She glares at me then shakes her head, her smile just beginning to tip up the edges of her mouth. “Maybe you’re right.” A beat. “Does Dolores still work for you?”
I shake my head. “She retired a few months back, but recommended her niece, River, to take over. She’s great.” I waggle my brows. “And she knows all of her aunt’s secret recipes.”
“Win-win.”
I nod.
Her sigh is soft, thoughts returning to the past. “That was a good night.”
“One of the best.”
The silence stretches and I watch her face change, her eyes clouding with the same knowledge I’m feeling—that it was one of the best…and one of the last. “Don’t,” I rasp.
She doesn’t pretend to not know what I mean. “We can’t go back to the people we were then.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t know me, not really, not anymore. Same as I don’t know the person you are now. We’ve changed and too much time has passed and…we can’t go back, can’t pretend it didn’t happen.” Her voice drops to almost a whisper. “As much as we both wish that things might have been different.”
“We don’t need to go back.” I pick up another strand of hair, lightly rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. Still so damned soft. “We just need to move forward.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Do you know that I kept the beanie you left behind the other night?”
Her brows drag together and she tilts her head to the side.
I get up, move to the nightstand, and open the drawer, pulling out the knit cap.
“Brooks,” she whispers.
I bring it back over. “I saw your hair and part of me knew. But I couldn’t accept it was you. Then I woke up with the hat in my hand, smelled you on the fabric, and I hoped. Now you’re here. Now we have this chance.” My heart starts thudding against my ribcage so damned hard I can barely breathe.
Something that becomes even harder to do when she shakes her head. “Too much time has passed. I…I want you to be safe, to not have these people messing with your life and I’ll do what I can to make sure that happens.”
“And you?” I ask, the question almost garbled from the rage that’s threatening to boil over. “What about you?”
“You said it yourself. I’m a survivor.” She shrugs. “I’ll be good. Speaking of which”—she pushes the blanket back and starts to sit up—“we should get back out there.”
“You’re just giving up?” I ask, not retreating.
Especially when her movements mean that she’s suddenly left mere inches between our bodies. “I’m not giving up. I’ll stay until this is over, won’t do anything to upset Pascal’s investigation, especially when it might mean I can be free of…” She wavers here, throat working before she exhales and lifts her chin. “Especially if it means I can be free of it all, can make my own choices, live my own life for the first time.”
Thewithout youpart is unspoken.
But I still hear it loud and clear.
“And what if you could have that and still have me,” I murmur. “Still haveus?”
She exhales, shakes her head. “Brooks,” she says and her voice is gentle—gentle enough to wound. “That time is over for us.”
“Is it?” I ask.
Her throat works again, and she nods.
But I see enough.
I see the heat in her eyes, the need, the hole inside her that only I can fill.
