Even though she hardly knew herself anymore.
She pointed at the Scotch.
“On the rocks, right?”
She stretched her memory and recalled that they’d once had Scotch at a party, and, yes, she’d taken it on the rocks. He’d remembered a distant, onetime event. God, he really was too good for her. “Please,” she begged.
He disappeared to get some ice, and she made herself comfortable. Just breathe in and out. She was safe now.
Only home is safe.
She ignored the inner warning. It was time to relax with someone she knew, someone from her “real” life. She needed to be Nora again and forget the priestess’s words.
“You … your mother … if it’d happened right the first time…”
She shook her head sharply and murmured, “That’s not forgetting.”
“Hmm?” Sam said as he came in with the glasses.
“Muttering to myself. First sign of old age.”
He handed her the glass and plopped down beside her on the couch. “More like the first sign of a really long day. You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head and sipped the Scotch.
He didn’t press. He knew she wasn’t the type who’d say no but only to be polite when she really wanted him to drag it out of her. Nora didn’t play those games. Except tonight …
Tonight wasn’t about “being polite” and not wanting to burden him. Tonight she desperately did want to talk, to pour it all out and work through it with someone, and the someone most likely to understand was sitting right beside her, waiting.
No. She couldn’t do that. She could never do that.
She gulped the Scotch, not even realizing what she’d done until the burn hit and she sputtered.
He laughed, then quickly sobered. “Whatever happened … if it’s that bad … I don’t want to push, but…”
She drained the last few drops. “Then don’t. Let’s talk about something else.”
“I can do that, too.” His arm slipped around her shoulders … carefully, in case it wasn’t welcome. But when she collapsed against his side, he tugged her closer.
She settled in there, feeling the heat of his body and smelling the faint scent of his soap. She couldn’t identify the spicy fragrance and didn’t want to, because to her, it was just him, his smell, that familiar scent that made her think of his bed.
And damn, that sounded good right about now. The perfect distraction.
Sam was saying something, but she’d missed it. She gave her head a sharp shake and asked, “What was that?”
“You wanted to talk about something else?”
Well, no, actually, now that she thought of it, something far more enticing than talking was on her mind.… She slid her hand toward his leg, but before her fingers touched down, she heard the word “Indigo.”
She stopped cold. “What?”
“I said, there’s been another Indigo report. I found an online post by an anonymous officer saying Indigo was spotted—”
“I don’t want to talk about Indigo.” She meant for the words to come casually, even softly, but they came rough, even harsh.
Sam’s arm loosened around her shoulders. “Okay … I just thought—”
“You thought wrong,” she snapped.
Jesus, Nora, take it down a notch. Or ten.
She struggled to say something else, make some excuse for her outburst, but she couldn’t form the words. She fought against a roiling anger in her gut that said she didn’t need to apologize, that he should know she hated this subject.
Except she didn’t hate it. She’d always liked hearing him talk about Indigo, batting around theories with him.
Well, that was her first mistake. Sloppy. Careless. Dangerous. She needed to fix that now. Slap him down hard, so he’d never bring up Indigo again.
“If you want to talk about something else…,” he said cautiously.
“No, damn it. I don’t want to talk. Isn’t that obvious?” What the hell? Stop biting his head off. “If I wanted to talk, I would have gone to see Shelby. I came to you. Which means that what I want”—she put her hand on his thigh as she twisted to face him—“isn’t talk.”
He picked up her hand and moved it away, his voice cooling. “I understand you had a rough day, Nora, but—”
“No, you don’t understand at all. Or you wouldn’t be trying to talk to me. I don’t come to you for fine conversation, Sam.”
What the hell am I saying? Stop. Just stop.
But she couldn’t. It was as if she were standing outside the door banging to be let in as she listened to herself berate and insult him.
“All right.” He stood, his voice icy. “I think we’d better end this evening right about now. I’m going to give you a ride home—”
“Not really the ride I’m looking for.” She got to her feet. “Don’t act so shocked, Sam. Isn’t this what we do? We have sex. That’s it. So don’t act like you’re insulted that I came over here for exactly that. It’s what you usually want from me, and tonight, it’s what I want from you.”
She reached out, and he caught her by the wrists. “Okay, this is more than a bad day. Where were you, Nora? Did you go anywhere that someone could have slipped something into your drink or—”
She cut him off with a harsh laugh. “You think I was roofied? Why? Because I’m being honest for once? Honest about what we have and about what I want?”
His mouth tightened. “This is not what we have.”
“Could have fooled me. Once upon a time we pretended it was something else, but these days I’m pretty sure that every time we get together, we end up in bed. Sure, we talk, but that’s just the preamble. Pretending we’re friends so we don’t feel skeezy about the whole thing. Tonight, I’m cutting through the bullshit.”
She jerked her hands up hard to throw him off, but his grip was too tight, and when he didn’t let go, she lashed out—a surge of panic filling her, and she blacked out for a moment, blinded by that panic.
When she recovered, he was on the floor, his hand to his mouth, blood seeping through his fingers.
She moved forward to—to say something, anything. To explain. To apologize. For what she’d done, what she’d said.
Why? That’s what you feel. Deep down, it’s what you feel.
No, it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
She moved forward, but Sam scrambled up and backed away. The look in his eyes, that was the worst of it. Not the anger or confusion or outrage from a few moments ago. This was fear.
No, this was more than fear. This look said he didn’t know her, didn’t know whom he was looking at, but it sure as hell wasn’t Nora.
It was Indigo.
She was Indigo. Nora was Indigo. She’d done this to Sam. She’d said those things to him. No one else was to blame.
Her. All her.
Nora opened her mouth to apologize, and this time it wasn’t that something blocked the words. She simply couldn’t find any. Whoops, sorry, didn’t cut it here. Nothing did.
She turned and ran.