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I cleared the side of the house—and groaned when I saw that Burke had driven back already.
Settling a hand over my chest, I paused and took a few deep breaths. He had no clue why I’d left or what had gotten me so upset. Hitting him with any of it wasn’t smart.
No one was askinghimshit like this.
Probably because compartmentalizing was one of his superpowers. He had me perfectly contained in the box that I’d put myself in. He was the one respecting the lines I’d drawn.
My heart started racing again. This was the part I couldn’t bring myself to tell Daphne.
I wanted to be this badass, carefree woman who could sleep with him and not risk my heart. But now I wasn’t sure that would ever be me.
Maybe it was stupid and childish to think that all the other things we were doing somehow kept me safer.
But I did believe it.
I still didn’t know much about him.
Burke, for all intents and purposes, was made up of very specific snippets from various aspects of his life.
I knew he adored his sister and her kids, but he’d never once talked about whether he wanted kids of his own.
I googled him once and found out he’d been married for a few years after college, and it was hard for me to piece that together with the man in front of me.
I knew he hadn’t walked away from the Campbell House, no matter how badly he’d wanted to.
He grieved his friend deeply, another snippet that made him who he was.
But I didn’t know what it was like to wake up with him. To feel the weight of his body on top of mine. To kiss him.
I had so many pieces of Burke Barrett, but it was the ones I didn’t have that I kept thinking about. Those pieces seemed like the most dangerous ones to my heart.
When I walked into the carriage house, he was looking through a box on the table. He eyed me briefly. “Daphne must’ve really pissed you off.”
I exhaled a laugh. “She does that sometimes.” I shrugged. “Family, you know?”
He nodded. “Tansy does that to me on occasion too.”
The box was large, and I couldn’t see what was inside it. “What’s that?”
Burke’s face was stoic as he pulled back a layer of packing material. He pulled out a small envelope and stared at it. “It’s some stuff Tansy sent me. Not sure why, since she knows I’m going back soon.”
That was in three days, but who was counting?
“Maybe she thought you’d forget?” I asked.
He glanced back up, his lips hooking to the side in a crooked smile. Burke set down the envelope and then touched something inside the box.
I walked closer—and gasped. “Oh my gosh, is that the quilt you told me about?”
He didn’t move at first, his eyes locked on the black-and-white pattern on the front of the blanket. It looked so much like the tile pattern we’d picked. Finally, he nodded.
“You said your mom made this?” I gently traced the stitching along the top. “She was really talented.”
“I don’t even remember her,” he said quietly. “Dad told us that she made this blanket when she was pregnant with Tansy. I didn’t get one; she was just learning how to do it.” Burke blew out a hard breath. “I don’t know why she sent this to me.”
I wanted to say that maybe it was so he could put it in the house. Hang it on a wall somewhere as an heirloom piece. Or fold it up by the couch in the den so it could keep someone warm on a winter night.
But I had a feeling he didn’t want to hear either suggestion.
