THREE WEEKS LATER
The cold usheredin a true welcome to Maine winter, but it also ushered out the sickness that came with the change in seasons.
By some miracle, Clara merely had had a slightly raised temperature and a sniffle.
Beau had raced to be with her the second Elliot called. I’d been left standing in the middle of the hotel room, wracked with guilt. I’d called him countless times the rest of that day. Every call went straight to voicemail until I got a short text that she was fine.
Nothing else.
I rotted in the opulent surroundings of the suite, picking at the breakfast Beau had ordered me—almost everything on the menu—then tried to distract myself.
But all I’d managed to do was think of worst-case scenarios—Clara in a hospital bed. Clara struggling to breathe. Clara’s vitality and health stolen by a cold given to her by me.
The moment the doctor cleared me to go back home, I watched Clara like a hawk. She’d rolled her eyes every time herfather or I felt her head, checking her temperature. Aside from the eye rolls, she was good-natured about it because that was Clara. And because she was used to being a patient.
I noticed that that dulled her sparkle, just a little. Beau noted it too, which was why he was home more. We baked a lot and had numerous dance parties, doing whatever we could to brighten Clara’s day.
Both of our efforts went into ensuring that Clara stayed happy and healthy.
Beau almost entirely retreated back to the man he’d been when we first met—haunted, detached. Cold. I practically ceased to exist for him.
Gone was the man who had rubbed my feet, cared for me, and held me in my sleep.
Gone was the man who had drawn me a bath and assaulted a man in front of a police officer for me. Gone was the man who had laid his head in my lap.
The sting from that loss wounded my insides, even if I was beginning to understand it. Beau was blaming himself. I wasn’t entirely sure of the reasons he gave, but he lived his life to protect Clara, and the night at the hotel with me had beenhisfailing somehow.
Maybe he blamed himself for leaving Clara alone—albeit with family who adored her. Or worse, perhaps he blamed me for being sick in the first place, giving it to Clara.
I blamed myself plenty, even though there was nor would there ever be any kind of proof that I caught it first. Germs knew no master, no morals; they just were.
Beau could not accept that. He was, obviously, well-versed in punishing himself for things he had no control over. Maybe he was punishing me for taking him away from his daughter in the first place.
The guilt I felt was heavy, horrible, and exhausting. Anger was much more productive, but I couldn’t muster the courage to feel it. Not when I’d witnessed Beau be so caring, so gentle. Not when I’d experienced what it was to be cared for by him.
I was falling for him. I hated that I was since he was damaged and hurt. I hated that he didn’t know how to deal with that hurt, resulting in him shutting down and hurting me.
But I couldn’t control my heart. And the only way to cure myself of the plague that was my feelings for Beau was to quit. But there was no way I would leave Clara.
So I stayed. Waited for life to go back to a semblance of normal. Which it did, with only a few reminders that Beau might actually care for me. Crumbs that I feasted on.
The first was one morning when I went out for a run. I’d come to crave the high of them, the burn in my lungs as I inhaled the frosty air, the way I could lose myself in the music I blasted. Beau scowled at me every morning as I shrugged my jacket on, lacing my shoes.
He didn’t like me running, apparently. But that was ahimproblem.
Except that particular morning when I opened the door, I came straight back into where Beau was preparing Clara’s breakfast.
And mine too. There was always a plate of something nourishing, warm and delicious when I came back from my runs.
“We have to call the police,” I told him, struggling to catch my breath.
He turned, spatula in hand, face no longer expressionless, detached. His eyes ran over my body, cataloguing each part of it as if he were expecting a gunshot wound. When he didn’t find one, his electric gaze found me. “What happened?”
I was suddenly breathless for a whole other reason, but I managed to force myself to focus on the problem at hand. “Someone stole my car.”
Saying it out loud made it even crazier. Beau’s truck was parked right beside it, definitely worth more than my old Corolla. I couldn't fathom why a thief would even bother with it.
The back of my neck prickled with another explanation.
