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I peered into the darkness. “Sebastian?” I whispered.

There was a pause, followed by a resigned sigh. “Yeah.”

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sleeping. Trying to, anyway,” he said pointedly. “Why are you whispering?”

“Everyone whispers in the dark.” I was still whispering. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“I told you. I was sleeping.”

There was a rustling sound, and then the lamp flicked on. My hands flew to my eyes. “Warn me next time,” I groused.

I squinted through my fingers and saw a very annoyed, very rumpled, very adorable Seb glaring at me. His hair stuck up at all angles and there was a red mark on one cheek, like he had slept with his hands tucked there. I wanted to smooth his hair and kiss his cheek. It hurt that I couldn’t.

“What time is it?” I asked, glancing toward the table as if a clock might magically appear.

“A little after six.”

“Shouldn’t you be wrangling cows by now?” Ranch chores came early, and Seb was always long gone by the time I awoke.

“It’s chickens, and Holly’s taking care of them with Ezra and Tyrone. They can do without me for a morning.” He rubbed his hair. It stood straight up. “I figured I’d hang out here with you for a little bit. In case you needed anything.”

My lips parted as I stared at him wordlessly.

You. I need you. The one thing I couldn’t have. Losing him was bad enough, but it hurt so much more knowing he had never been mine to begin with.

“Lila?” he asked, his voice rough and uncertain.

I blinked. My gaze dropped to the braided rug where he had spent the night. He hadn’t even brought a pillow or a blanket from the bed with him. “Why did you sleep on the floor?”

He just looked at me.

“I don’t understand you,” I said quietly. I looked at him, and it hit me all over again. This man was a stranger to me. “We’re married, and I don’t even know you.”

“You know me. I might not have told you the whole truth when we met, but nothing I told you was a lie. Nothing we had together was fake, I promise you. Before you, everything felt bad. Every breath of air, every beat of my heart, it all felt wrong. Like I didn’t deserve it. That oxygen I was wasting should have gone into someone else’s lungs. That blood should have pumped into someone else’s arteries. But when I was with you, all of those things went back to being autonomic. I didn’t owe them to anyone else. Hell, I was even glad about it. I was glad I was the one who survived. Because being alive meant being with you.”

“Seb,” I choked out. “I hate that you were hurting like that, and I never knew. I wish I had known. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because for the first time in months, I wasn’t drowning. I was so fucking scared that if I let all that back in, it would pull me under again.” He shifted, moving so he knelt between my thighs. His hands went to my hips, and he lowered his head to my lap. “I fucked up. I’m so sorry, baby.”

“I know. I’m sorry, too.” My hands automatically drifted to his hair. I sifted the soft strands through my fingers and gave his scalp a little scratch. He’d always loved it when I did that.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I’m sorry I missed the signs that you were struggling. I’m sorry I didn’t ask more questions. I should have.”

“You couldn’t have known.” He pressed his face to my thigh. “What if we tried again? I missed you, Lila. I missed you so damn much.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The quiet stretched, lingered, full of possibility. What if, what if, what if.

“I’m scared,” I whispered. “I’m scared I’m going to keep making the same mistake. Those demons you carry aren’t going to roll over and disappear. There is no magic cure. So what are you going to do the next time they show up? What are you going to do if I get hurt?”

“You’re not going to get hurt,” he said roughly.

“I might. Maybe I’ll slip getting out of the bathtub and break my leg. Maybe I’ll get stampeded by cattle.”

He lifted his head. “Why would you get stampeded by cattle?”