Chapter 12

When he rang the doorbell, James didn’t know whether Barbara would slam the door in his face, scream at him, or just glare at him, but he was willing to risk all of that.

At least he could be sure he wouldn’t find Marcus Lindsay in her house. Only yesterday, he’d heard through the grapevine that the publisher had been seen at a concert in the company of Sandy Vanderkamp. Rumor had it that the thrice-divorced Sandy had worn a dress with a neckline all the way down to her navel, which indicated she was on the prowl yet again. Thus, James had concluded that Marcus and Barbara were no longer an item.

He couldn’t deny that he was relieved.

Nor could he deny that he’d come here today, in part, to see how Barbara was dealing with Marcus Lindsay already moving on with another woman. But the main reason for his visit was that today marked the three-year anniversary of the date his daughter had come into the world far too early to survive—and he had almost lost his wife.

He didn’t want to relive the worst hours of his life, so he straightened his shoulders and waited. When she opened the door with a slice of pizza in her hand and a perplexed look in her eyes, he gave her a weak smile.

“James? What are you doing here?”

He took in her pajama shorts, oversized sweater, and high ponytail, and her bare feet stirred a sad nostalgia inside him. “I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he replied truthfully.

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion while she licked a tempting dab of tomato sauce from her upper lip. “Did my mom send you here?”

“No.” He frowned in confusion. “Why?”

“Never mind.” She waved a dismissive hand, measured him with an indecisive look, and then sighed and gave a shrug of resignation. “Come in before my pizza gets cold.”

James had been prepared for all manner of things, but he hadn’t expected her to invite him into the house. He could barely believe his luck as she left the door open and disappeared into the house, obviously expecting him to follow.

It actually took him a moment to get into motion and step across the threshold. But then he was worried she might reconsider, so he quickly shut the door and followed her into the living room, where she had apparently been eating pizza and watching a movie, which she now paused.

When he saw the DVD case, he smiled. Apparently, Barbara still had a thing for Stephen King. Somehow, it was comforting to see that at least that hadn’t changed.

“Want a slice?” She threw the remote on the couch and sat down, tucking her legs under her. Then she grabbed another slice for herself and took a hearty bite.

James looked at the armchair, hesitating before he sat down in it, and grabbed a piece of pizza, though he hadn’t felt hungry once today. He began chewing mechanically, wondering what the hell he was doing here—and why Barbara was offering him pizza, instead of kicking him out of the house. She hadn’t so much as asked him inside or offered him a cup of coffee even once in the last two years, though he’d been here countless times—to pick up or drop off the boys.

Barbara had never been so calm and relaxed either. She wasn’t even glaring at him like she was after his scalp.

As the silence between them stretched longer and longer, he swallowed the last bite of his pizza slice and asked, “You were watching Carrie?”

She shrugged a careless shoulder and threw the crust of her last piece back into the box, the way he’d seen her do for fourteen years. “There’s only trash on TV on a Saturday night. I’d rather scrub the bathtub than watch one more episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

Considering his Saturday night entertainment usually consisted of similarly shallow TV shows, he kept his mouth shut. “There are quite a few good movies opening this weekend.”

He was surprised to see her smirk a little. “Are you trying to invite me to the movies, James?”

“No. Of course not,” he said quickly, before pausing. Hesitantly, he asked, “Why? Would you come if I did?”

His ex-wife made herself comfier on the couch. “We’ll never find out now,” she replied with mock seriousness.

“Well.” James shrugged. “Too bad. I haven’t been to the movies in a long time.”

“I was there just a few weeks ago. I went to see Cars with the boys and fell asleep.”

James snorted and threw her a meaningful look. “When I talk about going to the movies, I don’t mean a matinee with a bunch of noisy kids. When I took them to see this Harry Potter knockoff a few months ago, I practically needed a tranquilizer afterwards.”

Her giggled hit him right in the chest. “Yeah, that’s why I let you take them to that one.”

“Thank you very much.” He rolled his eyes. “Too kind of you.”

“Hey,” Barbara protested. “Don’t forget I chaperoned Hamilton’s field trip to that amusement park with the singing and dancing goblins. Half an hour in that place, and a migraine is guaranteed. You will never be even with me.” Suddenly, she tilted her head to one side and gave him a prompting nod. “And now you could tell me what brings you here on a Saturday night. Can’t be the boys.”

James ran a hand through his hair. “I think you know.”

Barbara looked delectable in her casual attire as she returned his gaze, but then she asked flatly, “I do?”

He frowned and raised both hands. “It’s exactly three years today—”

“But that doesn’t explain why you are here, James.”

He bristled at the demanding tone in her voice. “I wanted to check on you, see how you were holding up. The kids aren’t here, and I didn’t think you should be alone today. Is that so hard to understand?”

She lowered her eyes to her fidgeting hands. “Yes,” she whispered, “it’s hard to understand, James. To be quite honest, I don’t understand anything anymore.”

He didn’t know how to reply to that, so he kept his mouth shut and simply watched Barbara, whose eyes were now staring into the distance.

Suddenly, she murmured, “Do you know that you said Elizabeth’s name for the first time in three years during our last phone call?”

Her words hit him like a jolt of electricity. “What?”

“Yes.” Barbara nodded and met his eyes reluctantly. “I haven’t heard you say her name once in the last three years.”

He exhaled helplessly. “What are you trying to say?”

Barbara’s pretty face twisted into a mask of unhappiness. “I thought you’d forgotten her, until you finally said her name. Why didn’t you speak about her before?”

Apparently, Barbara didn’t expect an answer at all, for she rose from the sofa with a jerk, grabbed the empty pizza box, and stormed off into the kitchen.

For a brief moment, James sat paralyzed in his armchair, trying to process what Barbara had just said. Then he jumped out of his chair and ran after her.

“Could you please tell me what you want me to say? What do you want me to do?” He felt clueless, helpless, hopeless, as he watched her throw the pizza box in the trash.

Unable to bear her turning her back on him, he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. He ignored her choked cry and lowered his face close to hers.

“Barbara, come on, talk to me,” he demanded, breathing heavily. He stared straight into her green eyes so he’d be able to read every nuance in her gaze.

“Please let go of me,” she whispered, but she didn’t try to pull away from him. Instead, she remained where she was, very close to him. It almost seemed as if she leaned forward, even closer.

They probably hadn’t stood this close to each other in more than two years, James thought, all of a sudden aware of the warmth his ex-wife radiated, her delicate scent, and how amazing it felt to touch her in such a familiar, intimate way.

While James was still pondering what they were doing, Barbara lowered her gaze to his mouth and lifted her face to tentatively offer her lips to him.

His heart beat a wild tattoo as he looked down at her, fearing that he’d fallen victim to a mirage. But the Fata Morgana didn’t dissolve into thin air, and he longed to kiss her with every fiber of his being, so he gave in to the urge and dropped his mouth to hers.

As soon as he’d given her the first kiss, which couldn’t have been more tender or cautious, he was overcome with the yearning to pull his wife into his arms and never let her go. Cupping her face, he intensified the kiss, then slipped his hands away to wrap his arms around her and pull her into a tight embrace. In this moment, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if Barbara had protested. But James could feel her clinging to him with a despair that made her return his kiss with the same fevered intensity.

His head spun at the speed of light.

When the walls that had separated them from each other during the past years finally crumbled and broke, he could no longer process a rational thought.

When he bent his knees to lift Barbara into his arms, she didn’t put up any resistance but continued to kiss him enthusiastically. Even when he carried her to the staircase and proceeded up to the bedroom, she didn’t stop him. Instead, she sighed his name and nestled against him.