Yet she’d picked at her meal in the hotel restaurant and barely spoken the entire time.
As we took the elevator up to our room, I grew more agitated.
“Was it me and Kiera? Did it trigger something?” My tone was more snappish than I intended.
Unfortunately, Taran did not appreciate it. Her eyes flashed with ire as the lift doors opened.
“No.” She marched off it. “It didn’t.”
I hurried after her. “You’ve been strange ever since.”
“I’m tired.” Stopping at our door, she gestured for me to open it.
“Taran, I’ve just moved my daughter into her own place in a strange fucking city, miles away from where I can get to her. I don’t have the patience for playing a guessing game with you tonight.” I shoved into the room and threw the key card on the side table.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” She slammed the hotel door shut. “I’m not one of your kids, Quinn.”
I whirled on her. “Well, responding ‘I’m fine’ when you’re clearly not is giving me flashbacks to Heather’s behavior several months ago, so excuse me if I’m responding in kind.”
“Don’t be a condescending prick.” She dumped her purse and shrugged out of her jacket, glowering at me in a way that heated my blood.
“You promised you’d be honest with me.”
“Maybe, just maybe, there are moments where I don’t want to burden you with thoughts and anxieties that aren’t urgent and can wait for another day that isn’t the day you experience a monumentally life-changing event.” Taran’s hurt expression cooled my blood and my ire. “Can you not think the worst of me, Quinn? Because I don’t think this will work between us if you jump down my throat every time I get a little quiet.”
Fuck.
I squeezed my eyes closed with regret. “Mo luaidh, I’m sorry.”
When I opened my eyes, I found her sitting on the edge of the bed. “Maybe … maybe you should admit that you don’t quite trust I’m in this for good yet.”
That wasn’t … I didn’t …
I sank down next to her, stopping myself from voicing a denial. “It … it feels too good to be true, you know.”
“So, you don’t trust me?”
Her forlorn question had me reaching for her hand. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Maybe … maybe I don’t quite trustusyet.”
“Yet?” Taran’s expression of wary hopefulness made me feel so raw and greedy for her.
“It’ll take time for us to be completely comfortable in this with each other. I guess that only makes sense, right? But I’m not going anywhere. Just, please, tell me what is bothering you when I ask you. No matter what else has happened that day, I don’t want to be protected from your feelings.”
“Quinn … we’re just … we’re just starting out again and this …” She exhaled shakily, pulling her hand from mine in a way that made me uneasy.
“Don’t. Don’t shut me out.”
Taran’s dark eyes flashed again, and she shoved me only half playfully. “Stop freaking out on me.”
“Stop freaking me out.”
Her lips twitched as her eyes washed over my face. Slowly, that amusement died and her voice was barely above a whisper when she asked, “Do you want more kids, Quinn?”
I was stunned.
That was not at all what I’d expected.
“I want kids.” She shrugged sadly. “And I feel like I’m running out of time, but you’ve had kids and?—”
