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And the problem was his.
Formed so long ago.
And maybe he couldn’t do this.But you need her. You need her.
And he lost himself in her. In the warmth of the water, the slickness of her skin. The way that her body rippled around his as she came closer and closer to her release.
He moved his hands over her curves, up to cup her breasts.
And he kept his eyes on her face. Beautiful and wild and his.
His.
His.
And when the storm was over she collapsed against him, and moved her hands over his face. His body. “I love you.”
And he felt an undeniable sense of sadness that moved through him. Like he’d lost her.
And he didn’t know why he felt that. Didn’t know why that certainty pervaded his soul. He chose not to acknowledge it. Instead, he picked her up from the tub, brought her into his room and laid her down beside him.
He wrapped her in a blanket, but he didn’t hold her.
And he lay there for a long time. For a long damn time.
He couldn’t sleep.
GUSWENTWITHher to do shopping in Tolowa. It was a long drive, and he hadn’t seemed particularly happy about it, but he had also agreed that it was appropriate enough for him to be involved in choosing all of the nursery things.
They were going with all new, since he had been so aggravated by the bedroom she’d set up. She hadn’t gone back in there, and neither had he. They just left it.
So they went to Target, and they picked up a full range of nursery items. To go with the antique furniture that she’d already gotten down in Copper Ridge.
Blankets and curtains and rugs, adorable little lamps. Arts and other little trinkets that made her smile.
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone overboard since they didn’t know the gender of the baby yet, but she had gone with mostly white and cream, with moons and stars and other fairly gender-neutral items. Gus was stoic, but then he had been since that night in the tub. He’d been very distant. They had cleared out her room, and she had moved into his. He did not hold her at night.
She said that she loved him, and nothing changed. He seemed to accept it. He even seemed to like it. But something had happened that night. When she had tried to get underneath his shield. He hadn’t liked it. And he was punishing her for it. Maybe not on purpose. But he was.
He deserved to be loved. What she’d said to Fia was true.
He deserved this.
He took her out for a hamburger. “You need to learn how to cook,” she said again.
“You keep offering.”
“Tonight. Tonight I’m going to teach you how to make pizza. How about that?”
“All right by me.”
“Great then.”
They went to the grocery store, and she still didn’t think she would ever get used to seeing Gus with a grocery cart.
Because however much more he seemed like a mortal man to her now, he was still far too big and sexy to be doing something as mundane as going through a grocery store. But it made her heart feel tender. And maybe she just had to accept that these were the things that she would have. That big strong Gus McCloud would go to the grocery store with her. That he would buy nursery items with her. That he would learn to make a pizza with her. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe it was just all about adjusting what she wanted.
Maybe that was it.
