up there. So many detours: She could go to the grocery. She could hit the twenty-four-hour Target for cleaning supplies. She could just drive around until she needed gas.
At which point, she could get some gas and keep driving around.
Yet she knew Boone was waiting for her and wouldn’t leave until she showed up at her apartment. Even though he still hadn’t reached out, he was indeed the kind of male who, if he made an appointment with someone, always showed up. Well, except for that diner thing, and he’d certainly had a valid reason for missing that meal.
He would be in front of her building, just as he’d said.
God . . . she really wanted to drive away, drive far, far away. The idea of going to some clinic to be poked and prodded at had no appeal whatsoever, and she was struggling with the balance of interests. It was her body, but Boone wasn’t wrong. If she were pregnant, half of what was inside of her was his.
Part of him.
So he had some rights in all this.
Not that she was pregnant, of course. What were the chances, really.
Sure, they had had sex beforehand, but it had been hours before.
At least four. Maybe six.
Shit.
Ten minutes later, Helania pulled into the parking lot around the back of her building. Getting out, she shouldered her nylon bag and walked through the packed snow to the rear entrance. She used her key to get in, and then took a right and went down the stairwell to the basement floor.
As she bottomed out on the lower level, she opened the steel door—
Boone was standing beside her apartment’s unimpressive, nothing-special entrance: His big body was leaning against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his leathers, his dark head lowered. He came to attention the split second he noticed her, and given the way he straightened his leather jacket, it was obvious he was feeling as awkward as she was.
“Hi,” she said as she came forward.
“I didn’t know if you were . . .” He cleared his throat. “Hi.”
“You didn’t know if I was going to show up?”
“The car is waiting for us outside.”
“I’d like to drop my stuff off.”
His nostrils flared. “You were shooting.”
“Yes.” She frowned. “It’s important to keep my skills up.”
“I’m not suggesting it isn’t. I’m in a training program, remember. The Brothers stress all the time how critical practice is.”
As they stared at each other, she remembered sitting across from him at Remi’s, the conversation flowing so smoothly that it had been like air in her lungs: easy and life-sustaining. And yet now they were here, with nothing but jagged syllables and ragged silences between them.
Helania dropped her shoulder bag and crossed her arms over her chest. It was a while before she could find the right words.
“I don’t know . . .” She took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. “I don’t know how to get back to where we were. I’ve lost us. And even as I say that, I know it’s ridiculous because it’s not like we’ve been together for long at all. So what exactly am I not getting back to? Still . . . I miss where we were and I hate where we are.”
Things got wavy as the tears came, and she cursed, thinking of the target range attendant. No wonder people assumed she needed to be taken care of left and right. She was a goddamn mess—
“Helania. Come here.”
She put her hand out. “No. No, I don’t want to lean on you. I don’t want . . . I need to stand on my own. For the first time in my life, I want to be strong.”
“It’s not an either/or, you know. You can be strong and rely on your friends and family.”
“I’m not so sure about that. And even more to the point, I’m done with ruining other people’s lives. Isobel watched over me for decades, and you know what? I’ve been thinking a lot today, and I’ve been wondering what else she could have accomplished in her too-short life if she’d freed up all those hours. Would she have moved in with her lover? Mated him and had young of her own? Would she have not even met him because ten years ago, instead of buying a truck with me, she’d bought a house with another male, a different one, and forged a future with him? There were a lot of paths she could have taken, but instead,