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I don’t worry about macho pride. I get right in, bumping up against her, and then spoon the hell out this woman. My woman.
But sleep evades me.
Headlights.
A BMW.
Stopping on the road in front of her property isn’t normal in the country. Not that spot. Not this time of night. It feels off. My instincts are wired on high alert. The problem is I’m not sure if I’m dealing with a threat from my past or a present danger.
I kiss the back of her head and tighten my hold on this angel of mine. Have I put her at risk by being here? What about my mom? Was it a mistake to come home?
It’s hard to think I made a mistake when I’m currently holding the one reason I survived the past few years. “Jason . . .”
My name breaks through the stormy clouds of my thoughts. “Yeah?” I reply softly.
“Please . . .”
That’s when I realize she’s still asleep. Sitting up, I hover over her and watch her face as it contorts in pain. Shit. I don’t want to hurt her. Not even in her dreams, or maybe she’s having a nightmare about me. I hurt her once, which I’ll regret forever. If I had just told her, but my planned surprise backfired before I could fix the damage my secret caused. Her dreams should be filled with the good memories, not the bad.
I run my hand over her arm, trying to comfort her.
“No. Please. Please, Cole. Don’t hit—” She balls up, her words choking in her throat as she starts to cry. “Jason. Help . . .”
What the fuck? “Delilah?” My voice is louder than I intend, firmer. I want to wake her up. Need to.
Air whooshes from between her lips, and her chest lowers just as her eyes open, but she remains quiet. “Are you awake?” I ask.
A hand covers her head, and her gaze finds me in the dark. “What’s wrong?”
She’s asking me? “You were having a bad dream.”
“Oh.” Her reply is flat, and she looks at the ceiling. “Sorry for waking you.”
“You didn’t wake me.”
She glances back at me, and sadness comes over her expression, sinking into the corners of her eyes. “Can’t sleep?”
“No.” I lie back, wondering what is happening with her, worried about her. Does this happen so much that she’s used to the abuse even in her sleep?
“What is it?”
“I hate that you have bad dreams.”
“They’re just nightmares. They’re not real.”
“But they were.”
She sighs. “Yes, Jason. They were, but they’re not anymore.”
I can dance around this wall she’s built, but I don’t want to be on the other side of it. “Can I ask you something that’s rattled me for years?”
“Sure.” She extends the word, dragging it out. Her eyebrows are knitted together as she narrows her eyes.
“I remember after I transferred, after we had broken up, I made a touchdown, winning the game. The team piled onto the field, tackling me with cheers in celebration. I knew you weren’t there.” Her body tenses, but I keep going. “I knew you weren’t there, but I looked across the track and then up into the stands anyway like a bad habit I couldn’t break. You know what happened?”
Hesitating at first, she takes a deep breath, then her eyes find the ceiling again. “What?”
“Delilah, you know what happened, so tell me.”
Her body molds to my side, but she keeps her head down. “I watched you score that touchdown. I watched your team lift you onto their shoulders. I watched the crowd cheer for you. I watched you.”
“I saw you. I ran as fast as I could, jumping a wall to get into those stands and work my way to the section where I’d seen you, but you were gone.”
“I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
“But you were.” I sit, turning my back and rubbing the bridge of my nose as I tried to understand what happened. “You were there for me and then you weren’t. Why?”
“Because Cole was playing, and I left his game to come to yours. I only needed to see you to breathe again, to feel whole, to feel what I’d missed. It was always so much better with you.”
I move to the end of the bed, needing some room to think. I have no energy as the emotional toll has wiped away all my strength. “Then why’d you stay in this town? You could have left. You could have gotten as far away from him as possible. I would have helped you. Fuck, I would have gone with you.”
When she doesn’t answer, I turn back. She’s leaning her head on the mattress, the pillow pushed behind her. The covers expose her shoulders, but she appears exposed in other ways—vulnerable—even in the dark. I want to help her, to fill in the words that hurt her too much to say, but the longer she remains silent, the more I start to realize that they won’t heal but hurt us both if spoken. I’m about to end the pain she’s reliving by the distance that’s taken over her gaze when she says, “He didn’t just hurt me after we got married.”
