Dallas bit his lip again, that pink stretch of flesh turning white with pressure. “No, they wouldn’t have.”

“Any decent person would have.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” he grumbled, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I can never pay you back for that.”

I frowned. “You don’t have to.”

His lips moved but no sound came out, and he took his attention to something above my head. “I went to bed and didn’t hear anything until Josh came pounding on the door.”

Josh did that?

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to her...” Dallas kept going, his attention still away from me. “I owe you everything.”

Oh God. I was getting uncomfortable. “It’s fine, really.”

And then, he turned those hazel eyes on me once more and he blinked. But it wasn’t a normal blink. It was the kind of blink that changed your life. The kind of blink you noticed enough to earmark this moment in history. It was a preparation. A buffer. It was everything. And then he slashed his hand across the air, angry. “But if you ever do something so fucking stupid ever again—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I cut him off, caught off guard by the fury in his tone.

He held up a finger, silencing me. “What you did last night was the stupidest fucking thing anyone has ever done, do you hear me? I get that you went in to get her, but you’re a goddamn idiot, and you’re a bigger fucking idiot for going back to get the fucking cat.”

My bottom lip dropped open for a moment before I shut it. “You wanted me to let the cat die?” I asked, slightly outraged.

The exasperated look he shot me sent the hairs on the back of my neck to standing position. “The cat’s sixteen years old and you have two boys and your entire life ahead of you. Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to risk your life for Mildred?”

While I recognized he had a point—and that I’d had that exact same thought when Miss Pearl had pleaded for me to save her beloved cat—I didn’t like the brutal honesty in his tone. I wasn’t a fan of the accusation and possibility he raised to the forefront of my brain once again either. I did have two boys. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be fine without me, but it was… well, I couldn’t do that to them. I couldn’t be the third person in their lives to leave so unexpectedly. I had never taken a single sociology or psychology class, but my inner guts screamed that chances were, two little sponges so early in their lives couldn’t handle those kinds of losses and move on from them very well.

The fact was while nothing had happened to me, something could have. And then what?

Then again… I would have jumped into a burning building for Mac. I understood where Miss Pearl had gotten the balls to ask for a hero.

Regardless, that guilt buried itself deep into the back of my brain, and I sensed my face going warm. Josh had already given me enough shit for only having been awake a few minutes. I’d never handled guilt well. “I’m fine. Mildred is fine. Your grandma is fine. If I could do it all over again—” well, I wasn’t positive I would have run in for Mildred again. “It doesn’t matter. Everything worked out all right. Miss Pearl is fine. I’m fine. Everything is okay.”

My words did nothing for the anger bubbling through his skin, eyes, and mouth. Dallas shook his head and his hands went up to his face in that same exact way they had the night before when he’d asked for my toolbox. Was he red? “If something had happened….” He trailed off, the sound in his throat anguished.

I reached toward his forearm. “You said your nana’s fine. You can’t think about what might have happened—”

“It’s not Nana I’m thinking about, Diana!” he exploded, his entire body leaning toward me. “You don’t have to save the entire fucking world!”

The breath left my lungs in a sharp inhale and I blinked up at the man radiating so much fucking fury, I didn’t know what to say or how to react.

“If something had happened to you—”

I choked. Me? He’d been worried about me too?

The hand connected to the forearm I’d been touching came up to my eye level. His fingers went to my chin, cupping it as he looked directly into my eyes. “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be okay. I would never be okay,” he practically hissed.

Knowing I was an idiot asking for the pain of a lifetime, I still let myself lean forward into his touch, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead, I focused on his nose even as I felt his stare centered on my eyelids. “The good thing is, you’re going to be okay because I’m fine.”

“Fine?” His snort had me glancing up at him. He raised a brown eyebrow in a completely smart-ass response that seemed so at odds with the calm, mature man I had started getting to know. “Lemme see your hand.”

Shit.

I kind of maneuvered it partially behind my butt, as if he hadn’t already caught a glimpse of the wrapping around it. “It’ll heal,” I argued.

He was getting pissed off all over again. I could sense it coming off his body. “Did it happen getting the cat?”

Him and the fucking cat. Jesus. “Why do you hate the cat so much? And no, Dr. Evil, it didn’t happen then.” During Mildred’s rescue, I had almost died from smoke inhalation, or at least that was what it had felt like in the moment. “It happened when I tried opening the door to her house. The knob was hot.” Okay that was the understatement of the month. I had a second degree burn from it, and I didn’t want to even begin to piece together what I was going to do with a burned hand and my job. How long would it take to heal? How long would I have to take off from work? Could I hold shears in my hand once it got a little better?