Divine (16 page)

Matt’s throat clogged, and tears burned his
eyes. He waited so long, wanted her so much, he couldn’t move,
couldn’t process what he saw. Didn’t know what he felt. He’d longed
to pull her into his arms, hold and kiss her until they both melted
into a pile. Now that she was here, he couldn’t. Too many
unanswered questions.

Moisture covered her cheeks and chin. A
god-awful sound escaped her. “Matt,” she said through her hands and
sobbing. “Oh, God, Matt!” But she didn’t move.

Jeez, he wanted her. “Trina,” he said again,
too shocked to think of anything else. He dreamed, hoped she’d come
to him, and still, in his wildest imagination, he didn’t believe
the day would ever arrive. Bradley told him she was doing better.
He thanked the stars every night, but he didn’t go to her.
Couldn’t, not with how callously the Lovetts treated him. She had
to decide what she wanted. He wouldn’t push it. No matter how much
he wanted her, he wouldn’t impede on her relationship with her
parents. By no means were they nice, and he questioned their
motives more than once, but they were her parents. At least she had
them.

“I have so much to explain, so much to tell
you.”

His body zinged from the desperation in her
voice and came to life. “I want to hear every word.” He couldn’t
resist touching her and moved forward. His desire to reach her
crashed into him with such force, any minute he’d leap and land on
top of her. “But first—”

“Don’t.” She held up a hand to stop his
advance. “Matt, you can’t touch me.”

Not the dramatic words he wanted to hear. He
leaned against her car, folded his arms, and crossed his ankles,
closing himself off. She wasn’t there for him, to be with him. Not
long ago she had another man’s ring on her finger.

“This is coming out all wrong.”

“Then try another tactic.”

He yearned to drown in the warm forest eyes
that leveled on him.

Clearly, she had as much trouble as him
figuring out what to say next. He should wait her out, but if she
came to say “thanks for everything, I’m moving on” and “goodbye,”
then this little meeting best conclude as quick as possible. Before
it did though, he needed answers. “I’ll go first. I have wanted you
so badly I could hardly stand it, but you’re right—talk before
touch. I don’t understand how you broke contact with me.”

“I didn’t.” She gaped. “You hadn’t answered
my phone calls.” Waterworks flew. “My texts. My emails. I thought
you’d moved on. My letters!” Her hands tightened into balls at the
end of toned arms. Her shapely tanned legs were equally in great
shape. She looked good, real good.

“I sat in the barracks, anxious and eager for
a letter from you. Do you know what hearing from you did for me?”
He held back the tears fighting for release. He had to get this
out, tell her how much she hurt him. “For days on end, I waited,
waited for you to make some form of contact,” he growled out. “You
never did!”

“I tried. You’re the most decent person I
know. My feelings, our bond, they haven’t changed. Matt, if
anything, they’re so much stronger. Your anger tells me you still
care so much about us, about the heartbeat of us.”

Fuck!
Moisture tipped out of the rim
of his eyes and burned his face.

She twisted her mouth one way then the other.
“The night before you left for the Marines, I was afraid if I made
love with you, I would lose my soul and never recover. The thing
is—” She stepped closer. “I started losing it the day we met by the
river, the day you rescued me…”

She moved another step, putting within arm’s
reach.

All he had to do was remove the distance
between them, kiss her, and the baggage keeping them apart would
disappear.

“I haven’t recovered, and I hope I never do.”
She paused.

That confused him. He waited patiently for
her to continue. For her to do something, anything but just stare
at him.

She stroked a finger along his face. “I
haven’t recovered from the pool of want when I’m with you. When I’m
away from you, I feel like part of me is missing. You’re everything
to me.”

“Then how? How could you…” Asking her how she
let another man put a ring on her finger proved more difficult than
he thought.

“People interfered.”

The pulse in his neck jumped. Heat roiled in
his stomach. “What people? Who are you talking about?” Even as he
asked the questions, he knew the answers. Her parents. “How? How
could they? They always tried to keep us apart, but we prevented
it. Why did you let them?”

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
With a lost look, she eyed him from beneath her lashes. “I didn’t.
My mom diverted your emails. Cal blocked your cell number.”

Trained in multiple ways to contain the
enemy, thoughts he would rather not act on rolled through his mind,
one at a time, as he tried not to react. He balled his hands into
fists and let his short nails dig into his palms to deflect his
grumble.

“Cal’s on his honeymoon,” she said, stopping
his thoughts of ways to confront him. “He married someone whose
father’s bank account could pay the national debt.”

Not surprising, he moved onto someone else so
quickly. From the brief encounter he had with Cal at Maggie’s Café,
he didn’t appear to be a scorned lover, but a man who didn’t want
to be outdone. “Do you miss him?”
Please say no.

“No, I don’t.”

He bit his bottom lip to stop from
smiling.

“He was convenient, nothing more. I used him
as much as he used me.”

Whether he liked it or not, he started to
understand how their situation got out of control. Both of them had
hurt feelings. Still, the letters nagged him.

“In the coma, I heard every despicable word
my parents said to you. I’m so sorry.”

Suddenly feeling vulnerable, he uncrossed his
legs and braced a hand on the hood of her car. “You could
hear?”

“Yes. My parents and I have talked. They’ve
promised to butt out of my life.” She raised a finger. “I omitted
some information, things you need to hear, the reasons why I used
Cal.”

The short hairs on his neck rose. Had she
used him for sex? He tried to shove the thought out of his mind. It
was none of his business what she did or didn’t do. They weren’t,
nor never had been committed to one another. But it sure felt like
a full-on heart dedication.

“I called you millions of times until I grew
tired of unanswered phone calls.”

“I didn’t receive any calls.” He kept his
voice solemn.

“I know. I need to finish.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know that with the help of my mom,
Cal had changed your number in my phone. Each time I called or sent
you a text message, it went to a phone she purchased. On the
display screen, your name showed, not your number.”

“My number was the date we met.”

“I could never forget.”

“Plus one.” He smirked, remembering he picked
the number seven for the prominent freckles on her face.

“Yeah, plus one.” A beautiful smile stretched
across her face. “You might have to change your number. I have a
lot more freckles.”

“I think it’s good,” he said chuckling, and
thought about the Lovetts. It all made sense, in a weird way. They
disliked him so much they went to great lengths to sabotage their
daughter’s relationship with him. “You may have forgiven your
parents, but I don’t know if I will. Can you live with the idea of
them and me not getting along?”

“Yes. I haven’t let them off the hook yet,
maybe in time I can. Will you forgive me?”

The issue hovered over him like a dark
shadow. The fact remained she put on a man’s ring she didn’t love.
“Why did you wear his ring?”

The dullness in her expression as she relived
the past reflected on her face. “Mom invited Cal to dinner around
Christmastime a year ago. We stayed cordial with one another then
he came to Dartmouth to visit. I missed you so much it hurt. I
longed for company. Cadence chose a different guy every week. I
didn’t want that. Cal and I became friends.”

“Sounds harmless.”

“Yes, until Cal proposed at a family dinner.
My mom pushed. I stupidly allowed him to put the ring on my
finger.”

That he didn’t get. “Why would you?” he asked
again, hoping for a more direct answer this time.

“I was confused! You weren’t here!” She
raised her hands and dropped them with each exclamation. “Without
you, I thought the big bang love wouldn’t happen.”

The big bang love.
His chest filled.
Reactions he didn’t know what to do with—love, hope—pummeled
him.

“I considered settling for a nice
relationship.”

For a long moment he stared, his mind
whirling between her suggesting they could have the big bang love
Cadence used to tease her about, and the realization if she
couldn’t get that with Matt, then she’d settle for okay. “I—”

“I lost myself,” she interrupted, “lost what
was truly important to me, and hurt the only man that mattered.”
She rushed toward her trunk, opened it, and pulled out two stacks
of bound envelopes. She raised one stack higher than the other.
“Here are the letters I wrote.”

The unopened envelopes didn’t have a postmark
on them. “You never mailed them?”

“Oh, I had.” She frowned. “I put them on the
table, where the mail is always placed, for the maid to take to the
post office. When they disappeared, I assumed they were
mailed.”

The letters, the handwritten notes he didn’t
think she wrote, didn’t think she cared enough to write, were in
her hand. “How many?” He asked, fighting to not sound like a
whimpering child.

“I wrote one every week since the day you
left.” She wasn’t getting any bravo points for keeping her voice
strong either. “The rest are in my trunk.”

“I wondered.” Knowing she’d never stopped
reaching out to him swelled his chest, but months had passed since
Bradley found him, yet she didn’t make contact. “I figured since I
didn’t hear from you, I thought—”

“I had to recover before you saw me,” she
interrupted. “I needed time, space to think, to figure out my
future. You were never a question in the what-do-I-want-equation.
My parents were. My job. But never you.”

“Did you figure all that out?”

“Not quite, still working on the job.” She
hesitated. “Bradley gave me a lecture and then went on a hunting
expedition. Mom hid the letters in her office in a safe. She’ll be
pleased to learn her son is a whiz at cracking locks,” she said
with a sarcastic tone. “He cracked their safe, had a fling with one
of Dad’s lady partners, and took off to Florida.”

Bradley’s adventures intrigued him, but that
was a conversation for another day. “Does she know you have
them?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure she’s discovered
they’re gone, but since she shouldn’t have had them, whom will she
question? Me? My brother?” She chuckled, not a funny ha-ha type,
but a bitter one. “Bradley got after me for not mailing the letters
from Dartmouth. If I had, you would have received them.”

She raised her other hand. The letters he’d
written. The edges ragged, worn. “I enjoyed reading these while I
recovered.”

He tipped the stack and took in the weathered
paper. “You read them more than once.”

“Oh, yeah! Especially the ones where you
wrote in detail what you would do to me when you saw me next. I
hope that still stands.”

When he’d written those letters, he had no
idea how she’d react. Love the idea or tell him he crossed the
line. Her reaction overwhelmed and spellbound him. “Nothing’s
changed.”

“I’m so glad to hear you say that.” Her words
rushed out on a sob-gasp. The stacks of envelopes fell to the
ground. “I’ve missed you,” she said, throwing herself into his arms
and peppering his face with kisses.

The tension in his muscles evaporated. With
the frustration gone, his body went hard as a rock. The car
supported their weight as their hands and lips rushed to touch,
taste, and savor the sweet joy of homecoming.

He eased back and cupped her cheeks. She was
captivating, held so much love. The hope he had so long ago
returned. One question needed an answer. “I have to ask you
something.”

She smirked, touched his hand resting against
her cheek. “Hurry up. I’m a twenty-five-year-old virgin, and I’m
about to lose my patience.”

Pure excitement rushed through him and his
heart flipped. A laugh started deep in his belly, worked up his
chest, and he exploded in a fit of laughter. “You didn’t sleep with
Cal.”

“You thought…” She touched a finger to his
chest. “Are you still one?”

“I am, but don’t let word get out. It’s a
secret.”

She gasped, and her eyes widened. “You waited
for me.”

If the conversation weren’t so serious, it’d
be comical.

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed
it. “Sure did, babe. Being with anyone else was cheating.”

“Awe.” She breathed an endearing sigh.

He kissed her, long and hard, like a person
who finally had the ultimate prize.

Hooves stomped the dirt as the horse, alpaca,
and goat paced the fence. The scent of lavender, daffodils, and
tulips filled the air. For the first time since he saw the ring on
her finger, his senses grew to high alert. No longer would he walk
through emotions; he’d live them, feel each and every one.

He lifted her chin with his finger. Her sweet
face pierced his heart. “Marry me. Right here. Right now. Marry
me.”

“Who will do the ceremony?” She glimpsed at
the alpaca snorting. The horse nodded, his long mane rising and
falling. “Them?”

“The justice of the peace.”

“I want to, but Matt—”

A familiar ping of disappointment soured his
stomach. Had he misread her reactions?

“I’m not waiting another second.”

Imitating her behavior years ago at the
river, she plastered her body against him and held his cheeks in
her palms. “I’ve wanted two things in my life.” She wept. “You, and
thanks to you, Divine.”