The rough ride, p.28
The Rough Ride, page 28
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone overboard since they didn’t know the gender of the baby yet, but she had gone with mostly white and cream, with moons and stars and other fairly gender-neutral items. Gus was stoic, but then he had been since that night in the tub. He’d been very distant. They had cleared out her room, and she had moved into his. He did not hold her at night.
She said that she loved him, and nothing changed. He seemed to accept it. He even seemed to like it. But something had happened that night. When she had tried to get underneath his shield. He hadn’t liked it. And he was punishing her for it. Maybe not on purpose. But he was.
He deserved to be loved. What she’d said to Fia was true.
He deserved this.
He took her out for a hamburger. “You need to learn how to cook,” she said again.
“You keep offering.”
“Tonight. Tonight I’m going to teach you how to make pizza. How about that?”
“All right by me.”
“Great then.”
They went to the grocery store, and she still didn’t think she would ever get used to seeing Gus with a grocery cart.
Because however much more he seemed like a mortal man to her now, he was still far too big and sexy to be doing something as mundane as going through a grocery store. But it made her heart feel tender. And maybe she just had to accept that these were the things that she would have. That big strong Gus McCloud would go to the grocery store with her. That he would buy nursery items with her. That he would learn to make a pizza with her. Maybe that was the thing. Maybe it was just all about adjusting what she wanted.
Maybe that was it.
They picked up all the pizza supplies, and began the drive back.
She put the groceries away while he took the larger items up to the nursery. And she started unpacking all of it and arranging it.
She felt genuine excitement when she looked around the nursery. More than excitement. A deep well of love like she’d never known. And she wondered if it would be a little boy or a little girl. The Sullivans were all girls. It would be interesting to see a boy. Her heart clenched when she wondered if a boy child would look like her father. But she imagined that was something she would just have to deal with.
She carried the genetics of a person who made decisions she didn’t like.
Gus had to live with that.
She would love this child. And she would teach them to do different. To be different. Gus and the way he loved the land, the way that he cared about doing the right thing. His commitments... He would instill those things in their child.
And she would...
Something in her heart faltered just then.
When she tried to think what she would teach this child.
Well, she was headstrong. She cared a lot about things. She loved. Very fiercely. She would love them, the way that she loved Gus. And she would teach them...
How will you show them what they deserve?
This growth hurt so damn bad. Because she knew now that she had to demand more. That she couldn’t hide, or run or deflect.
It wasn’t who she was anymore.
She swallowed hard, pushing that thought away as she went downstairs. “The cooking lessons are starting,” she said.
They went into the kitchen, and Gus pushed his sleeves up, pushed his cowboy hat back. “Okay. Where do we begin?”
She smiled, trying to push her doubts away. Trying to push her issues away. But it was strange how that completed nursery had filled her mind with images of not just having a baby, but of what kind of mother she would be.
And she thought more about what Fia had said. Worry that she would be abandoned. Worry about the kinds of things that hurt and concerned her.
She didn’t worry that Gus would abandon her. She didn’t.
She didn’t worry about being like their mother.
Although she had to wonder. What it would be like to have this one-sided love with Gus for years on end.
What it might do to her over time. And what kind of mother it might turn her into. What kind of person.
“First let’s start with the crust,” she said.
She got out a recipe and mixing bowls, and pretty soon both she and Gus were covered in flour.
“I’m thinking it’s going to be a remake of the pancake fiasco,” he said.
“Maybe we should’ve started with hamburgers.”
“You just had one for lunch.”
“I can’t get enough of them.”
He had his hands in the mixing bowl, moving the ball of dough around, and she reached hers and put them over his. He went still. His movements going stiff.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did you pull away?”
“It’s not a big deal.” Except that she could see in his eyes that it was. And this was what it was going to be like always. Because this was what it was like when you were all in and the person with you wasn’t. When they were holding back a part of themselves.
And she knew that Gus had been hurt. Worse than she had been. She’d had pain in her life. But she was young, and she’d had opportunity to recover from some of these things. In a gentler way. She hadn’t settled into them like he had.
“Gus,” she said. “I just wish that you would tell me.”
“This is a pizza lesson. Not a cross-examination on feelings.”
“All right then. Knead the pizza dough,” she said.
She moved away from him, and turned around, looking out the window at McClouds’.
And then she looked back at him. His broad shoulders, his lean waist. His utterly perfect male beauty. She loved him. She loved him so much. And she believed in her heart that he deserved to be loved.
And a broken cry escaped her lips.
Because she deserved to be loved too. And she had been holding herself back from that. From that reality. From that truth.
She understood what had damaged him. She knew that it was more complicated than just his father’s abuse and his mother’s abandonment. But she tasted shades of it and she understood how it could affect what she felt about herself.
She had convinced herself, not in so many words, that she could take less. She hadn’t dreamed about a husband and children, because she had been taught that she couldn’t trust in those things. And shouldn’t want them.
She had gone after Travis because he was easy. She liked Hunter because he was impossible.
She had cared about Gus in a deep, real way since she was young enough that it wasn’t sexual. But she had cared for him. And she had never let herself get closer than that because of the fear of rejection. And now here she was. And she realized he wouldn’t reject her. But he would keep taking. And it would do them both a disservice. That wall would stay up unless she challenged him to knock it down. He would pull away and pull away and pull away and she would draw closer and closer and closer. And they would do that dance forever. And what would she tell their child? About what they deserved. If she could not admit that she deserved to be loved. She deserved it. More than just protection. She deserved it even though she had made a mistake. She deserved to be loved fully and completely.
She didn’t know if there was a man out there that she could ever have that with, not the way she did with Gus. She was actually pretty sure there wasn’t.
She had wanted him to protect her because she wanted to be with him. And she would be another person who walked away from him. And that killed her. But staying with him just might kill her too. And she would be dragging her child right into it.
“Gus,” she said. “I want you to love me.”
The air around them went still, and his whole body went straight. “What?”
“I’ve said that I loved you a bunch of times. I mean it. I keep saying it, and nothing changes. That isn’t what I want. I want you to love.”
“I already told you that I...”
“I know that you did. But I’m sorry. It’s not enough.”
“It’s not enough? Alaina, this was never part of our deal.”
“No, I know. But it was never part of the deal for me to fall in love with you either. But I did. I have.”
“You can’t take it from me,” he said, walking across the space, his voice intense. “You can’t offer me this, and then take it away from me.”
“I’m not. I didn’t. I’m not taking it away from you. I love you. I love you, but I need you to love me.”
“You will not leave me,” he said. “You can’t fucking leave me.”
“I don’t want to leave you, Gus. I want you to love me. I want you to...to deal with whatever that thing is inside of you that is keeping you from doing it. Because if I don’t demand that you do it, you’re never going to be able to give me what I want. You’re never going to be able to give our child what they deserve. And I won’t be able to be a good example. I won’t be able to be a good mother. And I want... I want nothing more than to try to get comfortable with this. I want to stay with you. I want this to be enough. I want to have sex with you every night and sleep with you, and stay with you. I want your body, and I want your hands on me. And I want to live with you. But I want your heart and I want your soul, and if I don’t demand it...then neither of us will get everything we deserve. Because one-sided love doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“I need you,” he said, his voice sounding broken. “Alaina, I need you. You can’t just be there for me, and then not be.”
“Then love me. Love me enough to do whatever you need to do to...”
“What if it’s all bullshit? What if there’s nothing more than this? What if there’s nothing more? Then how can you say that you really love me if you can’t take me exactly like I am? How?”
Tears started to pour down her face as he said exactly what she felt in her heart. How could she leave, how could she profess to love him and not take him with all of his flaws?
Because it was selling him short.
“Because it’s not love if you can have more and we take half. Because it’s not love if I let you stay there bleeding. What is love? Loving someone enough to reset the bone, isn’t it? Even if it hurts. It doesn’t help anyone to let you stay broken if I know that you could be whole.”
“You don’t know that I can be.”
“I know you’re not violent. Whatever you say about that...whatever you did to your dad, I know that’s not who you are.”
“It is.”
“Fine then,” she said. “It is. But it doesn’t scare me. Stop holding back.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t do it. Just go. Leave, Alaina. If you can’t take what I’m giving you, then you need to just go. Because it’s... I can’t give you more than this. I can’t be more than I am.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You would just have to risk something, and you’re not willing to do it.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I feel.”
“But you don’t get to set the limits on us.”
“What are you going to do? You’re just going to leave? Go back to Sullivan’s Point. Divorce me? You’re going to be just like everyone. You’re just gonna leave me. You can leave me, and you never really loved me because if somebody loves you they won’t leave.”
“Gus...”
“No. It’s fine. I’m used to it. That’s how it is. She left me too. It’s never really love.”
“You listen to me, Gus McCloud. And you listen good. I’m not leaving you. I will be at Sullivan’s Point, and you’ll know exactly where I am. And when you’re ready, you can come and get me. And I will go with you. When you’re ready. I’m not leaving you with a madman. Well, no one except you. And you are going to have to sort out what you want. You’re going to have to sort out what it all means. I can’t do it for you. Because you won’t let me. I would be happy to sit with you and picture your broken childhood piece by piece. But you don’t want me to do it. And I can’t keep reaching out only to have you push me away. But I’m not her. You’ll know where to find me.”
“You told me you wouldn’t leave me,” he said.
“I thought that was the kindest thing,” she said. “But I see it now. I see us. Falling into the same pattern over and over. I have to break the pattern.”
“You promised me.”
She felt like she was dying. “I think...separation, distance, is what we need. Otherwise after this, we’ll have sex, and then it will all be okay for a while. Until I get too close to your wounds again, and we’ll go on like that. On and on.”
“You’re just the same as everyone else.”
He was angry and hurt, and hell, so was she. “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving you to burn. I’m trying to get you out. I said I didn’t need you to love me back because I didn’t know better. I do now. I need it, but even more, you need it.”
“You’re just going to leave me with a nursery and a half-made pizza and...”
“Unless I’m leaving you with a broken heart, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”
She felt sick to her stomach, and with shaking hands, still covered in flour, she walked into the living room. She looked around at all of it. Everything that she had done to try to build a life with him. And all she could see was her marks layered over his.
Because they had never really become one. She wanted it. Maybe he even thought he did too. But there was one final piece that was missing. The one thing that could complete the picture, and he wasn’t willing to do the work to get there.
She had to go. For herself. For him. For the baby.
Maybe he would come after her.
Her chest gave a giant twist. And she had to take a sharp breath to keep herself standing. To keep herself from collapsing.
And she walked out of the house, her heart pounding a sickening rhythm in her head.
And she got into her truck, and drove toward Sullivan’s Point. And she waited. To see headlights behind her. To see Gus coming after her.
Because Gus... Gus had always been there for her. Until she’d asked for this.
She had to just make the drive. She couldn’t fall apart. Not now.
It took five minutes to get to Sullivan’s Point, and each one of them felt interminable.
Finally, she arrived, and she got out of the truck, practically falling out and running to the farmhouse.
It was Fia that answered the door.
“Alaina...”
“I left,” she said.
And then she dissolved into heartrending tears. And she didn’t think she would ever be whole again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
GUS WAS STILL trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He was standing in his kitchen, with his hands in a bowl, covered in flour.
She had asked for him to love her. She had asked for him to love her.
And he couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t do it.
He put his hand on his chest. There was a sharp pain there, and it felt like a heart attack. Maybe it was a heart attack.
That would figure. He couldn’t access his damn emotions so his heart was going to give out on him. Like it was forcing him to involve it.
It doesn’t need to force you, you jackass.
What the hell was this? And what did any of it matter? What did it fix?
Why couldn’t she just accept what they had?
Why...?
Because you feel it. You know it’s there. You know it’s there. You hold her at arm’s length.
Well, what was the other choice? To just... To admit how much he needed her? He couldn’t do that. That was insanity. He couldn’t be...needy and in pain, he couldn’t be weak.
He could never be that idiotic boy lying in a bed at thirteen, clutching unopened army men, comfort he wished he could take while he lay there burned all to hell, still convinced that his mother was going to come back for him.
He had wanted... All he had wanted was for somebody to love him enough to protect him.
That was all he had wanted. And it wasn’t there. It didn’t exist.
He stormed up the stairs and kicked the door open to his childhood room. All this bullshit that Alaina had gotten out of the boxes and set up. All this bullshit.
He growled, and he swept his hand across one of the shelves, flinging all the toys there onto the floor.
They had never meant anything. Parting gifts. Shit that she had left them with. That wasn’t them.
And he had loved her. And what had that gotten him? He had loved her, and she had left him to die.
And who had been there for him? He gathered up his siblings and read to them while those fights raged on downstairs, so they couldn’t hear. So they didn’t know the things that he knew for as long as he could possibly protect them. And then what? She’d left, and all the violence had spilled over onto them. And he had tried. He’d tried. And he had loved everybody enough to put himself in between them. To be lit on fire. But who the hell had loved him enough?
Who the hell had ever loved him enough to protect him?
And he took that box of unopened army men, and he crushed it in his hands. The packaging splitting on the sides, tearing open. “Fuck all of this,” he said, throwing it to the ground and stomping it beneath his boot. “Fuck it all,” he said.
He shouldn’t have a kid. He shouldn’t have a wife. He should just have nothing.
Nothing at all. Because this rage and the sense of unfairness that lived inside of him was destructive. And he didn’t know how to make other things bigger than this.
Didn’t know how to change.
And he looked at that bed in the corner. Where he’d spent those months trying to recover. Dammit all to hell.
The pain was overwhelming. It was just too much.
