The Bridge to a Better Life

by Ava Miles

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to simply receive pleasure at his hands. To do so would be to make herself too vulnerable. “Don’t make me wait.”

  Intensity flashed through his eyes, but when he lowered his head again, she stopped him with the touch of her hand.

  “Not…that way.”

  His jaw locked, but he nodded, and the shift was so great, she felt the first crack in the earth that had been connecting them. She’d just set a boundary—here—in a space where there never had been any.

  “Okay. Are we going to need a condom?” he asked.

  There was hesitation in his voice, and she knew why. They both heard the distant cry of an earlier battle. Her demand for a child after Kim’s death. His refusal to give in to her. Her horrible excuse for leaving. Oh, how her lies had hurt them both.

  “I’m not on anything,” she said quietly and gestured to her nightstand. She’d been too afraid to go on the Pill, which would have been akin to making a decision about him, about them before she was ready. It had been easier to buy the condoms—all she’d needed to do was pretend like they were the box of chocolate salted caramels she hid from herself.

  After pulling out her drawer, he opened the box. She could practically hear his brain working, trying to figure out when she’d bought it. Buying condoms in Dare Valley would have set the gossips’ tongues wagging about her and Blake being back together, so she’d picked them up in Aspen.

  Instead of taking out only one of them, Blake shook them all into his hand, like he was counting to see if they matched the product total listed on the box. A noise rose from his throat as he finally grabbed one and shoved the rest back into the drawer, satisfied there were none missing.

  She knew he wondered if there had been anyone else. She hoped they’d never talk about that.

  His brow was furrowed with tension now, and she realized it wasn’t just her arousal which was waning…his was too.

  They’d never used a condom. She’d gone on the Pill after deciding she was ready to take that next step with him. It gave her a strange sense of sorrow to think about adding this new barrier between them.

  “It’s only temporary,” he said, reading her mind in that keen way of his.

  She glanced up at him. His brown eyes were troubled. It took her a moment to swallow the lump in her throat, but then she grabbed the package from him and tore it open with trembling hands. He reached out and took it from her.

  “Here. Let me.”

  When he was finished, he cupped her face, looking right into her soul. He didn’t blink. A pressure rose in her chest, and she clenched her teeth as a wave of powerful grief overwhelmed her.

  No, don’t say it. Please don’t say it now.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “I’ve never stopped.”

  All her defenses came tumbling down. He was forcing her to face it now…the hurt that lay thick between them, the desolation that had bloomed inside her after she left. Squeezing her eyes shut so she couldn’t see the longing in his gaze, she pushed away and lay on her back.

  “I love you,” he repeated, his voice stronger. “Look at me, Nat.”

  Don’t ask me that. Don’t make me look.

  Her eyelids trembled as she squeezed them shut even tighter. “Make love to me, Blake.”

  There. I said make love, she wanted to say.

  An audible sigh filled the room, and then he was gathering her body up, fitting it over him as he sat in the center of the bed. Her muscles tensed. During their marriage, making love sitting up, wrapped around each other, had been their favorite position.

  And it was the most intimate one too.

  She couldn’t do that with him again. Not this first time.

  “I don’t want to do it this way,” she said, pushing against his strength, her eyes still closed.

  His hands caressed her back in comfort. “But it’s our favorite, Nat.”

  “I said not this way,” she pleaded, resisting harder now.

  The hands holding her left her body. His body shifted, and she fell from his lap in a sprawl. When she opened her eyes, she saw him fling the condom aside.

  “You don’t want to make love with me,” he accused with an alarming sheen in his narrowed eyes. “Why did you start this?”

  Part of her wanted to cover herself. Without him touching her, she felt too exposed, devoid of all desire. “I want to,” she lied. “I just don’t want to do it that way.”

  “Bull.” He shook his head. “Why did you even initiate this?”

  “Because I want you!” she shouted, the emotional tidal wave too strong to harness now. “It’s just…you’re making too big a deal of this.”

  “I’m making too big a deal of us making love for the first time in two years?” He stood, all six foot four inches of him towering over her. “I thought you were ready to give us a second chance. And you let me think it. Dammit, Nat.”

  “You’re what…going to leave me now?” she shouted at him as he picked up his clothes and stalked to the door. “You’re a tease, Blake.”

  He swung around, and she wished she could call the words back. His face had turned the dark red of anger.

  “So…you just want to get off, huh? Well, that won’t take long.”

  Before she could blink, he threw his clothes aside and was back beside the bed. His hands tugged her ankles until her bottom was at the edge of the mattress. Then his mouth was on her. He knew exactly where to touch and stroke, and within moments she was helpless to stop the orgasm that exploded through her body, pulsing in waves, making her feel like she was a glacier that had melted too fast and crashed into the ocean, causing endless ripples to radiate out from her.

  The hands cupping her hips tightened, and he let his head hang heavy on her stomach. She waited for him to simply take her, to take his pleasure. But he kissed her belly for an achingly long moment, and then she felt him shift away. When she finally opened her eyes, he was gone. His clothes with him.

  She rolled onto her side, fighting the pressure in her chest. All pleasure disappeared, replaced by a pain so sharp and bitter it brought tears to her eyes. The cold returned, and with it, an icy sleet to cover her skin.

  Stumbling, she ran to the shower. Hot water would bring her back to herself. Stepping under the jets, she dialed up the strongest setting and let the pressure rake over the skin he’d kissed, let it pound away the sweetness of his touch.

  But she couldn’t erase it. Nothing could.

  She pressed her forehead to the tiles and slapped her hand against them, reaching deep for that inner control, that place of numbness where she’d resided for years. She couldn’t find it. A wild howl rose up from her belly, echoing up and out of her throat.

  “Noooooo,” she cried out, her head banging against the wall to stop the pain from hurtling through her like an avalanche.

  Sinking to the floor of the shower, she succumbed to the tears she’d been fighting for years, tears finally unleashed by the reality that Blake wasn’t coming back.

  Chapter 24

  Blake was halfway to the bridge by the time he realized he was running away. The woods around him swayed under the light of the half moon as he stopped and inhaled the crisp mountain air to calm his raging emotions.

  She wasn’t ready to let him love her again.

  Right now, he wasn’t sure that would change, that she would change. He hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut to block out the white lights he’d strung on the bridge before their date. An owl hooted off in the distance, and he heard a whine. Felt the soft nudge of Touchdown, who must have followed him out.

  He had to go back. He knew it. If he didn’t, all would be lost between them. But he dreaded it, dreaded going back in there right now after how close they’d come, how far they’d fallen.

  Well, he wasn’t a quitter, and he’d promised himself and Natalie he wouldn’t give up.

  With determined steps, he walked back to the house and let himself in. Heading to the kitchen, he found a plastic b
ag and filled it with ice. In his line of work, he’d iced just about every part of his body except his dick, but there was a first time for everything.

  He turned off all the lights and sat on the couch. In another part of the house, he could hear the shower running. When she finished, he’d…

  He didn’t know.

  His desolation was complete. Usually he had a plan. After the initial shock of her leaving him had worn off, he’d told himself he would win her back. Up until tonight, he’d felt certain, down to his gut, that she’d shut him out because of her inability to face her grief. Perhaps he’d been wrong the whole time. Maybe she just hadn’t loved him enough to stay. Tonight, she hadn’t even cared about him enough to make love with him in the way that gave them both the most pleasure. She had shut her eyes to block out his professions of love.

  Touchdown put his head on his thigh, and Blake stroked it as the dark, piercing thoughts swirled in his mind. He was used to fighting them off, but tonight the demons were too clever, their whispers too real.

  He was lost, and he knew it.

  The patter of feet sounded behind him, and he tensed. He made himself look over his shoulder, but all he could make out was Natalie’s dark shape. Touchdown whined and jumped off the couch. She flicked on a lamp, and her gasp carried across the room.

  “I thought you’d left,” she whispered, wringing her hands in front of her favorite terry cloth robe riddled with the wear of many years. Her gaze landed on the ice bag on his crotch, and she flinched.

  “I almost did,” he said softly, “but I swore I wouldn’t leave you again. That I’d be here. In good times and in bad.” He realized how close those words were to the vows he’d made to her, the vows that were now null and void thanks to a stupid piece of paper.

  And he remembered the way she’d smiled as he spoke those vows—a smile so bright it was as if she’d gathered all the light in the universe into herself. This time her face, flushed red from the shower, bunched up in a frown.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered in a thready voice.

  “You’re forgiven,” he forced himself to say. If marriage had taught him one thing, it was that carrying a grudge only eroded love.

  “Why didn’t you…ah…take care of that?” she asked, and she didn’t need to point at the object of her speculation.

  They both knew he was still rock hard from unfulfilled desire. And perhaps that was where they could start. With the truth.

  “The first time I took care of myself after you left me, I thought of you the whole time. When it was over, I didn’t feel relief. I felt sick and hurt and…pretty much like shit.”

  Her eyes narrowed to the point of a squint, but she didn’t walk out.

  He coughed to clear his voice so he could continue. “The first time I had sex with someone after you left, I felt even sicker. I was in my get-over-you phase, and I hooked up with a groupie for what I thought would be mindless sex. I hadn’t done that since my first year in the league, and I wasn’t proud of it, but I…I was afraid I’d never get over you. The dreams hadn’t stopped, and well…you wouldn’t return any of my calls. I was angry, and since I didn’t want to drink my way to oblivion—trust me, I tried a few times, and it didn’t work—I thought I could find it in sex. I wanted to erase you…even though the very thought of it broke my heart.”

  Her hands clutched the top of the loveseat, her knuckles white.

  “It wasn’t fair to her. I thought of you once we got started. But she wasn’t you. She didn’t smell like you or taste like you or even sound like you when I touched her.”

  “Don’t,” she entreated in that same harsh whisper.

  The tone of her voice gave him the courage to continue. “I waited a while before I tried it again, hoping it would be better. This time, I chose one of my old friends-with-benefits from before I met you. We used to have a good time, and things weren’t complicated. She knew the score.”

  “Blake—”

  “She was familiar in her own way,” he interrupted, “but she wasn’t you either. I had to force myself to hold her and stay over so I wouldn’t treat her like a jerk. She didn’t deserve that. After that, I stopped trying to move on. So, I took care of myself, telling myself it was only temporary and someday we’d be together again, that I’d make love to you for real, and everything would be okay.”

  She sunk into the chair perpendicular to the couch, sitting on the edge like she wanted to bolt. But she wasn’t leaving, and he took that as a good sign.

  “So, now you know the ugly truth,” he continued, setting the bag of ice aside. His ardor had disappeared with the revelation of his shame. “Who did you try to move on with? I always thought it would be your friend, Jeremy. You two always had fun together, and he was good looking enough. You would have gone for someone you cared for, someone who’d be safe.”

  Her eyes flicked down to study the hands clenched in her lap. “Please don’t talk about this.”

  But she didn’t try to walk away, so he kept going. “Part of me hoped it would be okay for you when you did.” How many times had he imagined her with someone else, every image another slash to the gut? “The rest of me wanted to pull him apart for touching my wife. But the worst part was wondering how you could choose anyone else after saying you loved me.”

  This time she did dart off the chair. He was sure she was going to run into her room and lock the door, shutting him out yet again. But she shocked him. She sank down beside him and grabbed his hand with all her strength.

  “How can you talk about something so painful?” she asked.

  He rubbed his brow. “Because it’s there, and we’ve been shoving it into Pandora’s box for weeks hoping we could drift along and survive on long runs in the canyon, TV nights, playing with Touchdown, and kissing. It isn’t working, and tonight brought that into painful focus. I can’t pretend anymore.”

  She hung her head, the picture of abject misery, but he made no move to comfort her. He didn’t dare.

  “I might love you and want you back, but there’s a whole bunch of hurt and mistrust between us. If we don’t talk about it sometime, we’ll never come out from under it. And after tonight, I’m all out of charm and guile. My better nature is gone, Nat. This is me, the bruised, hurting guy you left who still loves you. Who only wanted to make love to his wife tonight and then found out she really didn’t want him.”

  Her nails dug into his hand. “I did want you.”

  The pain in his chest was crushing. “Not enough to let me really love you. When I stood halfway between our houses on the bridge, it finally occurred to me that maybe I’ve been wrong this whole time—maybe you don’t really love me anymore. Maybe I’ve already lost everything.”

  She pressed her free hand to her mouth and sniffed. Tears filled her eyes and started to fall down her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry before—really cry—so it felt like he was witnessing a miracle. A shaft of hope poured into him.

  “I do love you,” she whispered.

  And with those precious words, he fell through the bottom of his own despair, into a place of new beginnings. Her tears fell on their joined hands, and the warmth of them washed over the hurt in his heart. His throat filled with emotion, but he made himself wait for her to continue.

  “I’m scared,” she said, dashing at the tears streaming down her face unchecked. “It’s like there’s this dark room inside me, and it’s filled with all the pain of losing Kim—and you. I’m…afraid…that if I go in there I’ll never make it out again. I used to think I was…strong, but this pain…Blake, it’s too much for me. I don’t think I know what true strength is, but I don’t think I have it.”

  He knew that kind of pain, understood the desperate desire to make it stop, to run from it.

  “I can’t take it,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’m afraid I’ll go crazy again, the kind of crazy I was after Kim’s funeral, when you found me on my knees in the shower, the cleaning powder dusting my hair, coating my dress. I looked in th
e mirror and hated myself. And I saw the look on your face. I wasn’t…the woman you’d fallen in love with, the woman you’d asked to marry you.”

  She’d scared him shitless that day, and she wasn’t mincing words—she really had looked like a crazy woman. More than anything he’d wanted to take her into his arms and tell her it would be all right, but the words wouldn’t have been true, so he hadn’t said them. Now, sitting beside her on the couch, he clenched her hand tight in his.

  “Before Adam died, I…thought I’d be prepared for it, you know? We had almost a year between that first serious cardiac incident and…his passing. We all knew he was living on borrowed time, and that he wouldn’t grow old like the rest of us.”

  A soft light shone through her eyes as her tears continued to fall. He had to cough to clear his throat.

  “When my mom called to tell me…he was gone…I didn’t think anything could hurt that bad. Losing you hurt bad. Don’t think for a moment I’m saying otherwise. But with Adam…there was no hope of a second chance. He was gone. Just like that. I was never going to see him again or hear him laugh or have him tell one of his silly jokes.”

  The pain of losing him surfaced anew, and he felt his own eyes fill with tears, his nose start to run.

  “I wish…I’d been there for you,” Natalie said, pressing closer.

  He turned so she could nestle against him and carefully wrapped his arm around her. “Then you would have seen me in my own crazy. I probably threw five hundred passes through my training net in the backyard until I broke down and bawled. It wasn’t pretty. I mean I’ve cried before, but this was…”

  “Madness,” she finished in a whisper. “When I saw you flinch that day in the bathroom, seeing me like that, I was…”

  His gut trembled, afraid of what she was about to confess to him. He knew it was going to be part of the answer to why she’d left. “You were what?” he asked.

  “I thought if…I could just stay numb, I wouldn’t become that crazy woman I saw in the mirror. I knew you wouldn’t let me stay that way. You…loved me too much not to try and comfort me, and I was sure that would only make it worse.”