Swim Deep - Page 81

He sat in a winged chair, waiting, when I plodded out of the bathroom. He stood and came toward me. I meant to step away, but I was caught by his stare. My feet wavered, undecided. He grabbed my elbow, as if to steady me.

“I can’t stay here,” I said.

“I know. But you can’t leave now, either. The storm is bad.” He paused, as if to make a point. I heard the sound of a hard rain and the eerie, creaking sound the tall pines made as they swayed in the wind. “And you’ve hit your head.”

He urged with me his hand. I followed him over to the bed. He’d already pulled back the sheet and comforter. There was a glass of water on the bedside table and a bottle of aspirin. I sat on the edge of the mattress, undecided, but suddenly so tired. Exhaustion weighed down every muscle in my body. My cheek pressed against the soft, clean cotton of the pillowcase.

“Do you need some aspirin? For your head?”

“I did it myself.”

“You did what?” Evan asked, covering my shoulder with the comforter.

“I hit my head against the steering wheel on purpose.”

His hand paused. “Why?”

“I don’t know. To stop thinking, maybe,” I said hoarsely. My tongue felt thick and uncooperative. “To stop myself from seeing that car in my head. The red Ferrari. Elizabeth driving it.”

His hand started, then slid along the top of the comforter, seemingly smoothing the fabric, but in fact, soothing me. I remembered I’d told him he’d lost the right to touch me. Maybe he’d recalled that, because he comforted me now only through the barrier of the thick blanket.

“Go to sleep, Anna. Things will be better when you wake up.”

“Don’t go,” I whispered.

I shut my eyes. Shame swamped me at my pitiful request.

Thankfully, the exhaustion was even more powerful.

When I awoke, the first thing that struck me was the dead silence. The storm had run its course.

I’m alone in this big house. It’ll swallow me whole.

The thought was stupidly irrational and terrible at once. I thought of the ghost in my nightmare, and had the crazy idea she now had the power to pierce the veil… to step into my waking reality. A dim light shone behind me. I flipped over in a rising panic.

Evan sat in a chair next to the bed, the soft lamplight shining on the opened book he held in his lap. He looked up at my abrupt movement. I saw that he’d changed out of his wet clothing. He wore a pair of jeans and a button-down white shirt that made his skin look dark by contrast, his light eyes yet another layer of juxtaposition. He still hadn’t shaved, his whiskers adding to the rugged angles and shadows of his face. Our stares locked: one second, two, three…

I saw his concern, and something else in his grave gaze. A fragile, hesitant thread of hope. Distantly, I realized that hope might be coming from the way I was drinking in the vision of him like a parched woman.

“What time is it?” I asked him, just for something to say.

“A little after nine,” he said.

I glanced uneasily at the windows, confirming there was no light peeking around the curtains. I’d slept for over four hours. Evan had been right, about things being better after sleeping. The memories of that day seemed clearer, but more distant, too.

Safety barrier.

Yes. That’s what my sleeping mind had done. It’d put up a safety barrier, of sorts. I could still see all the heart-shattering moments and revelations from that day, but I did so from behind a thick, mental insulation.

Evan set aside his book on the bedside table. “Do you have a headache?”

“No,” I murmured.

Again, our stares held. And despite the newly installed safety barrier, I felt my throat swelling. I shut my eyes and swallowed away the discomfort.

“Why did you say you were repulsed by Elizabeth at the end of your marriage… that you hated her, at times.”

Had that been my voice asking that question in the oppressive silence? It must have been formulated in my unconscious mind, while I slept. I opened my eyes and saw that Evan, too, had been surprised to hear it.

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
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