Maia shook her head, resisting the need in him. So much darkness and intensity, and Cole was very tempting. She healed hurt animals, and right now, he was far too close to being one. His way of forgetting was to drink, to have sex with a woman . . . any woman. “Hot chocolate for me. I presume you must keep a supply of chocolate on hand with Jase around.”
He nodded and turned away from her, setting the bottle carefully on the table and staring out the huge glass panel to the pristine snow endlessly coming down. He looked utterly alone, and her heart stilled. Maia glanced around the enormous room, with its cathedral ceilings, and the curving stairway that went off in two directions. The house should have been alive with joy and music and Christmas decorations. There should have been logs in the fireplace and the fragrance of cinnamon and pine wafting through the air. Instead there was a boy alone in his room struggling to find a way to survive and a man drowning his demons in alcohol.
She shook her head. The pain and suffering in the house was overwhelming for someone as empathic as she was. And it made her angry on a level she’d never experienced before. Cole and Jase Steele existed, yet they weren’t really living. The ghost lived, and he ruled with an iron fist in the house.
Maia thought it over as she made the chocolate. The house itself was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, yet it was bleak and as empty as the life Cole Steele seemed to live. Earlier, in the kitchen, Jase had laughed with her, teasing her about his pajamas being too big when she rolled up the cuffs and generally acting like a happy boy. Her heart had gone out to him as he worked so hard at being normal when the very walls of the house shrieked and wept for his suffering.
Cole had said little, never smiled, his blue gazed focused and direct, watching her watch Jase. Sitting in the kitchen chair, in his own home, he should have been relaxed, but instead, he had been on edge, wary, aware of everything around him. Now she knew why. She could have sat in that chef’s dream of a kitchen and wept for both of them. Two men struggling to learn to come together as a family. Wary. Secretive. Ready to push everything and everyone away—including each other. Everything, healer and woman and compassionate human being responded to the intense pain in both of the Steeles, but a part of her, her instinct for self-preservation, wanted to run away and hide. She had no idea what to do to help either of them.
With a small sigh of resignation, knowing she couldn’t just ignore it all, Maia added marshmallows to the chocolate and, picking up the mug, went to lean in the doorway to the living room. Cole’s head was in his hands, his body tense, hair damp as if he’d just woken from a night terror-or still remained locked within it. She dug her fingers into the doorframe to keep from going to him. He wouldn’t accept comfort, unless she offered sex—and she wasn’t about to offer herself up as a sacrificial lamb.
“Go to bed, Maia,” he muttered without looking up. “It isn’t safe when I’m like this.”
She took a cautious sip of the hot chocolate. Waiting in silence. Cole turned his head and looked at her, and her heart jumped, nearly melted. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
The careful, expressionless mask was back in place, but he couldn’t hide the pain revealed in his eyes. It remained there. Alive and ugly and so ingrained she wanted to comfort him. Needed to comfort him.
“You think I do this to myself?” There was controlled violence in his voice.
A shiver of fear went down her spine, but Maia persisted. She gestured around the house. “You keep this house a monument to the pain and suffering he caused. You live inside his world, and you expect somehow that you and Jase can overcome it. He’s all around you, alive, here in this house, and you don’t do anything to get him out of here.”
“Who do you mean by he?” he asked suspiciously. He stood up, tall and lethal, a man who worked hard to stay in shape, to train himself to be the weapon he’d become. A man who despised pity and refused sympathy, preferring to remain alone rather than risk trusting anyone. Few knew about his past, he’d come clean with a soft version for his superiors at work, but never a woman. He didn’t need a bleeding heart trying to stake a claim on him.
Maia’s heart began a frantic pounding. She was very aware she was isolated from help, possibly for days. Cole looked capable of anything. She forced a shrug, trying to look nonchalant. “The ghost, of course. You admitted you have one.”
He shook his head as he took an aggressive step toward her, bare feet making no sound in the thick pile of carpet. “Don’t dodge the truth. Someone’s been talking to you. What did they say?”
She took another sip of chocolate. The cup was shaking so she steadied it with her other hand. “I know something happened to Jase, yes. It’s not all that difficult to figure out. And”—she indicated the bottle with her chin—“that says it happened to you as well.”