Chapter 11
Coop felt her nails bite into his back, felt her body grow rigid and her muscles contract. He felt the rapture seize her and carry her away. Her soft groans filled his senses. Her short, rapid breaths blew energy into him. He felt empowered, invincible.
Following the path she blazoned, sharing her pleasure and experiencing her ecstasy, caused the fragile hold on his control to slip. He was, after all, just a man.
The climax began with a shower of lights, filling his head and blocking out everything else. There was no-earth, no sky, no outside world. He was alone with only Kelsey beneath him and the life flowing between them like electricity through a wire. He felt his body surge forward, hurling him into that void, into that secret place where sanity blended with madness, reason with awareness.
“I love you.”
He heard the words, felt them circle his consciousness like a halo of light. He couldn’t tell if he’d said them or if they had come from her—but it didn’t matter. What was important, what mattered was love, and it was there between them.
Finally, the agony became too sweet and he surrendered, body and soul. He found what he’d been seeking, reclaimed what he’d once lost, and the pleasure proved to be the finest he’d ever known.
Kelsey heard his ragged breathing, felt his hard body erupt and his arms clutch her tight. She grabbed him, held him and let him sweep her away again. She crested, peak after peak, until, riding one wave after another, she was sure she would go mad from the pleasure. It was only when she heard him cry out, when she felt him collapse, spent, against her that she found her way back.
“I love you,” he said in a breathless whisper in her ear.
I love you, too. The words formed on her lips, but she had no strength left to push them out.
Coop wasn’t sure how long they lay there together, locked in each other’s arms. It could have been an hour or it could have been days. Time had lost its importance.
It wasn’t until he felt her shiver that he realized the night had turned cold. He moved then, but just enough to reach for the bed covers and pull them over their cold bodies.
“Better?” he asked, gathering her close. The room was full of shadows, but enough moonlight found its way in through the window so he could see her face in the darkness.
“Nothing could be better than this,” she murmured sleepily, squinting at him through slitted lids.
He brought his hand up and ran his knuckles along the softness of her cheek. She looked so beautiful, content and fulfilled. He had no doubt she had wanted to make love with him, but the fact remained that she still believed him to be her husband. If she had remembered the truth, this never would have happened.
Like an invader storming the gates of a fortress, guilt nagged at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret making love with Kelsey. Not with her looking beautiful and satisfied.
“I can think of something,” he whispered, bending down and pressing a kiss against her mouth.
“Oh?”
“This,” he murmured, planting wet kisses along her jaw, down her neck and over her breasts. “And this,” he whispered as he trailed a path of kisses along her waist, into her belly button and over the swell of her hips.
Kelsey would never know where the energy came from, but it flooded her depleted system, revitalizing spent muscles and weary nerve endings. His bold caresses had her peaking again and again, sending her over the edge and into that chasm of lights. When he entered her again, she could do nothing but cling to him as they rode the wave together, journeying farther and faster than before.
Finally, she gave in to the exhaustion, feeling his heavy body above her and reveling in its weight. Her sleep was deep and peaceful, and her dreams—for the first time since the coma—were sweet.
“Eight, nine, ten, eleven.” Kelsey stopped, a chill rumbling through her. The damp fog that had rolled inland and shrouded the dawn in a blanket of white had sent the temperatures dropping, and the sheet she held over her naked body offered little protection. “Twelve, thirteen.” Her voice quivered, and the tiled kitchen floor felt like ice against her bare feet. Another chill caused her finger to tremble as it counted the days on the calendar.
Except she was too excited to think about the cold, was concentrating too hard on counting the days of the week to worry about her numb toes. Besides, Coop was in the bedroom asleep. He would be warm and would wrap his arms around her tight when she crawled into the bed beside him. His body heat would take the morning chill from her.
“Fourteen.” She stopped and stared at the calendar, hearing only the soft, mechanical ticking of the kitchen clock hanging on the wall above the stove and the sound of her breath as it entered and exited her lungs.
There could be no mistake. She’d counted it out three times. It had to be right.
Still, she had to be sure, didn’t want to take the chance that in her haste she might have gotten careless, might have skipped over something and made a mistake. This was too important. Too much was at stake. She wanted to be absolutely sure. Flipping through the pages of the calendar, she counted it out again.
Excitement erupted in her with a funny little giggle. Leaning forward, she rested her forehead against the wall, taking a moment and letting the implications sink in. Except the news was too good to keep to herself for very long—she had to share it. She had to share it with Coop.
Clutching the sheet around her, she turned and ran across the cold tiles and down the hall to the bedroom. At the door, she paused again. He was still sleeping, his body beneath the blanket looking big and long on the small futon bed.
At the sight of him, her body reacted, and she remembered their lovemaking the night before. It seemed hard to believe she’d doubted his feelings for her, because she had no doubts now. But even if the doubts had existed for a while in her mind, he’d alleviated them last night. She was his wife again—fully, completely, thoroughly.
Her gaze followed his form beneath the bed covers, and she remembered the hard feel of him against her. The sight of him started a chain reaction in her. Desire smoldered in her belly, and her. blood began to heat. She felt more like a bride than a woman with five years of marriage under her belt.
Letting the sheet slip to the floor, she slid beneath the blankets and stretched out beside him. His skin felt warm and wonderful against hers, and she pressed a kiss along his back.
He stirred, turned and gathered her close. “Freezing,” he murmured sleepily, finding the juncture of her neck and shoulder and nuzzling the silky sweetness with his lips and tongue. “Why are you so cold?”
“I’ve been up,” she whispered, feeling the cold evaporate at every place he touched her.
“What time is it?”
“It’s not even six yet.”
He lifted his head, forcing his lids open. “Everything okay?”
“Oh, Coop,” she sighed, seeing the concern in his sleepy face and thinking her heart was going to burst in her chest. Smiling, she pulled him close. “It’s more than okay—it’s wonderful.”
He regarded her for a moment, wide awake now. “Have you been into the cold ravioli again?”
“Better.”
“Better than cold ravs?”
“Better,” she said again, laughing. “I’ve been counting.”
“Say again?”
She laughed at his confused, bewildered look. “Days—on the calendar,” she said, by way of explanation. “I’ve been figuring out my cycle—you know, since my last period.”
Like an icy finger, a chill ran the length of his spine. “Your cycle?”
“My cycle,” she said, nodding excitedly. “And you know what we might have done last night?”
He shook his head, his throat too thick with emotion for words to pass.
She felt tears sting her eyes. “We might have made a baby.”
The ringing in his ears became so loud he began to think he hadn’t heard her right. Only there had been no mistake. The smile on her face, the look in her eyes told him with unerring clarity that she’d said what he feared she had.
He cleared his throat loudly. “A baby? How—I mean, why? What makes you think so?”
At his look of utter shock, her smile widened. “I don’t remember about before the accident,” she explained. “But I can say without a doubt that I haven’t been on the pill since I woke up in the hospital.” She shrugged. “It’s just math after that, counting the days of my cycle.” She reached out, running a hand along his cheek. “Last night was one of the nights I could conceive.”
Conceive. The word was like a knife in his chest, twisting, turning, tearing his flesh. Conceive. How did he tell her? How could he ruin her happiness, destroy her dream? He remembered all too well what had happened the first time she’d discovered the truth. It not only had destroyed their marriage, it had nearly destroyed her. How could he protect her this time? What did he do?
“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice coarse and raw in his throat. Taking her hand in his, he shifted his weight, scooting into a half-sitting position. “Sweetheart, you have to remember you’ve been through a lot in the past several weeks. I don’t think... Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to get your hopes up, at least not for a while, until we can be sure.”
“I know, I know,” she said, looking at him. “But it’s okay to dream, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve wanted a baby for a long time, we’d been trying so hard. Unless—” She stopped suddenly, the line between her brows deepening. “Unless that’s changed, and I’ve forgotten.”
He could feel every muscle in her body grow rigid. “No,” he assured her, bringing her hand to his lips and brushing a kiss along her fingertips. “No, that never changed.”
“Then what’s wrong with hoping?”
He felt the tension slipping from her and watched the frown disappear from her face. It was wrong to give her false hope, it was wrong to let her go on believing in something that was never going to happen.
“Kelsey,” he said, his fingers gently massaging her hand. “Kelsey, there’s something...”
She looked at him when his words stopped. “What?” she prompted, giving him a little shake. “What is it?”
He pressed a kiss into her palm, excitement making her eyes sparkle bright in the gloom. How he wanted to share her excitement. How he wished he could just forget and dream the sweet dream. He’d pretended about a lot of things in the past couple of months, but he couldn’t pretend about this. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Tell me,” she insisted, scooting up and pulling the sheet around her. “Coop, you look so serious. What’s the matter?”
“It is serious.” He stopped, drawing in a deep breath. “It’s about us—about you and I having a baby.”
His expression made alarms go off in her head. She thought back to that moment the night before, that moment when she’d almost had a memory.
But this reaction was stronger and more vivid. Something was coming out of the darkness. Something was crashing through the din, climbing its way up out of that black hole of the lost and back to life again.
They had sat like this before. They had hoped and dreamed. They had celebrated. Images flashed through her brain, random and disjointed—maternity clothes, the hospital room and...
She squeezed her eyes tight. No, she didn’t want to see, she didn’t want to remember the tiny casket going into the ground.
“A baby,” she whispered, her breath coming in short, quick gasps. “Oh, God, Coop.” She stared up at him, frantically searching his face. “Coop—a baby. We had a baby.”
Coop watched her reaction, watched recollection and recognition sink in and become reality. He hated this, hated to think of the pain and the misery there was for her to remember, all the hurt she would have to relive. He wanted to reach out, wanted to gather her close and spare her the pain. But how could he spare her the truth? The past was right there, and nothing he could do would protect her from it.
“A little boy,” he said, his bottom lip starting to tremble and his voice cracking with emotion. “He...he lived only a few hours.” He paused, tears stinging his eyes. “He was early—too early, and his little lungs, there was something wrong. There was nothing anyone could do.”
“Oh, my God, Coop, I remember,” she sobbed, her face crumbling into tears. “Our little baby. Our little boy.” She looked at him, his image blurred by the tears. The memory was suddenly as clear and as painful as it had been years before. “I remember, I remember.”
It was a long time before either of them spoke again. It wasn’t the time for words. It was a time for mourning. It was a time to hold and be held, to comfort and be comforted—together, always together.
They sat together for a long time on the futon, propped against the wall and in each other’s arms. The tears had long since stopped, the shock had diminished, and the pain had become an arduous burden to carry. Yet still the need to hold, to comfort and be close was there.
“It must have been hard on you, knowing and not being able to say anything.”
Coop closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the things he hadn’t told her. “It...it wasn’t something that was easy to talk about.”
“I can understand that,” she said, her voice strangely devoid of emotion. “And it would be important for me to remember on my own.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Everyone seemed to think so.” He looked at her, feeling like a kid looking for someone to blame. “Now I’m not so sure.”
“No, it was the only way,” she insisted. “I can see why the doctors would have thought it best.”
“I just wish it didn’t have to hurt so much.”
She turned her head and looked at him. “At least we have each other to lean on now. I’m grateful for that.”
Coop nodded, his throat closing with emotion. She hadn’t leaned on him before. She’d turned away.
“It explains a lot, though,” she said, her voice thoughtful and quiet. She turned and settled against him. “A lot of things I couldn’t understand.”
Coop ran a hand along the length of her hair, stroking gently. He couldn’t help wondering how much she had remembered. “Like what?”
“The fear, and those awful nightmares,” she said, absently working the fabric of the sheet around her. “It was like I knew there was something awful in there, in those lost memories—something I wanted to forget, that I dreaded remembering.” She shrugged. “Now I understand.”
“It was a bad time,” he whispered, the pain no less fierce now than it had been the first time around. He reached out, wiping one lone tear that slipped down her cheek. “Sometimes I’ve wished I could forget.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, it’s better this way. It hurts—” Her voice cracked and failed, and she struggled for a moment. “God, it hurts so much, but I don’t ever want to forget again. Our little boy, our baby.” She turned and looked at him. “We had him for a little while. I don’t ever want to forget.”
He nodded, tightening his arms around her. He wanted to sit there and comfort her as long as he could, as long as she would let him. He hadn’t been given the chance before. The doctors had delivered the devastating news that Kelsey’s chances of conceiving again were next to impossible.
The news had been a fatal blow for Kelsey—first her child, then her hope. It had more than devastated her, it had demoralized her. She hadn’t been able to bounce back, hadn’t been able to pick up the pieces and go on. She’d pushed everyone away, her friends, her family and especially him.
He pulled her closer. He almost felt grateful for the second chance he’d been given, for the memory loss that enabled him to hold her and comfort her the way he had wanted years before. How much longer would it be before the rest came tumbling back, before it all was there before her, hitting her in the face? The gates had been opened. It was only a matter of time before the floodwaters swept him out of her life forever.
“It also explains a lot about us,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
“Us?” He heard the tightness in his voice and cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”
“Just that I had this feeling there was something, you know? Something you weren’t telling me. It would be so awkward sometimes, between us. So tense.” She breathed out a little laugh. “I know you said there wasn’t another woman, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.” She moved a hand along his arm, touching the gentle dusting of hair. “Now I realize you were just trying to protect me, not see me hurt.”
Coop felt sick. She was making him sound noble, like some kind of knight in shining armor, and it only made him feel worse. What was she going to think when she learned the whole truth? Would she be as understanding? Or would she see him for the imposter he was?
“How do you feel now?” he asked, weaving a long lock of her hair between his fingers.
“Sad,” she said with a heavy sigh. She turned in his arms and slipped a hand along his neck. “But hopeful, and...” She stopped, pressing a kiss along his cheek. “Very, very happy.”
He wanted to warn her, wanted to tell her not to be too happy, not to feel too secure, because there was still so much out there that could destroy her again. Only he couldn’t—not yet, not now. She’d been through too much already.
After the baby had been born, they had been given no opportunity to deal with the tragedy of his death before being hit with the rest of it. This time he wanted it to be different. This time he wanted her to have time to recover and cope with the loss, and selfishly he wanted to be there to help her.
It wouldn’t be long before all the gaps in her memory were filled and the whole truth would be brought to light. He knew he was living on borrowed time. His day of reckoning was coming, and he wanted every moment he could have, every moment she would give him before the ax finally fell.
“Where were you?”
Coop sat on the futon and gently swept away a lock of hair that fell across her sleepy face. “I just had to make a quick call. I phoned Doris.”
“You’re going to work?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep.
“Thought maybe I’d take the day off,” he said, brushing his fingers along the length of her bare arm. Leaning down, he lowered his voice. “If that’s okay with you.”
She smiled and rolled onto her back. “What do you think?” she murmured, slipping her arms around his neck.
Coop let her pull him down, stretching out on the futon next to her. After the emotionally charged scene earlier, they’d both fallen asleep, emotionally and physically spent. It had been nearly eight when he woke again, barely enough time to catch Doris before she left for the office.
Doris assured him she would manage without him, but not before giving him a lecture on spur-of-the-moment decisions and how they wreaked havoc with the smooth operation of a business. He’d taken her good-natured tongue-lashing, knowing that despite her grousing, he could trust her to see that flights were on time and obligations were met.
“Thank you,” Kelsey murmured.
He looked at her, brushing a kiss along her jaw. “What for? For playing hooky or braving Doris’s wrath?”
“Both,” she said, slowly moving her hands along the hard muscles of his shoulders and arms. “And for staying home to baby-sit me.”
He pulled away a little, looking at her. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Baby-sitting?”
“What would you call it?”
He smiled, holding her close and letting her feel him against her. “I’ll call it anything you want, as long as we can stay like this all day.”
Kelsey laughed. feeling better and happier than she had in a very long time. The memories of her pregnancy, of childbirth classes and nursery plans, of hours spent in labor and the delivery of her son were so vivid now, so crystal clear, it seemed hard to believe she’d ever been able to forget. But as painful as it had been to remember, she felt a peacefulness inside her, a calm she hadn’t felt since waking up in the hospital. The black holes hadn’t disappeared completely, but they didn’t look quite so dark or frightening as they once had.
The sun streaked in bright from the window, the fog that had shrouded the dawn having rolled out over the ocean as quickly as it had rolled in. Kelsey could hear the sounds of the neighborhood coming alive, car doors slamming, children’s voices calling in the distance. But despite the intrusion of light and sound, the real world felt far away and removed from their small room. It was just her and Coop and the past they shared.
“Well,” she murmured, running her fingers down his torso and unsnapping the front of his jeans. “If we’re going to stay here all day, let’s get you comfortable.”
Comfortable. As Coop slipped out of his jeans and tossed them to the floor, he wondered why men always thought “comfortable” was the death of passion. That’s not the way it was at all.
He slid into her arms, lowering himself between her legs and entering her slow and easy.
He heard her soft groans in his ear, felt her body come alive beneath his touch, felt her fire start a fever in him. Heat swept through him, carrying him out of himself, out of the real world and into the void to ecstasy.
“You know,” she whispered, long after her breathing had returned to normal and the world had taken shape again, “I don’t see how you do it.”
“Do what?” he mumbled.
“Sleep on this thing.”
He lifted his head. “What? The futon?”
“Yeah,” she said, making a face. “It’s a rack. How have you stood it for eight weeks?”
Eight weeks. What would she think if she knew he’d been sleeping on it for two years? “You don’t like it?”
“Do you?”
He thought about the months he’d slept on the thing. After Kelsey had left, it hadn’t mattered where he slept, hadn’t mattered if he was comfortable.
Comfortable. Without her, nothing had been comfortable—not his house, not his life and certainly not this lumpy futon.
“Come on,” he said suddenly, sitting up.
“What?” She blinked, surprised, and grabbed for the sheet. “Why?”
“Let’s go shopping,” he said, reaching for his jeans. “I want a new bed.”