“I’m not good for you,” I finally push past my lips, knowing he’s waiting for me to say something.
“Because you think everyone always leaves. That one day I might think you’re no good for me so I’ll leave?” he asks softly. I can’t even bring myself to look up at him.
I shake my head. He’s only partly right. “You’d never really leave me. I mean, for a mission, sure, but if we got married you’d never leave. Not even if you wanted to. That’s not who you are.” He’s too honorable for that. Thomas loves his family, and he’d stick it out no matter what.
“I’d never ask someone to marry me who I didn’t want to be with all the way down to my soul. Who I knew I couldn’t live without. But you’re wrong about one thing, Alice. I’m not honorable. It’s not honorable to already be thinking of ways to lock this house up so tight you could never get out again.”
I know that should scare me, but all it does is make me melt for him. It makes my stomach do a little flip like it always does with Thomas. No one has ever made me feel more wanted than him. Each day I’m with him he folds me in closer. I love it, while still fearing something might take him from me.
“Did you ask Maggie’s mom to marry you?” I want to know if maybe he’d only asked her because she was pregnant. Or that maybe he’d had these feelings with someone else before me. Did he love another woman that deeply?
“Bug is adopted.” My eyes fly to his. I didn’t expect him to say that. “I’ve never asked a woman to marry me. Never loved anyone but you in that way. I’ve never even been in love or told a woman I loved her. I’ve been saving all of it for you because it’s yours. All of it. Always has been and always will be. I think that’s why all these years I had Maggie, I never so much as looked for anything more. At first I thought it was because I was so focused on being a good dad. But then you walked into my life and I knew. It was because I was waiting for my woman to make our family bigger, to make our family whole.”
I sit in shock, not sure what to say.
“I can’t take it,” he says, grabbing me and pulling me to him. I’m in his lap, with him cradling me, and he lets out a deep sigh like he can breathe again.
“You think that woman is me?” I ask softly.
“Know it,” he growls.
“I’m scared. So scared,” I admit, burying my face in his neck like I always like to do. “I can’t take it. I’m worried about you taking off on another mission. Something happening. I just can’t—’
He tries to interrupt me, but I keep going, pulling back and looking at him.
“I just can’t. It hurt so much. You have no idea. Thinking I’d lost you…someone I love, someone who loves me back. That’s rare for me. I don’t have that. People just loving me. It made me sick being without you. Like I wasn’t whole. It felt like a part of me was missing.”
“You love me,” he says, but I ignore him and keep going.
“And right there is the problem. You need someone strong who can deal with that. Someone worthy of you. I’m not strong like you. I wish I could be, but I can’t. That’s why I left once I knew you were okay, because I couldn’t go through this again, and I’d never ask you not to go on a mission. To not be who you are and do what you want to do. I knew if I stayed, next time I’d beg you not to go. Probably make you feel guilty for having to do your job. So don’t you see? Maybe it’s better if we break. Not fall any deeper for each other.” Even as I say the words, I hang on to him tighter, not wanting to let go. It was easier to think these things when he wasn’t in front of me, when I wasn’t smelling him, feeling him, having him say all these sweet things to me, doing like he always does, dragging me into him, under him. So deep I can never leave. Never wanting to leave.
“You love me,” he says again.
“Of course I love you!” I yell at him.
“I know. I’ve just been waiting for you to say it.” I drop my eyes from his. I didn’t realize I hadn’t said it to him before. Every time he says it to me, I soak it in and enjoy it. I hadn’t even noticed I wasn’t saying it back.