Liberty (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

S
he had never been on vacation before but Ryan had insisted that they take a long weekend to go to South Padre Island, a little vacation spot on the coast of Texas. She sat next to him on the beach, soaking up the end-of-summer rays. Then, leaning over, she kissed his shoulder.

“You’ve been quiet lately. Are you feeling okay?”
Quiet
wasn’t the right word for it. He still spoke to her. He still made her smile. If anything, he had been even more attentive to her this past week. But he seemed pensive, worried almost, and she couldn’t figure out why.

At first she thought it was about money. She had asked, but he showed her their bank account. He even went through the trouble of setting one up just in her name, which she thought was strange but he assured her it was necessary.

Then she thought he was sick. She knew his head still hurt him. She knew that sometimes his scars still throbbed. But physically he seemed fine. He even went out jogging every morning this past week. That was odd for him, too. There was something off about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She tried not to worry about it. Part of her knew that she distrusted happiness, because she hadn’t had much of it in her life. She was always waiting for something else to go wrong.

“I’m fine.” He set his beautiful gray gaze on her. “I’m just wondering what life would have been like for you if you hadn’t gotten married at seventeen.”

“I never thought about it. I was so devastated by Maybell’s death that I didn’t think about what my life could have been like. I wanted somebody to love me and so when Ryan came around I jumped.”

“Didn’t you have a dream as a little girl? Didn’t you want to go to college or be a hairdresser? I don’t believe that you didn’t want more from your life.”

She had dreams but they were never clear or definite. They were just dreams of a better life, a different life.

“I love books. I love the way they smell, the way the paper feels on my fingers. I always wanted to write a book. I always wanted to tell a story with mythical creatures in a far-away land where kids could escape to. I think I would have liked to have been an English major in college.”

He reached over and stroked the curve of her cheek. “Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t. I had to work to help us stay afloat. Plus, it wasn’t like anybody was encouraging me to start writing.” She was afraid to tell Ryan then. He would have laughed at her.

“Is there anything you dream of now?”

She shook her head. “When I was first married I dreamed of this. I dreamed that you would be you.” She was embarrassed about her admission. “I don’t dream anymore. Right now I’m just focusing on remembering how happy I am in this moment.”

Ryan reached over and pulled her into his muscled arms, so her back rested against his bare chest.

“What about you? What do you want out of life? What do you dream of? What did you dream of?” He was silent for a long moment.

“I think my whole life I did what was expected of me. And then I joined the marines and that was something nobody expected me to do. Some people even fought me on it, but I had something to prove.”

“I’m glad you went in.” She snuggled into him, trying to get closer.

“Me, too,” he said softly. “You are what I dream of now.”

“You don’t have to say that, you big liar. I already admitted how much I love you.”

He chuckled softly in her ear. “I was dreaming about you in this bikini.” He snuck his fingertips into her top, brushing her nipples and making her squirm.

“I’m getting fat and you know it.” She could barely button her pants and her breasts seemed to be swelling daily.

“I love your body. I can’t keep my hands to myself. It’s verging on obsession.”

“I noticed, you perv. You were ogling me the other night in front of Mary. She turned three shades of red.”

“I know.” He cupped her tender breast in his hand. They felt heavy and slightly sore but he was always gentle. “I can’t help myself. You are just about the sexiest woman on the planet.” He slid the fingers of his other hand between her legs, stroking the soft skin of her thighs.

“Just about?” she teased.

“Excuse me. You are the sexiest woman on the planet and I’m very much in love with you.”

“I love you, too...” she moaned as he started to rub her through the fabric of her swimsuit. “But if you don’t stop that I’m going to—”

“Come? Well, darling, that’s the whole point of this.”

She laughed, feeling light for the first time in a very long time, and kissed him deeply until he was jelly in her hands.

“We need to get off this beach,” he panted. “Before we get kicked off.”

“Are you going to make love to me?”

“What the hell do you think?”

* * *

They had a beautiful weekend together. The best weekend she’d ever had, Lexy thought to herself as they drove up to their home. Ryan was insatiable, and tender and sweet and he kept looking at her like she was going to slip through his fingers. Even at night, when they slept, he wrapped himself around her, not letting her go, keeping her with him, as if to keep her safe. She appreciated the attention, the affection. It was something she had never experienced before. She never felt safe before. Even when she was a small child. She was always looking after Maybell, worried one day that the old woman wouldn’t be there. And then when she met Ryan and he hit her, he took away her security and replaced it with fear and self-loathing. But now it seemed she was healing. Her heart was healing. And her mind.

And her body.

Her period was late. For years it had come like clockwork, but now she had missed it for over a month. Her breasts were sore and she was gaining weight, but she couldn’t be pregnant. Ryan had tried over and over to get her pregnant after the miscarriage but she didn’t think it was possible.

But maybe it was possible. Maybe God had finally given her her blessing. Maybe he was telling her it was time. Maybe he was giving her what she had always wished for.

“Did you have fun this weekend?” Ryan asked her, pulling into their driveway. He looked at her for a long moment, seeming anxious about her answer.

“It was the best weekend of my life.” She smiled up at him, meaning every word. “Thank you. Thank you for making me happy.”

He smiled softly back at her. “Do you think you can take a few days off next week? I still want to take you to Austin. There are so many places I want to take you.” The way he said it, almost wistfully made her feel...sad. Like he was trying to squeeze so much life in to such a short amount of time.

She was going to ask him what was the matter, but she stopped herself. She had asked him before. He had assured her it was nothing. “Can we afford another trip?”

“Yes.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “Don’t worry about the money. You’ll never have to worry about money again. You don’t have to work anymore, Lexy. Not if you don’t want to. I can take care of you now.”

She believed him, he was that sure of himself. So she pushed all those tiny little uneasy thoughts from her mind. She stepped out of the car, leaning against it and let the early September sun warm her skin. Placing her hands on her slightly rounded belly she thought about the possibilities. Praying for them.

I want to be a mommy.
She had always wanted a baby, her own big family. She wanted what most took for granted.

“What are you thinking about, Alexa?” He tilted her backward, wrapping his body around hers.

“Would you like to be a father?”

He grinned. “You know I would.”

“I want you to be the father of my children. Would you be okay with that?”

She saw the happiness bloom in his face. “I’m more than okay with that. So are we going to try for a baby?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to try hard. We’ve been practicing a lot.” She didn’t want to tell him just yet, because she wasn’t sure herself. But soon. She would find out for sure soon.

“You’re right.” He fluttered kisses across her chin. “I’m excited to give you a baby. I want to kiss your belly and hold a little piece of you in my arms. I want to make a family with you.”

* * *

He continued to kiss her. Her neck, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose. He had to tell her. He had to come clean about his memory. He had a whole life left in limbo—a good job, a fast-paced lifestyle, money. He had respect in his old life. It was a good life but not a better life than the one he shared with Lexy. Texas was a place he had grown to love almost as much as the pretty woman he called his wife. The thought of leaving her was unbearable, but exposing her to the life he had before the marines was something he couldn’t do.

They had to make a new life of their own. They would make a new life. Lexy wanted to give him babies.
Him,
not the brute she married, the man who died at his side. She loved
him,
wanted to spend her life with
him.
He wanted to hear her call him Cooper not Ryan. He longed to give her everything he was capable of giving.

He was going to tell her, next week, just as soon as he heard back from the military. He wanted to be sure he did things the right way.

“I love you,” she whispered, tearing him from his hazy thoughts.

“I love you, too, honey.”

“Cooper?”

He heard his name, his real name, and at first it didn’t faze him.

“Cooper!”

He froze.

Not now.

He wanted to tell Lexy on his own terms. He wanted to break it to her gently and map out their new life together. He had a plan. He had already taken the steps. He just needed a few more days.

He looked to his left and there was his former life staring him in the face and he knew his plans had just gone up in smoke.

“Caroline. Mother.” He couldn’t describe the feelings that raced through him at seeing them. Love and guilt and anger and sorrow and regret, and even more, all mixed together.

It had been so long. So long since he had heard his mother’s, Helena Thomaston, voice or spent a holiday with her or said
I love you
to her.

Caroline looked the same and he barely spared a thought as to why she was there because he couldn’t pull his eyes off his mother. She had aged so much in the nearly two years he had been gone. Her hair was all white now, her skin ghostly pale, almost gray. She was so thin he could see her bones. She looked frail and old and not at all how he pictured her when he saw her in his mind. She was not the mother he had three years ago.

He knew it was hard for her to keep her vitality. Jacob was her baby and her favorite. She loved him, everybody loved him. She had a special soft spot for her baby that she didn’t have for Cooper, and then he was killed—accidently, in friendly fire—and she lost him. And in those days right after Jake had died, Cooper saw a wall go up in his mother. It was high but not insurmountable. He understood why she put it there.

Then her husband two weeks later, a massive heart attack at the dinner table. Cooper was there. Together they watched Edward Thomaston die, and instead of coming together in such a tragic time they grew apart. He had tried to bridge the gap. He had made an attempt at closeness, but his mother wanted none of it. She went on with her life. She went shopping with her friends. She had dinner parties at her house, but she never talked about Jacob or her husband. She never talked to him. She never wanted to.

Cooper thought she had gone cold. For a while he hated her for it. He went away to war thinking his mother was so cold that she didn’t care if he went, if he died, too. She didn’t try to stop him. She didn’t say a thing. But he had thought a lot about her in the two weeks since his memories had returned. He thought about seeing her again. If it was better for him to break it to her that he was alive, or if it was better to have the military call first.

He wondered if she would be happy to see him, or if she would even care.

But then he thought about his mother, about his childhood with her. They may not have been as close as she was with Jacob, but he knew she loved him. He never doubted that.

The coldness. The silence. The pushing him away. It must have been how she grieved. It took seeing her again, seeing her drained and frail and so happy to see him to figure that out.

He realized he had been stupidly selfish.

The guilt hit him hard in that moment.

He turned to Lexy who looked so stoic for a moment. Then her face drained of color and she doubled over, clutching her stomach, causing his guilt to multiply tenfold. He grabbed for her, but she stood up straight, placing her hand out to keep him away. She looked betrayed.

He knew then he had done the wrong thing in making them all wait.

“Cooper—” His mother rushed toward him. “Is that you, sweetheart? Please tell me it’s you.”

He nodded, letting her clutch his face, closing his eyes while she kissed his cheeks.

“You look so different, sweetheart.” She held on to him, hugged him as hard as her frail body could manage. “You don’t know how I’ve missed you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She started to sob and he held her, trying to remember the last time he had hugged her. She didn’t do it when he had come to say goodbye right before basic training. Or at Jacob’s and his father’s funerals, or the days each of the men had died. It made so much sense now. She didn’t because she couldn’t.

He felt eyes on him and looked up to find Lexy staring at him, bewildered.

“You remember.” It wasn’t a question, and in those two little words there was a world of hurt.

He nodded, knowing their quiet little world was crashing down around them.

“You’re alive,” his mother chanted while he held her. “Thank goodness. You’re alive.”

In that moment he felt like he was torn in two. Torn between the old life he had foolishly run away from and the new life he had come to love.

“The military contacted us,” Caroline started. She looked just the way he remembered with long red hair and a slender body. She was classically beautiful and graceful and wealthy. She was everything the girl he fell so hard in love with was not. “They told us that there had been a mistake, that a soldier in Texas contacted them saying he was you. That you had Ryan Beecher’s dog tags in your hand and that’s how the mistake had been made. They—they checked the dental records. They said it was Ryan Beecher who died. Not you.” Her eyes searched his face as if trying to see if he were real. “I knew you weren’t dead. Thank heaven I was right.”