A Gift for All Seasons (17 page)

“You good?” he asked, getting a drowsy, “Mmm-hmm,” in response.

He lifted her knees, positioned himself, said a prayer. For what, he wasn’t sure.

“Look at me,” he commanded again, his heart stuttering when she did. Inch by exquisitely agonizing inch, he slid into her, watching her face for signs of whatever she might not be inclined to admit. At one point she tensed, only to immediately shake her head.

“No, it’s fine, I’m okay...oh...” Another inch. And another long, breathy, “Ohhh...”

He retreated. Gently pushed forward again. Farther, this time. April sighed, and smiled, her eyes drifting closed again.

He kissed her. “Close?”

“Shh,” she whispered, wrapping herself around him, taking him in. Smiling.

Holding him still.

There should be a medal for this,
he thought, sweat beading on his brow from holding back. Then she sighed again and mumbled, “Go,” and he felt like a horse let out of the starting gate, except one push and over she went, panting and laughing and crying and carrying him right along with her.

Right into enemy territory.

* * *

His slice of pecan pie finished, Patrick set his empty plate on the coffee table, slightly startling April when he then stretched out on her couch to lay his head on her lap, claiming her hand to toy with her fingers as he stared into the fire.

Yes, they’d finally gotten around to eating—Patrick in his pants and shirt, April in her pale blue fleece robe and what she strongly suspected was rampant sex hair—although April had been a trifle distracted, what with glowing so much and all. Not distracted enough, however, that she hadn’t put away more food in the past half hour than she had all week. According to her cousins, sex was supposed to
diminish
your appetite. Not in this case, April thought with a smile as she stroked Patrick’s short, bristly hair. When the endorphins wore off she was probably gonna be a little sore. Ask her if she cared.

And you know something else? She had a really strong suspicion this would not have been nearly so much fun when she was a teenager. Especially since her partner would have most likely been a teenage boy. And for all Blythe’s smug “Nyah-nyah-nyah, I did it first,” truth be told her cousin hadn’t sounded all that thrilled about the “doing” part of things.

“I suppose you’re gonna tell your cousins all about this?” he said, and she laughed.

“That I’m a big girl now? I think they’re going to guess that part. But the details? Not if they tied me up and tortured my bare feet with feathers.”

She felt the rumble of his chuckle beneath her palm. “Wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Neither would I. But I won’t break. Promise.”

He arched to look up at her, then lifted his hand to the back of her head to pull her down for a kiss, whispering, “I’m sure you won’t,” when he was done.

What is going through your head right now, Patrick Shaughnessy?

Oh, they’d cuddled, and kissed, and exchanged what she assumed were the standard postcoital pleasantries. She’d thanked him—with every scrap of sincerity she could dredge up while still limp as a dishrag—and he’d said, “No problem,” with a ridiculously huge grin on his face, which tickled her immensely. Then he’d insisted she soak for a while in a hot bath—which tickled her even more—while he fixed them plates of food. In other words, as far as first times went? On a scale of one to ten, hers was well in the double digits.

Still, even though he was doing and saying all the “right” things, April could sense he wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he would have her believe. As though he was trying
too
hard, maybe? She also kept thinking she needed to say something to reassure him, somehow, but Lord alone knew what that might be.

And that was even before she’d finally finished telling him about her marriage. He’d listened while she’d talked, frowning into his food, mostly, but not saying much. Already she’d figured out he needed time to process things. Which apparently included when, or even if, to open up to her the same way.

The good news was...he was still here. That he hadn’t bolted, that he had listened, that he was now lying here with his head in her lap, gave her hope. A foolish, foundationless hope, maybe, but hope nonetheless.

Because she thought she might be falling in love. Not that she’d ever say this to Patrick. Lord, no. Not yet, at any rate. Because
of
course
it was too early—to be thinking it, let alone saying it—even she knew that. And she wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t the hormones talking, since if you asked her right now to tell you why she thought she was falling, she couldn’t have begun to tell you why. All she knew was, she’d never felt like this before. That whatever this was, it was over and above what she’d called “love” up to this point.

But that thing about wanting to make him happy? To do whatever she could to see that grin again? And again and again and again?

Probably isn’t going away anytime too soon, nope.

He curled forward to sit up and face the fire, propping the soles of his feet on the edge of the coffee table before swinging his arm over her shoulders and drawing her close. “I know I’ve been kind of quiet, but that’s just me turning things over in my head. And somewhere along the line it occurred to me what a big deal it was, you trusting me like that. Can’t say as I understand why, to be honest, but you did. That was a huge step you took, and you took it with me, and, well, I guess I’m still kind of shocked.”

“Silly goober,” she said, and he softly laughed.

“My point is, though, that I got to thinking...the least I could do is trust you back. As much as I’m able to, anyway. And I suppose you’re curious.” He paused. “About what happened.”

“Your mother already—”

“She wasn’t there, April,” he said, and she thought she’d crumble inside.

Nestling against his chest, she slipped her hand inside his shirt, the scarring already familiar, almost reassuring in a weird sort of way. “I’m not sure
curious
is the right word. I only want to know if you want to tell me. I want to know...” She cleared her throat, sending up a silent prayer for the right words. “I want to know
whatever
you want to tell me. But I won’t pry, I promise. Or push. And if I do, tell me it’s off-limits and I’m good with that.”

“Really?”

“Let’s put it this way—I promise to try my best to be good with it. How’s that?”

“Deal,” he said, kissing the top of her head. He took his sweet time, though, cranking up, to the point that April wondered if he’d changed his mind. Then, at last, he said, “My gut instinct, afterward, was to shut down. Talking about it—what I remembered, anyway, a large chunk of that day is still missing in my brain—was the last thing I wanted to do. Took at least three therapists to get it through my head that was not the way to go. Crap happens to everybody. But you can’t deal with it by repressing the memories. I’d convinced myself...”

He paused, then released a breath in her hair. “That I was too tough to grieve. That admitting how lost and angry and resentful I felt was a sign of weakness. Because those feelings scared the bejeezus out of me.”

She thought of his mother’s words. Realized, at that moment, that perhaps her mission wasn’t only about bringing him joy, but about giving him permission to
feel
. To be human, for heaven’s sake. “They scare the bejeezus out of everybody, honey.”

“Took me a while to accept that, though. That said...other than my last therapist and my family, I haven’t talked about this to anyone.”

“Not even your ex-wife?”

“I tried to, believe me. She didn’t want to hear. Said she didn’t want all that ‘negativity’ poisoning the atmosphere.” At April’s silence, Patrick said, “No comment?”

“None that a good Southern girl should be making,” she said, and he smiled, kissed her hand.

She then listened in silence as he told her about the explosion, the fire, his momentary awareness of complete chaos as adrenaline and instinct took over, before everything went black. About waking up in the hospital in Germany to his mother standing over him, the tears in her eyes giving the lie to her smile. About having no recall of rescuing his teammates, the agony of realizing who hadn’t made it. The months of treatment that followed, the painful surgeries and treatments, the constant battle against discouragement and depression. And guilt, no matter how often he’d been reminded of the men he’d saved. The number of times he’d seriously considered ending it all.

“Then I’d remember I had a daughter. A little girl I’d hardly ever seen. Nat could’ve brought her to San Antonio, but she didn’t want to ‘traumatize’ her. And maybe, at that point, she was right, I don’t know...”

He released another breath. “At least she sent me pictures and videos. I mean, I loved Lili anyway, she was my kid. But getting to see her smile, and her first step...it didn’t matter how little I’d seen her in the flesh, I still would’ve killed for that kid, you know? So, yeah, she’s what kept me going. Guess I figured, since I hadn’t died, God wasn’t letting me off the hook yet. That Lili was waiting for me. Counting on me.” Another pause. “I just had no idea how much.”

“You mean because your wife...?”

“Left me, yeah. Left both of us. Last spring, after I’d been home three, four months. Funny thing was, Lili was fine with her daddy not looking ‘normal.’ Her mother, however...she never could come to terms with it. Although I have to say...”

Patrick lowered his feet to the floor, removing his arm from around April’s shoulders to lean forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “All the talking, the therapy...it brought me back from the brink of hell, sure. But it couldn’t fix what was broken inside me.”

Gently, April laid her palm between his shoulder blades. “You think you’re broken?”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I know I am, April. Even when things feel almost good again, nothing feels the same.
I
don’t feel the same. I don’t mean about how I look, although the stares still catch me off guard sometimes. But being over there, seeing what I saw, seeing my men...” She saw his jaw clench, even as she felt him shudder underneath her hand. “It took a helluva bigger toll than I had any idea it would when I signed up as a wet-behind-the-ears nineteen-year-old. I’m not sure anybody ever comes to terms with that. Not completely.”

He twisted to look into her eyes, the frustrated expression in his tearing her to pieces. “Tonight, being with you... I can’t even describe it. It almost felt, I don’t know...” He faced the fire again, his head shaking. “Real.”

She stilled, hardly daring to breathe. “But that’s good, right?”

“I said it
felt
real,” he said softly. “That doesn’t mean it was.”

Her eyes swimming, April wrapped her arm around his back and laid her head on his shoulder. “It sure as heck was real for me,” she whispered, then smiled. “Twice.” When he snorted a laugh in return, she said, “And if that’s your way of saying this was a one-shot deal, I’m going to be
very
pissed.”

Now he barked out a laugh, before turned to cup her face in his hands. “Even if I say things are never going to change? That I can never give you all of myself because I’m barely able to scrape enough together to give to my kid?”

She thought, weighing her options. Could she handle another conditional relationship? Was she a fool for even considering putting off her life again—putting off “real”—after she already had for so long? And it wasn’t as if she didn’t know that loving a man didn’t pave the way to changing him. For sure it hadn’t worked for her mother with her father, and she wasn’t so much of a fool as to believe it would work with Patrick.

And if it hadn’t been for that
hope
singing and dancing and bouncing around inside her head, she might’ve made what most folks would call the right decision. She was tough, she knew that, but still—she’d never ceded that kind of power to another human being. Clay’s death had stung, yes, but Patrick’s rejection...that could potentially devastate her.

But giving up without trying would devastate her far more.

Because then she’d be giving up on Patrick, wouldn’t she? Exactly like his wife had.

April clumsily shifted to straddle his lap, the heat from the fire licking at her bare back as she let the robe slide off and linked her hands behind his neck. Patrick’s eyes immediately darkened, and April realized she didn’t feel like a hussy, brazen or otherwise. What she felt like, was a woman. A woman relishing being able to give whatever she had to her man.

For as long as he needed it.

“What you are, right now,” she whispered, teasing his mouth with hers, “is more than I’ve ever had before. The thought of giving this up when I just found it...” Softly, she kissed him again. “Now how much sense does that make?”

When he didn’t answer, she levered off his lap, trying not to trip over the robe, then held out her hand. Wordlessly he rose and took it, leading her back to the bedroom.

No, she definitely wasn’t going to be able to walk tomorrow. But inside her head, she’d be dancing like nobody’s business.

Chapter Nine

T
he next morning April scurry-waddled through the house, pulling her barely combed hair into a ponytail as she tried to focus on her long to-do list for the day: potential employees to interview, decorations to finish, her mother’s call to return. Because didn’t it figure the woman
would
call on the one night when answering the phone hadn’t been on the top of her list? At least Mama had said it wasn’t urgent, she just wanted to chat, which marginally mitigated the guilt factor.

She veered into the kitchen, yelping right along with Blythe, who, seated at the island, jumped and shoved down her laptop lid at April’s entrance.

“Damn, girl—give a person a heart attack, why not?”

“You should talk!” Pulse throbbing, April passed her cousin and headed straight for the Keurig. “What are you doing here?”

Blythe took a bite of something obviously left over from the night before. As usual, she’d taken casual chic to the next level—velvet leggings, four-inch-high ankle boots, a half-dozen random necklaces somehow not smothering at least three cleverly layered tops. “Potential new client, some moneybags couple out near where Ryder’s parents live. Saw pics of the inn on my website, asked if they could see it in person before deciding whether to hire me or not. Hope you don’t mind?”