Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,214

him in turn. My life was wrecked. I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t act. I couldn’t even pursue Taekwondo semi-professionally. So, no shred of my former life remained.

And same for Barrett. His life as an Operator: over after Syria. His best friend: gone.

He tracked me down as penance. It would be the ultimate atonement. He could confess everything, release his awful guilt. He’d planned to let me decide what should be done to him. If I wanted him to turn himself in, if I didn’t object to him doing so, then he would. He’d come completely clean, and maybe then, he’d feel clean too.

Except, he fell in love with me. And so it’s funny, how wrong I had it at first. He traded absolution, traded guiltless living, he traded a fresh start to be with me. He wasn’t with me because he thought he had to be. Being near me put his life at risk, it risked his friends’ lives. But he did it until he was worried it would risk my life. And then he had to tell me. Had to let me go. That’s what he thought, Dove told me.

It’s a fucked-up story, this one. Hard to understand and even harder to accept.

There were two hit-and-runs that night. One mine, and one that of an elderly Arapahoe woman. She died and stayed dead. Breck hid her body underneath snow, so the local paper didn’t report her death until a month and a half later.

I died and came back.

Another curve in the tracks: Breck telling Barrett, Dove, and Blue that the woman that he’d hidden was alive. Was me.

Breck thought this would make it easier for Bear to live with what had happened. He didn’t know that Bear and I had talked that night at the bar. That we’d connected. Bear had called me “snowflake,” given me his scarf. We smoked our cigarettes together, and I loved his handsome face, his pretty eyes. I remember just that one thing: smoking with him outside. In my memory, I even loved his sadness.

Sweet Barrett.

Mine.

I look at Barrett, and I want to hug him. Want to touch his hair and rub his scratchy cheeks. I want his lips on mine, his strong legs intertwined with my soft ones. I want him beside me at night so I can hold him, he can hold me.

It’s the little things. That’s all life is, when you really start to think about it. Little things that are your story. No one knows them—no one but you and yours—but they’re what make a life. The twinkle lights I strung up on the ceiling for him. Him smelling gardenia petals. The flying pig bird bath.

It’s the little things that make a life, and I’ve learned that they are all I need. Just Barrett in his Jeep. Just shower sex. Just my lover’s smile as I lie in his lap on our rock in the woods.

All things I don’t have, because I haven’t even seen his eyes in forty-six days.

“Hey there, sleeping Beary…”

I climb into bed with him, the way I always do, crossing my legs before I take his big, warm hand in both of mine.

“You know, I should tell you, hibernation season’s ending. I’ve seen Papa almost every day the last two weeks. Even Cinnamon is waddling out of her little nook some days, and you know females are the last ones to wake up. I want to let you know. As a Bear, you have a certain schedule that you need to follow.”

My throat tightens unexpectedly. I look down at his hand and trace the scars on it, trying to tickle with my fingertips. Some days, I’ll feel his fingers twitch a little, and my whole body goes hot, then cold—with hope he’ll wake up and fear that he won’t.

It’s just so tricky. So confusing. So unknown. His number on the Galsgow Coma Scale is an eight. A three means totally unresponsive, and a fifteen is the best score: what I’d score. Anything over an eight would mean he’s not technically in a coma anymore. If he would just say anything—even words that don’t make sense—he’d be a nine. But…Barrett doesn’t.

When the nurses or one of the therapists do something that hurts him, sometimes he’ll recoil. Last week, when they re-casted his broken ankle and moved it in a certain way, his eyes opened. He drew a deep breath, and I thought I would pass out from pure joy. Then his eyes shut and his vitals leveled