She’d given him what he’d always wanted at a time he was least deserving.
She rubbed her knuckles over his cheek. “Almost done.”
When he opened his eyes, she was smiling—gap toothed. No falsity, no armour. His wolf warrior woman was totally naked to him in all the ways that mattered.
She was Rielle and yet she wasn’t. She was Gym Girl and yet she wasn’t. She was Arielle, completely, unbearably exposed to him.
“You’re so fucking incredible.”
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and she let them flow, over silken sun-kissed skin. Her voice shook. “I look like her.”
Jake wanted to touch Rielle, gather her, love her, but he was no longer worthy. “Like your mum?”
She nodded. “I don’t deserve to look like her. She was beautiful.”
“God. You’re beautiful, Rie.”
She shook her head violently. “Not like this. Don’t you get it? Not like this.” Her face crumpled. “When I’m like this, I can only see what I did to her, to Ben and Rand and me. I see what we lost. I can’t do it,” she finished on a sob, and collapsed into his open arms.
Now he saw. Now he really got it. This was the kernel of her conflict; her two halves, and the ghost in the mirror who haunted her made her prefer fake to real. He stroked her back, his face tucked closed to hers, struggling against the pull of his own tears. “You were only a kid. It can’t be your fault, Rie.”
She pulled back to look up at him, eyes heavy lidded and wet. “Not entirely, I can see that now. It’s a bad piece of road. I never realised how bad until today. It was wet and Ben was tired. But if I hadn’t caused an argument, things would be different. She’d still be here. He might too. They said the accident triggered his tumour.”
If this wasn’t real life, the part that can leave you forever wounded and bleeding, Jake might’ve had words of comfort, of hope or sustenance for Rielle. He had nothing. He was as stripped naked as she was. And even if he’d had a golden throat and visionary words, they’d have made no difference to her. He couldn’t touch her pain to heal it, only to band-aid it. She’d hugged this truth, this pain so hard it was who she’d become. She was the only one who could change that.
“I promised myself I’d make it up to her, to Dad, to Rand. But it doesn’t matter how successful we are, it’s not enough. I have to learn to live with it—to live with myself. There has to be a reason for me not dying too.”
He wrapped her legs around his waist and lifted her, snagging her robe from the back of the door, carrying her to the lounge room. He helped her tie the robe and settled her in his lap on the couch. Rielle snuggled into the curve of his neck and he held her with arms almost numb from a heart overfilled with emotion and no longer capable of supplying the rest of his body with what it needed.
“I should have bled to death. I could have died of internal injuries.”
“But you didn’t, Rie. It made you strong.”
“It made me scared. And being in Australia brought it all back like it was yesterday. I see it in my dreams. I see that road. I feel the rain and smell the blood and I hear Ben screaming. I see Maggie in the hospital. All the tubes. The noise of the ventilator. She never opened her eyes again. I made promises to her, but she never knew.”
Jake sighed. “Ah, Rie.” He swallowed hard, his throat aching with the tenderness he felt for her.
“If only I’d been different, been better—”
“Ah, baby you can’t think like that.”
“I do think like that. How else can I think? I’ve been scared my whole life, Jake and you knew it and I hated you for it.”
He hugged her closer. “It’s okay—it doesn’t matter. We’re past that.” He looked down at her, no longer teary but so vulnerable.
“It’s not okay. It’s why I don’t do relationships. I’m no good at them.” She turned her face up to his, and he kissed her forehead. “Why did you want to leave me?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m ashamed about what happened.”
She gasped. “You came for me—you saved me.”
“I…” he stumbled on thoughts too intense, on explanations that were inadequate.
She climbed across his lap. “You knew what to do and you brought