“I’m sorry.”
Of all the things she might have said, those words surprised him the most. “For what?”
“For not realizing you weren’t okay after…” Her voice broke. “You never said anything, so I guess I just figured…”
“That I didn’t care?” That she could possibly think that bothered him on so many levels. It couldn’t be further from the truth. “I tried to talk to you, Cora. No matter what I did, you pushed me away.”
“No, you ran away.” There was an edge to her voice. “When you weren’t working at your family’s store, you were out on a trip to find things to stock it with. We hardly saw each other.”
He clenched his jaw and blew out a frustrated puff of air. “You’re right. Even when we were in the same house, we rarely saw eye to eye anymore. We had medical bills that we needed to pay. At some point, traveling more just made sense.”
“Don’t blame me for your decision to not come home for weeks on end. That’s not fair.” The couch creaked, and he could see her sitting up in the fire light. “It was not all my fault.”
“You’re right about that. There’s plenty of fault to go around.”
His words seemed to diffuse the situation a little. He kept his gaze on the fire while her angry breathing calmed over time.
When she spoke again, it was so softly he barely heard her. “It seemed like you’d recovered from losing the baby. Like you’d just moved on. And I…I couldn’t.”
The brokenness in her voice just about did him in. He’d never been able to stand to see her hurting. “I was trying to hold it all together. For us both.” He paused. “Losing that baby was hard on me, too, Cora. But watching them wheel you away for emergency surgery was the scariest moment in my life, because I was afraid I might lose you, too.” The only time Grey had ever voiced any of this aloud was when he was praying while she was in surgery. “Afterward, you didn’t want to tell anyone or talk about what happened.”
“And that’s exactly what you needed.” There was no accusation in those words, only realization.
Grey’s eyes slid shut. She’d needed him to be strong for her, and he had. But at the same time, he’d needed someone to talk to. The pain and sorrow had built up until it was more than he could handle. Especially when he’d come home to find Cora clearly hurting and anything he tried to do only seemed to make it worse.
Was there something he could’ve done differently? He wished he knew. So much for hindsight being twenty-twenty.
Chapter Five
It took a while for Cora to fall asleep the night before. Their heated conversation about what happened after they lost the baby had her replaying conversations and fights in her head. Most of them brought back the anger and hurt that resulted. But Grey was right about one thing: She’d tried to close herself off from the tidal wave of emotions. By doing so, she’d closed herself to him as well.
Cora covered a yawn and checked to make sure all her things were back in her bags for the third time. She didn’t want to leave anything behind. Sunlight streamed through the windows, a welcome contrast to the weather yesterday. When she’d awakened and looked through the pane, it was a relief to see that it was no longer snowing.
They drank some more water and had another protein bar for breakfast. Grey found a piece of paper and left a note with his phone number in case someone came in and found the broken window. He had every intention of calling the resort once he was home again to let them know what happened.
He checked on the fire to make sure there were no sparks. They’d left it to burn out all morning. “I think we’re probably good to go whenever you’re ready.”
Cora already missed the warmth. “Are you sure we couldn’t take some with us in the form of a torch? Maybe melt our way to the main cabin?” She was not looking forward to the hike.
He chuckled. “I wish we could. Having one more thing to carry will only slow us down.” He flashed her a little smile before turning back to his own suitcase.
They hadn’t said a word about their conversation last night, but things felt a little different between them now. She had no idea where that left them, though.
When they closed the cabin door behind them and stepped into the snow, Cora was amazed at just how much of it had fallen overnight. “What is this, two feet?”
“At least.” He reached for her suitcase. “Here, let me carry that for a while.”
She was going to argue with him, but then she tried to take several strides through the snow and thought better about it. His long legs definitely gave him an advantage in this situation. She eyed her canvas-sided suitcase. “When I get home, I’m going to buy one of those hard-sided suitcases. Preferably one that’s waterproof.”
Even though Grey was holding the suitcases off the ground, there was no way they were going to get to the main cabin without them getting soaked. There was nothing they could do about that, though.
In fact, thirty minutes into their hike, Cora had tossed away all concerns about her suitcase. It was her cold jeans and the snow that had fallen into her boots that stole away her focus. When the snow was that deep, boots really didn’t make that much of a difference unless she’d been wearing waders.
“Remind me to stay in Texas after this weekend.” She tried not to ask how far they’d gone. “Did you know it’s supposed to be seventy degrees in Denton right now?”
Grey stalled and turned to look at her. “You live in Denton? When did you leave San Antonio?”
“About six months after we signed the papers. I guess I needed to get away, you know? From reminders. From my parents. The whole shebang.”
