Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“Good thing Mama Jess has cooked and frozen enough food to feed the troops.” He settled into the seat across from her, his smile artificial and forced.
Kerris carved out a smile for him.
“Yeah, Mama Jess has been a godsend.”
She’d been coming over every day to help. Those times were the closest to peace Kerris had known for the last two weeks. When it was just Kerris and Cam, things were so awkward. Cam seemed as relieved as Kerris every time Mama Jess showed up. Faking it was exhausting. Sometimes Kerris took the pills just to be asleep whenever Cam was home.
He was trying. She was, too, but everything—every smile, every word, every look between them—was so hard. She thought longingly of the ease they had shared before they married, before they even dated. That pure, open friendship. They were both knotted souls under it all, but they’d shared a simple connection, built around honesty and mutual affection. She strained her eyes every day to see a trace of those friends, but all she could see was the wary distrust between them. All she could feel was the guilt they shared over Amalie’s death.
He had looked at her with no expression when she told him the name she wanted for their baby girl. He nodded wordlessly, looking away from her searching eyes. Had he cried over the baby she’d never even gotten to hold? Did it feel like someone was shoving gravel into the soft muscle of his heart when he thought of Amalie, never having a chance?
Cam toyed with his napkin. He picked up his fork and then put it down. He looked to the left and watched the river, still and placid. He looked to the right, considering the vegetable garden she and Mama Jess had planted earlier in the summer. Even when her pregnancy had made it harder, Kerris had wandered out between those rows every day to check on her small patch of earth, pregnant with life, just like she had been.
Cam bullied the vegetables on his plate into corners, poking at them. He looked everywhere but at her. Kerris knew things had been difficult between them; she knew that they hadn’t talked and needed to, but his restlessness disturbed her. He was like a wild boar penned and desperate to escape.
“Is everything okay, Cam?”
His broad shoulders slumped; his lean body was taut with an emotion he could barely disguise any longer. He looked at her, his face already telling her things she didn’t want to know.
“Not for a long time, Kerris.”
Amazing how words so softly spoken could feel like a spike splitting your heart.
“I don’t understand.”
Only she did understand, but had no idea what he wanted to do about it. His eyes skittered away, paying more attention to the patio flagstones than to his wife.
“Ker, I can’t do this.”
“You mean the rehab and everything?” She hoped that’s what he meant. Something she had an easy, quick solution for. “That won’t start ’til these casts are off. So we’ve got a while, and it won’t be so bad. The nurse will be here during the day, and she’ll take me to rehab. It won’t interfere with work or anything. We’ll get into a groove and—”
“Not the rehab. I can’t do…us anymore. These last two weeks have been…The night of the accident, I said I was done.” He finally looked her right in the eye, and the resolve she saw there shook her. “I still am.”
So this was what it meant to feel the earth move under your feet; to feel the whole world tilt, and when it righted itself, for it to look like completely unfamiliar terrain. But not so unfamiliar. Really, ground she had covered all her life. Abandonment. Rejection. It actually felt strangely, sadly familiar. And she realized something in that moment. Though Cam had said he’d never let her go, she had been the one clinging with a grasping, desperate need she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself. Finally, someone had committed to her. Someone had thought she was good enough, wanted her enough to make a permanent commitment. And she would have allowed nothing, not even the love of her life, to jeopardize that commitment.
“Say something.” Cam’s eyes under his long, thick lashes looked like he didn’t know what to expect.
She sometimes forgot how beautiful Cam was. A dark angel. Even as she had held on to the mangled matrimonial ties that bound them, she had taken him for granted. She hadn’t appreciated his kindness. Hadn’t longed for the passion she knew he deliberately checked so he wouldn’t frighten her. Hadn’t sought out the secrets and the shadows behind his eyes.
Her throat blazed with the tears she refused to shed until she was alone.
“I am sorry, Cam.”
“You’re sorry?” Disbelief warred with guilt on his face. “Kerris, I almost got you killed. Our baby girl…”