“Yes. Please tell her thank you. They were beautiful.” An absurd voice in my head wonders if I’ll ever get to thank her for them in person, but I quickly dismiss it. Not likely, given who she is.
After a moment, his gaze lands on me again and the most awkward tension settles in the air. Or maybe it was there from the moment he stepped through the door and I’m only just noticing it, now that the initial surprise of him in my doorway has faded.
He shifts his stance and winces in pain. “Do you mind if I grab a chair?”
I finally snap out of my daze. He’s not even supposed to be on his feet, and here I am making him stand at my door. “Oh, my God. Yes. Please.” I rush to pull a chair out for him, inhaling a light waft of cologne on my way past. A wave of déjà vu hits me. He was wearing that cologne the night of the accident. My senses didn’t process it then, but they obviously cataloged it for future reference because I’m instantly drawn to it, breathing in the scent of him, horrific memories or not.
I step back to make room, silently assessing how tall and broad he is as he hobbles closer. They say television distorts your body, adds twenty pounds. I’m thinking they’ve got it backward, because he feels larger than life right now.
How the hell did I ever get him out of that car?
He’s peering down at me, scanning my slender arms and bony shoulders, like he’s thinking the exact same thing, but he doesn’t voice it, easing himself into the chair with great difficulty, propping his crutches against the table next to him.
I move Keith’s dirty glass to the sink, feeling Brett’s warm, probing blue eyes on me the entire time. I can’t help the heat from crawling up my face, so I duck over to the sink and busy myself with rinsing dishes, waiting for my cheeks to cool. “I don’t have much to offer, but do you want a drink?”
He groans. “I’d kill for a cold beer.”
“How about cheap white wine that makes you cringe?” I really need to start stocking beer in my fridge.
When Brett doesn’t answer, I glance over my shoulder to see his amused expression. “I’m not selling it very well, am I?”
“Not really.”
My eyes drift to his hand, resting casually against the worn wood-grain tabletop, its massive size all the more pronounced next to my dwarf wineglass. “You probably should avoid alcohol anyway right now, being on meds?”
“You’re probably right,” he murmurs, a secretive twinkle in his eye that brings another uncontrollable and embarrassing flush to my cheeks.
I turn away from him, this time to wash my hands. “We have milk . . . water . . . ,” my eyes drift to the coffeemaker my dad got me, “coffee that won’t poison you . . . tea . . . SunnyD.”
“They still make that?”
“They do.”
“I think I was about seven when I had that last.” He chuckles.
“It’s my daughter’s,” I lie, embarrassed. I can’t imagine the women he associates with drinking anything but martinis, vintage wine, and organic smoothies.
After a pause, “Let’s go with the kid juice.”
I set to getting him a glass, the simple task taking longer on account of my wrist.
When he speaks again, his voice is much softer, more hesitant. “You were yelling at me that night, weren’t you. When I was in the car?”
A long, shaky breath sails from my lips. Yes . . . Until my throat was raw. So he did hear me. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
“All I remember is driving along that road and the fog, and Seth talking about the new lines and how it was a bad idea for the coach to switch them up. Then suddenly a woman was screaming at me from somewhere far away. And it was hot.”
I nod absently as I pour his drink. “I’ve never felt anything like that fire before. When the entire car went up, I was afraid the bulrushes in the ditch would ignite from the heat alone.”
“How long did it take you to get me out?”
“I don’t know. It was all a bit of a blur. Emergency response was there in about four minutes, and I managed to get you out just before they came.” I gave up on you. I turned and started to walk away. Did you hear my screams of “I’m sorry,” too?
Maybe that’s why I’m struggling to meet his gaze now. Everyone’s praising me for saving his life, but I was going to leave him there to die.
I’ve had my back to this man for far too long and now I have no excuse, unless I decide to wash my sink load of dishes.
With a deep breath, I walk over to the table to set his glass down in front of him. Then I turn my attention on righting my chair, picking up the broken rungs. I should be able to glue them back. Again.
“How’d you hurt your wrist?”
Something else to look at, to distract myself with, so I don’t have to meet his searching eyes. I took the tensor bandage off earlier, to allow my skin to breathe and to give my fingers a chance to stretch. My wrist is back down to normal size now and the coloring is more yellowish green, not nearly as ominous looking. “When we tumbled into the ditch, I guess. I didn’t feel it until after.” Maybe I should put the bandage back on now, though. My thoughts are so frazzled, I may forget and bump it against something. Where did I put that—
“Catherine.”
I inhale sharply at the sound of my name on his tongue. I’ve always hated my name. It’s so ordinary. Even the spelling is unimaginative. When I was eleven, I went through a phase where I spelled it “Kathryn,” because I wanted to be different. It threw everyone for a loop and pissed my mother off something fierce. Teachers kept asking me to spell my name correctly and I refused, earning me a trip to the principal’s office.
Hearing Brett say my ordinary, unimaginative name in his deep, gravelly voice for the first time makes me hear a simple beauty in it I’ve never experienced before.
“Yes?”
“Can you please sit down?”
Gathering my nerve, I slide into the chair opposite him, taking a sizable gulp of my wine, hoping that’ll help combat the tension.
And then I meet his gaze.
He has what I would call “soul-searching” eyes. They meet yours, but they don’t just look at you. They look into you, delving deeper, beyond the layers and guises, to uncover who you are at your core.
Or maybe it’s just me he’s trying to read.
After a long moment, he matches my earlier move, bringing the rim of his glass to his full pink lips, downing half the cheerful orange liquid in a few big gulps.
I may never wash that glass again.
“I’m sorry I invaded your house like this. I just . . .” Even beneath the mangy beard, I can see Brett’s strong, angular jaw tense. “I needed to talk to you before they got hold of you.”
They. The media, I’m assuming.
“Do you think they’ll get bored sitting out there?”
He smiles sadly. “They’re too much, even for me, and I’ve grown up with it. I can’t imagine what all this is like for you. I get why you’d want to avoid it.”
I shrug. His worry for me—and how plain it is on his banged-up face—is endearing. “There never was any way to avoid it forever. I guess it’s kind of good that it’s finally out in the open. I’ve been dreading it for a week now.”