What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(61)

He saw she was awake and said, “I found hamburger in the freezer, a can of tomatoes in the pantry, some dried herbs and fresh garlic—apparently, Zone grows his own, which makes him a farmer, too. So I’m making my aunt Sarah’s spaghetti sauce.”

“Sounds good. Is there pasta?”

“No, but there’s cornmeal, so we’ll make polenta.”

“Did I say good? That sounds wonderful.” She was starving. “Shouldn’t you put on an apron? It seems as if you’re courting disaster.”

“I hate to be putting clothes on just to take them off again.”

“Aren’t you—?”

“Cocky?”

“That’s the word.” A fully clothed Max Di Luca was a very nice-looking man. Naked, he was an inspiration. When he was cooking her dinner, he was... Well. She could never ever let another woman know about this. If word got out, he would be inundated with offers to star on a calendar as all twelve months of mouthwatering goodness.

He put the lid on the pot, turned the burner to low and came back to bed. He stretched out against her, and suddenly the single bed mattress was too narrow, especially when he propped his head on one hand and leaned on his elbow. “What do you want to ask me about?”

She had thought they were going to make love again. Which made her nervous and giddy at the same time. But talking—that made her nervous without the giddy.

She sat up and pushed the pillow against the wall and then didn’t lean back. She had been avoiding so much, the questions and the answers about their relationship, about what exactly had happened that she could remember and what had happened she could never remember. She prided herself on her bravery, but she wasn’t brave about this welter of emotions, joy and pain. She wet her lips. “I don’t know how I had a baby. How was that possible? Tell me how I had a baby.”

If she thought to disconcert him, she failed utterly. “I thought you would never ask.”



32


Kellen plucked at the fraying hem of the wool blanket. “I figured...it was a birth like most births?”

“Like most births? Her mother was in a coma. You were in a coma.” Max gestured widely. “Do you feel no curiosity about those months after the shooting?”

“It’s not that I’m not curious. But for me... I feel as if I went crazy and woke up a different person. I feel guilty for being shot—”

“How could you feel guilty?”

“I was upset with you. I ran away rather than be mature and discuss our problems. Then he found me and shot me.”

Max came to his feet. He ran hand over his face as if trying to create an expression of understanding. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t know your whole story, but it was clear you’d been hurt in a relationship. Hurt...physically. Hurt in every way possible.”

“Yes,” she said faintly. “An abusive relationship...”

“I got that figured out. When we met, when you saved Annabella from that bastard who is her father, you had scars. Burn marks. There had been broken bones. You were still in the process of healing physically and mentally. So after we got together, you were jumpy. Something happened...” He trailed off.

She didn’t fill in the blank. Even now, she was a little shocked, a little angry that he had snooped into her private papers. He read her cousin Kellen’s résumé and believed it was hers.

He continued, “And you got scared and upset, and you ran. No guilt.”

Shocked and angry didn’t change the facts, and she took responsibility for her actions. “Running away was thoughtless and led to disaster.”

“You might as well blame my sister for marrying the bastard who tried to kidnap their child.” He shook his head. “There’s too many threads here. I can’t even begin to process the idea of your guilt.”

Hostility rose in her. “Nevertheless, I feel guilt.”

“Okay. Fine. My sisters say women are allowed to feel what they feel and men should shut up about how feeling that way is stupid because men are a bunch of insensitive beasts.”

“That’s what your sisters say?”

“When you strip away all the tact and rhetoric, yes.”

Kellen relaxed, laughed again and held her stitches. “I feel guilty that I don’t remember Rae’s birth.”

“All right. All right. Look. You were shot in the head at close range.” He came to her side and lifted her bangs and smoothed the red ring of scar as if he’d done it many times before. “You were in the hospital. You weren’t expected to live. No one could figure out how you were alive at all. But you were so strong. Annabella told me she could feel your spirit fighting to survive. I don’t know. Probably she said that because I sat there for so many hours by your side because I—” he looked directly at her “—I felt guilty.”

“Why?”

“I made you run away. I didn’t run fast enough to save you before that bullet...” He faltered.

She took his hand. “You didn’t make me run away. I ran because, when I was presented with a problem, that was what I did...then. It’s different now. If there’s one thing I learned in the Army, it’s that no one can outrun a bullet.”

“So I shouldn’t feel guilty?”