He shrugged out of the blue scrub gown next, revealing the man I loved at his very finest. Worn Levis and an undershirt that fit just snugly enough to make me blush—my favorite look—completed by the thoughtful expression that pulled the corners of his eyes and mouth just enough to drive a woman crazy.
Unzipping the screen door, he ducked through it, somehow brightening the darkness of a black saturated night. He took a few steps in my direction. I didn’t dare twitch a muscle because he was close enough he’d hear it.
Coming to a pause, he looked in my general vicinity, light blue orbs glowing in the night. “Just because I can’t see you, doesn’t mean I can’t tell you’re near.” His voice was tight, controlled, as if he was holding back an emotion too strong to be released. I could only hope it wasn’t anger, resentment, or despise—although I knew I deserved them all.
“Come on, now,” he said, taking a couple more steps towards me. “I’d come in there and wrestle you out, but I don’t think that would be appropriate anymore.”
I wanted to holler out, Marco, yearning to have him throw his arms around me because every time he’d done so before, I’d known that everything would be alright. His embrace was that convincing . . . or that mind-numbing.
His feet remained planted to the ground, so I made the first move, hoisting off the jungle floor—my white tank and khaki shorts smudged GI Jane camo style from the hours, miles, and falls the forest had inflicted on me.
“Uh . . . hi,” I offered lamely, twisting my leaf-ridden hair behind my ear. I pushed aside the prehistoric-looking plant, coming out from my hiding spot.
His eyes flashed wide when he first saw me before he was able to recompose himself. I looked more Sasquatch than woman and I was going for my last-ditch, make-or-break plea to get back a man that could have been spawned by the gods. I really needed to start thinking my plans out better.
“Hello, yourself.” He swallowed, waiting for me, but I couldn’t untangle my thoughts enough to get the first thing out.
“Hey.” I bit my lip, willing something to come to mind, but it seemed being away from him for so long had brought on an unexpected dose of confoundedness. “That was really beautiful what you did in there,” I said, dodging the whole reason I’d come here.
His eyes narrowed, not in a glare, but like he was trying to figure me out. Good luck with that. “She did all the work. I was just there to make sure everything went as it should.”
“What did she name the baby?” I asked, peering over his shoulder into the tent.
“Eh . . . William,” he mumbled.
“Does that happen a lot?” I had an urge to stare into the baby’s face knowing his namesake was the man I loved. A stolen glimpse didn’t seem enough now.
He shrugged, refusing to meet my eyes. “From time to time.”
“From time to time,” I repeated. “How many from time to times?”
He paused, circling his eyes to the sky. “One can lose count.”
“Someone names their baby after you and you lose count?” My voice, face, and posture were all stark with dubiousness.
“One thousand-and-thirty-three,” he answered, his eyes floating to me. “Actually, one thousand-and-thirty-four now.”
My jaw dropped and I let it hang there. There had been hundreds of little William’s scampering over the world through the years. None carrying the genetic makeup of their namesake, but knowing what I did of him, his compassion that saturated the air wherever he went had surely found its way into these baby’s lives. Compassion through osmosis—maybe there was hope for the world after all.
“Please forgive me, I know this is going to sound all wrong,”—he looked down, scuffing his unlaced work boot into the tacky mud—“I’ve been saying everything wrong as of late . . . but what are you doing here?” He looked at me apologetically, but he was right, it did come out sounding all wrong. Too cold and unemotional to come from his mouth.
“I needed to talk to you about something important—”
“Is everyone alright?” he interjected, his body stiffening, making his muscles burst through the sleeves of his shirt. To accompany the aching, I now had yearning to contend with and with their combined forces, my gut felt like it was being ripped to shreds. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through this.
“Everyone’s fine,” I said, reaching my hand out for him automatically. My hand hung in the air long enough before I pulled it back to know he’d intentionally denied it. “I just left them a couple days ago and everyone was happy and healthy.”
His body relaxed instantly. “Is anyone with you?” He looked behind me, searching. The way his eyes had narrowed told me he wasn’t referring to his family when he’d asked if I was on my own.
“No. I’m alone.”
“They let you come alone? He let you come alone?” he asked, his eyes shadowing around darkness. “Do you realize you gave John the perfect opportunity to snatch you up? All alone, wandering around a foreign country.” His eyes clouded over, his jaw clenching in anger. “What was Paul thinking?”
“Thanks for the concern,” I said calmly, hoping to influence his tone with mine. “And no offense here, but I don’t let anyone tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“Yeah. I remember that.” He looked up at me, sharing a remembered thought. “So what was so important that you had to traipse through a continent to tell me? All alone,” he emphasized.
I inhaled, for nothing more than to straighten up. “I’m not going to pretend I know how much I hurt you when I left. It’s unforgivable and it’s a good thing I have forever because I’m going to need it to earn your forgiveness.” I kept my eyes down now that the words were flowing. I knew if I looked at him my tongue would knot into something undoable. “I owe you, not only an apology, but an explanation.”
“No,” he said, tilting his head. “You owe me neither. All I’ve ever wanted for you is happiness, whoever that may be with,”—his jaw clenched around the words—“but if it would make you feel better . . . I forgive you. And as for the explanation, I’d rather not hear it if that’s alright with you. I’ve got the general idea and knowing the details will only make things worse, I’m sure.” The way his throat caught each word as they surfaced broke my resolve of not looking at him. He was trying so hard to stay composed, but couldn’t give it any permanence.
“I think what both of us are beating around the bush is that”—he looked up, staring at me—“you chose him. Trust me, I don’t need any of the details that accompanied that decision.” His eyes flashed away, but not before their pain could play like a movie before me.
“There never was a choice to be made in the first place,” I whispered, wanting to ease whatever unpleasant emotion was plaguing him, but I didn’t know if he wanted me to be that person anymore. I didn’t know if I had a right to ease his suffering after I’d been the one to create so much for him. “I’ve never had a choice in who I loved.”
He turned away, staring up at the waning moon. “I know. You’re not the only one needing to get an apology off their chest,” he said, drawing in a heavy breath. “I’ve loved you from the start—from the first dream. I was so certain we were meant to be together that I stifled you into believing the same thing. I was the one who took that choice away from you. I’m sorry.”
If there was an award for taking things out of context, William would have won the gold medal.
“Cora was dead on when she said there were no two more dense people than us . . .” I muttered, dumbfounded, ignoring the confusion on his face that requested an explanation. That one could wait, this one couldn’t.
“Okay, so here it goes,” I said resolutely, swinging my arms forward and back.
“Here what goes?” he asked, looking even more confused.
“My forthcoming pathetic plea to get you back.”
“Your what?” he asked, taking a step closer.
“Please, let me just get through this without any questions. It’s going to be har
d enough as it is,” I begged, wiping away some of the crusted mud on my arms, trying to make myself more forgivable-looking.
He crouched down, fingering the earth like it was keeping him grounded. His face was flat, except for his eyes. They were shining.
“When I said I didn’t have a choice in who I loved, it’s because from the day I met you, there no longer was a choice. My choice was you, you, and you,” I said, pointing my hands at him. “I didn’t need a choice because you were all I wanted, all I’d ever want. I left because I almost killed you that day in the clearing. I let you believe I left you for someone else because I knew that was the only way you’d let me go without a fight. I thought you’d find happiness with another woman one day and when Patrick told me you had, it gave me enough deterrent to stay away from you because, lord knows, I wanted to run back to you every second of every day.”
His face was a mask—a frozen mask glowing in the gentle moonlight. If my face was a frenzy of emotion, his was the opposite, but I found the courage I needed to continue in his eyes.
“So, back to why I’m here. Sorry it took so long to get back to that,” I said, laughing a few nervous notes. “I found out there isn’t anyone else in your life, there certainly isn’t anyone else in my life, and I’m supremely confident I won’t kill you.” I smiled apologetically at him, receiving nothing but the blank stare in return. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance. I know I don’t deserve you, but there was a time when you thought so. I’ve lived my life without you and I never want to do it again. I can’t live without you. I mean, I could survive—it would be a pathetic, shallow, hollow existence—but I guess my point is,”—I grimaced, realizing my rambling was getting me nowhere with him. I’d lost him—“I don’t want to live without you. Although I understand if you no longer feel the same.” I bit my lip, pausing, when all I wanted to do was rewind time. “So that’s why I’m here. To see if you’d be willing to give me a do-over.”
A do-over?!?!?! That was the best I had, begging this man—who would have moved heaven and earth for us to be together before I’d decided to crush his heart—for a do-over? If I’d had a smidgeon of a chance to get him back, I’d just pulverized it by employing the technique a grade-schooler would call out in kickball.
It was time I shut my mouth and kept it shut. Actually, it had been that time a few sentences back. So I waited for the inevitable.
And waited.
“I’m an idiot. I’m a naïve, stupid, reckless girl,” I said, saving him—saving me—the discomfort of what he was readying himself to say.
“I don’t know what to say,” he whispered, shaking his head, that perfectly flat face stupefying me. He rose, walking indirectly towards me. “I appreciate your honesty, I really do.” I cringed, waiting for the let’s just be friends curse. I think William and I both knew we could never be just friends. “But so much time has passed, and so much has happened.”
He stalled a few feet in front of me, running a hand through his hair. I just stared at his eyes, they were the only thing I could still see hope in, as misinterpreted as it likely was. “I don’t know what to say.”
His eyes flashed to mine, sparking with something that had, at one time, preceded something that weakened my knees. Before I could let their effect take hold, he closed the remaining distance between us, eyes never leaving mine. He surged into me, arms locking around my back. I didn’t have time to gasp, or sigh, before his body pressed into mine, his lips leading.
The fullness of his lips on mine, the warmth they exuded, the urgency pulsing over them, it was these kinds of moments that made me believe in perfection.
Unable to counteract his strength, I backed into the nearest tree, hearing its roots groan in protest as William pressed into me, never backing down, only growing more urgent. His hands moved nowhere but my face, cupping and stroking every plane.
When I was certain I could face death at this very moment with absolutely no regrets, his mouth left mine, but only barely. His heavy breath was the next thing I felt pulsing against my lips.
“Like I said, I didn’t know what to say,” he breathed, his eyes closed, but his face was drawn into an emotion that made the past few months seem like nothing more than a bad dream.
“Thanks for not knowing what to say.” I smiled, letting the euphoria he’d injected into me seep into every corner of my body. Everything was right again. I was right again.
The muscles in his shoulders rolled. “I think that pretty much summed it up.”
“So was that a yes?” I asked.
“To your do-over?” he said, no attempt to disguise his amusement.
I nodded my head.
“No,” he said, and before my face could squish into confusion, “that was a hell yes.”
I laughed at his enthusiasm. “Thank you. I won’t screw things up again for us—I promise,” I vowed.
“I know, I know,” he said, combing his fingers through my hair. “May I ask a favor?”
“Do you even need to ask?”
I heard the smile in his voice. “Just to make sure I have everything straight . . . you left because you loved me?”
It sounded awful coming from his mouth. “Yes.”
“You let me believe you were in love with Paul because you loved me?”
This sounded even worse. “Yes,” I answered, grimacing.
“You stayed away because you thought I was in love with a girl Patrick fabricated in that demented mind of his?”
“Yes.”
“You realized how absurdly you were acting, found me, seduced me into this state of mental stupification,”—he cradled my head away from his chest, staring me straight on—“because you love me?”
“Yes, although I have to admit I’m the poster child for what not to do to show someone you love them.”
He shook his head. “You’re not only the poster child, love, you wrote the book on the subject.”
“That so?” I asked, trying to sound severe. My execution was pitiful. “Why don’t you try putting yourself in my shoes for a minute? Let’s say you were the one that practically killed me and you knew that if you didn’t that time, you would another time. Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t do the exact same thing I did?”
“First off, it wasn’t your fault you zapped me. I should have been paying attention. Second, you didn’t almost kill me. It was about as lethal as a bee sting—”
“Bee stings kill,” I interrupted. “Just ask those that are allergic to them.”
“Baby,” he said, his voice low. “I’m everything but allergic to you.” His fingers trickled down my neck, skimming the length of my tank’s collar. Heat rushed through me, the kind that extinguished inhibitions. Right before I took action at my newfound lack of inhibitions, his fingers dropped away.
“You’re as good at distracting me as you are at fudging the truth,” I said, arching a brow at him. “If you’re planning on keeping your hands to yourself for awhile”—I glanced at his hands that were being good, for now—“how about getting back to putting yourself in my shoes?”
“Well, if you’d stop interrupting . . .” He shot me that mischievous smile and it took every bit of willpower I possessed to not latch onto him at every point I could. “No, I wouldn’t have left you if our roles—or our gifts—were reversed. I’m too selfish. Death, as hard as this is to admit, would be an acceptable outcome if it meant not having to miss out on this”—his stilled hands became anything but, skimming my body with the patience and practice of a sculpture—“and this,” he breathed, his lips gliding up my neck, ending just behind my earlobe.
“When you put it that way,” I whispered, my voice shaking marginally less than my body.
I felt his smile pull tight against my skin. “In addition to being adept at distraction, I also have a black belt in persuasion.”
“You don’t say.” He nuzzled my neck before moving towards my mouth again, the look in his eyes telling that he was done with words. “So, that’
s it?” I asked, a shade shy of astonishment. “You forgive me, just like that? After everything I did?”
“Yes,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe you didn’t understand when I said I’d love you forever, but I meant I’d love you forever. There were no qualifiers or addendums to that vow, nothing that would void it out based on your actions.” His smile lit up the night. “To make sure you’re clear on this, let me repeat myself. I’ll love you forever, Bryn Dawson, no matter how determined you might be to screw it up.”
“No conditions?” I asked. “Not even, just as long as you don’t run away again with a fictitious boyfriend?”
He shook his head. “I think that’s why they call it unconditional.”
“Yeah, well, what I’ve seen of the world, love is about as conditional as it is convenient. Thrown around on a Saturday night only to be forgotten by Monday morning, or worse yet, we’ve been together for a year and we should probably scratch that three word phrase off our relationship to-do list.”
“You’ve got such romantic notions,” he said, drawing me back into his arms. “So, I want to let bygones-be-bygones, but . . .”—a flash of anger bolted through his eyes—“I recall finding you and Paul Lowe entangled a few nights ago, your lips the main point of entanglement.” I loved how hard William worked to keep unpleasant emotions out of his voice, but he was as adept at it as I was at walking and talking.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t hang around long enough to see me come very near to wringing his neck,” I said, shaking my head at the memory. “You remember those nine forms of torture you were so eager to try out on him? Well, after that stunt, let the torture games begin,” I teased, no room for anger towards Paul left when I was cocooned in William’s arms. “Let me know if you need any help.”
“I don’t know what it is you don’t see in Paul Lowe, but I’d be a fool if I wasn’t glad about it.” He didn’t sound glad—he sounded thrilled. “But now that I know he basically held you down and ravaged your lips, I’m not so sure about him myself anymore.”