shot you down at every opportunity. You tried. God, you tried. You loved me and I shit on it because I was eaten alive inside with resentment and my own personal unhappiness. I didn’t want to hear I love you from your lips, but the moment you stopped saying it, I resented you even more. I was the worst sort of ass, and I finally decided that the least I could do for you was to set you free. Noble, huh?”
He threw up his hands in disgust and turned back around. The agony on her face made him want to puke. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, but he was afraid to, because if she rejected him now, he was lost.
“I was too much of a coward to just man up and tell you that I was unhappy with my decision. You would have supported me. I know you would have. So I made you miserable and then threw the divorce papers at you. I’ll never forget the look on your face, Rachel. It’s eaten me up for the last year. You walked away thinking I hated you and that I wanted out of our marriage, and I never got to make things right between us.”
She stood shakily, her hand going down to the edge of the couch to steady herself on the way up. Her face was pale, her eyes huge. She looked . . . devastated.
She licked her lips and briefly looked away as if gathering her courage. Ironic, since she was the only one between them who had the strength and courage of a warrior.
When she looked back at him, the emotion in her gaze hit him square in the gut. Tears swam over her dark brown eyes and slid silently down her cheeks.
“Do you want out, Ethan? Is that guilt that’s eating you why you’re with me now? Because you feel responsible for what happened and that the last words you said to me were about wanting a divorce? Did you want me to find those papers?”
No longer able to stand apart from her, he crossed the room and gathered her in his arms.
“No, baby. God, no. Never. I didn’t want out then. I don’t want out now. I love you. I made mistakes. Mistakes that cost me everything. The moment you walked out that door, I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I spent the entire week you were gone planning the right things to say to you when you got back home. I was prepared to beg. To do whatever I had to do to make you stay and to show you I loved you.
“And then I got the news that you’d died.”
His voice cracked, and he couldn’t go on anymore. Even saying the words brought back the reality of that day. Of feeling like the entire world had dropped from beneath him. He never wanted to go back there.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed then or now. At first I kept the papers because I wanted to tear them up when you got back. But then when I was told you died, I kept them as a reminder of all I’d lost and that the fault was mine and mine alone. When I discovered you were alive, they were the very last thing on my mind. I totally forgot I’d left them there.”
He slowly drew away, needing to see her. He touched her face, smoothing the red tear blotches against her pale skin.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Hot tears spilled over his fingertips, and he whisked them away, his soul hurting with each one that slithered down her cheek.
“I need to know that you’re with me now because you love me and not because you feel obligated to right some past wrong,” she choked out. “I can’t live thinking you feel trapped because your dead wife came back from the grave. I can’t live thinking I’ve been given everything I’ve prayed for the last year when it’s not real. It’s hell and not heaven.”
He kissed her forehead and then her nose. Then both of her eyelids. He kissed the damp trails away from her cheeks and finally pressed a gentle kiss to her quivering mouth.
“The day I learned you were alive was the single greatest day of my life. For whatever reason, God gave me a second chance. He gave us a second chance. I don’t