Briggs. “I did know you’d be a great father, and that might have been part of the reason I fell in love with you. But I’d have kept on loving you even if you hadn’t been able to make a single baby. I found all my missing parts with you. I don’t keep wanting to have more babies because you’re not enough for me. I keep wanting them because my love for you gets so big it needs more places to go.”
Hope flickered in his eyes, but he still looked sad. She realized that his insecurities ran even deeper than her own. She’d always regarded him as the most intelligent person she knew, so it was difficult to adjust to the idea that she might be the smarter partner. “It’s true, Harry. Every word.”
“A little hard to believe.” He seemed to be drinking in her face, even though he knew every pore. “Just look at us. I’m the kind of guy you could pass on the street a dozen times and never notice. But you… Men walk into mailboxes when they see you.”
“I never knew a man so hung up on appearance.” She forgot all about thinking with her head and smacked his jaw to get his attention. “I love the way you look. I could stare at you for hours. I used to be married to the most gorgeous man in the galaxy, and we made each other miserable. And you’re right-I could have had any man in the room at that party, but I wasn’t attracted to a single one of them. And when I dumped that drink in your lap, I definitely wasn’t thinking of you as anybody’s father.”
She sensed his spirits begin to lighten, but she wasn’t nearly done. “Someday I’m going to be old, and if you’d seen my grandmother, you’d know there’s a good chance I’ll be ugly as sin by the time I’m eighty. Are you going to stop loving me then? Is appearance all it comes down to with you? Because if it is, we’re in just as much trouble as I thought.”
“Of course it isn’t. I didn’t… I never…”
“Talk about throwing up smoke screens. I’ve always believed that you were so clear-thinking, but even on a bad day I’m thinking more clearly than you. God, Harry, next to me you’re an emotional basket case.”
That made him smile, and he looked so goofy that she realized she was finally getting through. She wanted to kiss away his fears, but she still had too many fears of her own to deal with, and their troubles were too big to be kissed away. She didn’t want to have to spend the rest of their marriage reassuring him. She also didn’t like how important her looks were to him. The face he loved so much was already showing signs of wear and tear. How was he going to feel when it went south with the rest of her body?
“After all these years of marriage, you’d think we’d understand each other better,” he said.
“I can’t keep living like this. We need to get whatever is broken between us permanently fixed.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to do that.”
“With a good marriage counselor, that’s how. And the sooner we get one, the better.” She stood on tiptoe, kissed him hard, and turned to the farmhouse. “Isabel! Could you come out here?”
18
Isabel and Ren lay naked together outside on the thick comforter, where they kept each other warm in the chilly night air. She gazed up at the sputtering candles in the chandelier that hung from the magnolia tree. He brushed her hair with his lips. “Too heavy for you?”
“Mmm… In a minute.” Funny, but lying beneath him didn’t bother her at all. Odd to feel so safe with such a dangerous man.
“Just for the record-that one sexual hang-up you used to have? I think we can safely say it’s a thing of the past.”
She smiled into his hair. “I was just trying to be polite.”
“Do unto others?”
“A philosophy I try to live by.”
He chuckled.
She trailed her fingers along his spine. He turned his lips into the pulse at her wrist, then nudged her bangle. “You always wear this.”
“It’s a reminder.” She yawned and traced the outline of his ear with her index finger. “ ‘Breathe’ is engraved inside.”
“A reminder to stay centered, I remember. I still think it sounds boring.”
“Our lives are so hectic that it’s easy to lose our serenity. Touching the bangle keeps me calm.”
“It would have taken a lot more than a bracelet to keep me calm tonight. And I’m not just talking about the last hour on this blanket.”
She smiled. “The porcini weren’t completely ruined.”
“Just about.”
He eased off her. She propped herself on an elbow and trailed her fingers across the hard landscape of his chest. “Your spaghetti al porcino was the best thing I ever tasted.”
“It would have been even better an hour earlier. They’ve been fighting for months. I don’t know why they decided they had to go into marriage counseling tonight.”
“They needed some emergency triage. I’m not really a marriage counselor.”
“You’re sure not. You made them swear on their children’s lives not to have sex.”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Pretty hard to go deaf when you’re in the next room and everybody keeps telling you not to leave.”
“We were hungry, and we were afraid you’d take our dinner with you. Physical communication is easy for them. It’s the verbal that’s causing them trouble, and they need to concentrate on that right now. They looked happy during dinner, didn’t they?”
“As happy as two people can look who know they aren’t going to get any for a while. And aren’t you afraid those lists you told them to make will only stir things up again?”
“We’ll see. One thing I didn’t have a chance to mention to you-and I think you’ll be happy about this…” She nibbled on his shoulder, not just to be manipulative, although that was part of it, but because it was right there in front of her and looked particularly tasty. “We’re going to live together for a while.”
He lifted his head far enough to regard her suspiciously. “Before I start dancing the tango, let me hear the rest of it.”
The chandelier above their heads swayed in the night breeze. She used the tip of her finger to trace a ripple of shadow that meandered across his chest. “I’m moving into the villa tomorrow morning. Just for a few days.”
“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll move down here.”
“Actually…”
“You didn’t!” He sat up so fast he nearly knocked her over. “Tell me you didn’t invite those two neurotics to stay in this farmhouse.”
“Only for a few days. They need privacy.”
“
“Quite a few, I’m sure.” She slid her hand down over his stomach. “But I’m hoping you’ll find something more productive to do.”
“I’m cheap, but I’m not that easy.” His breath caught.
“You sound easy.” She let her fingers move lower, until they located a particularly sensitive region.
He groaned. “Okay, I’m cheap
She nuzzled his navel. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“You’re killing me, Doc. You know that, don’t you?”
“And I haven’t even shown you my vicious streak.”
Ren spent the next day trying to talk Harry and Tracy out of staying at the farmhouse, but he had no luck. His only satisfaction lay in the last-minute lecture he inadvertently witnessed Isabel giving them.
“Remember,” she said, just as he walked into the room at the villa that was supposed to be
