I obeyed, numb and too full of confusion to do anything else.
"I came back."
Did he have any idea what those words meant to me? Did he have any inkling how hard my heart was falling for him? It was a steep plummet, down a cliff, over the edge, and straight into a canyon I'd never be able to crawl out of. And he was going to leave me down there, bereft and alone.
"I came back."
As I let him guide me into the passenger seat of his car, I tried to understand why he would leave Wells and come back to me. I watched the rain run down the windshield in a hundred turbulent rivers, my heart sore from aching and fearing and surviving. I was desperate for warmth and reassurance. And likehe'd heard my heart's whispered plea, Benjamin turned my face to his. "I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere."
The dam almost broke, but I choked it back, nodding jerkily. Benjamin started his car, and we left the police department behind. Every mile we drove toward the farm, my muscles released a little more tension, first around my neck, then my shoulders, and finally, my fingers uncurled in my lap. Benjamin didn't say anything, but he stole looks at me now and then. Finally, I said, "Thank you."
He glanced at me again, already turning slowly into my driveway. "You scared the hell out of me when I got here and they said you were gone." He opened the gate with the app on his phone, and I found it oddly reassuring that he still had it. He hadn't immediately deleted it. I didn't dare dwell on the positive implications of that.
"Everything got a little mucked up," I admitted. Wincing, I added, "I made it worse. I don't know what I was doing in there. I don't know why I acted that way."
"You didn't make it worse," he contradicted gently. "Anyone who judges a person based on their trauma responses can eat thumbtacks. You were surviving the only way you knew how."
We pulled up to my house, and I marveled at how sedate it looked. The rain decorated the barn with silver streamers and glistening dewdrops, and further in the distance, Nan's cottage was nestled in a low cloud of fog like a fairytale dream. There were no men in black vests. No people waiting to ambush me. No unmarked vans. I should have felt safe but something kept me on a razor's edge of alertness.
Benjamin watched me, and I realized I hadn't responded to him. Reluctantly, I met his gaze. "All the same. Thank you." God, I could drown in the ocean of his eyes. They were vast, fathomless realms that beckoned me to fall, to submerse myselfin all the painful, beautiful what-ifs. I became aware of the soft susurrus of our mismatched breathing in the confined space.
"Evie—" Benjamin started, looking unsure of how to say whatever he'd planned next.
Oh, it was pity. That was what he was holding in his gaze so ardently. No, I couldn't do this today. I couldn't be let down gently by the man who gilded my dreams by night and had walked a well-worn path through my thoughts by day. I got out of the car suddenly. "Thank you," I repeated, somewhat breathless. "You didn't have to, but thank you."
"Evelyn," he said a little more sternly.
I stood outside the car, my hand on the open door and trying hard to use whatever I had left inside of me to not appear ungrateful. Rain stabbed the back of my neck and slithered down my spine. I grappled for the right words. "I'm sorry. I just need some time to—to process."
Benjamin got out of the car, and then he was glaring at me over the roof of it. "Stop trying to get rid of me."
I choked out a laugh, like my amusement was poisoned by the depth of my feelings. I licked water off my lips, and some of my desperation to run from him eased away. "I'm not."
"Yes, you are," he insisted angrily. "Because you feel guilty for being rescued."
He'd slapped my morose thoughts in the face. They probably had a handprint. I straightened, closing the car door a little more forcefully than I should have. "You always have anawfullot to say about how I'm feeling, Benjamin."
"And you always have anawfullot to deflect from," he argued, coming around the front of the car. His eyes flickered upward and then back to me. "Can we please have a decent conversation without standing in the rain?"
"I don't want to discuss my feelings," I said hotly. "In the rain or otherwise." I didn't want to talk about any of what hadhappened over the last two hours. I didn't want to face that I'd become a cowering, sniveling creature in that interview room. I didn't want to know what had brought Benjamin to my rescue because if it wasanythingbut the one thing I longed for the most…
He reached me and framed my face with both hands. "Stop that."
"Stop what?" I asked, defeated.
"Stop looking like you're waiting for me to pull a trigger. I'm not going to." He shook my face a little. "I shouldn't have left you."
I grimaced, trying to pull away. "Benjamin, I do not want your pity. I've had more than enough of that for an entire lifetime. I'm grateful to you, I am, but you owe me nothing."
"Right, because it was just a fling, right?" he asked, and his tone warned me that those words were bitter on his tongue. "That's what I do. Frost—he's shallow. Down for a good time and that's it. And you," he went on, like his thoughts were leading the charge now. "You couldn't possibly be worth actual devotion."
"That's what yousaid," I reminded him incredulously. "You were always supposed to leave, and then you did, and I—" my voice cracked.
Benjamin turned us so my back hit the car, and his grip shifted, pulling my mouth close to his and cradling my waist. "You what?" he whispered over the driving din of rainfall. I hesitated, the words stuck in my throat. Fiercely, he whispered, "You were brave enough to kiss me first, right here. In the rain, just like this." He licked rainwater off the corner of my mouth and dropped a kiss against my jaw. "You're so brave, Evelyn." He nuzzled the slick, sensitive skin under my jawline. "Finish what you wanted to say." He moved his lips up my cheek to rest against my temple. "Please."
Brave? I was anything but that. But, then again, what did I have to lose right now? He'd already left once. But he was back now. Was it bravery to take what I wanted most, to risk my heart and hand it to him in the hope that he would treat it gently?
I grasped his shirt tightly. "I missed you."
