“Do you ever start your day without a gallon of coffee?” Lincoln’s voice drifted in behind me. He sounded more alert now, which was unfair. Nobody should look that put together after a night like last night. When I glanced back, there he was, leaning against the doorframe like some lumberjack model, arms folded, watching me with that maddening mix of amusement and challenge.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the coffee. “Do you ever stop hovering?”
“I wasn’t hovering. I was supervising.”
“Supervising what? My ability to operate a coffeemaker?”
His lips twitched. “You’d be surprised.”
I could feel the heat crawl up my neck even before I spoke again. My body betrayed me first. My body leaned into his voice like it had been trained to do so. I hated that the part of me that should have stayed angry at him couldn’t tell the difference between safety and old memories.
Instead of answering, I reached for the cupboard, grabbed a mug, and poured until it nearly overflowed. The scent hit me first. Dark. Bitter. Familiar. I wrapped both hands around the ceramic and let the steam curl up under my chin. I took a long sip and let it scald the roof of my mouth because pain was easier than this. Physical pain, I understood. Bone-deep soreness, I understood. Emotional heat was crawling under my skin because he had slept in my bed and kept my nightmares from eating me alive, so I did not know what to do with it.
I set the mug down with a thunk and pivoted toward him. “Don’t.”
His brows lifted slowly. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t start walking down memory lane like it’s cute.” My voice sharpened, even though my insides felt anything but sharp. “We’re not, this isn’t, we don’t get to reminisce, Lincoln.”
He studied me for a long beat, then leaned back in the chair, folding his arms across his broad chest. The chair creaked under his weight, showing I’d been sitting in that spot for a while. Like he had worn that groove into that chair at that table in this kitchen. Like he had been waiting right there all along. “Funny. You’re the one who looks like she’s remembering.”
My cheeks flamed. Damn him, he was right. Because even now, standing here in my ratty T-shirt with bedhead and shadows under my eyes, I could feel his hands like they’d never left me. His thumb tracing circles over my knuckles. His chest rises steadily under my cheek. The exact heat and weight of him pressed into the small of my back, the way his breath had warmed the seam of my ear. Those details had crawled under my skin overnight and refused to leave. They had settled in like they owned the place.
That was the problem. They had.
“What are you staring at?” I snapped, because anything softer sounded like permission.
“Your face,” he said simply. “You look raw.”
The words were not an insult. They were observing. It somehow made it worse.
I opened my mouth to tell him I didn’t, to say to him I was fine, but the lie tasted like metal. “I’m fine,” I said anyway, the words paper-thin.
“No, you’re not.” He set his coffee down. The sound of ceramic hitting wood was soft, steady. He reached across the table, and for a half second, his fingers brushed mine.
It was barely contact. It was nothing. Just skin against skin at the base of my thumb. But it sent a shock through me so fast and so bright I nearly dropped the mug. The contact was both smalland enormous at the same time. It hit the place under my ribs that still felt like it had been kicked. It hit behind my throat. It hit lower. I hated how quickly my body responded to him. I hated how fast my mind followed.
“You were yelling in your sleep,” he said softly. His hand lingered close, close enough to touch again if I wanted, but not restraining me. “You woke me up.”
The words hung in the air. I stared at the dark line along his wrist, the ridged tendon that flexed when he curled his fingers. The faint scar near his thumb from when a young colt panicked and caught him with a hoof. I knew every mark on him. I knew them like landmarks on a map. I could see them now in perfect clarity. My heart thudded loudly.
“It was nothing,” I answered, too quickly.
“Because of what happened in the trailer,” he corrected. His voice stayed low and even, not pitying, just matter-of-fact. “I stayed because I didn’t want you to be alone.”
My throat closed up. For a second, the room blurred. I could feel last night all over again, as if I were still inside it.
The way the dark had pinned me. The way the inside of my chest had squeezed and seized, and I could not get a full breath, no matter how hard I fought for air. The way panic made the room tilt, until it no longer felt like Lincoln’s house, but rather like that trailer. The slam of a heavy fist on thin metal. I couldn't move fast enough. The way fear made me small and furious at the same time. It had been all teeth and shaking hands and old damage.
I’d woken up choking his name.
I’d woken up hitting.
He hadn’t let go.
He wrapped his arms around me and pinned me to him, talking me down in that steady, calm voice he only used whenthings were bad. The same voice he used on spooked horses, injured calves, and me.
I swallowed. My mouth feels dry. I wanted to be furious. I wanted to push him away and tell him he was overstepping, that this was not his job anymore. I wanted to tell him he couldn't rescue me and then act like that meant something.
