Xavier felt a twinge of guilt for telling her about the break-in, but he knew there would be no point in hiding it from her. She could always guess when something was going on inside his head, and he was done pretending otherwise.
He felt a little better now that he had told Willis about what happened. Xavier had filled him in on everything, from thebreak-in in his room to the generators going out and their trip to the Haynes’ brothers’ ranch—though Xavier had added that he and Lawson were pretty sure the brothers had nothing to do with what had gone down.
“You want to get something to eat while we’re here?” Xavier suggested. He knew he and Hannah should probably be getting back to the lodge, but it wasn’t often he got to spend time alone with her, and he didn’t want to waste it. Yes, he knew he shouldn’t be doing anything to encourage his feelings for her, but they were friends, right? And friends sometimes got lunch together. It didn’t have to mean anything.
“That sounds great,” she agreed. “I’m starving. I hardly got breakfast this morning before I had to go meet Jed.”
Jed. There was another nudge at the back of Xavier’s mind, though he was sure he had no reason to be suspicious of the new arrival. He had only just gotten to Warrior Peak, so the chance of him being involved with everything that had been going on was next to zero.
They drove to the closest café down the street. Mary Cinder, who owned the fabric store next door, was just gathering herself from the last table by the window to go back to work.
“Oh, you two take this table,” she told them. “I should be getting back to the store anyway.”
“Thanks, Mary,” Hannah replied with a smile, taking a seat at the vacated table.
Xavier ordered for the two of them at the counter before he came back to join her. He knew what she liked—he always paid attention to what she chose at mealtimes, taking in all those little details about her that he doubted she even paid much mind to herself.
Returning to the table, he noticed a line of lingering frost around the edge of the window. Hannah had noticed it, too, and she sighed.
“I can’t wait for spring,” she remarked to him. “Winter lasts way too long here. I do enjoy my cool morning walks, but I feel like I’m going to freeze to death before I see the flowers bloom.”
“Yeah, agreed,” he replied.
Back when he had been growing up, winter had been his favorite time of the year. He had counted down the days until the first snow, when he and Max could go out and have a snowball fight and sled down the large hill behind their house. Their hands would burn with the frozen cold when they came in, and their mom would always have a hot cocoa ready and waiting for them on the stove when they got back. He could still remember that sweet aroma, the way it smelled like home to him.
He suddenly realized Hannah was staring at him, a small smile on her face, while he’d been lost in his head. “What is it?” he asked, shifting slightly in his seat.
“Nothing,” she replied, shaking her head. “You just looked…content there for a moment. I don’t see that a lot in you.”
He grimaced. Yeah, she had a point there. Especially these last few months, as much as he had tried to pretend otherwise. He had been on edge, tormented by the memories of losing his brother, and he knew he hadn’t been doing a good job of hiding it.
“Winters have always been long here,” he remarked, changing the subject. “Ever since I was a kid. My brother and I—” The words were out before he could stop them, but he clammed up the moment they were out of his mouth.
Hannah must have been able to tell how much his memories got to him. “I like hearing about the sanctuary when it was your family home,” she told him, offering him a smile. “And about your brother. Max, right?”
Hearing her say his name like that made him tense. He flinched, and she must have noticed. She reached across the table and placed her hand on top of his. Her touch took him backto a better place—a place where he had never lost his brother, where the pain of what he had been through didn’t weigh so heavily on him. Warm, full of love and light, where he didn’t carry the shame of what he had done.
Or what he had failed to do.
“Yeah, Max,” he replied, reaching his thumb up to brush against her skin. This was dangerous, too dangerous. He should have stopped it before it went any further, but how the hell could he, when having her this close felt so right? He felt the electricity racing from her skin to his.
“You should talk to Sarah,” she suggested again, and he drew his hand back at once. He could feel that defensiveness rising inside of him, that urge to push back against what she was suggesting and tell her to back off. “I don’t want to go through all that again,” he muttered.
“You don’t have to talk about the bad stuff right away,” she suggested. “You could start with the good memories. The stuff you want to remember.”
He drew his gaze away from her and shook his head. “It’s not a good idea.”
“I’m worried about you, Xavier,” she told him, a sadness to her voice. “I know… I can see how much you’ve been struggling. I just want the best for you.”
He didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, he didn’t have to come up with anything, because the cheery waitress arrived with their food a moment later, placing it in front of them as she chattered away about the weather.
Hannah sighed, clearly seeing that the moment was lost, and tucked in to her meal.
Afterward, when they stepped outside, she seemed subdued. Xavier could tell she was still bothered by the conversation they’d had before lunch. It would have been easy for him to just leave it there and hope she didn’t bring it up again, butsomething in him was urging him to tell her more. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it dredged up for him. She was trying to reach out, trying to make a difference, and she deserved more than to just be brushed off.
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “I’m sorry for shutting you out.”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
