Oh, no. This was a full smile.
The kind that lit up his face like the sunrise and made his eyes glint like sea glass.
Her breath caught.
“Did I leave out the part where we stopped to pick up the bags of money she stashed under an overpass before she grabbed ya?” He winked. “Boss made sure she paid for the trouble she was puttin’ these guys through. Ya should’ve seen her face…red as a beet when she realized her great escape came at the cost of a quarter of her cash.”
Sabrina laughed. Really laughed.
And Hew? He laughed too. The easy, comfortable kind of laughter she hadn’t heard out of him since that fateful afternoon when everything changed.
It was the most beautiful sound. It wrapped around her like a blanket fresh from the dryer. Warm. Reassuring. A little scratchy in the best possible way.
She’d missed it.
And lord, she’d missed him.
It was bone-deep and visceral. A feeling that curled around her soul and sank into her heart until there was no her without him. No part of Sabrina that didn’t include a part of Hew, too.
She’d plucked the stuffed lobster off his dresser earlier, placing it on her lap before settling in for the night. Imagining it was her tether to him. A silly, red, overstuffed stand-in for the man himself.
His eyes tracked the toy as she fiddled with it now, and all the humor drained from his face. He grew so still it wasn't easy to distinguish him from the long shadows that held sway in the hallway.
“Ya finally took the lobster.” Lobstah.
“I borrowed it,” she emphasized, giving the plush claws a gentle pet. “Just for tonight.”
His Adam’s apple made a slow trek up the tan column of his throat. She thought he’d again try to convince her to keep it. So she was blindsided when, instead, he asked, “Why didn’t Martin leave you at the gate?”
Her mind quickly sifted through the two outcomes should she answer his question.
If she admitted the truth, the awkwardness…the yawning chasm that already stretched wide between them…would grow. But if she lied, she’d feel the guilt like a stone in her chest, and it would become an obstacle between them in every conversation they had.
She realized she’d been quiet for too long when he quickly said, “If it’s too private, all ya got to do is say.”
“Nothing’s too private between us, right?”
Why was her voice so hoarse all of a sudden?
Oh, right. Because her heart was sitting in the back of her throat.
“So why didn’t Martin leave ya at the gate?” he asked again, his gaze fixed firmly on hers.
She rubbed the lobster’s claws, using the motion to steady her trembling hands. It didn’t really help the tremble in her voice, though, when she admitted, “Because I asked him to. Because I needed some space and some time to think.”
“About what?”
“About my life. About my feelings. About my future.”
He straightened from the doorjamb, all traces of his earlier exhaustion vanishing like fog hit by the sun. His gaze flicked to her left hand, sharp and assessing.
“Did he propose?”
The question startled her so badly she nearly dropped the lobster. “What?”
“Did he ask ya to marry him?”
“God, no! Why would you think that?”
