For the Girls' Sake - By Janice Kay Johnson Page 0,68

into her hair and cupped the back of her head.

I’m your husband, he said without words.

It scared her, but the promise enticed her. We’re husband and wife. We have children and a life together. She uttered a soft sigh and slipped her arms around his neck, rising on tiptoe so that she could be closer to him, giving him her answer.

He strung kisses across her cheek, nibbled at her earlobe, stroked her neck. When he lifted his head, she saw a light in his eyes.

"I’ve wanted to touch your hair since that day at the hospital. I’ve been dying to kiss your freckles." He brushed her nose with his lips. "To hear you say my name as if you mean it."

"Adam," she whispered.

"Yes." His eyes softened. "Like that."

She let her head fall back as he kissed her again.

"We’d better check that the girls are asleep." Her voice came out as a mere thread of its normal self.

"Mmm." He kissed her slowly, sweetly.

Melting, she hardly knew when he flicked off the kitchen light and steered her down the hall, pausing briefly in front of the girls’ room.

"Sound asleep," he murmured, and swung her into his arms.

With a muffled squeak, she stiffened and clutched at his shoulders. "What are you doing?"

"Shh. Don’t want to wake the girls." With his shoulder, he turned off the hall light and carried her into her dark bedroom. "Symbolism is important. We skipped this part on our wedding day. Seems like the thing to do now."

He was carrying her across the threshold. A shiver passed through her. My woman to carry home, the gesture seemed to say. Their marriage wasn’t that kind.

Think about it tomorrow, she decided. Worry then.

* * *

ADAM HELD HIS WIFE until her racing pulse quieted, her breathing slowed, until he felt her boneless relaxation against him. Only then did he ease away, tuck the covers around her, and sit on the edge of the bed.

He buried his face in his hands and thought, It couldn’t have been that special. I couldn’t have felt so much. The explanation was much simpler. Lynn was his wife, and he’d been driven lately by the need to make their relationship fact. Any man would have felt the same.

And he wouldn’t like himself if a certain amount of tenderness wasn’t added to the brew, if he hadn’t cared about her happiness.

Anything else was in his imagination.

Adam rose to his feet and then froze when Lynn made a soft sound and burrowed deeper in the pillow and quilts. When she settled down, he went quietly to the window.

Jennifer, forgive me.

No! There was nothing to forgive. He’d married for Rose’s sake, for Shelly’s, and he owed it to them, to himself, to Lynn, to make this marriage real and lasting. Jennifer would understand.

He wouldn’t let himself think even for a moment that this had been more honest than anything he’d ever shared with Jennifer.

Lynn’s shyness had touched him.

Shy was a foreign word to his Jenny. That didn’t make their connection any less meaningful.

Staring out at the soft yellow glow of street lamps, able to hear the muffled beat of the surf though the window was shut, Adam didn’t want to be as casual about women as men he overheard talking in the locker room of his health club.

All he asked was that he be able to get close to his new wife without feeling as if he was cheating on Jennifer, without this constant, tearing remembrance that she’d lost everything, that all he could do in return was prove that his love was enduring.

Maybe he hadn’t been ready to test himself with Lynn.

Flattening his hands on the cold glass, Adam grimaced. Too late, he reminded himself. There was no way he could tell her in the morning that this had been a mistake. He owed her better than that kind of hurt.

And the truth was, he didn’t want to go back. He wanted to see Lynn’s eyes flutter open in the morning, see her pretty pink blush. He wanted to kiss her in the soft light before they rose for breakfast.

He wanted to hold his wife close every night.

Forgive me, Jenny.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"WHY IS DADDY SMILING at you like that?" Rose whispered loudly. She stared at her father with deep suspicion.

As a family, they were strolling the beach for goodies tossed up by this week’s storm. High tide had left a string of slippery, stinking seaweed and a long curving line of smooth small stones and broken shells, among which treasures