Fireside by Susan Wiggs (pdf e book reader txt) 📗

obvious now, and she could feel the weight of it, pressing on her. She unlocked the door and walked straight through the room, out to the balcony. It would be too distracting to talk to him with the big, cushy bed just sitting there, looking so inviting.

The night air bit at her, and she welcomed its sting on her cheeks; it completely counteracted the effects of the champagne she’d drunk at the reception. From this vantage point, she could see couples bundling into the horse-and-carriage rides in lamp-lit Central Park. It seemed terribly romantic, but she didn’t let herself dwell on romance. Not now.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

“I’m taking AJ to Texas,” Bo said quietly.

It meant something that he didn’t bother to equivocate, just let her have it. She swallowed the lump in her throat, the one that had been building since he’d acted so strange in the elevator. Yet there was a note of regret in his voice, in the way he carried himself, the set of his jaw, that caused her to brace herself. She couldn’t speak, though. There was nothing for her to say. She waited.

“It’s something I have to do,” he continued. “For AJ. I got a few weeks before training starts in Florida, and I…just have to do more for Yolanda. AJ—he’s fading away before my eyes, and it’s killing him. It’s killing me. He has to be with his mother.”

She’d never seen Bo like this, so intensely serious. “How will that work? Are you saying you’re taking him to Mexico?”

He raised his hands as if to touch her, then took a step back, lowering his arms. Why wouldn’t he touch her? It was all she could think about, his arms, holding her, hands caressing her. Yet now he seemed curiously distant.

“Is everything all right?” she asked. “You’re scaring me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to act all weird. Bringing Yolanda back for good—that’s the only thing I can think of that will save AJ.”

“You’ve been trying to do that since day one. What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to marry his mother.” He wore a look of absolute conviction, which was only underscored by the pain in his eyes.

The world tilted. Kim wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard. But she couldn’t. She suddenly knew exactly what the plan was.

“I checked with Sophie,” he said. “It’ll work. But there are rules.”

“What kind of rules?”

“Forms to fill out—a visa petition, a hardship waiver. And…a two-year cohabitation condition. It’s to make sure this is a bona fide marriage, not just a fast lane to a green card.” He paused, waiting. “Talk to me, Kim. What’s going through your mind?”

A hundred things—What about me, about us? How much does our love matter? She didn’t ask those things, though, because ultimately, the thing that mattered most was AJ.

“I understand,” she said at last. And she did, on one level. On another, she was devastated. Her heart was stunned. She couldn’t quite feel it in her chest. Yet she knew when the numbness passed, she would feel it shatter.

“Then you understand what it means for us.”

She was barely able to keep herself together. She was shivering, not just from the cold but because everything was changing, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it. “There’s no ‘us.’ There can’t be,” she said.

He nodded, his eyes dark with pain. “I do love you, Kimberly. More than words can say. But I won’t ask you to wait for me. I can’t ask it of you. I won’t. You deserve better.”

He was right, absolutely, even though everything about this felt wrong. Still, she didn’t argue or try to change his mind. The old Kimberly would have had a fit, insisted on finding a better way, a way that kept her needs in the forefront. She wasn’t that person anymore. This was bigger than herself, her desires. AJ’s need was greater than her own. Yes, she could see how far the boy had come. He’d improved in school, learned new sports, made new friends. But when she looked into his eyes, even when he was smiling, she saw an emptiness there, one that had grown even more pronounced since the news of his mother’s deportation. If there was a chance to save this boy, then Bo had to take it.

“I’m so sorry, honey.” He studied her through pain-filled eyes. “Please say you’ll forgive me one day.”

She felt a flash of anger, quick and hot, but it passed in an instant. None of this was his fault. He was only trying to do what was best for his son. And they had all known from the start that what AJ needed most was his mother.

“There’s nothing to say,” she told him. Don’t cry, she warned herself. Don’t make this harder than it already is.

“Kim, I’m sorry—”

“You don’t need to be. I’m proud of you for doing whatever it takes to help AJ.”

“I’m just trying to do right by my boy. I, uh…there’s something else.”

She waited again, knowing from the expression on his face that it wasn’t going to be more happy news.

“Under the circumstances, it’s probably better if we don’t work together.”

The irony was hard to miss. This wasn’t the first time she had been dumped and fired in the same conversation. Yet the circumstances could not be more different. With Lloyd, there had been ugliness and malice. With Bo, there was mutual concern for a child and the knowledge that there was only one choice to be made. She floated in a strange moment of suspension between the world before her and what might have been.

Let it go, she told herself. Let it go.

She couldn’t speak, but managed to nod her assent.

“I have to go now,” he said. “Lots to do.” He offered a smile that was tinged with sadness. “I love you, Kim. I wish…” He paused, started again. “I’m so damned sorry.”

She nodded again, found her voice. “You should go,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you.”