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Aiden dropped his chin to his chest, shielding his gaze from view. “You’re injured, Isabel,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “That’s not it.”
His head snapped up, but he didn’t argue.
The specter of his wife hung between us. I knew it.
“I know that’s not it.” My voice gained strength. “And I wish you’d explain it to me.”
Those eyes of his, I’d never seen any quite like them. A wordless answer hit me straight in the heart as he stared at me. I can’t. It was as clear as if he’d spoken the words out loud.
“Don’t tell me you can’t,” I told him quietly. “You won’t, and there’s a difference.”
My lungs didn’t work quite right as I gripped the knob on the bedroom door, and he disappeared from view, jagged bursts of oxygen making my whole chest ache. The door closed with a quiet click, and I sank against it for a moment.
I pushed off the door and walked into the bathroom, stripping off my clothes and letting them fall haphazardly onto the floor. As I slid into the water, I knew he wouldn’t come in. I wasn’t willing to pretend anymore, like I didn’t have big, scary feelings for this man. Twice now, I’d begged him to do something. And he hadn’t.
I had a feeling I knew why.
But I needed him to open up a little too. Not all the way, and not all at once. But if he was unwilling to give me anything, then I had to decide if I could make peace with that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Isabel
A few hours later, Emmett and I were ready to get home.
Well … Emmett wasn’t.
I sure was. My bath had revived me, and with the help of one more dose of Tylenol, even though my body was still sore, I could manage more easily. And as I’d moved around the kitchen after packing my backpack and making his bed, Aiden acted like there was a six-foot force field surrounding me that he wasn’t allowed to breach.
Breakfast was bagels (for the adults) and cereal (for the kids) because it wasn’t like Aiden had prepared for guests.
“I’m hungry,” Emmett told me, tossing a pine cone into the air and catching it. Logan and Paige would be there any minute.
“I told you you should’ve had a bagel.”
Tongue trapped between his teeth, he tossed the pine cone higher and darted to the side to catch it, but his hand-eye coordination was off, so it bounced off my head.
“Sorry,” he said with a grimace.
I brushed flecks of the pine cone off my hair, slicked back in a braid going down my back. “Hey, what’s one more head injury.”
Anya flew out of the front door and scrambled on my lap, where I sat on a white Adirondack chair that overlooked the front yard. She studied my face, her mouth twisting up in a thoughtful grimace when she looked at the bandage at my hairline.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Not too bad.” I gently touched the bottom of the butterfly bandage. “Itches a little, but I need to leave it on here for a few days.”
Her eyes, bright blue, and an entirely different size and shade as her father’s, met mine. Her mother’s eyes. My eyes came from my mother too, and I couldn’t help but think about how differently I might’ve felt if I liked seeing that reminder of her in the mirror. Anya would. And Aiden, every time he looked at his daughter, would see glimpses of the woman they lost.
Gently, I brushed her hair behind her ears.
“You don’t laugh a lot, do you?” she asked.
Her father had asked me something similar, and I struggled not to feel like I’d done something wrong by the repeated question.
I tapped her chin with my thumb, and it drew a smile. “I laugh more once you get to know me,” I told her.
