Silas studied their rigid postures; their yearning was plain, even to his skeptical eye. It would not be so simple. Love, he decided, was exhausting. He was grateful he’d never thrown himself into it. Watching these two was wearying enough.
“Are you going to take the offer?” Dane asked, stroking her cheek with his finger. When he encountered moments like these, of tenderness, of need and connection, Silas felt a flash of jealousy as sharp as a slip wound from a scalpel.
He and his friends had watched the progression of Dane and Wren’s relationship, all of them with interest, his female friends with clasped hands and heart-filled eyes, he with mounting dread.
Keeping his distance, humans deserved privacy too, he’d watched them sitting on the steel jetty, feet dangling, sometimes talking animatedly, sometimes saying nothing at all, always comfortable in what they could give each other. They watched that square box, the “television,” limbs entangled, and when they were with their friends, they were always, whether it was a hooked foot or a hooked hand, physically connected. Barely a minute went by without one looking at the other.
And sometimes, just briefly, when watching them, Silas thought he might have an inkling of why men crossed oceans for women, why they painted portraits and drank themselves to death when under love’s spell. Women could wrap the male species up in silk-covered chains.
Wren looked at him with big eyes and lifted both her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Does Dane even know what he wants?” Lila added, equally frustrated.
Silas felt compelled to, just this once, take the doctor’s side. “DoesWrenknow whatshewants?” he asked.
They both looked at him and sighed. “Fair point,” Ruby conceded.
Lila patted his shoulder. “You’re getting better at this, Captain.”
Silas sighed. He didn’t want to get better; he wanted Dane gone from here. Why was that so difficult to understand?
“Give it some thought, sweetheart,” Dane said, and as he was prone to do, slid his arm under Wren’s posterior and lifted her up, walking her up the stairs to where he slept. The man was, Silas admitted, physically strong. As the pair passed through them, he was conscious of what Ruby called their “sexual energy”—such a vulgar term.
Thus, as they were not—again, Ruby’s phrase—“creepy perverts,” the ghosts withdrew. At the front door, Silas stood aside to allow the ladies to pass first.
For though they might have the ability to walk through walls, he believed they should, wherever they could, and because they were civilized, use doors.
* * *
After kicking open the door to his bedroom, Dane placed Wren on her feet, but when he reached for her, she backed away, putting her hands up. “I’m sweaty, Trafford.”
Was that supposed to put him off? She would have to do better than that. “That’s not a problem,” he assured her.
“It is for me,” she told him, reaching for her slouchy top and pulling it up and over her head. Today’s sports bra was deep purple, and it was his new favorite color. He’d bet all his savings that her panties would match. Dane watched, anticipation building as she shimmied her yoga pants down her legs … yep, matching. God … hot. So freakin’ hot.
He was a dead man.
“Any chance of a glass of wine, Dane?” Wren asked as she skipped away and headed for the bathroom. “I need the restorative power of fermented grape juice.”
For her? Pretty much anything.
Dane jogged down the stairs, found a bottle of Chardonnay, and poured a healthy amount into two glasses. Needing a minute, he grabbed a beer from the fridge, and leaning back against the counter, drank.
Things were changing, and he couldn’t ignore that they were running out of time. Wren’d received a job offer and was thinking about going. His lease on this place had six weeks to run. His boss’s questions about when he was returning had become more frequent, and more pointed. Lammas was nearly here…
He looked up, thought about her in the shower. He couldn’t think properly when he was around Wren. Sometimes, with her, it felt like he needed to wear an emotional hard hat, like he was on still trembling ground, the earth below him rumbling and pissed off. Looking at her for too long also felt dangerous. Like if he looked at her for too long, he’d feel too much. And he felt plenty already.
Danger and safety. It felt strange to think of those words in the context of a relationship. He was used to thinking in those terms at work, where the rules were clearer and the risks easier to measure.
She hadn’t mentioned Alex since that night on the lake. He’d like to think that she’d forgotten about him, but he was adult enough to know that he probably crept into her thoughts now and again. The guy certainly crept into his. Because Alex had offered her something he couldn’t: stability. Atogethertype of relationship; a relationship built on commonality, on history, on time spent together. And, crucially, being in the same fucking place.
He dragged a hand over his mouth. He couldn’t offer her any of that—no, what he brought to the table was heat, escape, adrenaline. He was a detour, a step out of time, a fun time before real life resumed. He wasn’t the destination and had never wanted to be.
Except that now, sometimes, he thought he did.
And if she chose him, with his issues and his nomadic life, he’d have something to lose. And that was a risk he swore he’d never take again. They’d be good at first. They always were. But eventually, the life she imagined with him wouldn’t materialize, and she’d walk away. He’d promised himself he would never be left behind like that again.
But a part of him, reckless and stupid, still hoped for something he knew would hurt them both in the long run. He couldn’t keep her, but nor could he imagine letting her go.
