“I think,” she said on a quiet breath, “I think I’m—tired of not being safe.”
The words felt like they were ripping something away. This was a secret that had been building inside her for a long, long time.
“I always wanted adventure. I still do. I’ve never wanted a boring life. Lynn...Lynn would be content to live in this house for the rest of her days, tramping through the Park with tourists, seeing the same people in town. Eating out at Oliver’s. That’s never been my dream.”
She blinked hard. “But I think the price is too high! I don’t have much money. When I was twenty, I was happy to hop a Greyhound and see where it took me, to go off with a boy who had a nice smile and see what we could find together. But the other side of that is—you end up i
n a city you don’t know, with no job. The boy could hurt you, or lie to you. Or get you pregnant and abandon you the second he finds out.”
At that, Nate came forward the last long strides, so quickly she almost didn’t process what was happening until he’d pulled her into an embrace.
Stella melted. Any resolve she’d had to stay away from this man disappeared instantly, and she pressed herself against his long, lean body and let herself be wrapped up in his warm, strong arms.
His hands clenched tight at her back, and Stella relaxed into his grip, knowing deep in her soul that this was safety, right here. Her lynx purred.
A second later, it was all snatched away.
Nate let her go just as quickly as he’d grabbed hold of her, almost stumbling as he backed several steps away. His blue eyes were wide and wild. “I apologize.” His words were sharp, staccato. “That was the most unprofessional—I shouldn’t have touched you without your permission. I won’t do it again.”
Stella felt cold. Her thoughts were slow, crawling into her head after the internal cry of No, don’t go! faded into the background. She wanted to protest, to tell him that it was completely fine, that he shouldn’t be apologizing.
But he was right. It was unprofessional. And he’d been operating out of sympathy, it was clear. He felt sorry for her—he’d been giving her a comforting hug.
And she’d latched onto him like he was her last hope of heaven. He’d probably pulled back once he realized how she’d plastered her entire body to his, like they were lovers instead of a—a security professional and a client.
So she didn’t ask him to please just do that again. Instead, she mustered up every ounce of self-control she had, and said, “It’s all right,” in a steady, even voice. “Thank you. I was just a little...overwhelmed.”
“No, I think that was me,” he said wryly, and Stella thought, wait, what?
But he kept going before she could really process what that might mean. “Do you want to come sit with me in the front room? Until you’re ready to go back to sleep, anyway. It might make you feel safer.”
Stella leapt on the chance to keep talking, to stay near this warm, comforting presence, instead of going up to her cold, sweat-damp sheets. “That would be lovely. Oh, but you must want to go back to sleep yourself. Sorry, I can’t be that selfish.”
Nate shook his head. “No, no. Now that I’m up, I’ll be up for a while. Can’t help it. You’d be keeping me company.”
Well, in that case...”All right. I’ll make tea.”
His teeth flashed in a grin. “Sounds wonderful.”
She hadn’t expected him to want any. Most men she knew disdained tea as an old lady drink. Maybe he was just being polite. “Or something else? A beer?”
But he shook his head, still smiling. “I like tea. It’s soothing. Reminds me of my mom.”
His mom the church lady. There would have been a lot of tea in his house, growing up, if Stella knew her church ladies.
Stella went and started the water boiling, looked through the cabinets for the chamomile.
“I remember my grandmother doing this, when I was young,” she said, not knowing where the impulse to speak had come from. “Everything's in exactly the same place as it was then.”
“Your sister kept everything as it was, then?” Nate asked.
Stella smiled to herself. “Almost everything. Lynn likes things to be predictable, and she likes tradition. And she loved our grandmother so much. Her bedroom's still untouched, upstairs.”
“It must have been hard when she died,” Nate said, halfway to a question.
Stella nodded. “Harder for Lynn. We were both sad—she was the only real parent we had, growing up. Our dad left, and our mom died when I was a baby, so. And I grieved. It felt like the foundation of the world had been taken away. But for Lynn, it was almost like her entire world was gone. She wasn't sure what to do, without Grandmother around.” She smiled a little. “But I knew what to do. Grandmother wanted us to be happy. She wanted me to adventure—to be safe, but to experience the world. And so I did.”
The water was starting to boil, and Stella took the kettle off the heat before it could start to whistle and wake up the whole house. She poured tea into the two mugs, and held one out to Nate.