Garrett didn’t look up when Rachel walked into his bedroom. He sat at the foot of his bed, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together. His eyes were burning. She could probably see how damp they were. He was past caring.
“Hi.” She hovered just inside the doorway.
He parroted back, “Hi.”
“Can we talk?”
“You sure I’m the one you want to talk to?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I heard you,” he whispered.
“Heard me what?”
He cleared his throat. “I came out to talk things through, but you weren’t in the living room. I heard you talking to someone in your room. I’m guessing it was Misha.”
After a short pause she said, “Yes.”
He nodded, her confirmation hollowing him out.
“I made a salt barrier at the door,” she said. “He can’t come in further than the guest room and bathroom.”
“Great.”
Like that made it okay.
Yet again, she had turned to someone else—let someone else in—while she kept Garrett at arm’s length. She was moving away from him already. He wanted to follow after her, but he didn’t think he had it in him anymore. At least he knew she’d be back next time something blew up.
Was that all he had to look forward to?
He felt the bed move as she knelt next to him. He could see from the corner of his eye.
Please, Lord, don’t let her try to start anything again.
He wouldn’t be able to handle it if something happened between them before he had the answers he needed. If she so much as touched him, he would probably leap across the room like he was snakebit.
His stomach churned as he remembered Dylan again.
“I’m in a difficult situation here,” she said. “And you are too. Because of me.”
“I knew what I was signing up for.”
Partly, anyway.
He knew she was going through a lot—it just turned out to be a different kind of hurting, from a source he would never have guessed. Being surrounded by ghosts… What she was dealing with was awful. He didn’t mean to be putting more on her.
“But you didn’t,” she said. “Not really. You thought you were helping out a friend who had been through a traumatic event. You didn’t know you were getting all of this. I did.”
Her voice crackled for a moment, but she cleared her throat and went on in a strong tone.
“I knew how you felt. I knew you loved me. And I let you help me even though I knew it was hurting you. And I am so, so sorry for that. But I didn’t do it to use you or lead you on. I did it because I couldn’t stay away. I knew I was all wrong for you, but I just…wanted you so much. I hope you can forgive me. I know I never will.”
“Rachel—” He glanced up.
Looking at her was a mistake. When their gazes met, it was like being struck by lightning. His heart seemed to want to break out of his chest to get to her.
Whenever they were close he felt it—electric energy, pulsing just beneath his skin. Never this strong before, though. His entire body was charged and ready to do whatever she needed, wanting just a little more time with her any way he could get it.
The pull toward her was like gravity—or a black hole.
Her lips parted and she leaned toward him. She felt it too. He was sure of it. What he wasn’t sure of was whether it was love or lust on her part. And the ever-present question with her remained—when would she run away again?
“You asked me to think,” she said. “But that’s part of my problem. I think too much about some things, but not enough about others. I can be focused and calm or full of frenetic energy. I’m a person of extremes.”
She shook her head and leaned back on her heels. “I’m passionate. I feel everything deeply and I process things so fast. It can come out…intense. I know it can be off-putting. Even I want to run away from me sometimes. Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing. Running away from everything.”
Garrett had never thought that Rachel might be exhausted by her own contradictions. “That doesn’t seem like a good way to live.”
“It isn’t. I don’t want to live that way anymore. I don’t want to run away from you, Garrett.”
His heartbeat instantly picked up. He could feel the blood rushing in his ears.
He tried to stay calm. She didn’t want to run away. Okay. But what did she want? A casual fling? Or something more?
“I’ve never seen you yell or get as worked up with anyone else as you do with me,” she said. “I don’t know that it’s a good thing I bring that out of you.”
“I have a temper. That’s not your doing.”
“I know. I’m trying to explain why I act this way with you.” She let out a breath and said, “Do you remember the night we met?”
“Of course. It was one of your mom’s fundraisers.”
“I’m not talking about seeing each other across a room. I mean the first time we talked.”
He had seen her half a dozen times before they ever spoke. They had exchanged glances across rooms, even sometimes grinned and raised their eyebrows or nodded their heads, sharing a joke that no one else seemed to get.
But the first time they talked… That was something he would never forget. It had put his life on a different trajectory.
He cleared his throat and said, “Jazz had that Halloween party at the Orange Grove Inn.”
“And we both stepped outside to get some fresh air because there were too many people. You said you had already used up your quota for crowds with an event we both attended earlier that week. I told you I’d had my fill of crowds too. But it wasn’t the kind you were thinking of. I couldn’t tell you then, but I was freaking out from seeing so many people in costumes.”
It only took him a second to figure out the issue this time. Everybody had shown up as monsters. The room was full of people dressed as the dead. That night must have been an ordeal for her.
“Why did you go?”
“The idea was hers, but Jazz had me do all the planning. It was the first big event she let me handle on my own. I couldn’t not show up. When you and I were talking, I kept thinking she might fire me for being gone so long, but I didn’t want to go back inside. Not because I wanted to avoid the costumes but because I wanted more time with you. There was something about you. Even then, I could feel it.”
“It was probably the beer.”
She laughed, and the sound tugged at his chest.
He wanted to make her feel better. If jokes would work, great. But the more they talked—with her kneeling next to him on his bed—the more he wondered if it would be so bad to have a one-night stand. If that was what she needed…
“That was the first beer I ever drank from a bottle,” she said. “You had nabbed it from behind the bar and shared it with me. You’ve always shared whatever you had with me.”
It didn’t feel like sharing. After that night, everything he had—everything he was—was hers.
“You talked to me and I felt calm,” she said. “Centered. I felt like I could finally let go of my socialite veneer, at least for a little while. I felt like I could be myself. We were out there for hours.”
She had a soft smile on her face. She laughed again as she went on. “When you first ran into me on the balcony, you offered to leave. You said I was there first and you didn’t want to trouble me.”
Garrett nodded. “I remember.”
“And I asked you to stay. I’m always asking you to stay. I can’t say I’ll always be right at your side. That isn’t who I am. I’m flighty and full of energy and movement and I need you to be okay with that. But I ask you to stay because I want to be with you.”
Yeah. He got that. She wanted to be with him on her terms. When, where, and how she wanted. He needed more.
“There are lots of ways to be with someone,” he said. “Different relationship dynamics. This is all really…nostalgic, but it doesn’t let me know where I stand. I don’t get why you can’t just come out and say—”
“I love you.”
He blinked. He felt his eyelids close and open like shutters.
Love? His mouth went dry and his heart seemed to stop.
“Love means different things to different people…” he said.
She sighed and inched closer.
“I love how gentle you are and how passionate you can be. I love your intelligence and generosity. I love how you take care of everyone. I love how you can charm people without letting them past your guard. I love that you give me glimpses of who you really are and share sides of yourself with me that no one else gets to see.”
Was she talking about how she felt about him or the other way around? He had thought these same things about her more times than he could count.
She paused for a moment, then said, “I love that you let me get away with just enough that I feel free to take risks and be myself, but not so much that you don’t let me know when I’ve crossed a line, like I did earlier.”
“Rachel—”
“I’m not finished.”
She inched closer, resting her hand on his thigh for balance. He remembered the softness of her skin and felt himself start to get hard again. This time, it didn’t bother him.
“Your house is the only place that ever really felt like a home to me. I thought at first it was because it’s out in the country and so it’s more peaceful for a clairsentient. But it was because of you.”
She squeezed his thigh, sending a jolt of pleasure through him. He wanted to grab her and kiss her, to wrap his arms around her and never let her go. But even more, he wanted to hear what she had to say. He wanted to understand her—who she was and what she was offering him.
“I loved going to bed in your house every night and waking up knowing that you were going to be the first person I would see. I loved cooking for you and laughing with you. And I wanted to stay so much that it terrified me. Because then, I didn’t think I could do that to you. It felt like it would be a punishment, and you deserved better.”
“How could living with you ever be a punishment?”
“Because I’m weird and I see ghosts and I go off on tangents constantly and my mother is actually kind of evil and I say things without thinking them through, like that part about my mom.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You don’t see me arguing the point.”
She smiled, shifting closer. He could lean forward and kiss her if he wanted, and he really wanted to. But damn, if he wasn’t shaking inside. She was dangling everything he wanted right in front of him. If he reached for it, she might jerk it away.
Yeah, that killed the moment. He looked down, but she lifted her hands to his face and turned his head back toward her.
“You said you laid it all out for me before. Let me do the same now. What I want? I want you. Not just your truly exquisite body, but all of you. I want to see you every day. I want to go to sleep in this huge bed with you and wake up in your arms. I want—”
She locked her gaze with his, more serious than he’d ever seen her. Warmth flooded him from her hands on his face, her knees pressing against his thigh.
“I want the white-picket fence,” she said. “To be your wife—your partner. With three kids and a dog and two cats. I want to go to family cookouts with you and make jokes that only we get. I want you to bring me breakfast in bed on mother’s day and to send the kids to a friend’s house on father’s day so I can give you better memories in that ugly recliner that I know you’ll never let me get rid of.”
That one memory in his favorite chair was being painted in a whole new light with every word she said. She was still holding on to his face, as if she was the one afraid he was going to bolt for a change.
“What I want,” she whispered, leaning in so close that her breath warmed his lips. “Is you. Forever.”