Chapter 10

Dusty quietly climbed the steps to the second floor. Dusk had long since settled and he used the light from the foyer to guide his way. After a long, trying evening with Ellie, they’d put the shell-shocked five-year-old to bed in the guest bedroom a little more than an hour ago. He came to a stop at the top of the stairs. And this was the fourth time in that same hour that Jolie had stolen away to gaze upon the girl from the open doorway.

Dusty watched as she wrapped her arms around herself and absently squeezed. His throat contracted around a swallow, and the shallow sound brought her head around to face him.

He managed a smile. “Any change?”

She quietly pulled the door until only a few inches remained between the edge and the jamb, then met him at the top of the stairs. “She finally appears to have fallen off to sleep. I…I wanted to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but I was afraid I’d wake her up again.”

He nodded.

Earlier, while they were all downstairs, he and Jolie had tried to make everything appear as normal as possible, attempting to gently draw Ellie out from her state of shock. But Ellie had been minimally responsive; the little girl had kept a deceptively calm mask in place. She’d even obediently eaten a light dinner of spaghetti. But after they had shown her upstairs to the guestroom, where there wasn’t one stuffed animal, not one item that was familiar to her, Ellie had silently begun to cry the instant she thought they had left the room.

“Nancy says she’s contacting a child psychologist first thing in the morning,” Jolie said quietly, as if reading his mind.

“Fat amount of good that’s going to do us now.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But at least she’s finally sleeping.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He motioned for her to precede him down the stairs, and she led the way back to the kitchen, where she fixed herself a cup of hot cocoa then asked if he wanted anything. He shook his head and took a beer from the refrigerator. She leaned against the island, slowly sipping from her cup. He popped the cap off the beer and took a long swallow, staring off into space. The only sound was the tick-tick of the old grandfather clock in the foyer. And the overly loud purr of Spot, where she was curled up on one of the chair cushions, fast asleep. The cat had seemed to take up residence in their home. Strange, since she’d never shown much interest in the place before.

Jolie shifted, the rustle of her clothes loud in the quiet room. “Do you think what we’re feeling right now is natural?” she asked.

He looked up to find her staring through the back window. “What would that be?”

She absently shrugged as if unsure, herself, how she felt. “I don’t know. So…helpless. Powerless to take away little Ellie’s ghosts and fill her mind and heart with all things light and happy.”

She glanced at him and he smiled. “I’d say it’s natural. And not just for us. I imagine all parents feel that way when something traumatic happens to one of their children.”

She glanced quickly away at his mention of the word parents. He squinted at her, watching as she ran the tip of her index finger along the rim of her mug.

“What is it?” he asked.

She quietly cleared her throat. “Do you, you know, think it would have made a difference if we had been able to have children of our own?”

There it was. The exact question he’d been dreading. The number one reason why he hadn’t thought it a good idea for Jolie to take in Ellie. Not with all that was going on between the two of them now. Not given the unstable emotional state she was in as a result.

She sighed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m not asking for the reason you think, Dusty. And I’m certainly not looking to place any blame, or make excuses. I’m just…curious.”

“Hmm…curious.”

She nodded, her eyes wide over the mug as she took a small sip.

He leaned a little more comfortably against the counter, then crossed his boots at the ankles. “I really don’t know, Jolie. I suppose things would be…different if we had kids.”

She nodded, as if expecting his answer.

He grimaced and took another long swallow of beer, agitatedly rolling the bottle between his palms. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have left.”

She looked at him, surprise lighting the blue depths of her eyes.

He cursed under his breath. “Let me ask you a question, Jolie. How do you think being a mother would have changed you?”

She slowly placed her mug down, saying nothing for long moments. “How do you mean?”

“Would you have quit the force? Opted to be a stay-at-home mom? Cut back your hours?” Do as I asked you and leave firefighting behind altogether?

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

He finished off the beer in record time, then tossed the bottle into the garbage can under the sink. “Let’s face it. We can stand here all night rehashing what life would have been like if only this had happened. If only we’d done that. But the fact is that we can’t change things. Not now. What’s done is done and there’s no altering that.”

He began to pass her on his way out to the living room and the television, where he hoped something would be capable of taking his mind off their current conversation.

She grasped his arm, halting his progress. “What are you talking about, Dusty? Us? Are you saying that there’s no changing the course for us?” He gazed into her questioning eyes, feeling more drawn to her now that they’d made love than he had before. Maybe because he’d been reminded of how wonderful it felt to have her legs wrapped around his waist. To feel her mouth responding under his. To know that on some level they would always be a couple. “Or are you talking about Erick?”

She couldn’t have shocked him more had she just landed a sucker punch to his solar plexus.

“What?”

She stared at where her hand still rested against his arm, then slowly pulled it away. “You know, we never really did talk much about Erick after…well, after he died.” She smiled, but there was a sad slant to it. “I guess we were too caught up in our own problems.”

He stiffened. “No. It’s because there’s nothing there to talk about.”

Her feathery brows pulled together in a frown. “Isn’t there?” She tucked her hair behind her ear, her gaze dropping to the floor. “You know, I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lain awake, wondering about what happened to us. Trying to fit the pieces together.” She sucked in her lips, then released them. “But there was always this missing piece, you know? Some elusive reason behind your actions that I just couldn’t seem to put my finger on.” Her gaze swept back to his. “I never even thought it might be Erick.”

Dusty’s muscles bunched, a self-protective anger beginning to stir in his stomach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jolie.”

He issued an order to his feet to move, to get out of that kitchen as fast as his legs would carry him. But his muscles ignored him.

“Don’t you?” she asked softly. “It wasn’t too long ago that I would have said the same thing. That there was no way that one thing was connected to the other. But it took Darby dropping by yesterday afternoon, and seeing how you reacted to her, to make it hit home. To finally move the clouds from in front of my eyes so I could see that Erick’s death has a lot more to do with what’s happening between us than either of us believed.”

Dusty clenched his jaw. “You’re reaching.”

She shook her head, her gaze steady. “I don’t think I am.”

He opened his mouth to respond and she held her hand up to stop him. “No. Please don’t lash out and try to make this seem like some desperate attempt on my part to get you to stay, Dusty. I couldn’t handle that. Not right now. Not with everything else going on.” She bit briefly on the flesh of her bottom lip. “The fact is, I’ve accepted that our marriage is over. All that remains is crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. You want out, I’m letting you out.”

His heart contracted so tightly it was suddenly impossible to breathe.

“I’m just trying to finally put all this together. To understand the whys. Until I do that…we both do that…then there’s really no closure, is there? Even long after you’ve gone, there will always be that mysterious something hanging over both our heads. That question looming between us, no matter where we are physically.”

“Maybe you’ll have questions. I have none.”

She openly flinched, her pain at his remark evident. “If that’s so true then why…why did you kiss me yesterday morning? Why did you…make love to me?”

Her point hit home as accurately as a poison-tipped arrow.

She made a small sound in her throat. “Let me guess. You’re putting it down as hormones run amok. As your having gone without sex for so long that it was only natural that you were drawn to me. Or how about this. You wanted one last time to remember me by. Or, worse yet, you wanted to give me something to remember.”

Dusty had his jawed clenched together so tightly he couldn’t have spoken if he wanted to.

She tilted her head slightly, her gaze solidly fastened on his face. “You know what I’m beginning to think? It’s none of the above. What happened yesterday neither one of us expected. And while, yes, it’s probably easier, maybe even wiser, to pretend it never happened, the fact is that it did. And I think we owe it to each other, to ourselves, to find the reason before we say goodbye to…us forever.”

Dusty rubbed his jaw. “And if the reason is just momentary lust?”

She lifted her chin in that stubborn way that made him want to kiss her all over again. “Then at least we’ll know the truth.”

He nodded. “Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we do have to take a closer look at things.”

She cleared her throat. “Including Erick?”

An image of his brother’s stiff, unmoving body lying at the funeral home flashed across his mind, followed quickly by the image of Jolie lying in that hospital bed, as still and as white as snow. “No.”

He stalked from the room, but rather than going into the living room as he initially planned, he headed instead for the front door. The instant he was standing on the porch, he dragged in huge lungfuls of the crisp, cool night air, but nothing could clear the turmoil from his mind and heart.

Dusty carefully positioned the last square of cobalt-blue porcelain tile on the base of the Jacuzzi, shifting it into place, then wiping the mortar away. When he’d returned to the house, he found Jolie asleep on the couch, the television flickering in front of her. Her upright position told him she’d probably been waiting for him. Likely to discuss those things she’d outlined in the kitchen earlier. But rather than waking her, he pulled the stadium blanket from the back of the recliner and covered her with it, then disappeared upstairs to the master bathroom, doing those things that wouldn’t disturb Jolie or Ellie.

Now, three hours later, he’d finished tiling the base of the tub, and spots were dancing in front of his eyes from two nights of very little sleep and a whole load of questions.

He pushed back onto his heels then stood, stepping to wash his hands in the new sink. He caught sight of himself in the white-edged oval mirror and ran his damp fingers over his hair. He looked like hell. Worse, he felt like hell. And the damnable thing about it was that he didn’t see any clear-cut way out of it.

He recognized that one of the reasons he’d been so upset earlier was because Jolie was right. There was too much unfinished business, too many unanswered questions looming between them, for them to just turn their backs on each other, on their marriage, and continue on to another life.

Of course, Jolie usually was right. Which further agitated him. Not because he begrudged her her insight. No. Rather it made him see how much he’d been hiding from her. Hiding from even himself.

He turned back to the work area, scraping the excess cement mortar from the old plastic bowl with the trowel and tossing it into the garbage, then cleaning up, the process of rubbing the adhesive from the newly positioned tile somewhat calming.

Jolie was also right in that they’d never really discussed Erick’s death beyond the obvious. He could say it was because of all that was going on at the time. Jolie’s own injuries. His decision to quit the department. But now that Jolie had shone the spotlight directly on him, it wasn’t so easy to lie to himself. Truthfully, he hadn’t been able to talk about Erick then. To discuss what he’d felt. To explore what impact losing his brother had had on his life.

And he wasn’t at all certain if he could do so now.

When he’d left the house earlier, he’d done so with no set destination. He’d climbed into his truck and just driven. But when he’d found himself on the road leading out to his brother’s…to Darby’s ranch outside of town, he’d decided that maybe his sister-in-law could give him the insight he was looking for. He’d pulled up the long, winding gravel drive and found Darby sitting on the front porch, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the cold, the twins asleep inside the house.

For an hour they’d talked about everything but what was happening between him and Jolie. The twins’ school woes. The myriad animals that inhabited the ranch and kept being added to. Dusty had just been about to ask Darby about Erick, about how his dying had affected her, when the sheriff’s car pulled up behind his truck. John Sparks had been on his way home, spotted Dusty and decided to stop and say hello.

The hello had lasted another hour before Dusty decided to head back into town.

Now, as he finished his clean-up, he tossed the cloth he’d used aside, then rose to his feet and stepped to the door. There was nothing more he could do without using a power drill, a hammer or a saw. And considering that they’d had such a difficult time getting Ellie to drop off to sleep, he decided to call it quits for the night.

He switched off the light in the bath, then crossed the dark bedroom floor, his footsteps muffled by the carpeting, refusing to look at the bed he and Jolie had once shared to see if she’d made it up. Instead, he went downstairs. And found her in exactly the same spot he had when he’d returned from Darby’s.

For long moments he stood there admiring her. Taking in the soft way her light brown hair lay against her cheek. The proud jut of her chin, even in sleep. The quiet sound of her breathing.

“Oh, Jolie, what happened to us,” he murmured.

He moved closer to her, to straighten the blanket that had shifted and now lay around her waist. As he did, he noticed that something had changed since he’d first spotted her sitting there asleep. He frowned and moved even closer, noticing the fresh tracks of tears down her creamy skin, her damp, spiky lashes revealing that Ellie wasn’t the only one haunted by demons he could never hope to understand.

Jolie had always been one to put herself on the line, physically, in her career as a firefighter, and emotionally, as she did now by taking in a damaged little girl who would inevitably bring raw memories of her own rushing back. It’s what he loved about her. It’s what he hated about her. And it’s what ceaselessly drew him to her like a fascinated fly into her mysterious, silken web. He wanted to understand her. To study her. To be like her. He remembered once thinking that Jolie Calbert personified the definition of a true hero.

How could a person be so selfless? Be willing to risk so much and at the same time sacrifice everything for others? He’d looked for the same qualities in himself and had come up empty. Yes, he’d fought fires. But he’d done so more for the adrenaline rush, the sheer thrill of fighting the monster, than for the need to help others. Oh, saving someone was unlike any other emotion, but it hadn’t been what had driven him.

Then there was Jolie, whose every deed seemed dictated by some impossible, fathomless desire to help others. Even at the expense of herself. Even at the expense of their marriage.

Before he could question the action, he quietly lifted the blanket and slid to sit on the sofa, then gently shifted her so that she lay against his side. Automatically, she curled in closer, making a soft humming sound in her sleep.

Dusty’s chest filled with a pervasive warmth as he curved a hand down her back and pulled her even closer. They’d always seemed to fit so well together. He remembered thinking that the first time he’d held her. It had been their third date and they’d spent the evening at the county fair, sharing barbecue ribs, standing in line for the rides, rocking the Ferris wheel car until Jolie finally begged for mercy. Then he’d taken her home to her grandfather’s house. It was there on the front step that he’d been unable to stop himself from kissing her. And, oh, how good she had tasted. Like pink cotton candy, saltwater taffy and one-hundred-percent woman. And just like now, she had curved against him. Her breasts pressing against his chest. Her chin against his collarbone. In that one moment he’d felt as if he’d found home for the first time.

Jolie moved, tucking her head beneath his chin so that her sweet hair teased his nose with its freshly washed scent. It was at times like these that he could almost forget about the problems that existed between them. Convince himself that there were so many things right, there couldn’t possibly be enough wrong to warrant his leaving.

Almost.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. But he didn’t want to think about that. Not right now. He merely wanted to feel the heat of Jolie’s body against his, listen to the soft sounds of her sleeping, and remember what it was like to just be.