Chapter 6 #3
In an instant, Teddy’s arm shot out, hauling me back before I could introduce my face to the hardwood floor. Thirty-plus years of reflex took over—protective, automatic. He flipped me over and tugged me back until we were breathing the same air, every inch of me touching every inch of him.
The eleven minutes and forty-three seconds our daughters had calculated between our cabins collapsed into the span of a breath.
We were as close as two people could be without actually becoming one. My breasts crushed to his chest; my hips aligned with his in a way that made it painfully clear this was affecting him as much as me.
It was a standoff, a strange game of chicken neither of us wanted to lose. Who would pull away first? Who would admit this was more than survival?
My thighs parted instinctively to accommodate him. Teddy released a rough exhale, dropping his hand to my thigh beneath the blankets and hitching it higher. His hips rolled forward in response, the hard press of him leaving no room for misinterpretation.
His eyes darkened at the sound it drew out of me, and for a wild second, I thought he was about to shove his sweatpants down and erase the last sliver of space between us. God help me, I wanted him to.
Then his mouth flattened, and the hand on my thigh retreated, fisting in the quilt instead.
“Better?” he asked, the word rumbling through his chest into mine.
“Not really, no,” I squeaked, unable to find the words to explain how every point of contact felt like touching a live wire, electricity arcing between us with nowhere to ground itself.
“Your fingers are digging into my bad shoulder,” Teddy grunted, but made no move to shift them.
I immediately loosened my grip, embarrassed by how desperately I’d been clinging to him. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” His hand came up to cradle the back of my head, fingers threading through my tangled hair. “Just try to relax.”
Relax. Right. Like I could do that with the ridges of muscle pressing into me with every expansion of his chest, his thumb tracing absent circles at the nape of my neck, the same way he used to when I couldn’t sleep.
“What are you thinking?”
I almost laughed. What was I thinking? That I’d spent two years trying to convince myself I was over him, only to fall apart the second he touched me. That my body remembered his like a language I’d once been fluent in. That the careful walls I’d built were felt about as solid as tissue paper.
I settled on, “I’m thinking this is a really bad idea.”
“Probably.” But his arms tightened around me anyway, like he couldn’t help himself. “But when’s that ever stopped us?”
Never.
We’d been terrible at stopping when things were a bad idea.
Like when I was sixteen, and I snuck him into my bedroom window, convinced my parents wouldn’t hear us.
Or when we decided to try for a third baby despite the multitude of complications with my previous pregnancies.
Or when we kept pretending everything was fine long after our foundation had cracked beyond repair.
“Earlier, you said you thought you lost me, but you’ve—” My throat gave a painful squeeze, and I took a deep breath before forcing the words out.
“You’ve always had me. Since the night you showed up at the homecoming dance, even though you hated them.
You’ve had every piece of me since I was fifteen, Teddy.
And I haven’t moved on—I can’t. I gave it all to you. ”
His chest rose sharply beneath mine, the fire casting enough light for me to see the glossy shine of emotion in his eyes.
“Kels,” he murmured.
“I need to tell you something—”
“Whatever it is, it can wait,” he said softly.
I’d been carrying this awful truth around since Levi’s death, and now that I’d finally worked up the courage to say it—to tell him that the divorce wasn’t his fault, that it was my shame eating me alive—he was shutting me down.
“Please. I need you to know—”
“It can wait until morning.” His voice was gentle but final. “When you’re warm and thinking straight again.”
“I am thinking straight.”
Lie.
His hazel eyes searched my face, seeing through me the way he always had. “Are you? Because less than a day ago, you slammed a door in my face. Now you’re telling me I’ve always had you. Which version am I supposed to believe?”
He was right—I was all over the place, my emotions swinging like a pendulum between anger and longing, between the urge to run and the desperate need to stay exactly where I was.
“Get some rest.”
My chin wobbled, the ache behind my eyes building with the tears I was holding back. His rejection—gentle as it was—still cut deep. Here I was, offering him my heart again, and he was telling me to sleep it off like a bad hangover.
“Right,” I managed, already regretting the confession.
Our daughters had orchestrated this entire scheme because they still believed in fairy tales—believed two broken parents could be forced back together with nothing more than good intentions and a little Christmas magic.
But real life was never that simple.
I tried to pull away, but Teddy’s arms tightened, refusing to let me go.
“Stay, Kels. Please.” His voice was gruff, but there was something underneath it. Something that sounded almost vulnerable.
The please undid me completely. Teddy Riggs never begged for anything.
So, I stayed.
Tomorrow would come with all its complications and regrets. But tonight, with my face tucked into the hollow of his throat and a blizzard raging all around us outside, I let myself pretend that maybe our daughters had it right.
Just for tonight.