This Time for Keeps, page 20
“You know I will.”
“And give my girl a kiss from—” Mommy “—me.”
“Always.”
Tossing the phone onto the passenger seat, Meg turned from the state highway onto the quiet, unmarked road. It had been a long time. Once she’d driven this road daily. Once, Russell had driven it with her. They’d sat in silence, him behind the wheel, her in the passenger seat with her cold hands clasped in her lap. Behind them, the partially open trunk had bobbed, a young willow sapling half in, half out.
Meg’s throat tightened at the memory. Turn around, she told herself, but something stronger drew her farther down the bumpy road, to the small, gravel parking lot at the end. There, a state highway department sign declared the area a historical site.
Woodenly she stopped the car and silenced the engine, pushed open the door and stepped into the warm April morning. Sunshine filtered through the trees, seemingly dancing at her feet.
The smile was automatic—and as always, it hurt.
Beyond the parking area, she made her way through the quiet hills of the state park, overgrown now with tall, wispy grasses and eager weeds, through a grove of pecan trees old and young, toward the babble of the creek just beyond.
A few miles away, this same creek ran through the town—and behind Meg’s house. Normally it was barely more than a trickle. But on occasion, following heavy or prolonged rain, the water rose. Once, the current had been swift enough to carry away an abandoned car.
Now an army of wild pink buttercups swayed with the breeze, sloping down toward the creek bed…and the willow Meg and Russell had planted in honor of the baby they’d lost. Barely five feet tall at the time, the memorial now towered over twenty. The creek provided the right amount of water for the sapling to flourish, and there was just enough sunshine for it to thrive. Against the bright light Meg squinted, but the shadow remained beneath the fall of the graceful tree, tall and strong. Unmoving.
She stopped. Less than twenty feet separated them, but she could not make herself take another step, not when Russell stood beside the tree, his body painfully still as he stared out over the creek. Higher than usual, the water eddied around boulders and bramble, creating its own gurgling soundtrack.
Slowly, he turned, and his eyes met hers. And held. There was a stark isolation there, a pain she’d not seen in a long time. And in response, she did the only thing she could. She started toward him.
“You know that’s illegal, don’t you?” she said, glancing toward the clump of bluebonnets clenched in his hand. Dirt dangled from the roots.
“Only if I get caught,” he said, and though the words were light, classic Russell, no smile formed in accompaniment.
Meg’s throat tightened. She swallowed, looking up as she reached him. Sometimes she forgot how tall he was. How solid. Sometimes she forgot the way the light in his eyes could penetrate—and the wall of his chest could seduce. Even in a wrinkled black button-down and old, faded jeans, with scuffed boots on his feet, the sight of him fed that dark, lonely place inside her.
And it always had.
All she had to do was lift a hand, and she would touch him. It was what she wanted. To touch, to hold on.
This time for keeps.
But instead, she offered words.
“Two years ago when you told me you were leaving—” her mouth was dry, the words thick “—I knew I should say something…but I didn’t know how.” She hesitated, the breeze blowing her loose, uncombed hair against her face. Even now, all this time later, the memory hurt. “I wanted—” so much “—for things to be different,” she said as he continued to just stand there, more statue than man, watching her. “For us to be different. For you to hold me…”
Something sharp and volatile flashed through his eyes.
“I was paralyzed,” she went on. “Numb. It’s like I was locked inside my body, and no matter what I tried, what I wanted, I couldn’t break through. So I watched you walk away, drive away…and I knew you weren’t coming back.”
The line of his jaw tightened.
“And I hated you,” she said, feeling it all over again, the blanket of numbness giving way to the sting of reality. “I hated you for leaving me.”
His mouth twisted. “You hated me for being there.”
She didn’t want his words to be true, but knew that they were. “I was broken,” she said, struggling to explain. To understand. “When Hope died, something inside me died, too.” Hopes and dreams…innocence. “She was part of me. And I felt her, Russell. Every second of every day I knew she was there, even before I felt her move. Then she did and I—”
“She was part of me, too.”
She absorbed his words like a blow. “I know.” Every time he’d looked at her, she’d seen the pain in his eyes—and a flash of the little girl they’d lost. Every time he’d touched her, she’d felt Hope….
“I know,” she said again, this time softer. “She was us.
“And you were right,” she said now. “It was so easy to cast you as the bad guy…so much easier than looking in the mirror. You may have been the one to actually walk out the door, but…I checked out first.”
In grief they’d both retreated to their own safe place, running in opposite directions, instead of to each other.
Around them the wind continued to whisper softly, toying with the thick canopy of the willow tree. Sun dappled around the wildflowers at their feet.
She’d always loved this place. They had.
“I’ve prided myself on moving forward,” she said over the clamor of the birds and the water. “But from the moment you came back, I’ve barely been able to breathe. I immediately fell back to the way things were before, resenting you for things over and done with.” Because that was…familiar. Safe. “To the point that I couldn’t see what was right before my eyes.” What she saw now…what she’d seen the night before, when he’d pulled her into his lap and held her. “That you’re here,” she said, and with the words she stepped closer. Her whole body hummed with the need to touch him. “You’re here and no matter how hard I push, no matter how many dragons I throw in your path, you’re just…here. Not judging, not demanding, just strong and steady.” Full of that same quiet strength she’d fallen in love with a lifetime before. “Just…here.”
Even after she’d rejected his offer to help her fight for Charlotte, even after she’d pushed him away by failing to reach out, he’d still come back the second he’d learned she’d surrendered Charlotte to Tyler.
Russell had come back.
A rough sound broke from somewhere low in his throat. “Like I wasn’t before,” he said with a gruffness that sent the ache in her heart knifing deeper.
“I don’t want to break again,” she whispered. She’d come too far. “And I’m so scared to let myself love you—” she saw him wince, saw him brace “—but I’m even more afraid of letting you go—”
He didn’t let her finish. “I told myself nothing had changed. That’s why I got in the car this morning. That’s why I drove away. But with each mile that passed, all I could see was the way you looked at me last night.”
Once, his words would have made her look away, part in shame, part in fear. But in that moment, Meg could no more have looked away than she could have walked away.
“The vulnerability,” he said. “And the trust. That despite everything, you trusted me enough to let me see inside. And I couldn’t do it…”
Finally he moved, finally he closed the last of the distance between them, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms and against the wall of his chest.
The sense of homecoming stole her breath. She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around him, absorbed the feel of him.
“I couldn’t walk away again,” he admitted, “not when you were right. I was the freaking coward…walking away from the woman I loved because I didn’t know how to reach her, running when I should have moved mountains to hold on.” Abruptly his hands found her face, his fingers splaying out—and cradling her. Instinctively she tilted back to see him—and instinctively her heart did a long, slow free fall through her chest.
“Quitting,” he said, “when I should have given you every breath I had.”
She wasn’t sure how she stayed standing. “Russell—”
“I could feel you slipping away,” he said, and the pain in his eyes brought her even closer. She couldn’t just stand there when the need to touch, to heal, swelled with every beat of her heart.
“And it killed me,” he said. “I tried to reach for you, to pull you back…but everything I did just pushed you farther away, to the point where you were barely even there. I—I…”
He was a strong man, driven, full of purpose. She’d never seen him like this before, hesitant…vulnerable.
“…didn’t know what you wanted from me,” he said hoarsely.
And her heart slammed hard. “For you to stand by me,” she said, lifting her hands to his chest and feeling the strong rhythm beneath her palm. “Like you did when Tyler first showed up. For you to hold me—” she closed her eyes a moment, let the memory wash over her “—like you did last night.”
He slid a thumb to her mouth, the flash of his eyes telling her that he wanted—needed—to keep talking.
“I never planned to stay,” he said, and against her body, she could feel the tension move through his. “When I came back…” He hesitated, let out a rough breath. “From the moment I saw you…saw Charlotte…it was like some vicious trick of fate, taunting me with the life I could have had—we could have had—if I’d just…stayed.”
The need to comfort him drove her. The need to…fix. “Not if you’d stayed,” she said, going up on her toes and brushing her mouth against his. “We needed that time….” She could see it now, could see the truth. They’d needed time, and space. To heal. To grow.
“If you’d stayed, we would have ended up destroying each other. We can have that life now, because we found each other,” she whispered with a fresh salty sting in her eyes. “Because you came back.”
The green of his eyes took on a forgotten gleam, as raw as it was powerful. “Christ, Meggie, sometimes I’d lie awake in Africa, wanting you so damn bad my whole body hurt.”
She smiled through her tears. “I wanted you, too.”
He winced. “I never thought I’d hear you say that again.”
“I wanted you, too,” she said again, this time louder. Firmer. “I still do.” With the words, she slid her hands along his chest, savoring the solid strength of him. “Don’t go.” Buoyed by newfound courage, she lifted her eyes to his. “I couldn’t say that before.” But now the words felt strong—right. “Stay with me.” Those words felt right, too. “Love me.”
He muttered something—low, lilting, in the dialect of his childhood. She made out always and love—and forever.
And then his arms were closing around her, crushing her to him as his mouth came down against hers, and there beside the gentle flow of the creek, beneath the graceful fall of the willow branches, all those broken, jagged pieces, the ones that had sliced and destroyed for too long, slipped back into place—and fused.
EPILOGUE
EVEN IN SLEEP, HE KNEW she was gone.
Russell Montgomery opened his eyes to the predawn darkness of late summer and found the sheets tangled around his hips, the space next to him empty, the feather pillow cool to his touch. Once, when he’d existed from one hotel room to another, the realization that he slept alone would have punished him. Now a slow, easy warmth moved through him.
Waking up alone went with the territory.
He rolled from bed and headed for the hall, didn’t bother with pulling on a shirt or a robe. A pair of slippers sat beside the nightstand, but he could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually worn them. Just didn’t see the point.
From down the hall, the soft strains of a Gaelic lullaby drifted through the sleepy old house. He moved quietly, not wanting to disturb. Not wanting to interrupt. He’d seen a lot of beauty in his life. He’d experienced moments of awe. He was no stranger to mystery. But nothing had prepared him for the combination…those pure, naked, unguarded moments when the world seemed to stand still.
He found her at the end of the hall, in the small room with the buttery-yellow walls and soft plush carpet, with the lights off and a spill of shadows, the soft strains of lullabies the Montgomery children had listened to for generations. She sat in the rocking chair with her eyes closed, tangled blond hair falling against her face, the cotton nightshirt wrinkled—and sliding up her legs.
In her arms, Charlotte slept.
It was a simple scene, impossibly common, played out in houses all across town. A baby woke during the night. A mother came to settle her. A father watched.
But for Russell, the scene was not common at all.
Father. The word still had the power to turn him to mush.
He stood there a long moment, just watching, drinking it all in, searing the image into his memory, where so many others waited. Meg as she’d been nearly a decade before, when he’d first seen her sitting in the big lecture hall. Meg as she’d been the day he first came to Pecan Creek, when they’d made love for the first time. Meg on the day they married. Meg holding a home pregnancy test in her hands, glowing.
Meg sitting by the creek behind their house, crying.
But on top of those memories drifted new images—bright, strong images that reduced the past to shadows: Meg sitting cross-legged among the bluebonnets on the day he’d come back, rocking a sleeping baby in her arms. Meg kneeling by his sister’s bed, surrounded by letters and postcards, with the oddest expression of discovery on her face. Meg standing beside the sofa they’d picked out together a lifetime before, going up on her toes to reach out to him, first with her hands, then her mouth.
The relief in her eyes when he’d joined her on the porch, when Tyler had first come to meet Charlotte.
The warmth of her hand.
Meg at the Wildflower Festival, standing at the podium with the auction form in her hands, watching him.
Meg on the Ferris wheel with the storm pushing in behind her.
A rain-soaked Meg looking at him with the most amazing combination of trust and vulnerability and desire.
The raw courage when she’d told him what happened after he’d left…and the quiet trust when she’d let him hold her.
The naked vulnerability when he’d turned to find her standing by the old creek, with the wind whispering through her hair—and love glowing in her eyes.
But most of all, he could see her the morning two days later, when she’d opened the front door to find Tyler standing there, with Charlotte. She’d tried so hard to hold it all together, but the second Tyler had relinquished Charlotte into her arms, Meg had drawn the baby to her heart, and quietly fallen apart. Russell had joined her, sliding an arm around her waist and anchoring her against him, while Tyler explained that despite how much he loved his daughter, he could not give her what she needed most. A family. A home. A mother.
Meg.
Tyler had visited a handful of times since then, content with his new role as special uncle. Russell’s parents had visited, as well. And they, too, had realized where Charlotte belonged.
Now in the predawn quiet, Russell watched them, Meg and Charlotte, mother and child. And standing there, he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do, no mile he wouldn’t walk, no test he wouldn’t confront, to keep them safe, keep them his.
Keep his family together.
This time for keeps.
“Hey.”
The soft, sleepy voice startled him. Through the shadows he realized that somewhere along the line Meg had opened her eyes. “Hey, yourself.”
“Everything okay?” she asked, brushing a soft kiss to the top of Charlotte’s head.
Such a simple gesture, but like so many others, he knew the image, the rightness of it, would stay with him.
“You’re beautiful…you know that?” he said, starting toward them. “Both of you.”
“I’m happy,” she whispered.
At the rocking chair he stopped and went down on one knee. “So am I.”
Her smile was wide, gentle. “Sometimes I still can’t believe this is real…that you’re really here.”
Never looking away from the warmth in her eyes, he lifted a hand to cover hers. “Believe it,” he said. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
They sat quietly after that, watching Charlotte, hands joined, until the first rays of the August sun filled the nursery, and shadows gave way to the buttery warmth of a new day.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6635-7
THIS TIME FOR KEEPS
Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Miller.
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*Midnight Secrets
*Midnight Secrets
*Midnight Secrets
