He saw through the metaphorical veil I used to suppress my emotions as he exposed my truth—Boden saw the real me. The girl who was vulnerable, sad, and hiding from her past. He saw into my soul, and there was understanding there within that knowledge. A familiarity that struck me in return. I recognized the pain in his piercing brown eyes. The man before me sheltered his own agony, and I could feel the weight of it bearing down on him.
I took a tentative step closer to the couch, but the moment I did, he jumped to his feet, and our connection broke.
“I waited until you were done in the shower, but I need to run home quick.”
“It’s fine. I just came to get some water and Advil.”
“I’ll get that for you. You sit and rest.”
“No, I got it. You go, do what you need to do.”
He nodded and walked out the door without a backward glance. I gripped the edge of the counter and let out a shaky breath.
“What just happened?” I left the glass of water on the counter and retreated to the bedroom.
Chapter8
Boden
“What the fuck was that?” I breathed a harsh breath and raked my hands roughly through my hair.
I’d gone years keeping my emotions in check, code for buried beneath a boulder I used as a paper-weight to hold myself together for my sister’s sake, and tonight . . . tonight I did a piss-poor job of doing just that—keeping it together.
Finding Lakelyn trapped inside that metal carnage, unconscious, snapped what remaining shred of strength I had left when it came to keeping my distance from her. Then when she came to, seeing the light in her eyes flicker as all sense of hope teetered on the brink of darkness, it gutted me, and I would have done anything at that moment to have eased her pain.
She was absolutely petrified.
Seeing the rawness of Lakelyn’s fears breaching the surface with each breath of realization she took was a look I recognized. Her pain essentially ripped the Band-Aid off that had barely held me together and transported me back fifteen years to when I last felt soul-crushing, debilitating pain. It was the day I delivered the life-changing news to my sister that our parents had perished in a plane crash.
The shock.
The fear.
The despair.
Over the years, I’d been an attending officer on the scene of several horrific motor vehicle accidents, and yet, none of them affected me the way tonight had. I’d always been able to compartmentalize. However, tonight rocked my axis and was a visceral reminder that I could bury my emotions all I wanted, but at some point, they’d slap me in the face, and I’d be forced to process all I’d lost and the memories our family had been robbed of.
Releasing a heavy sigh, I left my cruiser parked in Lakelyn’s driveway and jogged across the street to my house. Once I secured my service revolver in its lock box, I quickly changed out of my uniform and into a pair of gym shorts and a long-sleeved Henley before grabbing the golden ticket to make my beautiful neighbor smile out of the freezer.
When I returned to her place, the lights were off, and the front door was locked. I shouldn’t have been surprised, given how abruptly I left and considering Lakelyn didn’t feel it necessary to be monitored overnight, but that didn’t deter me.
All was quiet after I entered the door code and stepped inside until I reached the back of the house where the bedrooms were. As I approached, the faint whisper of her voice caused my steps to falter. I suddenly felt I was encroaching on a private phone call, but then I remembered she said there was no one to contact.
No one to call or notify.
When I rounded the corner, I found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her back angled half toward me. I leaned on the doorframe and watched silently as she ran her fingers over a photo she held in her lap.
“I’d give anything to talk to you again . . . to hear your voice.”
From where I stood, I couldn’t make out the details in the photo, but when her shoulders sagged, and her longing became apparent, I felt compelled to make my presence known.
I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe, which regrettably caused her to jump.
“Jesus, Boden, I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I needed to change and grab something. May I come in?”
She nodded yes, and I advanced, closing the distance between us while she discretely slipped the photo into the drawer. When she turned around and climbed on the bed, tucking her bare legs under her, the glow from the bedside lamp accentuated her soft, flawless features, and I was nearly tongue-tied.
