What Might Have Been (17 page)

“I'd think that was obvious. I'm packing.”

“Why?”

What did he mean, why? “Because I'm leaving.” She said the words slowly, as if to a child who couldn't seem to grasp the simplest of concepts.

“No, you're not.”

With an exasperated sigh, she finally straightened with the box balanced in her hands. He reached for it, trying to snatch it from her. They fought. She lost. And the box ended up on its side in the dirt at her feet, the contents spilling around them both.

She turned on him. Angry for what he was doing. Angry that he'd signed the damn papers. Angry that he wasn't the man she wanted him to be.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She lashed out at him, pushing the flat of her hands squarely into the center of his chest and shoving. He rocked back on his heels for a nanosecond before recovering. Which was so frustrating. She wanted to hurt him in some way and she couldn't even manage to do that.

She tried again, putting every last ounce of her strength into the attack. But instead of fighting her or moving with the force, he grasped her wrists, held her hands flat to his chest and pulled her in close to his body.

She struggled against him. “Let me go!”

Instead he crushed his mouth to hers in a punishing kiss. She wanted to fight—to deny that he could make her feel anything—but it was a battle she could not win. It took seconds for her body to betray her, melting against him in immediate surrender to anything he wanted, everything she could give.

He devoured her, his arms imprisoning her body, his entire being looming over and surrounding her. And she more than let him, she fully engaged, showing him the strength of her own desire.

When he finally pulled back, it was only to give her enough room to suck in a much-needed breath. A breath she used to whisper, “Damn you.”

He gathered her close again. This time instead of assaulting her senses, he tucked her tight against him. Her cheek was buried in the curve of his neck, his chin resting lightly on the crown of her head.

“I didn't sell.”

“You what?”

“I couldn't sign the papers.”

She pushed against his chest, wanting to look at him, to see into his eyes. But he wouldn't let her, refusing to loosen his embrace. She wasn't sure if that was because he didn't want her to see him or because he needed to hold on to her so desperately.

As desperately as she suddenly needed to hold on to him.

“I sat there, with a pen in my hand ready to go and I physically couldn't do it. I started to remember everything, the laughter, the years, even the fights that I had with Pops.”

He was silent a moment before he continued.

“I even remembered my parents here. A memory I didn't know I had. I barely knew them, Ainsley. I can't remember anything about them. But I remember them here.”

She could hear the bewilderment and pain in his voice. He'd lost his parents so young, never really knowing what he'd lived without. Until today. Today he'd remembered what he'd lost, possibly for the first time in his life.

She wanted to soothe the pain away, to protect him from it any way that she could. Her hands stirred within his hold, silently asking for release. He didn't give it. She wasn't even sure he was aware of how tight he was holding her.

“But you know what was the worst? I had a clear vision in my head of how our life could have been here. Kids running down the path in front of us as we walked hand in hand through the trees. And I wanted that. I wanted it more than anything else I've ever wanted in my life.”

His words were seductive, the future she'd always dreamed of with him. But she was afraid to let the hope blossom in her chest again. Afraid, because that had never been what he'd wanted before today.

She voiced her doubts with a whisper that melted into the warmth of his chest, “Even your success? Even your freedom?”

This time he did let her pull away, looking down at her with a light in his eyes that she had never seen.

“Absolutely. I've been lonely for the past eight years and I never realized it. Not until I had you back in my life and walked away from you. Again. I was gone three days, Ainsley, but it felt like three years.

“I have everything I've ever wanted. And it doesn't mean anything to me if I don't have you to share it with.”

Her head was spinning. He'd just said everything to her that she'd ever wanted to hear. And more, actually. But she didn't know what any of it meant.

“What are you saying?”

He leaned close, pressing his forehead to hers. She could feel the heat of his skin sinking into her own and the brush of his breath against her cheeks. His eyes stared straight into hers and she saw it there before he ever said a word.

“I'm saying I love you, Ainsley. And I can't live my life without you.”

Her knees buckled. One minute they were there and the next it was as if they were dust. She sagged into him, his hold on her the only thing keeping her from hitting the gravel at their feet.

Sweeping her up into his arms, he carried her onto the worn wooden porch, to a faded rocker tucked into a shady corner. The warm summer sun didn't reach here, but she
wasn't cold. In fact, hope and heat coursed through her in equal measures making her heart beat faster than it ever had before.

He pressed a cool kiss to her lips, a quick check of her status more than an expression of passion. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, unable to voice any one thought. There were so many racing around in her head she wasn't sure where to start.

“I'll do whatever you want,” he said, “I'll sell the company. We can live here and farm peaches until we're old and gray and can't get off of this porch. I want what my grandparents had and I want it with you.”

His words finally galvanized her. “I don't want you to sell your business, Luke. I never have. I wouldn't ask you to give that up any more than I'd ask you to change the color of your eyes. It's part of who you are. Part of the man I love.”

His green eyes flared and she realized that even though she'd known for weeks that she still loved him, it was the first time she'd actually said the words aloud. She'd held them so close to her heart that she somehow thought he already knew.

“We'll make it work.” This time she was the one to reach up and place a kiss on his waiting mouth. She filled the connection with every speck of her hope and happiness.

He'd offered to give up everything he held dear for her. It was more sacrifice than she needed but the gesture certainly cemented his willingness to place her first in
his life. That was all the promise she needed. They'd figure out the rest as they went along.

Their hands and mouths wandered, her sharp breaths turning into quick gasps in a matter of moments. And as much as it felt as if they were alone in the world cocooned together on the front porch, they were actually surrounded by people.

“Luke.”

“Hmm,” was his response, coupled by a groan of surrender as his hands pushed up her shirt to find the waiting peak of her breast.

“Probably not the best place.”

Even as he pulled away from her, staring down with unfocused and heat-glazed eyes, she could hear Gran shuffling around in the kitchen just on the other side of the wall.

Apparently he could, too, because the glitter slowly faded, once again turning tender. A smile curled the corners of his lips and crinkled the edges of his eyes.

“I don't think I'll ever be able to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For taking care of my family when I wouldn't. For protecting this place when I couldn't. For saving it all for me even though I didn't want you to. For doing what was right for me whether I realized it or not.”

Happy tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She smiled through them. “Even when I wanted to hate you, I stayed here for you. Hoping you'd come home. Hoping you'd come back.”

L
UKE STUMBLED OUT ONTO
the porch, the bright stab of sunshine shooting straight through his skull.

“You look like hell.”

He turned to look at his wife, sitting quietly in the rocker in the dimmest and coolest part of the porch. Even through his jet-lagged, sleep-deprived haze he could see that she was beautiful. Earthy and ethereal all at the same time. She was right where she belonged, sitting on the front porch of this hundred-year-old house, acres of peach trees at her back.

She rocked back and forth with a serene motion, a small smile playing at her lips. But it was the hint of devilment in her eyes that had him taking quick steps toward her.

Japan might only be a flight away, but it was a hell of a long flight and two weeks was way too damn long to be gone. He'd missed his wife. But Miyazaki was satisfied and he'd cemented another five-year exclusive contract
with the company. He hoped it was that long before he had to fly back.

The trips away from the farm were getting harder and harder. He didn't like being away from Ainsley. But he was home now….

Just as he was about to reach for her, to pull her into the heat that was suffusing him from his toes to his skull, a tiny arm popped out between them and gave a slow, languorous wave.

The motion startled him into stopping.

“I thought she was asleep.” It had been way too quiet for their six-week-old daughter not to be. She was a hellcat, that little one. Definitely a fighter. And already he knew she had him wrapped around her little finger.

“She practically is.” Shuffling the mound of baby and blankets around in her lap, Ainsley managed to right all of her clothes and stand up in what looked to him like one smooth motion. He was constantly awed by the effortless way she'd taken to motherhood.

He'd had a little harder time of it but they'd managed to get through it. Together.

Switching Rebecca to her shoulder, Ainsley wrapped her free arm around him and brought him close. Her lips were sweet, sweeter than the fruit that was just starting to form on the trees around them. He deepened the kiss, responding to the ever-present desire that overwhelmed him whenever he touched her.

She leaned back, breaking their kiss but keeping her body tight against his.

“You got home late.”

He frowned, wrinkling his nose. He didn't want to fight with her. Not today. Not now.

She just laughed, that twinkle of mischief deep in her eyes. “You can make it up to me tonight.”

Before he could respond, or attempt to finagle his way into an earlier reunion, she yelled, “Logan, Daddy's up,” and the smallest ball of energy he'd ever seen came bolting around the side of the house.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

Gran shuffled slowly behind him, taking the trek from the swing set to the porch at her own pace. She had good days and bad, but Luke was convinced she was going to outlive all of them. No one could have matched Logan's enthusiasm anyway, not even him.

His son was hard to keep up with, just starting to shed the first layers of his baby fat, turning from a toddler into a little boy. In a few months he'd be starting kindergarten, a step Luke wasn't sure any of them were ready for—least of all the school.

He watched as his son raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time before launching himself into the air, certain that his father would be there to catch him. Oh, to be that young and full of faith again.

He'd certainly lost his for a while. But as he swept Logan up into the air, twirling him around, he snagged Ainsley's waist and brought his whole family along for the ride.

He'd found it again, here, in the last place he would have ever thought to look.