by L. B. Dunbar
Now she’s angry with me.
“This is what you wanted,” I remind her.
“I thought you wanted to sleep with me.”
“I did sleep with you.”
“As in have sex,” she clarifies.
“What?” I stammer, my voice nearly as loud as hers.
“Yes, all the ‘you’re so juicy’ and ‘no one gets in here but me,’ and I thought you meant sex together, as in fucking each other.” The crassness of her tone has me wishing we had fucked. I woke with the hardest hard-on and had to take a moment in the woods to right myself. I’m getting worked up again, and I’d love to give her what she’s asking.
But I can’t.
I don’t want to fuck my wife.
I want to love her, and I want her to love me again.
Instead, we’re getting divorced.
I signed the papers after getting what I wanted from her. One more night to sleep next to her warm body. One more night to curl up against her and breathe her in. One more night to feel as if she’s mine. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at first. Our slow kisses were difficult to keep slow and holding back my tongue was near impossible. She tasted so damn good, and it wasn’t just the wine on her lips. She was safety, and rightness, and trust, and I wanted to savor her as long as I could. I worked hard not to cross a line I’d drawn. I only wanted to outline her body, memorize her lips, and hold her again.
Just one more time.
To my surprise, despite the hard-on and heartache, I did sleep. I relaxed into her light breathing, melted against her heated skin, and succumbed to a night of dreamless sleep for the first time in six years. No screams haunted my ears. No panicked eyes filled my vision. It was a quiet, peaceful bliss of nothingness.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I mutter. “It’s becoming a habit.”
She slaps my chest with the papers again, too angry to cry, and then she shoves me.
“I hate you,” she hisses, and dammit, I laugh as I reach for her forearm and tug her close to me.
“Why?”
“Because I thought you wanted me, and you still don’t.”
Both hands come to her upper arms, and I tug her snug against me. “Make no mistake, Peach, I still want you with every breath I take. You own me like you always have, and now I’ve given you what you wanted.” I release her, feeling the adrenaline rush through my body and my dick rise. I don’t want us to do something she’ll regret, and having sex would be a mistake, a big mistake. I wouldn’t be able to let her go if we joined our bodies.
“I’ll find an attorney,” I state, nodding at the papers.
“Get me off this fucking mountain,” she yells. “I want down from here.” She’s visibly shaking, and I reach for her again, but she steps back, putting as much distance as she can between us.
“Evelyn,” I begin, but we hear the crunch of tires on gravel and look over my shoulder to see the approach of a truck.
Giant and Letty, I presume.
Fuck.
“I will not take their special time away from them,” Evie says as if warning me not to argue with her. “Just get us out of here. For them.”
Swiping my hands down my jeans, I step past her for the outpost, retrieving my jacket and keys inside. Evie stands barefoot on the cold forest floor, and I snag up her boots and her jean jacket, noting she must have stormed out of our little sleep-nest when she noticed the papers signed and lying next to her instead of me this morning.
When I return outside, I meet my brother’s troubled eyes.
“Have a good night?” he quips, digging it in that I stole his evening.
“We were just leaving. The place is all yours.” Evie’s forced cheerful expression pushes her voice an octave higher than normal.
“You okay?” Giant addresses her, and she plasters that smile higher.
“Never been better,” she answers Giant and then turns to Letty. “You look beautiful this morning, and yesterday was lovely. Thank you for inviting me.”
Evie’s voice cracks, and I recall their ceremony. My brother and his new bride must have written their own vows, making promises to each other for their future.
Evie’s and my future will look quite different. Our vows have been shattered, and there’s not enough glue to put them back together.
I’ve missed what Evie says next to Letty, but the women embrace while Giant keeps his hard glare aimed at me.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he states.
“Got nothing to say,” I tell him.
“This week.” It’s a warning I don’t heed. Evie will be leaving, and I’m thinking I need a road trip. I need to get out of my head a bit, and maybe leaving this place will be good for me.
“We’ll be going now,” Evie steps up to me, pushing me back from my brother and his wife, and I shrug off her gentle shove. Stalking away from her, I reach my bike first and pace a few feet back and forth while she puts her boots and jacket back on. Once she’s ready, I straddle the bike and start the engine. Evie climbs on without my assistance. I can’t touch her right now, and the feel of her against me is torture.
How can she think I don’t want her? I might have told her to leave me, but I never stopped wanting her, loving her.
We don’t speak as we ride out. The rugged terrain jostles us down the gravel path. I keep us as slow as I can, but once we clear the dirt and hit the pavement, I need the speed. I need the rush of the bike beneath me to rid the thoughts racing through my head.
Did Evie want to have sex with me?
Is that why she was so angry?
Is it possible she wants to hold onto me, or did she just want the thrill of one more night as well?
I kick up the throttle. Evelyn screams behind me, warning me to slow down as her grip on me tightens. She’s tucked her head into my back, and her arms squeeze me as though she’ll never let me go.
Don’t let me go. The words echo in my head.
From my son.
From my wife.
I have lost them both in different ways.
Evelyn and I have suffered the unimaginable with our child, but do we need to remain estranged from one another?
Giant’s words come back to me. Your wife is here, and she loves you.
She loves you.
She still loves you.
She even said it last night, and I let it slip by as if she didn’t know what she was saying.
The echoing possibility doesn’t seem like it can be a reality.
And it’s confirmed that it can’t when we reach the Lodge.
After I park, Evelyn quickly hops off my bike, strutting away from me without a backward glance or a word in my direction. And for the first time in six years, I do what I should have done from the beginning.
I chase.
“Peach, don’t walk away.”
Her hips swish as she flips me the middle finger over her shoulder, and I’d laugh if I wasn’t suddenly overwhelmed with the finality of us. If she gets away from me this time, she’s really lost to me.
“Evie, please. Let’s just talk.”
The statement stops her a few feet from the front entrance of the Lodge.
“Talk?” she stammers, her voice squeaking on the word as she spins to face me, and her arms flail to her side. “Now you want to talk?”
“Let’s just . . . shit, I’ve fucked this up. Let’s just take a breath. We’ll get some coffee, and—”
“No.” The firmness of the word startles me. “No, I’ve waited years to talk to you, James. Years for you to come to me, open up to me. I had so much to say, and I was also willing to listen, but this . . . last night.” She takes a deep breath, steadying herself when her voice begins to break. “I’ve learned my lesson with you, James. You say you love me, and I’ll always love you, but it isn’t the same as what we once had. You still don’t want to touch me, and on some elemental level, I need that from you. I need to be close to you.” Her voice cracks again, and she chokes back a sob as she pat
s her chest, clutching the divorce papers in her hand.
“I’ll love you from afar. I’ve been doing it for years. I get it, James. Message received loud and clear. I’m sorry I held on so long. You’re right. Separate is best. I can’t be where I’m not wanted. We need to be finished.”
“We aren’t over,” I growl, feeling more empowered than ever to fight for my wife as she turns and walks away from me for the second time this morning.
And for the second time, I follow.
I follow her into the lobby where she stops short, and I almost run into her. Looking over her shoulder, Evie faces a man sitting in a chair, knees spread, arms balanced on them. His hair is finger-combed, and his expression troubled. I recognize the look on this man’s face, and I know I’m totally fucked when Evelyn says his name.
“Dalton?”
20
Unpleasant Endings
[Evie]
Dalton?
“Dalton, what are you doing here?” I ask, stepping up to where he’s sitting on the decorative chair in the lobby of the Lodge. Then I freeze. I can’t recall a moment more awkward in my life. With James at my back and Dalton before me, I don’t know what to do. Before me is such a beautiful, giving man who looks confused and a bit wrecked. Without looking back, I know James’s expression matches Dalton’s face.
“What the fuck?” James mutters, and I close my eyes, willing away the past few minutes. The ones where James follows me, and I come face-to-face with Dalton.
“I see I’m interrupting something,” Dalton says, slowly sitting upright. He’s such a gorgeous man with dark eyes and dark hair. His athletic build immediately says he did manual labor in his youth and was once a football player. He wears a suit well, but the one he’s wearing now looks like he slept in it.
“Have you been here all night?” I ask, hearing a deep exhale behind me.
Dalton’s eyes shift over my shoulder, taking in James’s presence with a blank face. My heart races. This is not how I wanted this to happen. I wanted the divorce finalized before anyone was none the wiser that I was still married, but my chest aches. Before me is a possible future, but behind me, the past still hovers, as is James.
“Dalton Braun,” Dalton states, standing to his full height and holding out a hand. Could this get any worse?
“James Harrington,” James replies, not offering his hand in return. I refuse to look back at him but imagine him sizing up Dalton, taking in his taller height and broader shoulders. Dalton is more of a match to Giant in stature. Not that I want any man matching up and fighting.
“I can explain,” I say quietly, holding Dalton’s gaze when James refuses to shake Dalton’s hand. Dalton nods, giving me this concession. He wears an expression of disbelief, and he isn’t wrong in his mistrust. I actually can’t explain this—what’s been happening here, what’s still lingering between James and me—because whatever still lingers unresolved nags at me.
“I think we should talk,” Dalton says, diplomatic in his tone, ever the powerful lawyer I know him to be.
“We can go to my room.” My voice drops. I don’t like the suggestion, and my eyes shift to find James no longer in my periphery. Without a thought, my neck twists, and I notice that James is gone. Rolling my lips inward and letting my shoulders fall, I accept that it’s for the best. I owe it to Dalton to explain myself.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Perhaps we could go to the coffee shop.” He means the Lounge as it’s open in the morning with light breakfast fare. I nod and lead the way like the disobedient child I feel inside me.
Dalton helps himself to a coffee from the self-serve counter, and I decline an offer of one for myself. I don’t think I can choke anything down.
Once Dalton takes a seat across from me at a table, he just stares at me, willing me to speak. I swallow. The next statement feels like one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to say.
“I’m married,” I whisper.
Dalton’s head slowly lifts, tipping back once before rolling forward. He’s displaying remarkable control, and I imagine it’s how he keeps his cool when he’s defending someone in court.
“As you know, my son died six years ago.” I swallow back a lump in my throat and rapidly blink away the tears threatening to fill my eyes. “And I never got divorced.”
My eyes remain on the table before me, but I sense Dalton shift. Both his arms come to the tabletop as he wraps his hands around the steaming mug of coffee.
“James felt at fault. Our son . . . he slid down the mountainside.” A sob chokes me as I admit the story I hadn’t told Dalton. It was an accident, I’d said—a fatal accident—and I didn’t like to discuss it. Dalton accepted my simple explanation and let me keep the rest of the information.
“James and Michael were hiking, and from what James said, they were horsing around. Michael was too close to the edge, and he slipped. James caught his arm, but there wasn’t enough footing for himself, so he lowered to the ridge, lying flat while our son dangled over the edge. James was trying to pull him upward, but Michael kept struggling. He needed to hold still.” The words echo in my ears.
James said it on repeat to the sheriff’s department after he called me. After he called them. He explained that Michael kept squirming, kicking out at the air while James kept yelling at him to hold still.
“They were both sweaty from the hike but growing sweatier with the effort of pulling Michael upward. There wasn’t anything for James to get leverage on, and he fought Michael’s counterintuitive actions. At one point, James’s hand slipped until they only held hands.”
Never having seen the accident, I close my eyes but imagine it over and over again with the vivid description James painted. The stench of panic. The fear of my son. The look in his eyes. The strength in James. Which wasn’t enough.
“Our son slipped out of James’s hand, plummeting over the ridge.”
Placing my elbows on the table, I cover my face, caught in my own grief and guilt. Guilt at the loss of my son. I’d asked James to take him on the hike that day because I’d needed a day to myself. We’d had a summer of baseball games, and I was trying to work on fall designs as well as plan a holiday launch. I just needed a day alone. I’d been so selfish.
I didn’t want to cry before Dalton. I didn’t want to turn this around and have him feeling sorry for me. I deserved his wrath or his hatred, but I didn’t want his sympathy.
“We never divorced,” I repeat around a hiccup as I try to calm my quaking shoulders and my straining voice. “James couldn’t get over the guilt he placed on himself. He was trained in search and rescue, and he hated that he wasn’t able to save our child.”
Taking a deep breath, I continue despite the tears still flooding my eyes and streaming down my face.
“He couldn’t look at me anymore. Michael and I share the same eyes. Color. Shape. James said Michael had a look that mimicked mine, and he couldn’t stand to see it. He kicked me out.”
Dalton reaches for my forearm, but I don’t feel the warmth of his touch. I’m numb, and his hand is emptiness against my skin.
“Why hadn’t you divorced sometime in the past few years?” Dalton finally asks.
I shake my head, slowly lifting it to finally look up at him. “I don’t know.” I didn’t. Something kept me attached to my husband despite the time and distance. We could afford a divorce. Hell, his brother Charlie and brother-in-law Chris were both practiced in law. We just hadn’t taken that final step.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“The fact you have to ask concerns me.” His brows pinch together. “But let’s not discuss my feelings yet. Are you still in love with him?”
This is the million-dollar question. I want to say no. I want to tell Dalton that I’ve been over James for years, and the divorce was merely a formality. I want to say I love him—Dalton Braun. He is such a decent, patient man sitting before me, but I don’t want to lie to him. I already had, and he didn’t deserve that.
/>
“You know what? Don’t answer that yet.” Dalton leans forward again, concentrating on his coffee mug a second. Then he scrubs a hand down his face. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you come here alone. I could tell you were worked up before you left Savannah, and when you told me about the wedding, well, fool that I am, I thought I’d surprise you. Thought I could be your date after all, and maybe a wedding would give you romantic ideas. Ideas about us.”
He’s been such a patient man. We dated for months before we kissed, and more months passed before we touched. He felt so good standing beside me, and I lost my head a little bit, thinking I could move forward and take the next steps. The only way to be with him was to clear myself of James, but even if I sign some flimsy papers, I’ll never be free from how I feel about my husband.
“I’m in love with you, Evelyn. I think I’ve shown that from the time and effort I’ve put into us. I want to be with you. I want us together, but I can’t be in half a relationship. It’s not fair to you or to me.”
I agreed with him, and I hate how affable he’s being. “You aren’t angry?”
“Oh, I’m pissed, Evie. I’m fucking angry as hell, but what’s the point in fighting for your affection if you can’t give it to me completely? I don’t want you to only half love me. I want you unequivocally, and that’s something I can’t make you do.”
A song rushes through my head and what Dalton is saying is true. I couldn’t make James love me, so I understand Dalton’s position, and I feel all the worse for it because I’m the one doing to him what James has done to me. I’m pushing him aside.
“I came here to get a divorce.” I hold out the rumpled mess of papers, smoothing over them, which does nothing to flatten them. “I didn’t think it was fair to you, and I really wanted to give us a shot without the guilt hanging over my head.”
“That’s noble of you.” I dismiss the sarcasm in his tone because I deserve it. If he wishes to scream at me, I deserve it, but this man won’t do that. He won’t raise his voice. He won’t wrestle with me for my emotions, and perhaps that’s the thing which has held me back from him. I want someone to fight for me. It hasn’t been James, but it isn’t Dalton either.