Alison Roberts - Winning His Heart

She waited for him to react with horror to this revelation that she had never admitted out loud to anyone.

Instead, they sat silently on the front steps with the sun pouring down hot on their heads, drying their clothes so that the lemon stains and wrinkles would probably never come out. Her dog snoozing in her arms, Kayla was aware she did not feel judged at all.

There. They were out. Her shameful and most closely guarded secrets. It was like a mine exploding, but instead of feeling destructive, it felt like a relief.

Before it exploded she waited. And wondered. And every step was guarded. And every breath was held.

Suddenly it felt as if she could breathe.

And suddenly it felt as if she were free to walk across the field that was her memory without being caught in an explosion.

Instead of rejecting her, David put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into the solidness of his body.

And Kayla, in that moment of shared strength and sunshine, realized it had not been so much Kevin she had withheld forgiveness from.

In fact, she had forgiven Kevin again and again and again.

Except when he had died, taking with him any chance that they would find their way, that the love she still had for him would somehow see them through, would fix things—then she had felt angry and beyond forgiveness.

Betrayed by his carelessness in a way she could no longer fix. But now she could see most of her anger was at her own powerlessness.

She realized that more so than with Kevin, it was herself she had never forgiven. She had never forgiven herself for her own bad choices, for making everything worse instead of better.

But there, with David’s arm around her shoulder, she felt strong and warm, and for the first time in very, very long, optimistic.

And not in a superficial way. Not about starting an ice cream business or saving a house from ruin. She felt changed in a way that went to her soul.

“Why did you marry him?” David asked, his voice hoarse with caring, knowing instinctively somehow there was one last thing she needed to tell.

She shuddered. The last secret. The thing no one had ever known. Not her parents. Or Kevin’s. Not her best girlfriend.

“I was pregnant.”

“Shoot,” he said softly.

“You would have been proud of him,” she said. “He wanted us to get married. He wanted to do the honorable thing.”

But wasn’t this also what she had to forgive herself for? That she had accepted his attempt at honor instead of love? That she had allowed it all to go ahead, when there had been a million signs that maybe it would have been better to let it go, even if there was a baby, maybe especially if there was a baby?

“I miscarried the baby a month after we were married. But I still thought I could save Kevin,” she whispered. “After that summer, when he changed so much, I thought I could save him.”

This was met with silence.

“Love conquers all,” she said with a trace of self-derision. “We’d only been together that way once. After that little girl drowned, he was in so much pain. I was comforting him. One thing led to another.”

There. Of all of it. That was the thing she had never forgiven herself for.

David’s hand found hers, and he squeezed, but then he didn’t let go.

“You knew,” she whispered. “You knew it was going to be a disaster. You knew Kevin was a runaway train that nothing could stop. You told me not to marry him.”

“After that little girl died, it was as if I started seeing Kevin for who he really was,” he said, his voice ragged with regret. “He was in pain after it happened. But it wasn’t about her. It was about how it was affecting him. He begged me not to tell the investigators that he hadn’t been paying attention that day.

“But I had to do what I had to do. And I could never see him the same after that. I didn’t see ‘carefree’ anymore. I saw ‘careless.’ I didn’t see ‘fun-loving.’ I saw ‘irresponsible.’ I didn’t see ‘charming.’ I saw ‘self-centered.’

“And still.” His voice cracked. “If he would have once expressed remorse for that day, I would have loved him all over again.”

His voice firmed and became resolute. “But he didn’t. It was always all about him. It gave birth to this cynicism in me that has never been altered. That people will always act in their own self-interest. Myself included. I’m sorry, Kayla. I’m sorry to talk about your husband that way.”

But despite the things they both had said, they sat there bathed in more than sunlight.

They sat there bathed in truth and the special bond of a burden shared. They had shared the burden of loving someone who was grievously flawed and all the choices that entailed.

For Kayla, hopeful and romantic, this had meant moving closer. For David, pragmatic and guarded, moving away.

She had judged David’s choice, and even hated him for it, but now she wondered if it hadn’t been the right one after all. He had saved himself.

And she had lost herself. She had become something she had never been before: cynical and hard and a survivor.

But had she really?

Because sitting here with the warmth of the sun and the warmth of his shoulder being equally comforting, she realized she had never really stopped being that softhearted person who rescued impossible men, and old houses and orphaned dogs.

She had just tried to hide all that was soft about her, because it felt as if it left her open to hurt.

But now she felt soft all over again. She felt soft to her soul and the hard armor around her heart had fallen away, leaving it exposed.

And acknowledging she was those things—someone who believed, still, in the power of love—did not feel like a weakness.

It felt like a homecoming.

Kayla felt as close to David as she had ever felt to another human being. Close and connected.

She tilted her head and looked at him. Really looked. He turned and looked back at her. She saw the most amazing thing in his eyes.

Wonder.

As if he knew he had seen her at her rawest and most real, and still liked what he saw.

In David’s eyes she saw a truth that stole her breath away. If she were standing with her back against the wall, with the enemy coming at her with knives in their teeth, he would stand beside her.

If they were on a ship that was going down in a stormy sea, he would make sure she was safe before he got off.

If the building were burning and filled with smoke, he would be the one finding her hand and leading her out into the cool, clean air.

He was the one who could lead her to life.

Her newly softened heart was so filled with gratitude that she leaned toward him. She did not know how else to express the magnitude of what she was feeling, what she was awakening to, what she knew of herself that she had not known ten minutes ago.

Kayla found the courage to do what she had wanted to do since the moment she had first laid eyes on him again, after the bee had stung her.

If she’d been dying, she wanted to taste him, to feel the soft firmness of his lips tangling with her own.

Why would she not feel the same way about living?

He read her intent. And instead of backing away, he moved his hand to the small of her back and brought her in to himself. He tilted his head down so that it was easy for her to reach his lips.

And then they touched.

She touched the soft openness of her lips to the hard line of his. Only his lips were not hard.

Not at all.

The texture was velvety and plump, like a peach, warmed by the sun and ready to be picked.

At first the kiss was gentle, a welcome. But it quickly deepened to reflect the hunger between them, a long-ago fire that still had embers glowing.