Page 57 of Every Promise Broken

“But it could,” he replies, reaching out a hand and placing it on top of my thigh, the touch searing into me. “I’m not the same man I was when we were married, Whit. I’ve spent years looking inward at myself, working on myself,betteringmyself. I own up to everything I did that led to our divorce. You were there for me, and I shut you out, and I can never, ever take that back, or say I’m sorry enough. You were there for me, but you also needed me to be there for you, and I wasn’t. I failed you, baby, and I know that. But that isn’t me anymore, and all I want is for you to see that, and to let me show you how sorry I am.”

The pressure building behind my eyes is almost too much. My throat aches, and the tip of my nose tingles, emotion I don’t think I’m ready to feel clogging my throat. “Conrad…”

I can see how true what he’s saying is; Conrad has changed. He isn’t the same man he was when we got a divorce, but the idea of facing that reality and opening myself up to him terrifies me. Shoving him away and never allowing us to talk about anything real is the one way I can think to save myself from getting hurt. I know if I let him in, if I admit to him how the nights we’ve shared mean something to me, when all is said and done, I’ll want to be with him, and that is a crippling realization after the heartbreak I went through four years ago.

Coming to terms with this takes my breath away. It clutches at my chest like a vise.

Reaching up, he cups the side of my face, his hand warm and rough and everything I want to melt into. “Please,” he breathes. “Don’t say no. Not yet.” As his thumb gently caresses my cheek, I can’t help but lean into the touch. His dark eyes drop down tomy mouth before coming back up, and it’s like I watch it happen in slow motion, yet I’m paralyzed in place, unable to stop it. Not that I want to.

His full, soft lips brush up against mine, the scratch from his beard lighting my blood on fire as his tongue sweeps inside, licking and claiming and savoring. In the matter of seconds, Conrad manages to quiet my mind and relax my body with nothing more than a kiss and a firm hand anchoring me in place.

I mold against him like clay, giving in to the rapture his attention brings. Leaning my head to the side, I allow him to deepen the kiss, and it’s so easy to remember how I fell in love with this man in the first place, all those years ago when I was just a lost, confused, and hurt teenager. It’s easy to remember why he was my comfort, my safety, for so many years.

When Conrad kisses me, it’s like nothing else matters. Nothing else exists when I’m here, in his arms. We’re so lost in this moment, in the taste and feel of one another, that the outside world vanishes.

“Oh, boy, sorry to interrupt!”

In an instant, reality crashes back into me, and I jump back, my hand coming up to my mouth, brushing over my lips. Conrad and I both turn, taking in his nana standing in the entryway. We were so enthralled with each other that we must’ve completely missed hearing her come in.

My heart pounds so fast, I can hardly breathe, and I know my cheeks must be a bright shade of pink.

“Um…uh, hi,” I squeak as I stand up and brush down the front of my sweater. As soon as I do, it hits me like a freight train that I very much have a raging erection, and I sit back down just as quickly. “How was your dinner?”

Wearing a knowing grin, she looks between Conrad and me. “It was lovely, dear. I would ask how your evening has been, but I think it’s pretty clear.” She giggles, and I want to die. I want theground to open up and swallow me whole. “Well, I’m off to bed, you two lovebirds. Goodnight.”

We both watch her disappear down the hallway. Conrad is the first to break the silence. “Whit…”

“Conrad, don’t.” Turning my head, I look at him, and all I want is to dive back into his arms and let myself feel without boundaries, but I can’t. Not when I’m not thinking clearly. Not after everything he just said. “I can’t do this tonight. I need to… I need to think, and tonight, after I’ve had the day from hell, isn’t the time to do that. I’m not saying no, but I can’t right now.”

I don’t miss the disappointment etched in his features, but he nods. “Okay, I understand. Let’s just go to bed, and we can revisit this later.”

Conrad stands, and I let him lead me to our bedroom—hisbedroom. My mind is spinning a mile a minute, and unfortunately for me, I’m not as lucky at finding sleep as he is. No, I lie awake all night, thinking about everything there is to think about Conrad and me. Our beginning, our end, and absolutely everything else in between.

Coming here was supposed to be a favor. It was supposed to be something I easily do, and then go home. Go back to my life again. But the longer I’m here, the more I worry that there’s no way I’ll be able to go back to how it was before. More than that, I worry that I’m not as over my ex-husband as I’ve been telling myself that I am.

This is so much more than I bargained for. I can feel my resolve slipping by the second, and a large part of me wants to let it, to lean into Conrad, despite how much I like to pretend I don’t.

21

Whit Bowman

Age Eighteen

His hand swallows mine as he holds on to it, his other palm sprawled across my lower back as our bodies sway together in the moonlit barn. Crickets chirp in the distance, the smell of hay filling my senses, but it’s mixed with the rich, spicy scent of the man in front of me. The man holding me to his chest as the music plays softly around us.

My heart is a steady thrum in my chest, my cheeks warm and most definitely rosy, but the panic I felt a mere ten minutes ago has long since subsided, replaced only with a sense of calm and peace that seems to blanket me whenever Conrad is around. But this—us touching in any way—is new. It’s something I’ve dreamed about for going on three years now, but it’s never happened. It’s never even come close to happening…until tonight.

Like most nights lately, I lie in the bed upstairs, unable to go to sleep. Unable to quiet my mind. Racing thoughts make my chest ache. A caved-in sensation that I don’t know how to stop. My heart races a mile a minute, my arms tingle, and my head feels dizzy. I’ve never experienced a heart attack, but that feeling is the closest thing I can imagine. It feels like I can’t catch my breath. Like if I don’t get up and walk around, my heart will stop beating altogether. It’s crippling and terrifying.

That’s how I found myself on the lower level of the barn at nearly midnight, legs pacing the entire length, my chest heaving with shallow breaths, and my cheeks wet with the moisture leaking from my eyes. Tears I didn’t even realize were falling until Conrad walked by, a startled look on his face when he spotted me.

“What are you doing down here this late?” he asked as he closed the distance, causing my steps to falter. I gulped in air, none of it ever enough. I couldn’t calm down, and it was frustrating. He’s wearing his nice jeans with his clean cowboy boots—not the ones he wears when we work every morning—and my favorite cowboy hat on his head. He must’ve just gotten home. Maybe he was out with somebody…romantically. I’ve never seen him with anybody, but I would imagine he does date. How could a handsome, good man like Conrad not date? I’d imagine men and women alike flock toward a man like him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” was my pathetic response. I could see it on his face that he didn’t buy it. “Sorry to bother you. I’m fine, really.”

Except I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t even close to fine. And it was in that moment that my knees felt like they were going to buckle, and what little oxygen I was dragging in felt like it was sucker punched out of me. Folding in half at my waist, my hands went to my knees as the tears fell in earnest.

I couldn’t breathe. Black spots clouded my vision, and I thought this was it…this was the moment it all ended for me. But somehow, Conrad knew exactly what to do. Before I knew it, one of his large, strong hands was rubbing soothingly along my back, his deep, gruff voice telling me it was going to be alright, to take in a deep breath through my nose.

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