New Beginnings (109 page)

It pained me to see her looking so gorgeous, yet knowing I couldn’t take her to bed to remind her that she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. I would give anything, everything, I owned to make love to her one more time. To tell her that I loved her, would always love her because she was the reason I was still here, living such a blessed life, with a thriving business and two sons any man would be proud of. The only thing missing was her, and that left a gaping hole nothing and no one else could fill.

“Why do you still wear this?” she asked, reaching for my left hand. She slid her finger over the narrow gold band.

“I’m still a married man.” I said it as though it should have been obvious. “I told you I’d never take it off, and I never intend to.” My eyes fell to her left hand. I noticed she’d taken her rings off weeks ago. Seeing her hand bare after so many years of having my ring on it gutted me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. “It’s not that I wanted to take it off. I just figured it would be weird wearing it if I was going to start dating again.”

My grip on the beer bottle tightened as I brought it to my lips. “So this dating thing… tonight wasn’t a one-and-done kinda deal?”

“I don’t know, Ryker.” She wrapped her hands around her wine glass. “I’m so confused.”

“About what?”

I wanted to believe she missed me as much as I missed her and was confused about whether she should ask me to move back home. I’d bought another house, but I told myself it was a good investment. I could rent it out when I returned home to my wife and kids, where I belonged.

“I’m thinking about my career options. The boys are getting older now. They don’t need me to be home as much.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that. Mackenzie had always felt blessed that she’d been able to be a stay-at-home mom instead of having to balance a full-time job and active family. “I’m looking for a new office manager.”

“What happened to Sandy?” she asked, referring to the human glue that had always held my business together.

“She’s retiring.” It pained me just to think about losing her, but I knew I should be happy for her. She and her husband were finally going to start travelling, something they’d been talking about doing for years. “Next month, in fact. So, if you’re serious about a job, it’s yours.” I would love nothing more than going into work every morning, knowing that she’d be there waiting for me.

“That’s sweet of you to offer,” she said, touching my shoulder. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea, us working together.”

“Why not?” I reached for the wine bottle on the table to refill her glass. “We’ve always made a great team.”

She smiled, a combination of sad and wistful. “There were some amazing years, weren’t there?” She stretched her legs out in front of her and tipped her head back on the sofa. “I remember when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

I leaned my head against hers, whispering, “Newsflash—I’m having a hard time keeping my hands off you right now.”

She laughed, slapping my arm. “You just wanna get laid.”

“No,” I said, running my hand up her arm. “I want to make love to my gorgeous wife.”

“Ryker,” she said on a groan, “you know how hard it is to resist you when you say things like that.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.” I kissed her shoulder. Though there was thin fabric between my lips and her skin, I knew she felt it as acutely as I did. “I still want you, Mac. That’s never gonna change.”

“We used to sleep side by side every night, and you never even tried to touch me,” she said, blinking away the tears. “What’s changed? Is it because I’ve lost some weight? Is that why you’re attracted to me again? If I gain a few pounds back, will your interest wane?”

God, I couldn’t believe she thought her weight had anything to do with my attraction to her. I wouldn’t care if she gained fifty pounds, I’d still love her. “I didn’t think you wanted me to touch you,” I admitted. “Every time I tried, you pulled away.” I shrugged. “Eventually, I guess I just stopped trying.”

She looked at me, obviously considering my response. “I guess I felt self-conscious.” Her eyes skated over my abs, renewing my arousal. “You’ve always been in such great shape, and I kind of let myself go after the boys were born. Five pounds led to ten, and before I knew it, it was twenty-five.”

“Who cares? Weight’s just a number, baby. I always thought you were beautiful.”

“But I didn’t feel beautiful, Ryker.” Her voice broke, prompting her to take a sip of wine. “I felt like I’d let you down. Hell, I felt like I let myself down.”

“What are you talking about?”

We’d never had this conversation before, and it made me realize I should have pressed harder when I felt her pulling away. If I had, we could have been having this conversation at home, in our bed, instead of on a couch in a house I never should have bought.

“I loved the way things were between us in the beginning, so hot, so intense.” She smiled at the memory. “We couldn’t get enough of each other. It’s a small miracle we don’t have ten kids instead of two.”

“I wouldn’t have minded ten,” I said, smiling. “Aside from you, being a father’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She grinned before gripping my bicep. “You’re an amazing dad. Our kids couldn’t have asked for better.”

I loved that she felt I’d been a good father to our kids. As far as I was concerned, it was the most important job I’d ever had, and I couldn’t be more proud of the way our sons were turning out.

When I was growing up, other bikers were my family, and it made me realize that if I ever had a family of my own, I’d always be there for them, not like my buddies’ deadbeat dads who’d been little more than sperm donors. And my old man. Hell, I couldn’t even stand to think about him.

“We were talking about what happened between us,” I reminded her. I knew we needed to have these conversations if we had any hope of finding our way back to each other. “When we started to drift apart.”

“I don’t know that I can pinpoint when,” she said, setting the base of her wineglass on her flat stomach as she stretched out farther. “I guess we just stopped working on our relationship. When the kids were young, we had date nights. Then they got older and involved in their own activities, and that became the priority.”

I’d been so focused on giving my kids everything I never had growing up, I never stopped to question whether my wife was getting everything she needed. I thought if she had the nice house and clothes and car, she’d be content.

I’d come home after work every night instead of carousing in bars, so I’d convinced myself I was a good husband. It didn’t matter that I’d sit at one end of the couch while she sat at the other or that I’d have my phone clutched in my hand so I could respond to emails or texts as soon as they came in. At least I was there. I’d really believed that was enough. I could see now how wrong I’d been to believe she didn’t deserve more.

“I made a lot of mistakes,” I acknowledged. “I should have told you I loved you more.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told her I loved her before the day she asked me to move out. I thought it every time I looked at her, silently thanked God for her every night when my head hit the pillow, but I realized that wasn’t the same as telling her or showing her.

“I made a lot of mistakes too,” she said, sighing. “Believe me, you weren’t the only one.”

“What’s your biggest regret?” I asked, hoping it would be asking me to move out.

“Not making more time for myself. As a mom, you just kind of get used to putting your family first. But before you know it, you’ve lost sight of who you are as a person. You don’t have your own identity anymore.” She tipped her head to look at me. “You know exactly who you are, always have. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired most about you.”

While I appreciated her praise, I couldn’t let her think I had it all figured out. I didn’t. Far from it. “I don’t know about that, Mac. I’d lost my way plenty of times. Got off track when it came to the business, questioned when to expand, whether to take the TV deal when the network offered, how much to delegate.” I sighed. “Whether you realize it or not, you kept me sane during those years.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” she said, her lips tipping up in a soft smile. “I never felt I contributed much. You were the one working hard, stressing out, bringing in all this money, and I worried that I never really pulled my weight.”

“Honey, coming home to you and the boys every night was the bright spot at the end of some pretty crazy days. Without you, I don’t know that I would have had the strength to build the business, so don’t question how much you contributed. You’re the reason there’s still a Steele Custom Choppers. You gave me the will to fight instead of giving up.” I took a risk and reached for her hand, feeling the warmth spread through me when she linked her slim fingers through mine. Holding hands was such a simple gesture, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt more at peace. “I wanted to make you proud of me.”

“I was proud of you,” she said quickly. “I hope you know that. I’ll never forget the first time I went to one of those trade shows with you. They treated you like royalty. That’s when I realized how important you were to that community.”

There was a flash of something in her big blue eyes, and because I knew her as well as I knew myself, I couldn’t let it go. “You never wanted to come to many of the shows with me though. Why was that?”

She slipped her hand from mine before smoothing a hand over her stomach. “Those girls…” She shuddered. “Those gorgeous models the manufacturers used to hire to draw attention to their booth…”

“What about them?” I asked, frowning. I’d seen so many girls like that over the years, they were like mannequins to me now, window dressings.

“The way they flirted with you made me feel sick.”

“What?” I sat up, trying to gauge whether she was serious. God, she was. “You don’t think I was into those girls, do you?”

“I can’t deny I wondered if you found them attractive.” She rolled her eyes before draining the contents of her glass. “How could you not, right? They were centerfold gorgeous. Kind of like the girl you went out with last week, huh?”

I now realized agreeing to go out on that date was one of the biggest mistakes I could have made. Instead of putting my family back together, I was making stupid choices that drove us further apart.

“I told you, Mac, I wasn’t into that woman I went out with, and I sure as hell have never been interested in any of those models at the shows.” I smacked my forehead with my palm, chastising myself for being so dense. “I can’t believe that’s the reason you stopped coming to the shows with me.”

Those shows had given us an opportunity to get away alone together while Mac’s parents watched the boys for us. That alone time could have helped us to stay connected.

“It wasn’t your fault I felt that way,” she said, setting her hand on my thigh. “They were my issues, Ryker. My insecurities. I know you never would have cheated on me…”

She let the sentence hang in the air, and I knew she was waiting for confirmation. “Baby, since the first time I made love to you twenty years ago, there has never been another woman. I swear to you.”

She bit her lip, her eyes downcast. “We’ve been apart a while. You really haven’t been with anyone else?”

“Never even tempted.”

The fact she even had to ask highlighted how far apart we were. If she thought, even for a second, that I could have sex with another woman while wearing her wedding ring, I’d let her forget the kind of man I was. I didn’t make commitments quickly or easily, but when I did, I was all in, for life.

“You remember how long it took for me to convince your dad I was good enough for you?” I asked, deciding to change tactics.

She laughed. “About two years. My daddy said he’d kill me if I married some outlaw biker who probably sold drugs.”

Her father, Bill, was a cop who decided he hated me on sight. It took a long time for him to see past my gruff exterior, but once he did, he’d become the father I’d never had. Losing him to cancer four years ago had been as hard on me as it had on Mac and the kids.

“I loved that man,” I said, lowering my head to hide the sheen in my eyes.

“He loved you too,” Mac said, squeezing my thigh. “He’d hate seeing us like this, living apart. He’d tell me how disappointed he was in me for not trying harder to save my marriage.”

Her softly spoken words hit me like a fist in the gut. “We can still save our marriage, Mac. It’s not too late.” I couldn’t let myself believe it was too late. The only thing that had gotten me through the last six months without her was the hope that we could not only rebuild our marriage, but that it would be better and stronger than ever.

***

Mackenzie

I knew what Ryker wanted to hear, but giving him false hope seemed cruel. I didn’t know if we could ever put our marriage back together again. I had to admit, talking to him like this reminded me of how amazing things had been between us once, but that was a long time ago. We were different people now.

“Being apart has been good for me,” I said, trying to ignore the flash of pain in his light blue eyes. “I feel stronger than I have in a really long time.” I knew he might think it was silly, but I decided to tell him my secret. “I’ve been working with a life coach.”

“A life coach?” he asked, frowning. “Seriously?” Ryker was old-school. He believed in solving his problems on his own and wasn’t big on sharing his feelings with anyone, even me.

“Yeah. She helped me figure some things out. She’s a lovely person. Very positive and upbeat, and honestly, I needed more positive energy in my life.”

“Okay.” He shook his head, still not looking convinced. “So I assume this life coach has helped you. How?”

“She’s helped me figure out who I am, aside from being a wife and mother.”

His eyes met mine, and I suddenly felt breathless, especially when his gaze dropped to my lips. “I love that you still think of yourself that way, as my wife.”

“I am.” Even if we got a divorce, I would have a hard time imagining myself as anyone other than Mackenzie Steele. “We’re not divorced.” I rubbed my bare finger. “We’re not even legally separated.” I hated that I’d allowed Molly to talk me into taking my wedding rings off. Not only did I feel naked without them, like a married woman masquerading as a bachelorette, but I could tell how much it hurt Ryker to think I was giving up on us.