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Both of her hands wrapped in warmth drew her back to the present and she stared into one pair of gray eyes and then into a pair of brown eyes, both filled with concern.
Embarrassment filled her when the tears on her cheeks began to cool and she tried unsuccessfully to jump up from the couch. “I must look a mess.”
Hank took a white, neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s clean.”
She used it to dab the smeared mascara and eyeliner, feeling even more embarrassed. Lord, the sight I must make, blubbering like an idiot.
Hank ran his hand down her back, dragging his fingers through the strands of her hair, and the effect was immediately calming. “Nika, I don’t know what memory Travis dredged up to make you feel this way but it wasn’t anything he did or said, was it?”
She shook her head. “No. Oh my God, no. It was the aftermath of his visit to the house, back when I was a teenager.”
Travis growled softly. “She’s talking about those two putzes who were in her house the second time I came over. Friends of your brothers?”
“Yes. And Brent’s as well.”
The muscles in Travis’s jaw bunched. “I had a feeling about them. I didn’t mean to dredge up painful memories, Nika. I brought that day up because I wanted you to know how I viewed you back then.”
“How did you see me?” It couldn’t possibly be worse than how she’d viewed herself and what had happened to her when she’d gone in the house, and she couldn’t make herself feel any worse than she already did.
“I noticed the way your hair sparkled in the sunlight. That was how I knew for sure it was you when I saw you earlier at the wedding. When I met you the first time, you slipped off your glove and shook my hand. Your hand in mine felt fragile but strong. I thought you had elegant hands and I was glad you wore gloves to protect them from the cold.”
“They ache if they get too cold. I wear gloves all the time in Montana.”
Hank lifted her hand and stroked his fingertips over her knuckles and the tendons on the top. He smiled and said, “Pretty. Delicate.” She couldn’t meet his gaze for very long when he looked into her eyes.
Travis said, “I thought your eyes were the color of cinnamon, Nika. And I don’t know where you got the idea that you were fat, unless it was from your snotty stick-thin sister and your thin-as-a-rail mom, but I damn sure did like the way you filled out that green sweater and those Wranglers. Let me guess, you’re the only one in your family with curves and they treated you like you were a glutton, never factoring in genetics.”
She nodded and then looked up into his eyes. “You remembered what color sweater I was wearing?”
Travis licked his lower lip and smiled. “Yeah, I did. It was a nice color on you and like I said, I liked the way you filled it out. But…I was thirty and you were off-limits.”
“I guess so. I…I really liked you. You listened to me and you cared when I told you about the eagle. And you didn’t get defensive when I was mad about having to wait until the next day. You were patient with me.”
She sat up and relaxed against the couch, not realizing how she’d curled herself up into a defensive posture as those ugly memories had flooded through her earlier.
Moved to make some kind of offering to him, to thank him for understanding, she said, “You wouldn’t believe how shaky I was when I got up the guts to call you that day. Sometimes those ugly memories steal the years and overshadow everything else that was good that day, you know? I feel like I’m right back where I was.”
Hank said, “You were teased a lot by your family members?”
Veronica cleared her throat and chose her words carefully. “I think they might not view it that way. I’m pretty sure my mom saw it as some sort of behavior modification for overweight introverts. Since my sister, Addison, took after my mom physically, she jumped on the bandwagon with her.”
“What about your brothers and your dad?”
“Dad wanted peace and to not be handed any problems to deal with. Jesse and Barry are a couple of years older than me, and I think they just wished I was an extrovert like them and the others. They once told me that the teasing would toughen me up, so they’d echo whatever mom said. I learned after a while that I’d never make any of them happy with me. They’d never accept me. Well…except for Cord and Jackson.”
