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Elle had been beautiful but stormy, always mad at him for something, but he had no idea what. She’d kept a running tally of all the things he’d bungled. Her not-quite-perfect birthday gift, him forgetting their first-date anniversary—the woman had a calendar laid out of the first time they’d even gotten ice cream together, which he didn’t even know was a thing you were supposed to track. Her moods shifted quicker than the weather on the ocean, except even the storms out there could be forecast. Her moods were 100 percent unpredictable.
At first, it excited him, but then, after they lost Timothy, all he could see in her was a child who refused to take responsibility—for her feelings or her mistakes.
That morning, Mark realized he was in for a different kind of storm when Laura arrived, acting a little more businesslike, a bit colder to him as she went about finishing the sanding of his deck. Mark worried Laura was too much like Elle. She burst into tears when he just mentioned the word mother. She was a walking bundle of pain and emotion, wild and volatile.
He kept his emotions bottled up, but just because he didn’t rant and rave didn’t mean he lacked emotion. His feelings ran deep, like still water.
Mark wanted to kiss Laura. He wanted to do more. But he knew the minute he did, she’d begin to demand things from him and he had nothing to give. He was still in mourning, and the only way he knew how to deal with it was to go off sailing around the world—alone. Sailing was dangerous, and he already knew that if the trip killed him, that would take care of two birds with one stone. Maybe even part of him hoped he didn’t come back. He couldn’t ask Laura to accompany him on a trip that he half hoped ended with his boat at the bottom of the sea, him joined with his boy forever.
He wouldn’t ask her along. And he didn’t want her to want to go with him, either. Not what he needed right now.
He watched her quietly take up her post on the deck with her sanding blocks and noticed she took special care not to look his way. She’d only given him a curt “morning” before getting to work. Businesslike was better—for both of them, but he didn’t like the idea of her feelings being hurt. It showed he was already starting to care about her, a dangerous place to be.
Maybe letting her in on this project had been his first mistake. He should’ve just stood his ground. Told her to buzz off. Then he remembered the determined fire in her green eyes and the stubborn jut of her chin and realized he probably couldn’t have talked her out of this project, no matter what he said.
He sighed as she furiously scrubbed the deck, looking as if she was working out her disappointment and anger on the boards. Well, at least she has an outlet, he thought. Still, he felt bad.
“You need some water?” he asked her, offering up his bottle in a kind of truce as he stood on the ladder.
“No, thanks,” she said, curt, not looking back at him as she worked. “Brought my own today.”
So that’s how it was going to be?
Don’t make it your problem, he told himself. He had enough to worry about. Probably best she just stay mad at him. It was one way to make sure she didn’t get too close.
* * *
THE MORE LAURA WORKED, the angrier she seemed to get. She didn’t know why. Sure, Mark had rejected her, but he’d not been the first man who wasn’t all that crazy about the thought of her kissing him. There’d been Jack Aubrey all the way back in fourth grade.
She admitted freely to herself that ever since the miscarriage, she’d been a buddle of unpredictable emotions. She hated it, really. They seemed to overtake her when she least expected it. Laura always prided herself on being a rational woman, a thoughtful, sane, practical person. But the miscarriage had turned her life upside down. Grief, she supposed, did that. Grief wasn’t just sadness bubbling to the surface. It was anger and regret and guilt, too.
She scrubbed harder at the boards in front of her, building up a thin layer of sawdust on her hands and arms all the way up to her elbows. Laura hardly cared. She took out her emotions on the wood, still surprised about how deeply she felt rejected by Mark, how somehow she’d built up a great fantasy in her head after just a few days, that maybe they were really connecting, that maybe someone finally understood her.
Why would he be interested in an adulterer? No one wanted a cheater. How could anyone trust her again?
Of course, technically, Dean had been the one cheating. Still. Laura had known he had a wife. She was just as guilty as he was. Chalk it up to one more reason she’d be single for the rest of her life. One more reason why she’d probably never have kids.
Not that my body can do that anyway.
