pink and reddish-orange colors with as much detachment as he did everything else? Did he see the fragile lace of the high clouds only as a meteorological formation, only as cirrus clouds? And instead of the brilliant colors, did he see only the dust in the atmosphere, bending and distorting the sun’s light?
“How come you’re not required to drink wine?” Her words came out sounding belligerent, nearly rude. But if he noticed, he didn’t take offense.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” he told her evenly, “unless I absolutely have to.”
That didn’t make sense. Nothing about her life right now made any sense at all. “Why would you have to?”
“Sometimes, in other countries, when I meet with…certain people, it would be considered an insult not to drink with them.”
That was it. Nell boiled over. She stood up and set down her glass, sloshing the untouched contents on the tablecloth. “Could you possibly be any more vague when you talk about yourself? I mean, don’t bother adding a single detail, please. It’s not as if I give a damn.”
Nell was furious, but Crash knew that her anger wasn’t aimed at him. He’d just been caught in her emotional crossfire.
For the past two weeks, she had been in as carefully tight control as he was. But for some reason—and it didn’t really matter what had triggered it—she’d reached her limit tonight.
She was staring at him now, her face ashen and her eyes wide and filled with tears, as if she’d realized just how terribly un-Nell-like she’d just sounded.
Crash got to his feet slowly, afraid if he moved too quickly she’d run for the door.
But she didn’t run. Instead, she forced a tight smile. “Well, I sure am the life of the party tonight, huh?” She glanced at the others, still trying hard to smile. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I think I have to go.”
“Yeah, I have to go, too,” Crash said, hoping that if he sounded matter-of-fact, Nell might let him walk with her. The stress she’d been under for the past few weeks had been hellishly intense. She didn’t deserve to be alone, and he, God help him, was the only candidate available to make sure that she wasn’t. He took her arm and gently pulled her with him toward the door.
She didn’t say a word until they reached the stairs that led to the second floor of the rambling modern farmhouse. But then, with the full glory of the pink sky framed by the picture window in the living room, she spoke. “I ruined a really good sunset for them, didn’t I?”
Crash wished that she would cry. He would know what to do if she cried. He’d put his arm around her and hold her until she didn’t need him to hold her anymore.
But he didn’t know what to do about the bottomless sorrow that brimmed like the tears in her eyes—brimmed, but wasn’t released.
“There’ll be other sunsets,” he finally said.
“How many will Daisy get to see?” She turned to him, looking directly into his eyes as if he might actually know the answer to that question. “Probably not a hundred. Probably not even fifty. Twenty, do you think? Twenty’s not very many.”
“Nell, I don’t—”
She turned and started quickly up the stairs. “I have to do better than this. This cannot happen again. I’m here to help her, not to be more of a burden.”
He followed, taking the steps two at a time to catch up to her. “You’re human,” he said. “Give yourself a break.”
She stopped, her hand on the knob of the door that led to her room. “I’m sorry I said…what I said.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
He wanted to touch her, and knew that she wanted him to touch her, too. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take that risk. Not without the excuse of her tears. And she still wasn’t crying. “I’m sorry I…frustrate you.”
It was a loaded statement—one that was true on a multitude of levels. But she didn’t look up. She didn’t acknowledge it at all, in any way.
“I think I have to go to sleep now,” she whispered. “I’m so tired.”
“If you want, I’ll…” What? What could he possibly do?
“I’ll sit with you for a while.”
At first he wasn’t sure she heard him. She was silent for a long time. But then she shook her head. “No. Thanks, but…”
“I’ll be right next door, in my room, if you need me,” he told her.
Nell turned and looked up at him, then. “You know, Hawken, I’m glad we’re friends.”
She looked exhausted, and Crash was hit with a wave of the same fatigue. It was a nearly overwhelmingly powerful feeling, accompanied by an equally powerful sense of irrationality. It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out and cupping the softness of her face, and lowering his lips to hers.
Instead, he stepped back, away from her. Detach. Separate. Distance.
And Nell slipped into her room, shutting the door tightly behind her.
At two in the afternoon, the trees were delivered.
As the huge truck rolled into the driveway, Nell pulled her brown-leather bomber jacket on over her sweater and, wrapping her scarf around her neck, went out to meet it.
She stopped short before she reached the gravel of the drive.
Crash was standing next to one of the trucks.
What was he doing there?
He was wearing one of his disgustingly delicious-looking black turtlenecks, talking to the driver and gesturing back toward the barn.
It was starting to snow, just light flurries, but the delicate flakes glistened and sparkled in his dark hair and on his shirt.
What was he doing there?
The driver climbed back into the cab of the truck, and Crash turned as Nell came toward him.
“I thought you went skiing.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of the revving engine and the gasping release of the air brakes.
“No,” he said, watching as the truck pulled around the house, in the direction he had pointed. “I decided to stay here.”
He started following the truck, but Nell stood still, glancing back at the house. “You should get a jacket.” She was suddenly ridiculously nervous. After last night, he must think her an idiot. Or a fool. Or an idiotic fool. Or…
“I’m fine.” He turned to face her, but he didn’t stop walking. “I want to make sure the barn is unlocked.”
Nell finally followed. “It is. I was out there earlier. I picked up the decorations in town this morning.”
“I figured that’s where you went. You left before I could offer to help.”
Nell couldn’t stand dancing around the subject of the night before one instant longer. “You didn’t go skiing today because you thought I might still need a baby-sitter,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.
He smiled slightly. “Substitute friend for baby-sitter, and you’d be right.”
Friend. There was that word again. Nell had used it herself last night. I’m glad we’re friends. If only she could convince herself that friendship was enough. That was not an easy thing to do when the very sight of this man made her heart beat harder, when the fabric of his turtleneck hugged the hard muscles of his shoulders and chest, clinging where she ached to run her hands and her mouth and…
And there was no doubt about it. She had it bad for a Navy SEAL who called himself Crash. She had it bad for a man who had cleanly divorced himself from all his emotions.
“I