A Broken Christmas (18 page)

He limped across the room into the master bathroom, pushed open the door that divided shower from toilet, and came to an abrupt stop. Blinking, he questioned whether he had fully awakened or whether he was still dreaming. His bathroom looked…different. Instead of the glassed-in box he called a shower, and the claw-foot tub they had crammed into the opposite corner, wide open space stood before him. Crafted from stone tiles, a knee-high ledge separated the unenclosed shower area. Where he had once stood beneath a piddly showerhead that didn’t know the meaning of
relaxing
spray
, he found two large faucets facing each other at different intervals. One slightly lower than the other.

Kyle did a double take, then squinted at the steel bar he had assumed on first glance was a towel rack. Wrong. No towel bar hung vertically. That was a hand support. A solid, heavy-duty, hand support set into the wall joists, not glued on top of tile. Another ran horizontally where the short wall came to a stop and created an entrance.

Holy. Shit.

Stunned, he stepped inside and turned a slow circle, looking for Aimee’s precious bathtub. When he didn’t find it, guilt tugged at his gut. She’d clearly modified the bathroom in anticipation of his needs. In so doing, she gave up the one thing she insisted they have when they talked about buying a house. She loved the tub—not so much showers.

“Oh, Aimee,” he murmured as he ran his hand over the new, marble wall tiles. While he’d been treating her like the biggest asshole known to mankind, she’d been up to her usual good-heartedness. Thinking of him.
Taking care of him.

He backed out and sat on the toilet, overwhelmed. As he massaged his temples, he considered the very real possibility of returning to a life with her. She hadn’t given up on him. He, on the other hand, had thrown everything away. Could they possibly have a future? Last night, he dumped everything on her shoulders. She hadn’t crumbled.

Not yet.

He shook his head to drown out the negative voice. He didn’t want to hear it. Wished like hell it would go away forever. But as he dragged his hands down his face and his unseeing stare focused on the barren spot where her bathtub had been, the memory of the afternoon he’d come home to find Aimee sitting near that basin, a bottle of pills in her hand, kicked him in the chest. She’d looked up with tear-filled eyes and dropped the unopened bottle on the floor. He could still hear the deafening sound of her broken voice—
I need…help.

She had pulled through amazingly well. They both had. But what if it happened again? What if he pushed her to that point? He’d never forgive himself. What happened to Denton was child’s play in comparison to putting Aimee through that hell.

And then there was the matter of children. If he stayed with her, he would never escape the longing for a
real
family, a child of his own. He would never experience that fierce pull with someone else—if he could ever move beyond the love he felt for Aimee and find someone else. A big if. Either way, away from Aimee the urge would die. With her, it intensified.

They never had discovered what caused her miscarriage, but Kyle knew enough to understand late second-trimester losses weren’t the simple matter of unstable embryos. Chances were, she risked a second miscarriage. He could not ask Aimee to brave another devastating loss. Not now, not ever.

We could adopt. A little girl, maybe, from Russia. China. Someone who really needs us.

The idea sparked an unfamiliar warmth in his chest. Maybe they could. If he got snipped, he wouldn’t have to worry about unexpected pregnancy, and they would never confront the nightmare of losing a child.

Yeah. Maybe.

Only in his heart, he knew the suggestion wouldn’t fly. The one time he had hinted at adoption, Aimee adamantly refused. She wanted her own child.
A part of you. Of me, Kyle.
To her, children symbolized something entirely different. She didn’t want to just be a mom. She wanted the final culmination of the soul-deep love they shared.

Damn it. No matter how right it felt, he never should have let last night happen. All he’d done was create more confusion. Given her more reasons to believe they could put things back together.

Sighing, he forced himself to stand and shook off the gloomy thoughts. It was Christmas. He wouldn’t spoil the holiday for her. When it was over, when the season gave way to cold, miserable winter, they’d talk. For now, he would embrace the peace she offered. She understood him. Knew his needs sometimes better than himself. She hadn’t pushed him into talking, hadn’t forced him to explain. All he wanted to do today was revel in the contentment that filled his bones and share a quiet holiday with the woman he loved. No intrusions. No arguments.

Determined to do just that, he hobbled out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and to the top of the stairs. “Honey? What did you do to my shower?”

As she stepped out of the kitchen below and flashed him a grin, it became impossible to ignore her infectious amusement. Despite himself, he chuckled.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s amazing. But where’s your tub?”

Her grin broadened. “In the basement. Conner and the major put it down there.”

Just hearing Walsh’s name made his skin crawl. Knowing Walsh had played a part in renovating his bathroom stole some of his jubilation. Aimee might have been sympathetic to the story of Saif’s betrayal, but were it not for Walsh, Kyle wouldn’t have had to explain anything at all. He would be at peace—the question of returning to life with Aimee nonexistent.

“Merry Christmas, Kyle.”

“Merry Christmas,” he murmured as he backed into the bedroom to start his shower.

****

Aimee waited for the water to start running before she darted for the phone and dialed Conner’s number for the third time in the last hour and a half. When it once again went to voice mail, she phoned Mom Walsh.

There too, a recorded voice answered, and Aimee slammed the phone down. Where the hell were they? She needed to tell them she’d been wrong. If Conner showed up here today, every bit of last night would be insignificant. Kyle couldn’t
handle
seeing Conner. Not yet. Maybe in time, but for now, he wasn’t ready.

Chewing on a fingernail, she stared at the boiling pot of potatoes on the stove.
Stupid.
Her shot-from-the-hip, gut feeling that Kyle needed to confront Conner was a stupid lapse in judgment. She should have known better. Should have heard Kyle’s reasoning through his very silence. But with all the compounding confusion of her unwanted divorce, Kyle’s refusal to respond to her, and his deliberate shut out of his best friend, she’d gotten mixed up. Seeing the man she intimately understood became impossible.

And now, if she didn’t get a hold of Conner, Christmas was about to turn into a disaster.

She raced to her purse and her cell phone, and quickly fired off a text message.
Don’t come. Bad idea. Will call later. Merry X-mas.

With a little luck, he’d get the message before he showed up on the front step.

The burner sizzled as her water boiled over and she bustled to the stove. As she hauled the pot to the sink to dump out excess water, the timer on the oven dinged. “Damn it,” she muttered. Hurrying, she got ahead of herself, and the pot slipped. Boiling water sloshed over the edge, scalding the back of her left hand. Reflexively she dropped the pot, and it clanged against the side of the sink, sending quartered potatoes across the kitchen floor.

“Son of a bitch!” Aimee threw the hot pad holders onto the puddling water and cradled her hand. She flipped the sink on to douse her skin with cold water, while mentally searching for where she’d put the aloe the last time she spent one too many hours at the pool.

When she finally recalled where she’d stuffed it, she turned off the sink and rummaged through the hall closet until she found it packed into the box of band-aids and athletic wraps. She liberally dosed her hand, rubbed the cool gel in.

Then, she haphazardly tossed the aloe back into the closet and scurried to the kitchen to pick up her mess before Kyle came down. She’d mopped right before Kyle came home; they hadn’t used the kitchen much—maybe she could salvage the potatoes by rinsing them off.

Bending over, she gingerly picked up the pot and set it on the counter. One by one, she plucked potatoes off the floor, smashing a few, re-dropping a few more when they burned her fingers.
Disaster
. Christmas dinner was rapidly turning into a disaster.

No sooner had the thought drifted across her mind, did the front door swing open. A blast of cold air rushed through the living room, the dining room, and swirled around her ankles.

“We’re here,” Conner called with false joy.

Crap
. Aimee groaned aloud. She worked faster to finish cleaning up before Conner spied her crouched over the floor. As long as
he
didn’t see the potatoes, she wouldn’t necessarily have to throw them away.

“Problems?” His voice came from behind her.

Aimee slammed a chunk into the pot, smashing it against the stainless steel bottom. “You could say that. Why the hell haven’t you answered your phone?”

“Here, let me help,” Mom Walsh said as she joined them in the kitchen. She set her casserole dish on the countertop and bent over to scoop up a handful. Quickly giving them a once-over in the light, she proclaimed, “Perfectly edible.”

“That’s disgusting, Mom.” Conner leaned against the doorframe and crossed his ankles. “And as for my phone—it doesn’t work in your woods, and I’ve been digging out my car for the last thirty minutes. There’s a snowdrift the size of Texas at the bottom of your hill.”

Frustrated by the complete failure of her planned holiday, Aimee’s temper flared. “And the other hour before that? I’ve been trying to reach you since 10:30.”

He shot her a wry smirk and shrugged one shoulder. “
You
try driving across town. Have you looked out your window? We got four inches of snow last night.”

“Well, you have to leave,” Aimee snapped.

Mom Walsh set her aging hand on Aimee’s shoulder. “Aimee, is everything okay?”

“No.” She shook her head. Standing, she dried her wet fingertips on her jeans. “It’s not. I’m sorry, but this is a bad idea. If you’re here when Kyle gets out of the shower, all hell’s going to break loose.”

Concern filled Mom Walsh’s blue eyes, and she tipped her head, examining Aimee as if she could read into her thoughts.

Aimee softened her voice as she gave Mom Walsh an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I tried to call and save you the trip. I’m not meaning to be rude. But this is just a horrible idea. Kyle’s not ready.” She glanced at Conner, hoping beyond hope he would understand. “He told me everything. I understand now.”

Frowning, Conner crossed his arms over his chest. “Wish you’d come to this conclusion the other day. Now you’ve got me in the mood for confrontation. Sorry, Aims. I’ll say my peace, then we’ll go.” He wandered into the family room where he shucked his coat.

Aimee’s gut sank, and she felt her world slipping away. Conner could be every bit as stubborn as Kyle, but this was the wrong time for him to dig his heels in. She raced out of the kitchen and caught him by the elbow. “Please, not today. Everything is going so well. Please don’t do this to me, Conner.”

“Conner, maybe it should wait,” Mom Walsh suggested softly. Her leathery fingers skimmed down Aimee’s back in silent reassurance. “You don’t want to ruin things for them.”

“No.” He dragged the word out as if he convinced himself as well. “I’m sorry, Mom. And you too, Aimee. But this has gone on long enough. I’m not going to be Kyle’s target anymore. If he’s too stupid to see all the reasons I dragged him out of there, then he deserves everything I have to say.” He stared hard at Aimee. “Especially if he can’t see you.”

“I see her just fine,” Kyle’s voice rumbled from the top of the stairs.

Aimee froze, her heart lodged in her throat. Slowly she turned and met Kyle’s murderous glare.