“I know that.” She said it through clenched teeth.
“But you told me yesterday that you didn’t really believe it.”
“Connor. I do believe it. Yeah, my head’s a little screwed around right now, but I still have all my faculties. I know we’re not married. I have no illusions that I’ve somehow fallen down a rabbit hole and when I finally emerge, we’ll be married again and everything between us will be like it was eight years ago. I’m not Alice. There is no Wonderland. I get that. I do.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
She touched her head again. “I do believe it. I just said I believe it. I know my own brain is lying to me.”
He sat back in the chair and spoke as softly as he could manage. “I’m upsetting you.”
She put up both hands. “No. Please. You’re not. You’re really not. I am allowing myself to become upset—and I’m stopping that. Now.”
“It just seems like a bad idea. How are you going to find your way to fully accepting the truth if the two of us start playing house?”
“Playing house is not what I asked for,” she replied in a carefully modulated tone. “I asked you to let me stay with you while I’m in town. As a renter or a houseguest, whichever works better for you.”
The thing was, he wanted it. Wanted her. Still. He always had. It was his problem. And he accepted it. No one compared to her. He doubted that was ever going to change.
But that didn’t mean he should take advantage of her now. She needed to stay away from him, not start living in his house.
Major fail so far, Aly was thinking.
Connor was in no way convinced. He seemed to view her request to move in here as yet more proof that her injured brain wasn’t operating on all thrusters.
So what? He could think what he wanted. She had a goal and she was pulling out all the stops to attain it.
The accident had not only scrambled her memories. It had stripped away seven years of denial and foolish pride, brought her face-to-face with herself, shown her what she really wanted most in the world, held a mirror up to all the ways she’d failed in courage and in love.
She said, “Forget about all the reasons you believe it would be wrong for me, bad for me to move in with you. It won’t be bad. It will bring...understanding between us, peace between us. It will give us a chance to work out our issues with each other, which we never did.”
He still wasn’t buying. “Face facts. It’s long past the time when we could have worked anything out.”
“I disagree.”
“Aly, it’s years too late.”
“For us to piece our marriage back together, maybe. But it’s never too late for us to learn to put all the bitterness and sadness behind us.”
He regarded her steadily, those steel-blue eyes probing. “Is that really what you want, what you think you’re going to accomplish? That we can make peace and then let each other go?”
It wasn’t. No way. In spite of everything, she wanted it all with him. She’d never gotten over him; she understood and accepted that now. She still felt so powerfully drawn to him. She had it bad—bad enough that her injured brain had rebelled on her and tried to rewrite the past.
Her heart had never really moved on from him and she was finally willing to put her pride aside and let her heart lead the way. She wanted to try again.
And she needed to tell him that.
Just not right this minute.
“What I want is to spend time with you.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Aly. You know it is.”
“And yet just a few minutes ago, and yesterday, too, you promised me that you would do whatever I needed you to do.”
“Yes, I did. And I meant it both times.” He stood. “Just...not this.”
Her head ached. She longed to grab the fancy glass dish on the coffee table in front of her and chuck it at his heartbreaker-handsome, infuriating face.
But her doctors had explained that she shouldn’t get herself worked up, that she should try to stay calm, that in the near future, headaches and emotional outbursts were likely if she let herself get stressed out. Getting overexcited would slow the healing process down.
Aly put her head in her hands and made herself suck in several slow, deep breaths. It helped. The ache in her head lessened and the frantic feeling of losing control eased.
“Aly...” Connor came toward her. He stopped a foot from where she sat.
“It’s all right,” she said, breathing slowly and evenly. “I’m okay, honestly.”
“I’ve upset you. Again. Aly, I’m so sorry.”
“No. Really.” She met his eyes, saw his remorse, felt his regret for causing her pain right now and in the past. “Don’t beat yourself up—I mean, you should be sorry for what you did seven years ago. But as for right now, it’s your house. I get it. If you don’t want me here, well, what else is there to say?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you here. I said I thought it would be a bad idea for you to stay here.”
Was he giving her an opening? “So...you do want me here?”
“Aly...” He seemed not to know what to say next.
Maurice was curled in a ball against her thigh, purring contentedly.
Connor picked up the cat, set him on the floor and sat down beside her. “This is just crazy.”
“Tell me about it.” She watched Maurice strut away, tail held high. And then, with a tired little groan, she let herself sway toward the man sitting next to her.
The most beautiful thing happened. He wrapped his arm around her.
It felt so good, just to lean against his solid strength. And he smelled the same. Clean and manly, like soap and cedar branches. She breathed him in and felt better about everything. The proximity of his body, his heat, the weight of his arm across her shoulders—it all added up to contentment, somehow. Having him close made her world a better place.
He rubbed her arm, soothing her.
With a sigh, she gave in to the comfort he offered, resting her tired head on his hard, warm shoulder, relaxing in the cradle of his embrace.
He stroked her hair. She wished he would never stop. “I’m only trying
