“It wasn’t a problem. I’m going to go, ah, read for a while. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
I feel her turn toward the living room, and one more step she’ll disappear from the kitchen.
“Devyn.”
I turn around, and she pauses, meets my eyes. I want to ask her if she feels it, or if I’m only imagining the pull between us. If I say something, will she blame the snowstorm? The close proximity? Will she say I wouldn’t feel like this if I hadn’t needed her help yesterday? That’s what Beau would say. That this is all made up because I haven’t been with a woman since Renata left me, that besides a nurse, she’s the only woman to touch me, and I’m lonely. There’s no reason not to believe it.
She saves me from having to say anything.
“We shouldn’t.” Her eyes search mine looking for concurrence.
But I don’t. “Because of how I look?”
I know what the accident did to my face, my body. Renata had been mywife, bound to me through sickness and health. She promised when she said her vows in front of our friends, family, and God, but that hadn’t been enough after seeing what happened to me.
Silently, she pads across the kitchen tile in her white socks and stands in front of me. With a trembling hand, she traces the scar that runs from my temple, down my cheek to my chin. The scar is raw and raised, puckered in places. The surgeon had done a good job with what she’d had to work with and after I healed, I had no complaints. I objected to plastic surgery; I deserve to look this way.
Her fingertips skim my skin, and her other hand rests gently on the unmarred side of my face.
She licks her lips, leaving a sheen of saliva.
I swallow, her touch setting the nerves in my skin on fire, but not from pain.
“Never because of how you look. We shouldn’t start something we can’t finish. I have responsibilities, so do you. How would it work?”
I stare into her green eyes, framed with blonde lashes she coated with dark brown mascara. It’s true, on many levels, that starting something now would only cause problems down the road. I may have accepted the blame for the accident, but I’ve come nowhere near facing it, fixing it. I made sure the families of the men whose lives were lost would never need for anything, but the site is abandoned and until Beau called me this morning, I had no plans to rectify the situation.
Her hands linger on my face, but she drops them when I say, “But you feel it.” I insist because I need the validation, the proof it’s not all in my head, that Renata hadn’t broken me, that she hadn’t ruined me.
I think she’s going to run away or lie, instead, she steps closer, rests her head on my chest and wraps her arms around my waist. She’s a little taller than Renata is, a little curvier in all the right places.
When I smooth my hands up and down her back, she looks up and says, “I feel it.”
Cupping the nape of her neck with my hand, I lower my head and press my lips to hers. A sigh escapes her mouth, her breath warm and gentle against my face.
I shouldn’t be doing this. She’s going to leave, and I’ll be back to where I was when Renata left me.
Lifting my head, I say, “What if I asked you to stay?”
She rubs her thumb over my lips. “I can’t.”
“You said you’re in debt. Is it money?”
She steps away from me, and she tugs her cardigan closer around her body. She’s shutting me out.
“Not all of it. I can’t lie, some of it is, but it’s not all of it.”
“Is it your boyfriend?” I can’t let it go. I want to know the truth. If she’s already attached, her rejection won’t hurt so much.
Huffing a quiet laugh, she says, “You don’t give up, do you? I don’t have a boyfriend. I was talking to my sister. I was telling her I missed her, and I spoke to her this morning too. She knows. She could hear it in my voice when I talked about you, and it scared her because she needs me. Talia’s several years younger than I am, and she’s had it rough the past few years. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for needing to take care of your family.”
“Thank you. I’m going upstairs.”
She lifts a hand and steps into the living room.