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Her dreams were simple: all she wanted was a husband to love. He didn’t have to be handsome or rich, just nice and understanding. A comfortable sort of man who wouldn’t mind her flaws and who would enjoy spending time with her, doing ordinary things. She wanted to make a home with him and bear his children. To have a place where she would feel safe and always belong.
Except for the waltzes; those are mine.
She’d created different categories for the thoughts she stored away. Worries About My Looks, Concerns About the Children, and Scary Thoughts in Social Situations, to name a few. Her favorite was the Bin of Blissful Ignorance, to which she’d consign all her troublesome thoughts if she could. She dumped her worry about her father, along with her concerns for Adam’s safety, into the When Men Refuse to Listen to Reason box—one that was frequently overflowing—and shut the lid.
“Besides, how do you know that this isn’t the real Adam Garrity?” Tessa’s head tilted thoughtfully. “Perhaps he secretly thought you were beautiful all along but never said it. Perhaps this new version is the real one and the previous one was fake.”
That, she saw with a flash of insight, was the true cost of having walls in her marriage. They provided security and a place to hide, yes…but they also allowed secrets to take root. Doubt and suspicion could flourish in the wake of those secrets, spreading like ivy and overrunning happiness.
To lay his claim on her so thoroughly that she would never doubt that she belonged to him, as he was now. Now and forever. He wanted this bonding to imprint itself upon his own mind as well: if and when his memory returned, he wanted his old self to never again take for granted the gift he’d been given.
Walking through fire had made her realize that although her marriage had satisfied the needs of the girl she’d been, the woman she was now yearned for more. Her dreams…they’d somehow changed along the way. She wanted more than security from her husband, wanted things that were risky and terrifying. Wanted these things so badly it hurt.
