I sat at the foot of the bed. “It’s hard talking aboutlosing a parent. And you lost two. You were also injured.”
Her fingers found the loose thread. I put my hand over where her feet were tucked under the blankets. The cat was passed out.
“Summer and I are the oldest, so we were in the middle row. Mom and Dad took the worst of the impact from rolling, but she and I also got hurt. Summer almost died.” A line pinched between her brows. She gestured to her chest. “Internal bleeding.”
She’d been through a nightmare and was more concerned about her sister. “This scar isn’t from something minor.”
“No.” She pulled and tugged at the quilt.
Now that I was closer, I could see several patch jobs and areas where seams had been reinforced. Maybe they should’ve sewn in threads that were tuggable and wouldn’t unravel everything.
“My arms and legs got really beat up,” she continued. “All the flying around when the car rolled.” She spoke like she was trying to be detached but also like speaking about it brought her back. “I was lucky though.”
“Is that what everyone told you to make you feel better?”
Her expression wavered before she nodded. “I didn’t feel lucky.”
“Neither did I when Mom died. It fucking sucked, and it’s okay to say it all fucking sucked and that the last thing you felt that day was motherfucking luck.”
“Who told you that you were lucky?”
I clenched my jaw. “Everyone. I was lucky I wasn’t snowmobiling with her. I was lucky I still had Hank. I was lucky to have her as long as I did. It’s all bullshit.”
I stood and went to her side. She pondered her quilt like my words were sinking in and she was finally giving herself permission to spin the accident the way it had happened in her head. A horrific event that had nothing to do with luck.
I leaned down to drop a kiss in her hair. Just like when I’d touched her scar, I didn’t realize I was doing it until her cool strands tickled my lips. I hadn’t planned to lay a finger on her at all, much less my mouth. “Get comfortable, Autumn. I’ll only take a minute.”
I took my toiletry kit to the small bathroom. I didn’t unpack the whole thing. Just like she wasn’t ready to have sex, whether she admitted it or not, I wasn’t ready to submerse myself into a fake marriage. I couldn’t risk forgetting that in a month, this would all be over. I wasn’t ready to ask myself if I was okay returning to visit because I had a goddamn kid.
I brushed my teeth and changed into a white shirt and gray sweatpants. Autumn was curled on her side with her eyes closed. I doubted she was asleep, but she was pretending she was.
When I crawled in next to her and was surrounded by her sweet scent, I drifted off. Not even the cat commandeering an entire bed around two adults bothered my slumber.
Autumn
I woke up snuggled into a wall of heat. A warm iron band was around my back and my nose was buried in ahard chest. The comforting scent of cedar citrus filled my nose.
I was cozy as hell. I kept my eyes closed and wiggled closer.
The chest under my face rose. My eyelids flew open. Gideon!
I tried to shove away, but that band around my back kept me in place.
“You need to be getting more comfortable with me, rusty.”
The new nickname gave me pause. It also gave me floozy butterflies. “Rusty?”
“Seems more fitting for the morning. Actually, since we haven’t had sex, I don’t know which nickname fits you better.”
I swatted his chest. My cheeks were probably as bright as my hair.
He laughed, a pleasing, deep sound that made me smile.
“I’m not rusty,” I muttered.
The laugh turned into a growl but cut off right away. “How not rusty are you?”
I left my hand on his abdomen. Was he hard everywhere? The blanket was pushed down to his waist, so I could answer the question. I stayed where I was. In this position, I couldn’t see his face, and I wasn’t breathing on him. “Want me to ask the same thing?”
