He glared at her, his expression fierce. “How can you even ask that? I’d do anything for her. Give my life for her—”
“But she needs to feel it, not just know it. Women need words. They need language—”
“And I’ve talked, but I’m talked out. I’ve got nothing else to say.”
“Then that’s the problem.”
“I’m not the problem!”
“You are if you can’t see that Cass needs more from you, not less.”
He rolled his eyes. “What about me? What about what I need?”
“You said you loved her.”
“I do. But—”
“Then don’t get all macho. Don’t get into a pissing contest with your wife. She grew up an only child. It’s been her dream her entire life to have kids, be a mom, and now she’s lost babies. Plural. Of course she’s devastated. You even said she’s grieving, which means she needs to keep talking, and she needs you to keep listening.”
“I’m done with the baby thing. It’s taken over our life and I just want our life back. I want our marriage back—”
“So that’s what you’re grieving.”
“What?”
“You’re grieving your marriage, and she’s grieving the babies.”
He just looked at her.
Sarah reached out to him but he stepped back to avoid her touch. Sarah refused to dwell on it. “You want your marriage back, the same marriage you had before . . . but it’s not the same marriage. It won’t ever be the same as before. You two have been through too much. Have hurt too much. You’ve changed. Both of you.”
He barked a laugh. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Maybe it’ll be better than before.”
“Maybe?”
“If you guys pull it together.”
Cass suddenly stuck her head around the corner, long blond ringlets tumbling over her shoulders. “Hey.” Her smile was tentative and failed to reach her eyes. “Dad said we’re going to have cake soon.”
Tommy nodded curtly.
Cass’s faint smile faded, revealing hurt and pain.
Sarah’s chest squeezed, and though she hated to be disloyal, Tommy was acting like a first-rate jerk.
Slipping her phone into her pocket, she smiled encouragingly at Cass, but her sister-in-law had already averted her gaze and was biting into her lip to keep from bursting into tears.
Jerk, Sarah silently repeated, wondering why men couldn’t give women the one thing they sometimes needed most—tenderness.
The three of them headed for the dining room, Tommy and Cass walking on either side of her, making Sarah painfully aware that the two of them were not together. Not anywhere close together.
She spotted Meg and the kids already in the dining room with Dad. Tommy was looking the other way, and he paused before entering the room, focused on the family room. Sarah followed his gaze. Jude and Kit were sitting on the sofa, Kit on Jude’s lap. They were kissing.
“Christ,” Tommy muttered.
He hadn’t sworn particularly loudly, but Kit had what they all jokingly called supersonic hearing, probably due to the fact that she was a teacher.
Kit jerked her head up, looked right at her brother. “What was that?”
“You shouldn’t do that here,” Tommy growled. “It’s not right.”
“You kiss Cass all the time,” Kit said, still sitting on Jude’s lap.
“Not like that,” Tommy retorted.
“Like how?”
“Like that,” Tommy growled. “If you’re going to get raunchy, get a room.”
One of Jude’s black eyebrows lifted, but he held his tongue.
Kit jumped up, defiant. “Which room would you suggest, Tommy? Yours? The girls’? Mom and Dad’s?”
“Knock it off,” he snapped.
“You knock it off,” Kit said hotly, smoothing the skirt of her fitted, blue sheath dress, which made the most of her curves. And Kit had curves. She was the most voluptuous Brennan girl. “I remember when you and Cass used to make out all over the house.”
“That was different,” Tommy said.
Kit moved toward him, the light of battle in her blue eyes. “Oh, really? How?”
“Babe,” Jude said, reluctantly swinging his long, leather-clad legs off the coffee table and getting to his feet. “Let it go.”
But Kit ignored him, her attention fixed on Tommy. “I get that you’re not happy, Tommy, and I’m sorry about it. But I am happy, and I have a right to be happy without you”—and her gaze swung to include Sarah—“judging me, and criticizing me, and making me feel as if I don’t belong in this family anymore simply because I’m dating someone you don’t approve of.”