Mr. Imperfect(27)

Her throat tightened and she lifted the hose and gulped at the streaming  water, sending it splashing down her beautiful red dress. No, she  couldn't fall apart now. She turned the hose on the lettuces. Later.

Later, when the solid walls of an anonymous motel muffled the sound.

The lettuces grew waterlogged but Kezia didn't notice, lost in a bitter  truth. She wasn't still single because she was discerning. It was  because since Christian, she'd subconsciously dated men she didn't love.  Because if she didn't love them, they couldn't rip her heart out.

She turned the hose on to the corn. How ironic that by dating playmates  Christian had shown more self-awareness than she had. He knew he was  damaged goods.

Would our baby have lived if we'd trusted each other more? She bent to  turn off the tap with exaggerated care. No, that was madness. Her  unhappiness after he'd left hadn't caused the miscarriage.                       
       
           



       

Even with Christian's revelation, three truths remained the same. They  would have lost their baby. He hadn't loved her enough. She hadn't moved  on with her life.

But she would now.

Turning, she walked smack into Christian's broad chest. Terrified, her knees buckled and his hands closed around her arms.

"You gave me such a fright," she said weakly, and waited for him to release her.

Instead his grip tightened. "The real reason you stayed. What was it?"  Kezia went cold and still inside. He knew. And only one person could  have told him.

"What did Marion say?"

"It was John Jason."

Kezia inhaled a sharp breath.

The grip on her arms became painful. "He said you'd lost a baby. Was it fourteen years ago, Kez?"

Very gently she shrugged out of his hold. "Yes."

Christian's eyes closed briefly, then he walked to the other end of the  garden. Kezia sank onto an iron-framed bench and waited. The sky had  faded through the colors of sunset into night before he returned to sit  beside her. "Tell me."

"I miscarried three weeks after you left. It wasn't meant to be." Our  refrain. "Nobody's fault," she added softly, and a little of the torment  left his face. "I hadn't told Muriel and the miscarriage meant I never  had to." To Kezia's surprise her voice caught on the next words. "Hardly  a pregnancy at all really."

She thought she'd made her peace with those awful days when terror at  the prospect of being a single mother had given way to a profound  sadness that she had nothing left of Christian.

"Why didn't you tell me that night?" The words sounded wrenched from his  heart. This was what she wanted to spare him, the final price of his  secret.

"You said you couldn't imagine anything worse than having kids."

"Oh, God, Kez." He still considered himself too scarred for fatherhood  and the loss he felt for the baby frightened and confused him. "Even if  it was true, you should have told me."

Her silence held some kind of accusation. "My secret has nothing to do  with us. Damn it, I had a right to know, it would have changed  everything." No, he was digging himself into a bigger hole, reinforcing  the case she'd made earlier.

"I'd only just found out I was pregnant," she said, her voice devoid of  emotion. "Marion and I had been on the bus to Everton in the morning to  buy the test. We sat outside the shop for twenty minutes before Marion  gave up on me and went in and bought it. You see, I knew it would be  positive even though we'd only been careless once."

She didn't look at him, but he knew when she meant. "I was going to tell  you that night but … " She shrugged. "Well, you know what happened next.  After you stormed off I knew I should have told you, so the following  day I went to the farm. You'd already gone and … " Her voice trailed off.

"I'd already gone," Christian echoed.



HE SAT SILENT BESIDE HER, but Kezia sensed Christian's monumental  struggle against vulnerability, which his childhood had convinced him  was a terrible thing. She knew he needed to lose that fight.

She found herself praying as she waited, then icy cold reality doused  her when he rose and walked away to the far end of the garden, back into  the safety of his shadows.

That was when she knew she'd have to let him go.

Christian had lost her because he hadn't trusted her, but Kezia knew  she'd been equally wary or she would have told him about the baby that  night.

She'd grown up in an environment where she had to earn love through acts  of service, and Christian had never been dependent enough for her.  Probably, she would have turned him down anyway, regardless of the baby,  because she had no more trusted him to keep loving her than he had her.

She still didn't.

Unable to bear the relentless waves of self-revelation any longer, she  stood up. Christian looked back at her, his expression unreadable in the  dusk. "Our child, what was it?"

"Too early to tell." Over time she thought she'd reached a stoic  acceptance. But seeing the father of her child suffer the loss renewed  her grief.

"God, Kez, I'm so sorry."

For years she'd waited to hear those words, thinking they would heal  her, make things right. But what she'd wanted wasn't really an apology,  what she'd wanted was happy-ever-after. She wrapped her arms around  herself. "I'm sorry, too."

His next question startled her. "Where do we go from here?"

"This doesn't change anything." She couldn't bring herself to suggest  friendship. Better a clean break, a chance to move forward unencumbered  by the past.                       
       
           



       

"Doesn't it?" He moved nearer and Kezia stepped back, came up hard against the garden bench.

"No. It doesn't."

Christian put a hand around her waist and pulled her to him. Kezia  planted her hands against his chest. "It's too late." Under the fine  cotton of his shirt, pliant muscle scorched her palms.

"Then why do we still feel this?" Christian leaned into her restraining  hands and brushed his lips along the curve of her clenched jaw. Warm  lips on skin still cool from the hose water. Kezia dropped her hands and  his mouth moved down to the pulse that leaped in her throat.

"No one hurt me like you did," he whispered. Words she thought she owned. "No one loved me like you did, either."

She swallowed. "But it still wasn't enough, was it, for you to trust me?"

"I trust you now," he said against her neck, and she knew he believed it.

It was futile; still she gave him the chance to prove her wrong. "In  that case, tell me why you haven't visited your mother's grave."

Christian froze, then slowly straightened. "That's my business."

"Don't you see? You'll never let me get close."

"I don't go to dark places, Kez. Not even for you."

"Even if I could help you light them?" His expression remained closed  and she struck out in bitter frustration. "Life might have branded you a  loner, Christian, but it's your choice to stay that way."

His eyes narrowed. "Says someone who only feels safe when she's in  credit on some emotional balance sheet. I've never been needy enough for  you and I'm not going to start now."

Kezia's humorless laugh rang out across the garden. "See how easily we  can still hurt each other? The prosecution rests her case."

For a moment there was silence, then Christian groaned. "Why the hell  does everything have to be so complicated with you? Can't it be enough  right now that we still feel something for each other?"

Miserably, Kezia shook her head and began to turn away. Christian caught  her by the elbow. "You haven't heard the case for the defense yet," he  said grimly, and loosened her hair from its chignon.

Then she was in his arms and his mouth was on hers. There was  desperation in the way he held her, yearning in his kiss, and Kezia  yielded, helpless, while his tongue stoked hers into a response and  common sense scattered like fireworks somewhere among the stars  overhead.

Recklessly she kissed him back, promising everything, withholding  nothing, and he answered in kind. Her fingers flew to undo his shirt  buttons and one soared loose as she tugged it open, craving the feel of  his skin.

Christian pushed away long enough to peel down the bodice on her dress,  then hauled her back against his bare torso. Their second kiss was wild,  hungry with lust, and Kezia knew from the way her nipples swelled into  the lacy fabric of her strapless bra, from the way he pressed his  erection against her belly, that they teetered at the point of no  return.

His hand slid under her skirt, and the night air was cool on her bare  bottom as he pulled her panties down. They caught at her knees and she  kicked out of them. Madness, this was madness.