Chapter 19 #4
“Any decent person would have.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” he grumbled, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I can never pay you back for that.”
I frowned. “You don’t have to.”
His lips moved but no sound came out, and he took his attention to something above my head. “I went to bed and didn’t hear anything until Josh came pounding on the door.”
Josh did that?
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to her...” Dallas kept going, his attention still away from me. “I owe you everything.”
Oh God. I was getting uncomfortable. “It’s fine, really.”
And then, he turned those hazel eyes on me once more and he blinked.
But it wasn’t a normal blink. It was the kind of blink that changed your life.
The kind of blink you noticed enough to earmark this moment in history.
It was a preparation. A buffer. It was everything.
And then he slashed his hand across the air, angry.
“But if you ever do something so fucking stupid ever again —”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I cut him off, caught off guard by the fury in his tone.
He held up a finger, silencing me. “What you did last night was the stupidest fucking thing anyone has ever done, do you hear me? I get that you went in to get her, but you’re a goddamn idiot, and you’re a bigger fucking idiot for going back to get the fucking cat .”
My bottom lip dropped open for a moment before I shut it. “You wanted me to let the cat die?” I asked, slightly outraged.
The exasperated look he shot me sent the hairs on the back of my neck to standing position. “The cat’s sixteen years old and you have two boys and your entire life ahead of you. Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to risk your life for Mildred?”
While I recognized he had a point—and that I’d had that exact same thought when Miss Pearl had pleaded for me to save her beloved cat—I didn’t like the brutal honesty in his tone.
I wasn’t a fan of the accusation and possibility he raised to the forefront of my brain once again either.
I did have two boys. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be fine without me, but it was…
well, I couldn’t do that to them. I couldn’t be the third person in their lives to leave so unexpectedly.
I had never taken a single sociology or psychology class, but my inner guts screamed that chances were, two little sponges so early in their lives couldn’t handle those kinds of losses and move on from them very well.
The fact was while nothing had happened to me, something could have. And then what?
Then again… I would have jumped into a burning building for Mac. I understood where Miss Pearl had gotten the balls to ask for a hero.
Regardless, that guilt buried itself deep into the back of my brain, and I sensed my face going warm.
Josh had already given me enough shit for only having been awake a few minutes.
I’d never handled guilt well. “I’m fine.
Mildred is fine. Your grandma is fine. If I could do it all over again—” well, I wasn’t positive I would have run in for Mildred again.
“It doesn’t matter. Everything worked out all right.
Miss Pearl is fine. I’m fine. Everything is okay. ”
My words did nothing for the anger bubbling through his skin, eyes, and mouth.
Dallas shook his head and his hands went up to his face in that same exact way they had the night before when he’d asked for my toolbox.
Was he red? “If something had happened….” He trailed off, the sound in his throat anguished.
I reached toward his forearm. “You said your nana’s fine. You can’t think about what might have happened—”
“It’s not Nana I’m thinking about, Diana!” he exploded, his entire body leaning toward me. “You don’t have to save the entire fucking world!”
The breath left my lungs in a sharp inhale and I blinked up at the man radiating so much fucking fury, I didn’t know what to say or how to react.
“If something had happened to you—”
I choked. Me? He’d been worried about me too?
The hand connected to the forearm I’d been touching came up to my eye level. His fingers went to my chin, cupping it as he looked directly into my eyes. “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be okay. I would never be okay,” he practically hissed.
Knowing I was an idiot asking for the pain of a lifetime, I still let myself lean forward into his touch, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead, I focused on his nose even as I felt his stare centered on my eyelids. “The good thing is, you’re going to be okay because I’m fine.”
“Fine?” His snort had me glancing up at him. He raised a brown eyebrow in a completely smart-ass response that seemed so at odds with the calm, mature man I had started getting to know. “Lemme see your hand.”
Shit.
I kind of maneuvered it partially behind my butt, as if he hadn’t already caught a glimpse of the wrapping around it. “It’ll heal,” I argued.
He was getting pissed off all over again. I could sense it coming off his body. “Did it happen getting the cat?”
Him and the fucking cat. Jesus. “Why do you hate the cat so much? And no, Dr. Evil, it didn’t happen then.
” During Mildred’s rescue, I had almost died from smoke inhalation, or at least that was what it had felt like in the moment.
“It happened when I tried opening the door to her house. The knob was hot.” Okay that was the understatement of the month.
I had a second degree burn from it, and I didn’t want to even begin to piece together what I was going to do with a burned hand and my job.
How long would it take to heal? How long would I have to take off from work?
Could I hold shears in my hand once it got a little better?
I had no idea, and that made me panic a little.
Okay, more than a little.
I didn’t have some huge savings account; I’d barely started getting my feet back under me after taking time off to visit Vanessa, and asking my family or Van for money seemed like a horrible fucking idea.
I could probably get by without working for a couple of weeks, but that was it—and that was with me counting every penny and not wasting a single cent.
There was money in the account I had set aside for the boys from Rodrigo’s life insurance policy, but I would never, ever touch it. It was the boys’.
His eyelids hung low over those hazel eyes, and I caught a flash of his teeth as they bit down on the inside of his cheek for a moment.
I knew when he didn’t comment on me calling him Dr. Evil that he was genuinely really angry.
He looked like he was mulling my words over…
or talking himself out of yelling at me.
From the murderous expression on his face, it could have been both.
Then he swallowed hard. “It was stupid. Really goddamn stupid, and I don’t think you seem to realize that—”
“I do,” I argued.
He shot me this disbelieving look. “You have two boys, Diana—”
Guilt pricked at my chest, and I swallowed at the same time my eyes got teary.
“I know, Dallas. I know . Josh already—” My voice broke and I dropped my gaze to the bottom of the wrinkled T-shirt he had on.
It was a different one than he’d worn to the movies the night before.
“He was so mad at me. I feel terrible I did that to him.”
The sigh that came out of him wasn’t even a slight warning for the hands that came to my shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
It didn’t prepare me for the arms that went around them afterward, or the chest that came in contact with my forehead.
He’d hugged me the night before, hadn’t he?
I hadn’t imagined it? His voice wasn’t any less rough or mean as he said, “You scared the hell out of all of us.”
I had?
“I thought you were mad at me last night when you left,” I told him.
His sigh was so deep, it was choppy on the way out.
The arms he had around me tightened, but the rest of his body relaxed.
“I wasn’t mad at you. I swear. It was other things.
” He gulped, and I’d swear one of his hands cupped the back of my head.
“Look, I have to leave tomorrow for a couple of days.”
Why was he telling me this? “Is everything okay?”
“It will be. I have to go. I can’t reschedule it,” he explained, his breath so deep it made my head move. “Diana—”
A breeze hit the back of my legs as the back door opened and something poked me in the leg while I stood in Dallas’s arms. “Can you make me a sandwich?” Louie’s voice came from behind. “Please?”
I didn’t even freeze at getting caught. “Sure, give me a sec,” I answered him quickly.
Lou said nothing; he just stood there, not moving. I could sense him.
I sighed, my mouth inches from Dallas’s sternum. “Goo, quit being nosey and give me a second, please.”
There was a hum and then, “Can I have a hug too?”
Dallas’s arms flexed and I swore I heard him laugh lightly before one of them dropped from around me as he took a step back. “Have at her, buddy.”
It was then I finally glanced down at Louie to find he’d moved to stand beside my hip. The kid blinked and edged closer between us. “No, you too,” he said so effortlessly it made me want to cry. “Sandwich.”
Just like that, Dallas crouched and scooped Louie up.
One of those little arms went around my neck, and I would bet my life the other was around Dallas’s.
The only other thing I knew for sure was that an arm too brawny to belong to a five-year-old wrapped low around my back.
The side of my head went to a shoulder and one half of my chest was crushed against a much harder one.
“This is nice,” Louie muttered somewhere close to my ear.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, and what I was sure was the hand connected to the arm around my back, stretched wide and covered part of my belly, the tips of long fingers touching my belly button. I sucked in a breath.
“Can we do this more?” Lou continued on.
“We will,” the voice above my head agreed.
What was I going to do? Say “no thank you”? I could do this more often. I could do this every day.
But Dallas was married, and we were just friends. I couldn’t forget that.
What I couldn’t forget either was that he wasn’t going to be married forever.
And that didn’t necessarily mean anything good for me.