Now here he was and, God, she just couldn’t breathe or think.
“I know you almost died.” She spoke slowly because it was so hard to force the words past the overwhelming knot of dread in her chest and throat. “What’s that got to do with you setting up a foundation, moving down the street from me and getting a dog?”
Again that relentless focus held her in its thrall, hypnotizing her with the splintered shards of bright black, green and gold visible in his eyes, even across the room.
“When I woke up in the hospital, I was sorry I wasn’t dead.”
This merciless honesty unnerved her. Beau dead? Even now she couldn’t bear to think it. “Don’t say that.”
“I was.” He was so matter-of-fact they might have been discussing his need for a house painter. “But then I decided that just because I’d screwed up the first half of my life didn’t mean I needed to screw up the last half.”
“And that means…what?”
But her body already knew the answer even if her brain refused to accept it. It was in her lungs, which couldn’t breathe, in her heart, which skittered on every other beat, and in her belly, which dropped sickeningly.
As the silence stretched, she prayed.
Please don’t let him say it. Please, God, don’t let anything else in this safe, new world here outside Atlanta change on her. Please…please.
Pushing away from the console, Beau made his painful way across the room to where she stood with her clenched fist still clutching that stupid basket of muffins. He stared down at her, doling his words out in measured amounts.
“It means that, while I was recovering in the hospital and working on strengthening my body, I also started working on strengthening my spirit and figuring out why I did the things I did.” He paused, color rising high over his cheeks. “I stopped drinking. And I started counseling.”
This was unbelievable. Too flustered to be coherent, she stammered the first response that came to mind.
“Y-You’re not an alcoholic.”
“No, but I didn’t need to be drinking.”
Wow. That was quite a step because Beau loved his scotch.
“I’m…proud of you.”
This wasn’t a pro forma attaboy; she really meant it. Knowing Beau as well as she had for all these years, she knew what a huge step this was. The change in him was profound—she felt it the way she felt the relentless beat of her pulse in her throat—and it wasn’t just the physical. Whether it was from the accident or the counseling, she couldn’t tell, but it petrified her.
A smile warmed his eyes and it was so achingly familiar she wanted to drown in it. “I’m trying to be a better man, Jillian.”
The way he said her name hadn’t changed after all these years. It was still a loving touch, a melting caress that reached places deep in her soul only he’d ever been able to access. Hearing those three syllables roll off his tongue again renewed her panic and intensified it.
Where was this going? When was he going to drop that final shoe on her? Why couldn’t she breathe?
Because she couldn’t look him in the face and let him see how he was ripping her to shreds all over again, she looked away. To the crown molding, to the empty hallway, to the dog, who was now drowsing on a sunny patch of the floor with his paws sticking up. If Medusa had been in the room, Jillian would have gladly looked at her swirling head of snakes and been turned to stone.
Anything to avoid Beau’s gaze.
Beau waited until finally her cowardice became so humiliating that even she couldn’t stand it for another second.
Be a woman, Jill. Just ask.
“What does your trying to be a better man have to do with me?”
Staring her right in the eye, he hit her with the directness that had always been both a wonderful and a terrible thing about him.
“I want my family back.”
Jillian paused, the words locked tight in her throat. “You never lost Allegra.”
“I want you back.”
Chapter 4
How the hell could he do this to her?
Again?
How was it that this one man could still reach deep inside her and touch her heart? Why, after every terrible thing they’d been through together, did he still have that power over her?
Well, no more. Never again. The independence and self-confidence she’d gained since the divorce were too precious—too hard-won—to risk by letting him into her life again.
God, she was an idiot. If only she could be indifferent enough to laugh and tell him she didn’t give a damn what he wanted. What a glorious day that would be when she finally managed it.
Until then, she felt sudden, choking rage, the kind that burned its way out of her body in an unstoppable eruption. Just this once—just once, God—she wanted to hurt him a millionth as much as he’d hurt her. If not emotionally, then physically would do just fine.
With an incoherent cry, she hurled the basket at him.
That cane didn’t slow him down any. His instincts were still sharp and he deflected the attack, sending muffins flying in all directions.
“How dare you?” The movers would hear her screeching and realize she was insane, but there was time enough to be embarrassed later. “You have a near-death experience and you decide…what? That it’s finally time for you to grow up and be a man? And now you show up here, where I have rebuilt my life, bit by painful bit, and move onto my street and announce you want me back? What do you expect me to do?”
“Exactly what you’re doing.”
The grim resignation in his voice and on his face brought her up short. How could he be so calm when she was losing it? Didn’t he know he was detonating an atomic bomb right in the middle of the carefully constructed house of cards that was her life?
If only she could breathe. If only she could think. If only she’d had some warning that today wouldn’t be just another quiet day at the B & B.
Maybe they needed another joint walk down memory lane.
“Let’s recap, shall we?”
“Jillian—”
“You cheated on me when you were the governor. Is this ringing a bell at all?”
“Jillian—”
“We’d been having problems and I knew our marriage had been in trouble for a long time, so I forgave you. I stood by you at that podium while you gave your little press conference and apologized for the scandal and swore you’d changed. Remember that?”
“I remember.”
“And then we hired Adena Brown to rehabilitate your image and save your career. And what did you do when I thought we were rebuilding our marriage? You had another affair. With her.”
“I know what I did.”
“So you broke my heart again. Created another scandal. Put me through another public humiliation. Made things so bad for me that I couldn’t walk down the street in Richmond without being gawked at. I had to come down here after the divorce and start a new life in a new place where I could hold my head up. And I have.”
“I know you have, baby.”
God, she was shaking