Aiden dropped his chin to his chest, shielding his gaze from view. “You’re injured, Isabel,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “That’s not it.”
His head snapped up, but he didn’t argue.
The specter of his wife hung between us. I knew it.
“I know that’s not it.” My voice gained strength. “And I wish you’d explain it to me.”
Those eyes of his, I’d never seen any quite like them. A wordless answer hit me straight in the heart as he stared at me. I can’t. It was as clear as if he’d spoken the words out loud.
“Don’t tell me you can’t,” I told him quietly. “You won’t, and there’s a difference.”
My lungs didn’t work quite right as I gripped the knob on the bedroom door, and he disappeared from view, jagged bursts of oxygen making my whole chest ache. The door closed with a quiet click, and I sank against it for a moment.
I pushed off the door and walked into the bathroom, stripping off my clothes and letting them fall haphazardly onto the floor. As I slid into the water, I knew he wouldn’t come in. I wasn’t willing to pretend anymore, like I didn’t have big, scary feelings for this man. Twice now, I’d begged him to do something. And he hadn’t.
I had a feeling I knew why.
But I needed him to open up a little too. Not all the way, and not all at once. But if he was unwilling to give me anything, then I had to decide if I could make peace with that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Isabel
A few hours later, Emmett and I were ready to get home.
Well … Emmett wasn’t.
I sure was. My bath had revived me, and with the help of one more dose of Tylenol, even though my body was still sore, I could manage more easily. And as I’d moved around the kitchen after packing my backpack and making his bed, Aiden acted like there was a six-foot force field surrounding me that he wasn’t allowed to breach.
Breakfast was bagels (for the adults) and cereal (for the kids) because it wasn’t like Aiden had prepared for guests.
“I’m hungry,” Emmett told me, tossing a pine cone into the air and catching it. Logan and Paige would be there any minute.
“I told you you should’ve had a bagel.”
Tongue trapped between his teeth, he tossed the pine cone higher and darted to the side to catch it, but his hand-eye coordination was off, so it bounced off my head.
“Sorry,” he said with a grimace.
I brushed flecks of the pine cone off my hair, slicked back in a braid going down my back. “Hey, what’s one more head injury.”
Anya flew out of the front door and scrambled on my lap, where I sat on a white Adirondack chair that overlooked the front yard. She studied my face, her mouth twisting up in a thoughtful grimace when she looked at the bandage at my hairline.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Not too bad.” I gently touched the bottom of the butterfly bandage. “Itches a little, but I need to leave it on here for a few days.”
Her eyes, bright blue, and an entirely different size and shade as her father’s, met mine. Her mother’s eyes. My eyes came from my mother too, and I couldn’t help but think about how differently I might’ve felt if I liked seeing that reminder of her in the mirror. Anya would. And Aiden, every time he looked at his daughter, would see glimpses of the woman they lost.
Gently, I brushed her hair behind her ears.
“You don’t laugh a lot, do you?” she asked.
Her father had asked me something similar, and I struggled not to feel like I’d done something wrong by the repeated question.
I tapped her chin with my thumb, and it drew a smile. “I laugh more once you get to know me,” I told her.
My answer made her happy, and my heart struggled to work past the sweet melancholy ache she brought out in me. If I was already falling in love with her dad, then Anya might have beaten him to the finish line.
I loved her serious questions. I loved her daredevil streak, even if my wrist throbbed in protest. I loved that she laid in the middle of a boxing ring singing at the top of her lungs.
“I went to sleep right away last night,” she told me in a serious tone.
“That’s … good.” My brow furrowed because it certainly seemed like she was telling me something important. “Is it usually hard for you to get to sleep?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Her eyes moved from my face down to the letters on my Wolves T-shirt. The worn black fabric wasn’t something I would’ve packed had I known anyone outside of Emmett would be privileged to see me in all my morning glory. There were holes in the hem. I’d ripped the arms off years earlier because I hated sleeves on my shirts when I worked out.
“What keeps you up, sweetheart?” I asked. As I watched her, it was impossible not to think about the nights I’d stared at the ceiling of my bedroom when I was younger.
“I don’t know. ” Her answer was honest and simply spoken, but still … it wedged something raw and vulnerable into my heart. “But I liked that Emmett was across the hall. I pretended he was my big brother.” Her eyes met mine again. “And you were downstairs. Daddy wasn’t alone either. I think it was easier to sleep because I was happy.”
It was almost impossible to swallow past whatever was lodged in my throat. I thought of what Aiden said the night before, about confusing her.
“Your daddy was very nice to let us stay because I was hurt,” I said gently.
Anya nodded. I found myself studying her more closely than I ever had.
I’d probably seen pictures of Aiden’s wife in the past, but if I had, there was no recollection of her face. Nor had I searched the house for her picture the night before, but I had no doubt there were images of her around the space where they lived.
Behind me, I felt him approach, his presence something akin to its own force field. Since I closed the door to take my bath, he hadn’t spoken a word to me.
He simply watched, studied me with a wariness that I hadn’t seen in him before, like I did him harm in some way that I didn’t understand.
Didn’t he know? I didn’t want to do any unseen damage. I’d love them so easily if he’d let me.
“Will you bring Emmett to play again sometime?” Anya asked, now fiddling with the edge of my braid. “You didn’t get to walk to the lake with us and see me skip rocks. I’m really good at it.”
Aiden came to stand next to the chair, and carefully, I glanced up, but his attention was on his daughter.
“We’ll talk about it later, okay, gingersnap?” he said.
She pouted. “You only say that when you don’t want to say no in front of people.”
I smothered a smile. “I’ll tell you what, Anya, maybe your dad can drop you off at Emmett’s house someday when I’m there.” I tapped her on the nose. “No climbing that tree, though.”
“Can I, daddysnap?” she asked, bouncing excitedly on my lap.
Aiden gave a slight nod. “Why don’t you hop off her lap? I think her brother is here.”
Logan’s SUV pulled into the driveway, and I caught sight of their identical worried expressions.