The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [112]
That grabbed her attention. She froze with one foot in the kitchen, and the other in the bedroom. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“I was having the best dream, probably the first good dream I’ve had in months. We were together, on a beach, curled up on white-hot sand. I remember I was playing with your hair. We weren’t saying anything. We were simply . . . happy.”
“That had to be a dream.”
“Then I woke up and you really were beside me.”
“Was I snoring?”
“You weren’t snoring.”
“Phew.” She made an exaggerated motion with her hand as if wiping sweat from her brow. “Here I was sure that I’d been snoring so loud, you’d had to run for your life.”
“You had your head on my shoulder,” he said softly. “And your arm around my waist. And your leg . . . it was curved over my thigh.”
“I get cold when I sleep.”
“It was . . . it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.”
“Oh, fuck you, too, Quince.” He blinked his eyes in shock. Rainie stalked toward him. Her cheeks were flushed, her finger making dangerous, jabbing motions in the air. Somewhere along the way, his little speech had obviously pushed the wrong button because she was definitely pissed off. Run, he thought immediately. Where? The place had no walls.
“I am not nice!” she spit out. “Can we get this straight? I am never nice.”
He watched her finger warily. “Okay.”
“I did not crawl into your bed to be nice. I did not curl up beside you to be nice. And I did not fall asleep to be nice. Got it?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes you did. I reached out to you. I made a huge leap forward for me. And you not only took the coward’s way out this morning, but you’re taking the coward’s way out now, by reducing my act of caring to an act of pity.”
“Are you going to stab me with that thing?”
“With what?”
“Your finger!”
“Quincy!” she yelled, throwing both hands into the air. “Stop being a smartass. For God’s sake, you’re acting like me! Snap out of it!”
He fell silent. After a moment, so did she. “I might have panicked this morning,” he admitted.
“There you go.”
“You could be gracious about this.”
“No, I couldn’t. Keep talking.”
“It’s possible,” he said softly, “that I fell back on old habits. I woke up, saw you there, liked having you there, and . . . Rainie, now is not a great time to be someone I care about. People I care about are suffering notoriously short life spans.”
“Quincy, boyfriends apologize, shrinks analyze. Which are you?”
He blinked. “Damn, you’re getting good at this.”
“Come on. Mitz could call at any time and then we’ll have to get going. So apologize and make it snappy.”
“I’m sorry,” he said dutifully.
She wiggled her fingers. “For . . . ?”
“For sneaking out of bed like a thief in the night. For not waking you up first. For pretending it didn’t happen, when spending the night with me was a monumental step for you and I appreciate your growth—”
“Okay.” She held up a hand. “Quit while you’re ahead. Any moment now, they’ll be giving you your own talk show.”
“Rainie, I liked waking up with you by my side.”
Her hands finally came to rest in front of her. She gave him a sideways glance. “I kind of . . . I kind of liked it, too.”
“I didn’t snore?” He couldn’t help himself. He took a step forward. She didn’t move back.
“You didn’t snore,” she said.
“No tossing and turning, stealing covers, keeping you awake all night?” He kept approaching. She still didn’t move back.
“Actually, you were rather cuddly. For a fed.”
He was now only an inch away from her. His nerve endings had flared to life. He could smell the faint scent of her soap, the apple-ish fragrance of her shampoo. He could see every nuance of her face, the direct line of her gaze, the firm resolve of her lips, the way her chin was up as if preparing for a fight. Now was not the time, he reminded himself. Carl Mitz could call at any moment. The world could end.
He wanted to touch her so badly, his fingertips burned. She challenged him. She pushed him. And more than all that . . . She made him dream of white-hot sands when for so long he’d been a shell of a man,