Ann Christopher - Redemption's Kiss

“Fine.” Stung by his rejection and sick with worry, she watched him plant the cane with painstaking care and get both his feet under him. Panting now and looking pale—God, she hoped he wasn’t still in pain—he leaned on the cane, closed his eyes and took a ragged breath. “Fall on your ass, then. See if I care.”

The flash of a crooked smile was her only warning before those hazel eyes flew open and locked onto her face with a hard gleam. Then he sprang into action, caught her around the waist with a free hand that was still as powerful as it had ever been, swung her around and backed her into the wall.

“Don’t.”

Too late. He’d already settled against her and shifted so that her hips cradled his and there was no question about which parts of his body were still in fine working order.

Just like that, her mind emptied out and there was only the pleasure and sweet remembrance of they way they felt together, the way his hands made her body hum with energy.

Push him away, Jill. Do it.

The intent was there, but her flesh was starved and weak and he felt as unspeakably good as ever. She struggled but only wound up gripping his muscular arms, pulling him closer when she should have been yanking herself free.

This small acquiescence pushed him over an edge.

With a sound that was half groan, half growl, he dropped the cane with a clatter. Then he held her head between his hands, and forced her to look into the fractured shards of green and brown light that were his brilliant eyes.

Beau. God, Beau.

His fingers worked through her hair until they massaged her scalp and melted her like a caramel chew left in the sun. She nearly died with the rightness of being back with him like this, seeing him like this, feeling him like this.

All the old chemistry was still there, all the passion and the need. There was no pretending it wasn’t, not with him this close.

“Here’s the thing,” he murmured. “You do care. I know you do. I remember what you told me in the hospital.” Oh, no. He couldn’t have heard—

“You were out of your mind with pain and the meds,” she tried. “You have no idea what—”

“Bullshit.” His lips thinned with stubborn anger. “I heard what you said.”

This was too much. Apparently there was no weapon he wouldn’t use against her; she should have known. Distraught, she abandoned her pride and fought for survival by appealing to his conscience. She knew he had one buried deep somewhere.

“Why don’t you just stab me with a knife and be done with it?” She kept her voice quiet, knowing that would affect him more than yelling. “Wouldn’t that be easier than the way you keep tearing me apart every time I get my life back together?”

That did it. His face contorted with what she hoped was shame and his head dropped.

She sagged with relief.

But instead of moving away and freeing her, he rubbed his face against her cheek—his nose against her hair—and inhaled her the way a drowning man would inhale that first breath of air when he was rescued.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve always loved you, and I died loving you—”

“Don’t.”

“—and I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t think you still loved me. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I was ready to be the kind of husband you need. We’ve got to face down our demons, Jill. We’ve got to do it together.”

No. Not that. Never that.

A renewed surge of anger and adrenalin flashed through her, giving her the burst of strength she needed. Wrenching free, she hurried a few steps away, out of his reach, and wheeled around to face him in all her terrified fury. She focused on one small part of what he’d said because that was the only thing she had the courage to confront.

“You’re not my husband anymore.”

“I intend to change that,” he said flatly.

Hurry, Jill. You can make it.

Hurry…hurry…HURRY.

But as she unceremoniously left Beau’s house and sped back down the hill to the B & B, where she belonged, she didn’t think she could make it at all. Overhead, the sun had begun its midmorning blaze and the air was thicker now, a humid sludge of unbreathable oxygen, all but useless to her.

Run, Jill!

No. She couldn’t run. Couldn’t risk Beau looking out the window and seeing what he’d reduced her to. If it killed her, and it just might, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction and ammunition of knowing how he affected her. He’d only use it against her the first chance he got.

Almost there. Hang on.

Ahead of her loomed the B & B, her beacon, the only thing saving her from collapsing in the street. For a minute it seemed like it was coming closer, but then her legs slowed down, her lungs emptied out, and her tiny safe haven from Beau remained as unreachable as a rainbow’s end.

Meanwhile, her frantic heart had gone berserk and seemed determined to pump out a thousand erratic beats per minute. The staccato pounded in her tight throat and battled with her breath for supremacy. Neither won, leaving her gasping and panicked.

Passing out on the sidewalk seemed like a real possibility. With the way her luck was running today, she’d fracture her skull on the concrete as she fell, and lapse into a coma before the EMTs came.

Maybe she should sit on the curb and wait for the spell to pass. Or maybe she should drape herself around the mailbox post so the mailman would see and rescue her when he came to deliver today’s batch of bills and catalogs.

No. She could do this.

One more step, Jill. You can do it. And another. Last one.

She staggered up the stairs and through the kitchen door into her refuge, where the cooler air didn’t make one damn bit of difference.

No sign of Blanche, though, thank God. She could really do without any witnesses to this, her first full-blown panic attack in months.

Doubled over now, the walls spinning until only streaks of random colors and patches of sunlight passed before her eyes, she lurched into the dark pantry, slammed the door behind her and hit the cold floor right between the fifty-pound burlap sack of basmati rice and the flour bin.

Put your head between your legs, Jill. Do it.

She did it.

Breathe, Jill. Just breathe. There’s no reason why you can’t.

There was a reason. Beau had unleashed these demons inside her, and now they had her throat in an iron grip trapped inside a cage of paralyzing anxiety.

It was too much. This was all too much: Beau and the B & B, Allegra and single motherhood, making lunch and the guests and the payroll and facing another day after this one.

She couldn’t do it.

She’d made it this far, yeah, and built a so-called new life, but she’d only been faking it, and the jig was up.

Now her horrible truth was out and the whole world would know her ugly and humiliating secret: she was a mess, unworthy of the title of mother or even woman. She couldn’t fake her way through another day.

Breathe, Jill. Just breaaaathe.

The constricting pressure around her chest eased up, just a little.

It was a start. Not a good start, but a start.

Trying again, working from her belly, she sucked in another molecule or two of air and it was a miraculous triumph, the same as giving birth to a healthy child or landing a rover on Mars.

Panting and choked, she wheezed her way to a complete lungful and then another after that, and by then her training kicked in to save her.

Good thoughts, Jill, she reminded herself. Think them.

She thought about Allegra. She thought about spending a day on the beach, splashing in the waves and enjoying the sun’s bright heat on her face. She thought about warm, gooey chocolate-chip cookies with pecans, and the fluffy comfort of her down-covered bed. She thought about all the emotional progress she’d made and how far she’d come.