to go out with Daniel. I want to have children...or wanted to. I don’t know anymore. That path that seemed so set in stone shifts daily now.”

  “The path is here. We can get back on it if we want to.”

  “How?” She winced. She shouldn’t have even asked the question. Asking the question might give him hope. Asking the question might give her hope.

  “Let me move in with you when we get back to Denver.”

  She gave him a look.

  “Okay, that might be rushing things. What about dating? I’ll take you for coffee, we’ll eventually upgrade to dinner and a movie. We did it once before. We can do it again.”

  Dating. Max. The first time had been such a whirlwind. She’d fallen so hard, so fast she hadn’t once thought to pull back. To protect herself. There had been boyfriends in high school, guys she hung out with and dated in college.

  There had been no one like Max.

  He’d whisked her up, and she’d been happy to go along for the ride. Marriage made sense. Not waiting made sense. Leaving with him to go to Norway...made sense.

  Until none of it made sense anymore.

  “How did you feel when you came back to find me gone?” she asked him.

  He held up his hands. “I felt gutted. The anger was there, yes. But I felt as if the world wasn’t solid under my feet anymore.”

  It sounded right to her because that was exactly how she’d felt when she’d gotten off the plane in Denver.

  “Why would you want to go through that again?”

  He set his glass on an end table and got up from the couch. He moved toward her, but she had no idea what to expect until he sank to his knees in front of her. Grunting a little as he shifted his weight, he slowly rested his hands on her thighs and looked at her.

  “How did it feel when you were with him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “And I don’t want to hear it, but you asked me a question, and I’m asking you. Honestly, tell me how did it feel. I’m not talking about the physical stuff. I’m talking about the moment it was over.”

  “Wrong,” she whispered. “Just so wrong. I didn’t know if it was the guilt or...”

  “I know,” he said shaking her thighs. “I know exactly how it felt, because I felt it, too. Losing you hurt more than I could possibly imagine. And maybe no one signs up for that kind of pain twice in one lifetime. But seeing you again at the party—your face, your eyes—looking at you again and knowing I was standing in the same room as you brought me more joy than I thought I could ever feel. So, yes, I’m willing to take the risk.”

  It was easier for him, she thought.

  “You’ve already lost so much... How can you tell the difference between wanting to try again and wanting to hold on to the last thing you knew before your world was upended?”

  “I told you, because I knew that I had to win you back. I had to find a way to fix us before that storm ever hit. Everything that happened...that was all about making me wait for it.”

  “Max...”

  “Date me. Let me prove that I’m a better man or at least that I’m willing to work at being a better husband.”

  “I need to think.”

  He smiled at her. Brilliantly.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Because you thinking is better than you believing all of this is crazy.”

  “My ex-husband came back from the dead. Trust me when I tell you I think all of this is crazy.”

  “Your husband, Nor. We’re still married. That knot we tied is still as strong as any bowline knot I’ve tied in my life. I’m certain of it. We hurt each other. We can choose not to do that and move forward together.”

  She huffed. “See, this is what it’s like. To be under the Max spell. You, on your knees, saying everything right, making it sound like it could be again what it was.”

  “It can. I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t think that was possible. I made you happy.”

  “You made me miserable, too!”

  He nodded in concession. “I know, but I made you happy. Really happy.”

  “I always wanted a big wedding,” she blurted. Because she couldn’t think of any other defenses she might have.

  He leaned back on his haunches. “Come again?”

  “I always wanted a big wedding. When I was a girl. I wanted the dress and the flowers and the cake. I would get cupcakes for my birthday and I would make Allie practice with me as we fed them to each other, but really we would smash each other in the face with them. I wanted all of that.”

  “You said that was your mother’s idea.”

  “It was,” Eleanor admitted.

  “You said you didn’t need any of that.”

  “I didn’t need it. I just wanted it.”

  “Is this like the bathroom thing?”

  “My point is I wanted what you wanted, Max. I would have done whatever you said, because I was that much in love. Giving up my girlish ideas of a wedding with all the trimmings seemed like the easiest sacrifice to make. Giving up my dreams of starting a business so that we could move to Norway for your research was a snap. All of it had been so easy for me to do, but when we fought that last day—when I told you I would leave—you told me I should get a job. That I should have my own thing that I was passionate about besides you. I let you overwhelm me. Me. Eleanor Gaffney. And then you stopped liking who Nor Harper became.”

  “No,” he said pushing himself to his feet even as he grimaced through the pain. “Never that.”

  “Admit it, Max. The reality is if that storm never hit, if you came home and your parents were alive and happy, you would have given me the divorce, and we would have gone our separate ways.”

  He looked at her, and she could see he was angry.

  Then he took a breath and ran his hands through his hair. Maybe a sign of resignation.

  Of giving up.

  It’s what she wanted. That’s what she told herself.

  Then slowly he shook his head. His eyes still on the fire.

  “Kiss me again.”

  “Max...”

  “No. You said what I’m feeling is a condition of my grief. Prove it. Kiss me. Every time I have ever kissed you, I knew we were it. I won’t lie to myself, Nor. If I can kiss you and not feel that...whatever that always was, I’ll know it.”

  Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Great, you’ll know it. But what about me?”

  He smiled in that charming, almost disarming way he always had about him. That smile that suggested sometimes he didn’t have all the answers. Which made him infinitely more human. More fragile.

  More vulnerable.

  “I’m selfish. I get it. Please, give me this. If I fight the war and lose, I can live with it. If I’m fighting, like you’re suggesting, for the wrong cause, then that’s not fair to either of us.”

  She stood before he could stoop to his old tactics. It would always start with a request, then turn into a taunt, finally a challenge. Something her pride would not allow her to back away from.

  And the truth was she wanted to know how it would feel, too. This morning hadn’t been a fair test. She’d been sleepy and not in her right mind. Aside from three glasses of wine, which left her slightly buzzed, she was still of sound mind.

  He wasn’t wrong about whatever...that had been. That magical something that went beyond physical pleasure and
had become as addictive as any habit she could possibly imagine.

  In short, Max Harper had been her heroin.

  She’d forced herself to kick the habit—an accomplishment she’d been proud of at the time.

  But wasn’t the real test of recovery to see if she could be tempted again and still resist?

  “Fine, you want to kiss? Plant one on me.”

  He laughed. “Plant one on you? What are you, my grandmother?”

  She put her hands on her hips in clear, defiant challenge. “I don’t know, Max. You seem pretty cocky that you can kiss me and figure out the answers of the universe as pertains to us. I’m thinking you might want to rock my world in the process.”

  “Nor Harper...”

  “Eleanor Gaffney,” she corrected him.

  “Not yet,” he whispered even as he stepped closer to her. “Not quite yet. But if you want your world rocked, then who am I to back off from that?”

  It was then that Eleanor realized she might have miscalculated. As he stepped up to her and surrounded her space. When she could smell the hint of the soap he always preferred, still fresh from his shower. When she looked into his eyes that could see right to bottom of her soul.

  Max had been her drug. Her downfall.

  And maybe three years of recovery hadn’t been anywhere close to enough to getting over him.

  Chapter Twelve

  SHE USED TO like it when he cupped her cheek. She used to like when he rubbed his thumb along her jawline. She used to like everything he did. Or so he’d believed.

  “I like holding your face in my hands when I kiss you. Do you like that?”

  She nodded.

  “I never asked you any of those things,” he whispered as he pressed a soft kiss against her lips. “I always just assumed...”

  Her fingers circled his wrist. “Max, I didn’t hide everything from you. Not when it came to this.”

  “I didn’t think you could hide anything from me period.”

  He kissed her again, another gentle press of his lips against hers. Feeling the fullness of that bottom lip which always drove him so bat shit around the bend with lust. He needed to compartmentalize his feelings. Sex and feeling good weren’t the issue. It was the other feelings that had always been layered under the physical goodness. Like a special dessert that wasn’t just sweet or rich but something else. Something more substantial.

  He wrapped his hand around her neck and brought her close up against his body. He’d always loved the feel of her, and now it was like, suddenly, he was hungry again.

  He hadn’t felt like this. Not in three years. Not even all the days spent on the water, he’d been in too much pain for that, too cold for that. On the island they had fed him as much fish and fish eggs as any man could stomach. He’d never once recalled being hungry despite dropping so much weight, which had been more a result of the diet and his lack of appetite than anything else.

  No, hungry wasn’t the word. He was ravenous. For the feel of her hair sliding over his fingers, the soft skin of her face under the stroke of his thumb. Her lips, her tongue. Her taste.

  He needed it all. It was the only thing that made him feel alive. The only purpose for getting out of that forsaken village. This, his wife. Not that, the stranger on the ship when he’d been so damn furious. Not any woman who had ever come before Nor.

  Only her.

  “Nor,” he said pressing his face against her neck, trying to control this insistent need to take her to the floor and slide his cock deep and hard inside of her. As if he could fuse their two bodies together. Making a new thing. A statue of two lovers entwined made of actual flesh and bone.

  This was not grief over the loss of his parents. This was not grief for the lost two plus years of his own life.

  This was simply the thing he’d always known to be true. From almost the first moment he saw her.

  “I missed you. I missed you so damn much,” he cried. It wasn’t in him to stop the tears that he could feel dampening her shoulder. She was here, in his arms, and he could smell her and feel her and taste her.

  He was alive again.

  He was in love again.

  “I love you,” he choked out.

  She pulled away. As if the words burned her.

  “Don’t,” he pleaded.

  But she was shaking her head, looking at him like he was a ghost.

  His jaw tightened with frustration, but he could acknowledge that he’d pushed her too hard. Too fast. Again.

  His problem was that he’d given her an out. A few days to convince her they should be together. All she had to do was get through these days. Max was honest enough with himself to admit he hadn’t thought it would be this hard to convince her.

  Nor had loved him, and he wouldn’t let himself believe that had changed.

  It was the fear that was holding her back. Fear of him hurting her again.

  Fear was a feeling that could be overcome.

  “I’m not going to apologize for saying it,” he said. “I do love you. I have every day we’ve been separated.”

  “I can’t...it’s too much. Too fast.”

  “That’s always been our problem, hasn’t it? Everything has always happened so fast for us. What if we slowed it down?”

  She tilted her head in that way she did when she thought she was getting played.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I asked if you wanted to date. Why don’t we do that? Why don’t we take time to get to know each other again? We can put off the divorce—”

  “You said a few days. You said if I came with you, you would give me what I want.”

  “And you want a divorce?” he asked, his throat closing around the word. “Is that what you really want?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and wouldn’t look at him as she nodded.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she said, repeating her words from earlier. Like there was logical order of things that happened when a man came back from the dead.

  “I suppose. Then again, love doesn’t really make sense. Does it?”

  “I—” She pointed over her shoulder toward the bedrooms.

  “Got it. You want to escape.”

  She jutted out her chin but didn’t contradict him.

  “It’s okay. I’ll stay up. Make sure the fire goes out.”

  “Uh... I don’t want you to be... I mean, I don’t want to leave you...”

  She was worried about him again.

  “I’ll be fine, Nor. I won’t bother you again. This morning and just now made you uncomfortable.”

  She flinched at the word. Nor never did like to be told what she felt.

  “Good night,” she said tightly.

  “’Night.”

  He should have let it go at that. But as she walked away from him, he knew he couldn’t.

  “I felt it again, Nor. What you need to consider, judging by your reaction to that kiss, is that I’m pretty sure you felt it, too.”

  He braced himself for whatever lie she might tell, but she clearly couldn’t even bring herself to do that.

  “Good night,” she said instead.

  * * *

  ELEANOR STARED AT the ceiling of her bedroom. Dawn was happening outside. This big, huge planetary event and she thought about what it was going to bring.

  A drive home. Leaving Max.

  Never seeing him again.

  For the second time in her life.

  It might have been easier if he hadn’t been so damn right. When he kissed her, it was so easy to get lost in it. So easy to feel the pull that was the Max gravity. Once upon a time, it had sucked her into a big deep hole that she’d had to crawl her way out of with her heart in shatters.

  Now he was threatening to bring her back to that place.

&
nbsp; The place where she’d been loved and cherished. Until he took her for granted.

  When she’d left him, everything had been colored by the pain of the separation. When she thought he was dead, everything had been tainted by grief.

  She didn’t think she had ever actually looked at their relationship for what it was.

  But that wasn’t really what he wanted her to do, was it? He wanted her to look at what they could be.

  Max wanted to date. Max wanted to make her dinner when she worked too late.

  Max wanted to kiss her.

  “Ugh!” With a growl, she rolled out of bed, unable to deal with the mess that was in her head right now.

  Her life had been simple. Work. And work.

  There was her mother and her sister. There was the mild complication of Daniel. And there was more work.

  Now she’d been plunged headfirst into the plot of a bad soap opera, and she didn’t know how to get herself out of it.

  Other than to leave.

  She rubbed her chest even as she made her way to the bathroom. Max’s bedroom door was open, and she peeked in, unable to help herself. Had he left the door open on purpose? Maybe that had helped him to sleep, she thought. Maybe having the door open made him feel closer to her.

  How wrong had it been to deny him the basic comfort of company?

  No, she couldn’t think about that. Worrying about Max was a step away from caring about Max, which didn’t feel too far away from falling back in love with him.

  Forcing herself from his doorway, she went about her normal morning routine. The shower cleared her head and made her focus on her next priority which was coffee, then convincing Max they had to head to Denver as soon as possible.

  Another day wasn’t going to help her situation. It was only going to make things muddier.

  When she was dressed and feeling a little more in control of herself, she walked into the living room only to stop when she heard the soft sound of his breathing.

  Walking around the back of the couch, she saw that he’d fallen asleep there last night. Still dressed, no blanket. It was chilly without the fire, but he obviously didn’t feel it.

  How cold and alone were you? On a raft in the ocean...dying.

  Did you think about me?