Chapter Twelve: Understanding
The newlyweds were given the back compartment of the bus since it was more private. Kitty had said her goodnights and went to prepare for bed while Josh stayed with the guys. She went through her bedroom routine, then went to undress for the night.
While she had shopped for sensible touring clothes, she had come across something totally not sensible she thought Josh would appreciate. She shook out the long white silk nightgown. It was impractical considering how long she would actually wear it. Putting it over her head, she let it glide over her body. The thin straps holding it in place criss-crossed her back, fastening once again at her waist.
“Oh, sweetness…” Josh entered the small room and saw her virtually naked back exposed to him. He moved behind her, putting his hands at her waist. “You take my breath away.” His hands slid up her ribcage to gently mold her breasts.
She gasped softly when he found her nipples already eager for his touch. “Josh?”
“Yeah, Kit.”
“Do something for me.”
“Anything. I’ll do anything for you, baby.” His mouth played along her neck, making her quiver.
“Make love to me like you did this morning. I never knew it could be that way.”
“I’m sorry. I should have taken more care—“
Kitty turned to meet his gaze. “Don’t. Learn and move on. It’s what we both need to do make ‘us’ work.” She put one hand against his cheek. “We’re going to have to learn each other all over again.”
“I am so willing to learn you, sweetness.”
She took one of his large hands and placed it on her shoulder. When she guided it across her flesh, it pushed the strap of the gown from her shoulder, exposing her to him. “Learn me, Josh.”
It was all the invitation he needed.
“You took away my home, Josh – and you never gave me a choice,” Kitty explained as they lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. “I have never been so angry or hurt in my life.”
“I did realize that,” he told her. “That day you actually picked up when I called. It struck me how I must’ve seemed to you, like some bullying caveman. I had called to say I was sorry.”
“But I didn’t give you a chance.”
“I probably didn’t deserve it just yet. I was still thinking in ‘me’ terms, not ‘us’. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I’m not like that, not really. I don’t usually push—“
“I pretty much hated you.”
That hurt. Hate was a strong word. “I guess, since I saw no reason for us not to live together, I expected it to be my way.”
“No matter how I felt.”
“No matter how you felt,” he agreed sadly. “Then I began to realize little things. You loved the beach. Quon’s was just up the way. You liked the solitude—“
Kitty propped up on one elbow. “It was my home, Josh. It was the only real home I ever had – and I made it for myself. I thought it should be enough that I opened my home to you. No other man had ever been there. And you took it away, expecting me to sleep in a bed you shared with another woman.”
He nodded. “I’m seeing that now, sweetness. Honestly, it never occurred me to me that’s how you’d feel.” He rolled to his side to meet her gaze. “Of course, it never occurred to me that Robin would pay you a visit, either. I really did believe she was history.”
She trailed the back of her fingers along the side of his face in a tender gesture of acceptance. “She is history.”
“Is she really, baby?”
“As long as I don’t have be in a bed you…“ Kitty stopped short and stiffened.
Josh read her mind. “No, I’ve never been with her on this bus. Sweetness, I’m not that stupid.” He curled an arm around her shoulders to draw her to his chest. “None of us are in the habit of sleeping around on the bus. With you, it’s different, because we’re married.” Tipping her chin up, he gave her a long, lingering kiss. “I’m very married. Very happily, blissfully married.”
Kitty didn’t know if she could make the same claim yet. Josh was definitely getting a clear grasp of the problems, but they still knew very little about each other.
As if he sensed her doubts, he asked. “What else, Kit? Tell me what else I need to do?”
She shook her head. ”It’s not all you, Josh. I told you that. I have my own issues to work out.”
“Well, how can I help?”
Once again, she shook her head. “I have my own work to do.”
“Tell me, baby.”
“I’m too independent. I get – I don’t know…feeling suffocated when you call all the time. I’m not used to checking in—“
“Checking in? Sweetness, is that what you thought I was doing? Checking up on you? Baby, I’m sorry. That’s just the way I love—“
She put a hand over his mouth. “No. I’m sorry. I told you it was my problem, not yours. I realize most women would love to have a man dance so much attention on them. I’m just not used to it.” She smoothed his hair. “You are such an attentive lover, no one can fault you there.”
“Except you.”
“No. The fault isn’t yours. It’s mine. Please, blue-eyes, I didn’t say it to hurt you—“
“You just wish I’d quit calling you.” No wonder she had ignored his messages!
“No, I don’t. You’re always so sweet and dear. I’ve never erased a single message.”
“Me neither.” But if she had never erased any message, she had dozens!
“See? Now, you’re upset. I didn’t want to do that. I’m sorry I said a thing. I really am. I told you it was me, my problem – and now I’ve hurt your feelings. And I—“
His mouth stopped her tirade with a tender kiss. “My sweet, independent Kitty. Warts and all, remember?”
“Well, dissin’ the world most attentive lover seems stupid, not unattractive!”
Josh laughed. “Poor sweetness. I’ll try to restrain myself to every other day.”
“There’s always email and IM.”
“That’s nearly the same as the telephone.”
“Digital Getdown?” she suggested.
If he had to live with Kitty seducing him over a satellite feed, he’d die of a permanent hard-on! “Uh-no.”
“I can you know, with my laptop.”
“As tempting as it is, let’s save that for special occasions.”
“Like your birthday?”
“More like the day before we’re together.”
”Chicken.”
“Whatever,” he chuckled.
Kitty swung her body over his. “You too tired?”
He laughed. This was his bold baby! She had to have felt his body’s immediate reaction to her move. “Not where you’re sitting, I’m not.”
“You’re so easy.” Kitty leaned forward. “I love you, blue-eyes,” she whispered, lowering her mouth to his.
Josh raised his head to meet her halfway. “Sweetness, I do love you – so much, baby.”
“I lied,” Kitty admitted as she snuggled close after they had made love a second time.
“When did you lie, sweetness?” Josh had a hard time believing Kitty would deliberately tell an untruth, unless it was to spare someone’s feelings.
“Remember when we talked about how lovers played games?”
“Yeah.” She had cried for him, because he had been hurt by such games.
“Well, I did the same thing.”
“Never, baby.”
Kitty propped herself up on his chest. “When I left you. It hadn’t gone my way, so I walked away, punishing you.”
“That’s way different, Kit.” He smoothed the frown lines from her forehead with a gentle hand. “You did it out of self-preservation, not out of any real desire to mess with my head. I needed to be shaken up.”
“If I hadn’t been so set in my ways…I never had to explain myself or my rules before. I was convinced you knew and didn’t care.”
“One thing you aren’t is a game player. You’re the most forth-right person I have ever met.”
“I guess since I was so inexperienced I didn’t know men and women function under different operating systems.”
Josh chuckled. She made them sound like computers. “We do tend to see things differently,” he agreed.
“How did Pet know and I didn’t?”
“Pet’s parents had a bad marriage. Your parents worshipped each other. In her situation, she was bound to learn something about man/woman interactions.”
Kitty sighed and snuggled down again. “I suppose. I feel awful that I hurt you so badly.”
“You were hurting, too, sweetness. I’m just glad you loved me enough to give me a second chance.”
“I don’t know if I could have stayed away much longer. I felt like I was dying inside without you.”
”Amen to that.”
Josh closed his arms around her. She was doing all the apologizing tonight. He was the one who had done the major damage in the marriage, not Kitty. But being so very Kitty-like, she didn’t shift the burden from herself. To her, it seemed there was enough blame to share. She’d been too naive and independent. He’d been too blind and set on having his own way. It had made for a disastrous combination when neither one of them felt the need to communicate with the other. “Baby, make me a promise.”
”If I can.”
“If something I’m doing is hurting you or making you mad, promise you’ll just come out with it. Don’t think I see and don’t care. Because no one cares more for you than I do. Just assume I’m a stupid male.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. There was that impish gleam he had missed. “Okay.”
Kitty settled back against his chest and closed her eyes. “Night, blue-eyes.”
“G’night, sweetness.”
It felt so good to drift off to sleep in each other’s arms and know in the morning they would wake in the same manner.
Josh found a crumpled envelope with his name written across it on the floor of their bus bedroom. It must have fallen from Kitty’s purse. She’d written him a letter and never mailed it? He warred with himself. If she had wanted him to read it, she would have given it to him. What if somewhere in the text he learned more about what went wrong? He knew some of it. What if Kitty was letting him off easy, not telling him all of it? He didn’t want either of them to have to go through another angry separation. It was this argument that seemed to carry the most weight with him. He loved his wife. He needed her – and he needed to know how to keep her.
Taking a deep breath, he tore open the envelope and extracted the letter. Unfolding it the sheets of paper, he noticed what appeared to be dried tear splatters where the ink had run slightly. Kitty had been crying when she wrote it. The stationary was that of a hotel. Rather than stay at the house, she had checked into a hotel. He read the date – he was disheartened to discover it was written the very day he had left her to go back on tour, the day after he had closed her apartment. Kitty’s penmanship was usually neat and precise. This looked as if it had been written with a trembling hand. The mental picture of Kitty sitting alone in a hotel room, crying as she wrote, tore at his chest. He’d never been a thoughtless bastard – until he had broken the heart of the woman he had sworn to love and cherish before God. Where had his head been at?