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When she opened her mouth to respond, the truth moved through her like a breeze would fill a sail, inexorably setting their course.
“As it turns out, I didn’t know my father as well as I thought, not really. My mother had every reason to leave. I suspect she would have taken me along had Da allowed it.” This last part she’d not even fully considered, but the moment she said it, she knew it was true.
Michael lifted his gaze to hers, his brown eyes warm and attentive.
“Harry told me,” she added, “just today.”
Michael let out a breath, then shifted more fully onto the bed, his back resting against the headboard, legs stretched out beside her. He stared up at the ceiling. Some minutes later, she felt his fingers stroke lightly through her hair, and when she made a contented sound, he shifted closer until her cheek rested against the outside of his thigh.
“It’s a devil of a thing,” he said to the ceiling, “being hurt by someone who isn’t there to make it right again. As long as they’re alive, the possibility remains—that you might make them understand… that you might, in turn, understand them. But when they’re gone…” He trailed off. “And to discover something like that after he’s gone… when they’ve left you with no possible recourse… it must feel like he’s stolen an extra turn after the game is done.”
A wan smile pulled her lips at his very Michael-like analogy, then they fell into a stretch of companionable silence once more, her hurt softened by the gentle sift of his fingers through her hair.
“What would you say to him now, if you could?”
She half shrugged a shoulder. “I suppose I would tell him that his secrecy did me a disservice, robbing me of the opportunity to know him fully and to love him still.”
Even as she said it, she knew how the admission would sound to Michael’s ears. She supposed that was precisely why she’d said it.
The steady stroke of his fingers slowed ever so slightly. “You wouldn’t find it impossible to love a man who’s disappointed you so thoroughly?”
“I don’t think it’s possible to be disappointed so thoroughly without love. Nor do I believe that particular emotion is an easy one to wholly extinguish”
Gwen swallowed hard against the cowardly urge to say more—anything to soften what she’d implied. She pressed her lips together instead, forcing herself to let the truth lie there, stark and unprotected between them.
“Utterly astounding,” Michael murmured, perhaps more to himself than to her, but Gwen couldn’t resist probing anyway.
“What is?”
Michael paused, feint resignation crossing his features before he answered. “Nothing really. It’s only… that’s just the sort of sentimental hogwash I’d mock Gabriel for saying, but coming from you, I don’t find it the least bit amusing.”
“No?”
“No. As it turns out, I’m rather a fierce advocate for your sentimental hogwash. Who would have thought it?”
The warm chuckle that followed chased away the last of Gwen’s unease and she snuggled closer. Michael let out a sigh, his hand smoothing along the tangle of her hair to squeeze her shoulder before resuming its gentle caress.
“If I were a better husband, I would insist you sit up and take some tea, but I’m too content at the moment to make demands with anything that even remotely approximates conviction.”
He yawned then, and she tucked her smile against his thigh.
The sun was low in the sky, inviting shadows into the room. The fire needed tending, but the growing darkness, combined with the latent strength of his large body pressed against hers, gave the illusion of safety, of stability… even though there was still so much left unsaid between them. For a little while at least, it felt good to set all of that aside and simply be with him.
Was this what it would be like if he stayed? If she let go of what remained of her resentment, her fear, and her wounded pride. If she gave him every reason to remain—would it be enough? And if so, would she one day regret throwing those doors open to him? For a long time, they remained quiet, his sweet, caressing fingers never slowing. Downstairs, the front door opened, then closed, the sounds of muffled voices and tired footsteps carrying through the house. The men had arrived home.
“Dinner will be on soon,” Michael said. “I’ll bring up a tray.”
Something in her expression must have betrayed how little she liked the idea of him leaving, and he made no effort to rein in his answering satisfaction.
“I’ve no intention of taking my meal downstairs, Gwen. Not when you’ve given me reason to hope that you might actually want me here.”
He stood, dawdling at the edge of the bed for a moment as if waiting for her to agree—as though he wanted to hear those exact words repeated back to him. When she said nothing, he rubbed his jaw, his smile peeking out between splayed fingers. “I see I’ve reached my allotment of reassurance for today.” But even his grumbling could not quite conceal the pleasure in his voice.
CHAPTER 15
Michael
As was often the case, Gwen was gone when Michael awoke. Only this time, her absence left him with a nagging sense of dread. It dogged him as he hastily threw on his clothes, scoured his breakfast, and lingered as he searched for some meaningful way to occupy the remainder of his morning. Even hauling great bolts of sailcloth into the warehouse could not shake the fear that the closeness born of yesterday’s conversations might prove as fleeting as the tenderness that so often followed their lovemaking.
