To Have and to Hold Read Online Free Page B

obediently swelled to downright—or, erm, upright—enthusiastic.
    Twelve years ago, give or take, he’d followed his dick into bed with Dee. They’d been in basic together, and she’d pursued him, and he’d been flattered. They hadn’t been the only pair to ignore the absolute injunction against fraternization.
    If a little part of him had known that he didn’t feel about Dee the way Dee felt about him, that part had been a whisper drowned by the fun and ease of regular, ready sex, the drama of doing the forbidden, and the appeal of being one of the few men he knew who was actually getting laid.
    Then Dee had gotten pregnant—
    And they’d had to get married. No choice, not in the army.
    Slowly he’d realized. He’d sorted out what was sex and what was love. His emotions caught up to his libido. And it turned out his libido had been overeager and misguided, egged on by circumstance. But by then, he was married with a kid, committed to a lifetime. He’d accepted that—embraced his reality. He had vowed to be the best husband and father he could possibly be.
    But it had niggled at him, the constant sense that there was something missing, that there was more to life, something he might never have a shot at. He’d wanted to be a better, more generous, more loving spouse and parent, but he’d often found himself wondering what the road not taken looked like.
    And despite his best intentions, he and Dee had failed each other in tiny ways every day—death by a thousand cuts—until they were both worn down.
    Since then, he’d been wary of moments like these, when the balance of power was all wrong, all in his hands. When a woman was willing, even eager, even though they both knew he couldn’t give her what she ultimately wanted. When she was interested in more, and he wasn’t.
    But he’d been interested in Trina once.
    Could it happen again?
    He searched his soul for a sign, but all he got back were the demands of his body.
    Maybe if he hadn’t been so tired. Maybe if his head hadn’t begun to pound. Maybe if he felt some faint tingle of
real
recognition, some sparking synapses, alerting dormant emotions.
    But all he had was the sense that maybe another man in a better state of mind, at a different place, in a different time, might have made a different decision. And all he had to offer were two words that he knew, absolutely knew, weren’t the words she needed to hear.
    “I’m sorry.”

Chapter 4
    In a daze, she went back to the guest room—white eyelet lace and pale blue walls that had been Dee’s taste, not Hunter’s—and tried to think. It was like trying to push her thoughts through molasses.
    I’m sorry
.
    The realization that Hunter
couldn’t
, rather than
wouldn’t,
give Trina what she wanted had tempered her anger, and all that was left now was grief. She’d had her heart broken once before, but she’d forgotten how sharp the pain was, and how specific. Right
there
, as if something were literally split open. And a sensation like every part of her was begging the world,
Don’t really be happening this way
. Reaching for something receding into darkness.
    Through the bog of her mind, a conviction leapt into clarity.
    She had to tell Phoebe.
    Climbing the stairs, too, felt like forcing herself through something viscous and resistant.
    “Phoebs, can I talk to you for a sec?”
    Both girls were facedown on their respective bunk beds, reading. When they weren’t playing some kind of elaborate game they’d invented—usually something to do with improv or theater—or outside in the yard working on softball skills, this was where they were. When Hunter had first left, it had taken awhile for them to see that they couldn’t play together 24/7, that they would need downtime from each other, but now they sought it out as easily and as naturally as any two siblings who’d lived their whole lives under the same roof.
    Phoebe, old enough now to scent danger, looked up from her book, her eyes