Between Then and Now (5 page)

She held up her hands to stop him, but he
pulled up just short. He held her gaze and began to speak. “I don’t
want to tell you right now. I want you to trust me.” His words came
out slowly, as if he was choosing them with care. “You are my wife.
Whom I fucking adore. And you don’t trust me. So we’ve got a big
problem, and we’re going to sort that out first.”

He leaned into her personal space and
bracketed his hands on the bed on either side of her knees. His
arms were long, but not long enough that he could do this without
being right on top of her. “I promise you, babe, that I will tell
you everything. But any secrets I’ve been keeping have been out
there, about stuff and things and nonsense. And right now, I’m
looking at you, and you’re wound up tighter than a straw bale at
dusk, so I gotta think, maybe there are some secrets that you’ve
been keeping.”

Her breath caught shallow in her
throat, and his eyes warmed as hers widened.

“
Awww, babe. Carrie, my angel…” He
shifted his weight to one arm, and cupped her face with his other
hand. “What have you got going on in your head?”

“
Nothing,” she breathed.

“
Liar.”

“
I’m not.” She heard the denial
spill out of her mouth and wanted to take it back. Wanted to
replace it with everything that had been locked in her head for far
too long. But sharing would be ugly, and Ian wouldn’t understand.
He’d want to, he’d try, but at some point, hearing all of her
doubts and ancient thoughts would offend him, and they’d be
fighting again, only with a lot more ammunition.

“
So you won’t trust me with that,
either.”

“
I want to.”

“
But…”

“
I don’t know
where to start.”
Or how much to
share.

As if he could read her mind, his
nostrils flared, and he let out a huff of air. “Don’t pick and
choose, Carrie. That’s what leads to messed up shit in your head.
Trust me with it all.”

“
Ian, you’re making this a bigger
deal than it is. I don’t have any big secrets from you!” She
pressed her face toward his, but he pulled back from her
kiss.

“
But you’ve got enough doubt and
twisted thoughts in there to stop you from coming straight to me
when you saw the money missing?”

“
I didn’t know… How could I know
if that was the right thing to do?”

He leaned in again, eyebrows flared, eyes
dark. “Because I’m your husband?”

The words tugged low in her pelvis. Oh, how
she wished that was enough. “Husbands do wrong by their wives all
the time.”

“
I don’t!” He almost shouted the
word, and she flinched back. He swore under his breath. “You saw an
empty bank account. You heard something out of context, and in that
moment, it sounded bad. You reacted. That’s understandable. But you
need to listen to me before this goes someplace we can’t get back
from.”

He was right. He’d never given her any reason
to doubt him. With little to go on, she’d thought the worst. Worse
than that, she’d already let herself slip into a position where
that was too damn easy. “I’m sorry.” It was weak, but it was
something.

Not enough, though. He shook his head slowly,
his expression twisting into a grim frown. “No.” He pulled back a
few inches and just stared at her, his gaze flickering as he
thought about what to say next. She didn’t expect it to be nothing,
and let out a sharp gasp as he jerked himself upright, his strong
upper body lifting itself into the air.

“
Ian, wait—”

“
Carrie.” His tone pulled her up
short, a warning that she couldn’t quite decipher but a warning
nonetheless. Now they were both pissed off, the opposite of what
she wanted, and she ached at the loss of his nearness.

The sight of Carrie kneeling on the
bed, her face flushed and tear-stained, her heart wounded over
nothing but a stupid misunderstanding…it was more than he could
handle. More than he could comprehend.

He almost hadn’t come after her.

When he realized she’d called from
his mother’s phone, he tried to call back, but she didn’t answer.
The landline at his parents’ farm was busy, so he’d hopped on his
bike and headed back. His mom called him as he reached the
outskirts of town and told him Carrie had left suddenly, and she’d
keep the kids overnight if he wanted. She knew more than he did,
clearly, as she asked if everything was alright and he’d dumbly
told her all was fine.

It fucking was not. Damn it all to
hell.

He stepped further back from the bed, needing
a bit of room to think. He should just tell her. It was such a
stupid misunderstanding.

He softened his voice. “Carrie, I’m the one
who should be sorry. I just wanted to take care of you.”

“
I don’t want you to take care of
me!”

“
Non-negotiable, babe. That’s my
role.”

“
How is keeping me in the dark
about money taking care of me?”

Damn.
“That’s complicated.”

“
No, it’s not.”

“
I wrote a cheque. I wasn’t
expecting it to clear that quickly.”

Her eyes flashed. He thought that would have
been sufficient information, that he wasn’t hording the money in a
secret account. He thought wrong. She clenched her fists by her
side, shaking as she enunciated each word. “Who did you write a
three thousand dollar cheque to, Ian?”

“
I promise I’ll tell you
soon—”

“
Tell me now.” She sat back on her
heels and squared her shoulders. Her voice still had a slight waver
to it, but bravery had overtaken uncertainty. Fierce and brave, he
could handle. Fuck, he should be able to handle it all. He should
have seen this coming.

“
I’ve let you down.”

“
Ian. Now. Money. Where is
it?”

“
No.” He smiled at the flash in her
eyes. “I promise, I’ll show you by the end of the night. But we
have some work to do on us before we worry about anything out
there.”

Ian couldn’t remember ever rendering his wife
speechless before, and he regretted that this was not a moment to
savour. A speechless Carrie was pretty entertaining. Her eyes were
bright teal today, made so by coloured contacts, another quirky
Carrie-ism that made her stand out in any crowd, but especially in
Wardham. At this particular moment, they were practically glowing
in the afternoon light, a trick of unshed tears and heightened
emotions on both their parts, and he wanted nothing more than to
cross to her and kiss her fears away.

“
Carrie, do you believe
me?”

Her eyes narrowed in thought, and
she cocked her head to the side. “Yes.”

“
So that’s progress.” He lifted his
hand waved off her protest. “I’m sorry for asking if you trusted me
when I came home. That wasn’t the right moment.”

“
I don’t like fighting with you,
honey.” She reached her hands out to him and wiggled her
fingers.

Habit almost had him accept the gesture, but
he caught himself. “Babe, we still need to talk.”

“
Can we hug while we do it?” Fuck,
there was no way he could say no to that. He did her one better,
crossing to the bed and sweeping her up in his arms, then turned
and pulled her down to lie in the crook of his arm. He tangled one
hand into her hair and stroked her arm lazily with the
other.

After savouring the embrace for a minute, he
plowed ahead. He didn’t know where to start. “Tell me everything
that was going on in your head today.”

She snorted. “That’s an awful lot.”

He shrugged. He’d rehash the grocery list if
it would help.

“
I was thinking about the night we
met.” She took a deep breath. “You were something else.”

Something she hadn’t been looking for. He’d
been making up for that for a long time. Maybe she’d never get over
it. She was stuck with him, so that was her tough luck.

“
You had the sexiest tan lines.
They followed the curve of your muscles perfectly, and the rest of
you wasn’t lilywhite at all, but your arms…you clearly spent all of
your time outside. So the muscles were legit, and you were so
comfortable in your skin, it was infectious.”

“
Babe, that’s not the problematic
part of your thinking.”

“
I’m getting there.” She tilted her
face up to look him in the eye. “Because I’m about to say something
really…harsh, and I want you to know that I was stupid. That I know
better now, and I love you, with all of my heart.”

A quick reassurance almost slipped out of his
mouth, but they’d done too much glossing over. “Go on.”

“
Do you remember our second
date?”

“
The arts festival, by the river.”
She’d bought a hideous painting, and he’d made a dumb-ass comment
about it being a waste of money. She almost hadn’t invited him in
at the end of the night.

“
Let’s just say, the success of
that night was entirely achieved in the overnight portion. Which is
the only reason there was a third date.” She squirmed against his
side.

“
And on our third date…” A rush of
memories flooded over him. “Fuck, on our third date, you told me
you thought I wanted six kids and a barefoot and pregnant wife in
the kitchen of a ramshackle farmhouse.”

He’d asked her to come see his parents’ farm,
and she’d brushed him off. She hadn’t invited him in that night. “I
didn’t think you were going to see me again.”

She froze next to him. Ah. The nugget of truth
at the heart of the anecdote.

“
Carrie,” he put as much love as he
could into her name and the words that followed. “Babe, I don’t
care how we got here.”

“
You wanted to know what I was
thinking about.”

“
I did. I do.”

“
I was re-hashing. How precarious
our relationship was in the beginning. Thinking about how we didn’t
use condoms the last couple of times we had sex. And how I felt
about that. Remembering…”

“
How do you feel about
it?”

Another deep breath, this one longer than the
last. “Anxious.”

“
Then why didn’t you
say—”

“
I don’t know!”

“
Yes, you do. Carrie, don’t pretend
with me. Not anymore.” He rolled on top of her, wanting to be
face-to-face for this conversation. Without an option to run away.
He braced himself up on his forearms and stroked her hair. The
tender gesture also conveniently pushed her gaze back to
his.

“
There’s a part of me that will
always want your babies, Ian.” She blushed, and he had to stifle a
pretty strong caveman reaction because he could guess what was
coming next, and he wanted—needed—her to know he
understood.

“
But you’re done.” She sucked in a
breath, and he dipped his head, nudging her nose with his. “You
ninny. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
Because you want six kids and a
barefoot and pregnant wife in the kitchen of a ramshackle
farmhouse. Because you fell in love with me when Kaylie was born,
and I’m worried that as Drew gets older, you’ll regret not having
more kids. Resent me for it, and we’ll grow apart.” The floodgates
were open, and he’d asked for it, so he couldn’t very well tell her
to stop. But he needed to address one important point before she
continued.

“
Babe, come here.” He rolled to his
side and tugged Carrie with him, pulling her into his lap as he sat
up against the headboard. He splayed his hands wide around her
waist and squeezed. How could she doubt his adoration? Or think for
a second that he wasn’t the one who would be begging her not to
leave him at some point? There was more that needed to be said.
More that should have been said a long time ago. “Do you know why I
told you that I thought that painting was ugly?”

She laughed at the memory. “I can’t possibly
imagine. That was a really dumb thing to say when I so clearly
liked it.”

“
Babe, it was awful.”

“
Was not.”

“
Was too. And I couldn’t imagine
where it would go in our ramshackle farmhouse.”

“
Seriously, it was cu—” She cut
herself off and licked her lips. “What?”

“
I forgot that it was our second
date. I’d wandered over to the next stall, it sold jewelry or
something, and I turned back, and there you were. Glorious and bold
and full of life in a way I didn’t know was possible until I met
you. You took my breath away, and I knew in that moment that I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I walked over,
wrapped my arms around your waist, and you turned to me and
said—”

“
Isn’t this fantastic?” Carrie
whispered, her eyes wide and wet. “And you said, ‘Babe, seriously?
I wouldn’t put that in my outhouse.’”

“
Not my finest moment.”

“
You meant our outhouse.” She was
piecing together what he should just come out and say, but the look
on her face…he wanted to remember it forever.

“
Yeah.” He slid his hands around to
her back and traced up her spine, pressing her torso towards his a
little bit more with each step of his fingertips. “Date two, angel,
and I could see our future so clearly that it didn’t occur to me to
be nice about the painting.”