Page 19 of Bride for Keeps

She inhaled loudly, then looked down beneath the table, presumably at her hands in her lap. “I take them off sometimes, but I guess they start to feel like a limb. Something is missing when I take them off.” She looked back up, fixing him with a rebellious glare. “That doesn’t mean anything. I’ll get used to having them off eventually. It’s habit, not symbolic.”

“Okay,” he said carefully. Maybe it didn’t mean anything to her, but it meant something to him. He looked at his ring on his finger. A simple gold band. “I remember when you put this ring on my finger,” he said, more to himself than to her. It was visceral. The happiness he’d felt when they’d slid their rings onto each other’s fingers in front of their friends and family. He hadn’t cared at all that his parents didn’t approve or that hers questioned the timing. He hadn’t cared about anything except her being his. “I remember our vows.”

Sierra rolled her eyes. “Vows, like promises, are apparently meant to be broken.”

“I haven’t broken mine,” he replied, trying to keep his temper from lighting.

“Haven’t you?” she retorted.

“I loved you. I was there for you.”

“There for me? No, Carter. You were there for you, and you were there for your mother.” She stood, her chair scraping loudly at the jerking, violent movement. “You were always happy to be there foreveryone, but you never once—”

It was his turn to stand violently. “I love you. I supported you. I gave you a very nice life and we were together. What more did you want?”

She shook her head, and it pained him that tears shimmered in her eyes, but he didn’t understand why all the blame was being heaped on his shoulders when he didn’t see things the way she did. At all apparently.

“I’m not going to have a screaming match with you. I’m not going down this pointless road of blame and memories. We don’t work, Carter. I had to accept that. Now you do.”

“You always do this,” he said, realizing it so much in the moment he couldn’t even make his tone sound less accusatory. “Any conflict and you say you’re not going to do it. You shut down and walk away.”

“Ishut down? How can we even get to the conflict? You haven’t engaged with me in months.Months.” She fisted her hand on her heart and if he wasn’t so damn angry he might have kept his mouth shut. Instead, he did what he almost never did. Made a nasty, sarcastic remark.

“The baby you’re carrying seems to say otherwise.”

She paled, her hand going to her stomach. Some kind of hurt flashed in her eyes before she blinked it away and lifted her arm. “Get out,” she ordered, pointing to the door.

“Sierra.” He took a step toward her, but she turned her back to him.

“You had your five minutes. Now go.”

“This was different. We never fight. We never yell. Not at each other. Not like this.”

“Why would anyone want this?” she asked, and she didn’t even wait for his reply or anything else before she walked away, down a hallway.

Carter let out a slow breath. That was…something. Something new. No, it wasn’t any fun, and no it wasn’t the stuff good marriages were made from: blame and anger and nasty comments.

But it was different. Something like that trying hard Cole had been talking about. Which maybe meant it was the right step.

Someone cleared their throat and Carter looked up to see a furious-looking Mr. Shuller and a blank-expressioned Mrs. Shuller.

“Don’t come back here. You understand me?” Mr. Shuller said gruffly.

Carter managed his professionally blank doctor smile. “Yes, sir.” He walked through the small living room and to the front door, letting himself out as he stepped into the cold winter air.

He tugged his gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on just as the front door squeaked open. He looked back expecting to see Sierra, hoping to chase that strange feeling the fight had given him.

Instead, Mrs. Shuller stood there without a coat on, hugging herself against the cold. “Maybe I could have Sierra meet you somewhere for your five minutes tomorrow?”

Carter raised his eyebrows. Clearly Mrs. Shuller had been listening. “You listened?” Had she heard about the baby?

Mrs. Shuller looked a little abashed at that. “I happened to overhear a few things. Not everything.”

It didn’t answer his question, exactly, but it didn’t matter. Everyone would know eventually. “And…” He tried to wrap his head around what she was offering. “You’re going to help me?”

“No, I’m going to help my daughter,” Mrs. Shuller said firmly. “I don’t know about fixing your marriage, Carter. I’m not sure I ever had much belief in that. But I think you two should discuss why it’s ending.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted her belief and her support, anyone’s really, but he’d settle for her help. “If you could have her meet me at Java at noon?”

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