Before he realized what she had done, the top button of his shirt was undone. He grabbed her hand. “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt your fingers.”
“No, I’m not. Your buttonholes are plenty big. And don’t worry, I used a rock to grind down the sharp edges of my nails. They were driving me crazy.”
He wasn’t worried about her nails.
“Are you going to let my hand go now?”
All his feelings of contentment disappeared. “Why did you unbutton my shirt?”
The smile was back in her voice. “So I can lay my hand on your chest. Why else?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He felt her shift so she had to be looking at him though she couldn’t see him. “What are you afraid of. I’ve already seen your scars. They don’t bother me.”
No, what she’d seen was the least of it. What she hadn’t seen was what had scared off every woman he had thought might like him enough to ignore them. He was wrong. No one could ignore them. “They’re not something you need to subject yourself to.”
“Wait, I can have sex with you but can’t touch you?”
He grimaced. It did sound odd when she put it that way. “Are you sure?”
“Listen, you’ve seen most of my scars. In fact, you’ve seen more of them than anyone else including the Army shrink. I think I can handle yours in the dark.”
It had been two years since a woman looked at his scars and couldn’t hide her revulsion. At least in the dark, he wouldn’t have to see Riley’s expression, but he would know by the tone of her voice exactly what she thought.
“Well?”
He had no decent excuse to give. “Fine, but let me unbutton my shirt so you don’t hurt yourself.”
“Thank you.”
Reluctantly, he unbuttoned the next three buttons. “Okay, you can lie down now.”
She laid her head back on his shoulder and with unerring accuracy, slipped her hand inside his shirt. At first, she moved it to his left side which was mostly normal, but as she moved it closer to herself, he tensed.
“Will you relax. It’s not like I’m going to scratch you. I told you, I scraped my nails down.”
Realizing she’d done that for him, he tried to breathe normally.
Her hand moved across the major burn scars on his right side. Not once did she stop the movement, trailing her palm across his ragged skin before coming to rest over his heart. “There, that wasn’t so terrible was it?”
Her words surprised him. “No.”
“So how did you get so badly burned. You said it was a wildfire, but many of you Hot Shots fight them and don’t get burned. Why you?”
“Because I lost sight of what was important.” The bitter words came out of their own accord. He hadn’t told anyone that was how he felt, but here in the dark with a woman he could have spent the rest of his life with if not for his rash act, they just spilled out.
“You said life was more important than structures.”
“It is. And no lives were in jeopardy…of the fire. I should have just pulled back when it got dangerous.”
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head even if she couldn’t see him. “No, I didn’t. We were building a fire break between the forest and a small cluster of ramshackle homes. I just needed to get one more tree down, so I told my crew to pull back while I finished that final tree. I never saw the burning pine falling toward me until it was too late. I heard a shout and looked up. I held my arm up to cover my face and turned away just before I was knocked over.”
“Oh God. That must have been excruciating.”
“Not at first. When I fell, I hit my head on a stump and lost consciousness. When I woke up in the hospital, l I hurt, but had no idea how bad the damage was with all the pain medication I was on. It wasn’t until my family came to see me after the doctor got me stable that the pain seeped through. I had third degree burns on almost half my body.”
