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They did the dishes together. Then it wasn’t time to go home, because she was home. So he took her to bed, and he made her feel beautiful.
He wasn’t ready for more.
She was, though.
But if she was asked to write a list of whatmorewas, she wouldn’t have been able to say. It was a feeling. Just a feeling.
She was going to have to find a way to show him the feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ITWASLACHLAN’SBIRTHDAY, and it seemed like no one had planned anything. Over the years he had always told her that he did birthday celebrations with his family. She had accepted that. For all these years. Now she wondered if he just deliberately avoided birthdays.
She was starting to realize heneverslept with her. It was adding to all her uncertainty. She’d been so sure she knew him. Everything about him.
Making love with him should have shown her that...no, she didn’t.
She knew him, but not what kind of lover he was. That was the tip of a very large iceberg of all she didn’t know, and she was overwhelmed with it now.
He wasn’t sleeping with her on purpose. He never did. Not the whole night. She’d thought he was just getting up early, but she wasn’t sure he ever really slept with her at all. It hurt her. She was bothered by the fact that there seemed to be a deliberate distance between the two of them, but that awful story about what his father had done to him had begun to solidify her understanding of him in ways that she hadn’t understood him before.
It was a strange thing, this marriage business. But she had never known how he slept or didn’t sleep before. His sleep was always interrupted. She hadn’t realized that. He didn’t like birthdays. She hadn’t realized that, either.
She wanted to give him a party. And while she was tempted to rope the whole family and to make something spectacular out of it, she had a feeling that he wasn’t quite there yet. She got home early and started the process of baking a cake. She had gone to the outdoor store over in Mapleton when she had been there for an appointment and had gotten him a couple of things. Some new work gloves, because she had noticed that his were worn. A new belt, simply because she had liked the look of it, and the cowboy hat, for the same reason.
A nice mix of practical and something that she would just enjoy. And she hoped he would, too.
She was rudimentary in her cake-decorating skills, but she did her very best to pipe Happy Birthday Lachlan onto the top of the cake, and she had gotten candles so she was committed to putting thirty-two on the top of the cake, which was no mean feat, but she managed to position them all around the letters. When she heard his truck pull up, she stood quickly in front of the cake so that he couldn’t see it when he came in.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she responded. “Why don’t you wash up for supper?”
“You cooked for me,” he said.
“I did,” she said, beaming. She made a roast. Potatoes and carrots, everything that she knew he liked. Because it was his birthday.
He went into the bathroom, and while he was in there she quickly lit the candles. They would have dinner first, but she wanted to surprise him with the lit-up cake.
And when he came out of the bathroom, she held it out. “Happy birthday.”
His face cycled through several extreme emotions all at once, and she suddenly felt like... Like maybe she had gotten it wrong.
But she wanted to make a new memory. With the two of them. That was the point of this marriage. Wasn’t it? That was the point of them.
“Thanks,” he said, his face looking like it was made of stone.
“Lachlan, I just wanted...”
“I get it. I told you about all the times I didn’t have a birthday party. You felt bad for me.”
“I understand that it’s a little bit of a thing...”
“Charity... It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. It’s just I’m... I don’t like birthdays.”
He looked tortured.
“I’m so sorry. I...”
