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“Didn’t think I’d get this tonight after what happened earlier.” I slid my own hand over hers and linked my fingers between hers.
“Who said you were getting any tonight?” she murmured.
I shook my head and pulled her arm tighter around me. “Not sex.” I squeezed her fingers once more. “This. You wrapped around me, your legs tangled with mine, the sweet scent of you invading every square inch of my senses.”
“Oh.” Her voice was low, barely more than a whisper. “Your bed’s just more comfortable than mine.” She tried to joke, but it fell flat.
She didn’t say anything further, and I listened to her breathing hitch over and over again for as long as I could stand. When I knew she wasn’t going to volunteer anything more, I pulled my hand from hers and turned so I could face her. It was dark in the room, but there was light from the hallway that Piper had left on filtering in, so I could make out her features. A single tear was sliding down her cheek and I swiped it away with the pad of my thumb.
“You wanna talk about it?”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Really, it was nothing.”
“Pippie, you drove up like you were the stunt double filming a remake of The Dukes of Hazzard. I’m pretty sure your car got up on two wheels.” I would have been impressed if she hadn’t been wild with terror when she’d jumped out of the car. “That was not nothing.”
“Am I not supposed to be concerned about you?” she sniped through a sniffle.
That sass…I coughed to cover my chuckle. “Concerned? Yes. Looking like a banshee because you were terrified? No.”
“So now I look like a crazy person? Gee, Lawson, you sure know how to make a girl feel good.”
She was deflecting. Avoiding. Doing anything she could to not answer why she’d been a near hysterical mess. I stroked a thumb over her soft cheek and brought my face so close to hers that our noses were nearly touching. “I know exactly how to make you feel good. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.” I brushed my lips over hers and then pulled my head back. “Talk to me.”
Her mouth opened and closed again, her teeth clacking together before she finally decided to confide. “I guess I just had flashbacks to the night when Jack…”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. I knew where her mind was. And I’d known since she’d clung to me at the scene of my accident that she was freaked because of the way she’d lost her brother. But I wanted to hear her say it.
“I’m fine. I’m barely even sore.” I made a show of rolling my neck.
When tears began to flow freely down her cheeks, my heart squeezed. I’d never seen her cry as much as she had these last few days. She was nearly broken, and it was killing me to not be able to put her back together again.
I knew we were missing an important piece of the puzzle that would clear her name and allow her to go back to doing what she was born to do. But I couldn’t figure out what it was, and every day that passed, she became more and more hopeless. My car accident, as minor as it was, was just the cherry on top of the sundae. And I was worried that if we didn’t get this shit sorted out soon, she wa
s going to lose everything she’d worked so damn hard for.
I brushed my fingertips down her arm and whispered, “Your tears are killing me.”
A sob escaped her lips. “Promise you won’t leave me.”
“Are you kidding me? I was about to make you promise me that very thing.” I swiped another one of her tears, but this time with my lips. “I’d never leave you.”
She choked another sob out. “First Jack left. Then you ran away to Vegas—”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Let’s clear this up right now. No one left you. Jack died.” I wanted to clarify that I didn’t run away to Vegas, but the sob that tore from her throat stopped me in my tracks.
Her breaths were ragged, her chest heaving.
“Piper, have you ever talked to anyone about Jack? About your loss?”
“Of course. I talk to Hampton all the time.”
It didn’t shock me that she thought talking to Hampton was the equivalent to getting professional help. He may have been a brilliant doctor, but he was just as fucked up over Jack’s death as Piper was. There was no way he’d ever said anything to help Piper when it came to the guilt and pain she felt over her brother’s tragic loss. “Hampton is a trauma surgeon. Not a psychologist. Hell, I don’t think they’d even let him call himself a counselor.”
“But he knows how I feel. He understands,” she argued.
