They drove the truck out to the back of the property and found the perfect camping spot that Logan had cleared. It was far enough away from the water that they wouldn’t worry about the boys playing, but close enough that they didn’t have to walk far to go fishing. It was already too late in the season to swim.

  They unpacked the camping gear, fishing poles and tackle box. But seeing that they were still missing one sleeping bag, Logan drove back to the house to retrieve it while Wade set up the tent. The boys were supposed to help him, but like all young boys, they soon tired of the details of constructing a tent and decided to go in search of worms so they could fish.

  He’d just hammered the last stake into the ground that would hold the tent in place when the air around him became eerily quiet. The sound of little boy laughter had faded while he’d set up the tent and yet he hadn’t noticed until just then.

  “Alex? Keith?”

  It had only been a few seconds. But with little boys, that’s all it took. He glanced around the camp. The fishing poles were gone. The tackle box was open and new lures he’d bought to try out were gone.

  “You two weren’t supposed to go to the river without us,” Wade called out as he hastily walked down the short trail toward the water’s edge. He shook his head as he saw the two boys on the trail ahead of him, running toward the large boulder Logan had said was the best spot for them to stand while fishing. Alex climbed up the boulder first, holding his fishing pole in one hand. Keith followed.

  Wade couldn’t help but smile at the unbridled determination both boys had for this adventure. It reminded him of Hawk and himself when they were kids.

  “Don’t go to the edge of the rock, boys,” Wade called out, keeping his voice steady so as not to startle them. “I don’t want to have to rescue you two if you fall in the water.”

  Keith laughed, giving him a look that reminded him of his late sister-in-law, Kelly. Alex took an unsteady step back as he struggled with the fishing pole, making Wade’s heart jump in his chest.

  “We’ll be careful,” Alex said, looking up at Wade with a wide smile. Wade saw the stick under Alex’s foot before he stepped on it. The stick rolled under Alex’s sneaker and made his already unsteady step more unstable, causing him to fall backward.

  “Alex!” Wade yelled. But it was too late. Alex tumbled off the boulder onto the hard ground below. The fishing pole was still in his hand when Wade reached him. Terrified, Keith slowly climbed down from the rock to see if is best buddy was okay.

  Alex was momentarily quiet, as if the shock of the fall was still stunning him. Wade pulled the fishing pole out of Alex’s grip and looked him all over to inspect him. Blood was already pouring down the front of Alex’s face, covering his cheek and staining his shirt.

  Keith started crying before Alex did and when Alex saw the blood, he wailed. Wade scooped Alex up in his arms and started running.

  “Stay with me, Keith,” he called out, looking over his shoulder to make sure his nephew was with him.

  Relief filled Wade when he heard Logan running down the trail before he actually saw him.

  “Get the truck,” Wade yelled to Logan.

  The drive to the clinic was a blur. Keith stayed behind with Poppy as Logan drove Wade and Alex to the Hawk’s clinic. His mother and Skylar were waiting at the clinic when they arrived. When Alex saw Skylar, his wails increased. Wade didn’t want to upset Alex any more than he already was, so he stayed in the waiting room while Hawk examined the gash on Alex’s head. Skylar stayed with him to keep him calm while the wound was being stitched.

  Wade sat in the chair, looking at the blood on his shirt, knowing it was his child’s blood and feeling guilty and helpless that he’d done nothing to stop Alex from getting hurt.

  “Knock it off,” his mother said, settling into the chair next to him. “Why are you beating yourself up about this? You and your brothers have had a million scrapes like this. Hell, Hawk was getting to the point where he knew how to stitch himself up. It’s no wonder he became a doctor.”

  “I should have been watching him closer. I didn’t even know they went down to the river.”

  “Kids do things in the blink of an eye,” Kate said, chastising him for his reaction, not his actions. “You said yourself he was standing on the rock with Keith when you got there. He fell right before your eyes. So you tell me what you could have done to prevent it?”

  “I don’t know. I keep thinking if I hadn’t noticed they were gone, he might have fallen into the water and drowned.”

  “And a meteor can strike us all tomorrow.”

  He looked at his mother, wondering what she was talking about.

  “It’s the same thing. Don’t look at me like I’m an old, crazy woman. I raised five boys to adulthood. Stuff happens. Boys get into messes. They get scrapes and stitches and broken bones. Lord knows you all had enough of those. If you let yourself think back to how many emergency room visits I had to bring one of you to, then you’ll understand that this won’t be the last time either of those little boys gets into trouble. This is just the first of many. It’s call life.”

  * * *

  Silence had a way of healing. And sometimes, it had a way of hurting. Skylar looked at Wade while he drove her car back to the house. He’d left his car at Logan’s, but Skylar was glad that Wade offered to drive her home so she could sit in the back seat with Alex, who was still clinging to her after getting five stitches in his forehead. Hawk had been quite animated as he stitched up the wound, easing some of the trauma of it all for Alex.

  For Skylar, it was a different story. Looking at the worried lines on Wade’s face in the rear view mirror as he drove, Skylar knew it was the same for Wade. It always is when it’s your child. And Alex was Wade’s son.

  She hadn’t been fair to Wade. But life hadn’t been fair to any of them. She thought back to the conversation she’d had on the phone with her friend Cara. The one thing she’d taken away from that phone call was that Cara was happy. She’d heard it in the bubbly way Cara spoke. It dawned on Skylar that it had been a long time since she’d ever even considered that notion.

  When they got to the house, Alex was so emotionally exhausted that he didn’t even argue with Skylar when she got him ready for bed and tucked him in. She went to the kitchen to grab him the glass of water he’d asked for and by the time she returned, Alex was fast asleep.

  Wade was sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands. She was tired. Too tired to keep fighting battles she was creating. Walking up to him, she put her hand on his head and pulled him close to her so his head was nuzzled against her stomach.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  He lifted his head to look at her face. “Yeah? He never needed five stitches when you were watching him.”

  She chuckled. “He gave himself a black eye on the coffee table right in front of me. For a week I felt like I’d been the one to give it to him. He’s had plenty of falls and scrapes. There’ll be more. Are you going to blame yourself for all of them?”

  Wade leaned back on the sofa. “I guess not. It’s just, I spent all this time trying to protect the two of you. The one time I had him alone, he nearly loses an eye.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Quit being so dramatic! The stitches aren’t anywhere near his eye.”

  “They could have been.”

  Disgusted, she grunted.

  “I should call Logan. He said he’d pick me up here.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “He already called. I told him not to come.”

  “What?”

  “You…don’t have to leave.”

  Skylar could see Wade spark to life right in front of her. She quickly put up a hand to halt him from moving closer and taking her invitation the wrong way.

  “Before you go getting excited about the offer, I’m talking about this couch, not my bed. It’s been a trying day and I can see how wiped out you are. There’s no need having Logan come out here and then having you drive all the way back to your house. So just stay here.”

  His disappointment clouded his expression. She couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head, and under her breath, she said, “You’ll never change.”

  “Not where you’re concerned. You ruined me, Sky. I haven’t been with another woman since the last time we were together in Samoa.”

  His blue eyes were beautiful as he gazed up at her. She remembered them so well. The sincerity of his words made them hard to ignore. She shifted uncomfortably where she stood unable to squash the flash of guilt that she felt.

  “Don’t. This was my choice. Even after I learned you got married, I didn’t want to be with another woman. No one was you.”

  “You had all the choices, didn’t you?”

  “Not all. If I could have stopped Jay from touching you these last few years, I would have. It damn near killed me thinking about that.”

  # # #

  Chapter Nine

  Wade watched Skylar as she turned away from him. But not before he saw her bottom lip tremble with emotion. Wade wondered what was haunting Skylar the most. Was it the failed marriage, or the fact that it hadn’t been him loving her as she’d confessed she’d wanted?

  Before she could leave the room, he asked, “Did you ever love him?”

  Wade told him himself plenty of times he wasn’t going to ask Skylar that question. Ever. It wasn’t fair to her and she didn’t have to tell him. But the need to know the truth was so strong, he couldn’t stop himself.

  “Sadly, no. That’s the worst of it.” She laughed at the look he gave her. “Don’t look so relieved.”

  “I never claimed to be perfect, Skylar. But I can’t help the way I feel.”

  “There was so much I wanted to say to you. I would find myself standing in that kitchen wondering about what you’d think about Alex. He’d reach a milestone and I’d ask Kate about you. All that time she never knew. At night I’d sleep on the corner of the bed and cry. I was wearing another man’s ring and yet I was crying for you.

  “They say it takes two for a marriage to fall apart but it was my fault. All mine. I didn’t let Jay be a father to Alex, and he always felt it. Something in me was always holding back. I never should have married him.” She said the last part quietly. “You ruined me, too.”

  The urge to touch Skylar overwhelmed him beyond what he’d imagined was possible. She was still standing across the room. But Wade could almost smell the scent of the citrus lotion she used to put on right before bed. He wanted to lean into her to see if it was still part of her nightly ritual.

  But they’d already been through enough today. The fact that she was even willing to let him stay the night was a war he didn’t think he’d win just days ago.

  She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. “If you need another blanket, there are more in the linen closet in the bathroom. Fresh towels, too, if you want to take a shower. You used to always take a shower before bed,” she said quietly.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, goodnight, Wade.”

  “Sleep well.”

  He dragged his gaze away from Skylar as she left the room and headed down the hallway, but only because watching her leave would have pushed the longing he felt to have her in his arms deeper into his gut. It was already so strong it threatened to level him. He waited for the sound of her bedroom door to shut before he turned back to look in the direction she’d just walked, wishing he was on the other side of that closed door with her.

  He pulled himself up from the sofa that would be his bed for the night, and walked to the bathroom. Once inside, he closed and locked the door, but didn’t feel the lock connect. He played with the button again and pressed on the door to see if the mechanism wasn’t connecting with the metal plate against the doorjamb. When the lock failed again, he abandoned the door. Although he’d love it if Skylar joined him in the shower, the likelihood of her doing so with Alex sleeping just a few feet down the hall was zero.

  Pulling the linen closet door open, he found the towels stacked neatly inside. He grabbed a fresh white towel from the top of the pile and closed the linen closet door, tossing the dry towel over the shower curtain rod to keep it dry while he showered. He was inside the shower and just soaping his body under the hot spray when he heard the door creak as it opened. A few seconds later he saw the shower curtain billow from the cool rush of air the came in with the opening of the bathroom door.

  “Alex, sweetie, you have to wait,” Skylar whispered. “No, you can’t go in there yet.”

  The toilet seat dropped with a thud and Wade immediately got the image of a little boy struggling to do right, but who was too sleepy to be coordinated.

  “Alex?” The whisper was a little louder and this time Wade couldn’t help but laugh.

  He turned off the water and pulled the towel from the shower curtain rod. He quickly dried what he could and wrapped the towel around his waist. Then he pushed the shower curtain open. Skylar stood in the doorway, flustered by the site of him. Alex barely turned to notice Wade standing there.

  “Why don’t I give you a little privacy, Big Guy?” Wade said, walking toward the bathroom door where Skylar was standing. “You may want to grab me another towel so I don’t drip all over your hardwood floors.”

  Skylar disappeared for a second into the bathroom. “There you go, sweetie,” she said before he heard the linen closet door open and then close. When she came out of the bathroom, she handed him a dry towel which he immediately put on the floor under his feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “The lock on the bathroom door is broken. Alex had a habit of locking himself in there a few years ago and after a few times of jimmying it open, it finally broke. I never got it fixed.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “It’s a really big deal he’s not wetting the bed anymore like he did after Jay left. We’ve been working on that for a long time.”

  She looked down at the towel wrapped around his waist. Her eyes slowly made a trail from the towel, up his broad chest and to his face. The smoldering light he’d seen in her eyes earlier ignited to a full flame.

  “My clothes are still in the bathroom,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry, Wade. Half the time I think he’s still asleep when he does this.” The flustered look on Skylar’s face was truly adorable and he couldn’t help but smile.

  “I did the same thing when I was a kid.”

  “I know. Kate told me. She said you didn’t grow out of it until you were in junior high school. The sleep walking part.”

  His cheeks flamed. “How much did she tell you about me?”

  “A lot. Probably every embarrassing thing imaginable. You know your mother. Let me get him back to bed before he really wakes up. He’ll be up all night if he does.”

  Still wrapped in the towel, Wade watched Skylar take Alex by the hand and lead him to the bedroom. He took those few moments to return to the bathroom, finished drying off, and getting dressed.

  The shirt he’d worn on the camping trip was covered with blood stains. Logan had been the one to pack up all their gear while he’d been at the clinic with Skylar getting Alex’s head stitched. He decided not to wear the shirt to bed and walked into the living room wearing just his jeans. He was surprised to find Skylar waiting for him.

  “You might be more comfortable sleeping in these,” she said. In her hands, she held a pair of gray sweatpants.

  He stared at the clothes and tried to relax his tightened jaw. “I’m fine.”

  Skylar cocked her head to one side. “These are yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Well, the sweatpants are anyway. When I left Samoa, I took one of your T-shirts and a pair of your sweatpants so I could sleep with them. For the longest time they had your scent. It was comforting. Especially after we got word of the tsunami. Don’t worry, I’ve washed them a few times since I stole them from you.”

  He shook his head as he took the sweats in his hand and unfolded them to see. “I thought…”

  “You thought they were Jay’s. Shame on you. Do you really think I would do something like that to you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s been a long time.”

  “The T-shirt is long gone. I wore it out until it was pulling apart everywhere and I eventually threw it away. I got this shirt from a fundraiser Regis did for the Wounded Veterans Center your cousin Ian is working on with Ethan. It should fit you.”

  “This will be fine.”

  She walked to the hallway leading to the bedrooms and then turned back.

  “Just for the record, I didn’t keep any of Jay’s clothes.” She looked directly at him when she spoke. They were simple words, but they filled an empty spot that had been aching inside Wade since he’d arrived back in Rudolph.

  He’d seen that look on her face before. Five years ago it had been an invitation. She wasn’t wearing a bra under the over-sized T-shirt she wore now. She’d managed to put on a pair of fleece shorts that were barely visible beneath the hem of her shirt.

  Everything in him was alive, on fire and wanting nothing but to be gloriously naked with Skylar. But he didn’t want to misstep or misread the signs after how far he’d come.

  Then she lifted her hand to him and his heart slammed against his chest.

  “There was a time I didn’t have to do this,” she said with a coy grin.

  “If that time is now, just say the word. You’ll never have to do it again.”

  The smile that played on her lips faltered. “He usually sleeps through the night after getting up like this. But we should still…be quiet.”

  She turned and walked to the bedroom slowly. Wade followed her as if he were in a dream. If he was, he never wanted to wake up from it.

  Shutting the door behind him, he turned just in time to watch Skylar slip out of her T-shirt. She looked around the room. At the bed. At him. And then she covered her bare breasts by crossing an arm over her chest.

  He walked over to her slowly, looking into her eyes and then slowly letting his gaze make a trail down her body as he ran his fingers gently down her arm. He pulled her arm away from her chest and basked in the beauty before him.