Aubrey nodded. He, too, was soaked—his shirt clung to his sculpted frame while rainwater slicked every inch of exposed skin. The bones bracketing his throat reflected the stormy light, giving his wet skin a pearly sheen.
He wasn’t shivering, though. She couldn’t fathom how. Then again, he radiated intensity the same way a flame threw heat. Maybe that kind of sustained inner force crossed over into the physical. As if she might reach out and warm her hands with the sheer energy he exuded.
“Nick.”
His jaw hardened. He wouldn’t look at her. “What.”
God, she knew exactly where his mind had gone. She’d seen that look dozens of times. “This isn’t your fault.”
“The fuck it isn’t.” His staring contest with the road intensified. “I left you standing in the truck while I stacked bags in the barn. You were in the rain twice as long as I was, and then I wasted all that time spreading the corn without even checking to see if you were okay, first.”
“That was my idea.”
“And my oversight. I should’ve given you my jacket as soon as it started raining. Better yet, I should’ve just done the whole job myself and let you stay inside.”
She sighed, even while some hidden part of her fluttered. His concern touched the very center of her, like a caress.
God, Megan had been right. Very little about Nick Thacker had changed. He stillcared, so much that it bordered on selflessness. So much that it bordered on self-neglect, because he’d always put others before himself. Aubrey had no doubt he’d offer his last morsel to someone he cared about, even if it meant condemning himself to starvation. As it was, he’d already given her the clothes off his back.
That part of him had always awed her. It also made her grieve, because she knew where it came from. His father hadn’t cared for him, so now Nick cared for others. His noble heart demanded nothing less. Yet no one had ever taught him to treat himself the same way.
Somehow, she’d forgotten that. And, as a result, had been so hard on him since coming back—spurning his overtures, minimizing all he’d done for her. Mostly to protect herself, but that wasn’t a decent excuse.
He deserved better.
She swallowed against a raw throat. “You must be freezing, too. Do you want your jacket back? Or for me to... scoot over there?”
He shot her a wide-eyed glance. “As in, share body heat?”
She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. “Well. Yeah. Friends can do that.”
His Adam’s apple scraped up and down. “Itwouldwarm you up.”
“You, too.”
He dragged his gaze back to the road, but the raw energy pouring off him intensified. Aubrey glanced at the visor mirror, halfway expecting to find her hair standing on end.
“Okay,” he said. “Come here.”
The truck was old. Not ancient, but not the shiny new kind with fancy electronics, either, and it had a broad bench seat, smooth all the way across. Aubrey unclicked her seat belt and slid to the middle. Once she fastened the lap belt, she hesitated. Nick’s scent enveloped her, a clean blend of rainwater and lit matches. His pulse ticked beneath his jaw, swelling and retreating, swelling and retreating.
The interval shortened the longer she stared.
“Put your arms around me.” His words came out precise. Stilted.
After a frozen moment, Aubrey complied. She hugged the firm breadth of his torso. He snaked one arm under the sodden jacket and clamped her against his side.
He really was freezing. Tiny ice crystals prickled in his shirt, and she angled her face so her exhalations would warm his chest. They drove in silence, Nick stiff in her arms.
She closed her eyes, lulled by the hypnotic thump of the wipers. Memories ebbed and flowed, echoes of a time when this had felt as natural and needed as breathing. Not fraught with doubts or broken promises, but simple. Right.
Gradually, her skin warmed where it pressed against his. His heat leached into her, soothing old scars, and she squeezedtighter, trying to communicate something that felt, in that moment, easier to convey with touch than with words.
Thank you for taking care of me.Thank you for letting me take care of you.
Maybe some fragment of her message reached him, because his posture softened. He didn’t melt, exactly. More like he capitulated, inch by inch.
All too soon, they reached her house. Nick shifted into Park, took her by the shoulders, and tilted her away, just far enough to look down into her face. She gazed up, caught in the tidal pools of his eyes. In the hazy silver light, they looked like windows to another universe, opening onto someplace private and lushly shadowed and, best of all, warm.
