Since he was turning out to be surprisingly organized, it wasn’t difficult to say “Yes.” He was supposed to be helping her, after all. And, since he was ordinary in all the ways Chloe and her family were not, he presumably had a touch more experience in outdoor pursuits than she did.
“All right,” he said, then seemed to stop and think for a second, all his swirling vitality pausing along with his hands. She recognized this considering stillness from the nights she’d spied on him.
But she wouldn’t think about spying on him. She was overheated enough without guilt adding to the issue, and one of the many curses of fibromyalgia was an inability to maintain homeostasis. If she got too hot, she’d simply pass out. She decided to open a window while Red was too distracted to ask why. He was staring at nothing beside her, running his knuckles back and forth over his lower lip.
She’d never seen him do that before. How fortunate that, the first time she witnessed it, there was a mountain of fleecy fabric in place to hide the way her nipples reacted.
She opened the window—ah, sweet air—and returned to the sofa just as he started writing again. His voice absent, he asked, “How long did you want to camp for?”
As little time as possible. “Oh, just a night should do,” she said awkwardly. “I know you’re very busy.”
“I could do Saturday to Sunday, next week?”
She didn’t need to check her schedule to know she was depressingly unengaged on those evenings, and most evenings, forever after.
No. Not forever. You’re getting a life, remember?
“That should work for me,” she said brightly.
“Cool. I have a place in mind, but I’ll look into it and let you know.” He finally put the pen down. His writing, she noticed, was surprisingly neat. There was wildness there, but it was carefully restrained. Every now and then it trickled from the swooping curl of a g or y, burst from the seams of an I. Before she could stare any longer, he snapped the notebook shut and put it on the coffee table, along with the pen. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
The slow, deliberate way he said those words, as if he were plotting his way through a booby-trapped room, put her on her guard. “Yes?” she asked crisply.
He turned his whole body toward her, his right knee disturbingly close to her thigh. She could feel the heat and the life and something else, something that tightened her belly, radiating off him and sinking dangerously deep into her. She stiffened and stared straight ahead.
“Come on, Chlo,” he said softly. “Don’t do that. We’re … friends, aren’t we?”
She didn’t know what surprised her more—that casual shortening of her name, the kind of easy intimacy she’d had from no one but her sisters in years … or the fact that he thought they were friends. “A week ago you barely even liked me.”
Most people would probably deny that, but he just shrugged, smiling slightly. “You didn’t like me, either. But now that I know you better, I think you’re funny and secretly sweet, and I do like you. I’m hoping you like me, too.”
A weightless, tingling warmth suffused her as she battled a big, silly smile. Yesterday, she’d almost convinced herself that the dizzying tone of his emails was just his natural charm, the one she’d seen him flashing around like fifty-pound notes plenty of times. Apparently not. Apparently, he’d meant the little jokes and the kindnesses.
What a relief, since she had, too.
But her pleasure at his words, at the way he described her, was too enthusiastic, so she reined herself in. Changed the subject. Reminded herself he wanted to ask difficult questions. “Fine. We’re friends. Now what is it?”
His smile didn’t waver, as gentle as his words. “I know you’re sick,” he said. “I’m not trying to get full details, or anything. But if you’ve never done this stuff because of your health, I need to know what the risks are. What to do if you need help. All that shit.”
Sigh. “I have fibromyalgia. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue, migraines, random periods of muscle weakness. Physical exertion can result in flare-ups, but I know my limits.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Except for the times when you climb trees to save cats.”
“I knew my limits then, too,” she sniffed, relaxing a little, leaning closer to him. God, why was she leaning closer to him? “I simply decided I wanted to rescue Smudge more than I wanted to be sensible. But I wouldn’t do that with you,” she added quickly. “And I won’t need to. I’m not physically incapable of completing those tasks, though I might require accommodations that others wouldn’t. I don’t need your help because of my disability. The list is about … something else.”
Red nodded slowly, his gaze focused on her like a laser. There was an unexpected warmth in that gaze, one that tricked her into speaking further when she should have shut her mouth.
“I didn’t used to be, you know …” She waved a hand. “A socially inept control freak.”
His lips curved. “That’s not exactly what I’d call you.”
“I’m sure you’d choose something more blunt.”
“No,” he said, but that was all he said. And now she wanted to know what he’d been thinking. Too late; he swept the conversation along. “So what changed? What made you start thinking of your life in two halves—before and after?”
Her heart stuttered for one dangerous moment. “I … how did you—?”
“I have some experience with that feeling myself,” he said, raking a hand through the silken sunset of his hair. He sounded vaguely sad. “I guess I recognize it in you.”
“Yes,” she murmured, because that made sense. “I see it in your paintings.”
His eyes widened for a moment and color appeared on his high cheekbones. “Oh.”
Now she was blushing, too. She hadn’t meant to embarrass him. She certainly hadn’t meant to admit so much knowledge of his art. She got too comfortable around him and things slipped out when they shouldn’t. “I only meant—I was researching, for the website, and I found some of your older work, and there’s a distinct—”
With a kindness she didn’t really deserve, he cut her off. “I know what you mean. It’s fine.” He studied her for a moment as if her skin were translucent, and he could peer inside her head if only the light hit her just right. She felt uncomfortably like the light was hitting her just right. “You know, for someone who happily admits to being rude, you seem to care a lot about hurting my feelings.”
Her derisive snort was automatic, a familiar shield. “Don’t flatter yourself. I care about everyone’s feelings.”
“Yeah? What about your own?”
She sucked in a breath to say something cutting or witty or otherwise distracting, only it got caught in a tangle at the back of her throat.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, his proximity turning her pulse into a tempest. “Tell me about your before.”
CHAPTER TEN
Red didn’t know why he was pushing, why he felt so ravenous for any scrap of the woman sitting before him. But when she curled her knees under her and faced him completely, when those spilled-ink eyes met his and her velvet voice wrapped around him, it felt right. It felt like exactly what he’d wanted.