I took a quick internal check about how I felt about that. My body hummed in his arms, anticipation coiling tight in my lower belly.
Yep, I was all right with it.
“Okay,” I agreed breathlessly as he carried me into the master and deposited me gently on the bed. “Wait,” I said suddenly, grasping his forearm when he started to move away. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at me. “Yeah, babe. I’m okay. I’ll let you get some rest.”
Disappointment and determination flooded through me in equal measure as it became clear that I was in fact going to have to make the first move.
Chapter 19
Iwas staring up at the stars when the familiar slide of the door sounded behind me later that night.
Cal.
After putting Mason to bed I’d slipped outside. It didn’t feel like a night where sleep would come easily.
He sat down quietly beside me, taking my hand.
I’d been pondering those skeletons of mine, wondering where I started the process of letting them out—of letting them go.
The beginning was as good a place as any.
“Janelle and I—we didn’t have the best childhood,” I murmured, my gaze still turned to the stars. I felt like I was free-falling off a cliff with those simple words. “We lived in a small town—a poor one. Our parents were addicts and unemployed. Things got pretty bad. Gran took us in. We didn’t have much, but she loved us,” I explained with vehemence. It was important to me that he knew that. It was important thatIremembered it.
“A lot of women—they might end up with a man like Tim because of their childhoods. Maybe because they were poor and didn’t have opportunity. That wasn’t the case for me.” I shook my head firmly. “I worked my ass off in school. I wanted to get the hell out of there. I wanted to make something of myself. When I graduated high school, I got the hell out of there. I loved my Gran and I love my sister, but they had their heels dug in. That life—it wasn’t for me. I wanted more.”
His hand flexed around mine, the only sign that he was listening. Other than that, he was quiet.
“I moved to Texas—Austin at first, for their nursing program.” I turned to him. “The biggest irony? I don’t even like the heat.” I snorted. “New Mexico, to Texas, to Nevada.” I shook my head with a self-deprecating smile.
He offered a grim smile in return. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The churn in my belly knew I was too.
My gaze returned to the sky. “I didn’t meet Tim until I was twenty-nine. I’d been a nurse for several years by then. I’d kind of given up on the whole idea of romance. It was difficult to date when I was just starting out, and it wasn’t really on my radar. It was like I woke up one day and I was almost thirty. I wanted a family. Where had the time gone?” I marveled to myself. “I was used to being independent and on my own, but I felt like something was missing.”
My heart lurched, thinking if I’d only met Cal during that time. How would my life have turned out? But then I wouldn’t have Mason. I’d do it all again a million times over to have Mason.
“He was down in Austin for work the first time we met. He asked me out to dinner and I figured, why not? He was charming.” I shrugged. “After that he started coming down from Dallas more and more. It felt easy. There were never fireworks, but I think… I think I was just lonely,” I admitted with a hard swallow. It wasn’t an easy thing to admit.
I received another firm reassuring squeeze of my hand.
“After a few months I agreed to move to Dallas. I found a job there.” I turned to look at Cal. “I married him, but looking back I wasn’t ever in love with him. I kept thinking it would come and in the meantime we’d build a life together. I was a grown, educated woman, but I was so foolish,” I lamented. “So naive.”
“Baby.” His gravelly voice was patient and low. “You said you didn’t marry a man like Tim because of your childhood. I’m sure that’s true in terms of your drive and your independence. You didn’t let your situation hold you back from making a different kind of future. But you can’t look past that you had no example of what love looks like.”
Shit, he was right. I’d never even thought of it that way. I was so hell-bent on not comparing myself to my parents that I’d been blind to it.
For a moment I was too shocked to continue, until I got another hand squeeze. “So you got married,” he pressed.
“I got married.” I nodded reluctantly. “Things were okay for a while. Then we started trying for a baby. I was having a hard time getting pregnant. He wasn’t happy about that,” I murmured, feeling Cal tense at my side. “As it turned out, I was incredibly lucky to get pregnant with Mason at all,” I added. “I have a lazy ovary and some other challenges.”
I assumed Cal didn’t want more children at this point, but it was still important to me that he knew I didn’t plan on having more children.
He squeezed my hand. “Then Mason’s special for more reasons than one.”
I offered a small smile in return. I couldn’t agree more.
Part of me felt relieved to be getting it all out, though I hadn’t gotten to the toughest part. The part I dreaded sharing with him. The part I was most ashamed of. It wasn’t the abuse. It was what I’d done about it—or hadn’t—that I still couldn’t get past, much less expect him to.
