“I promise,” I told her.
“But also,” she continued, her tone perfectly polite, perfectly sweet, “if you upset her in any way, I’ll make you wish you were never born.”
My eyebrows popped up. “Umm, okay?”
“Good talk, Aiden. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Despite the warning, I walked back into the house with a smile on my face.
The kids were fully engrossed in their movie, and I walked quietly past the family room and down the hall to my bedroom.
The light from the hallway spilled into the opening, and Isabel hadn’t moved from the last time I checked on her.
I crouched next to the bed and said her name quietly. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake.
Even as I held my breath before I raised my hand, I wondered at the intelligence of allowing myself even this slight touch.
Even before Paige had finished saying what she said, even before I recognized the deep swell of emotion in the words, I knew exactly what Paige was going to say about Isabel.
Because somehow, in the midst of all the mundane, I knew exactly who this woman was.
That was why the details didn’t matter to me.
Carefully, I slid my fingertips along her cheekbone and let out a slow, shaky exhale. Her skin was so soft.
“Isabel,” I said again. “Time to wake up.”
She hummed. Her head turned toward my touch. “Wha—” she murmured sleepily.
My fingers trailed the hairline at the back of her neck, and I said her name again. My palm laid gently along her neck, my entire hand now framing her face.
Slowly, her eyelids fluttered, and she woke. “Aiden,” she whispered.
“You know who I am. That’s good.”
“Mm-hmm.” She inhaled, and I saw the slow trickle of awareness in her face at the way I was touching her.
I pulled my hand back even though that awareness told me it was a welcome touch. “You remember why you’re here?”
“That fucking tree,” she said, stifling a yawn.
I smiled. “What about the year?”
She told me. With a dry look, she also told me the president and what kind of car she drove.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“A little.” She used her good hand to brace on the mattress and sit up. Her hair was a tangled mess, and it was a good thing she was injured. A good thing there were children in the other room. Because she looked so fucking irresistible, I had to step back from the bed.
“I’ll go heat some lasagna,” I told her.
With a slight shake of her head, Isabel opened her mouth, and like an idiot, I laid a finger over her petal-soft lips.
“No arguments,” I said in a gruff voice. My finger slipped away from her mouth slowly, and her eyes were huge when she looked up at me.
“No arguments,” she agreed quietly.
Paige’s words swam through my head as I fixed her a plate and brought it to where she was propped up against my headboard. With perfect clarity, I understood her protective instincts toward Isabel. Not because she wasn’t strong or because she couldn’t handle herself. But because there was some soul-deep recognition that she was mine to protect.
That if anyone upset her, I’d make them wish they were never born.
Only once in my life had I ever felt like that. I’d married her. Loved her. And when I’d lost her, I mourned ever feeling that way again.
But as I watched Isabel eat, drink some water, and as I watched her hug my daughter good night like she was something precious, I already knew that somehow, by some magic, some miracle, it was happening again.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have terrified me more.
Chapter Twenty
Isabel
I managed every wake-up just fine.
Every three hours, Aiden pulled me from a deep sleep, surrounded in sheets that smelled like him. He never touched my face again, simply called my name or laid a gentle hand on top of the covers over my shoulder. His questions were innocuous—the year, my middle name, where I worked. At one point, he gave me more painkillers and a new ice pack for my wrist, and even with the frigid cold against my skin, I fell right back asleep.
Each time, I managed fine. So did he.
Until the last one.
No dreams were happening because I was too exhausted, too sore. But the last time he woke me up, it was still pitch-black in the room with only a weak path of light coming from the hallway. I’d hardly moved on the king-size mattress, sticking to one side and my back because my hip was too sore to roll to the other side.
His voice, low and quiet, pierced through the haze of sleep, and I found myself humming contentedly. My name on his lips made me want to curl up like a cat in his lap and arch my body into the sound, roll my back into his hands.
“Isabel, come on, you gotta wake up for me.”
This time, his hand was skimming down my upper arm in small circles, and the calluses on his palms felt delicious on my skin.
“Hmm, that feels nice,” I heard myself say.
His hand only froze for a moment but then continued. “Does it?” he asked quietly.
I pressed my face into his pillow and inhaled. I kept my eyes firmly shut because if I was dreaming this, I refused to wake up. I wanted to allow myself this moment of a loose, sleepy tongue, where I could say the things in my head without fear of embarrassment.
“Everything you do feels nice,” I murmured. “I wish you’d do more.”
Aiden was quiet for a moment, and cautiously, I opened my eyes in narrow slits to see his face in the dim light of the room. It was so terribly intimate, how closely he crouched down by the bed. He didn’t sit on the mattress to possibly cause me discomfort. He’d given up his bed so I could get better sleep.
His profile was visible as I studied him, but I couldn’t tell where he was looking. Maybe he was watching his hand on my arm because he moved from my upper arm, down around the curve of my elbow, allowing his fingertips to drag softly over my forearm, stopping just shy of the wrapping of my wrist. Then back up.
“Where did you sleep?” I asked him.
“The couch.”
My lips curled up slightly. “You fit on that thing?”
“Not very well,” he admitted. “But I’ve slept in much worse places.”
I adjusted my head and stared openly at him. “Thank you for doing that for me.”
The thick column of his throat moved in a heavy swallow, but he nodded. “I told you, I owe you, Isabel.”
“No, you don’t.” I paused. “I did what anyone would’ve—”
The pressure of his hand increased as it coasted back up over my shoulder, and that was where it came to rest, the blunt edges of his fingertips tangling with my hair.
“I’m not talking about what anyone else would’ve done. I’m talking about what you did for Anya. And me.” He shifted his weight, and I finally got a clearer look at his eyes. He wasn’t looking at his hand; he was looking at me. “Thank you, Isabel. I need you to hear me say that.”
I’d never had anyone look at me like Aiden was, and I had no clue what to make of it.
This wasn’t reality, this tiny moment in his bedroom. And if I thought too hard about how little we knew about each other, I’d question my sanity. But he was looking at me like I was unexpected, and he wasn’t sure how to handle me the right way. Aiden was looking at me like I belonged in his home, in his bed, and he just might be okay with that.