“Want me todrive?”
Ash shook his head and fished the van keys out of his pocket. “I’mgood.”
I eyed him skeptically. He’d all but passed out in the diner, but he did that sometimes—shut the world out for a little while when the noise in his head got to be too much—and he usually came backunscathed.
Clutching a bag of doughnut holes, I climbed into the passenger seat of the van, and it seemed eerily similar to hauling myself into the ambulance I’d worked on for all those years. But Ash wasn’t anything like my old partner. Mick had talked my ear off from our very first ride, but as Ash coaxed the van to life, I was almost certain I was destined for a day of suffocating quiet. Not that I objected that much. Dragging conversation from Ash when he didn’t want to talk was far more painful than any silence he threw my way, and I wasn’t feeling particularly chattymyself.
Or so I thought. We were five hours away from our scheduled stop in Medora when my own thoughts became too loud to bear.“I know it’s life, Pietro, but it’s not mine. I don’twantit.”
I sat up in my seat and reached for Ash before I knew what I was doing. My heart thumped so loudly I was sure he’d hear it. But he didn’t respond to the clumsy grab I made for his arm, and I all but fell intohim. “Ash?”
“Hmm? Sorry, what?” He glanced at me, his electric-blue eyes misty anddistant.
I lost myself in them for a long moment, and then common sense kicked in. “Pullover.”
“What?Why?”
“Justdoit.”
Ash pulled over. I jumped out of my seat and quickly rounded the front of the van, glad he’d left enough room for me to avoid the speeding trucks keeping us company on the roadtoday.
I opened the driver door and killed the engine. Ash made no move to stop me, and there was no confusion in his dead gaze, which scared the shit out of me. His hands were shaking. I gripped them and squeezed—the signal we’d always had when words wouldn’t come.I’m here. What’swrong?
Ash shook his head.Idon’tknow.
“Come on. You cantellme.”
“How the fuck would I tell you when Idon’tknow?”
His sudden rage startled me. I took a step back before I remembered that another would likely get me killed. “There doesn’t have to be a reason, Ash. It’s allright.”
“A reasonforwhat?”
“For whatever’s got you in this state.” It came out as far more of a growl than I’d intended. But frustration was an evil thing. I took a breath and tried again. “I mean, you don’t have to explain it… I think. Shit, I don’t know. I’m just tryingtohelp.”
“There’s nothing wrong withme.At leastnothingnew.”
Nothing wrong with…My brain caught up. “What’s that supposedtomean?”
Ash looked like he wanted to shove me. He slid abruptly from the van and shoulder-barged me out of his way. Perplexed, I followed him around the back of the van and caught up with him before he could haul himself into the passengerseat. “Ash.”
“What?”
I grabbed his shoulders and forced him to look at me. “What is it? What’sgoingon?”
“Nothing’s going onwithme.”
“No? So why are you on the verge of a meltdown at the side oftheroad?”
Fury flashed in Ash’s eyes again. “How do you expect me to be when this is the realest conversation we’ve had in months? How didyoufeel when I shut you out, huh? When I really did lose my fucking mind and there was nothing you could doaboutit?”
He’d never shouted at me. Sure, he’d yelled, thrown things, and punched himself in the head, but he’d never looked me in the eye and shoutedmedown.
My blood ran cold as I realized this was the moment I’d feared—the moment when he looked at me and saw everything I’d fought so hard to keep from him. When he looked at me and saw me for the sum of myactions.
He knows whatIdid.
Panic reared up in me, turning my huge breakfast to acid. “Ash,I—”
