Chapter Fifteen
“Uh-oh,” Jill said, leaning back on the bed and looking at Sam. “He told her?”
“Yeah, he did. And she’s still here.”
“Really?”
“As far as I know he told her everything, and last I talked to him he said he told her to go home, and he expected her to have done it. But I saw her car parked over by the barn. She’s still here.”
“That’s because she loves him,” Jill said. “It’s harder to fall out of love than you think.”
“And it’s more work to stay in it than you think too,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her on the lips. “Not an insult.”
“I get that. I disagree though.”
“Really?”
“I was never out of love with you, Sam. I just forgot to take the time to feel it.”
“I forgot to take the time to show it.”
“You’ve been showing me admirably these last couple of weeks.”
He pulled her into his arms, against his body. It felt right. Only Sam had ever felt right like this. And she didn’t know why she’d let herself forget. Why she’d let herself take it for granted. She’d never been passive, not in the early days of their relationship. But somehow, she’d stopped telling him what she needed.
They’d both retreated to their own corners, little balls of hurt, and neither of them had bothered to communicate. Neither of them had even tried.
Thank God they were trying now.
“I love you,” he said, like he’d said every day since they’d first started reconciling.
“I love you too,” she said. “My heart kind of breaks for these boys. Especially Jake.”
“I know,” he said.
She bit her lip. “He doesn’t have anyone.”
“I don’t know if I like where this is going.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just found you again. I just stopped being consumed with other things. I don’t really want to add a high-maintenance kid to the mix.”
She didn’t like what he’d just said, but at least he’d said it. A few weeks ago she would have gotten a grunt. A non-response that told her nothing and left her feeling ignored at best.
“I don’t either. But I don’t want to leave him alone. And he . . . he calls to me.”
“Jill . . . he’s not a puppy. He’s a teenage boy who’s had brushes with the law.”
“I know,” she said. “But you could handle him.”
“Colton and Callie were good. I never had to deal with teenage rebellion.”
“That we knew of.”
“What I don’t know won’t make me go after a boy with a shotgun,” Sam said.
“True.”
“Just tell me, are you wanting to take him on as a project because you don’t like only having me?”
Her heart squeezed tight. “No. And I know I kind of earned that. I know I spent too long pouring it all into the kids, and none into you . . .”
“No,” he said. “I mean, maybe sometimes I felt that way. But you’re a good mom. And you can’t take all the blame for what happened with us.”
“No worries,” she said. “I wasn’t going to. Okay, the timing isn’t great. But he’s sixteen. No one else is going to take him. And think how much support Colton and Callie still need. He’s going to need that too. He isn’t going to have it, he’s never really had it and that kills me.”
Sam sighed, heavy, defeated. “This is what I love about you,” he said.
“What is?”
“Your heart. I mean, and your body.”
“Oh . . . Sam, please. I’m not exactly a spring chicken.”
“Don’t care. I don’t have any use for spring chickens. Give me a woman who knows what she’s doing and is comfortable in her skin. That’s real sex appeal. That and the way you care about people.”
“But you don’t like the way I want to care.”
“Not really. But it’s hard for me to imagine right now, babe.”
“I like that,” she said, letting her hand drift across his chest.
“What?”
“Babe. It’s hot.”
“Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked.
“Would it work?”
“Yes.”
She laughed, warmth blooming in her stomach. She felt like a teenager with a crush. Or a forty-three year old woman with a crush on her husband. Even disagreeing, she felt that way.
“It’s a big thing, I know,” she said. “And I don’t expect you to just be able to give me an answer immediately.”
“I know,” he said. “But the thing is, I don’t want to think about it, because I have a feeling you’re right. That he needs to be taken care of. That he needs someone. And right now, I feel too selfish. I don’t want it to be me because I just want to spend my days wrapped in your arms.”
“Yeah, but at some point we go back to real life, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“And we have jobs and friends, and we can’t spend all day wrapped in each other. But that’s the challenge, Sam. To remember to want all that even with all of these other things going on. To not repeat the same mistakes.”
He cupped her face and kissed her lips. “I don’t ever want to work you around my life again. Life has to work itself around you. You’re my priority. In fact”—Sam released his hold on her and got out of bed, then went over to the chair his jacket was sitting on—“I wrote some stuff down.”
“Sam, what did you do?”
“You’ll see.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of the pocket. “I’ve failed you a lot, Jill, these last few years. There are things I didn’t say, and I should have just said them. But I took for granted that you knew. That somehow you could read how much I cared, even when I wasn’t saying it. Or showing it.”
“I wasn’t either . . . I—”
“No. This is my time to eat dirt and grovel,” he said. “And to make some new vows. I vowed to love you on our wedding day, and I do. To stay with you through sickness and in health, and I have. Richer and poorer, we’ve done that too. But there are a lot of little things that I never thought to promise. Things I should have promised, because maybe if I had, I would have been a better husband for all these years.”
Jill sat up, her heart pounding hard, tears stinging her eyes. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“I might make me cry,” he said, clearing his throat, “but I’ll try not to.” He unfolded the paper, his hands shaking. “Jill, I promise not just to love you, but to tell you I love you. I promise to give you romance, not just sex. I promise to tell you how beautiful I think you are, every time the thought comes into my head, which is a lot. I promise to remember that you come first. That nothing is as important as you. To remember that if you weren’t in my life, there would be no meaning. I promise to stop taking you for granted. To cherish your every smile, and hurt whenever you shed a tear. I promise to make the next twenty-three years better than the first twenty-three.”
She launched herself off of the bed and into his arms, not even bothering to fight the tears. “Sam,” she whispered, her face buried in his neck, “these past twenty-three years have been wonderful, and I let myself grow resentment when I should have just told you what I needed. You don’t shoulder the blame. I have a share in it. And I have a share in making this better going forward.” She stepped back and looked into his eyes. “I promise to tell you I love you. I promise to give you good sex, and not just a cranky afterthought with the lights off. I promise to tell you what I need, instead of making you guess. I promise to wear sexy underwear sometimes.”
“I like where this is going,” he said, his voice rough.
“I don’t want to forget again.”
“I won’t let you.” He tipped her chin up and kissed her. “I won’t let me either. And . . . I promise, I will think about Jake. I feel possessive and selfish right now.”
“Which is hot, by the way.”
“You think I’m hot?”
“Oh, baby.”
“Anyway, I feel possessive, but the thing is, you’re right. There will always be real life, and the key isn’t pushing it away, it’s learning how to prioritize us even when it’s trying to intrude.”
“Listen to us having reasonable discourse.”
“Nice, right?” He scooped her up in his arms, walked them back to the bed and deposited them both in the center of it. “Now, if these walls are thin, people might be hearing us having something else.”
“Promises, promises.”
“I’ll make good on all of my promises,” he kissed her, deep and long. “You can count on that.”