Born in the Valley

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice switching back to that of the man he’d once been. These sudden changes were disturbing, even after months of getting used to them. “I got some insurance money from my accident.” The voice was still deep, but with the tenor of a little boy again. “I just kept some of it for me and most of it my friend in Chicago is handling for me.”

Bonnie hoped to God his friend was honest and taking good care of Shane.

“So how’ve you done with the money you kept yourself?” she asked, smiling at him.

Bonnie’s heart lightened when Shane grinned back. “Good,” he told her. “I’ve tripled it so far.”

“No kidding!” She stepped closer, laying a hand on his forearm. “I’m proud of you.”

“That makes me happy, Bonnie.”

“I’m glad.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “You know I’m here if you need anything, right?”

“Yeah.” Bowing his head, he almost mumbled. “You talk to me, Bonnie. Like I’m a real guy…”

Bonnie replayed their conversation over and over as she drove home more than an hour later. She’d helped Shane, made a difference. And that felt damn good.

CHAPTER TWO

HE’D NEVER WORN pajamas to bed. Just boxers. It was one thing that hadn’t changed.

Keith was hard inside his shorts as he climbed in beside his wife almost a week after the fire. It amazed him, that ready reaction, which happened much more often than he would’ve expected after more than six years of sharing the same bed with Bonnie.

She hadn’t been there long. The sheets were still cool.

“’Night,” she said softly before he’d even settled in.

The next day was Tuesday. Keith had a governing-board breakfast meeting. And Bonnie was always up at the crack of dawn taking care of Katie and getting to work earlier than the rest of the eight-to-five world.

Still…

He opened his mouth to reply in kind, but then didn’t. With every casual good-night, he could feel her slipping farther away.

He lay down. Fought with himself for all of two seconds. Nudged her backside with his hips. The low, welcoming moan that came quietly from deep in her throat righted his world.

“You make me crazy, woman,” he growled against the side of her throat, kissing along her neck and collarbone. His hand slid beneath the short cotton top of her pajamas.

And the pressure of her butt against him increased perceptibly.

“What do you want?” he whispered in her ear, feeling her shiver. “Top or bottom?”

Wrapping her arms around his middle, she pulled him on top of her. A silent reply. There’d been too many of those in these last confusing months.

“I love looking at your eyes in the moonlight,” he told her. He loved how they glistened with the intensity of her passion.

Tonight she closed them.

Moving past the disappointment, he bent to kiss her, long lingering openmouthed kisses they’d perfected over the years.

Her mouth opened. But her tongue didn’t dance.

“Something wrong?” he asked, raising his head only far enough to see her face.

Bonnie lifted her hips against his groin, inviting him. As badly as he needed her, Keith was hesitant.

“Talk to me.” He couldn’t make out her expression. “Please?”

“I…”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, her gaze settling at about his nose. “I’m just tired.”

In almost seven years, tired had never made their lovemaking a silent affair. Not even in those first months after Katie was born and they were both doing double duty with full-time jobs and night feeding. Their conversation during sex was what made sleeping with Bonnie different from the few other women he’d been with.

She pulled him down to her, enticing him with her tongue along the edges of his lips, enticing him with other things.

Keith wasn’t sure he should finish what he’d started.

More and more he’d come up against this strange vacancy in Bonnie. This refusal to tell him what she was thinking. But this was the first time it had translated itself into their sex life.

“Bonnie?”

“Yeah?” Her voice was languorous, as though she was giving herself up to passion, as though she wasn’t even aware of the chasm deepening between them.

He was tempted to give up for tonight, to enjoy whatever communication remained between them.

“Why won’t you talk to me? Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her hands didn’t move from around his neck, her hips still pressing against him. “There’s nothing to tell.”

He wanted to believe that. “You seem kind of…distant.”

“I’m really just tired, babe,” she said, her voice full of the intimate warmth that had made him her slave from the very beginning. “I’ve spent the entire week reassuring parents. They needed to hear for themselves that there really was no danger to their kids, that Greg’s official report said the arson was a random act. And no one was satisfied until they’d heard it directly from me.”

She reached up to kiss him and his body started to respond again.

Keith rose on his elbows.

“So I’ve just imagined the distance growing between us these past couple of months?”

It was a subject he’d broached often.

“I’m right here, Keith. Loving you and Katie every bit as much as I always have.”

Keith stared down at her. That was the kind of frustrating nonresponse he received every time. Instead of giving him a real answer, she countered with something good and affirming.

And he knew from experience that if he pushed, he’d just get more of the same.