Return to Marker Ranch (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

L
ORI
GASPED
,
WELCOMING
the night air into her body, trying to cool the burning behind her eyes, in her lungs, deep in her heart. She stumbled down the slope alongside the bar, desperate to get away from the chatter inside. Glancing around, she spotted a group of picnic tables under a shadowy stand of pines. The tears came before she made it to their sheltering darkness. And with them, a sense of bewilderment. How could something that happened so long ago still hurt so much?

“Oh God,” she whispered, the weight of regret pushing her down onto one of the wooden benches. “Why did I...” The sobs didn't give her a chance to finish.

Her friends had been talking about babies. Sunny had two. Heather and Tina each had one. They were great moms, showing photos and trading sweet stories about their little ones.

She should have been happy for them. But all she could think about was the baby she didn't have. The baby whose tiny, barely there life she'd ended.

Seeing Wade again had cracked the walls she'd built around this pain. And all the innocent excitement of those new mothers had completed the demolition. It was there, glowing like plutonium in her mind, as poisonous as ever despite her efforts to contain it. She hugged her knees as the sorrow suffocated and the regret lashed, so merciless, so cutting. There was nothing she could do but huddle under the agonizing storm and gasp useless apologies—to herself, to God, to that tiny person who never got to
be
because she'd been too damned frightened to face what she'd done.

“Lori? What the hell? Are you sick?” Wade knelt before her, trying to get her to lift her head with strong hands that she pushed away, not willing to show him the wreck of her face. The chaos of her soul.

“Lori,
please
, talk to me. Are you okay?”

“Go away,” she gasped, trying to stop the sobs, her whole torso heaving with the effort. He was the last person on earth she wanted here.

“Are you hurt?”

Always.
She always hurt. Because this pain had lived inside her, corroding her heart, for years now.

“Lori?” He took her hands and pried them gently from her face.

“No. Don't look at me,” she whispered, utterly broken, and now totally humiliated. “Leave me alone.”

“Shh...” He handed her a bandana. “I can't leave you until I know you're okay.”

She dabbed at the streaming tears, but there was no point. They weren't stopping any time soon. She buried her face in the fabric. “I don't want you to see me like this.”

“Hey,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Trust me, I've seen a hell of a lot worse.”

War. He'd seen war. He'd gone to serve his country. So brave, while she'd been the biggest coward. She sat and shook with grief and guilt.

He stayed, his hand in her hair slowly soothing until the worst of the shaking stopped. Then he moved quietly to sit down next to her. “I need you to tell me—did anybody hurt you tonight?”

She could hear the fear in his voice. And the fierce, protective note beneath it.

“No one.” She pulled in a jagged breath.
Just me. I hurt me. And our baby.
“Oh God,” she said again as the pain returned, throwing wild punches to her middle. She folded underneath it, collapsing on his shoulder, wracked by silent sobs.

“Lori... Honey...” She'd never heard Wade sound helpless before. Or so kind. He pulled her in with strong arms, cradling her to his huge chest and holding her tight, as if he realized that he was the only thing keeping her together. “Lori...” He murmured her name over and over, into her hair, into her neck, a plea for her to stop.

But how to stop, when there was no way for this pain to end? No matter how much she cried, or wished she could go back in time and make a different choice, she couldn't. What she'd done could never be undone. At the clinic the counselor had assured her that she'd feel better as time went on. But she never did.

Her tears had soaked his shirt. In a moment he'd ask again what was wrong. The thought sobered her and slowed her sobs just when she'd rather have kept crying and prolonged the inevitable.

He sensed the pause in the pathetic torrent he held in his arms. “Lori, please. There has to be a way for me to help.”

“You can't help.” All the tears had diluted her voice to a watery whisper.

“Can you at least talk about it? Tell me what's wrong?”

The dilemma she'd been facing ever since he'd come home was on her now. He'd tried to comfort her—how could she repay him with lies? But if she told him, this pain would be his, too. That wasn't fair. It had been her choice. He shouldn't have to live with the consequences.

She unballed the sodden bandana and dabbed at her face. Drew in a shaky breath of the cold, clean mountain air. Then another. “There's no point talking about it. It's something I have to live with. Something I did a long time ago.”

“I might know something about that,” he said, stroking her hair softly. “Living with ghosts.”

Living with ghosts. A ghost.
“It's not something you'll want to know.” And then it occurred to her. What if she told him and he thought it was no big deal? Many people seemed to feel that way. But for her, that might be even worse than him getting upset.

He shifted, trying to see her face in the darkness. “What do you mean? Lori, we grew up together. You couldn't tell me anything that would change how I think of you.”

Ha.
“This will.” She felt like she was about to jump off a cliff. And she had no idea what it would be like at the bottom. But he deserved to know.

“There was a baby,” she said, forcing her voice out a little louder. Still not looking up. Still taking the coward's way, huddled against his chest. So she felt it when he stilled.

“In the bar tonight?”

He was still innocent, thinking this was all about something simple in a bar. She was about to shatter that. “No... When I was inside the bar, my friends were talking about their kids. I couldn't stand it—couldn't deal with it. Because I got pregnant. Right at the beginning of college. And I...and I...”

How could she say it? How did you spit out something that felt unspeakable? “I ended it.”

“Oh, Lori,” he whispered, pulling her in closer. “Oh no.” His hand in her hair started moving again, trying to soothe the unsootheable.

She waited. He'd struggled with math, but this calculation didn't take many skills. The deep breath, the harder thud of his heart against her ear, told her that he'd realized. “It was from us, wasn't it? From that night?”

She nodded, relieved that he'd guessed. But she knew that a nod wasn't what was owed here. “I'm sorry, Wade.” Tears. How could she have any left? They slid down her cheeks in quiet rivers now. “I'm so, so sorry.”

He didn't answer. Just held her. Breathing long, slow breaths that she could feel. He was trying to absorb it. The dawning realization she knew too well, as all the different things that her decision meant for him, for his beliefs, for his conscience, hit one by one.

But after realization would come reaction.

“I had no idea.” He sounded stunned. “All these years, I had no idea.”

“I called. No one ever answered. I couldn't find an email address for you. I had to make a decision.” She pulled away from the warmth of his chest and scrubbed the soggy bandana over her face again. It was easy to remember her frantic search for him. The panic.

“Did you tell your dad? Or Mandy?”

“I didn't tell anyone. Until now.”

“You went through it all alone.”

A bitter laugh hiccupped out of her throat. “You made it very clear that you regretted what happened between us. After a while, when I couldn't find you, I just figured you didn't want to be found.”

“I was such a jerk to you. It's a piece of my life that I wish I could undo.”

Lori stared ahead of her in the dark. So weary she wanted to curl up and sleep right there on the picnic table. She'd always thought that telling someone, especially Wade, would help ease the pain. But the hurt was still there. Dulled from crying, but still there.

“I wish I knew what to say.” Wade's voice sounded hollow in the quiet night. “I wish there was some way I could help you. You're sad. And I—” he paused and cleared his throat “—I don't really know what to do. I'm just so sorry.”

“That's why I didn't want to tell you.” The words felt rusty and hoarse. “It was a long time ago, and there's nothing to do about it now.”

“I'd rather know.” He sounded more definite, at least about that. “I'd rather know than have you walking around alone with it. Thinking about it every time you saw me. And me not knowing.”

But now it was all reversed. He knew, and he'd think of it when he looked at
her
. And she'd know he was thinking about it. The flicker of hope she'd had for them earlier tonight fizzled out, leaving a quiet desolation. “I think I need to go home.”

“Let me drive you.” Wade slid off the bench and stood, holding out his hand.

“I can have Mandy take me.”

“I don't want to send you back in there to pretend that everything is fine. Let me take you. Send Mandy a text.”

She'd never be able to pretend with her puffy, postcrying face, anyway. She pulled her phone out of her dress pocket and sent a message.

Wade helped her stand and kept an arm around her as he walked her gently to his truck.

On the way out of town he turned to her, his face lit up by the last streetlight. “I can listen, if you ever want to talk.”

She couldn't face it—the pity she saw in his eyes now, or whatever other emotion might be there once he'd had time to let it all sink in. He might think less of her, and she couldn't blame him. “I doubt there's much to say.” She stared out the window as the streetlights of town disappeared behind them and all she could see was a blur of black countryside. “But thank you for listening tonight.”

She watched the darkness until the lights of her ranch came into view. He stopped his truck in front of her porch, and she slid out quickly, meeting up with him at the porch steps.

He took her hand in his and walked her to the front door, turning her there under the light so he could see her face. “I have regretted, every day, the way I treated you, way back then.” His eyes were black and brimful of pain.

“And now you have something else to regret.” It seemed impossible that she could feel more guilt than she already carried with her. But there it was.

“I do. And more to atone for. I abandoned you. I left you to deal with our consequences alone. I want to try to make it up to you. I'll help you in any way I can. Around your ranch...with the water. Hell, you can
have
the water. All of it.”

Payback wasn't what she wanted. “Don't do this. Don't let this change everything.”

“But how can it not?” He looked at her helplessly. “I hurt you beyond what I can even imagine.”

“Don't you see?” She could feel the tears starting again and willed them away. But they broke in her voice. “If you let it change things, you undo everything. All the effort I've put into moving on and trying to be okay with it. All the ways I've tried to prove to myself that something positive came out of that decision—that some grain of rightness came out of all that wrong.”

He stared at her, and she felt sorry for him. He'd had a few minutes to take this in while she'd had years to wrestle with all the impossible dilemmas and what-ifs the abortion had created in her mind. She could see those questions in the light from the porch, clouding his eyes. Suddenly she couldn't stand seeing him like this.

Going on tiptoe, she reached up and put her hands behind his neck. Pulling him down, she kissed him hard on his startled mouth. All her need to ease the pain she'd caused and the moral burden she'd just added to his life was in the kiss.

He pulled back, his hands coming up to cradle her head, to weave into her hair. He studied her face with hooded eyes, and she saw what she was desperate to see. He was looking at her with passion. With desire. Which was much better than the pity and regret that had been there before.

He brought his mouth down on hers, seeking her with an intensity that resonated—as if there was some kind of solution for all of this sadness in the heat between them. Or maybe, hopefully, some kind of salvation.

And then he pulled back.

“Lori,” he whispered and tilted his head to kiss her softly, on the mouth, on the cheek, on her forehead and back to her lips again. And it was still there, the heavy-lidded wanting in his eyes, the intent in the way he sought her mouth with single focus.

She'd been afraid that if he knew, he'd turn away from her, in fury or sorrow or disgust. But he was here. And even if he was sad, he wanted her with him. The knowledge was more healing than anything she'd imagined.

But this was Wade, and he'd desired her before. And then changed his mind. Once he'd had some time to think about what she'd done, he'd likely change his mind again. She couldn't go through that rejection twice.

She stepped back, putting cold air and porch light reality between them. “Thank you for helping me tonight. And I'm truly sorry to tell you such a horrible thing.”

“I'm glad I know.” He closed the distance she'd created and kissed her forehead gently. “I'm here for you now. I promise.”

“You don't have to be. I'm okay. You don't owe me anything. Please don't let this change things for us.”

He looked at her somberly, ran a soft knuckle down her cheek. “I don't know if I can promise that. I want to support you however I can. If that's a change, then I'm sorry.”

She'd always handled her pain privately. She had no idea how to go forward sharing it with someone else. Especially not with the man who'd left her to face it all alone.