She got up, moved toward him. “Did you?”
She knelt in front of him. Their faces were so close she could see herself in his blue eyes. She’d forgotten how that felt, to see herself in him. “It made me crazy,” she said, echoing the words she’d said to him in the nursery all those months ago.
“And you’re sane now?”
She felt his breath on her lips; it brought back so many memories. “Sane’s such a grown-up word. But I’m definitely better. Mostly, I’ve accepted it.”
“You scare me, Angie,” he said quietly.
“Why?”
“You broke my heart.”
She leaned the tiniest bit toward him. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered, reaching for him.
TWENTY-TWO
Angie had forgotten how it felt to be really kissed. It made her feel young again; better than young, in fact, because there was none of the angst or fear or desperation that came with youth. There was just this feeling moving through her, electrifying her body, making her feel alive again. A tiny moan escaped her lips, disappeared.
Conlan pushed her back.
She blinked at him, feeling that edgy near-pain of desire. “Con?”
He felt it, too. She could see it in the darkness of his eyes, in the tightness around his mouth. For a moment there, he’d lost himself; now he was climbing to safer ground. “I loved you,” he said.
If there had been a veil left over her memories, the past tense of that sentence would have ripped it free. In three words, he’d bared his soul and told her everything that mattered.
She grasped his arm. He flinched, tried to draw back. She wouldn’t let him. In his eyes, she saw uncertainty and fear. A hint of hope was there, too, and she seized on it.
“Talk to me,” she said, knowing that he’d learned not to talk to her. In the months after Sophie’s death, she’d become so delicate that he’d learned to hold her in silence. Now he was afraid to care about her, afraid her fragility would return and, like a rising tide, drown them.
“What’s different now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our love wasn’t enough for you.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Suddenly, after eight years of obsession, you just changed, huh?”
“Suddenly?” She drew back. “In the last year I’ve lost my father, my daughter, and my husband. Do you really think I can go through all of that unchanged? But of all of them, Con, the one that rips me apart and keeps me awake in the middle of the night is you. Papa and Sophia … they were meant to go. You …” Her voice dropped. “You, I left behind. It took me a long time to realize that. I wasn’t there for you. Not the way you were there for me, and it’s hard to live with that. So, sudden change? I don’t think so.”
“I knew how deeply you were hurting.”
“And I let that be what mattered.” She touched his face again, gently. “But you were hurting, too.”
“Yes” was all he said.
They stared at each other in silence. Angie didn’t know what else to say.
“Make love to me,” she said, surprising herself. The desperation in her voice was obvious. She didn’t care. The wine had made her bold.
His laughter was shaky and forced. “It’s not quite that simple.”
“Why not? All our lives we’ve followed the rules. College. Catholic wedding. Career. Kids.” She paused. “That was where we got caught. We ended up like those animals in the Kalahari who get stuck in the mud and die.” She leaned toward him, so close he could have kissed her if he chose. “But there’s no map for us anymore. No right way. We’re just a couple of people who have lived through tough times and come out in a new place. Take me to bed,” she said softly.
He cursed. There was anger in his voice, and defeat.
She seized on that. “Please. Love me.”
He groaned and reached for her, whispering, “Damn you,” as his mouth found hers.
The next morning, Angie woke to the familiar cadence of rain hammering the roof and sliding down the windowpanes.
Conlan’s arms were around her, holding her close even in sleep. She backed into him, loving the feel of him against her skin. His slow, even breathing tickled the nape of her neck.
They’d slept in this position for all of their married life, spooned together. She’d forgotten how safe it made her feel.
She eased away from him just enough to roll over. She needed to see him.…
She touched his face, traced the lines that pain had left on him. They matched her own; every wrinkle was the residue of how they’d lived and what they’d gained and lost. Sooner or later, all of it took up residence on your face. But the young man was there, too; the man she’d fallen in love with. She saw him in the cheekbones, in the lips, in the hair that hadn’t yet gone gray and needed to be trimmed.
He opened his eyes.
“Morning,” she said, surprised by her scratchy voice.
Love, she thought; it touched every part of a woman, even her voice on a cold winter’s morning.