Authors: A Bride Worth Waiting For
Cara Colter (16 page)
She doubted that words could ever be enough, and yet she knew they had to be said. “Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
She dared not look at him. And she dared not try to fill the yawning silence with all the nervous words that came to her mind.
“You did the right thing. You married the right guy.” His voice was gruff with emotion.
“I’m sorry I accused you of asking me on an impulse. And I’m sorry I accused you of having an ulterior motive. It was wrong for me to suggest you planned to end the evening in a motel, when you never treated me with anything but absolute respect in all the time I knew you.”
Silence.
She took a deep breath, and finished, her voice shaking. “I was so incredibly and richly blessed to have two such remarkable men love me.”
“Tory, be quiet.”
She would have done anything to erase the tremendous pain from his voice, but she knew it was not in her power to erase it. They lay side by side, stiff, not touching, the tension coiled between them like a snake.
She knew, all this time, all these days of flying kites, and laughing, and behaving foolishly, all of that was for this.
For this moment when a bridge could be built across the pain. The pain of a strong love gone wrong, somehow by taking an unplanned turn on the road of destiny.
Through the darkness she could feel his struggle. And then he sighed. “Come here,” he commanded softly.
And she did, willingly. She went into his arms as though she belonged there. She melted into him, clung to him as though he were a life raft in a storm-tossed sea, as though he were a huge oak, untouched by the ravages of the wind, as though he were a rock in an ocean of shifting sand.
He did not try to kiss her, but held her tight against his body.
It was hot and muscular and beautiful, and if he would have done one thing to invite her, she would have explored every square inch of it with her tongue.
But he did not.
Instead the finely held tension seemed to leave him. His breathing grew steady and deep.
He kissed her, once, on the top of her head, and then he slept.
In the morning when she woke, the place beside her was empty. Watery sunshine was streaming in the window, and a freshly laid fire crackled. She could smell coffee and hear the deep rumble of the motorcycle engine.
Adam stared at the motorcycle, absolutely baffled. When he had tried to start it last night, one last time in the pouring rain, nothing. He had given up and gone in. And now, without his having done a single thing, the big machine purred in front of him as if it had never stopped.
He shut it off and restarted it to see if it was a fluke.
It wasn’t.
He shook his head. Now things were reversed. The machine was baffling him, and his emotions were not.
Something very important had happened last night.
He had gone in and she had been sleeping on that mattress by the fire. He had stopped and looked down at her, her face awash in the gentle glow of the fire, and thought she looked young again. As if life had never touched her face with tragedy at all. Had his mission succeeded then?
He’d not been very happy about her invitation to sleep with her. To share the bed and the blanket, but not any of the usual things a man and a woman of their ages and experiences
should
be sharing. It seemed to him that anyone should be able to see that would be the perfect solution to the chill that rocked him.
should
be sharing. It seemed to him that anyone should be able to see that would be the perfect solution to the chill that rocked him.
He wondered what she looked like naked, and the chill disappeared, just like that.
He had gone to the bathroom and cleaned up, amazed by how that streak of grease across his cheek washed the years from his face as surely as the muted light of the fire had washed them from hers.
And while he contemplated his reflection and flinched from the icy cold water coming out of the taps, it occurred to him that her asking him to share the mattress with her said something that he had wanted to know for a long time.
She trusted him.
Perhaps that was more important, slightly, than a night’s ecstasy in her arms.
How could one have just a single night with her, anyway? It would make everything impossibly complicated.
It would make getting on that plane for Toronto inconceivable.
No, sleeping with Tory, really
sleeping
with her, as in chasing her around the bedroom and tickling her toes and other places, would have to involve some deep thought. About things like commitment.
sleeping
with her, as in chasing her around the bedroom and tickling her toes and other places, would have to involve some deep thought. About things like commitment.
Even as a boy he had known that to follow the breathless sensation she caused in him to its natural conclusion would mean giving serious thought to serious questions.
Like what he was doing with the rest of his life.
And what she was doing with the rest of hers.
It seemed he had always known the answers, though, even before he had been able to fully articulate the questions.
He had not lied to her tonight At twelve years old he had committed to her. Completely. Never veering from his path. Never wanting anyone else. Never even exploring the possibility of life without her.
He’d just saved the actual question until shortly before his twenty-third birthday.
It occurred to him it would destroy him to be rejected by her twice. Destroy some little flame that leapt eternally hopeful within him.
And really, while he was dead tired, stranded, soaked in Sylvan Lake, it was hardly the ideal time to contemplate such weighty matters.
Knowing he didn’t have a hope of going to sleep, despite a weariness that went clear through to his bones, he had gone back in there and lain down beside her.
She smelled sweet. Her lemon scent mixed with wood smoke. It was intoxicating. He wanted to cuddle up to her, but his jeans were wet and he didn’t want her to be cold.
And something in him held back from her. Something vulnerable.
And then she had said it.
That she was sorry she had hurt him all those years ago on a star-studded night on the road to Banff when he had finally shared with her his heart’s desire.
He had not thought his proposal would be such a surprise to her. He had thought, somehow, that she knew how he felt, and that she had felt it, too.
Her rejection had utterly crushed him.
He had thought what they had done to one another could not be fixed, and so he was astounded at how those simple words she had spoken tonight reached into his heart, right past the scar tissue. Some ache, hardly acknowledged, and yet gnawing inside him for seven years, was suddenly dead center of his awareness.
He could tell by the way she spoke the words, she really was sorry. When he snuck a look at her, her face only inches from his, he could see little white salt trails down her cheeks where the tears had flowed.
And he realized he had never forgiven her, and he did it in that instant. Forgave her completely for hurting him.
In the sensation of freedom that he felt, he realized that something within himself had been coiled tighter than a cobra ready to strike for far too long. And he wondered why he was really back here. Had it really been to make her smile, or had it been for this moment right here and right now?
Had it been to heal her heart, or his own?
His whole thought process seemed relaxed and pure and filled with incredible clarity.
And because of that, in those moments before he slept, he knew what Victoria’s secret really was.
All those years he had thought that it was that she loved Mark better, and it was not that at all.
He knew why he had gone away and stayed away. He looked at himself with this new self-knowledge and liked what he saw.
A man who had managed, through incredible odds, to be loyal to both his best friends.
He felt the sweet warmth of her, cuddled in his arms, and knew a great and surging joy. He did not know what the future would hold.
This moment was enough.
Adam seemed different this morning, Tory thought, watching him. Boyish and happy. As if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“You really should have picked a career that had something to do with motorcycles,” she told him.
He grinned at her.
The way he was looking at her made her want to shout from mountain tops—pure exhilaration in his dark eyes, as if the years had rolled back, and they were young again, the best of friends, no hard lessons of life between them.
She had to drop her eyes from his, because his expression made her so happy, and so afraid.
“Are you going home today?” she asked him, thinking an answer would help her choose between the joy and the fear.
“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes locked on her, as if it all depended on her. He climbed onto the bike and it roared to life.
“How did you fix it?” she called.
He shook his head and shrugged as if he had not worked his own particular brand of magic on it.
She climbed on behind him, and rested her cheek against the back of his shoulder. She wished she could make this trip last forever.
There was that word again.
Forever
.
Forever
.
And somehow both her joy and her fear were connected to that word. And to him. The morning was wet and smelled good. Everything looked washed clean. It seemed the trip home did not take nearly the same amount of time as the trip there. Was that only because she wanted it to last and last—swooping through time with him?
He dropped her in front of her house and waved.
He did not say when he would see her again.
If ever.
Her heart plummeted at the thought.
She went into her house and all the things that had looked so familiar to her only yesterday—that had given her comfort and joy—seemed meaningless. Without any substance at all, let alone the power to give joy.
Her message machine was blinking, and she listened to it. Orders for flower arrangements. Questions about flower arrangements that were overdue.
Her mother’s voice asking about her trip to the cabin.
And suddenly she knew she needed to talk to her mother.
Her mother poured her coffee and then went to her kitchen counter and arranged fresh-cut blossoms, little water droplets clinging to the petals, in a vase.
“How was the cabin?” she asked over her shoulder.
Trying, Tory noticed, not to appear too interested.
“It was okay.”
“What did you do there?”
“Watched the stars come out. You know.”
“I don’t know,” her mother said, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Not that,” Tory said, blushing. “Really, mother.”
“Well, I phoned you late last night. And you weren’t home yet. I just wondered.”
“The motorcycle broke down. We ended up staying the night.
Mother!
”
Mother!
”
“I didn’t say anything!” She came over to the table, put the flowers down and sank into the chair across from Tory.
“As if you had to. Good grief. Isn’t there a law that says mothers aren’t supposed to wish
that
for their daughters until after marriage?”
that
for their daughters until after marriage?”
“Marriage?” her mother said eagerly.
Tory was silent, and then after toying with her coffee cup for a long time she looked up at her mother and asked the question she had come here to ask.
“How would you have felt if I’d married Adam instead of Mark?”
“I was always surprised you didn’t,” her mother said softly.
Tory’s mouth fell open.
“Oh, darling, not that I doubted you loved Mark, it’s just that you and Adam had something so very special. A spark that most people search for all their lives and never, ever find.”
“Mark knew,” Tory whispered.
“Yes. I think he did.”
“Oh, God.”
“We all knew, Tory. I think everybody knew but Adam. That you loved him best.”
“It scared me loving him so much.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“He was so wild.”
“What you wanted most to be,” her mother said softly.
“I did love Mark. I never lied to him.”
“There are as many kinds of love as there are flowers in my garden, Tory. And the kind you had with Mark was good. It was strong and loyal and loving. But you would not be betraying him if you chose a different kind now. I think it is what he would want for you.”
“Oh, Mom, Adam doesn’t—”
“Have you asked him?”
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