The Bridge to a Better Life (40 page)

She stripped off her clothes and let the water in the shower clean away the abrasive powder she’d ground into its tiles. Then she washed herself, letting her hands linger over her body in gentle comfort, as if she were bathing Kim, which she’d done several times when her friend was too ill to leave her hospital bed. Her touch was gentle and comforting. Her heart expanded even more in her chest at her ministrations. When she turned off the water and looked at herself in the mirror this time, she saw a new woman standing there. One who’d started to love herself—no matter what.

Touchdown stayed close to her as she dressed in fresh clothes. Her wet hair would have to do. She had one person she needed to see. He wasn’t in her house, waiting for her like he had once before. Her belly ached now.

It was after two o’clock in the morning, she realized when she glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It didn’t matter. Blake wouldn’t be asleep. No, he’d be hurting. But she would make it right. Somehow they’d make it right together. She loved him, and he loved her. She didn’t want any more barriers between them. As she made her way across her backyard to the bridge he’d built, the one he’d extended into her frozen wasteland, all her doubts melted away and she knew she wanted to be married to him again.

There was no one for her but Blake.

The stars above seemed so close tonight, as if they were floating around her head. When she reached the bridge, she stuttered to a halt.

For the first time since he’d turned them on, the lights were out on the bridge. Her lips trembled, and her hand felt the wooden beams like she was trying to read Braille until they found the infinity symbol he had carved into the wood there to remind her of the truth.

He was her bridge to a better life.

Gratitude swelled in her heart as she let herself in the back door of his house. There were a few lights on.

“Blake?” she called out.

Then she saw a white piece of paper resting against a water glass on the kitchen island. He had always been an early riser, and back when they first started dating, he used to leave her love notes to read when she came downstairs in the morning. He’d continued it into their marriage, and she’d always found it unbearably sweet.

As she approached the note, her every muscle was rigid with tension. Touchdown barked and headed off, going to the garage door. Alarms immediately starting clanging in her head.

She didn’t even need to pick up the note to know what it said, but she did anyway.

Touchdown is yours. You need him more than I do. Be at peace, Nat.

Her arms wrapped around herself as reality filtered in. Even though she knew she wouldn’t find his SUV in the garage, she still made herself walk to the door Touchdown was pawing. When she opened it, sure enough, it was empty.

He was gone.

She’d finally pushed him away too much for even his love to bear. Leaning against the doorframe, she didn’t fight the tidal wave of grief this time. She went totally and completely to pieces.

After she cried a fresh batch of tears, she shook her head, trying to clear it. Where would he have gone in the dead of night? He had no friends in Dare Valley. Then it hit her. He’d gone back to the home they’d shared, back to the one place he’d always felt the most comfortable. Back to his old life—or what was left of it in the wake of his retirement.

She made her way back to her house with Touchdown. Once inside, she ran upstairs to her bedroom and dug into the bottom of her chest for the item she was seeking. Tucking it into her pocket, she went downstairs and grabbed a bottle of water and her purse.

“Come on Touchdown,” she said opening the garage door. “Let’s go get Daddy.”

Blake’s muscles trembled as he lifted the two hundred pound weights over his head for the seventh time in his second rep. After driving to Denver, he hadn’t wanted to sleep. Couldn’t sleep. Being back in the home he and Natalie had created together was enough to send pain lacing through his system like adrenaline, making him a little crazy, making him way too sensitive.

After changing into workout clothes, he’d gone to his gym and started his burn. Who was he to judge Natalie for the way she dealt with her emotions? She scrubbed the shower. He was fighting his feelings by working out, not eager to drown in their punishing waves just yet. When he succumbed—and he knew he inevitably would—the truth was going to leave him scarred forever.

She was gone from him

He’d run until his legs shook so hard he could barely feel them. Then he’d switched to the rowing machine, pulling until his back muscles twitched under his shirt. Now, he was lifting. His mind wasn’t totally focused on what he was doing, but his thoughts quieted occasionally as his whole body strained to surpass its own strength. He lived for those moments.

After his third rep, he set the weights back on the bar and squeezed his eyes shut. God, he couldn’t go through this again. Not this. He’d given her his fucking heart on a platter. He’d even given her his dog. What did he have left? This house they’d created together. He was going to finally have to sell it. He’d only held onto it in the hope she’d come back to him.

His life without her stretched out before him. His whole life had just…died…like it had expired at the end of a game clock. Nothing was clear but the nothingness of it all. He’d never been in this place before, and it shook him to his core. Maybe he should move back to Ohio to be closer to his folks as he sorted things out.

He was preparing himself to lift again when something dropped onto his chest, and he looked down to see a radiant-cut yellow diamond twinkling like sunshine under his overhead lights.

Something exploded in his head, almost like he’d blown a blood vessel. His gaze darted up.

Natalie.

She stood a few feet from his bench press station, her arms wrapped around Touchdown, her hand covering his snout to keep him from barking. Tears were streaming down her face.

“I kept my key. You didn’t change the locks.”

His heart tore open. “What—”

“I’m sorry, babe,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry.”

He pressed his hand to his face, his eyes, as the pain finally flooded in. She hadn’t called him babe once since he’d moved to Dare Valley, and hearing it now took him under. He lay on his back, trembling from fatigue and physical exhaustion as tears leaked onto his temples.

“Oh, God,” he rasped out.

She’d driven all the way from Dare Valley in the middle of the night and plopped her engagement ring on his chest after she’d crushed him.
Crushed him.
He didn’t know what to say. What to think.

Her hand touched his chest, making him jump, even though her touch was soft.

“I’m sorry I…retreated again. I…my mom…they found a lump in her breast.”

He took his hand from his face and looked at her. He hadn’t thought his pain could worsen, but it did, like the mind-numbing razor blade of a torn ligament. “Oh, Nat.”

His position was awkward, so he started to sit up. Both their hands moved to protect her engagement ring from falling to the floor. Somehow it created a link between them, and he didn’t take his hand away. But he felt the imprint of that band, the press of her diamond in his palm.

She sank to her knees and placed Touchdown on the floor, then rested her hand on his thigh. “I went to her house last night. She’d been crying, which was shocking.” She sniffed, a harsh sound. “I knew immediately something was wrong. At first, she didn’t want to tell me what, but I wouldn’t let up. When she told me…God, it was like Kim all over again.”

“Oh, babe. I’m so sorry. For both of you.” Scooting off the bench, he fell onto his knees in front of her. Their hands, still linked, still holding her ring, fell onto his lap and stayed there.

“She’s having a biopsy…God, I’m so tired I can’t remember when…ah…I guess tomorrow because it’s already today.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “She made me promise not to tell anyone. Especially Andy. You don’t know what it did to me.”

Having seen her in the shower earlier, he’d had a glimpse. The news would devastate the Hales if it proved to be cancer. There were no two ways about it. Life was so goddamn unfair. No family should have to suffer something like Kim’s illness, but if April had the same disease…

“I told Mom I wouldn’t tell anyone even though I knew my brothers and sisters would be mad at me for keeping it secret.” She lifted a shoulder to wipe her tears with her shirt. “Even though I didn’t want to bear the burden alone.”

Somehow hearing that helped ease a fraction of the pain in his chest. Natalie never betrayed a confidence.

“I told Mom I was going with her to the biopsy, and that we would hear the news together. Whatever it was.”

She started to cry, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He laid his free hand against her cheek, hurting for her now in powerful bursts, feeling her every fear, her every ache.

“Oh, honey,” he whispered.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “You only call me honey when I go crazy. Did you know that?”

He shook his head.

“When I left Mom, I
was
going crazy again. She could have cancer. Just like Kim. She could die.”

Like his own beloved brother had. Tears streamed down his own face now as all the losses they’d suffered rolled through him like a tidal wave and pounded him into the surf. It was hard to consider the possibility of losing April. She was so dear, so bright. He couldn’t tell Natalie that her mom would definitely be okay, just like he hadn’t been able to say that about Kim or Adam.

“When I got home,” she continued, “I couldn’t stand the pain. I know I said I’d face it, but this…this hurt so bad. My mind was screaming horrible thoughts, and the pictures in my head of mom shrinking before my eyes in a hospital bed wouldn’t stop. I…had to stop it. Before I knew it, I was grabbing the can of tile powder and the sponge from under the sink and heading to the shower. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted…the pain to go away.”

“Then you came in, and I couldn’t…snap out of it. I was horrible to you, Blake. And I won’t blame you if you say you can’t forgive me.” Her lips trembled like she was freezing. “Once was…a miracle, but twice?”

When her head dropped forward in defeat, he cupped the back of her neck and lifted her face to his. “I understand why you did it, babe, and I forgive you.” If there was one thing he’d learned about love and marriage, it was to never stop forgiving. Ever. Even if she hurt him a thousand times, he wasn’t going to deny her absolution.

She inched closer on her knees until their joints touched. Her hand squeezed his, and he felt the press of her ring again against his palm.

“I drove here in the middle of the night because I realized what I’d done to you. What I’d done to myself.”

She told him about the revelation she’d experienced when she finally finished crying, how she’d started to see that wild, crazy woman for who she was…herself. When she told him she’d decided to finally love that woman, that human part of her who hurt, he knew she’d turned a corner. More hope flooded his chest.

She turned their hands over until her engagement ring shone in the light again. “I have something to say…please don’t interrupt me.”

His chest squeezed as she looked straight into his eyes, the full force of her love for him shining in them again. He saw all the parts of her reflected in her gaze, the woman who could tease and joke and laugh, the woman who loved her family, the woman who loved him, and the woman who went crazy when the cold specter of destruction came knocking on her door.

“I, Natalie Hale, offer you, Blake Cunningham, my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad…”

Her voice broke.

Tears rained down his face as she renewed the pledge she’d made to him so long ago.

“In joy as well as in sorrow,” she continued, inhaling raggedly. “I promise to love you…unconditionally…even though I’ve failed so many times in the past…”

He pulled her head to his and rubbed their foreheads together in sweet agony.

“I promise…oh what’s next…to support you in your new career.” She sniffed. “ And to…ah…honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.”

They both started crying then.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely. “And I’m sorry—”

His mouth cut her off from finishing the rest of her declaration, and he traced an infinity symbol into her hand next to where her wedding ring lay.

And set them both free to love each other again for forever at last.

Natalie poured herself into the kiss, imagining her love was as pure and warm and radiant as the yellow diamond Blake had chosen for her engagement ring. She stroked his face to soothe the hurt she’d caused and cried some more when she finally understood he was tracing the infinity symbol over and over again in her palm. She let their breaths merge to communicate how much she wanted to be joined with him again, how much she wanted infinity again.

Touchdown tunneled between them, his face pressing against her stomach. She edged back and looked into Blake’s eyes, needing to say the words he’d stopped her from saying moments before. After everything she’d put him through, put
them
through, he deserved them.