Page 10

~ SAM ~

The rest of the evening was quiet—we decided not to go out, and ended up going to sleep early. But even though she never stopped meeting my eyes, or flirting, I knew Bridget hadn’t fully relaxed after that conversation.

When I woke up in the dark with a deep conviction that something was wrong and put a hand out to find her—and instead found cold, wrinkled sheets, I panicked.

I shoved out of bed, only to stop dead, heaving a sigh of relief when I saw the line of light under the bathroom door.

The sound wasn’t the air conditioning, it was the hiss of running water.

Taking a deep breath to settle my racing heart, I walked straight into the bathroom—if she was on the toilet she could just deal, I needed to make sure she was safe.

I pushed the door open a little harder than was probably needed and stormed in.

The hotel bathroom was large, with a tub across from that double-sink and countertop, and a large, separate shower at the opposite end of the room from the door. For a split second I didn’t see Bridget because the glass on the shower was fogged up. But then I saw the huddled shadow behind the fog at the bottom of the shower and I leaped across the room for that glass door.

“Bridget!” I yanked the shower open, afraid she’d fallen—or worse—but then stopped dead.

She sat in the bottom of the granite shower pan, her ankles crossed and knees pulled up, elbows locked around them and her chin on her forearms. The water ran over her back and hair, dripping from her nose and arms.

Her red nose. Like she’d been crying.

And sure enough, when she lifted her head to look up at me, her eyes were bloodshot.

Pain ripped through my chest.

“I love hotels because they never run out of hot water,” she said just loud enough to be heard over the running shower.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” she murmured, then grimaced. “God, I sound so pathetic.” A little shiver rippled through her. I stepped into the steamy space and closed the door so she’d stay warm.

“Bridget—”

“You can’t fix this, Sam. I fucked it up. All of it—you, especially. Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I needed to cry and…”

“You can cry with me,” I said, settling myself carefully to the floor, putting my feet on either side of her butt so I was embracing her without invading her space too much.

She gave a dark snort. “See, you’re too good. I’m upset because I hurt you, and you’re going to try and make me feel better.”

I shrugged. “If you’re hurting it hurts me.”

She stared at me, shaking her head slowly. “Where did you come from, Sam? How did you get here—like this? ”

“Like what? Smoking hot?” I said with a grin.

She almost smiled, still shaking her head. “After everything I did… Why the hell did you want to marry me?” she asked quietly. “You know,” she continued before I could answer, “There’s still a part of me that thinks this is all a big game, and you’re playing it for all your worth. Like, one of these days you’re going to get something on me and poof, this is going to turn out to be an act. You’ll leave and laugh at me.”

It hurt to breathe. “You don’t really believe that, do you? ”

She shrugged. “I don’t feel like that’s true. But sometimes… sometimes you’re too good to be true, Sam. And that scares the fuck out of me. I told you—I misjudged everything. I got us here. If here is a ruse… well, I suppose I deserve it.”

Fear jangled through me. I hadn’t seen her like this before. Usually when things got tense, or someone attacked, she fought. She was the one with the clever mind and the smart mouth and…

“Talk to me,” I murmured, rubbing her arms. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She gave me a look like I was stupid. “You know what’s going on!”

“But why is it hitting harder now?”

She hacked a humorless laugh. “Because I’m falling deeply in love with you, Sam. Every fucking second you get better and this… this thing we have gets more and more incredible—and that makes what I did worse. I haven’t moved or changed, and I’m getting worse. Because you’re… you.”

“You’ve got to stop looking at it like—”

“Sam, if you go to prison because of me, I will literally never forgive myself,” she breathed, and her lower lip trembled. “You don’t deserve it, and it will be my fault.”

I sucked in a deep, ragged breath. “Not to go full-priest on you, Bridget but… that’s exactly what Jesus did for me. He took it. All the wrong I did. All the prison—all the death—I deserved. He didn’t deserve it, and He took it. And now… now that lets me do the same for you.”

Her lips tight like she wanted to argue, but then she turned her head and put her temple down on her arms, staring at the foggy glass.

“Don’t even get me started on how pissed God must be with me for doing this to you,” she murmured.

And I laughed.

She blinked, then lifted her head again, frowning. “That’s funny to you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because… God’s so much bigger than this, Bridge. Trust me. Miracles are mundane for Him. If He wants me out of this, nothing can stop that. ”

“But what if he doesn’t? What if this is some kind of punishment, or—”

“That’s not how this works, Bridget.”

She gave me a flat look. “I get that I’m no priest, but I’m also not dumb. That’s the whole thing. Vengeful God punishing people who do wrong, throwing us all into hell, right?”

I shook my head and took a heavy breath. I had this conversation multiple times per week with the guys in the prison, and it never ceased to make me sad.

God’s PR was for shit.

“No, Bridget. The Jesus story isn’t retribution—it’s the opposite. A God who loved so much He gave up His son—His perfect son—to take the punishment you and me deserved for all the bad things so He could keep us.”

Her eyes grew tight. I leaned closer. “Let’s say they convict me—”

Her shoulders tensed, but I held onto her and made her keep listening.

“—now imagine, the judge who says I broke the law tells me how many years I’m getting. But then says I’m free to go because she’s going to jail to do that time for me. That’s God. He didn’t judge me, Bridge. He made me free. ”

Her forehead wrinkled into lines. “But if you get convicted for this, it’s unfair. You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Bad example maybe. Think of that happening the last time I got convicted.”

“Like my dad?” she bristled. “God lets monsters like my dad off?”

I shook my head. “Not unless he understands what he did. Not unless he turns away from the stuff that took him to that place. We still pay consequences for our actions here, Bridge. But if me, or your dad, or anyone else learns. If the remorse is real—and they understand that only Jesus can take away the stain of those awful things, then yeah. They’re forgiven. And God made a way for that to happen while they were still monsters.”

She frowned deeply, I held her gaze. “Bridge… I was that guy. And I’m forgiven. He changed me after He forgave me. My point is, we aren’t dealing with some deranged guy with a god complex. We’re dealing with a bigger, stronger, more powerful heart and mind. God knows things we don’t. And He loved us so much He gave up his perfect son to serve my time for me. If He asks me to go back to prison…” I trailed off, blowing off a breath. “It would be hard, Bridget. I won’t deny I’m praying that doesn’t happen. But I already told you, and I meant it: It took all this to get you and me to this place together. So if it takes that to get us through the other end… I’m in.”

“But you don’t know!” she insisted, her frown deepening. “You won’t know until the end if he wants us out, right? He doesn’t like, give you signs, or appear, or whatever?”

“Not usually. But… He brought us together against all odds. I don’t think he did that to tear us apart again.”

“People get torn apart every day,” she muttered. And I saw her mind ticking back, diving back into all that darkness and death that had haunted her.

I grabbed her face and made her meet my eyes. “Don’t go dark on me now,” I muttered a little harder than I’d intended. But she blinked and some of the shadows in her eyes faded. “Good girl.”

Her pupils dilated when I growled the words, and my heart beat faster. “I want you to stop dwelling on this. It sucks. It sucks for both of us. But let’s not focus on that. You focus on me.”

She smiled, but her eyes welled. I held her face and kept talking, because if I pulled her into my lap we weren’t talking anymore.

“Now, listen to me,” I instructed. “One way or another, we’re going to get through this. Time will keep passing. The trial will happen. And eventually we’ll get to the end of it. I think we’re coming out of this together.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said quietly.

I traced her lower lip with my thumb.

“We’ve got two more days until we have to be back in Oregon, so let’s focus on making the best of this time now. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. We can’t change that yet. While we have this time, let’s make the most of it.”

She blinked away the gathering tears and sighed. “Okay.”

I leaned in because I knew she was only appeasing me, but I also knew that words weren’t going to change her mind tonight. So I kissed her instead, holding her jaw so she couldn’t escape me.

It started sweet—I wanted to comfort her. Distract her. Soothe the fear.

But she gripped my wrists and returned the kiss with desperation, so instead of pulling out of it to check on her, I tipped my head and deepened the kiss, then pulled her into my lap. When she was in the circle of my arms, slid my hands into her wet hair and took a grip to pull her chin back.

I forgot the conversation. Forgot her tears. Forgot everything but her wet, flushed skin and the water trickling down it.

I kissed the drops from her collarbones, then the ones that wanted to slide down her breasts.

When she started to pant and writhe against me, I knew it wouldn’t be long. And I also knew I had to make sure she wasn’t deflecting.

So, still holding her head back by her hair, I lifted my head and waited for her to open her eyes and meet mine.

“I love you now. And I’ll love you tomorrow,” I rasped, my voice deeper and rougher with need. “No matter what happens, if you need to shower, you tell me so I can come with you.”

Eyes still flickering with fear, she gave a quick little nod and put a hand to my chest. But then she smiled and ground down on me, sliding her hand into the hair at the nape of my neck.

When I groaned and let my head sink back, she leaned in, her lips brushing my ear.

“Literally,” she quipped.

I laughed—but things got very serious, very quickly after that and I gave her all my focus. No matter how sure I might be that God would get us through this, that didn’t mean I’d take for granted the joy of having her in my hands. Because she’d been right about one part: People did get torn apart every day. And if it was going to happen to us, I was making sure we had a lot of memories to hold onto until we were together again.