The Bridge to a Better Life (2 page)

The powder from the can sprinkled over her black dress as she shook it wildly over the mosaic tiles that had been inset in the center of the shower to showcase the cozy shower bench Blake had designed with his architect. Her mind flashed to all the times she and her husband had made love on that bench, and some of the numbness started to fade away, replaced by a sense of loss so poignant, she sank to her knees in the shower, indifferent to the fate of her black designer dress, shoes, and hose.

No, she could not remember those times.

She was not allowed happiness. Not now that Kim was dead.

Blake’s voice had finally disappeared in the background. All around her was a blissful quiet.

Her hands burned from the abrasive cleaning product, and her knuckles leaked blood, but she continued to scrub. Harder. Faster. Panting, she felt her black hose tear as she inched across the tile floor. She looked down to see the run had wrapped around her right knee and darted to her ankle. Even her black shoes were spotted with white, but she didn’t care. She would throw this whole outfit away when she was finished cleaning. It was a horrible reminder of all she had lost.

An unusual rattling interrupted her reverie. She turned her head to see what the metallic jingle was and watched as the doorknob dropped to the floor. Blake entered the bathroom, Touchdown barking in distress by his side.

His face rippled with shock and horror as he looked at her.
“Oh, honey.”

She wanted to cower in shame like a leper who was caught bathing by a stranger. She had to hide her sores. She had to make him go away. Sinking back onto her knees, she pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“I told you to leave me alone. I’m cleaning.”

“You cleaned the shower yesterday, honey.”

Damn that word again.

He approached her slowly and crouched down on the floor of the shower beside her. His body was so large and bulky, she felt caged in.

“Come on, honey. Let me help you clean up and change clothes. Then you can have your tea. Oh, Natalie. Your hands….”

Another destructive wave of icy snow was approaching again, like Blake’s very appearance had shifted the wind. No, he’d brought the wind. It was his fault.

“I don’t want tea. I don’t want anything.”

“Honey, your hands are bleeding.” He covered them with his own and pressed them to his chest in a tender caress. “Natalie, you can’t keep doing this. Promise me you’ll
never
lock me out again. You scared the hell out of me. I was afraid…”

It took her a moment to understand what he meant. He’d thought she was going to hurt herself? No, she couldn’t do something like that even though she could now understand why people did. This cold, this pain…you had to do whatever it took to escape it.

“Blake, let me deal with this my own way.”

“Not like this,” he said, lifting her up bodily and carrying her out of the shower. “Not anymore.”

Her muscles wouldn’t work to fight him, almost as if they were paralyzed by frostbite. Touchdown barked his distress as Blake removed the tile cleaner and sponge she was still clutching from her claw-like grip. He was gentle as he washed the caked white powder and blood off her hands, applied salve, and bandaged them.

She caught sight of herself in the mirror and stumbled back. White powder was streaked in her wild, curly hair, and it made a violent slash across her dress. Dear God. She looked like a crazy woman, someone left out in the woods for weeks, all civilization stripped from her.

How could he love her like this?

She
hated
herself like this.

But he didn’t leave her alone. He undressed her slowly, his hands gentle as he bathed her in their Jacuzzi tub like she was a child. She endured it because she wasn’t really present—inside, she was running from the love and worry in his eyes, running from his touch. Then he toweled her off and brushed her hair out, making her bite her lip to fight the pain his tenderness caused her. After dressing her, he kissed her forehead.

“There. That’s better. Now come have some tea.”

When his strong, determined arms led her to the bathroom door, she eyed the doorknob lying on the ground.

She couldn’t lock him out. Blake would always find a way to get to her. But would that change the longer the ice stayed inside her? She wasn’t his sassy, sexy wife right now. She was cracking, splintering, going crazy. She could see it now. The media paid attention to Blake, and she would probably end up losing it in the public eye, which would embarrass them both and probably harm her catering business. He would stop remembering her as the woman she’d been, and then he would stop loving her too.

Who could love this weak, pathetic, wild woman ravaged by the wilderness of grief? She didn’t want to become this…thing.

His arms were wrapped tight around her, but she still stumbled as he led her back to the blazing fire he’d made in the den. The blaze hurt, her whole body burning and tingling to adjust to the heat. She didn’t want to hurt like this. She
refused
to hurt like this. She had to remain numb somehow, living somewhere between the cold wasteland inside her and the welcoming bonfire of her family, her husband, her life. If she stayed numb, she wouldn’t go crazy. But Blake would never let her shut down on him. No, he’d press her and love her until she succumbed to the pain. She was
going
to go crazy. Mad-dog crazy.

She was going to have to leave him.

The incessant pounding of hammers woke Natalie. She rolled onto her back and tucked the pillow around her ears to muffle the sound, but the racket didn’t subside. She let the pillow flop back into place and glanced over at the clock. Nine thirteen. And on a Saturday to boot. Darn it all to heck.

Sleeping in on the weekend was a luxury she’d started allowing herself to make up for all the sweets she’d given up eating, treats like salted caramels and dark chocolate gelato. Her intake hadn’t been healthy, and she’d finally succumbed to better nutrition.

Her ex-husband, Blake Cunningham, would be delighted if he knew. He’d always tried to entice her to drink some of his green grass, mineral-loaded, mumbo-jumbo smoothies. Cripes, he’d made her feel like a slob on movie night when she ate buttered popcorn while he savored kale chips. Kale chips!

If he hadn’t been one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks, she might have teased him about eating like a hippie to get his goat. But Blake was no hippie.

He’d been on her mind way too much lately, and no wonder. Over a month ago, she’d told him she was leaving Denver to take a fantastic job as the head of catering at Dare Valley’s famous The Grand Mountain Hotel, part of a chain of upscale boutique hotels stretching across the west. Blake had freaked out and promptly retired from the NFL. Moments after his press conference, he’d texted her to say they weren’t finished. Even if they
were
legally divorced.

No word had come from him since that monumental day, but the press had dug deep for a reason for his retirement and found it. His brother had died shortly before Blake’s announcement. Adam had been ill for the better part of a year, afflicted with the cardiac issues so common in people with intellectual disabilities. And she hadn’t even known he was sick.

She’d reached out to Blake—his last text message be damned—but he hadn’t called back or even texted. Worried, she’d called his parents to give her condolences and had learned Blake was taking some time off to deal with his grief. They hadn’t mentioned what he had planned for
her,
and she hadn’t asked.

He
was
going to make another play for her, and she knew it. Despite herself, her heart shook like the pom-poms the cheerleaders for his old Denver Raiders squad used. She had enormous compassion for his loss, and an undeniable desire to see him, but she kept reminding herself that they were done and their relationship was in the past.

Perhaps she could figure out what to do if it didn’t sound like a flock of giant woodpeckers was hammering on her head. She rolled out of bed and dug her arms into her rose silk robe. Time to find out what her neighbor was doing.

She stepped out into the warm June morning. The sun was beaming golden shafts of light through the towering pines overhead, the ones that crawled up the mountains all around her. Dew teased her bare feet, and she wiggled her toes in the grass to savor the sensation. Though her family was from Dare Valley, they’d relocated to over-crowded Denver when she was in high school. Being back home felt liberating, and she couldn’t stop marveling over how it felt to have Mother Nature right outside her door.

When she spied the reason for the racket, she skidded to a halt. There was a new bridge across the creek that marked her property line! A bridge that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Eight men with orange hard hats were hard at work. What. The. Hell.

Her neighbors hadn’t consulted her about this. Her brother, Matt, had told her they were nice people, and he had reason to know. She’d bought this house from him so he could move in with his fiancée.

Undeterred by the fact that she was wearing a flimsy robe, she strode across her yard toward the bridge. Oh, she was going to give them a piece of her mind.

“Hey!” she shouted at the construction workers who were securing the final beam to the posts anchored to
her
side of the creek. “Stop that! Stop that right now. You’re trespassing. All of you.”

The men cursed under their breath, but the warm breeze carried the words to her. She frowned as she stalked closer, not caring if she was giving them a show in her robe.

“We’re under orders to finish this,” one of the men called out, pushing back his orange helmet. “Any issues you have, you can take up with the owner.”

Her gasp of outrage made them all duck their heads, but they immediately started pounding long nails into the wooden beam, hammering at an almost frantic pace now.

“Ohhhh,”
she screamed in silent rage, skidding to a halt a good distance away from them.

Take it up with the owner? She didn’t care what Matt had said about her neighbors being a nice, laid-back family of four. If they didn’t take this bridge down, she’d take them to court over it. She liked her privacy, and the only possible use for such a bridge was to access her property.

She stayed where she was, plotting her next move. The men finished up, and then scurried like cockroaches back across the bridge to her neighbor’s land. Running over there half-cocked wasn’t going to get her anywhere, so she took a few cleansing breaths and studied the bridge. Nearly twenty feet long and eight feet wide, the bridge was already stained and varnished. Something was carved into the posts, but she couldn’t make it out. She scratched her head. How had they built such an elaborate bridge
overnight
without her knowing
?

Something wasn’t right.

Then she heard the joyful bark of a dog.

And she knew.

Her heart broke open in her chest before she even saw him. Touchdown! Then the little six-year old beagle came barreling across the bridge toward her.

Blake.

Even though the hair on her neck prickled with anticipation, she squatted in the grass and opened her arms to the dog she loved. Touchdown yipped as he streaked across the bridge and jumped into her embrace. She hugged him close and let him lap at her face, not caring that his body was streaked with sweat and dirt from playing in the surrounding woods. God, she had missed this dog.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the bridge, and she looked up. The birds started chirping melodiously. Even the squirrels seemed to pause in their play. Blake walked toward her with purpose, dressed in a simple white T-shirt and khaki shorts, his shoulders as broad as the posts the construction crew had used, his legs still so muscular her mouth went dry. Damn it all to hell. His effect on her hadn’t diminished one bit.

When he reached the end of the bridge, he stopped and smiled at her. Simply smiled. The marks of grief were visible in the new grooves around his mouth. Her heart melted like wax.

Oh, Blake.

“I told you I wanted to share Touchdown with you.” His deep voice sent a crackle of electricity through her as it spanned the distance between them.

He
had
told her. Repeatedly. Even though it had killed her, she’d refused. The temptation of allowing him back into her life had been too strong.

She stood, still holding a squirming Touchdown in her arms. “I tried to contact you. Blake, I’m so sorry about Adam. More than I can say.”

His eyes filled, and he knuckled away the tears he wasn’t scared to show anyone. They used to joke about him being the one who cried. After a loss. While watching a teammate be carried off the field on a stretcher. After winning a Super Bowl. He had always worn his heart on his sleeve. Most of the time his intense emotions scared her.

She took a half step toward him, desperate to comfort him, and then realized she was naked under her robe. Bad idea.

“I went off the grid for a while. Mom told me you called her,” he said in a hoarse voice. “It meant a lot to her. Despite how things ended between us, they still really love you.”