Do You Take This Maverick?

“That was the whole point,” she informed Levi. “After the wedding we were supposed to spend some quality time together,” she insisted. “My grandparents were taking care of Bekka. You and I were supposed to spend a nice, romantic evening together.”

“How was I to know that? You didn’t tell me,” Levi pointed out.

Claire stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t have been that thickheaded—could he?

“I shouldn’t have to tell you,” she cried. “You’re supposed to have wanted that on your own, not had me force-feed you your lines or hold up a cue card for you.”

The only way he could think to backtrack out of the potential explosion in the making he saw coming was to apologize. So he gave it a shot.

“Look, if I messed up, I’m sorry—”

“If? If?” Claire echoed incredulously. “You most certainly did mess up, no if about it.”

She was getting him exasperated again, hitting the ball totally into his yard and then not allowing him to retrieve it or hit it back. He should have expected as much, he thought.

Mentally, Levi counted to ten, telling himself that he had to be calm or he would wind up losing any chance he had to get Claire back.

To get Bekka back.

He missed them both like crazy.

“Claire,” he said as evenly as possible, “I’m trying to apologize here.”

Her eyes were like small, intense laser beams, trained on his every move. “I’m glad you told me because I wouldn’t have known otherwise,” she informed him.

“You’re making it really hard to be nice to you,” he told her, his anger getting the best of him, at least for the moment.

“Then don’t bother,” Claire snapped coldly. She was forced to raise her voice because Bekka had started to wail again. The increased volume only made the baby cry more. “Because it’s not going to get you anywhere. Apologies have to be sincere, and I can see now that every single word out of your mouth is nothing but a fabrication, a lie.”

“What are you talking about?” Levi cried, completely confused. “When have I lied to you?”

Claire tossed her head, wanting desperately to get away from him and wanting, just as desperately, to never have gotten to this point in the first place. This wasn’t the way she envisioned her life when she’d watched Levi slip the ring on her finger two years ago.

“You said you loved me,” she accused.

“How is that a lie?” he wanted to know. “I do love you.”

“No, you don’t!” Claire cried. “If you loved me, you’d be home more often at night and you certainly wouldn’t have picked poker over me.”

He closed his eyes, searching for strength. How did he get through to her? “That again,” he retorted. “I didn’t pick poker over you—”

“Oh, someone put a gun to your head then, telling you to deal or they’d blow your brains out, is that it?”

“It wasn’t a choice between you and poker,” Levi insisted. How could she possibly think that? “You’re not in the same league.”

Was that supposed to make her happy? Claire looked at her husband coldly, doing her very best not to allow her mind to drift, to make her think back and relive exciting, intimate moments with him just because of their proximity. “Thanks.”

Her icy tone ripped through him, and Levi threw up his hands in total disgust. “I just can’t win with you, can I?”

“No, because I see right through you,” she informed him, her voice cold enough to freeze a cup of hot coffee. Just then, as if she was aware that she had lapsed into another long, quiet moment, the baby began to cry. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve agitated the baby,” she accused.

“Me?” he said, stunned at the way she could shift blame onto someone else’s shoulders so easily. “You’re the one who’s shouting.”

Claire made no effort to back down or back off. The baby grew louder with each passing second. “If I’m shouting it’s so I can get the words through your thick skull.”

He sighed, shaking his head and struggling not to have his temper snap. “You’re impossible.”

“Right back at you!” she retorted.

Levi strode away before he said something he was going to regret and couldn’t take back.

“That’s right,” she taunted, hurling the words at his back. “Run. That’s all you ever do. You’re never willing to talk things out, to own your mistakes. It’s just easier for you to run away from any confrontation.”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, Levi counseled himself, afraid that if he did open his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to control the words that would come flying out. There was no doubt about it. Claire knew how to press all his buttons. Press them until he believed that all the negative thoughts she was spouting and hurling at him were his own, and all the detrimental things that Claire had said against him she actually believed to be the gospel truth.

There was a child to think of, Levi reminded himself. He couldn’t just put this all behind him and walk out. Besides, he didn’t want to. What he wanted was his life back.

Not today, Wyatt. Not after that little run-in, a voice in his head mocked him.

But where did that leave them?

They were at an impasse, he thought. But one of them was going to have to give in if this was ever going to be resolved.

Walking away, Levi paused for a second to look over his shoulder at his wife and daughter. Even as angry as she made him, he couldn’t help thinking how much he’d missed having them in his life.

How empty his life seemed with the realization that he didn’t have them to come home to anymore.

That had to change.

But how?

He wasn’t about to come crawling over to her side. After all, a man did have his pride.

But pride was a cold thing to take to bed with him, Levi thought unhappily.

Besides, there had to be more to this. She couldn’t be this angry over a stupid poker game—could she? He needed to get her to do more than just shout at him. He had to get her to come around—and really talk to him about what she was feeling,

Squelching the desire to march back to her, take her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot all about this stupid argument and all the stupid things she was saying to him, Levi forced himself to keep walking.

This was all probably just a ruse on her part anyway. Her so-called accusations were just an excuse she was using to stay away from him because she was disappointed in him.

He’d failed her somehow, and by failing he’d inadvertently shown her that he just wasn’t good enough for her. That he couldn’t give her the kind of comforts she had grown up with. Even if he tried to approximate the kind of life she’d had before she married him by working his way up the ladder and earning more money, she complained that he was never home. And if he kept the hours that she wanted him to, if he was home earlier, then he couldn’t give her any of the things she’d come to expect in her day-to-day life.

Either way, Levi thought glumly, he was doomed.

He had to get his priorities straight. He needed to find a way to fix all this and soon, otherwise, he was going to lose her for good.

Levi didn’t know how much longer he could put up with living without his girls. Living without seeing Claire and Bekka every day.