25. Blair
— ? —
Blair
Seacliff rose before us, limestone and hydrangeas, and I was home.
The car pulled up the long drive, gravel crunching under the tires, and I pressed my hand to the window.
The house looked different than I remembered, though nothing had actually changed.
Same sweeping facade, same white columns, same blue hydrangeas nodding in the breeze along the front walk.
But seeing it now, after everything, it felt new.
Will pulled into the circular drive and cut the engine. For a moment, we just sat there, looking at the house, neither of us quite ready to break the spell.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“A little. Is that stupid?”
“It’s not stupid. It’s been months.”
“I know. I just…” I looked at the front door, at the windows I used to gaze out of every morning, at the life I’d walked away from and was now walking back into. “What if it feels wrong? What if I get in there and realize I made a mistake?”
“Then we’ll figure it out. Together.”
He got out of the car and came around to my side, opening the door with a flourish.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re about to do something ridiculous.”
“Probably.” He reached for me. “Come here.”
Before I could protest, he’d lifted me out of the car, his arms steady beneath my back and knees. I was seven months pregnant and not exactly light, but he held me like I weighed nothing.
“Will, I can walk.”
“Doctor said bed rest.”
“From the car to the house isn’t going to hurt anything.”
“I’m not taking chances. Besides.” He started toward the front door. “I’ve been waiting months to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Carry my wife over the threshold.”
“That’s for brides. On their wedding day. We’ve been married for ten years.”
“You’re my bride. Always.”
He kicked the door open, which was impressive given that he was holding me and shouldn’t have had the coordination for dramatic gestures. The foyer spread out before us, marble floors and fresh flowers and the particular smell of home that I’d missed without realizing how much.
“Welcome home,” he said.
Henry appeared at the top of the stairs, his face breaking into a grin when he saw us.
“Mom! Dad! You’re here!” He came thundering down the steps, his feet slapping against the marble. “Can I help carry Mom?”
“I think I’ve got it, buddy.”
“But I want to help!”
“You can help by getting the door to the living room.”
Henry raced ahead, throwing open the door with seven-year-old enthusiasm. I caught Will’s eye and smiled.
“He’s excited.”
“He’s been asking every five minutes when you were coming home. I think Nan was about to tape his mouth shut.”
“I heard that,” Nan’s voice called from somewhere deeper in the house. “And I was considering it.”
She appeared in the living room doorway, looking exactly as she always looked, iron-spined and sharp-eyed and utterly unimpressed by everything. But her expression had gone gentle when she saw me in Will’s arms.
“The prodigal daughter returns,” she said. “About time. Those hydrangeas were starting to wilt.”
“I love you too, Nan.”
“Hmph.” She stepped aside to let Will carry me through. “Put her on the couch. I’ve made tea.”
“I’m taking her upstairs.”
“She’s been in a hospital for two days. She needs tea and normal conversation before you lock her away in that bedroom.”
Will looked at me. I shrugged. “She’s not wrong.”
He carried me to the living room instead, setting me down on the long sofa by the windows with exaggerated care. Henry immediately climbed up beside me, pressing his hand to my belly.
“Is the baby okay? Dad said she had an adventure.”
“She did have an adventure. But she’s fine now. We’re both fine.”
“Can I feel her kick?”
“If she cooperates. She’s been pretty quiet today.”
As if on cue, the baby gave a strong thump against Henry’s palm. His face lit up with wonder.
“She’s saying hi!”
“She’s saying she’s tired of being poked.”
“But she likes it when I poke her. She kicks back. It’s a game.”
Nan appeared with a tea tray, setting it down on the coffee table with her usual efficiency. She poured a cup and handed it to me, then settled into the armchair across from the sofa with her own cup, watching me with that particular look she got when she was taking in everything she saw.
“You look better than I expected,” she said finally.
“Thanks?”
“I mean it. I was worried. Hospitals take a lot out of a person.”
“I had good company.” I glanced at Will, who was hovering near the window, clearly unsure whether to sit down or keep standing guard. “He read to me. Every night.”
“Read what?”
“Letters. He wrote letters to the baby.”
Nan’s eyebrows rose. She looked at Will with a grudging respect.
“Letters,” she repeated.
“It was Blair’s idea,” Will said quickly.
“It wasn’t. It was your therapist’s idea.”
“Same thing.”
Nan set down her teacup. “William Beaumont, are you telling me you’re in therapy?”
“I am.”
“Regular therapy. With a licensed professional.”
“Yes.”
“Well.” She sat back in her chair. “Maybe there’s hope for you after all.”
Coming from Nan, that was practically a declaration of love.
We spent the afternoon in the living room, drinking tea and eating the sandwiches Nan had prepared, catching up on all the ordinary details of life that had accumulated while I was in the hospital.
Henry told me about school and his friend Tommy and the bird that had built a nest outside his window.
Nan reported on the state of the garden, the gossip from her bridge club, the various failings of the neighbors.
Will sat beside me on the sofa, his hand resting on my knee, adding comments when appropriate but mostly just being present.
It felt normal. It felt right. It felt like the life I’d been missing.
By evening, I was exhausted. The combination of recovery and pregnancy and emotional overwhelm had caught up with me, and I could barely keep my eyes open through dinner.
“Bed,” Will said, standing and reaching for me.
“I can walk upstairs.”
“You can. But you’re not going to.”
He carried me up the stairs for the second time that day, past Henry’s room, past the guest rooms, to the master bedroom at the end of the hall.
The room was exactly as I’d left it months ago, except cleaner.
Someone had changed the sheets, put fresh flowers on the nightstand, opened the windows to let in the sea breeze.
“Trip,” Will said, catching my expression. “He insisted on preparing the room. Said you deserved a proper homecoming.”
“Trip broke into our house to decorate?”
“Trip has a key. I gave it to him years ago.” He set me down on the bed, propping pillows behind me. “I’m only now realizing that might have been a mistake.”
“It wasn’t a mistake. He’s family.”
“I know.” Will sat on the edge of the bed, taking my hand. “I know he is.”
The room was quiet around us. Through the window, I could see the last light of sunset fading over the ocean. The familiar sounds of Seacliff settling into evening surrounded us, creaking floorboards and distant waves and the particular silence of a house that had been waiting a long time.
“I missed this room,” I said.
“I missed having you in it.”
“Will.”
“I know. We don’t have to do anything tonight. Or any night, until you’re ready. I just want to be here with you. I just want to lie next to you and hear you breathe and know that you’re okay.”
He was looking at me with that expression he’d developed over the past weeks, part adoration, part disbelief, part desperate hope. The look of a man who couldn’t quite believe his luck and was terrified it might run out.
“I’m okay,” I said. “We’re okay.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m working on it.”
I reached for him, pulling him down beside me on the bed. He came willingly, stretching out on his side, his face close to mine on the pillow. We lay there for a moment, just breathing, just existing together.
“I’ve been wanting this,” I said. “Every time we’ve been together. Every date, every kiss. I’ve been wanting more.”
“Blair.”
“And I’m tired of being careful. I’m tired of waiting. I just want to feel you. I want to feel us, the way we used to be.”
“The doctor said.”
“The doctor said bed rest. She didn’t say I had to be celibate for eleven weeks.” I traced his jaw with my finger. “Unless you don’t want to.”
He laughed, a surprised sound. “I always want to. I’ve wanted you every moment of every day since you left. I just didn’t know if you were ready. If it was too soon. If you’d feel pressured.”
“Do I seem pressured?”
“You seem.” He studied my face. “You seem like you know what you want.”
“I do know what I want. I want you.”
He kissed me.
This wasn’t the desperate collision of the vineyard or the fierce reclaiming of my gallery opening.
This was different. His mouth moved against mine with infinite patience, with tenderness, with the unhurried attention of a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use every moment of it.
“Tell me if anything is uncomfortable,” he murmured against my lips. “Promise me. The baby.”
“I promise.”
His hands found the buttons of my nightgown, working them open slowly, one by one. I shivered as cool air touched my skin, as his fingers traced the curve of my neck, my shoulder, the swell of my breast.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“I’m enormous.”
“You’re carrying our daughter.” He pressed a kiss to my collarbone. “You’ve never been more beautiful.”
He helped me out of the nightgown, his movements careful and unhurried. I watched him look at my body, at the changes pregnancy had made, at the roundness of my belly and the fullness of my breasts and all the ways I was different from the woman he’d married ten years ago.
His expression held nothing but reverence.
He kissed my shoulder. My neck. The hollow of my throat. His mouth traced a path across my skin, relearning the geography of me, finding the places that made me gasp and the places that made me melt.
“Will.”
“I’ve got you. Just feel.”