Saving Rose Red - Maggie Dallen Page 0,25
over to top off her glass, soaking in the feel of her legs pressing against his waist as he did. “You strike me as a woman who’s more confident and more comfortable in her own skin than just about anyone I’ve ever met.” At her stunned silence he added with a small smile, “In my real life, let alone one of my fake lives.”
Her lips curved up in an impossibly genuine grin. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Shifting uncomfortably he downed half his glass. What was he supposed to say to that?
She saved him from his discomfort by continuing the conversation. “I don’t know that it’s true, but it’s nice of you to say.”
He forgot all about discomfort as the overwhelming urge to understand her, to know her took hold. She might not be in his life for long but she was here now and, like any fleeting miracle, he longed to hold onto it for as long as possible. “Why not?”
Tilting her head to the side, she seemed to study the contents of her glass. “Because I’ve never known where I fit in. Being shipped from foster home to foster home and not knowing my family…I always wanted that feeling that everyone else seemed to take for granted.”
“What feeling?” He leaned in closer. Maybe it was the wine or the scent of her shampoo, but he felt like he’d entered into an alternate reality, where this was his life—his real life—and all the other stuff was just a bad dream.
She looked up from her glass and met his gaze. “The feeling of having a home. Of having people to belong to and who belonged to you. Of knowing your place.”
He thought back to their conversation about her sisters and finding her birth parents. “Well, you’ve got that now, haven’t you? You’ve figured out where you belong?”
Her smile held a touch of sadness and that was just so wrong. Her smiles should never be tainted with unhappiness. At that moment he would have done anything to bring back her usual joyful smile.
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” she said. “That’s what I thought too—that once I found my family, that feeling would magically appear. But it turns out it doesn’t work that way. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon that I found them. But…”
After a few seconds went by, he nudged her. “But?”
She sighed. Some of the sadness dissipated and her smile turned self-deprecating. “But it doesn’t solve everything. I guess it was stupid to think it would. But suddenly having parents in my life doesn’t help me to know what I should be doing with my life or what my purpose is.”
A part of him resonated so clearly with what she was feeling—that feeling that something was missing. That lack of a center. The absence of a grounding force that pointed the way toward true north. He tried to say something to comfort her but his words were halting. “I guess you can never find that feeling in others. You’ve got to find it on your own.”
She nodded slowly. “Spoken like someone who knows what it’s like.”
He shrugged one shoulder. How had they started talking about feelings? “Let’s just say, it’s not always easy to know what’s real in my line of work. It’s easy to forget what your purpose was in the first place.”
“That must be hard.” Her brows drew together giving her an adorable little V over her nose.
He lifted on shoulder in a shrug. “It’s the life I chose. I’m not complaining.”
She took a sip of her wine and studied him over the rim. “Do you ever regret your decision?”
His sudden grin might have surprised him more than it did her. “Every other day.”
She let out a breathy laugh. “And the days when you’re not regretting your choices?”
“Then I’m feeling grateful that I found a job that’s meaningful for me. It involves a lot of sacrifice but sometimes it’s worth it.”
“Like when you bring a loser like Anthony to justice?”
He laughed at that. “Yeah, like that.”
She frowned suddenly. “I hope you catch him soon. I hate the idea of you being targeted.”
Her concern was genuine and unexpected. Maybe that was why he wasn’t prepared for it. His defenses had fallen thanks to the cozy, homey environment and when she showed concern—something no one else had done for more years than he could count—his heart squeezed painfully in his chest.
What was she doing to him?
He drained the last of