“Want a chip?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“You used to love them.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He grunted.
Well, this conversation was going well.
She bit her lip, wincing. They were still chapped and painful. Aleki obviously spotted her grimace because he opened the top drawer beside her bed and pulled out some Chapstick.
She gasped at the sight of his hand. It looked swollen and the knuckles were red. She hadn’t noticed it earlier.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Had a disagreement with a dumpster,” he replied. “Wolfe got this for you earlier.”
“That was nice of him.”
He snorted. “Nice isn’t a word I’d use to describe to Wolfe. But he’s always been observant.”
She reached for the Chapstick but he held it back, away from her. She gave him a shocked look. It wasn’t like Aleki to be petty or mean.
“Just lie back. Let me.”
Confusion filled her, but she lay there as he painted the Chapstick on her dry lips.
“I can do it myself.”
“I know.” He put the lid back on and tucked it into his pocket instead of away in the drawer.
“So why?”
“Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you can’t let someone else help you?”
“But . . . I . . . I’m so confused.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Good to know.
“I’m sorry about your husband,” he said suddenly.
“Thank you.” She felt ill thinking about William. He was dead. And all she cared about was her safety. And the safety of these three men. Did that make her awful?
“When Caleb saw he’d died, he got a bad feeling. Wanted to find you. I made him wait. I didn’t want to find you.”
Ouch.
“I thought that we would get here and that you’d be fine. But if we hadn’t waited to come find you then you wouldn’t be in this state . . .”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s my fault you suffered for longer than you should have. So if I need to take care of you to make up for that, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
To assuage his guilt.