She’d finally pushed him away too much for even his love to bear. Leaning against the doorframe, she didn’t fight the tidal wave of grief this time. She went totally and completely to pieces.
After she cried a fresh batch of tears, she shook her head, trying to clear it. Where would he have gone in the dead of night? He had no friends in Dare Valley. Then it hit her. He’d gone back to the home they’d shared, back to the one place he’d always felt the most comfortable. Back to his old life—or what was left of it in the wake of his retirement.
She made her way back to her house with Touchdown. Once inside, she ran upstairs to her bedroom and dug into the bottom of her chest for the item she was seeking. Tucking it into her pocket, she went downstairs and grabbed a bottle of water and her purse.
“Come on Touchdown,” she said opening the garage door. “Let’s go get Daddy.”
Chapter 36
Blake’s muscles trembled as he lifted the two hundred pound weights over his head for the seventh time in his second rep. After driving to Denver, he hadn’t wanted to sleep. Couldn’t sleep. Being back in the home he and Natalie had created together was enough to send pain lacing through his system like adrenaline, making him a little crazy, making him way too sensitive.
After changing into workout clothes, he’d gone to his gym and started his burn. Who was he to judge Natalie for the way she dealt with her emotions? She scrubbed the shower. He was fighting his feelings by working out, not eager to drown in their punishing waves just yet. When he succumbed—and he knew he inevitably would—the truth was going to leave him scarred forever.
She was gone from him
He’d run until his legs shook so hard he could barely feel them. Then he’d switched to the rowing machine, pulling until his back muscles twitched under his shirt. Now, he was lifting. His mind wasn’t totally focused on what he was doing, but his thoughts quieted occasionally as his whole body strained to surpass its own strength. He lived for those moments.
After his third rep, he set the weights back on the bar and squeezed his eyes shut. God, he couldn’t go through this again. Not this. He’d given her his fucking heart on a platter. He’d even given her his dog. What did he have left? This house they’d created together. He was going to finally have to sell it. He’d only held onto it in the hope she’d come back to him.
His life without her stretched out before him. His whole life had just…died…like it had expired at the end of a game clock. Nothing was clear but the nothingness of it all. He’d never been in this place before, and it shook him to his core. Maybe he should move back to Ohio to be closer to his folks as he sorted things out.
He was preparing himself to lift again when something dropped onto his chest, and he looked down to see a radiant-cut yellow diamond twinkling like sunshine under his overhead lights.
Something exploded in his head, almost like he’d blown a blood vessel. His gaze darted up.
Natalie.
She stood a few feet from his bench press station, her arms wrapped around Touchdown, her hand covering his snout to keep him from barking. Tears were streaming down her face.
“I kept my key. You didn’t change the locks.”
His heart tore open. “What—”
“I’m sorry, babe,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He pressed his hand to his face, his eyes, as the pain finally flooded in. She hadn’t called him babe once since he’d moved to Dare Valley, and hearing it now took him under. He lay on his back, trembling from fatigue and physical exhaustion as tears leaked onto his temples.
“Oh, God,” he rasped out.
She’d driven all the way from Dare Valley in the middle of the night and plopped her engagement ring on his chest after she’d crushed him. Crushed him. He didn’t know what to say. What to think.
Her hand touched his chest, making him jump, even though her touch was soft.
“I’m sorry I…retreated again. I…my mom…they found a lump in her breast.”
He took his hand from his face and looked at her. He hadn’t thought his pain could worsen, but it did, like the mind-numbing razor blade of a torn ligament. “Oh, Nat.”
His position was awkward, so he started to sit up. Both their hands moved to protect her engagement ring from falling to the floor. Somehow it created a link between them, and he didn’t take his hand away. But he felt the imprint of that band, the press of her diamond in his palm.
She sank to her knees and placed Touchdown on the floor, then rested her hand on his thigh. “I went to her house last night. She’d been crying, which was shocking.” She sniffed, a harsh sound. “I knew immediately something was wrong. At first, she didn’t want to tell me what, but I wouldn’t let up. When she told me…God, it was like Kim all over again.”