by Dani Collins
He choked at that, thinking his ignoring Tanja for five years was a lot worse than rude. It had been self-destructive madness.
Something in her hesitant tone plucked at an old, tight line of hurt inside him. She had never been able to make a right step around his father and neither had he. It was a reminder of exactly what he was trying to avoid.
“It’s fine, Mother.” He had to fight to keep the anger with himself out of his voice so she wouldn’t think it was directed at her. “I’m glad that you’re staying in touch. How is she?” His ears were reaching for her words before she spoke.
“They seem well, but Tanja doesn’t seem very happy.”
I’m doing this for you.
Then why did it feel like she was doing it to him?
He hung his head. Some twisted voice inside him was convinced she was hurting him on purpose because that’s what married people did to one another, didn’t they? Tanja wouldn’t, though. He knew that. In his heart of hearts, he knew she wasn’t like that.
“I’m glad you’re not angry.” His mother’s voice wasn’t quite steady. “Because...” She sounded so fearful. “Well, I quite like her, Leon. It’s nice to see the baby, too. I’m genuinely sorry things didn’t work out.” After another pause, she said quietly, “I blame myself.”
“Don’t.” He didn’t even know what he was trying to forestall with that blunt word. An apology? Being forced to acknowledge his own culpability in how they’d let his father damage them? He didn’t want to examine their baggage. He never, ever wanted to have uncomfortable conversations about feelings, especially with her. There were too many. It would take too long and hurt too much.
“I thought I was standing up for myself with your father,” she said, voice almost a plea.
She lightly touched his arm, but he didn’t look at her. Couldn’t. His heart was being crushed and squeezed and liable to burst under the pressure.
“I was young and felt responsible for keeping all of this for you. I didn’t care that I was unhappy, but I see now that I caused you to think we’re not the type of people who are allowed to be happy. That we’re not lovable. We are, Leon.” Her touch squeezed his forearm. “It’s taken a lot of convincing, but Cornelius has made me believe that I’m worthy of being loved, and so are you.”
“You are,” he agreed stiffly. “But I was careless with her. I was filled with a sense of entitlement and threw her away like she didn’t matter. I’m no better than he was—”
“You are a million times better than he was,” his mother broke in vehemently. “I stand in awe of the man you’ve become in spite of the example that was set for you. My greatest regret is that I let him come between you and I, leaving you thinking a woman’s love isn’t steadfast. It is, Leon. I have always loved you. And so does Tanja.”
But she divorced me.
I’m doing this for you.
His heart lurched. He couldn’t bear this. Could she be right, though? Was there hope?
His mother’s hand was clutched so tightly to his arm he was compelled to set his arm around her and draw her into his side. He held her as she began to weep into his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, exactly as he would comfort Illi or Tanja or anyone else he loved. After a moment, he set his cheek on her hair. His misted gaze fell on the heavyset man propping up tomatoes in the garden.
Cornelius nodded approval.
* * *
Believing his ex-wife might still love him was one thing. Going to Canada to talk her into coming back into his life was quite another. Tanja was completely within her right to invite him to go to hell. He had pushed her out of his life twice. Why would she trust him a third time?
Nevertheless, Leon flew into Vancouver and chartered a seaplane from there. It landed at the marina he would have partially owned had his father not died when he had.
As he stepped onto the wharf and saw the fresh signage going up that read Melha Marina he stood there for a full minute, hands on his hips. The widest, most foolish grin split his face and refused to stop.
That’s why she’d taken the settlement. Of course, she hadn’t kept it. He couldn’t be happier that she had divorced him if that was why she’d done it.
He walked up to a building that was in the process of being returned to its original blue and white. Inside, a man about his age stood with a baby strapped to his chest like the kid was a smoke jumper and Zach the parachute.
Zach pointed out something on a drawing and gave a woman in a yellow hardhat instructions on finding the property line. When he rolled the drawing and handed it to the woman, they both turned to the open door where Leon stood.
His old friend’s surprised expression slammed shut. “Leon. What brings you here?”
Leon stepped aside to let the woman leave. “I’m looking for Tanja.” Obviously.
Zach stiffened. “Is the money not coming through again?”
“It’s through. Hers. Yours, I guess.” Leon glanced around the interior of the office where he had first met “Books.” Tanja had said something snappy to her brother, turning from a cabinet and going very coltish and still. The zing of attraction as she met Leon’s eyes had been so undeniable and visceral, he was still trying to breathe through the power of it today.
“It’s hers,” Zach said. “She wanted it for Dad. I agreed to run it.”
Leon dragged his attention back to Zach’s hostile glare. “Look. I know I owe you an apology. I sincerely regret that our deal fell apart. I don’t know if Tanja has explained—”
“What’s to explain?” Zach shrugged it off. “You warned me to wait until the money was yours, but I didn’t. Dad told me I was moving too fast. Even Books had concerns about how much debt I was racking up. I didn’t listen. I crashed and burned and it sucked, but live and learn, right?” He didn’t sound particularly bitter, just fatalistic.
“If that’s how you feel...” Leon grabbed the edge of the door. “Why do you hate my guts?”
“Because you broke my little sister’s heart, jackass. Twice.”
* * *
Tanja was half-heartedly reviewing three different job offers when there was a knock on her door at the bottom of the stairs.
She presumed it was Shonda, but her sister-in-law usually let herself in, calling hello as she came up. They were becoming like true sisters, confiding their new mother failures and triumphs, cuddling each other’s infants as often as their own.
Tanja veered minute by minute between so much happiness she could hardly contain it, and such a profound sadness it was all she could do to breathe. She was exhausted and heartbroken and determined to pick up the pieces and move on anyway.
Shonda didn’t appear, and another knock sounded.
Tanja rose and slipped down the stairs, glancing into Illi’s crib on her way. She was fast asleep, taking to her new home the way she’d taken to all the other changes she’d been through in her short life. She was such a little trouper.
The entrance foyer was only big enough to hold a shoe shelf and a rack of coat hooks. Tanja unlocked the door and backed into the corner as she opened it.
“Sorry, I thought it was op...” She trailed off as she saw it wasn’t Shonda on her stoop.
Her heart went into free fall.
How many times had she waited and yearned and willed for this to happen? Leon. Here. As recently as yesterday afternoon, when she’d left her divorce certificate in the fireproof cabinet at the marina, she had spared a moment to wish for him to appear and tell her this wasn’t what he wanted.
And she had told herself again to quit being a fool. He wasn’t coming. He was never coming.
But here he was, tall and lean, casually perfect in faded jeans and a light windbreaker. Fine sparkles of raindrops sat on his hair like glitter. His mirrored aviators accentuated his trimmed beard and stern mouth.
Her hea
rt commenced hammering. Her whole being took the hit of being in his presence again. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and say, Yes, I’m still yours.
But he had never wanted her, not really. Not the way she needed to be wanted.
She thought about closing the door on him, she really did, but she could never shut out someone she loved no matter how badly they’d hurt her.
“Come out of the rain.” She stepped back so he could wipe his feet and follow her up the narrow staircase to the one-bedroom apartment over her brother’s detached garage.
“This is nice,” he said of the space with slanted ceilings, gabled windows, moss-green walls, and hardwood floors. The kitchen was galley style in a nook off the living area. It had a peninsula counter that jutted out to provide an eating area. It currently held her laptop and the job offers she’d been scrutinizing.
“Zach and Shonda were planning to rent it by the week to tourists, but they’re letting me use it until I find a job and figure out what I can afford.”
“You were supposed to use your settlement to buy a house—” His breath sucked in as he caught sight of the crib tucked behind the pony wall at the top of the stairs.
He took off his sunglasses as he moved to look down on Illi. Her little arms were thrown up beside her curly hair, a corner of the knit blanket tangled in the fingers of one hand.
“She’s growing,” he said softly, moving her huggy bear into her side before he adjusted the blanket. His face spasmed with naked emotion as he looked down on her.
It was the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing Tanja had ever seen.
That’s why he’s here, she realized with a hard swallow. She wouldn’t deny him time with Illi, either, even if it would cause her to feel jealous of her own daughter.
“Can I, um...” She had to clear her throat. “Can I make you some coffee?” She moved toward the kitchen.
“I miss you.” He spoke so softly she was certain he was talking to the baby.
She turned to see it, to be included in some small way in his quiet admission to a sleeping baby. She told herself she only wanted to see him crack and reveal his love for her daughter, but he wasn’t looking at Illi. He was looking at her.
The floor fell away and her entire being filled with helium. Not oxygen. No, there was not a bit of that in her right now.
“Both of you,” he said with anguish creasing his features. “I hate going home. It’s not a home anymore. But I don’t know how to ask you to come back and make it into one. I don’t know what I could say that would convince you.”
“You do,” she said faintly. The buoyant hope inside her butted up against the shadows of despair she’d had to make into friends. “You just don’t want to say it. And I understand why, but—”
“No, I do,” he said with a rasp in his voice and a jerky step forward. His gaze went to the window where the white curtains glowed with a sudden burst of sunshine on this changeable spring day. “I think I’ve wanted to say it for a long time. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t matter. That it wouldn’t change anything because it never had in the past.”
Tanja set down the ceramic mug she had drawn from the cupboard, afraid her numb fingers would drop it to smash at her feet.
“I think I would have said it five years ago if I’d had time to understand what this feeling is.” He clenched his fist in front of his heart. “It hurts. You know? Like a muscle that aches so bad after a run you never want to exercise again. I’d almost rather throw up than feel this much. It’s too intense to bear.”
“It is,” she said, biting her lip. “It was how I felt when you left me.” Her lips trembled as she added, “And when I left you.”
“I’m mad at you for that,” he admitted with a ragged laugh. His clenched fist lowered. “Hypocritical, I know. I’m angry you divorced me even though it’s what I said I wanted and you used the money in the best possible way. But I’m angry because I want to be your husband, Tanja. I want to be Illi’s father and the father of as many kids as you want in whatever way you want to bring them into our lives. I love you. And I want you to love me, but—”
“No buts.” She rushed toward him and he caught her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care.
“Say it again,” he commanded.
“I love you. That’s all it is and all it has to be, Leon. I love you. So much.”
He drew one shaken breath, then his mouth found hers. Their lips fused with perfection the way they always did, but with a new sweetness. The kiss was frantic with reunion, yet tender and familiar and new. It was imbued with a love that she was realizing had always been there, deep and soft and unacknowledged beneath every kiss they had ever exchanged.
Now it was real. True. Celebrated.
“Will you marry me?” He broke away only as far as he needed to whisper the proposal against her lips. “Again? This time I mean it. No escape clauses. We commit to facing our challenges together. Figure out how to get through them together because I will never let you go again.”
She showed him her hand where his diamond band sat securely on her finger, teasing her with flashes of hope and memories of passion and the symbol of an everlasting love she would feel forever, whether he did or not.
He captured her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist, clearly moved and not ashamed to let her see the sheen of emotion in his eyes. “You humble me.”
“I don’t think I could ever not feel married to you.”
“Me, either,” he said with bemusement. “I’m yours. I always will be.”
Tanja had always had love in her life, but she had never known this kind. It filled her until she could hardly bear the breadth of it, but it was so good, she greedily let it grow bigger and bigger inside her.
They kissed and kissed, but it wasn’t enough expression for the feelings that were surging between them, reacting and expanding. He lifted his head to glance toward the bedroom door. She drew him toward the tiny bedroom with its queen mattress in a wrought-iron frame. They sank onto the down-filled coverlet with mutual sighs.
The light shifted against the small window above the headboard, dimming. Rain began a homey patter against the roof as they tugged at each other’s clothing, pressing kisses against each bit of skin they exposed.
“I want to spend all day touching and kissing and feeling you,” he rasped. “I need every part of you.” His heart was slamming so hard she felt it against her own. “But realistically...?” he asked ruefully.
“Thirty minutes,” Tanja said on a soft laugh. “If we’re lucky.”
They got down to the serious business of reconciling. When he pressed inside her, their joining was deeply powerful, not simply because they’d been apart, but because their hearts were no longer shielded. Not one tiny bit.
“I love watching you come apart,” he said as he moved within her, gaze tender as it was locked with hers. “I love knowing this is as good for you as it is for me.”
“So good. Leon, I can’t wait...” She speared her fingers into his hair and arched as climax gripped her.
He quickened his pace, taking her over the edge and tumbling with her into the joyous chasm of completion.
* * *
They cuddled under the blankets after, naked and glowing, caressing and murmuring lazily about how they might split their time between here and Greece.
“You would spend that much time here for me?” she asked. She’d seen his life in Greece. It was very demanding, not something he could drop on a whim.
“You are the breath in my sails,” he said with a playful nibble of her chin. “I’ll go wherever you take me. Isn’t that obvious? Istuval. Parenthood...” He was teasing her, but that had been so poetic she teared up. “Agape mou,” he chided tenderly, kissing her better.
A questioning squawk of noise came from the other room. It was Illi’s usual noise that announced she�
��d awakened and wished to be noticed.
Leon and Tanja exchanged a look. Tanja’s chest swelled with anticipation as Leon fairly leaped from the bed to slip on his underwear. She pulled on his shirt and followed as far as the bedroom door, biting her lip.
“Louloudi mou,” he greeted as he approached the crib, calling her “flower” in the endearingly tender voice that undid everything inside Tanja. “How are you? I’ve missed you.”
Illi let out a happy crow of excitement, one loud enough to cause ear damage, but it made them both laugh through their winces, especially because her little limbs went everywhere.
“I was afraid she’d forgotten me,” he said with amused pleasure while Tanja clutched her heart and wondered how anyone could.
He cradled Illi into his shoulder and she curled herself into him, head on his shoulder while she bounced with delight.
Tanja was pretty sure her heart was going to bust right out of her chest.
Leon brought Illi to the bed and they played with her between them, exchanging light kisses over her excited squirms.
“Did I mention I want more kids?” He had hold of Illi’s foot and was rubbing his closely trimmed beard against her sole. “Not right this second. I think we should at least get married again—”
“I’m sorry I divorced you,” she said sheepishly.
“Don’t do it again,” he said lightly, but there was a flash of bleak pain in the dark depths of his eyes.
“Leon,” she breathed with remorse, and reached for him.
“My fault.” He caught her hand and kissed her palm. He might have left it there, but he met her gaze and admitted, “But I felt like you’d cut us apart. Like I’d lost you forever. It hurt like hell. I won’t pretend it didn’t. That’s how I know I won’t let it happen again.” He gently crushed her hand as though stamping the truth of his words into her skin and bones. “It didn’t help one bit that I’d told you to do it. When I saw what you did with the money, though, I was glad you took it. Thank you for making that right.” He kissed her fingertips, then his mouth twitched. “I saw your brother while I was there. He threatened to kill me,” he said conversationally. “I pointed out that since you and Illi are my beneficiaries, that might look suspicious. I think we’re good now.”