“She just woke up,” my nephew explained quickly.
Dallas’s eyes swung back up to me, the slight smile on his face melting off before he glanced at the forearms I had crossed over my breasts. I’d changed from the night before, and the baggy T-shirt I had on hid everything. “I can tell.” He looked back at my face, and I took in the tendons popping out along the column of his neck. Did his jaw jut out more than normal or was I imagining it? “J, can I talk to your aunt alone for a minute?”
The little traitor nodded. “Okay. I’m gonna take Mac for a walk then.”
“Don’t go far,” Dallas and I both said at the same time, watching each other carefully.
Josh gave us a horrified expression, but just like that, he disappeared.
My neighbor tipped his head toward the kitchen door that led to the backyard, and I followed after him, trying to decide whether to tug my shirt down or not. He’d already seen me in just a tank top and underwear the night before, at least I hadn’t worn a thong to bed.
Out on the back stoop, Dallas took a step down to give me the top and watched me with that intense gaze, his lips pinched together. Even with him giving me the advantage, he was still taller than me.
I raised my eyebrows at him, remembering briefly that he’d called me things last night that hadn’t been okay. “Is Miss Pearl all right?” was the first thing I asked.
“She’s fine,” he answered in a cool, calm voice. Carefully, he said, “You saved her life.”
And risked mine. Just thinking about it sent a shiver up my back. “I couldn’t leave her in there. Anyone would have done it.”
Dallas bit his lip again, that pink stretch of flesh turning white with pressure. “No, they wouldn’t have.”
“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.