he gave Jake the go-ahead.
As he disconnected his phone, Kade realized he needed to remember, when it came to larger issues, there was a lot he could not fix. This sense of having her under his protection was largely an illusion. They had tried it over the fire of real life, and they had been scorched.
Tomorrow, he would get up superearly and be gone before she even opened her eyes. He would solve all the helpless ambivalence she made him feel in the way he always had.
He would go to work.
He would, a little voice inside him said, abandon his wife. The same as always.
But it didn’t quite work out that way. Because in the night, he was awakened to the sound of screaming.
Kade bolted from his bed and down the hall to her door. He paused outside it for a minute, aware, suddenly, he was in his underwear.
He heard a strangled sob, and the hesitation was over. He opened her door, and raced to her side. The bedside lamp was a touch lamp, and he brushed it with his hand.
Jessica was illuminated in the soft light. She was thrashing around, her hair a sweaty tangle, her eyes clenched tightly shut. When the light came on, she sat up abruptly, and the jolt to her arm woke her up.
She looked up at him, terrified, and then the terror melted into a look he could have lived for.
Had lived for, once upon a time, when he still believed in once upon a time.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
“Just a dream,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He went into the adjoining bathroom and found a glass wrapped in plastic that crinkled when he stripped it off. Again, he was reminded this place was more like a hotel and not a home. He filled the glass and brought it to her.
She was sitting up now, with her back against the headboard, her eyes shut. “Sorry,” she said.
“No, no, it’s okay.” He handed her the water. “How long have you been having the nightmares?”
“Since the break-in.” She took a long drink of water. “I dream that someone is breaking into my house. My bedroom. That I wake up and—” She shuddered.
Kade felt a helpless anger at the burglar who had caused all this.
“Are you in your underwear?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He wanted to say it was nothing she had never seen before, but she looked suddenly shy, and it was adorable.
“You know I don’t own a pair of pajamas,” he reminded her.
He sat down on the bed beside her. Everything about her was adorable. She looked cute and very vulnerable in his too-large shirt with the buttons done up crooked. Her hair was sticking up on one side, and he had to resist the temptation to smooth it down with his hand. He noticed her eyes skittered everywhere but to his bare legs.
Sheesh. How long had they been married?
She seemed as if she might protest him getting in the bed, but instead, after a moment’s thought, she scooted over, and he slid his legs up on the mattress beside her. He felt the soft familiar curve of her shoulder touching his, let the scent of her fill up his nose.
“I’m sorry about the nightmares,” he said.
“It’s silly,” she said. “I think I’m getting post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s shameful to get it for a very minor event.”
“Hey, stop that. You were the victim here. The person who should be ashamed is whoever did this. Jessica, do these people not have any kind of conscience? Decency? Can they not know how these stupid things they do for piddling sums of money reverberate outward in a circle of pain and distress for their victims?”
He felt her relax, snuggle against him. “I feel sorry for him.”
He snorted. “You would.”
“I don’t think you or I have ever known that kind of desperation, Kade.”
Except that was not true. When she had wanted to have that baby, he had been desperate to make her happy. Desperate. And her own desperation had filled him with the most horrifying sense of helplessness.
He reached over and snapped off the light. His hand found her head, and he pulled it onto his shoulder, and stroked her hair.
“Go to sleep,” he said softly. “I’ll just stay with you until you do. You’re safe. I’ll take care of you. Why don’t you lie back down.”
“In a minute,” she said huskily. “You know what this reminds me of, Kade?
“Hmm?”
“Remember when we first met, how I was terrified of thunderstorms?”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, “I remember.”
“And then that one night, a huge electrical storm was moving over the city, and you came and got me out of the bathroom where I was hiding.”
“Under the sink,” he recalled.
“And you led me outside, and you had the whole front step set up. You had a blanket out there, and a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and we sat on the step.
“At first I was terrified. I was quivering, I was so scared. I wanted to bolt. The clouds were so black. And the lightning was ripping open the heavens. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, as if I could be swept away.
“And then you put your hand on my shoulder, as if to hold me to the earth. You told me to count the seconds between the lightning bolt and the thunder hitting and I would know how far away the lightning strike was.”
He remembered it all, especially her body trembling against his as the storm had intensified all around them.
“It kept getting closer and closer. Finally, there was no pause between the lightning strike and the thunder, there was not even time to count to one. The whole house shook. I could feel the rumble of the thunder ripple through you and through me and through the stairs and through the whole world. The tree in the front yard shook.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“The whole night lit up in a flash, and I looked at you, and your face was illuminated by the lightning. You weren’t even a little bit afraid. I could tell you loved it. You loved the fury and intensity of the storm. And suddenly, just like that, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I loved it, too. Sitting out on the front steps with you, we sipped that wine, and cuddled under that blanket, and got soaked when the rain came.”
She was silent for a long time.
“And after that,” he said gently, “every time there was a storm, you were the first one out on that step.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? It cost nothing to go sit on those steps and storm watch. They came from nowhere. We couldn’t plan it or expect it. And yet those moments?”
