They showered together. Ate spicy sandwiches, then licked mustard off each other’s skin.
Laughed. Every touch, every gesture made them laugh. Happiness that had been delayed, suppressed, came out in a joy that started inside them and erupted. If laughter could be said to come from the pores of their skin, it did.
As the sun rose, the light from inside them began to fade. They lay still, her head on his shoulder, bodies wrapped together.
There were no words that could be spoken. It had all been said. They must part. Not for themselves, but for those they loved—and would love. The sacrifice they were making was for people who did not deserve pain or in some cases, more pain. It was for the protection of the children they would have.
“You—” Terri began, but Nate put his fingertip over her lips.
He stroked her hair in a gentle way. So gentle, so sweet, that she fell asleep. And when she awoke, he was gone.
Chapter 17
Nate was in DC, sitting on the hated white couch in the apartment he and Stacy had stayed in. He was bent over, head in hands, and trying not to think that his life was over. A year! He was to stay away from Terri for an entire year.
When footsteps came down the hall, he didn’t look up.
“Might I ask what you’re doing in my apartment?” Rowan asked.
With a sigh, Nate leaned back and looked at his cousin. “Why are you here?”
“I live here, and right now I’m on holiday.”
It wasn’t easy for Nate to pull his mind away from his own problems, but Rowan looked awful. He had a big bandage on his forehead, a greenish eye and a bruise on his jaw. “You get shot again?”
“No. Blacked out and fell down the stairs, or the other way around. I don’t remember clearly.” He sat down on the opposite couch. “What about you? Last time I saw you, you were in a hospital. You looked better then than you do now.”
“Felt better then.”
“Ah,” Rowan said. “Your girl dump you?”
“Girls. Plural.”
Rowan raised his eyebrows. “That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard in days. Tell me about it.”
For a moment they sat in silence, two very handsome men, physical oppo
sites. Rowan was as slender and lithe as Nate was big and solid. But both of them had eyes sunken with misery.
“I guess you could say I have memory problems too. I was in love with one woman, spent a couple of weeks with another one and could hardly remember the first one. First one won’t speak to me and the second one told me to come back in a year. I think your dad set me up with the second girl.”
Rowan gave a tiny bit of a smile.
Nate grinned. “The second girl, the one I like, has an old boyfriend coming back to town. Everyone likes him but the whole town wants to hang me from the courthouse.” When Rowan looked skeptical, Nate said, “First girl’s father is the local mayor.”
Rowan laughed. “I think maybe you win—or lose. So what are you going to do?”
“Can you arrest the old boyfriend? Hold him in prison for a year?”
“Is this year to allow the town to get over what you did to the mayor’s daughter?”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “And so Terri doesn’t have another mark against her in that damned town.”
“Is she the one you and I went to dinner with? Yes, and I know her. Stacy Hartman.” Rowan stood up. “Are you planning to stay here in DC or go back home?”
“Haven’t decided.”
“Who is the second girl?”