Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(21)

These days, my sinister reach was limited due to the limp, but that made no difference. She didn’t know it yet, but she needn’t run. I wasn’t chasing her anymore.

So, again, I waited, scratching my jaw, watching Scarlet wrestle her humiliation, and unintentionally taking note of her burning cheeks and ears and neck, how nice her legs looked in that dress, how her feet were bare, and that her toenails were painted red.

Moments passed, perhaps a full minute, and she didn’t leave. Meanwhile, my skin had also heated. Memories of holding her overlaid with the image of her now—in her pink summer dress and bare feet and loose hair—made me tense, and then harden with a decidedly awkward, uncomfortable, and useless result.

Dammit.

Now? Really? Right now I’m getting wood? What the fucking hell kind of special torture was this?

“Are you going to participate willingly today?” she asked the ceiling, cutting through my particular thoughts, her voice high and strained, her hands settling back on her hips. “Or do I need to give you the rocking chair torture?”

Rocking chair torture? She had no idea.

Now I was the one caught, begrudgingly taking notice of how the thin fabric highlighted every inch it was supposed to cover, ravenously devouring the sweet curves of her form. My chest expanded and tightened—everything tightened—with want.

God. Damn. It.

Not for the first time—or tenth time, or hundredth time—I wondered, had I done it to myself? After she’d left Green Valley the first time and I’d been stuck in the hospital, using her name as a prayer, had I unintentionally damaged myself? Broken myself? Imprinted Scarlet on my heart and mind and body, impairing my ability to notice or want anyone but her? The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts, and my soul was still Scarlet.

At my continued staring and silence, she cleared her throat. And that’s when I ripped my attention from the delectably rosy patches heating her soft, pale skin. Glancing around the room, I shook myself, searching for my suitcase. Evidently, I’d forgotten where it was located at some point in the last three minutes.

“Leave it there, please. Thank you.” The request was gruff, but there wasn’t much I could do about the tenor of my voice right now. Her mere presence fractured my concentration, invaded the comfortably numb spaces I required to go through the motions, to make it through the day.

Towel held firmly just under my belly button, I ignored the renewed weight of her gaze and walked to my suitcase, grabbed the first set of clothes I found, and returned to the bathroom. Once inside with the door closed, I tossed the T-shirt, boxers, and jeans on the counter and leaned my palms against it, taking a deep, bracing breath and clearing my mind of her. Or trying to.

But I couldn’t, not with her so close.

Lifting my chin, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, endeavoring to see myself the way she saw me—someone she didn’t love but desired despite her best efforts and intentions and guilt. All I saw was a fool. Perhaps that’s what she saw too. Perhaps that’s why she’d never wanted me badly enough to do anything about it.

A sour taste singed the back of my throat and I swallowed the rising resentment. But then Dani’s words from earlier came back to me: Which is worse? Scarlet being addicted to her guilt, or you being addicted to your bitterness?

Dani was right. As much as I loved Scarlet, part of me also hated her. I hated that I’d been the source of her guilt, that she considered me a weakness, something to overcome rather than someone to cherish, like I wanted to cherish her. Even now, her cheeks had caught fire and she hadn’t known where to settle her eyes; her agitation had been cute, but the root of it had not.

I’d never wanted to be a source of weakness for Scarlet. I’d wanted to be a source of strength.

Leaning away from the counter, I tugged on my clothes. This wasn’t going to work. Roscoe almost dying, donating the marrow to Darrell, the constant pain in my hip and back, being limited to where I could go and what I could do, the senate race, the mill, people counting on me—I had enough to deal with. Her being here made everything worse, chaotic. She divided my attention: it was Scarlet, and then everything and everyone else. Let it go. Let her go.

Something for me to work on.

Certain she’d be gone by now, I turned for the door, ignoring the unkempt appearance of my beard. I didn’t have the patience or steady hand needed to shave and trim. It would have to wait. First, I’d drown myself with emails, work, government business, proposal writing, spreadsheets, and labor statistics. Then, my family, their troubles, worries, triumphs—just as long as no one asks me if I’ve eaten anything.

Leaving the bathroom a second time, I belatedly realized I hadn’t seen my namesake yet. Only Duane had been awake when I arrived, and he’d looked as tired as I felt. Maybe, if I could manage, I’d head down one flight of stairs and see if I could—

“I think I’ll stay.”

My head whipped up and I stopped mid-stride, shocked confusion rooting me to the spot.

“I want to make sure the appropriate amount of food makes it into your stomach.” Scarlet, who hadn’t left, was standing next to the desk where I’d set my laptop bag, now no longer in sight. She’d replaced it with plates full of food and, I noticed, a small bud vase containing three red poppies. One hand on her hip, she gestured to the top of the desk with the other, Vanna White style.