CHAPTER 11 #2
Her brown eyes burned into mine, traveling over every line and shadow of my face with such intensity that my skin warmed beneath her gaze.
I hitched Ruby higher against my chest, her weight settling into me like she’d been designed to fit there. The silence stretched between us, and my throat closed around everything I knew I should have said, leaving only her name to pass through my lips.
“Blaire.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, heavy-lidded but unmistakably alive in a way that made my pulse quicken. “Yeah?”
God, she was beautiful.
She looked exactly like she did at night when I closed my eyes and dreams of her were the only thing I could see.
I couldn’t look away as she stood there with parted lips, waiting for me to find words that seemed trapped somewhere between my racing heart and my throat.
Say something, you idiot. Anything.
“This feels too damn easy.” My throat worked as I looked over every inch of her my eyes could trace. “You’re dangerous.”
I could hear the wind press against the wood siding of the house, the tick of the clock in the kitchen, the inhale and exhale of Ruby’s breath against my shoulder.
The rest of the world faded to nothing but the two of us standing there, and the truth of what I’d said.
Blaire was dangerous. Not like a loaded gun or a gathering storm.
Her danger lay in the quiet persistence of hope.
It was a splinter beneath my skin that worked deeper with every heartbeat, impossible to dig out no matter how desperately I tried.
She flinched, and her eyes widened before her lashes swept down, then up again. “That’s not true.”
“It is.” For one careless second, I let myself lean closer, close enough to catch the faint trace of strawberries clinging to her skin, close enough to remember the way we’d burned for each other when it was us and no one else. My gaze dropped to her mouth, and her lips parted as she exhaled.
“Ruby’s been through a lot.”
She looked at my daughter, her gaze softening as it traced Ruby’s sleeping form, and when she looked back to me, that softness lingered. “I was only helping, Colt. I don’t know what you think I’m capable of.”
I swallowed, feeling that old, reckless want surge up before I could fight it down. “I know exactly what you’re capable of. That’s the damn problem.”
Her head moved slowly from side to side. “Colt,” she breathed, and the sound of my name on her lips crawled beneath my skin.
Her eyes held shadows I’d never seen before, a hesitation that made me wonder what had happened in the years we’d been apart. I thought of her father’s voice when he’d called her that summer, the way he was cold and detached even when asking her to come with him.
I thought of the diamond she must have worn, picked by a man who’d never seen her climb on the roof of his truck at midnight, making up names of constellations as she pointed them out.
I wondered if he’d ever seen her doubled over with laughter, gasping for air, or watched her float in a lake, talking about her dreams, while he treaded water beside her and held on to every word.
Her father had told her I was a phase, something wild to burn through before she settled down and made herself useful, and standing here now, I could see what that had cost her. The walls she’d built around herself were so visible, brick by careful brick, and something in me raged against them.
I hated myself for ever letting her believe she was hard to love when loving her had been the easiest thing I’d ever done.
Ruby shifted between us, her small voice breaking the spell. “Blaire,” she mumbled against my shoulder, her arms squeezing around my neck.
I ran my palm down Ruby’s back, trying to soothe her. “Hey, darlin’. I’ve got you,” I whispered, and she pulled back slightly to look up at me.
“Daddy?” Her voice was small and thick with sleep.
“I’m here, baby girl.” I brushed her hair from her flushed cheek.
Ruby blinked slowly before she pressed her face back into my shirt, her fingers clinging to me, but her sleepy little eyes searched until they landed on Blaire.
“Can Blaire come with us?” she whispered, words slurred with sleep but still sharp enough to cut clean through me.
I hesitated, caught in the crossfire between Ruby’s sleepy plea and the way Blaire swayed, uncertain, like she was fighting the reflex to say yes.
I wanted to give Ruby the world, but if I let Blaire in, if I let her take even one more step past the defenses I’d built, there would be no going back.
That pain behind my ribs, the one I’d spent the last decade trying to cauterize, flared hot and wild.
Blaire’s throat worked as she reached out and ran her fingers over Ruby’s hand. “Your daddy’s got you now. Why don’t you get some rest, and I’ll check on you later?”
Ruby’s head bobbed once, her eyelids already falling shut again. “Okay,” she mumbled into my collar.“But you make me feel better.”
I caught Blaire’s eyes over the top of Ruby’s head, and the naked tenderness there made my body stiffen with wanting and warning all at once. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t break the connection, not even when guilt shadowed Blaire’s face and she finally dropped her gaze.
She moved to the rocking chair in the corner of the living room, lifting a sweatshirt that was draped over the back.
The blue fabric was worn and faded, and “Duke University” was written across the chest in peeling white letters.
Her fingers lingered on the worn cotton, tracing some invisible memory before she extended it in our direction, the fabric hanging loose from her outstretched hand.
“Do you want to take this with you?” she said, voice cautious. “It’s too big for you, but it’s—” She paused, swallowing hard. “It’s gotten me through some rough nights.”
Ruby blinked, then reached out and fisted one sleeve in her hand. “It’s soft,” she said, already rubbing her cheek against the cotton like a security blanket. “It’s yours?”
Blaire nodded, her eyes shining in drifting sunlight. “Yeah, but you can borrow it until you don’t need it anymore.”
A little more of the tension in Ruby’s body dissolved, and she slackened her grip around my neck enough to let me hold her out from my body a bit.
Blaire pulled the sweatshirt over Ruby’s head, the fabric swallowing her whole.
I wanted to step back, to put distance between us, but my feet wouldn’t move.
Ruby’s arms only reached the elbows of the shirt as she wrapped it tightly around herself, breathing in the fabric deeply before falling back against me.
“Thank you,” Ruby whispered.
Blaire’s scent wrapped around us both, it wrapped my child in warmth, and I was caught between gratitude that it offered Ruby comfort and so much damn regret.
“You’re welcome,” Blaire said, her hand hovering over Ruby’s back before finally settling on the sweatshirt. “I’ll check on you tonight, okay? I’ll text your daddy.”
Ruby’s head bobbed once, her eyelids already falling shut again. “Pinkie promise?” she mumbled against my neck, but she held up her hand in Blaire’s direction.
Blaire looked at my baby girl with such tenderness in her eyes that it made me want to both shield Ruby from her and beg her never to look away.
“Pinkie promise,” Blaire said, her voice catching slightly as she linked her finger with Ruby’s and gave it a little squeeze. The simple gesture carried the weight of a thousand unspoken complications.
Blaire stared up at me, and it was like a whole conversation happened in the space between us that neither of us would say out loud. Ruby’s breaths went slow and steady against my neck while my own caught in my throat. I couldn’t stop looking at Blaire even as I told myself to look away.
She’d been back in town for only a handful of days, and it was like two halves of me colliding—the life I had to build and the one I’d never stopped wanting. “I really appreciate this.”
She gave a quick nod, and I turned to the door before the temptation of her could override my better judgment. My feet carried me forward while every other part of me strained for her. For the first time in years, the distance between us was measured in breaths rather than miles.
I gripped the door handle, its metal cool beneath my palm, and I told myself not to turn around.
I turned anyway.
Blaire hadn’t moved an inch, fingers twisted in the fabric bunched at her waist, gaze burning into mine like she couldn’t look anywhere else.
I almost walked back to her. I wanted it so badly my bones ached with it, the same way they’d ached that summer when she left, even as my mind screamed at me to keep walking.
One step toward her and I’d be lost again. My daughter’s warm weight against me was the only anchor keeping me from drifting into the treacherous pull of Blaire Monroe’s gravity. It reminded me why I shouldn’t, couldn’t, stay.
So, I pushed the door open and forced myself to leave.