by Rachel Lee
"They'll be out looking for us." Brie stared at his clean profile, his strong nose and chin. There was so much good in Niall, if only he'd stop running.
Like father, like son. Hurting, Brie absorbed his features, the dark growth of beard making him look even more dangerous and appealing than before. His black hair was plastered to his skull, one rebellious short lock hanging over his furrowed brow. When he turned and their gazes locked, her heart flew open.
"Yes," he answered hesitantly.
"They will," she said stubbornly. "They got our last fix."
"We've been drifting for hours from that location." Niall looked around the raft as the light improved. It was awash with about six inches of water, with strands of seaweed floating on top. He threw it out and began bailing with his cupped hands. There was no sense sitting in water. The weather suits were supposedly waterproof, but some seawater had leaked beneath his collar, and he was chilled.
"Always the optimist," Brie muttered sarcastically. "You haven't changed much." She got on her hands and knees and began to bail with him. There was no room to turn or they would bump into one another. Brie wanted to move away from Niall, but it was impossible.
Stinging from her muttered rebuke, he continued bailing. "Neither have you." Liar. Brie looked thinner. And there was a sadness in her eyes. Could he blame her? She was probably still grieving over the loss of their baby. He knew he was. Trying to avoid another argument, he changed tactics.
"You got someone in your life who needs to be contacted?" He hoped not. It was a purely selfish thing to hope, he knew. Niall couldn't stand the thought that Brie might fall in love with someone other than him. Not that he'd been perfect; far from it. But they'd been so close, so wonderfully in love, and had suited one another so well. Holding his breath, he stopped cupping the water to see what effect his question had on her.
Brie froze momentarily. The water she'd scooped up in her palms dribbled back into the raft. The question, so very personal, and so unlike Niall, caught her off guard. Twisting her head in his direction, she raked him with a disgruntled glare. "No. Not that it's any of your business. Do you?" Her tone was scathing. Argumentative.
Shaking his head, he muttered, "No...no one."
"Your mother will be notified by the Coast Guard."
"She died a year ago...." Niall's voice faltered. The soft look that replaced Brie's anger felled him. Her lips parted in shock at the news. In his heart, Niall knew he should have contacted Brie and told her about his adopted mother's death, but he'd still been so angry at her that he hadn't. He saw pain reflected in Brie's features in that moment. How easily she absorbed his anguish. She always had been sensitive and empathetic toward others. That was one of the many qualities Niall had come to love fiercely about her— Brie's care for others.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Niall.... I—didn't know." She sat back on her heels, a confused look on her face. "Why didn't you tell me? I wish I'd known...."
Releasing a breath of air, Niall shook his head. He rested his hands on his thighs, the humid breeze caressing him. "Because I was still pissed off as hell at you."
"I was close to your adoptive mother." Brie sat there, feeling once again gutted by his coldness.
"I know... and I'm sorry. Looking back on it now," he muttered, "I should have told you. It would have been the right thing to do." He continued to scoop water because he couldn't stand the anguish in her blue eyes.
"Damn you, Niall." The words came out soft. Broken. Brie sat there, lulled by the slight waves that rocked the raft as gently as a mother would rock her baby. "I just didn't want to believe you were so heartless and immature. I tried to tell myself when I was in that hospital, alone, and in danger of losing our baby, that you'd come to be with me...hold me...help me...."
His mouth contorting, Niall felt every word like drops of fire scorching his naked flesh. Holding her accusing gaze, he snarled, "I'm many things, Brie. Immature at times? Yeah, no question. But I'm not heartless. I never have been. I was at the hangar when it happened. The petty officer who took the call from the hospital got sidetracked by an incoming SAR, and she forgot to give me the message. It was two hours later before she recalled it and gave it to me. That wasn't my fault." His nostrils quivered.
"I often wonder whether, if you had known, you would have come." There, it was out, once and for all. The worst problem in their marriage had been their lack of ability to talk to one another. Niall would stalk off anytime her questions got to be too personal, too intimate and searching. He didn't know how to handle intimacy with a woman. How could he? His mother had never been home to teach him that interaction, and he had really no father around to impress him with it, either. Consequently, Brie had known that there was a lot of work to do in this area of their marriage.
Hands balling into fists on his long, powerful thighs, Niall stared at her, stunned by the brazen question. "Of course I would have! And I did, the instant I got the message. The petty officer found me and told me. She was in tears over the mistake. I told you that, once I got to the hospital, but you were in no mood to hear it. All you could do was cry and accuse me of running away and not being there for you—as usual."
Brie searched the quiet ocean in desperation. The gentle lapping sounds soothed some of her anger, as well as the soaring pain in her chest as she turned and held his glare. Niall's cheeks were a ruddy color, indicating he was angry. "You were never there for me, Niall, when I needed you. And that's the truth. You were a latchkey child. You grew up alone. You never learned how to be a real partner in our marriage."
"I tried," he growled. "Put yourself in my place. Imagine never being wanted by your parents. How would you feel?"
"Your adoptive mother loved you, Niall! With all her heart and soul, bless her. She was a single parent, trying her best to make ends meet. You know women get paid a helluva lot less than men. She was working two jobs, scrambling to feed you, clothe you and then pay for your college education. Irene loved you the best she could under the circumstances, so don't throw that old saw at me that you weren't ever loved. That's crap."
Brie sat there, breathing hard. Oh, why was she doing this? Why couldn't she be civil to Niall, as she'd been in their marriage? They'd never come to blows like this. No, it had been a silent union headed for disaster. Neither one had had the courage to speak out. In a way, Brie was glad that she'd had two years without Niall around. She'd grown, become more confident and more outspoken about her needs and setting strong, healthy boundaries for herself. Judging from the stunned look on his face, her changes weren't welcomed by him. Brie didn't care. It was time to come clean, once and for all. Maybe by getting all this anger and poison out of her system, she could finally get on with her life. Maybe.
"And I suppose you're Ms. Perfect? A full set of parents. A mother who spoiled you rotten because you were an only child? A father who loved you even though he wanted you to be a son, not a daughter?" Niall instantly regretted his angry words. Shadows flickered across her narrowing blue eyes. And then he saw anger explode within them.
"I might be Ms. Perfect in your eyes," Brie whispered, "but you're Mr. Abandonment. You say everyone keeps running out on you. I know your father left as soon as he heard your birth mother was pregnant with you, but he was an alcoholic and had serious responsibility problems. From where I'm sitting, you're probably lucky he didn't interfere that much in your life Growing up with an alcoholic parent is about as dysfunctional as it gets You don't even know how to count your blessings, Niall. You can't love your adoptive mother for what she's done right for you. You couldn't love me because you were afraid of getting intimate and personal with another human being. You were too scared and you ran. You ran just like your father runs every time things get dicey."
Sucking in a ragged breath of air, he held her challenging glare. "Two years has made you real vocal, hasn't it?"
"Our marriage was doomed from the start, Niall," Brie said, tiredness replacing her earlier emotional outburst. "You never trusted me
enough to open up to me. You could never talk to me about day to day things, not to mention anything intimate. You held up that wall between us real well. You were consistent— I'll give you that." Her voice dropped. "And when I miscarried...well, you couldn't handle that, either."
"How could I?" His voice rose. "I got to the hospital and it was all over. You were in a room by yourself, crying." He opened his hands, his voice cracking. "What could I do? How could I fix it? Fix you? Fix the situation?"
"Dammit, Niall, I didn't need you to fix anything!" Fighting back sudden, unwanted tears, Brie held his glare. She saw the anguish in his eyes and heard the pain in his tone. "All I wanted...needed...was to be held. That was all. I was hurting so much. And yes, I was crying...crying for the loss of our baby. We had so many hopes and dreams for him. I can remember the nights we'd lay awake talking about if he'd like baseball, or hockey...or what school he'd go to for college...."
Shutting his eyes, Niall felt a sharp stab of grief at the loss of his son. The pain was so real that he lifted his hand and pressed it hard against his chest. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be alive in this raw moment. Hanging his head, body bowed forward, he couldn't say anything. All he could do was grapple with the old, unresolved grief over his son's death.
Sniffing, Brie angrily wiped her eyes and looked out at the endless ocean. "You just stood there, helpless, by the bedside. I had wrapped my arms around myself. I was in so much pain, physically and emotionally, that I couldn't speak. And all you could do was stand there, staring down at me like I was some bug under a microscope. You couldn't even step forward, slide your arms around me and hold me." Her voice cracked. "All I needed from you, Niall, was to be held. Was that too much to ask? Don't bother answering. Obviously, it was."
Lifting his head, he stared at Brie. Tears were rolling down her taut, pale cheeks. She was shivering, her teeth chattering again. She was holding herself just as she had in the hospital bed, her arms wrapped around herself. The devastation in her eyes tore at him as nothing else ever had.
"I wanted to hold you, Brie. But I stood there not knowing how to fix the tragedy, for you...or me. I couldn't believe our son was gone. I mean.. .it was the sixth month of your pregnancy. And everything was fine. Fine! We'd just seen your doctor, seen the ultrasound that showed us you were carrying our..." Tears jammed into his eyes. "Damn...this is so hard to talk about, Brie."
"Maybe because we never did in the first place," she answered bitterly. How cold she was! Brie's teeth kept chattering and there was nothing she could do to stop them. The look on Niall's face stunned her. He was remalning open and accessible to her. The old Niall would have run. Brie reminded herself that he had nowhere to run now—not in the middle of an ocean. No, he was stuck here with her whether he liked it or not.
"You're right," Niall admitted hoarsely, "we never talked after...after it happened."
"After I lost the baby."
"Yes...that..."
"See? Even now you can't touch the subject, Niall. You walk around it. Why can't you say the word baby or my son or, God forbid, use the name we'd chosen for him—Killian?"
Frozen with anguish, Niall tried to speak. The words came out broken, as if torn directly from his heart. Lifting his head, he stared at Brie. "Because...because it hurts too much, that's why. If I...if I do, I'll cry." His mouth worked as he tried to suppress the barrage of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "I've never cried so much in my life as that day. I—I didn't know what sobs were. I didn't know what those gut-wrenching sounds were all about until they came tearing out of me... After I left you I went out in the exit stairwell and sat down. I was reeling. I was crying for the loss...for you, for me...."
In shock, Brie stared at him. Wincing, she could only sit there and hold his wavering gray gaze shot with anguish and grief. "Y-you...cried?" She'd never seen it. "I never saw you cry. Not once after it happened."
"I figured my crying in front of you would be just one more brick on your load, Brie," he said, all the anger going out of him. "You were lying there, devastated. How badly I wanted to reach out to you, run my fingers over your hair and tell you it was going to be all right. But I knew it wasn't. It never would be, from that moment on. I knew how I was feeling about the loss of our...baby...and I couldn't even begin to imagine how you felt. I was shell-shocked, so numb. I kept trying to figure out how to fix things...and I couldn't...."
"Oh, hell," Brie cried softly, and she pressed her hands to her face and leaned forward in a ball of agony.
Niall sat there, dumbfounded. He heard Brie's sobs. Saw her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. What should he do? What could he do? There was nothing he could do to fix this, either. The hurtful words they'd thrown at one another like flaming spears had landed directly in their hearts. There was no dodging the ser-rating truth. His heart told him to reach out, slide his arm around her and hold her. Just hold her. His head said no, that she wouldn't want that from him now— after all this time. Would she?
Chapter 4
Brie couldn't stem the tears. During all these years that had passed since the death of their son, she had thought Niall had never shed one tear. Now, as her own hot tears leaked through her fingers, she realized he wasn't as cold-hearted as she'd imagined him to be. Consumed with new grief, she ached on a level that had never been touched before. He had cared. He had loved their child as much as she had. Why were men so damned uncommunicative? Why hadn't Niall shared his grief with her? Why?
Sniffing, she rubbed her eyes and blinked back the rest of her tears. Around them, the ocean was almost glassy smooth. Brie knew they had to be drifting toward the center of the hurricane's eye for that to occur. Above, a dulcet blue sky shone in stark contrast to the bank of white-and-gray clouds on the horizon.
As she lifted her lashes, which were beaded with the last of her tears, she saw Niall sitting with his head hung, his hands clasped in a death grip between his thighs. The suffering in his face tore at her. Swallowing hard, Brie asked in a choked tone, "Why didn't you tell me this at the time? Why couldn't you come clean with your feelings? I thought all these years you didn't care what happened."
Feeling wretched, he winced at the rawness in her husky tone. Unable to look at Brie, who had a helluva lot more courage in the emotional department than he ever had, he stared down hard at his clasped hands.
"I...don't know, Brie. When I got to the hospital and saw how devastated you were..." He shook his head mutely.
"I felt so guilty," Brie confided hollowly. "You stood looking at me like it was my fault." Shrugging painfully, she whispered, "Maybe it was. I don't know. I've asked myself that question so many times since then. Was it the stress of my SAR duty? Before the miscarriage, I'd had a week of search and rescues the likes I've never seen before or since." She gave Mm a sad look. "Maybe it was stress induced?"
"Don't take on that kind of guilt, Brie," he growled. "I did a lot of research after that, and miscarriages usually happen because the baby is malformed. The body knows it. Your body sensed there was something wrong, so it aborted the baby naturally. That's all there is to this. You didn't do anything 'wrong.'"
Staring at him as the raft bobbed gently from side to side, Brie felt some of her grief assuaged. "You did research? "
"Yeah." Niall sighed. He gave her a quick glance. Her hair was slightly curled from the high humidity, and it softened the angularity of her cheekbones. It was her eyes that Niall found mesmerizing. Even though they were red from crying, they were that incredible turquoise-blue, the pupils huge and black. Erie's eyes were literally a window through which he saw what she was feeling. And right now he didn't quite believe his own eyes. Maybe he was making it up. Her gaze was warm, burning with a sunny, golden hope. Opening his hands, he added huskily, "I was so shocked by what had happened. You know me, Brie— when things are emotionally traumatic, I go into this clipped, cold, hard mental construct so I can think clearly and get things done in an orderly fashion. You were in no shape to think about a funer
al. Someone had to think through the hurt, the loss...."
Clearing her throat, she said, "Yes, you did do that before you left..."
"I was there with you at the funeral, too," he reminded her, his tone filled with hurt. "I didn't just run off and leave you after the miscarriage, Brie. I was there for you the best I could be at the time." Opening his hands in a helpless gesture, he said, "I was there for a week—to be with you, to handle the paperwork and legal stuff—before I volunteered for that black ops."
She sat back and rolled her eyes. "And from my perspective, you seemed so cold, inaccessible, like a robot on automatic. I wanted to talk to you. I need to talk when something bad happens, Niall. When I do, it's like opening an abscess. It cleans me out, allows me to heal."
"I was so overwhelmed emotionally, I couldn't hear you. Not then," he admitted slowly. Niall shifted around so that his back was resting against the rim of the raft, his feet near her right hip. Watching as she wiped her face again, he felt an ache filling him. How badly he wanted Brie. How badly he wanted to simply hold her against him and have her hold him in return. The last two years had made him feel like he was the only human left alive in a desert that had no end. He had no desire to strike up a relationship with another woman. It was as if he were a monk gone into a monastery. Maybe he was still grieving for the loss of Brie, the loss of their marriage, which had been so good before the loss of their baby son.
"We need to start drinking some of our water to stay hydrated," Niall told her. He took his bottle from the net closure on the right side of his vest, opened it and took a swig. Wiping his mouth, he capped it. Looking around the raft, he saw there were still some puddles in the bottom.
"You're right...." Brie took a drink from her own bottle, then twisted the cap back in place and settled it into the net casing on her vest. Inwardly, she felt less angry, less uncomfortable with Niall. They were beginning to talk about things that had never been broached, but should have been a long time ago.