Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(16)

“O-okay.”

He stared at her for a heartbeat. Remembered all the times they’d snuggled together in the dark on a makeshift bed of pillows and blankets in front of the gas fireplace in their city apartment when all he’d ever wanted was her. Now the thought of being alone with her, and the weight of everything he carried, made him want to run.

“Okay,” he repeated as he headed out of the room. But it wasn’t okay. Nothing about the situation would ever be okay. And he had no one to blame for that but himself.



Raegan’s stomach swirled with doubt and regret as she sat on the couch in the firelight and waited for Alec to come back downstairs with a blanket for her.

She shouldn’t have come here. He didn’t want her around, and he definitely didn’t want to talk about the reason they’d crossed paths today. If she hadn’t been so emotional, or if she’d been thinking clearly at all, she never would have gone to his parents’ party. She would have stayed at dinner with Jeremy and accepted things the way they were. Then she would have soldiered on with her life like she’d done every day since she’d signed those divorce papers.

Lifting her phone again, she checked the signal. “No Service” flashed in the corner. Frowning, she dropped her hands in her lap and sighed. Be tough. You can get through this. She could. She had before. She’d just have to do so again.

Her gaze skipped over the table on the far side of the room. His oversized camera bag sat perched open on top, the strap of his expensive camera draped out over the wooden surface. He’d have at least three cameras in that bag, she knew. A dozen different lenses. Hoods. Soft cloths. A notebook and pen. All the things he used when he was working.

She thought of the pictures he’d taken that she’d framed to hang on their walls. One was a sunset over the devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Another was a young girl on the side of the road in Chile, covered in ash after Puyehue-Cordón Caulle erupted. His photographs captured life. Not the fairy-tale version of life everyone expected but the hard, brutal truth of it. His photos brought out emotion in every person who saw them, which was why she’d framed and hung them. It was also why she’d taken them down and put them in storage after he’d left. Because she’d already been dealing with so much emotion then, seeing the harsh reality of the world through his lens had been too much.

It was still too much.

The stairs creaked under Alec’s weight, and she looked in that direction, happy for the distraction from the memories. Seconds later he appeared in the low light carrying two blankets and a pillow, the muscles in his shoulders and arms flexing beneath his Henley as he moved. Her memories skipped quickly from photos to the feel of those strong arms surrounding her, closing her in, drawing her tight against all that masculine perfection. And just that fast, a resurgence of emotions tightened her throat, and her stupid heart tripped all over itself.

“Here.” He leaned over the back of the couch and set the items on the cushion beside her. “These should be enough. I’ll come down and stoke the fire in a few hours to make sure it doesn’t go out.”

When he turned back for the stairs, she realized where he was going.

“Wait.” She grasped the back of the couch and twisted around. “There’s no heat in this house.”

“You’ve got the fire, you’ll be fine.”

“Yes, but you don’t. If it weren’t for me you’d sleep down here where it’s warm.”

He gripped the scuffed banister at the base of the stairs. “I’ll be fine. I have blank—”

“Alec.” She pushed to her feet and faced him. “It’s fifteen degrees outside, and judging from how cold it was in your kitchen, I’m guessing this old house doesn’t have much insulation. You’ll freeze upstairs with no heat.”

“I’ll be—”

“Fine. Yeah, you already said that.” God, he could be so damn stubborn. She’d once found that endearing, especially when his stubbornness involved his wanting to spend time with her. Now it just made her want to pull her hair out. “If you’re going to be a jackass about it, I’ll just go sleep in my car.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t you be stupid.”

He pursed his lips and scowled.

“This room’s plenty big enough for the both of us,” she said, ignoring the look. “I’ll take one end of the couch, and you can have—”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You’re not gonna quit with this, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Pain in my ass,” he muttered. Then, “The power will probably be back on in an hour or so anyway, and we can call that tow truck.”

Did that mean . . . ?

“Fine, I’ll stay down here,” he finished. “But on the floor. You get the couch. No arguments.”

Relief whipped through her, but it quickly faded to a whisper of unease when she realized they were going to spend the night together in the same room. Something they hadn’t done in over three years.

“I’m gonna grab some pillows and blankets for myself,” he said, shooting her a look as he headed back up the stairs. “I hope that’s allowed.”

His familiar sarcasm calmed her rattled nerves. But alone, as she looked over the hard subfloor in front of the fireplace and wondered how he was going to get any sleep there, she knew those nerves wouldn’t stay calm for long. Because even after everything that had happened between them, she was still crazy about this man who clearly didn’t want anything to do with her. And that meant she might as well be the one lying on that hard floor, because there was no way she was getting any sleep in this room with him tonight.