Chapter Twenty

Brandy

I stepped out of the bathroom in my pajamas and surveyed the room. It seemed Wyatt gave up the fight for the couch, having settled in a chair in the bedroom with me. He was in nothing more than sweats and looked so delicious with his five o'clock shadow and toned six-pack on display. I almost licked my lips as my eyes fell to the deep V that disappeared beneath the sweats. Too bad he wasn't willing to just give in to the temptation he clearly felt. But if we weren't going to be doing that, then he should at least be getting a good night's sleep.

"This is stupid," I announced, "we're both adults. We can share a bed. It's big enough for us both to take a side. What do you say?" I couldn't in good conscience sleep in the bed for three nights and watch him sleep all scrunched up in a chair.

But Wyatt wasn't an easy sell. "I'm okay. Really."

"Wyatt Ryder, please, I won't get any sleep knowing you're sleeping in a chair. Please, come share the bed with me," I all but pleaded, my hands in prayer position.

Sighing, he stood and crossed to the bed. "Fine, but just remember you asked for it."

I nodded.

"So what's on the agenda for tomorrow since the rehearsal dinner isn't until the evening?" he asked, pulling down the sheet and sitting on the mattress.

I followed suit on my side. "Nothing. We have a free day to do what we want." I pulled my feet up and pushed my pillow against the headboard so I could sit up.

Watching me closely, Wyatt stayed sitting up until he finally laid down, eyes set on the ceiling. "What do you say we go down to the beach then? I read online they have the whitest sand beaches here."

"That sounds nice. At home do you go to the beach often?" I wondered.

He laughed, his hands at his sides, gaze still fixed on the ceiling. "If you didn't notice, I live on the beach."

Why won't he look at me? I looked down to make sure I wasn't an embarrassing mess, but noticed nothing unusual or out of place. "That's right," I thought, mentally slapping my head. I desperately wanted to keep the conversation going. I wasn't ready to put an end to this day yet. Not after how amazing it was—with him. "Tell me about that," I prompted.

He laughed. "Why?"

My eyebrows pinched, I couldn't understand why he was shutting down around me. "Because it's nice. What's your favorite thing about the beach?"

"You have a lot of questions, you know."

"Sorry," I said, not feeling all that sorry. I wanted to know everything there was to know about him.

"Surfing," he turned to me and explained, "and being close to the ocean feels like it feeds my soul."

"See, was that so hard?"

Smirking, he admitted, "No."

"And at least you're finally looking at me now."

He pushed himself up against the headboard, relaxing. "I wasn't not looking at you before."

I raised a brow to challenge him, but he said nothing. "We should play a game," I suggested, thinking I could learn a lot about him under the guise of a game.

"If you want to know something, just ask."

I turned and crossed my legs, fully facing him now. "You don't seem to like my questions."

He shrugged. "It's not that, it's just—"

"Annoying?" I supplied.

"No. Yes. Oh, I don't know. Just go ahead, ask me what you want to know," he said, sighing heavily as if he was giving up.

Feeling rejected for the second time in as many days, I fluffed my pillow and laid down. I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, so I wasn't about to ask him anything. Not now, not like this.

As he leaned toward me, the bed shifted. His hand found my shoulder and he rubbed his thumb over my bare skin. My spaghetti strap fell down and he picked it up, placing it back in place. "Please," he said, frowning, "ask me whatever you want. It's okay."

I didn't move, but looked directly at him. "I just want to know about you, about your life. By your own admission, you're single, but you're obviously a good guy, so what gives? Damon said you were married before," I said, letting the rest of my thoughts fall off. What I really wanted to know was when and what happened?

He stopped rubbing my shoulder, but kept his hand there. "Oh, Susan."

I nodded, taking that little bit of information in—Susan. "What happened?" I asked, giving voice to one of my questions.

Was he burned, too? Did she cheat or break his heart?

Sitting back, he was quiet until he finally said, "She died."

I gasped. Of all the things he could've said, I never would've guessed that would've been it. That might have been ten times worse than any other scenario. No wonder he was emotionally closed off. "Tell me about her," I urged, hoping he would, but knowing there was a chance he wouldn't want to.

"Oh," he paused, "not now. It's late."

My heart fell. I wasn't even sure why I cared, but for some reason, this man who captivated me twenty two months ago was doing it again. Today he'd shown me the most incredible grace and compassion. He wasn't just good looking, he was a genuinely good man, too. The ultimate rare package.

"Fine, goodnight then," I said, a surprise to even myself with how out of character it was for me to give up. I reached over and shut my light. As I did I could feel my shorts riding up my backside. Was it wrong that so many different parts of me hoped like hell he was watching? That alone ignited something in me, but I forced it to shut down. We were way too far off from that, if there was even a chance in hell we'd ever get there. Somehow, I doubted it, but I didn't like to give up all hope.

When I turned around, I looked at Wyatt, unable to resist seeing if he noticed. He had, his eyes glued to me. His lips formed a tight line and he was swallowing hard. "Never mind. I'm not sure I can sleep. Let's talk," he said in an about-face.

Funny, he couldn't resist a little ass action, but I was expected to sit here next to him like Mother Theresa when he was shirtless with all his muscles on full display that went on for days. Double standards, they never ceased to amaze me. But like a good girl I pushed those thoughts from my mind and turned my attention back on my interest in him and Susan.

Before I could say or ask anything, though, he cleared his throat and started talking.

"We met in college. At orientation, actually." His blue-green eyes looked off into the distance, like he was actually traveling back in time to the moment they met. "We had this incredible connection. She wanted to be a nurse. She was brilliant, could've been a doctor, but liked how close nurses could get with their patients. She had a heart as big as the ocean and as good as gold." In a far off place, he smiled and remembered, "She was beautiful, too. Shy, but when she smiled, you just knew she was comfortable with you."

"How long has it been?"

He sighed heavily before turning his attention back to me, the memory over for him. "Too many years."

"You must've been so young," I noted, doing some fast math in my head.

"We were. We married rather quickly, too. Maybe not that quickly, but quicker than two college students usually do things," he said, pausing briefly to straighten out the bed sheet. "We'd been dating since that first meeting, it'd been a little over a year by that point. I proposed on our second Christmas together, we went skiing with her parents and I popped the question in front of the fire one night. We'd talked about it and knew we wanted to be together, we were both ready for the commitment. We just always figured we wouldn't get married until after graduation."

I nodded my understanding. "I don't know why, but I just thought you never went to college. Most men who are in the Army, I've found, go in right out of high school."

"Some do, but not everyone. Anyway, I went to college, but never did graduate."

"Because you got married?"

"No," he said returning to a look of stoicism.

He was shutting down. I didn't want that. So I found his hand and held it in my own, rubbing concentric circles over the top of it. "Don't make me pull it out of you, Wy. I want you to share because you want to, so I won't pull it out of you even if I am curious now," I said licking my lips, which had become noticeably dry from my nerves.

"Sorry," he said, his expression softening again as he turned to me. "It's not that. It's just that I haven't gone down this road in a long time."

"Is it hard to think about?"

"No. All I do is think about her. It's just not something I've really talked about."

"It's good to get things out in the open, let people in," I reminded him. "Or break down and cry in a rage room," I added, laughing.

He joined me, laughing at my joke. Finally looking happy again, his eyes danced for the first time. After a few minutes of silence, he went on. "Susan came from a very affluent family in Australia, they were some of the best people I've ever met in my life. She was very close to them, so when she decided to come to the states for college, it didn't matter that her father owned some of the biggest properties in Sydney, they came with her, settled in Orlando.

"Not long after, her mother got sick, cancer, and she was deteriorating very quickly. They said she only had a few months to live, but it was her wish to see her daughter get married. So, with the help of her father and mother's doctors, Susan and I got married with no real notice at her mother's bedside."

I brought a hand to my mouth, my heart going out to them. Cancer—that was never easy. "I'm so sorry," I said earnestly, "but what happened to Susan?" I understood her mother was sick and that explained their marriage, but not everything.

"A few months after her mother's passing, she was finally feeling herself again, coming out from under all the grief that mounted on her. We were finally happy again, and it felt right, like we could finally be happy. Then one night, she went to bed and never woke up. She died in her sleep. Doctors said it was an aneurysm. We had no signs, no warning. She just died. One second she was there and another she was gone,"he said, his voice cracking on that last part as his eyes went to someplace else. As if he was right back there, in the moment, reliving it all.

My heart broke for Wyatt, for Susan's father. To lose a wife and daughter in such a short span, no one should have to go through that. "Wy, I'm so sorry." It wasn't nearly enough and yet it was all I had to offer. I reached over and pulled him in for a hug.

"You asked about the note," he mentioned when I pulled back, but I wasn't sure I was following him.

I cocked my head to the side. "What note?"

"The night we met," he explained and I wondered how I could forget. "It's not just you I'm no good for, it's anyone. I'm like darkness. I live in a shadow of darkness. Now you see why. I lost Susan, I couldn't help her. I'm no good for you. I'm too wrapped up in my own shit. Now you know," he said finally, his chest rising and falling.

I backed up and regarded him closely. "You're wrong, you know. You're not darkness. You've been through your fair share, but you're light and kind and loving. It's all in there." I reached out and laid my hand over his heart, his chest feeling too good under my palm. But I needed him to know just how mistaken he was.

He moved back and slipped from the bed. "Yeah, well it doesn't feel that way," he said and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.