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“You.”
Her shoulders rocked back like someone had shoved her. “Me?”
“You,” he said again.
“I mean,” she whispered, “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
That sent a blip of laughter through him. “Yeah, sweetheart,” he said. “I think I’ve noticed that.”
She grinned, sending another blip—though this one wasn’t filled with amusement. Nope. It was something deeper, something much more powerful, something stronger that settled…on his heart. “Just so we’re both clear.”
He chuckled. “Definitely clear.”
“Is it the fire?” she asked, suddenly quiet, suddenly serious. “I definitely had some nightmares afterward, and I was unconscious for most of my part in it. I imagine someone who walked through flames”—she reached across the space between their chairs and squeezed his knee—“I would imagine that someone who went through that wouldn’t necessarily sleep easily.”
Nightmares.
It wasn’t that—or if it was, he wasn’t consciously aware of dreaming about the fire.
It was more…if he woke in the middle of the night, woke enough that he didn’t roll over and fall right back asleep—
Well, fuck.
“I still feel the heat on my skin.” Her hand shifted from his leg to his arm, fingers brushing lightly over the scars he now bore there as a result of carrying her and his brother from the burning building.
Nothing like hers.
But a permanent reminder of what he’d almost lost.
“You could have died,” she whispered. “And Caleb could have too.”
“Yeah.” He covered her hand. “Andyou.”
That sent her rocking back, settling in her chair, staring up at the sky, going quiet for a long moment. “A few months—hell, even a couple ofhoursago, I wouldn’t have thought that was a bad thing.” A beat as he resisted the urge to shake her, to see herself for what she was—good, smart,Raven. “I would have thought better me than someone else. Better me gone when I only take and bring pain and come with the baggage of my parents, my upbringing.”
“Sweetheart,” he began, rage and sympathy fighting a silent battle inside him.
This beautiful, wonderful woman who’d been through so much thoughtthat?
“But,” she said before he could figure out if he wanted to throttle or kiss her, “that was before my daily dose of Aunt Pat therapy.” She turned back to face him, lips turned up. “I’ve been reflecting—though she tells me I have some more of that in my future.” A breath. “And I should probably do it with a mental health professional. Mostly”—her voice dropped—“because I’m…I’m tired of thinking that crap.”
He scooted his chair toward hers, not stopping until their legs tangled. “I’m saying this as your friend.”
The pain left her eyes. “And the man who wants to take me on a date?”
Somehow, amusement was filling his belly. It shouldn’t be, not when she’d piled on more crap to the revelations from the previous night.
But she was staring at him, here and whole, open and warm, her lips curved.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
Her eyes slid away, then back, and she exhaled. “That freaks me out.”
“I figure,” he said, cupping her jaw, “you joking about it is the first step.”
“To what?”
He leaned in, close enough he could smell her hair, could feel her breath on his lips, could see each of her individual eyelashes.
