Chapter Four

 

 

Cora finished her protein bar and decided then and there that she’d never leave her house without one again. She knew Grey had never really liked them, but he polished his off minutes before she did. She offered him a second one, but he politely declined. He was always the planner, and she had no doubt he figured they’d better save them for tomorrow in case they weren’t able to make it to the main cabin like they hoped.

She thought about Grey’s family. It was going to be weird enough going to this event when she was the only outsider, but it would be even stranger to show up with Grey. Not knowing how she was going to be received by Flynn, in particular, was probably the hardest part.

Right now, however, she chose to focus on the warm cabin and the food that would be waiting there for them. Maria always had been a good cook. Truthfully, Cora had missed her as much as she had Grandpa Jackson after the divorce.

Maria had welcomed Cora from the very beginning, back when she and Grey were only partners in science class and they’d meet to put their projects together. The idea that Grey’s mom looked forward to him getting home from school and even welcomed him with a snack baffled Cora. When she’d get home from school, her mom would put her to work and if she didn’t get that done by dinner, then dinner didn’t happen. There were days Cora ate crackers right before bed and had to struggle to get her homework done in the early hours of the morning before school began again.

Then there was Maria. Some of Cora’s snacks at the Jackson home were better than the dinners she had at her own house. Once she and Grey were dating, Cora frequently ate dinner at his house. Maria never seemed to mind, and her parents never once complained that she wasn’t home enough. Provided, of course, that she got her work done before she left. The homework was up to Cora. But she and Grey did theirs together, and it worked.

They worked.

Until they didn’t.

Cora frowned. She instinctively pressed a hand to her lower abdomen. The large scar there always represented the breaking point in their marriage, even if things had been going downhill for a while before then.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d seen the double lines on a pregnancy test. That baby was supposed to revitalize their marriage and make them realize just how much they had together. But even that plan had fallen apart.

Grey brought her back to the present when he gently nudged her arm. “You okay over there?”

She shrugged, relieved to have a distraction from the way her thoughts had been spiraling. “A little nervous about tomorrow, I guess.”

“Hiking through the snow? Or seeing my family?”

Cora raised her gaze to his. “Both.”

He nodded. “Well, as long as the blizzard dies down and we don’t end up with twenty feet of snow out there, I’m confident we can make it to the main cabin.”

His incredible sense of direction was almost maddening. Where she had to use a GPS to navigate her way to a new location multiple times before she remembered the route on her own, Grey could figure it out in his head. Worst case scenario, he used a map once and never had to use it again.

There was a time she’d affectionately referred to him as her human GPS system.

No, Cora didn’t doubt that he’d get them to the main cabin tomorrow. The scarier thought was being stuck there for an extended stay when she wasn’t really welcome.

Okay, so that was an exaggeration. Maria had personally encouraged her to come, not just because Grandpa Jackson wanted her to, but because Maria did as well. She’d always gotten along fine with Dare. It was Grey’s older brother that she was worried about.

“Does Flynn still hate me?”

Grey was about to take a drink of water when he set the glass back down again. “He never hated you.”

Cora pinned him with a serious look. As welcoming as Maria and Grandpa Jackson had been, Flynn was the opposite. He tolerated her presence and said nothing until it was clear her relationship with Grey was becoming serious. The little comments about her old clothing or how she seemed to come over just for the food hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Cora could never forget the way Flynn had cornered her after she and Grey had become engaged. He told her that she needed to think long and hard about marrying into the family and then warned her against doing anything to hurt Grey.

“Really? Flynn and I have never gotten along. And he made it no secret that he blamed me for our divorce.” She knew Flynn had spoken to Grey about getting a lawyer and fighting for the money and belongings. But Grey, ever the gentleman, had agreed to split it all fifty-fifty.

The resigned expression on his face told her enough. “Hate’s a strong word.”

“And an applicable one. I have no doubt he was celebrating the day I was no longer part of the family.” Cora crossed her arms as the familiar rivers of annoyance coursed through her veins. “I can’t imagine he’s happy about my being here this weekend.”

“No, he’s not. But we’ve spoken about it, and he can deal. Besides, he’s married, and he and Abby have two kids now, so he has something else to focus on, too.” He picked up the poker and absently shifted one of the logs. “And you’re right, despite my reassurances that our divorce was a mutual decision, Flynn has always put you in the blame seat. But Mom and Dare are happy that you’re here, so just try not to go in swinging, okay?”

A thought came to Cora and dread slammed itself into her chest. She sat up straight, turned to face Grey, and clenched her fists. “Please tell me you never told them about—”

“No, I didn’t.” He let the poker clang to the bricks of the hearth and stood. “I made a promise, and I’ve kept it. But not telling our families about the baby was a huge mistake, Cora, and you know it.”

They were going to wait and tell everyone about the pregnancy at Christmas. But less than a month before, Cora woke up to intense pain and bleeding. Thankfully, Grey hadn’t been on one of his business trips. He’d raced her to the hospital where they’d discovered it was an ectopic pregnancy and her right fallopian tube had ruptured. Cora was taken into surgery where the tube was eventually removed. The last thing Cora remembered before being wheeled away was begging Grey not to tell his family.

“It wasn’t a mistake. It just plain wasn’t any of their business.” They’d argued round and round about it for weeks and months after the surgery, but in the end, he’d honored her request to keep it all between them. Instead, he’d simply told his family that she wasn’t feeling well while she recovered. “I didn’t need the judgment from my parents. And the last thing I wanted was pity from your mom and judgment from Flynn.”

“I get that, Cora. But what about me? I lost a baby, too.” He released a heavy sigh and stood. “I’m going to go bring in some more firewood before it gets much later.” He shoved his arms into his coat and then pulled his hat and gloves back on. His footsteps retreated through the kitchen before the back door opened and closed with a bang.

Cora sat in stunned silence. Of course he’d suffered a loss. But he’d taken it all in stride. She’d just assumed he’d been doing okay, that it was only her who had a hard time moving forward.

She’d spent years trying to let go of the past. If it weren’t for the literal scar that had yet to fade, she might’ve convinced herself it’d all been a bad dream. That old phrase about time healing old wounds? Yeah, she wasn’t so sure about that.

 

~*~

 

Grey wished the firewood hadn’t already been chopped. He could use some good physical exertion right about now. He found several logs that would work well and hopefully keep the fire burning all night long. If it weren’t so cold outside, he probably would’ve delayed his return to the house for a while. As it was, the frigid air was already seeping in after only fifteen minutes. He stacked what he could in his arms and went back inside. 

He’d never understood why Cora didn’t want to tell people about the baby. It bothered him to no end. Not only because he would’ve liked some support after finding out that the pregnancy was ectopic, but because that was when Cora really retreated from him. From their marriage.

Things weren’t great before, but the loss was like a wall that neither of them could quite climb. It only got worse from there.

Watching Cora go through the grief and pain had been unbearable, and when she refused to open up to him, it was even worse. She kept trying to push him away, and eventually he let her. They’d both made a lot of mistakes.

He re-entered the living room, dropped the logs into the wood bin near the hearth, but didn’t see her near the fire. “Cora?”

“On the couch.”

He could barely make out her form in the ambient light from the fireplace. His heart twisted painfully in his chest. The last thing he wanted to do this weekend was fight with her. “Are you getting sleepy?”

“A little.” She shifted, and a small light came on around her wrist as she checked her watch. “Wow, it’s not even ten yet. How lame is that?”

“Not so lame considering all we’ve been through today.” He turned his flashlight on. “I think it best if we sleep in here near the fire. You can have the couch, and I’ll make a pallet on the floor. Does that work?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

On that note, he retrieved the pillows and comforters from both bedrooms. There was an extra blanket in one of the closets as well that he snagged on his way back to the living room.

Together, they moved the couch closer to the fireplace. While Cora got her spot set up, Grey folded the comforter several times to make a thick pad on the floor near the fire. Between that warmth and the blanket he found, he had no doubt he’d be comfortable enough to sleep. If anything, frequent checks on the fire to make sure it was still burning would be what kept him awake tonight.

He emptied his pockets so that sleeping in his clothes would be more comfortable, then lowered himself to the pallet. He’d certainly slept in less ideal places in the past when he used to go camping regularly. The sounds of Cora shifting on the couch quieted. While he was on the ground, he was easily within arm’s reach of her.

Instead of falling asleep, Grey couldn’t take his eyes off the fire. The flames danced and twisted as the wood crackled. Occasionally, a little popping noise or a slight shift in the log would cause sparks to release into the air before disappearing again.

He thought Cora was asleep when her soft voice broke the near silence. “Grey?”

“Yeah?” She was silent long enough that he started wondering if he’d imagined her speaking at all.

“I’m sorry.”

Of all the things she might have said, those words surprised him the most. “For what?”

“For not realizing you weren’t okay after…” Her voice broke. “You never said anything, so I guess I just figured…”

“That I didn’t care?” That she could possibly think that bothered him on so many levels. It couldn’t be further from the truth. “I tried to talk to you, Cora. No matter what I did, you pushed me away.”

“No, you ran away.” There was an edge to her voice. “When you weren’t working at your family’s store, you were out on a trip to find things to stock it with. We hardly saw each other.”

He clenched his jaw and blew out a frustrated puff of air. “You’re right. Even when we were in the same house, we rarely saw eye to eye anymore. We had medical bills that we needed to pay. At some point, traveling more just made sense.”

“Don’t blame me for your decision to not come home for weeks on end. That’s not fair.” The couch creaked, and he could see her sitting up in the fire light. “It was not all my fault.”

“You’re right about that. There’s plenty of fault to go around.”

His words seemed to diffuse the situation a little. He kept his gaze on the fire while her angry breathing calmed over time.

When she spoke again, it was so softly he barely heard her. “It seemed like you’d recovered from losing the baby. Like you’d just moved on. And I…I couldn’t.”

The brokenness in her voice just about did him in. He’d never been able to stand to see her hurting. “I was trying to hold it all together. For us both.” He paused. “Losing that baby was hard on me, too, Cora. But watching them wheel you away for emergency surgery was the scariest moment in my life, because I was afraid I might lose you, too.”  The only time Grey had ever voiced any of this aloud was when he was praying while she was in surgery. “Afterward, you didn’t want to tell anyone or talk about what happened.”

“And that’s exactly what you needed.” There was no accusation in those words, only realization.

Grey’s eyes slid shut. She’d needed him to be strong for her, and he had. But at the same time, he’d needed someone to talk to. The pain and sorrow had built up until it was more than he could handle. Especially when he’d come home to find Cora clearly hurting and anything he tried to do only seemed to make it worse.

Was there something he could’ve done differently? He wished he knew. So much for hindsight being twenty-twenty.