If Forever Comes (16 page)

“You did, huh? Did your help your mommy make
dinner last night?”

“Nope! Me and Mommy had a barbecue at Kelsey’s
house, and we had barbecue sauce on it, and I ate two whole
pieces.”

Normally I would have chuckled at my
daughter’s rambling. Not today.

I stilled as a slow sense of foreboding took
hold, a shock of ice-cold awareness penetrating deep as it
slithered down my spine. It spread out to freeze every cell in my
body. With my eyes narrowed, I turned to look back in her
direction. Lizzie was leaning over with her back to me, digging
through the vegetables in the bottom crisper.

“You went to a barbecue at Kelsey’s house?
With Mommy?” I clarified. The words came harsh, forced, because I
was sure I wasn’t going to be able to stomach her
answer.

Lizzie stood and, with her foot, she nudged
the refrigerator door closed. Her entire face glowed as she spun
around and danced her way over to me with a plastic bag stuffed
with broccoli swinging from her hand.

“Oh, Daddy, we had so much fun. Mommy and I
spent almost all day there. I got to play for so long, and I got to
help put the sauce on the chicken. I was careful not to burn
myself, just like you taught me.”

On its own accord, my head slowly began to
shake, and I felt as if I was being led into a massacre, set up for
the kill.

This was not happening. I
refused
to
let this happen.

“Here you go,” Lizzie prodded at my side,
looking up at me in confusion as she handed me the bag of broccoli,
completely unaware that her words had cut me to the
core.

For once, the child seemed oblivious to the
turmoil she’d spun up in me.

“At whose house, Lizzie?” I asked.

Lizzie gave me a look that told me I was
crazy. “I already told you, silly. At Kelsey’s house.”

“Which one of Kelsey’s houses?” My voice came
out harsher than I intended it to.

Because I already knew.

Shit
.

Distraught, I scrubbed my palm over my mouth
and dragged it down my chin. It took everything I had not to shout,
took everything inside me not to demand Lizzie give me a different
answer than the one I already knew she was going to give. This had
nothing to do with her, the unwitting messenger who stood there
grinning up at me. No chance in hell would I take this out on her.
No chance would I show her that the day she was going on and on
about was enough to shred what was left of me.

“Oh…” She giggled as if my meaning had just
dawned on her. “At her daddy’s house.”

That asshole. I
knew
it. I fucking knew
it.

I forced myself to stand still, because my
control was slipping fast. Steadying myself, I pressed my palms
onto the counter. The cool surface shocked into my heated hands.
Anger pounded through my system, a raging storm that thundered
through my veins, an onslaught of fear and outrage and the brutal
sense of disappointment that tightly fisted my chest.

Dropping my head, I sucked in a breath and
tried to swallow it down. It just lodged at the base of my
throat.

I didn’t know if I was angrier with myself or
with Elizabeth.

What I did know was I wasn’t going to let that
asshole anywhere near her. Who the fuck did he think he was? Taking
advantage of Elizabeth when she was at her most
vulnerable?

This wasn’t a fucking game.

This was my
family
.

I raked a shaky hand through my hair, then
forced a fraudulent smile. The act was physically painful. “Why
don’t you finish rinsing the broccoli and I’ll be right back to
help you get it started, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block the
images from invading my mind. I searched for my bearings before I
started down the hall to my bedroom. Darkness swallowed me as I
quietly clicked the door shut behind me. For a second, I stood
there, just forcing the stagnant air in and out of my lungs, then I
staggered the rest of the way into my bathroom. Blindly I fumbled
for the light switch. Light flooded the space, and I blinked to
orient myself. Not to the harsh glare shining from the lights above
the mirror, but to the cruel reality that I might actually lose
her.

I guess somewhere inside me, I’d held onto the
belief that one day Elizabeth would open her eyes and really see
me. That she’d see me the same way I saw her.

As the one she couldn’t live
without.

Shit
.

How could I have allowed this to
happen?

I held myself up on the counter and dropped my
head.

Realization crushed me.

Like Matthew had accused me of the other
night, I was a fool.

The worst kind of fool.

After everything we’d been through together,
I’d left Elizabeth when she needed me most. Left when life was the
most difficult, because I didn’t know how to deal with the pain any
more than she did. We’d been blindsided, our foundation ripped from
beneath us, nothing there to catch us when we fell.

And when we’d fallen, we had completely fallen
apart.

I’d been standing on the sidelines, waiting.
Waiting when I should have been fighting.

I lifted my face to find my reflection staring
back at me. My eyes swam with torment, swamped in a grief that felt
unending and echoed the loneliness that was eating me from the
inside out. It was destroying the last piece of me, my last bit of
hope that somehow we’d make it out of this together.

But what was Elizabeth supposed to think when
she woke without me morning after morning? What was she supposed to
feel? Was she supposed to believe I loved her, that I’d stand by
her side no matter what came our way, like I’d promised her I
would?

Fuck
.

I squeezed my hands into fists.

What had I done?

I felt a glimmer of Elizabeth’s touch, felt
her mouth near my ear as she promised,
I’m going to love you
forever
.

My chest tightened and my head
spun.

The truth was, even though it was Elizabeth
who’d forced me out, I’d walked away because it was too
hard
. Because life was hard and unfair. Because Elizabeth
was hurting and she hurt me in return. Because I couldn’t stand to
stay there and watch her suffer anymore. I realized now that seeing
her that way had cut me so deeply, I didn’t know how to handle
it.

I’d had the overpowering urge to shake her, to
force her to snap out of it, because all I wanted was to see her
smile again. I should have just sat by her side, taken it,
endured it
, even when the distance between us had seemed
insurmountable.

I should have
stayed
.

I always knew, even though she never came
straight out and said it, somewhere inside of Elizabeth, she
believed I had let her down.

I had to admit now that I had.

I’d been so wrapped up in giving her
perfection, I hadn’t been prepared to hold her up when devastation
hit.

Early June, Four Months
Earlier

The incessant call of the alarm clock beeped
from my nightstand. With almost a smile, I quickly reached out and
silenced it. I was already awake. I lay on my back, staring at the
shadows that rose then faded on the ceiling. Early morning
threatened at the window. To my right, Elizabeth’s deep, even
breaths bled into the silence, like a harmony that played at my
ear.

The deepest sense of contentment blanketed
me.

I rolled onto my side, careful not to wake
her. Lost in the abyss of sleep, she faced me. Her blonde hair
flowed out all around her, and a single lock dripped over her
shoulder and brushed along her neck.

Peaceful. Perfect. Beautiful.

Forever beautiful.

I gently brushed my fingertips across the
sharp angle of her jaw, then down to caress along the cap of her
delicate shoulder.

Her lips parted, but she didn’t
awaken.

As I watched her, adoration lifted one side of
my mouth, and I trailed my fingers farther to her left hand that
was fisted on the bed, tucked up close to her face. The diamond on
her finger caught a glimmer of light that slanted in from the
rising sun outside the window. It danced and played, a symbol of
our forever.

Tomorrow, this woman would finally be my
wife.

How had I ever become so favored as this?
Maybe I could call it luck. But I knew better than that. This was
redemption. Elizabeth had saved me with her forgiveness, had saved
me with her honest heart.

She’d given me back my family, and together,
we would grow it, foster it. Foster us.

Joy pounded steadily in my chest.

No, things just didn’t get any better than
this.

I stared at her for a second more, before I
reluctantly untangled myself from the comfort of our twisted
blanket and sheets. I stood and stretched my arms over my head,
wishing I could crawl back in bed with Elizabeth and wake her up
the way I really wanted to. I’d woken up with an intense urge to
bury myself in her, to get lost in her body for hours and
hours.

Instead I’d lain silently at her side and just
listened to her breathe.

She needed her rest. She was feeling so much
better than she did in the beginning, but that baby girl still took
so much out of her. Today would be nonstop with the last minute
wedding plans…and tomorrow…I just wanted her to feel well, to bask
in it, for her wedding day to be perfect.

That’s what I wanted it to be.

Perfection in Elizabeth’s eyes.

I already knew it’d be perfection in mine
simply because in it, Elizabeth would finally become my
wife.

Nothing else mattered.

Casting one last smile at her sleeping form, I
forced myself into the alcove bathroom and turned the shower on
high. I stripped off my underwear and waited for the water to warm
up. Steam began to spill over the top of the walk-in shower, and I
stepped into the heated spray. I lifted my face to the flood of
water and scrubbed my palms up through my hair as I drenched my
body.

Exhilaration traveled beneath my skin, an
excitement that buzzed in my bones. I couldn’t wait.

After so long, I had finally made this
right
.

My senses prickled in awareness as I felt
it…eyes tracing me from behind. Or maybe it was her smell that
infiltrated my mind. Either way, Elizabeth’s presence engulfed
me.

Slowly I turned to look over my shoulder,
blinking through the droplets of water that clung to my
lashes.

And she was there,
my life.
Half her
body was concealed as she braced herself on the outside of the
shower wall, peering in at me. Her head was tipped to the side.
Waves of dark blonde dripped over one shoulder and brushed across
the swell of her perfect, round breast.

A muffled groan rumbled from somewhere deep in
my chest as my attention raked down to relish in every exposed inch
of her luscious skin.

Completely bare, Elizabeth stood before
me.

I swallowed hard. “What are you doing,
Elizabeth?”

She was still thin, though her hips were just
a little fuller, and distinct lines cut into the muscles of her
defined legs. And her stomach. Was it wrong that I found that bump
the sexiest thing I’d ever seen? She wasn’t all that big yet, but
it was pronounced, a round swelling of her belly that fit perfectly
in the splay of both of my hands.

She was watching me with something akin to
lust, though that look harbored so much more than simple desire. In
it was everything I felt when I looked at her.

Devotion and need. Adoration and this passion
that would never let us go.

I grew hard, my body reacting to this
temptation. I was all too happy to step into her snare.

“I woke up to an empty bed,” she murmured in
the most seductive way, in a way that only Elizabeth could because
it was only her voice that I recognized. “And I don’t get to sleep
with you tonight…and…I just needed you,” whispered from her mouth.
She gently lifted her chin and dragged her fingertips down the soft
slope of her neck. Her fingers fluttered as they trailed down to
the valley between her breasts, beckoning me to look at her, to see
her.