The door closed on that note, and Alex found herself suddenly able to move again. She stood at once, but then simply sat back down. They would just take control of her and send her back. Besides, she had a great deal of thinking to do.
Chapter Sixteen
Cale opened his eyes and peered at the ceiling overhead, waiting for the pain to return and consume him as it had every other time he'd woken in this room during the last several hours. Nothing happened. The pain was gone. He was briefly relieved, but then thought he'd better be sure before getting too excited. He tried moving various limbs and digits to test for pain, but froze and glanced to the side as a rustling reached his ears.
"You're awake." Alex sat forward in the chair beside the bed.
He took in her tentative smile with surprise, and then scrambled to sit up, forgetting all about his concern that the pain might return. "You're here."
"Yes." She hesitated and then asked, "Do you want me to leave? I'll understand if you're upset with me for leaving you-"
Cale caught her hand when she stood up. "No. Stay."
He held on to her until she sat back down, and then patted her hand, and assured her, "I am not angry about that. It must have been terrifying for you when you saw my fangs. I handled the whole thing badly. I should have sent you away before-"
"You'd just been in a terrible accident, Cale," she interrupted. "You were hardly thinking straight. I should have at least stuck around long enough to be sure you were all right and allow you to explain."
"I take it someone else has explained while I was recovering? " he asked.
Alex nodded. "Marguerite."
Cale sent a silent thank-you to the woman. It was a relief not to have Alex looking at him as if he were a monster anymore. He suspected it would be a long time before he forgot the horror that had blanched her face when he'd allowed his fangs to slide out and torn into the bag of blood. It was one of the very few times in his life he'd felt like the fiend his kind were proclaimed to be.
He glanced back to her now to see that she was peering down at her hands, twisting them nervously in her lap. The sight made him frown. While Marguerite had explained what they were, and she appeared to accept it, there was obviously something still troubling her.
"What is it?" he asked quietly.
Alex licked her lips and then blurted, "Marguerite says you love me."
"Yes, I believe I do," he admitted. While it had been little more than a week, how long did it really take toknow you loved someone? He suspected sometimes it was slow, growing like a sweet-smelling flower that buds and blossoms, but other times it could be fast. Besides, thanks to the nanos, immortals had a head start in the matter. They knew with a certainty that if the person was a life mate, they were the right one and were able to enjoy the person without all the questions about whether they would suit and so on. And that was what Cale had done this last week, enjoyed her independence, her determination, her ambition, her creativity, her sense of adventure. She was a spectacular woman and would suit him perfectly in some ways and complement him in others. While he was organized, she was a chaotic, creative thinker. They would balance each other out and teach each other things at the same time.
"She said that I love you too," Alex said quietly, and still wasn't looking up from her hands.
"Is she right?" he asked, and then held his breath, praying for the answer he wanted.
"Yes ... no ..." She grimaced, and then finally met his gaze. "I was pretty shook up when I saw your fangs. My immediate thought was that it just figured I'd go and fall for a monster, and the only thing I could think at that point was that you wanted me for a blood donor and sex toy."
"No, Alex, I-" Cale began, but she continued.
"Marguerite said I was using that as an excuse not to get involved and risk being hurt, and she was right. I've done a lot of thinking while you were recovering and, basically I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty messed up," she admitted with a dry laugh.
Cale frowned with concern. "You seem pretty together to me."
"Oh." She waved that away. "Sure, I seem together, but ..." She sighed, and said, "You remember I told you that we moved every year until I was ten, and that made it hard to make and keep friends? "
He nodded.
"Well, the thing is, I did make friends, but then we'd move, I'd make a new friend, and then we'd move again. That happened over and over so that when Gramps came to stay with us, it was just easier to be with him, for him to be my best friend and confidant. Then he died and left me too." She made a face. "It started to feel like maybe I wasn't supposed to have anyone. They all either died or left me."
"I see," Cale murmured, and he did understand how it must have seemed to a child. "You didn't have friends in high school? "
She shook her head. "By that time I'd hit the awkward teenage years and was shy ... and it didn't help that, as the oldest, I had to look after Jo and Sam after Gramps died. It meant I could never accept invitations to do things after school or on weekends. I was pretty lonely." She grimaced, and added, "But then I went away to culinary school, and it was like the whole world opened up for me. I was in a foreign country, met lots of new and interesting people, made friends and ..."
"And?" he prompted.
"And there was Jack." She grimaced. "I met him thefirst week of school. He was from Canada too, a little town in southern Ontario. He spoke French and he was handsome, and funny, and charming, and he liked me. That whole first year I was in heaven. Everything was wonderful. Jack and I were always together and even had a lot of classes together. He said he loved me."
Cale felt his mouth tighten. Part of it was jealousy though he had no right to it, the other part was because there had been a plaintive sound to the words, a hint of very old, very deep pain that made him want to hunt down this Jack guy and break his neck for causing it.