I smiled and held his hand in mine, something I’d done the entire three days I was in the hospital because he never left my side. “Maybe just a smidgen. There has to be two dozen roses in each vase.”
“It must be all the cupcake counting you do. You’re spot on.”
“Athena might have been right about going overboard since I count six vases, but only a smidgen. They are beautiful, thank you. Where is Athena?”
“She’s with Sam and Ken at Strawberry Fest. I made her promise to go and have a good time for both of us.”
I frowned while my hand came up to smooth down his beard. “I’m sorry you had to miss it. I’m sad about it, too. I’ve never missed Strawberry Fest before.”
“I wish I could take you, but the doctor said no immediately when I asked. He said that even in a wheelchair, it’s too dangerous with your skull fracture to go out there.”
I sighed with fatigue. “Nor am I up to it, wheelchair or not. I just want to enjoy being home and not eating hospital food.”
He leaned down and kissed my lips tenderly, his touch almost tentative rather than confident. “I’m going to take care of you, and I would guess when Athena gets home, she’s bringing some treats with her. She did grill your bestie for five minutes about your favorite fair food.”
I put my hand to my chest and grinned. “She’s a girl after my own heart. You raised her right, Bishop Halla.”
“I know,” he said, clearing his throat before he could go on. “You made me see that, Amber. Those things you said to me on the dock—”
“I’m sorry about that,” I jumped in immediately. “I shouldn’t have said what I said that night. I just didn’t like seeing two people I love beating themselves up.”
His finger came down on my lips, and I stopped talking. “Don’t apologize, tart. What I was going to say was, you were right. Those things Athena said, and the things you said, were so damn right. I apologized to Athena, and I need to apologize to you.”
“You have, about once an hour every day for the last three days. None of this was your fault, Bishop.”
“Maybe not the fall, but there was a lot I did wrong that night, baby. If I hadn’t been down there, you wouldn’t have been. If I had just put my anger aside and helped you up the hill, you wouldn’t have a skull fracture and a broken ankle. I can’t change any of that, but I can say everything I should have said then, now.”
I squeezed his hand in mine. “I just want to be here and enjoy whatever time we have left in this marriage, Bishop. My brain is too sore to make sense of anything too complicated.”
“Let me tell you how much time we have left in this marriage, tart. Forever. We have forever because what happened three nights ago will never happen to you again, at least when I can prevent it. Everything you said on that dock that night was right—everything Athena said on the deck before that was right. I was punishing myself, but what I didn’t see was that I was also punishing her. I made her think that my life would have been better if I hadn’t rolled that condom on that day. I did that,” he said, poking himself in the chest. “When the truth was, Athena saved me. She made me grow up fast, sure. But that girl also saved me. Athena’s very presence in my life forced me to pick a path early in life and stay on it. There was no time for fooling around or losing focus in college. I had a child to support financially and emotionally. Maybe, when I was younger, there was a little bit of resentment about that, but now I can see that she gave me a family. Athena was someone to hold onto when I had no one left. She made me a better man, and I made her feel like she was less than.”
I couldn’t shake my head too hard, so I blew him a kiss. “No, you’re too hard on yourself. She didn’t mean it like that.”
He smiled, but it was weak and unsure. “Athena said the same thing, and I sure hope that’s true, but I don’t know how it can be. Regardless, she understands now that yes, she changed the course of my life, but for the better. Athena understands now that I love her so much that I would die for her. She knows that she was never a punishment but a gift. A beautiful, sweet, loving, once in a lifetime kind of gift. Now, I need to make you understand the same thing.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Understand the same thing?”
He nodded and knelt next to the couch. “Yes, the same thing. You changed the course of my life for the better the first time I met you, Amber Halla. When I reached my hand out to you in that van, it was more significant than I realized. We were going to help each other find a new course in life, and all you had to do was take my hand. You did, and now I love you so much I would die for you. You will never be a punishment to me, which I know you still think you are when we’re dealing with your leg,” he said, and I shrugged a bit, but he knew what that meant. I did and probably always would. “I need you to understand now that you are a once in a lifetime kind of gift, and you came along when I needed you the most. I had no one else to
