Chapter 21
Aubrey had never been so cold.
She huddled against the passenger-side door, quaking within the wet shell of Nick’s jacket. He cranked the heater before they’d
even cleared the barnyard, but the truck had more than a few miles on it, and air that should have gusted reached her as more
of a wheeze.
Her teeth chattered. Nick glared past the thumping wipers and the sleet exploding against the windshield as he edged the speedometer
toward eighty. “I’ve been meaning to fix this heater. Sorry. But hang on. I’ll have you home in no time.”
Aubrey nodded. He, too, was soaked—his shirt clung to his sculpted frame while rainwater slicked every inch of exposed skin.
The bones bracketing his throat reflected the stormy light, giving his wet skin a pearly sheen.
He wasn’t shivering, though. She couldn’t fathom how. Then again, he radiated intensity the same way a flame threw heat. Maybe
that kind of sustained inner force crossed over into the physical. As if she might reach out and warm her hands with the sheer
energy he exuded.
“Nick.”
His jaw hardened. He wouldn’t look at her. “What.”
God, she knew exactly where his mind had gone. She’d seen that look dozens of times. “This isn’t your fault.”
“The fuck it isn’t.” His staring contest with the road intensified. “I left you standing in the truck while I stacked bags
in the barn. You were in the rain twice as long as I was, and then I wasted all that time spreading the corn without even
checking to see if you were okay, first.”
“That was my idea.”
“And my oversight. I should’ve given you my jacket as soon as it started raining. Better yet, I should’ve just done the whole
job myself and let you stay inside.”
She sighed, even while some hidden part of her fluttered. His concern touched the very center of her, like a caress.
God, Megan had been right. Very little about Nick Thacker had changed. He still cared, so much that it bordered on selflessness. So much that it bordered on self-neglect, because he’d always put others before
himself. Aubrey had no doubt he’d offer his last morsel to someone he cared about, even if it meant condemning himself to
starvation. As it was, he’d already given her the clothes off his back.
That part of him had always awed her. It also made her grieve, because she knew where it came from. His father hadn’t cared
for him, so now Nick cared for others. His noble heart demanded nothing less. Yet no one had ever taught him to treat himself
the same way.
Somehow, she’d forgotten that. And, as a result, had been so hard on him since coming back—spurning his overtures, minimizing
all he’d done for her. Mostly to protect herself, but that wasn’t a decent excuse.
He deserved better.
She swallowed against a raw throat. “You must be freezing, too. Do you want your jacket back? Or for me to . . . scoot over
there?”
He shot her a wide-eyed glance. “As in, share body heat?”
She crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. “Well. Yeah. Friends can do that.”
His Adam’s apple scraped up and down. “It would warm you up.”
“You, too.”
He dragged his gaze back to the road, but the raw energy pouring off him intensified. Aubrey glanced at the visor mirror,
halfway expecting to find her hair standing on end.
“Okay,” he said. “Come here.”
The truck was old. Not ancient, but not the shiny new kind with fancy electronics, either, and it had a broad bench seat,
smooth all the way across. Aubrey unclicked her seat belt and slid to the middle. Once she fastened the lap belt, she hesitated.
Nick’s scent enveloped her, a clean blend of rainwater and lit matches. His pulse ticked beneath his jaw, swelling and retreating,
swelling and retreating.
The interval shortened the longer she stared.
“Put your arms around me.” His words came out precise. Stilted.
After a frozen moment, Aubrey complied. She hugged the firm breadth of his torso. He snaked one arm under the sodden jacket
and clamped her against his side.
He really was freezing. Tiny ice crystals prickled in his shirt, and she angled her face so her exhalations would warm his
chest. They drove in silence, Nick stiff in her arms.
She closed her eyes, lulled by the hypnotic thump of the wipers. Memories ebbed and flowed, echoes of a time when this had
felt as natural and needed as breathing. Not fraught with doubts or broken promises, but simple. Right.
Gradually, her skin warmed where it pressed against his. His heat leached into her, soothing old scars, and she squeezed tighter, trying to communicate something that felt, in that moment, easier to convey with touch than with words.
Thank you for taking care of me. Thank you for letting me take care of you.
Maybe some fragment of her message reached him, because his posture softened. He didn’t melt, exactly. More like he capitulated,
inch by inch.
All too soon, they reached her house. Nick shifted into Park, took her by the shoulders, and tilted her away, just far enough
to look down into her face. She gazed up, caught in the tidal pools of his eyes. In the hazy silver light, they looked like
windows to another universe, opening onto someplace private and lushly shadowed and, best of all, warm.
He didn’t ask whether she wanted him to come inside. He just did, pulling her from the truck, blocking the sleet’s assault
while she unlocked the front door, guiding her to the living room, where he knelt to spark a fire.
He breathed the flames to life. “You should put on dry clothes.”
Aubrey pulled his soggy jacket closer, then reconsidered and draped it over the nearest chair. The cold no longer had her
in its grip. Far from it. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
She shook her head and went to her room. He could refuse to look after himself, but now that he’d tended to her, he couldn’t
stop her from returning the favor. She tossed her wet clothes into the bathtub and pulled on a cozy waffle-knit pajama set,
then snuck upstairs to her parents’ old room.
There, the stillness had a weight to it, which she resolutely ignored. Her mother had gotten rid of most of her father’s things
when he’d died, but nevertheless, she managed to unearth a pair of worn sweatpants and a soft, sky-blue button-down.
She returned to find a drenched Nick seated before a roaring blaze. Warm light swelled from the hearth, repelling the muted gray glow from the windows.
“Here.” She held out the clothes.
His head swiveled. He eyed the offering like she’d tried to hand off a venomous snake. “Whose are those?”
“My dad’s.”
He turned back to the fire. “No, thanks.”
She stood there, awkward. “What, you hate him that much?”
“I don’t hate him.” He hugged his knees. “I never hated him.”
“So you’re refusing these because . . . ?”
“I’m pissed.”
Her breath hitched. “It’s been seventeen years. And he’s dead.”
“Yeah, well. No one’s ever accused me of not holding a grudge. Which I’m sorry about. I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.
But what he did wasn’t right.”
She shifted her weight. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, you know.”
His shoulders hunched, the great muscles in his back knitting. “It would’ve changed everything, Aubs.”
She sucked down a pained inhale. He was right. She’d only claimed otherwise because she wanted it to be true. “Okay. Maybe. But . . . you have Paige to show for it. And we’ve agreed that was for the best.”
A long silence spun by. “Yeah.”
“So what does it matter?”
When he didn’t answer, she set the unused clothes aside and joined him on the floor. The fire lavished her with enough heat
to combat the chill of still-wet hair against her neck. “Okay. Moving on, I guess.”
“Let’s.”
She looked down at her hands. Her fingers gleamed red and raw. “Can I ask . . . would it be okay if I checked on Paige? I was thinking of texting her to see how she’s feeling, but I don’t want to be weird. So I figured I’d better ask you, first.”
“Christ.” He closed his eyes and massaged between them. “How do you always do that?”
She eyed him. “Do what?”
He tapped the center of his chest. “Say things I can feel, right here.”
She stared at the spot he’d touched long after his hand had fallen away. She had no idea how to answer.
“Look.” He sighed. “Thanks for worrying about her, but she was only upset because she walked in on me and Tansy arguing this
morning. Which understandably freaked her out a little.”
“Oh.” Aubrey mulled that over.
“Or maybe she really does have food poisoning. But either way, she’ll be okay.”
She looked down to find her fingers threaded, and forced them apart. “What were you and Tansy arguing about?”
He huffed out a stillborn laugh. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
She searched for a response. She couldn’t imagine sharing a home with someone she’d once been partnered with, long after the
relationship had ended. Even the three days it had taken for Luke to move out had felt like weeks.
“You know what?” Nick said abruptly. “Screw it. I can’t keep things from you to save my life. We were arguing about you.”
A low sound of surprise welled in her throat. “What? Me? Why?”
“Do you remember the night I came over here? When you first got back?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
He stretched one leg toward the fire and hooked his elbow around the remaining knee. “I just came to get your fire lit, that’s
all. But Tansy wanted me to ‘get you out of my system.’ Her words, not mine.”
Aubrey stared. Then stared some more. “She what?”
“Yeah.” He flashed a smile, but something about it glinted, cold. “I’m sure it’s the same thing she thinks I’m doing right
now. It’s what she thought I was doing last night. And my efforts to correct her weren’t going so well this morning, at which
point Paige walked in.”
A low buzz invaded Aubrey’s ears. “I . . . don’t understand.”
“What’s not to understand?”
Her mind whirled. He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he did. “You’re telling me Tansy sent you over here to . . .”
Her throat worked. She couldn’t even say it.