Forever My Love by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

brush.
    â€œYou’re right!” she snapped. “There was nothing to stay for, nothing at all.”
    Tears were nearly blinding her. She left him and hurried below. He did know what he was doing. He could fend for himself.
    She entered the first cabin and fell upon the bunk, clenching her teeth hard to hold the emotions surging inside her at bay. She didn’t want to remember, she hated to remember. Maybe it had all started with the television today, maybe Brent’s last words really had very little to do with it. But it was all there, rushing over her.
    Ryan had been so little. Just two months old. And they had tried for him for so long, Kathy becoming concerned, Brent telling her that trying was the most fun in the whole world. And then they’d had him and he’d been the most beautiful little boy in the world, with huge blue eyes and dark blond curls, and they’d all adored him, Shanna included. But then the night had come when he should have started crying at his feeding time and Kathy had lain there awake smiling, just waiting. She waited and waited, then she got up and walked down the hall to his room and to his crib. She found him lying on his stomach, his little rump up in the air, as he slept so very often.
    But when she reached for him, he was cold. So cold. She turned him over and his tiny lips were blue, and it was then that she started to scream.
    In seconds Brent was down the hall and in the room. He shocked her into action and between them, they tried to revive him while Shanna called 911.
    There was nothing anyone could do. It was sudden infant death syndrome, the doctor explained, so tragic, a horrible loss, and only God could understand. And she had cried and cried and hated God with all her might, and Brent, immersed in the loss, had held her. He’d been the rock she so desperately needed.
    It was only later that she began to lose him, and she never saw it. Maybe she had begun to lash out first, maybe she’d been trying to crawl out of the lonely well of pain. Maybe she had wanted to fight because fighting made her feel as if they were still alive….
    â€œKathy.”
    She started, amazed to see him silhouetted in the doorway. She hadn’t turned on the cabin lights, and they were in darkness and shadow. She realized the engine had stopped.
    â€œBrent—”
    â€œIt’s all right. We’re hugging the coast and I’m anchored.”
    â€œYou’re sure—”
    â€œKathy, I’m sure. Honestly, I do know what I’m doing.” She could see the flash of his rueful smile in the darkness. “Maybe I haven’t been aboard this boat in a while, but I have been on others.”
    Yes, he had. He’d been on one in the video, with Marla Harrington draped all over him.
    He took a step into the room and sat on the bunk beside her. Before she could stop him, before she realized what he was doing, he reached out and touched her cheek, then rubbed his fingers together after finding the dampness there. Quickly she wiped away the tears.
    â€œKathy, I’m sorry, really sorry.”
    She wanted to speak quickly. She wanted to escape the close confines of the cabin. She didn’t want him so near, and she didn’t want him touching her because it all felt so natural and so right. She wanted him so badly, wanted to be held in his arms, wanted his kiss, wanted his naked body next to hers, wanted to make love…
    And it wouldn’t be right. It would be very, very wrong. It hadn’t been a casual affair that had ended, maybe to be resumed again. It had been their whole lives, and their lives had been shattered, and she wasn’t playing with that kind of fire ever again.
    â€œIt’s all right, Brent.”
    â€œYou’re crying.”
    â€œIt’s not your fault.”
    â€œIt is, and it was.”
    â€œNo, it was nobody’s fault, remember? That’s what they said.”
    â€œKathy, I didn’t