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Sam grabbed a T-shirt from one of the dresser drawers and pulled it over his head. Once he was covered, he turned and blinked several times, most likely to push the tears aside and put up that resilient persona once again.
“Working, like I said.”
“Stop lying to me,” she demanded. “If you met someone or needed to sneak around, I have to know what I’m dealing with again.”
“Again.” He repeated the word with mocking laughter. “You immediately went to the worst time in our lives. Do you ever stop to think of all the memories leading up to that point? Did you truly believe I...what? That I went out for a fix today?”
Tara’s heart beat so hard, so fast, she reached for the edge of the bedpost for added stability. Nerves swirled around in her stomach and guilt consumed her over the pain in Sam’s voice.
“I don’t know what I thought,” she admitted softly. “I know you care for me, for us, but I don’t know why you lied. Can you explain that?”
Sam let out a humorless laugh and shook his head. “Sure. I was working on something for you. You’d always talked about opening your own practice and I was meeting with a guy about a building he was selling. I was walking through and making a list of renovations and I was going to surprise you.”
Tara gripped the post even tighter as another wave of guilt and frustration overwhelmed her. She’d jumped to conclusions when she should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt. She’d been a complete jerk. There was no way he would forgive her, and honestly, he shouldn’t.
They both had their hang-ups and maybe they weren’t meant to be together. Maybe there was just too much deep inside them to let them explore a new life. Perhaps all of those old feelings would continue to resurface and keep them in the past.
She absolutely hated that she counseled people for a living, yet she couldn’t get her own life together. Maybe she needed to speak to someone again and assess her own demons, and try to wade through the chaos and war going on inside her.
“Saying I’m sorry is so... I don’t know. It’s not enough,” she muttered, feeling like an absolute fool. “But I am sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
Sam stood there, hands at his sides, all serious and sad, and she wanted nothing more than to cross the room and touch him. She wanted to rewind and take back her allegations, to remove all doubts from her mind, to believe that he was the man she knew him to be. But she couldn’t do any of that and their second chance was gone because of her.
“I’m sorry, too,” he murmured as he turned toward the door. But he stopped short and, without turning around, added, “I would’ve given anything to have my family again.”
Tara’s heart clenched as he glanced one last time over his shoulder.
“But both of us need to be in the present for this to work and you can’t give up the past.” He turned toward the hallway and muttered, “I’m sleeping on the couch.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What do you mean, you guys aren’t together?” Lucy gasped as she folded the pale gray napkins for Kate’s baby shower.
The yellow, white and gray theme was both elegant and practical, considering nobody knew the sex of the baby. But since Lucy and Kate both knew that she and Sam were getting along and wanting to work on things, Tara felt like an even bigger fool backtracking now. Like, yes, we’re getting back together. Oh, wait, never mind.
The uncertainty didn’t sit well with her. She had had too much of that growing up, and the last thing she wanted was to live like that in her adult life and have her daughter subjected to an unstable lifestyle. But Sam hadn’t moved out. Marley had been clinging to him day and night. They needed to sit down as a family and talk, but Tara didn’t have the heart right now.
Marley’s memories had returned only days ago, so everyone was still tiptoeing around the important topics. Sam, however, hadn’t slept in her bed and they actually hadn’t spoken unless they’d had to.
“I tore his heart out,” Tara stated as she laid a delicate yellow daisy on the folded napkin. “You know I texted that Marley and I were going to surprise him for lunch?”
