His frown deepened. Shedidremember. He could see it in her eyes. The way she was staring at a point across the room, as if reliving it in her head.
He cocked his head. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.” The single word came quickly. And it was the proof he needed to know he was right. You didn’t say no so quickly when you couldn’t remember.
He glanced at the door, then back to her. He didn’t want to leave. “I guess I should—”
“Wait.” She swallowed. “Will you tell me a story? Anything. Help me fall back to sleep.”
“I can do that.” Right now, he’d do anything to wipe the fear from her eyes.
He shifted beside her so that his back leaned against the headboard. She lay back into her pillow, the warmth of her side against his.
“When Clara was ten, she convinced me and Becket to wake up early and help her bake a cake for Mom’s birthday. Becket was the oldest at fourteen, and I was only twelve, and none of us had baked a cake before.”
“What flavor?”
“Strawberry. It was Mom’s favorite.”
“Mm. Mine too.”
He slotted that little bit of information into his memory for later. “The morning of her birthday, we all got up before her, and when I say we had no idea what we were doing, I mean, we hadnoidea what we were doing.”
Aspen laughed, the sound soft and airy. “Who took the lead?”
“Clara. She’d been watching a few baking shows on TV, so she thought she knew how to do it. She didn’t. But we gave it a really good go. We argued for the full hour. By the end of it, there was flour everywhere. And the cake, if you could call it that, resembled a charcoal brick.”
“Mm. Sounds interesting.” Aspen’s voice was sleepy.
He looked down and found her eyes closed. “Interesting is one word for it.”
“Did she like it?”
“Well, she ran in when the smoke alarm went off. Once she stopped it from beeping, she took one look around the kitchen, which was a disaster, then looked at our charcoal cake…and she smiled the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s nice. Did she eat it?”
“She did. And to this day, she still says it was the most memorable birthday surprise she’s ever had.”
“Mm, your mom’s nice.”
“The best.”
He looked down to see her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Eyes still closed and the look on her face…almost peaceful.
She was asleep. Good.
He didn’t get up though, not right away. Instead, he stayed exactly where he was, his side pressed to hers. And he made a vow. To find out exactly what her nightmare had been about and destroy her ex…because Jesse was certain he was the culprit.
CHAPTER 5
She’d manifested a good day today. It wassupposed to bea good day. There’d been no nightmares last night. No embarrassing visits from Jesse. The blueberry jam and clotted cream on top of her scone at The Tea House was amazing. It had startedsogood.
But that good day had ended the second she’d pulled out her laptop.
She chopped the carrots with a bit more aggression.
There’d been no words written…again. Even bad words hadn’t made it onto the page today.
