Anyone with eyes.
"Sorry."
He squeezed her hand, accepted her apology.
She let go of his hand, and he felt bereft. But she didn't shift away from him. She rested her arm along the back of the couch and touched the hair behind his head. He leaned into her touch. Would there ever be a time he got enough of it? A time he stopped craving every brush of her fingers?
"I'm not very good at this stuff," he admitted.
"What stuff?"
"Sharing my feelings. Being in a relationship."Relationship. Just saying the word aloud sent a fissure of unease through him. If he named this thing between them, it would make it real.
"There's never been anybody?"
Her curiosity warmed him. It sounded like one of his mom's fishing expeditions.
“I dated some when I lived in Houston. One relationship—Shari—lasted a few months, but things never got serious.” He’d still been working through his grief over losing his sight, but that hadn’t been the reason he couldn’t open up to Shari. After what’d happened with Cord and Callum, he’d vowed not to make himself vulnerable again.
So what was he doing here, tonight?
He found himself saying, "I've been in denial about just how lonely I was."
She leaned forward and brushed a kiss on his cheek. Her fingers flattened on the nape of his neck. And then she sat back, resuming the gentle stroke, playing with his hair. Her affection was a reward in itself.
She was silent for a moment, and he was feeling a little foolish for opening up so much.
"I told myself that it would be enough for me," she admitted quietly. "To have the kids and the farm and maybe a dog someday. I didn't think I could let somebody else in after the way Eddie hurt me." She inhaled a shaky little breath. "And then, before I knew it, I was looking forward to every visit to your house, no matter how short. I would be in the middle of doing chores and catch myself thinking about you, anticipating seeing you again."
Her words were an affirmation, an echo of everything he'd been feeling for weeks. His heart pounded as he realized what it meant.
Her hand went still on the back of his neck. "There's something else we should talk about," she said. "Just so we're on the same page."
She was trusting him with her feelings, telling him that she was open to this thing between them. But she didn't know everything.
"You should probably let me go first." His throat was suddenly dry. He swallowed once, then again, trying to generate some moisture to be able to speak.
Why was this so hard? Oh yeah, because the last time he’d told someone about his past, his entire life had fallen apart.
"Whatever it is, it's not going to change how I feel about you." She said the words with a quiet confidence, but he couldn't help feeling like he was on a precipice staring into darkness.
She could sound confident because she only saw who he was now.
He'd spent decades trying to overcome and atone for the actions of a stupid kid. But if there was one thing he'd learned, it was that the past couldn't be changed. It was still there, still daring him to want what he couldn't have.
There was nothing for it.
She wasn't going to give up now that she knew there was something he hadn't told her.
"I'm the reason my dad died." He pushed the words through a sandpaper throat.
Her fingers flexed again.
"My parents separated when I was five. At the time, I didn't know what was going on between them or what it really meant. I just knew my dad wasn't around anymore and my mom was sad all the time. I wished and whined for my dad to take me on a camping trip, and he finally capitulated." He had to stop and steady himself for a minute, only then realizing he was shaking. He carried on, because he didn't know if he could get through this if she said anything. "On the morning he was supposed to come and pick me up, he never showed. My mom called him a few times and then the cops for a well-check. He was DOA when they arrived. He’d had an undiagnosed heart problem. No one knew. It looked like he was in the middle of packing his car for our camping trip when he died."
She murmured something softly, maybe "I'm sorry," but he was quick to silence her with a squeeze to her leg.
"That's not all of it." If anything, the words were harder to push out. He inhaled a shattered breath. "After that, I was a bratty little kid who didn't know what to do with the hole inside of me. I made things really rough on my mom. I acted out in school. I was probably worse than Casey and PJ put together."
