“I know what I need,” he continued. “I need you. So does Touchdown. That’s why I moved next door.”
“But how could this happen without me knowing?” she sputtered.
“I paid the past owners enough to send all their kids to Harvard, and they agreed to move out in secret once they found a new place. I knew you’d book it the minute you found out I was next door. That’s why I gave you some time to get settled. Of course, you left most of your stuff in our house in Denver, so there couldn’t have been too much to unpack.”
“I can still move,” she told him even though it would be financially challenging. Matt’s house was large, and on the far end of what she could afford. But she loved it. After leaving Blake, she’d rented a two-bedroom townhouse in a not-so-great neighborhood in Denver. At the time, she hadn’t cared where she lived—hadn’t cared about much of anything. Leaving the house she and Blake had lovingly created together without anything but an overnight bag had almost destroyed her.
“Running away won’t solve anything.”
Her heart beat in painful bursts. “You have to stop this, Blake. I didn’t want you to give up football for me.”
He looked down at his hiking boots and kicked at the turf. “I know you didn’t, but I couldn’t win you back from Dare Valley with my schedule. This was the only way I knew to show you how much you mean to me. How much I still love you. Nothing else has worked.”
And there it was. That vulnerability. In a man so big and strong, it seemed almost impossible. It was the very trait that had made her fall for him in the first place.
“But you can’t do this. You love football!”
“It’s done,” he said in that same dismissive tone he used when pushy reporters asked him why he’d thrown three interceptions. “Touchdown can come across the bridge and visit you now. I figured we can split custody.”
Like she didn’t know where that was leading. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
Touchdown whined, and she leaned down to give his soft ears a rub, mindful of her robe.
“He’s yours for the next few days,” Blake said, ignoring her and walking back toward the bridge. “I’ll bring his stuff around, but I know you’ll want to buy your own set when you get around to it. No one is more independent than you.”
“Blake!” she called out, trying to remember he’d just suffered a monumental loss. “This can’t continue.”
At the bridge, he turned. “Babe, it’s only beginning. This bridge is my ticket to a better life. It’s my bridge back to you.”
His bridge to a better life? She almost dropped to her knees in shock, her heart pounding even faster in her chest.
When he was out of sight, she scooped up Touchdown and approached the bridge on trembling legs. Her mind told her she had to look at the symbols carved into the wooden post. Infinity symbols were etched everywhere in the wood, and the sight of them made her clutch the beagle tighter to her chest.
They’d had an infinity symbol engraved in their wedding bands.
This time she did sink to the ground.
Chapter 2
Blake strode into the house to dig out his smartphone. He’d purposely turned it off right after the press conference, not wanting to deal with the media blitz that had surrounded his shocking early retirement. He’d called his parents from a friend’s phone to tell them he was okay and that he needed to take some time to himself. Since they understood him, they hadn’t tried to convince him to come home or to relinquish his quest for Natalie. They’d only said they would be praying for him and he should call if he needed anything. He’d touched base with them from the cabin’s landline two weeks later to tell them about his plans, which was when he had learned Natalie had reached out to them, to him.
It had been a struggle not to listen to her message and call her back, but he’d wanted to talk to her in person once his plans were in place. He hadn’t wanted her compassion to be the only emotion between them.
Besides his parents, the only people he’d talked to were his lawyer and assistant. They’d arranged the purchase of this house. Thank God money had prompted the former owners to vacate it so quickly. He’d gotten restless hiding out in the cabin he kept in Vail—the place he’d always used for escape when the media was hunting him.
Turning on the phone again after all this time took more courage than he’d expected. But it had been good for him too, allowing him to grieve in peace. He’d taken long walks in the mountains to help clear his mind. And he’d poured his energy into staging this move to Dare Valley, trying not think about what he’d left behind. Football. God, his heart burned as the text messages started to flood onto his display.
A recent one from his buddy Jordan Dean, quarterback for the Atlanta Rebels, made his gut churn.