Home Front(121)

When he looked up, she saw the love in his eyes—there was no denying it anymore. Impossible as it seemed, he’d fallen in love with her again. She’d known on that day in the courtroom, hadn’t she? Known it and feared it.

“You know, right?”

She nodded.

“No arguments,” he whispered, then he picked her up and carried her out of the bathroom. She expected him to set her down on her bed, but he kept walking, out of her room and up the stairs.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Our bed,” he said, climbing the stairs with her in his arms.

She clung to him. All the way up the stairs she thought of why it was a bad idea for them to make love. The doctors had told her she could “resume sexual activity” when she felt ready, but what would it be like?

She wanted to say stop, I’m not ready, but even as she had the thought, pushed up by a lifelong fear, she knew it was a lie. She had been ready to love this man from the moment she first saw him. In all these years, that had never changed. They’d hurt each other, let each other down, and yet, here they were after everything, together. She needed him now, needed him to remind her that she was alive, that she wasn’t alone, that she hadn’t lost everything.

She had to believe in him again; it was their only chance. Her only chance. There was no protection from being hurt except to stop loving all together, and she couldn’t do it. She’d tried. She wanted love—reckless, unpredictable, dangerous. Even with her damaged body and her even more damaged heart. She wanted it. Wanted him.

He shoved the bedroom door open and then kicked it shut behind him. At the bed, he stopped, breathing a little hard from the exertion of carrying her up the stairs. In his eyes, she saw the same intense passion that had jolted her body at his touch, brought her back to life, but she saw fear, too, and worry. They lay down together.

“I love you, Jo,” he said simply, although they both knew there was nothing simple about such a declaration.

“I love you, too, Michael,” she said brokenly. “I always have.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. Her body came alive at his touch, opened to him, and she moaned his name, pressed against him. She drew him close, wanting him more than she ever had.

His hand slid under her shirt, unhooked her bra.

She took a deep breath, trying to gather her courage. She wanted him, wanted this to happen, but it frightened her, too. What would love be like with this new body of hers? Would he really still want her?

Moonlight came through the window, illuminating her pale legs. Her thighs were the same size—the swelling had gone down—one tapered to a knee and a shapely calf and a foot. The other …

She so rarely let herself really look at it. Now she did, and she knew Michael was looking, too, at the amputated leg, with its rounded end and Frankenstein stitches, still an angry pink. Lulu had been right: it kind of looked like a football.

“We might have to be … innovative,” she said.

“I love innovative,” he whispered, letting his hand move across her jutting hip bone and along her thigh. His touch electrified her. She pulled off her blouse and undressed him and lay against him, every part of her needing to be touched by him. She ran her bare hand along his chest, feeling him, remembering. Their kiss turned desperate. Her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his boxers.

Had she ever felt this sharp, aching need before? She couldn’t remember, but it was in her now, fueling her, straining to be released.

He knew her body as well as he knew his own, knew when to touch her and where, knew how to bring her to this edge that was both pleasure and pain. It didn’t matter at all that they had to do things a little differently than before, that she sometimes needed to position herself with pillows. Lying on her side, she clung to him, her breath coming fast and hard, feeling him inside her again, filling her; she arched up, kissed him, and their cheeks were wet with each other’s tears. Her release was so powerful she cried out; it felt as if her entire body were being lifted up, carried on some dark wind, and then floated back to the softness of the bed she’d shared with this man for so much of her life. In the aftermath, she curled against him, her body sweaty, spent, and as he stroked her arm, she lay there, her cheek against his chest, remembering the feel of his tears on her face, the salty taste of his kiss.

*



“Can I ask you a question?” he said afterward, as they lay together, still breathing heavily.

“Of course.”

“How come you never answered my letter?”

“What letter?”

“The one I sent you in Iraq, a few days before your crash.”

She frowned. “I never got a letter from you over there. We were crazy that last week, missions constantly, and the Internet was always going down. I opened my e-mail once after I got home; there were hundreds of condolence messages about my leg. I couldn’t stand reading them. I haven’t gone to the computer in forever. What did it say?”

“That I wanted another chance.”

She tried to imagine what that would have meant to her then, when she was so far from home. Would she have believed him? “How did it happen, you falling in love with me while I was away?” she asked, her body tucked up against his, her chin resting on his shoulder.

He slid his arm beneath her, pulled her closer. “After Dad’s death, I was depressed, and you were always so damn cheerful. You gave me the kind of advice I couldn’t follow—like think ‘good thoughts, remember his smile.’ Honestly, I hated that shit.” He looked at her. “I was unhappy, and it was easy to blame you.”