set to your mouth. You want to fuss at me. I know the look of a woman who wants to fuss.”
She looked surprised, but he was the surprised one when she took him at his word. “All I could think about these past few weeks is being back with you,” she said. “Did you think I wouldn’t? Why would you lose faith in me like that?”
He hadn’t thought of it like that at all, but he could sure see why she would think it. Fortunately, she was pushing on, rather than requiring a response from him yet.
“I realized that night, with Hayworth…that it was like the first time you told me that asking questions would help you. A relationship doesn’t work if it’s one person taking total care of the other. I have to be able to take care of you, too. That means being able to stick up for myself. Being able to say, ‘I want’… whatever it is I want.”
She’d taken a breath before she said that last part. He saw how difficult it was for her to say it, even talking in theory. But she’d said it.
Hot damn, his girl had said it.
Even though she had to stop right afterwards, take another steadying breath. Close her eyes. He waited her out, holding her hand, stroking her knuckles. When she finally lifted her lashes, she gave him her shy smile.
“Dr. Taylor gave me this idea. Every time I’m confronted with a situation where someone wants to know what…I want, I visualize that I’m somewhere I feel safe and completely unafraid. First, though, she had me practice saying it in my head. Not out loud. Then she gave me a tape recorder, told me to tape it and listen to it.”
He couldn’t say a word, because he’d never seen so many rare emotions openly showing themselves at once in her face. He just wanted to watch, afraid he’d miss a single one of them.
“It was really hard,” she said, her voice trembling again. “It still is. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. But when I try to…form those words, this overwhelming feeling of dread takes me over. Every time. But she and I kept at it. I failed, a lot. I threw up so often she made me back off of working at it so hard. Said I was pushing myself too much.”
“Imagine that,” he said in mild reproof, but his hand was tight on hers.
She squared her shoulders. “Then I did it. Maybe only once a day, and only something really easy…for everyone else. Like telling the staff what I…wanted for lunch.”
“You’re talking to a guy who had to learn how to put his shoes on without taking a header out of his chair. I get it.”
She met his gaze, smiled. “Yes. You understand things like that. Which is part of why I think we fit so well sometimes. You understand how hard it is. You also know how it feels…to want it so badly. For it to be easy, the way it is for everyone else.”
Yeah, he did. Her hand was holding his just as tight. “I wish I could have been there to help you,” he said.
She gave him a surprised look. “You were. You did.” She laid her other hand over his, holding it between both of hers. Her mouth was soft. “The safe place I imagined, where I feel completely unafraid, was your arms. That’s the way I feel, every time you’re holding me.”
Well, hell. He pushed the bedside table out of the way so he could tug on her, pull her onto the bed and wrap her up in those arms she was just talking about. He wanted to kiss her, but thanks to the meds and everything else, it felt like a skunk had died in his mouth. There was only so much he’d inflict on the woman he loved. Plus the rest of him smelled like a sponge bath with hospital soap.
It didn’t matter though. With those words, the way she looked at him, she told him she was back to stay. She wanted to be with him. Which meant he had every reason in the world to get his act together.
She let out a little sigh, relaxing. “I’m so mad at you,” she said to his chest. “You can’t ever do this again. Not ever.”
He’d never been so thrilled to hear a woman say she was pissed at him. He managed to contain his ebullience with a grave