Page 37 of Bride for Keeps

“Tell you? So you could explain to me that I was wrong? So you could tell me all the rational,goodreasons we should wait?”

“Well, that’s a discussion, isn’t it? I assume if you agree that youagree, not that you’re just pawning me off so you don’t have to have a discussion.”

“It wouldn’t have been a discussion!”

“Sierra—”

“You’re the smart one. Theemployedone. You’re always right. You make the decisions. That’s our life. I wasn’t about to ruin the status quo.”

Except, this went back to the running-away thing. Because sometimes she did fight him, tell him he was wrong or that just because he was the ‘smart’ one didn’t mean he got to decide everything.

But she lied and she ran away when things mattered. It was a step to realize it, to identify it.

But he had no idea where to go from here.

Chapter Ten

Why was thishappening? Why had shesaidany of that? She should have ignored him. She’d yelled athim.Horrible things she’d wanted to keep to herself forever. Like him wanting to wait to have a baby had planted an awful fear inside of her, and how everything about the following months had made it grow.

She’d never wanted him to know all that, but he wouldn’t back off or down and now she was crying in front of him and it changednothing.

Nothing.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Alone to cry and hurt and give in to all this without himseeingit.

“It seems as though we’ve done a little bit too much of that.”

It somehow hurt more because it was true. There had been too much alone and too many silences, but it was too late. You didn’t fix silences because you couldn’t go back and talk instead. They existed forever. They were a symptom of something else.

She tried to calm her shaky breath, the tears overflowing. She had to be strong somehow. Because if she gave in to more of this she wouldn’t just have a failed marriage, she’d have to remember this horrible, horrible moment for the rest of her life.

“If you won’t leave, I’ll leave,” she managed to say, though she didn’t think it sounded as strong out loud as she’d hoped it would. But it didn’t matter. She moved for the door, certain,certain,Carter wouldn’t follow.

But he moved in front of her, and he didn’t stop with getting in her way. He took her by the shoulders, his big hands enveloping them, holding her tight and in place.

She wanted to push him and yell at him and tell him to let her go. She wanted to run away. But all she could seem to do was sob out a breath.

His hands came to her face, holding her there between them. Hands that had healed people and helped people and she’d never understood why he held her with such gentleness when there was so much inside of him and so little for her to offer.

There’d been blind faith once, but now it was gone. Still she couldn’t seem to do anything but stand here and cry. Stand here and let him touch her as though she were something precious to him.

“Why do you always run away when it matters?” he asked, and his voice was low and rusty.Emotional. And confronting. She didn’t want him to be hurt. Didn’t want him…wanting things from her. Emotions and truths.

The silences had been better than this. Than ripping herself apart for the sake of nothing. The having him ask her in thathurtvoice why she was running.

“Sierra. This matters. To you. To me. It’s going to end up mattering to our child no matter what happens. I know it’s hard and it hurts…” He gripped her face more firmly, tipping it so she looked up at him.

She closed her eyes against seeing all that hurt in the depths of his blue eyes.

“Cole gave me advice and I thought it was wrong and stupid, but maybe he really was right and I was wrong. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

“Car—”

“Love is showing each other your cracks. Maybe more than that, maybe it’s trusting each other with your flaws. Your imperfections. Neither of us have done that at all.”

“I can’t. I can’t trust you with that,” she managed to whisper. Even though the words were welling up inside of her. All those flaws. The things she’d ignored but here they were.

She opened her eyes when he said nothing, and it was worse than the determination and hurt that had been there when she’d closed them. His confusion was evident along with that hurt, and then a spark of desperation in the way he held her face, in the way his eyes were a little wild.

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