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“What did she say?”
He shook his head. “She said she wasn’t worried about it. That she knew Cranston would ‘come around.’” With a shrug, he met her eyes in the firelight. “She made it clear she didn’t want me to confront him about it.”
“I wish you’d contacted me.” She held his dark gaze, wanting him to know she spoke truthfully. Notching her chin higher, she continued, “No matter our differences, I would have thought you’d know I’d be here if she needed help.” She hesitated, knowing he’d viewed her as shallow. Superficial. “Or if you couldn’t abide the thought of talking to me, you could have messaged one of my sisters.”
A log shifted in the fireplace, dimming the light in the room from bright golden to a dull orange.
“You’re right.” His response surprised her. “I should have gotten in touch with one of you.” His lips flattened into a thoughtful line before he spoke again, with slow deliberation. “With you.”
She hid the shiver that coursed through her at his words. Forcing a smile, she had to ask, “You really think I would have been the one you would have messaged?”
“Maybe not. But it should have been. You spent the most time here. It was obvious—even to me—you cared deeply about your grandmother.”
The recognition of that simple truth by someone who would never give her credit she didn’t deserve soothed a little of her unease about what she’d just learned. As much as it hurt that her grandmother hadn’t reached out to her, it also felt vindicating to have Drake recognize her commitment to the one person in her life whose love had been unconditional.
“Yes, I did.” She tucked a strand of her still damp hair behind her ear. The locks had curled, making it harder to smooth back. “But even so, I failed her. I should have done more for her, been here more.”
“Don’t say that.” A reassuring hand fell on her knee, giving her a gentle squeeze. “Take it from someone who has chased himself through all seven levels of hell since losing loved ones. You can’t spend your life regretting things you did or didn’t do while they were here.”
The grit in his tone told her that wisdom had been hard won. Painful. And, knowing the loss of his parents had to have been extremely traumatic, she slipped her hand over his where it rested on her knee.
“I’m sorry you’ve done that.” She would have never guessed he’d have regrets about anything. He’d been all of eighteen when they died, and he’d always seemed like a model son, working the family ranch from childhood. “I’m sure your parents would be incredibly proud of you to see all you’ve accomplished here. Making the ranch a model of good environmental initiatives. Swooping in to save the local diner. Trying to keep your neighbors safe from unscrupulous tenants.”
It meant a lot to her that he’d kept an eye on Gran, even if he hadn’t contacted Fleur when he’d worried about Antonia. That he’d looked in on her touched Fleur. And suggested there was more to this man than she’d ever allowed herself to believe.
“I’d like to think they’d be proud of the choices I’ve made since...since then.” His attention dipped to their joined hands, and she wondered if he took comfort from her touch, or if the contact stirred the same things in him that it did for her. “But at the time, I wasn’t always the best son.”
She guessed the quiet admission was one he hadn’t made often. Maybe ever.
The room seemed unnaturally still, the only sound their breathing now that the fire had settled into a dull glow. Outside, the rain had eased into a steady, softer rhythm.
Something about the regret in his words plucked at so many of her own sore places. She understood how it felt to disappoint people you cared about. She was surprised that he did, too.
“Drake—”
He wrenched his head back up to meet her eyes again. “It’s okay, Fleur. I’ve made peace with the past. Mostly. I just mean to say that there’s no need to blame yourself.”
She understood what he hadn’t said. That he didn’t want her comfort. He only wanted to give some. Which seemed in keeping with what she knew about this strong man, who’d not only ruled over a financial empire since he was eighteen but grown it.
Still, she hadn’t expected this kindness from him after their acrimonious past. And she sure hadn’t expected to be, for all intents and purposes, holding his hand right now while they sat side by side on her grandmother’s couch.
Telling herself she needed to pull back now, before his dark eyes mesmerized her any more, she flexed her fingers to free them from his.
Just as his thumb circled a spot on the inside of her knee.
Slowly. Deliberately.
And if that didn’t have her melting inside, then the twin flames in his eyes would have done the job. The electric connection that had been leaping between them all day—or, who was she kidding, ever since she’d returned to Catamount—returned with a vengeance.
She’d run fast and hard from it before tonight, telling herself that she didn’t like Drake Alexander. That she didn’t want to get involved with her ex-fiancé’s brother. The one responsible for splitting up a relationship at a critical time in her life.
But right now, in the quiet living room with her guard down, her fears exposed and Drake looking at her like she was the answer to all his questions, she couldn’t run anymore.
She didn’t want to. This man had bulldozed right through her defenses, destroying the aloofness that had been her salvation in the past.
Part of her wanted to tell him as much. To rail at him for the confusion he made her feel. To blame him for showing her this side of him she hadn’t known existed. But when she opened her mouth to say so, she found herself asking, “What are we doing?”
The words curled like paper in a fire, thin and disintegrating under the heat of need that had been building for weeks.
