Page 82

“That ain’t fair.”

“Neither was the offer.”

He flinched. She saw it.

Her face softened for half a moment, but she did not take the words back.

Good. He did not deserve that.

“I told you I did not come here to trap you,” she said. “Do not try to trap me with usefulness.”

Anger rose, hot and fast. “I’m offering you a home.”

“You are offering me a sickroom.”

The truth struck so cleanly he had no answer.

The front room voices continued beyond the door, muffled and ordinary, as if the ground had not shifted under his bed.

Jesse turned his face away. “Then go home.”

The words were cruel. He knew it. He said them anyway.

Eden was quiet so long he almost looked back. Almost.

When she answered, her voice had lost the sharpness. That was worse.

“I may,” she said.

His eye shut.

The door opened.

He expected her footsteps to leave. Instead, she paused at the threshold.

“Jesse.”

He did not look at her.

“I understand fear.”

His throat tightened.

“I understand shame. I understand wanting to make an uncertain thing settled by giving it a name.”

He stared at the wall.

“Marriage is not a bandage,” she said. “You should not wrap it around a wound simply because everyone is afraid of what might happen if it is left uncovered.”

The door closed softly behind her.

Jesse lay still.

For several minutes, he did not move. He breathed no deeper than he had to. The room felt empty in a way it had not felt before she arrived.

Then pain rose in his chest that had nothing to do with bruised ribs.

He had done it.