She had one hand over her eyes, her ring hand. The sight of that diamond and gold band choked him up, too, a sob of gratitude sticking in his throat, gratitude that he’d finally met the woman he’d dreamed of. His wife. His wife.
His wife was crying.
“Hey, Helen. What’s going on?” His voice came out a little more husky than normal, emotion making his throat tight, because she was wonderful, and he didn’t want this wonderful woman to be upset. About anything. Ever.
She took in a shivery breath, one he felt through her whole body and his, joined as they were. He kissed her hand and she lifted it away. Her eyes were closed and her lashes were wet, although no tears had spilled over. He brushed her hair away from her cheek, savoring their physical closeness, skin against skin, and he waited. His wife often paused before speaking, but she always answered him. He loved that about her. He would never have to cajole, beg or plead with her to talk to him. She was the last woman in the world who’d resort to giving him the silent treatment.
Helen opened her eyes, those beautiful warm brown eyes, and looked at him the way she’d been looking at him since their eyes had first met across a crowded casino.
“I...” She cleared her throat.
He waited.
“I can’t believe I did this.”
“This?” He raised one eyebrow as he looked down at her. “This seems to be what happens whenever we’re in the same room. We’ve been doing this all night.”
He smiled gently at Mrs. Tom Cross. It was an emotional morning. Crying was a normal reaction at weddings. He kissed the corner of her eye before a tear of joy could slip away.
The slight salt on his lips did something to him. To his heart. He felt it expand, like a lion stretching in the sun, full and satisfied. Content—he felt supremely content, heading into the rest of his life as a married man.
“All night?” She looked away, and pressed her fingertips into her forehead, like someone trying to think hard. “Yes, of course we have.”
“Of course,” he echoed her, and shifted some of his weight off her. “It was our wedding night.”
She shielded her eyes with her hand as if looking at him was as painful as looking into the sun. “It really was?”
He frowned. She hadn’t meant that to sound like a question, surely.
She held her hand out a little way to look at her wedding ring. “This is really...real?”
Another emotion tried to crawl up the back of his throat, threatening his contentment. He swallowed it down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Is that question really real?”
She didn’t smile.
He suddenly couldn’t, either. “You’re serious. You don’t remember?”
She looked away again, concentrating, but after a moment, she shook her head. “No.”
Alarm tried to choke him, but he beat it down. This was temporary. They’d had a lot to drink and not a lot of sleep. Helen would remember.
He’d tell her. “We picked out that ring together. It nearly made us miss getting the marriage license. Vegas may be 24/7, but even their government offices close at some point. We got there in the nick of time, just before the stroke of midnight, Cinderella.”
She didn’t smile. She didn’t even hold his gaze.
“You don’t remember buying the ring?” Alarm, panic—he swallowed them down, but damn, they made it hard to speak.
She looked at him, eyes bright with unshed tears.
He spoke as gently as possible. “What do you remember?”
“Um...just...”
Helen took another shivery breath beneath him. He made sure most of his weight was on his forearms, tensing his arms, his shoulders. It didn’t change anything; her breathing was still too shallow, too rapid.
He could barely breathe at all.
Tom remembered that she’d loved her dress. She’d been so happy with what she’d called the perfect dress. He wanted her to remember happiness. “Don’t you remember your dress?”
She shook her head.
“The ceremony?”
“No.”
Our vows? You said you loved me, and you would love me forever. You promised.
Even if he hadn’t been choking on this sense of dread, he wouldn’t have said those words out loud. Begging someone to love him never worked. He’d learned that early in life.
“Tell me what you remember.” His voice was quiet and gruff. It didn’t sound like his voice, nothing like the soldier he was, even as he gave her a command: “Tell me.”
“Just...this. Kind of.”
“This,” he repeated impatiently. “Sex?”
She nodded.
She remembered the sex. That was all.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His heart simply stopped beating.
She placed her palm over his heart, but only to push against him, bracing herself as she shifted a bit like she was going to get up.
He was still inside her. What was the proper etiquette for this? Was he supposed to beg her pardon and withdraw? What was the damned etiquette?
He pulled out of her body, breaking their connection, feeling his heart tear out of his chest at the same time. The misery on Helen’s face tore at him, as well. Regardless of what she remembered, she was still his wife, and it was still true that he didn’t want her to be upset, ever.
He wouldn’t allow it. He was a warrior, an officer in the US Army, trained to move forward, not to give up. He wouldn’t surrender to this heartbreak. He’d fight to ease his wife’s current pain. He could fix this.
He caressed her cheek once more with his thumb. “If you didn’t remember our wedding, then what was this? Don’t say it was just sex. There’s more to us than that. Why did you just make love to me?”
“I don’t know.” As she looked up at him, the tears in her eyes finally spilled over, running into her hair. “I just...when you kissed me... I guess I remembered something.”
He kissed her again. If this made her remember, this is what he’d gladly do. He kissed his wife, until death do us part, forever and ever, amen.
She melted under his kiss, opening her mouth, kissing him, until she gasped—no, she cried—until more tears ran into her hair.
“Helen, Helen.”
