Page 63 of Second Chance Wedding
Cole winced. “It’s understandable that your father was upset over Ben’s behavior.”
“But that wasn’t why,” she said softly, a mocking smile forming on her lips. “No, he was upset thatyouwere back and…in contact.” A husky laugh left her, devoid of humor. “The judge didn’t even comment on the theft at that point because it was all aboutyou.”
Cole stiffened in the seat next to her as he processed her words. It didn’t make sense to him that her father was more upset about his involvement in their lives than the man’s grandson stealing something that didn’t belong to him. “Why? You said once that your parents blame me for the past. Why do they blame me? You’re the one who ended things between us.”
After a long, long silence and several breaths, Ana said, “They blame you…because of me.”
“Ana, explain that. Please.”
She closed her eyes, but he saw the wetness thickening her eyelashes. She struggled to find the words, and he struggled to find the patience needed to sit there and wait when he wanted to dive into her brain and find them for himself. To help her with whatever it was shewasn’tsaying.
“That’s not so easy to do.”
“Try,” he said, insistent. The only way to get to the bottom of this mess was to communicate. Something they hadn’t been good at in the past. “Good, bad and ugly, baby. Tell me what happened while I was away.”
He watched Ana as she took a few breaths and shifted on the cushioned seat as though settling in for a long while.
“I…hatedbeing separated from you. But you left again after Christmas, and the weight of everything started crashing down on me. All the graduation stuff set in and final exams, and my parents were on me constantly about college. They knew better than to forbid me to marry you, but their disappointment was made clear from sunrise to sunset.
“When I did sleep, I had nightmares. Horrible dreams about you getting shot… B-blown up. I kept dreaming that I was somewhere alone, and soldiers would show up to say you were…that you were dead. I’d wake up screaming night after night. Which…only gave my parents more reason to believe I wasn’t ready, that I was ruining my life, and it was your fault. They blamed you for everything.”
Cole tugged her closer, tucked her head under his chin and used his free hand to touch her cheek, running his knuckles over the softness over her cheekbone. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”
“And say what? I dream about you dying? Yeah,that’swhat you tell a soldier when he leaves for war.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, mind scrambling. He wasn’t sure how he could have reassured her, but he would have at least tried. A thought came to him, chilling him to the bone. “When you were upset… Did you try to… Did you hurt yourself?”
He forced the question past his lips, hardly able to breathe as he waited for her response.
Cole studied her profile while she stared straight ahead, her gaze locked on the flames and a million miles away in the darkness of the past.
“No, not really.”
“What does thatmean, Ana?”
“Just that I couldn’t eat because of stress, and…I lost a lot of weight. Then because you were gone, my mother kept insisting I attend cotillion. I thought agreeing would get her off my back for a little while.”
“I remember.” Her mother had been after Ana to go through with the old-fashioned ritual to “come out” to society families as a datable young woman, but Ana had argued that she wouldn’t attend because the rules stated she had to be escorted by another club member’s son. She’d gotten away with putting her mother off until Maureen had brought it up again like a dog with a bone, insisting Ana do it in lieu of the proms she’d refused to attend because Cole couldn’t. “I wish you’d talked to me. Told me you were so afraid of getting married. We could have waited.”
“I should have. I realize that now, but I didn’t want you to worry, not when you were so far from home.”
Cole hated that he’d done that to her. Hearing how upset she’d been leading up to sending that Dear John email… To know he’d been so focused on himself and the military that he hadn’t realized the private hell she’d gone through.
“It wasn’t just us and marriage. It was…all of it. No matter what I did or said, I hurt someone. You or my parents. Myself. My future. Our future. It wasn’t one thing butallof them. I couldn’t…handle it.”
She looked embarrassed, even though she had nothing to be embarrassed of. He’d seen firsthand what stress could do to a person. The ways it could mess with someone’s brain and body. PTSD was the real deal. He had more than a bit of it himself thanks to what he’d seen overseas. And she had been a sheltered girl suddenly realizing a lot of things. “What happened after I told you I couldn’t make it back for your graduation? The truth, Ana.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Sure you wanna know?”
“I want to know all of it.”
She inhaled another shaky breath. “The cotillion dresses had to be white and the one I had chosen… It looked like a wedding dress. The moment I saw it, I knew that it was my wedding dress.”
The words sucker punched him. She’d chosen her dress thinking of that. Of them and their future. All the while being terrified of it.
Once, in the lowest of the lows he’d felt after she’d broken up with him, he’d scoured the internet for images from the event she’d mentioned.
Country club people liked their fancy parties and balls, and he knew Analise would be among those photographed since she was the prominent judge’s daughter.
