To Have and to Hold (11 page)

He felt the flit of her body against his in the water, like a lake creature brushing by in the depths. Just the silk of her leg against his, and then she was gone, but he knew it would be awhile before he could haul himself back onto the raft.

She pulled herself out of the water, glistening all over.

The cold water had done its work and he was able to dredge himself out of the lake and settle on the raft again.

She reached a hand out and indicated the angry, red scar that marred his torso on the right side. Her fingers didn’t even brush him, but he felt the air move over his wet skin, and his whole body tightened. God.

“Ugly, huh?”

She shook her head. “It’s not ugly. It’s a sign that you lived. It could never be ugly to me.”

He was not a sentimental man—or at least he never had been,
before
. The self he remembered would have shrugged something like that off, like a pitcher shaking off a catcher’s signals. But he knew—with the part of him that seemed to still know everything worth knowing—that she meant it. That it was said without calculation, without manipulation, without any intention at all other than to tell the truth. And that same part of him needed to hear it, and needed it to be true. So when she reached out her hand again, her fingertips floating over the evidence of his survival, he squeezed it briefly before he let it go.

They grabbed Red Robin burgers on the way home, made the girls take showers, and tucked them, fragrant with shampoo and dopey from the sun and activity, into bed.

Since Hunter’s return home, they’d been taking turns saying good night to the girls—Trina first, and then Hunter. But tonight, he didn’t wait for her to be finished before he came in. While she was sitting on the lower bunk, reminding Phoebe in a low voice how proud she was of her, how lucky she felt to be her mother, Hunter climbed the ladder so his head poked over the upper railing, and she heard his low voice murmuring similarly to Clara.

She shouldn’t read anything into it. He’d just chosen to streamline the process tonight.

But it felt cozy. Homey.

It felt like something she’d imagined during his absence, something she’d dreamt up before her hopes and expectations had gotten dashed.

Like the squeeze of his hand over hers this afternoon. Like the flashes of heat in his eyes, the all-too-familiar way his gaze had settled, heavy, on her half-bare breasts.

Hope had bloomed, even unwanted, amid all that.

“That was a fun day,” Phoebe whispered.

Trina loved bedtime. Because no matter how much of an adolescent her daughter had become during the day, at bedtime she was a child again, trusting, innocent, confiding. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Do you think we’ll do stuff like that with Daddy?”

Would they? She didn’t know. If Stefan took an interest in them that was more than a passing fancy. If he didn’t find that they cramped his style.

Her stomach hurt a little bit at the thought. Because she could hold her own feelings in check and keep herself from getting hurt again, but the idea of Phoebe’s disappointment was more than she could bear.

“I don’t know, hon’,” she said. “I hope so. I think so. But Daddy—he’s very busy. So we’ll see. But I’ll do cool things with you.” She leaned down and touched her lips to her daughter’s smooth forehead. “I love you, Phoebs.”

“How much?”

“A bazillion, two gigahertz, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

“I love you a bazillion, two gigahertz, and two partridges in a pear tree.”

Hunter, who had descended the ladder, crossed behind her. His body didn’t touch hers, but she could feel the energy and heat of it, and her body hummed in response; she wondered if he could feel it. She wondered whether he’d meant any of it—her hand in his, the way he’d heated her skin with a glance.

“Hey, Phoebe. I had a good time with you today. I’m sorry I don’t remember the last time we hung out, but I’m glad we got another chance.”

Trina’s heart squeezed. Today—as he’d always been—Hunter had been easygoing with Phoebe, funny and noncommittal, and her usually shy daughter had opened up to him. There had been only a few moments—and if she didn’t know him so well, she might not even have noted them—when she saw him fall, for just a split second, into the darkness of forgetting.

In one of those moments, he’d looked to Trina and she’d smiled to tell him it was okay, and she’d seen relief overcome panic. And been absurdly touched by the fact that her presence soothed him. Before she’d remembered that it didn’t, couldn’t, matter.

“Me, too.” Phoebe’s voice was small but pleased.

“Good night, kiddo.”

He hesitated in the doorway, and his eyes snagged hers, dark and serious. “Good night, Trina.” Something in the weave of his gaze and voice left her breathless.

“Good night, Hunter.”

He went out, his fingers wrapping the edge of the doorframe, and whether the gesture was deliberate or not, she felt as if he’d let that lingering hand drift over her skin.

Oh, you
fool
, she told herself, as if that would help. As if it would make the way she felt go away, when nothing would, except time and distance and, eventually, forgetting.

She was envious of his forgetting, she realized.

She climbed the bunk ladder and peeked over the top at Clara, who had drawn her quilt up to her chin.

“Did it work okay?” she whispered. “With the tampons today?”

They’d had an awkward but fruitful lesson on the topic earlier; a tearful Clara had declared that she would never, ever, ever get it to work, but ultimately emerged triumphant from the bathroom and thrown her arms around Trina, whose chest had felt full to overflowing.

“Mmm-hmm,” Clara murmured.

“Good. ’Night, Clara.” She settled a kiss on the girl’s forehead, just as she had done to her own daughter. “I love you, hon’.”

But before she could retreat down the ladder, Clara reached out and grasped Trina’s wrist. “Wait. Don’t go.”

Trina leaned in close, thinking Clara had something she wanted to ask. Or say. But Clara only held on tight to Trina’s wrist, and tears filled Trina’s eyes as she realized what Clara was saying.
Don’t go. Don’t go away. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us.

“Sweetie. I have a couple more days. And we’ll visit.”

But as she said it, she knew it was not nearly enough, not with all Clara had lost.

“It’s not the same. It’s not the same. Don’t go.”

“Oh, baby,” Trina said, and rested her head beside Clara’s on the pillow. “I love you. I wish I could stay.” It felt like her chest was bursting open, like her heart was breaking into a million pieces. For herself, and for Clara, who had lost a mother and was losing another.

What a muddle.

She blinked back tears.

Clara’s lids were heavy, and her grip on Trina’s wrist had begun to slacken. But the vise around Trina’s heart had only tightened.

This
.
This is what I want,
she thought, watching as Clara’s last long blink turned to a sigh and sleep.

I’m sorry
.

It was Hunter’s voice, when he’d told her he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—try to find his way back to her.

It was her own voice, telling Clara she would never have let her love her like a mother if she’d known it wasn’t for keeps.

It was the whole damn world, weeping for what couldn’t be.

This
.
This is what you get for wanting.

She lay in bed, unable to sleep.

She couldn’t stop thinking—of these last few days and how good they’d been, the rhythms of being with the girls, watching Hunter in his element, strong and fierce, the four of them working on a project as a—

Not a family!

What was she supposed to think? Today had been—it had been unmistakably
something
. Some progress toward—

Toward what, exactly? She was leaving Saturday. And thank God she was, because she didn’t seem to have the slightest ability to keep her head on straight where Hunter was concerned. She kept getting mushy and flirty and hopeful, and she could only be headed toward a fall.

It had probably been a terrible mistake to offer to stay because of Clara’s period. She should have just—

But she didn’t see how she could have done otherwise. She wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself for it.

Her body felt it before her ears heard it or her mind registered it—Hunter’s cry from upstairs.

She wouldn’t go.

He was a grown man. He could take care of himself.

She was a grown woman. She had to take care of herself—her sanity, her pride, her heart.

The cry came again, low and tortured.

She’d go upstairs. Shake him awake. If he tried to grab her, touch her—if he tried
anything—
she’d put an immediate end to it.

She found herself standing beside her bed. She found herself at the door of her room. She found herself in the hallway, down the hallway, at the bottom of the stairs.

She might not have any skill for pretending with Hunter, but she knew she was pretending to herself. She was pretending that there was any chance that she could resist him. She was pretending that her plan was to stop him if he tried. She was pretending that pride had the slightest chance of winning out over what she felt in his arms.

She found herself outside his bedroom.

She found herself inside the door, at the side of his bed.

She didn’t wait for him to grab her or touch her or kiss her. She lay down beside him and kissed him. For the worst of all reasons. Because she wanted it more than she cared about anything else.

She kissed him and kissed him, loving the way he roused under her and groaned, the way he reached for her without hesitation. His tongue slick and alive, his fingers gripping her arms, sliding down to grasp her backside, pulling her close.

She wanted him to stay asleep so she could go with him into whatever he was dreaming, to that place where he remembered and wanted, where they shared a history.

But, of course, this time he woke up.

“I didn’t dream it the other night.” His voice was rough and fuzzy with sleep.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream.”

She couldn’t see him well in the dark, but she could tell that his eyes were on her face. He’d loosened his grip on her, but he hadn’t pushed her away or tried to extricate himself. She could feel the length of his erection wedged between them, and she had to exert conscious effort not to wriggle against it. Not to rock her hips. She wondered what would happen if she did. If he would press back or stop her. Would it be night rules, or day rules?

“Did you really think it was a dream?”

“No.”

“But you pretended you did.”

“I didn’t really
know
. I suspected it wasn’t. But there’s no really good way to ask a woman if you actually—”

There was a smile in his voice now.

“Guess not,” she admitted.

There was something she wanted to know. And if she asked it, everything would change, one way or another. One of the dreams she’d held onto for too long would fall away, and
she
would be wide awake.

She asked it anyway, because it was night. Because she could feel him trying not to move against her the same way she was trying not to move against him, could feel what it cost him in held breath and taut muscle. Because it might be her last chance to talk to this half-awake part of him that remembered her.

“Did you
want
it to be a dream?”

He got very still under her, so still she could feel the slight throb of blood in the thick vein that ran the length of him, the slight involuntary clench of internal muscle—his body trying to assert itself against his better judgment.

She’d almost despaired of an answer by the time he spoke. She’d readied herself to stand, to pull away, to lose the heat and familiarity of him.

To say goodbye to the dream where they could still meet.

And then he said it.

“No.”

He’d woken up with her tongue in his mouth and he’d thought,
Hell, yeah,
and then,
Oh, wow, this is going to keep happening, isn’t it?
And it had felt as good as a dream, the softness and strength of her body on his, how her kiss begged him, those almost-noises she made in the back of her throat.

He could have stopped, then, but he couldn’t have, either.

This is bigger than my mind.

He followed the dream of her where it took him.

My body remembers.

She’d gotten him so hard. And not just that. She’d roused all of him, body and lost shards of memory, something as deep as soul, and he was still vibrating at that fever pitch, like the slightest touch, or even a command from her, could take him over the edge. And he wanted it, the flesh weak at this vulnerable hour. He wanted to throw caution and good sense and his protectiveness of her feelings to the fucking wind and finish what she’d started.

He could smell her, rich and salty.

He wanted her, a craving so sharp and bad it was in his bones and fingernails.

Fuck
.

Did you want it to be a dream?
she’d asked.

And he’d told her the absolute, complete, unequivocal truth.

No.

She sighed after his revelation, and for a moment—a ridiculously hopeful moment—he thought she was about to kiss him again. But then she slipped off him and sat beside him on the bed. She reached for the light and left them blinking, like vulnerable night creatures exposed to day.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t wake up again tomorrow morning and pretend nothing happened. It—it
hurts.
And I know it’s not your fault. It’s my fault. But I—I can’t. So I’m sorry. For being confusing and sending mixed messages, but I have to go.”

She stood up, but without thinking at all about it, he reached for her hand, held her fast.

“Wait.”

Her eyes were big, with bruised shadows beneath. Her mouth soft and red and kissed. She looked scared and uncertain. She looked like he felt.

He could keep this safe for both of them. He could let her walk out of here without ever asking her all the questions that crowded his mind.

He knew that was what he should do. He should leave it alone. But he couldn’t, any more than she’d been able to when she’d asked him her question. Something had shifted today. When they’d played and teased in the water. When she’d reached for his scar. When she’d looked at him so tenderly and told him there was no ugliness in him.

“Was it always—like this?” he asked.

It was a relief to speak the words aloud. As if he’d been holding the question back ever since that first time he’d woken to her.

“Like this?”

“This good.”

She tried not to smile at that, but he saw the hint of it. “Yes.”

“So we did have sex. Before.”

“Oh, yes.”

Now she looked at him. Now she let him see the heat and longing. “And you tried resisting it last time, too.”

He nodded. That made perfect sense to him. That he would be consistent across the gulf of his lost self.

“But you wanted it to happen?”

Her face was still mostly hidden, the half-light adding a veil. “No. Not at first. Because of the girls. Because if they’d found out, and then things hadn’t worked out, it would have been hard for them, and I didn’t think it was worth risking that. And because of Dee.”

It was the first time she’d said Dee’s name, at least in his available memory.

“Because it felt like taking something that was hers.”

She and Dee had connected because of the girls, but over time, waves and smiles at pickup and drop-off had morphed into coffee and confessions. For Dee, at least, he knew it had been a significant friendship. He could imagine how crossing that line, even after death, might feel very wrong.

“But we—we did. We did it anyway.”

She nodded.

“And it was—good?”

Some memory lit behind her face, a half-smile, and she was twice as beautiful. “It was amazing. And we both said—we both said it wasn’t like anything else. I kept trying to make analogies with food. Like if you’d only ever had orange juice from concentrate and then someone squeezes you a glass at the table. And you were like,
That other thing? That wasn’t even orange juice
. Or chocolate. We actually had sort of a fight about chocolate, because I said it was like if you’d been eating only grocery-store milk chocolate and then you discovered, I don’t know, Ghirardelli dark chocolate or something, you’d be like,
That thing? Wasn’t even chocolate
. But you said that for s’mores, the grocery-store stuff was actually better because it tasted like childhood. And we argued about it. Not really arguing. Kidding around. I said if you still thought you wanted that grocery-store stuff after you’d had real chocolate, maybe you hadn’t just come as hard as I had—”

She was smiling. Grinning, absolutely beautiful with her eyes all alight and the joy shining under her skin. Lost in the story she was remembering, and
God
, he wanted to be there with her,
so bad
. Where she’d gone, into their history, what she was seeing, what she was feeling—he wanted it. And he felt so howlingly lonely all of a sudden, a breaking in two that he couldn’t bear for a second.

She suddenly seemed to recall herself. Stiffened, her expression closing down. “I’m sorry.” She turned away. “I don’t think this is a good idea. It’s not just your history. It’s mine, too. And I—can’t do it. Tell it to you like it’s just some
story
. Someone else’s story.”

But it wasn’t like that. Not something at a distance from him. True, he couldn’t remember. But—

It felt like his story, too. And for the first time, he
wanted it to be his story
.

The realization terrified him. He had
no right
. No right to raise her hopes.

“I don’t blame you for that,” he said. “Not at all. You’ve gotten jerked around enough.”

She started to get up from the bed. But then she hesitated. “Why did you ask that question?”

He knew she was referring to when he’d asked if it had been good between them.

“To satisfy curiosity? To help you get your memory back?”

He understood what she was asking. And how all of these questions had been leading them, even in the dark, toward an answer. Toward the only possible answer.

“No,” he said. “No. I need—I want to know what happened. I want to know what I felt, because—”

Her gaze scraped over his face, left him raw, like she’d looked and seen everything there was to see and taken away the last of his protective shell. But the converse, too. Like he’d taken away the last of hers. The two of them utterly naked, all pale, thin skin.

“I think I might be starting to feel that way again.”