snuggle up to me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ll hurt me if you don’t.”
She moved very carefully to prop his injured arm on a pillow before resting her head on his chest as he looped his good arm around her, all the while gritting his teeth against the pain.
“God, this fucking sucks.”
“It beats the alternative.”
Her comment was a stark reminder of how she’d lost the first man she’d been engaged to in an ATV accident when she was three months pregnant with Savvy.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I have no complaints.”
“Don’t be sorry. It does suck, but I’m so freaking thankful you didn’t die that all I can see is the silver lining.”
“Thank you for reminding me of the silver lining.”
“There is one. You’re still here, we’re all safe, and we’ve got so much to look forward to.”
“You’re one hundred percent right, and I’ll try to keep my bitching to a minimum.”
“It’s okay if you want to bitch. I know that being sidelined is hell for you.”
“Only because I can’t hold you and kiss you and love you the way I want to or play with my little girl.”
“You will soon enough.”
“Not soon enough for me.”
“It was nice to see Landon and Amanda.”
“Yes, it was. It doesn’t bug you to have her here, does it?”
“Why would it?”
“Well, I was kinda in a rage over the two of them when we first met.”
“A lot’s happened since then. She’s no threat to me.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “No, she isn’t, and everything has happened since then.”
“When we went to tuck in Savannah, she got emotional.”
“How so?”
“She asked if she could hold her, and when she gave her back to me, I noticed she was crying.”
“Did she say why?”
“She didn’t, and I didn’t feel like I should ask.”
“Could be just emotional overload after the fire. I’ve found myself in tears a few times thinking about what happened, what could’ve happened, what I might’ve missed. The worst part was knowing how tortured you’d be after what you went through after losing Jack. I hated doing that to you.”
“Thank you for not dying. I very much appreciate that.”
He gave a soft laugh that he instantly regretted. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“All kidding aside, I love you. And I can’t wait for you to feel better so we can get back to normal in all ways.”
“I love you, too, and I can’t wait either. We’re going to make up for all this lost time, so you’d better rest up.”
Dani laughed and kissed his chest. “Get some sleep, tiger.”
Lucas gave a low growl and kissed her forehead. He wasn’t sure how he would survive until he could do much more than that.
Tonight has been interesting, Amanda thought on the drive home to Landon’s on dark winding roads. After he’d told her about Fred hanging out in the middle of roadways, Amanda found herself keeping a lookout for him even if she couldn’t see anything beyond the beam of the headlights. The fear that they might smash into a huge moose was better than thinking about the things she’d learned about Landon in the last few hours or the mini meltdown she’d experienced while holding Savannah.
About Landon… Of course she’d understood that a handsome, sexy, charming man like him—and his equally adorable twin brother—would be popular with women, but to see it firsthand… That’d been rather jarring.
She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that it had given her pause to see a woman throw herself at him and kiss him right in front of her, or to witness the behavior of the server at the pizza place. Though she’d played it down with him, it had rattled her, especially after the big step forward they’d taken together earlier.
Was spending this time with him going to turn out to be another huge mistake?
She didn’t know, and that uncertainty had thrown her off-balance.
“Could I ask you something?” he said as he navigated the winding roads that led to home. His home. Not hers. She had no home to call her own, which was another thing that felt wrong since the fire.
“Sure.”
“When you came out of Savannah’s room, you looked really sad and maybe like you’d been crying. Were you sad?”
“A little.”
“Because of the fire?”
She shook her head.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I… Not really, but I will. I’ll tell you.”
He reached for her hand. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
When they got home, he came around to get her again, taking care as he had all evening to make sure