“Since when have you not been drinking, Rem?”
“Since I got stabbed in the summer.”
Sara didn’t want to think about the stabbing. Instead, she concentrated on the drinking issue. “How long will it last this time?”
“Forever. Those two months last summer were an aberration, Sara, because you turned me down. I was hurting. That was the first alcohol I’d had in six years. I’m over the drinking and the disappointment.”
“Why am I here?” she asked. “You proposed. I said no. What’s left to discuss?”
Rem got out of the booth and she wondered where he was going. Before she could stop him, he sat beside her.
“What—?”
He forced her into the corner, facing him with her back against the wall, and laid his warm hands on her thighs. She knew she should protest, should push him out of the booth because he was too big and too close, but her body craved him even as her mind rallied against him.
“Damn it, Rem.”
He turned toward her.
“I—” Whatever she was going to say died on her lips, the festive crowd faded away and they might as well have been alone in the room. Rem stared at her with brilliant blue eyes framed by dark lashes, reflections of the white lights hanging from the ceiling shining in his pupils.
Black hair fell across his forehead and she almost reached out to push it back, managing to stop before making a fool of herself.
He smelled like cedar and pine. Maybe he’d helped Chester decorate today.
Amy Grant sang about having a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. But Sara’s wasn’t. It was dark and scared and off-kilter. She wanted her sanity back, her old life before Rem had proposed.
“Why?” she asked, as though he could know her thoughts. “Why couldn’t you have left well enough alone?”
“I wanted to make things right.”
“They already were right. My life was perfect.”
“Nothing was right between us, Sara.” He ran a finger down her cheek and she jerked away.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
He let his hand fall to the table. “Nothing’s been right since that night in the hospital after Finn was born. I rejected you both. I was scared and immature and dead wrong. I should have married you then.”
“For Finn. Because I got pregnant.” It wasn’t a question. “So, more than eleven years later you proposed out of guilt?”
“No!” Rem slapped his palm on the table. “Are you blind? I love you.” He hauled her close and wrapped his fingers around her nape. Before she could protest, his lips were on hers and there was nothing sweet or seductive about this kiss.
It was carnal. Heat-drenched. Laden with so much anger and frustration, Sara could taste it. She felt the same things herself.
Her body begged her to give in to the kiss, but she wouldn’t, because that darkness inside her that she’d felt toward Rem for years had grown bigger in the past six months. Since June. Since that devastating marriage proposal. She didn’t know where the darkness came from or what it was, but it was profound and terrified her to her toes. Something that had been hidden for a long time had worked its way too close to the surface. A flood of emotion threatened to pour out of her and all she could do was stick her finger in the hole, resist the pressure and hang on for dear life.
She thought she heard someone whisper, “Wow, it’s about time.”
Sara took one last taste of Rem’s tongue and lips, because it would be their last kiss—ever—then forced herself to pull away. His moisture cooled on her lips and his breath feathered bits of hair around her face.
“I can’t do this.” She was strong enough to control her body and its desires. She’d had a lot of practice.
She didn’t need to understand the darkness lurking inside—whatever it was—to know that she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She and Finn had a good life. Things would stay the way they were.
“Damn it, Sara.” A thread of desperation rang in Rem’s voice. “Let go for once in your life.”
“No. I did that once. With you. Remember? And I ended up pregnant. I wouldn’t give up Finn for the world, but it’s been anything but easy. You walked out on us. You decided you didn’t want to be a father. I’ve raised a great kid. All by myself. I don’t need you.”
“I’m not talking about need. I’m talking about love and companionship. We belong together. We always have. We’re connected.” He leaned forward. “If we don’t belong together, why did you sleep with me that night last summer?”
“That was a mistake.” She traced a scar on the tabletop with her nail. “Do you think your mom knew I stayed late that night? Do you think she heard me when I ran out?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We aren’t kids anymore.” He lifted her chin with his finger, forcing her to look into his intense blue eyes. “Answer my question. Why did you make love to me that night?”
“You’d been stabbed. You almost died.”
“And it scared you because we’re connected. Because if I died, part of you would die, too.”
She shook her head sadly. “We might have been at one time, before you burned Timm. But that changed everything.”
Rem cursed and bracketed her face with his hands. He rested his forehead on hers, breathing hard. “That was an accident. I was a kid. You know that. Timm’s forgiven me. Why can’t you?”
She wanted to touch him so she curled her hands into fists in her lap. She had to protect herself and her son. “What about all of that stuff when you were a teenager? The drinking? The girls? The street racing?”
“There’s a difference between what I did as a teenager and what I did last summer. When I was a kid, drinking and partying were a pattern in my life. I’d burned my best friend. I didn’t think I deserved better for myself. Last summer’s drinking was an aberration after six years of sobriety. Can’t you see they aren’t the same?”
He backed away and the bar came into focus again. People talked, laughed, sang along with the Christmas carol tinting the air with nostalgia.
Two glasses filled with clear soda and ice sat side by side on the table. Angel must have brought them while they were kissing.
Heat crawled up Sara’s neck.
Rem picked up one of the glasses. “Club soda. No alcohol. I haven’t had a drop since the stabbing. I’ve changed, Sara. You need to accept that.”
He slammed the glass down and soda splashed onto the table.
“But I haven’t seen any change,” she said. “You drank in the summer. You sure looked like the old Rem.”
“That was temporary. I was upset after you turned me down.”
“Okay, so you haven’t had a drink since then. But you could again at any time. It shouldn’t have happened in the summer.”
“It happened because I’m human. No one is perfect. Not even you.” He rammed his fingers through his hair, his frustration a palpable thing beating between them. “There are things you don’t know.”
“What are you talking about? What things?”
He got out of the booth and his absence sucked all of the warmth out of the room. He reclaimed the bench on the other side and she felt a loss whose