“Nope. The doctor’s office just called. MRI was completely normal. As were all the other tests.”
“You went for tests?” Why did that bother him so much? He frowned across the table at her, imagining Ellie in the hospital. Imagining her hurt. And disliking the feeling.
“Hmm.” She shrugged, as if to minimize the words she was about to say. “After we… met. The first time. I thought perhaps it would be worth a checkup.”
When he’d gone back to drifting. To moments of harsh smells and occasional blinding lights—but mostly darkness and the never-ending cold—and left her behind. Left her troubled and alone.
He scratched a thumb through the thick stubble on his jaw, pushing away the uncomfortable realization that he felt responsible. God.
A misty, dreamlike image filtered into his mind. A young man scowled at him, a man who looked a lot like him… but not quite the same. Some relation? A brother, perhaps? “You’re not the boss of me,” the man spat. “I don’t need you. I don’t evenwantyou.”
The words churned through him, as barbed and painful as if he was standing right there in front of that unknown man. He rubbed at the ache in his chest, fighting the feeling. Fuck. He didn’t even know if any of that had happened.
Ellie reached into the cupboard for two mugs, thankfully oblivious to his unsettled thoughts. “Coffee?”
He shook his head, bringing his focus back to the kitchen. To this time, in this place. “No, thanks.” His lips were dry, but the thought of drinking anything felt wrong somehow. “Maybe later.”
Ellie took a long, closed-eyes sip of her coffee. She was so vibrant. And so beautiful. His palm still tingled at the ghost-memory of her skin on his from the previous night. The memory of her heat. Her life.
He had to remind himself that he shouldn’t step into her space, walk her back to rest against the counter, sink his fingers through her tousled hair. Here in a room that felt like sunshine on water. She wasn’t his—couldn’t ever be his—even if something inside him wanted her to be.
Ellie put her mug down and looked at him. She had already finished her breakfast. In a minute, she was going to suggest looking for someone who knew him. She was going to suggest trying to find answers. And she would be right; he needed answers.
But whenever he tried to force himself to remember where he’d come from, the freezing darkness gathered at the corners of his vision. The cold taunted him, hungry to take him back. And he wanted to stay in Ellie’s warmth just a little longer.
It was even worse now that he knew she would be worried when he left. He cast around for a sensible topic, something to divert them both. An excuse to stay. “Do you need help with anything? If you have to work, maybe I could do something useful?” he offered. “I won’t pretend to know anything about game design, but I can read stories? Or if you have some more manual labor, I like being outdoors. I can… dig?”
Ellie smirked. “Dig?”
“I guess.” God. What an arse. Of all the things he could have suggested, he went withdig. “I’m good with my hands. I think,” he added and then almost groaned. He was making it worse.
Ellie’s brows raised, her eyes sparkling. “That’s your special skill?”
He leaned forward. “If it’s special skills you want?—”
The doorbell chimed, breaking into the far-too-flirtatious comment he was about to make. Thank fuck.
Ellie frowned as she turned to press a button on a screen beside her fridge. A view of the front entrance flicked to life.A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking business suit was looking at his watch outside the door.
“It’s my father,” Ellie said, her frown deepening as she fidgeted. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
It was the first time he’d seen her look quite so uncertain. But even as he watched, she seemed to settle herself. She took a breath, wiped her hands on her jeans, and then straightened. “I’ll let him in. Wait here, and I’ll bring him through.”
Meeting Ellie’s father sounded like a hideous idea. What was he going to think of an unknown man in his daughter’s house for breakfast? Or when he asked questions and Jon had no answers… and no idea how long he could even stay?
He stood and walked around the table—away from the door to the front hall—to lean against the counter where Ellie had stood earlier. There was a shaft of sunlight there, a gentle beam that warmed his shoulders, even while the rest of him felt cold once more. How the hell was he going to introduce himself? “I’m Jon,” didn’t feel right, no matter how many times he said it to himself.
He still didn’t have an answer when Ellie returned.
Her father was instantly recognizable as related to her—they shared the same honey blonde hair, the same green eyes and slightly pointed chin—but where Ellie was soft and generous and kind, this man was cold and hard. His suit was pristine, his jaw perfectly shaven, and the expression on his face as he looked over Ellie’s loose hair and rumpled T-shirt was, at best, disappointment.
The cat took one look at him, stuck her nose in the air, and stalked out.
“Dad—Steven—I’d like to introduce you to Jon, he’s… uh?—”
Steven pulled out a chair and sat, leaning back and running his eyes over Ellie’s kitchen as if surveying his territory as heinterrupted. “I won’t be here long. I’ll take a small black coffee and then I have a meeting to get to.”
Ellie glanced at Jon and then back toward Steven. “But Jon?—”
