Page 139 of Her Reluctant Hero
Adrian reached for his beef jerky and grimaced as his shirt sleeve pulled against the wound. She’d noted a ton of packages of jerky in his duffel when they’d loaded the car. Quitting smoking after nearly two decades must have been driving him out of his mind. She was glad she hadn’t been around for the early stages.
“This isn’t the past so much as me figuring you out all over again.”
She sighed and cranked up the air conditioner, which struggled to combat the humidity. He had never been much for introspection, not where their marriage was concerned. He could dig for hours on an ancient artifact, but he’d expected their marriage to come easily. “I became a different person after we split.”
“You were a different person before the split,” he retorted without hesitation.
She swung to look at him, braking at the same time. “What?”
He lifted his good hand, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t meant to say it. “All you talked about was the house, what we could do to the house, what we could buy for the house. You changed.”
God, not this argument again. After all this time, didn’t he get it? “Adrian, it was my first house. Ever. Mine.” The one she’d planned to live in for the rest of her life, with Adrian. The one she’d planned to raise their children in.
The one she sold after he left.
“You had houses before.”
“Rent houses, temporary, wherever my parents stopped long enough to teach before the next grant came through. Never something that was my own, that I could put my stamp on. Surely you remember how much that meant to me.” He had to remember—she’d told him this a hundred times—how she was tired of never having a home base. And he’d been willing, even excited when they found their little house. He’d been so happy she was happy. That hadn’t lasted long. She glanced over to see the muscle in his jaw working as he stared out the window, before he turned to her, his eyes dark, sad.
“I didn’t know you anymore.”
She smacked her palm against the steering wheel in frustration. “You didn’t try. You didn’t stick around. The first call that came through, off you went. You’re a good man, Adrian, a dedicated scientist, but you were a lousy husband.”
“Not what you needed, you mean.”
“You knew me best. You knew what I needed and why. You just weren’t willing to give it to me.”
“I would have given it to you.” He scrubbed a hand over his hair and looked out the window again. “I just wanted to wait a little longer.”
She shifted and eased off the clutch as sweat trickled down her back. Stupid air conditioner. “A woman doesn’t have all the time in the world. After my parents died, even then it seemed too late. Every time you promised something would happen, you never followed through.”
“Like what?” he asked, disbelief in his tone.
“The house.”
“I bought you the house.”
“Which we left for a year.” She didn’t even try to avoid the next rut in the road.
Adrian grunted as the truck jounced. “It wasn’t going to pay for itself. We had to make money.”
He could have taught.Shecould have stayed behind and taught. But she’d chosen him over her home. Why hadn’t he chosen her over his career? If he’d even tried, would things have been different? “But you tried to take a home-equity loan out to fund another dig.”
He held out a hand as if to stave off the accusation. “I thought about it. Thought. That was all.”
“You had the paperwork. You’d filled out your part!” God, she’d forgotten how much that had hurt, to find that paper buried in his other work. Not that he’d been hiding it, but that he had made such a big deal about buying her the house, then wanted to risk it for his job—that had crushed her.
He turned and scowled. “So I was a selfish bastard who put my career first.”
“You know you were.”
He didn’t take his gaze from her, making her jittery and secure all at once. “Have I changed?”
“Not where your career is concerned.”
He whipped his head around and she caught a whiff of his breath, spicy, different than she was used to, but that immediately brought the taste of his kiss to her lips.
“It never mattered to you as much as it mattered to me, finding the box, finding the truth.”
