Page 18 of My Forever Soldier

“Luke, I’m sorry about today.”

He placed her mug in front of her and sat in the chair opposite the sofa she was curled up on.

“It’s no big deal. I like that you have a friend looking out for you.”

Olivia grinned. “More like a mama grizzly bear showing her teeth every time you looked at her.”

Luke laughed, but their burst of humor was short-lived. The expression on his face sobered as his eyes met hers.

“Do you think Charlie’s coping? With having me back?”

Olivia knew the answer to that. She thought Luke probably did, too. It wasn’t as black-and-white as how he was copingnow, but rather was how he would copeif.

“He’s doing fine, Luke. We just need to make sure he does fine after.” She wasn’t going to mince words. She owed Luke the truth and he owed her the same. If they were ever going to consider how things could work for them, actually consider if they could ever build a future again, being honest was the best place to start.

The words hung bet ween them, silenced their conversation. She stared into her coffee before looking back up. It wasn’t time to falter; it was time to be real. And that meant dealing with the tough stuff.

“Luke, we’re talking around things, talking around what happened, but we’re never going to move forward unless…” She paused and watched as his fingers worked the fabric of a cushion. Then she took a deep breath. “I know things were bad between us, and I know that we’re both to blame, but I still can’t understand how you left. Do you have any idea what it did to me?”

He kept his eyes down. “Yeah.”

No, he didn’t, and she needed him to look at her. “How could you know? You were with your army family and I was alone. Bringing up a baby on my own, with no support, no help.

He was silent. When he looked up his features were almost haunted, if that was possible, showing his emotions like she’d never seen them before. But she was glad. He deserved to know, tofeel, how painful his leaving had been for her. How hard it had been to care for Charlie, to deal with her husband leaving and a child, with no one to lighten the load. She wasn’t saying it was all Luke’s fault, but when he’d never returned…

“I suffered every day, too, Ollie. Just not in the same way.” His voice was deep, husky, so low she had to listen hard to hear what he was saying.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. For goodness sake, he’d lived in a war zone for years! But what she’d felt was another kind of pain. The pain of a heart that had been shattered into a million tiny shards, like a smashed pane of glass. A heart she knew could never heal, but would remain wounded. A heart that had been given to him, that she had trusted him with, when she’d never thought she’d be able to let a man in.

But maybe that was the problem: she’d never truly believed that Luke had wanted to marry her, and part of her still didn’t.

“It was hard for me, too, Ollie. It was so, so hard.”

She wasn’t enjoying this conversation one bit. Anger swept up her spine like an angry snake, curling around her shoulders and snapping at her throat, even though she wanted to be compassionate.

“I didn’t think you were ever coming home, Luke. I never, ever thought I’d see you again.” She fought her anger, her tears. “I had to grieve for you, never knowing, always waiting.”

What had he thought when he’d left? That she was going to wait around forever until he decided he was man enough to come back? If he ever decided to come back…

His silence told her he thought otherwise. Had he always planned on coming home one day, or were there times when he’d thought about turning his back for good?

“I never intended on leaving him.”

Olivia hated that Luke always referred to Charlie. The motherly side cherished that he loved his son, but the hurting, wanting woman in her wished he would sayher. That he hadn’t meant to leaveher, that he’d thought aboutherevery day.

“You were always there. In my mind.” Luke looked up, his fingers thrumming impatiently against his jeans-clad thigh. “I never forgot what I’d left behind, Ollie. And while I know that might be hard for you to understand, I need you to believe me.”

She wanted to believe him, but trusting Luke again, believing in his words, was going to take time. “You need to prove yourself to me, Luke. Words are meaningless without action.”

He hung his head for a moment, then suddenly sat upright. As if someone had commanded him to, he braved her gaze, and met her eyes with a new intensity that almost made her falter. But there was one thing on her mind that she needed to say, to get off her chest now before she regretted it.

“I was faithful to you, Luke. I have always been faithful to you, I might have moved on with my life out of necessity, but I never forgot that I was married, and I need you to know that. No matter what I said or did before you left, I loved you.”

A warmth filled Luke’s brown eyes, a softness that showed itself in the slant of his shoulders as he leaned forward, in the way he stopped gripping his coffee cup as if he were trying to break it.

“Were you?” she asked, the words catching in her throat. The thought of Luke being with another woman, even kissing another woman, made her feel sick. A hot. clammy sweat broke out on her forehead. She could taste bile in her mouth. “Faithful?”

“I—”

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