Page 15 of Beauty Becomes You (Beauty 4)
“I’m fine.”
He studied her. “No offense, but you look awful.”
“Now why would that be offensive?” she asked dryly.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
“It’s okay.” She scrubbed at her face. Surely he was right anyway. Worry and lack of sleep probably imprinted dark shadows under eyes. Her hair felt unruly and knotted to the touch. “You really should head home, though. I can take it from here. You don’t have to wait for me either. In town, I mean.”
“Then how would you get back?” he protested.
She waved a hand. “I’ll figure it out, now that I have time. I’m not sure how long I’ll need to stay here, so there’s no point in you hanging around for this. And wouldn’t you miss work? You’d better drive back today.”
Doug had sped on the open night roads, pulling into the hospital at four thirty in the morning. She glanced at the clock now, surprised to see it was already eight.
“No, I—” He paused, unaccountably at a loss for words. “I want to be here. To help you, if I can. I’m not asking to start anything right now. I know it’s not the time. But if sometime in the future, you and I were to…”
“Doug, what about the girl you were with?”
“She’s just a friend,” he said dismissively. When she raised an eyebrow, he amended, “With benefits.”
She shook her head. He would never change—not that she’d been waiting for that. She doubted they would have worked in the long term, even if there hadn’t been the horrible situation with her mother and his parents.
He seemed to follow her line of thinking. “I’m sorry about what happened when you came. I had no idea that would happen. And then when it did, I panicked.”
She stopped with him with a hand on his forearm. “I understand. I did my share of panicking. It was a bad situation.”
His nostrils flared slightly. He looked away. “I know your mom didn’t steal,” he said tightly.
It was as close to an admission as she would ever get, and more than she deserved, really. It wasn’t their fight, it was their parents’. Maybe they could fight it—fight the precedent, she thought wryly—except they weren’t together anymore. Never would be again. What she had with Blake was so much deeper than anything she’d experienced before. She wanted Doug to find that with someone else. Neither of them deserved to settle for each other.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
His expression was earnest. “You don’t have to decide now. I just wanted to tell you—”
Whatever he was going to tell her was cut off by sharp footfalls and a commanding masculine voice. She looked up at the counter, and like a dream, Blake was there. He spoke quickly to the nurse on duty, who pointed in Erin’s direction. Blake turned, his gaze burning bright with concern and love and something else. Something territorial that made her heart skip a beat.
“Blake,” she whispered.
The space closed between them. His gaze never left hers.
“Ah,” Doug said from beside her. “I see my position here has been made redundant.”
Only then did she realize that her hand was still on his arm, how it might have looked as they sat close together. How it might seem that she had accepted help from Doug. For a bleak moment, panic overtook her.
Until Blake arrived and gave Doug a brief nod of acknowledgement. She fell into Blake’s arms without understanding the mechanics of it. One moment she was sitting on the hard-backed chair, the next she was encased in a warm, solid hug and this, this was what she’d so desperately needed last night. Almost as much as, even more than, the ride to her hometown. She had needed his strength, his support.
“Is she okay?” he asked against her hair.
“Yes, I—no, but—” And then all semblance of composure crumbled under the onslaught of his kindness. Tears sprang to her eyes, thick and hot. They wetted her cheeks and his shirt. Her breath couldn’t find a rhythm; it jumped and froze in erratic disarray. The sounds she made scared even herself—choking, gasping, sobbing and helpless with it.
Helpless, like she’d never wanted to be. Like she was. Like she wasn’t when he was near, because his broad embrace sheltered her. He steadied her.
It wasn’t the four hour drive that had confounded her as much as the knowledge that her mother was sick and she could do nothing to fix it. That hadn’t changed when she’d arrived at the hospital, and it didn’t change now that Blake was here. But he made the helplessness more bearable.
Her life was filled with opportunity, with joy. Her school, and soon to be her work. Her love for Blake. Her few but close friendships. But even the happiest song had a low note. And in deep, rumbling disquiet, she held tightly to him, finding refuge and temporary silence in his arms.
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