Lifting his thumb across his shoulder he said, “Right across the hall.” He saw her wrinkle her nose, her gray eyes darken. “Why?”
Giving him a shy look, unable to hold his penetrating stare, she whispered, “Sometimes . . . sometimes I wake up screaming at night.” She pushed strands of her hair off her brow in a nervous gesture. “My own screams wake me. They woke my father every time. That’s why I had to leave his house. I kept waking him up.” Her lips quirked. “I don’t want to wake you . . .”
Garret forced his hands to remain on his hips. He was a tall, broad man, filling up the hallway. Kira was half his size and looking so damned vulnerable. He wanted to slide his hand across her wan cheek, cup it, lean down and kiss her tenderly to reassure her that everything would be all right. Garret knew better. There was nothing right with either of them anymore. They were twisted, wounded, distorted human beings trying to act and behave normally when normal had been destroyed in that ambush a year ago.
He cleared his throat and rasped, “Don’t worry about it. I do my fair share of screaming in nightmares, too. Let’s look at the positive side of it. We can start a symphony.” His teasing eased the tight line of her lips. She studied him, her soft eyes widening as she searched his face.
His heart beating to underscore the ache now centering in his lower body, Garret cursed to himself. He had no damned defense against Kira, he realized sharply. It unstrung him for a second. And then, Garret realized the awful truth of Kira: she was already facing the demons within her from that ambush. He saw it reflected in her sad-looking eyes, the soft parting of her lips that tempted him as nothing else ever had. Kira was not hiding from what happened.
That terrified Garret more than anything else. He had successfully hidden from his grief and pain for six months. What the hell was he going to do now?