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I walked into the mudroom and gestured for her to lead the way. With her head down, she took me into the kitchen.
“The furnace is in the basement,” she said quietly, not meeting my eyes.
I still didn’t speak. I pulled off my jacket and laid it over the back of one of the wooden backed chairs that circled the island. I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. When I looked up, she was staring at me.
“Do you have a lighter?” I asked, trying to ignore the look in her eyes. Her gaze shot from my arms back to my face.
“Uh, sure.” She turned abruptly and fumbled through one of the kitchen drawers. I didn’t imagine seeing her hands shake. When she found what she was looking for, I put my hand out, ignoring her flushed face and the way she dropped the lighter into my hand as if I’d bite her.
Lighting the pilot light didn’t take long. I was back upstairs in a matter of minutes.
“Gabriel’s man will be here this afternoon. The furnace needs to be serviced.”
Noemi nodded and didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how wise that was. I was still angry with her for her behavior last night.
Fuck that. I was angry with her for a lot of things.
I told her as directly as I could five years ago. “Get the fuck on that plane.” And yet, there she was, standing before me with her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes downcast, and dark brown tresses cascading past her shoulders as she hung in her head in shame.
My intuition screamed it to me. She was ashamed but she had something to say and was very afraid to say it. The anger I wanted to unleash on her bubbled over.
In two strides, I was standing over her, wrenching her chin up to look me in the eye.
Doe-eyed, she stared up at me. She started to open her mouth but closed it again. My grip tightened. Firm, but I wasn’t hurting her. Not yet.
“Do you have something to say, Noemi?”
I tried to bait her into an explanation of why the hell she had returned to Connecticut, but I wasn’t prepared for what she said as she looked into my eyes.
“I’m sorry.” She said the words so fast, so desperately, that I wasn’t sure what I heard.
“You’re what?” I leaned down to hear her, but when she repeated her words, her voice retreated to a whisper. She was frightened again, and the monster in me was happy about that.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes leaving mine to stare at my shirt collar. “About last night. I’m sorry.”
It made sense that she’d think I was referring to last night when I asked her if she had something to say. Did she apologize because she thought last night’s behavior was why I was angry with her? I decided to let her talk. See what she had to say for herself. My body was already responding to being so close to her, to the feel of her soft skin between my fingers, to the soft sugary-vanilla scent that made me hungry, but not for cookies and shit like that.
Awareness surged through me and I took an involuntary step closer to her. If I could get the blood pounding in my ears to calm down, I could hear what she had to say and decipher her whispers, butfuck me, I loved it when she whispered.
“Go on,” I urged her, loosening my grip and giving her my full attention. “Why are you sorry, Noemi?”
Her mouth parted, an involuntary reaction to hearing me say her name. I had rarely said it aloud over the years, but since last night, her name was in almost every sentence I spoke. It rolled off my tongue like a caress, like a firm hand over a woman’s hip, softly seeking a hidden treasure.
“Noemi?” I prompted when she didn’t answer, using the power of her own name against her.
Yes, I see you, baby girl.
I’ve always seen you.
Her name was a weapon and I wielded it again. “Very well, Noemi,” I began when she hesitated, “if you’ve nothing to add –” My hands fell to my side.
My instincts were right. Noemi grabbed for my arm as I released her. She held on tightly as if afraid I’d vanish without her touch.
“About last night.” Her hazel eyes pleaded up to me. “I’m sorry I was so bitchy last night. It was kind of you to take me home.”
I hadn’t come to her house for apologies, but if she was offering them, I’d get every one she owed me. “And?”
She blinked rapidly and tilted her head. Confusion puckered her brow.
