He flinched suddenly beside her.
She peered at his shadowy form, still moving in the darkness. She waited for her eyes to adjust. He lay on top of his sleeping bag. The shape of his form indicated he was on his side, but she couldn’t tell which direction he faced.
He groaned in his sleep.
Maybe his shoulder was hurting. He might be lying on his injury. That couldn’t be good. “Wyatt,” she whispered.
His shallow breaths were her only answer.
She pushed up on her elbows. “Wyatt. You okay?”
He let out another moan and jerked onto his back. His head thrashed side to side.
This was not an aching wound. This was a nightmare. Heaven knew she’d had plenty of those. They’d plagued her childhood.
He was moaning more frequently, interrupted only by stuttering breaths.
She couldn’t stand to see him suffer even in his sleep.
“Wyatt.” She squirmed from her bag, inching over. If she could just nudge him a little, maybe he’d wake up enough to shift position. To dispel the nightmare.
“Wyatt.” She shook his arm. “I think you’re having—”
He struck out.
She flew backward, pain exploding in her head. And then his weight pressed her to the cement floor.
***
The feminine cry startled him from sleep. The nightmare evaporated instantly. Grace appeared in his vision.
Beneath him. Eyes wide in the darkness.
He was squeezing her wrists over her head.
He let her go. Pushed off her. The last five seconds played back in his head. He’d attacked her. He’dhither.
“Grace.”
She was palming her cheek, breaths ragged, the whites of her eyes prominent.
His brain scrambled for purchase. He clambered for his backpack, his hands shaking. He fumbled with the zipper. Found his first-aid kit. Grasped the cold pack. Twisted until it popped and shook it.
He eased closer to Grace, then gently pressed the cooling pack to her cheek. It was too dark to see if her cheek was swelling. The memory of his strike played on repeat, the terriblethwacksound.
Regret squeezed his heart like a vise. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I—I think so.” But by the halting way she answered he could tell her head was still ringing.
He gently cupped the other side of her face with his other hand. “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t say it enough.
“It’s—it’s okay. You didn’t mean to.”
“It’s not okay.”
“You were dreaming.”
“Does anything else hurt? The back of your head? I think you knocked it pretty good.”
