to knock over those beer bottles - and knock Griffin off his feet. Without thinking, she bent to pick it up, then flattened it out with her fingers.
It was impossible to read in the dim room.
"Always signed her name the same, goddamn it." His voice was harsh. "Like a fucking fourth-grader. An E surrounded by a heart."
Jane's heart gave a little lurch at the image. "This is from Erica?"
Once again he lifted his head to swig his beer. "She would write messages on scraps of paper when we were embedded. Leave them on my bunk."
Jane could guess what kind of notes they were. An E surrounded by a heart.
When he didn't say any more, she found herself filling the silence. "I know it's hard." If only she could get him started, maybe he could express his grief and find a way past it. Find a way to...to someone else.
She bit her lip, guilty at the thought, and forced herself to go on. "I can't fathom how hard. Loving someone and losing them like that..."
Now his silence seemed to grow, expanding until it pressed against the walls, a black blob that made the room more murky, the atmosphere almost threatening. Private whined again, and his furry head dipped to his front paws.
Jane's throat went dry. Light, she decided. They needed some light. A little warmth, a little glow, would take the menace out of the place. Maybe out of the man.
Griffin lay between her and the lamp on the desk. Urged by an odd panic, she darted for it. Halfway there, his hand snaked out and grabbed her ankle.
She yelped.
"Is that where your sappy, overactive oven-mitt imagination has led you, Jane? You think I'm in a mood because I loved her?"
His fingers were hot, and they bit into her skin, staying just on the not-quite side of pain. Despite that and the billowing tension in the room, Jane felt herself reacting to his touch. Hot chills arrowed up the inside of her leg, a straight shot that pierced her belly and then her heart.
A feeling that was very bad indeed.
* * *
GRIFFIN TIGHTENED his hold on Jane's leg. His fingertips met his thumb, she was so delicate, but that didn't encourage him to be gentle. She'd brought him to this emotional place, damn it, and she was going to pay.
"Sit down," he said, releasing her ankle. "Sit down right here."
His eyes were used to the dark, and he could see the wary expression on her face as she obeyed. She was wearing another of her maddening little dresses. Fussy and demure, its full skirt swirled around her thighs as she sank to the floor. In full Lady Jane mode, she sat with her legs folded to one side. A prim-and-proper woman waiting to be served a picnic.
What a meal he had ready to dish out.
He shoved himself up, his fourth beer still half-full. Tipping his hand, he drained the bottle, then let it drop with a clunk.
Jane jumped.
"Nervous now? Thinking about all those eels that are lurking in the corners of my soul?"
Her head moved from side to side, though her eyes didn't leave his. "I'm not nervous. I'm not scared of you."
Those fucking eels, he thought, swiping a hand over his face. He couldn't get them out of his head. The memory was there, Jane in his arms, the way she'd clung to him as he'd almost tossed her to her greatest fear.
Her pretty wavy hair, tickling his chin as they sat together on the beach. He didn't think she'd realized that a little tremor had run down her spine when she'd confessed her phobia. He'd been holding her that close to his heart. It had made him want to be a better brother to her than her own. It had made him want to be her hero.
Her brother. Her hero. What a crock.
He could never be anyone's hero, and he didn't feel brotherly toward her in the least. He'd been dying to fuck her again since that night in L.A. By God, she was going to understand that by the time he was through. Then she'd stop looking at him with those beautiful eyes filled with compassion.
"I didn't love Erica," he said. "I didn't love her, and the fact of that drove her to her death."
"Griffin..."
"Don't take that placating tone with me. You want the facts, don't you? And the emotions, right? That's what you've been asking for. That's what you want on the page."