Chapter 10
He was still with her.Sitting across from her. Watching her work.
Watching her try to work. Or, more accurately, pretend to work. But how was she supposed to work when her whole body was still tingling from that kiss?
Ellie ran her fingertips over her lips. They still felt swollen. Oversensitive. And so did the rest of her body. The way he’d held her. That soft grunt he made as he hauled her even closer, consuming her. It was the best kiss of her life.
But since then, he’d withdrawn. He’d been increasingly silent as she pulled out her laptop and tried to make some kind of progress against her ever-growing e-mail backlog. Now he was rocking back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, biceps straining against his T-shirt. Brooding.
He probably thought he had his emotions locked down. But he was wrong.
She focused on the screen, trying to forget how he’d growled her name, his breath hot on her neck. How he’d fit between her thighs. How she’d wanted him so much closer. How easy it would be to walk over and straddle those big thighs. To unzip his jeans and free them both.
“Ellie?” His voice intruded on the fantasy.
“Mm-hmm?”
“Are you alright?”
“Of course,” she muttered, not looking up. She was working. Anyone could see. She tapped a few keys to prove the point.
“You’ve gone pink.”
She lifted her head at that only to see his knowing look, one eyebrow raised. And damn him. Damn him for breaking into her world and upending her life, and then disappearing. Damn him for making her feel so flustered. For stripping her control when she needed it most. For leaving her so obsessed. For kissing her in a way that made her come alive. For kisses that were probably only perfect because they came directly from her own subconscious.
She glared at him. “You know, for a hallucination, you can be pretty smug.”
He rocked the chair forward, landing the two front legs with a sharp thud before standing up and walking to the window. The stiffness was back in his shoulders, his brooding turned more bitter.
Guilt prickled down her spine. He wanted her to believe, and she’d promised she would. At the very least, she could try.
She closed her laptop with a soft click and rose to join him, standing just behind his shoulder. He must have known she was there, but he didn’t turn.
“I don’t have to work all afternoon,” she offered. “Why don’t we do something together?”
“I thought you were on a deadline.” He didn’t sound annoyed, just resigned.
And he was right, she was. Usually, nothing would have dragged her away. But she was always on a deadline. And maybe that had been a mistake. “It’s under control.” The storylines were back on track. The game mechanics were looking good. The e-mails piling up… not so much, but this was more important. And for the first time in her life, she was ready to prioritize living. “What do you feel like doing?”
He shrugged, turning to look at her over his shoulder, frustration etched into his face. “We could go see my place… oh, wait.” The words were sharp, but the pain beneath them was real.
She settled her hand on Josh’s back. Josh. The name fit him, and she liked knowing it. His muscles were even tighter than they’d looked. And a wave of tenderness rose through her. She wanted to take away that tension. To protect him somehow.
“We could…” She cast around for ideas and realized he still hadn’t eaten anything. “We could cook. How do you feel about shepherd’s pie?” she offered. He turned to face her, and she let her hands rest on his chest.
“I love shepherd’s pie… but I’m just—” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t feel like eating. At all.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, thinking. “We could play a game. It doesn’t have to be mine; it could be anything. How about The Last of Us?”
His stress seemed to ease as he looked down at her, his rigid neck muscles releasing some small measure of their tension. He lifted a strand of hair from her shoulder and ran it slowly between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear. The rough pads of his fingers brushed over her skin with a soft sweep. “Could we go for a drive instead?” he asked.
She stiffened—all the tension he had lost transferring over to her. How did he manage to choose the one thing she really didn’t want to do?
Josh frowned. “I thought maybe if we drove around, I might see something I recognize,” he said, watching her. “I might remember something.”
Ellie nodded slowly. She’d wanted him to look for answers, and now he was offering to try. And she had to do it sometime, right? She had to get behind the wheel and actually drive somewhere eventually.
More than that. She wanted to. She didn’t want to be stuck in her house for the rest of her life. Maybe this was the right time? Josh wanted to find himself—and she wanted to help.
“Let’s—” Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow and try again. “Let’s go now.”
He blinked. “Right now?”
“Absolutely.” Because if she didn’t go immediately, it was going to build up bigger and bigger in her head. She’d committed. She had momentum. She wanted to go now.
She turned away, ready to close up the house and grab her keys, but Josh stopped her with his hand on her arm. “Ellie?”
She tried to tug him forward, but he turned her instead, pulling her closer until she was flush against him. “What’s going on?” he asked carefully.
Her hands tingled, and her breathing sounded too sharp, even to her. But Josh was so big, his arm that came up to wrap around her shoulder so reassuring, that she found herself nestling into him, tucking her head under his chin, her heart rate slowly settling. “It’s fine. I’m fine. We can go now, if you want.”
He rested his hand on her cheek and lifted her chin, tilting her to look at him. Straight into his eyes. And a sudden vision of intense blue eyes meeting hers across asphalt assaulted her: Josh, lying in a spreading pool of blood, his hand reaching for hers….
Her heart rate shot straight back up, and she shivered helplessly. What if he was hurt? What if they went for a drive and had an accident? What if?—
No. She forced that line of thought away, popping each new what-if like a bubble in her mind. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his chest, reminding herself that he was with her. He was safe. And so was she.
“Speak to me, Ellie,” Josh’s voice was low and concerned.
She concentrated on slowing her breathing, sinking into the reassurance of his big body against hers. He’d wrapped himself around her, encompassing her in safety. She couldn’t remember another time in her life when she’d felt so securely held. And she found herself talking. Telling him the truth. “I started having panic attacks when I was in senior school.” She let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “I was a little obsessed with getting everything right, and when things didn’t… When I failed… It was terrifying. My father thought I should try harder to control myself. You know? Like if I wanted to, I could stop panicking. And I really tried.” She blinked against the prickle in her eyes as she remembered. “But it just made it worse.”
His arm tightened, holding her even closer. “He seems… I mean?—”
Ellie sighed softly. “Yeah. He grew up with nothing. His father was a coal miner who lost his job during the pit closures. I think he never forgot what it was to be cold and hungry. Things got better and he was happy for a time. But then when my mother died, he just retreated back into his shell. He remembered to hate weakness in anyone—including himself—but especially in me.” She shrugged sadly. “I understand why money and success are so important to him, I do.”
And Ellie understood all about throwing herself into work, trying to live in the one place that she could control. But she was starting to realize how cold and lonely that place could be. She was determined not to follow that path. Not anymore. “I just…. I wish he could try to understand the things that are important to me.”
Josh grunted. “You should be important to him.”
He sounded so outraged on her behalf. So protective. And he was giving voice to the thoughts she’d held locked away for so long. As if he truly understood. It helped her continue. “When I left home, I found a therapist who helped me get my panic attacks under control. I didn’t have one for years. Although—” She gave a small smile. “I still have a bit of a perfectionist streak.” She rested her hand over his heart, letting the steady beat soothe her. “For the last few weeks, I’ve been having panic attacks whenever I try to drive somewhere.”
His frown grew deeper, but he didn’t let her go. “What happened a few weeks ago?”
She loved his complete lack of judgment. He didn’t tell her to try harder. Or that she was too sensitive. Or that she should know she was really safe. His tone held only empathy and an honest desire to understand.
“I was in an accident.” The words came out quieter than she’d intended, and she tried again, firming her voice. “I was cycling… and I was hit by a car.”
She’d been flying down the steep, narrow forest roads not far from her house. The air had streamed past her, the ground disappearing beneath her wheels. It was the closest a human could come to flying—no pressure, no demands, no one who needed anything—just her and the bike and the road. But then something started to feel off.
She was in the lead, the first of a large group, and she didn’t quite know how she’d come to be there. She looked back to see a dark blue SUV overtaking the other cyclists. It was moving far too fast. And right down the middle of the road.
She leaned into the curve. The ground shot past, the trees a blur at her side. She glanced back again. But now, somehow, the SUV was right up behind her. The road straightened; it was clear. There was plenty of space for the driver to go around her.
She slowed. Made space. The side of the road was rutted, carved into channels from rain run-off and littered with potholes. She stood on her pedals, using her legs as shock absorbers, pushing herself as close to the sandy curb as she dared. But the SUV kept coming closer.
The wind buffeted her. The smell of hot rubber surrounded her. She looked back, another anxious glance. The SUV was close enough that she could make out the driver through the darkened windshield. It was a man wearing dark glasses and a cap pulled low. And his face was turned toward her. Was he looking at her? He seemed to be.
And then he turned the wheel. Deliberately. Right into her.
She swallowed. “It was a hit-and-run. I went down. Hard. And then the cyclists behind me couldn’t stop. They all hit me. They all went down.”
God. What an understatement. The jarring wrench as the SUV hit her back wheel. Flying through the air, so fast, so helpless, and then crashing into the tarmac, sliding, ripping up the thin fabric of her cycle kit. Down to skin, down to blood and muscle.
She had opened her eyes to agony. The knowledge that something was broken inside her. Stabbing pain through her chest, radiating down her shoulder, the struggle to breathe. Her body feeling as if it had been through a shredder, her blood slowly seeping out onto the road from her torn-up hands and legs.
The nearest cyclist lay face down. His helmet had broken free, revealing dark hair matted with blood. She didn’t know his name. They’d all been introduced too quickly. Those happy, carefree greetings were a hazy blur, a lifetime ago now. She’d tried to reach for him, she called for him, he?—
Josh’s fingers swept up her cheek and down again, over her shoulders and back up again as if he was checking for injuries, and the movement dragged her back to herself.
“And you? Fuck. Were you okay? Are you okay?” His words were low and tense, as if he was caught somewhere between reassuring her and reassuring himself.
“I am.” She pressed a gentle kiss over his heart. “I’m fine now.”
“What about then?” he asked roughly.
“Broken ribs, one pierced a lung, a really bad graze with a couple of deeper cuts that needed stitches, but those came out after about a week.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but his look of horror told her he wasn’t buying it.
“It took a while,” she admitted. “My ribs still ache a bit. There are some scars at the top of my thigh. But I got good care, and I had a great physio. They helped me get back on my feet.”
He tucked her closer into his arms. “And the other cyclists?”
“All okay. Only one was seriously hurt; he hit his head. I felt—” She shook away the strange shiver that rose in her. The whole thing had been so quick. And then so hazy. Too much pain, too much confusion. “I wanted to check on him. I tried to find out his name, but the police wouldn’t release any information. Privacy laws, you know. Later, when I got home from the hospital, I called the cycling club, and they let me know everyone who had signed in was fine and back home.”
“And did they find the person who hit you?” Josh asked.
“They found the car. It had been stolen from a nearby village. Do you know Duncton?” She snorted roughly, embarrassed. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question.”
Josh grunted, but he didn’t seem offended.
“Anyway, it was abandoned in a field afterward, and set on fire. It could have been taken by anyone.”
“They never found the driver?” Josh asked, blue eyes intent.
“No. The police think it was someone joyriding. Teenagers.”
“And you?”
A man. Dark hair. Dark glasses. Collar high. Cap low. No defining features. “Not teenagers. It was a man, but I didn’t see enough… I couldn’t be certain.”
“And now, driving is…?” He let the sentence hang. A question.
“Difficult.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze locked on hers. “Okay.”
And somehow, it was. More than that, for the first time, difficult didn’t feel impossible. She’d climbed behind the wheel every day and gone a little farther every time. And she could go farther today. For him—and for herself.
He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “I believe in you, Ellie.”
God. How could such simple words mean so much?
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat, forced her spine straight. “Shall we go then?”
He stroked her hair slowly, never looking away. “It’s up to you. We can go now, if that’s what you want. Or another day, if you prefer. Either way, I’d like to spend the afternoon outside. With you.”