The front door stood like a coward’s beacon in front of me.
To my left, noises filtered down a short hall.
I looked between them.
Part of me wanted to bolt. Because shit, what the hell else was I supposed to do? But after last night? Couldn’t just walk out on Shea without saying goodbye. Sure, I could rack it up to me needing to know if her head was okay, if she was physically hurting after that piece of shit messed with her last night.
But I knew—knew it was more.
I didn’t make a sound as I cautiously moved across the super dark hardwood floors, the increasing sounds echoing down the hall serving as a guide toward my destination.
I passed by a black baby grand set up behind the sitting area before I slipped into the short hall. Outside a swinging door, I paused, listening to the sounds coming through.
Voices.
Not just any voice.
Shea’s voice.
And she was singing, singing soft and low and throaty. It made me smile. I was right. This girl was country. Through and through. The way she was singing with all that southern soul was proof of that. Her voice pitch perfect. Like she’d been trained to sing that way. She was singing one of those old country songs that everyone knew, even me, about a girl being in love with a boy.
I couldn’t resist pushing the door open enough so I could see into the kitchen, the smell of bacon sizzling on the stove enough to overtake every last one of my senses.
All except for the one that couldn’t stop listening to Shea sing.
Well, and the one that got caught up in the way she looked standing at the counter in that robe, hair all around her, face so carefree as she sang away while she whipped up pancake batter in a big, yellow ceramic bowl.
And her little girl was singing, too. That tiny voice that knew all the words and had no problem keeping time.
The child was propped up on her knees on a chair where she sat at the small table set up in the breakfast nook, separated from the long row of granite countertop and cabinets where Shea stood by a huge island in the middle.
Shea peered over her shoulder at her daughter, pure adoration on her face.
Light.
Light.
Light.
None of the pangs of dark she let me slip into last night.
Everything here was uncontaminated. Pure. Absolute.
Swiveling her head back to the job at hand, her eye tripped over me and that incredible voice snagged in her throat. The spoon fumbled from her hold and clattered against the bowl.
I felt like an intruder raiding on the tender moment.
Recovering from the surprise, she resituated the bowl in the crook of one elbow, picking back up the spoon with her opposite hand and mixing again, eyeing me with just as many questions as the ones that had been eating at my brain since the second I’d woken up this morning.
Shea’d shared something with me last night I knew she’d shared with few other people. And I was willing to put down bets those people hadn’t touched her the way I’d touched her. That the way she’d looked at them hadn’t come close to the way she’d looked at me. Like she could see straight through all the bullshit walls I erected around myself, right down to what mattered.
Like somehow what she saw mattered to her.
I understood exactly what she meant when she’d told me last night she couldn’t make sense of the way I made her feel, because I sure as hell couldn’t make sense of the way she made me feel, either.
Physically?
God, the woman had undone me. Time and time again. Hands down the hottest thing I’d ever been given the gift to touch. Perfectly soft in every place she should be, defined muscle everywhere else, a face that made me weak in the knees.
Perfection.
But it was that sweet willing heart that had managed to unravel something fierce inside of me, had me opening up and telling her things I hadn’t ever told anyone—even if I’d kept the details as vague as I could. Still hadn’t told her who I was, and I guess I planned on keeping it that way.
Red, or Tamar like I’d learned was her name last night, had warned me if I didn’t tell her, then she would.
But I couldn’t make it form on my tongue. For just one perfect night, I wanted someone to look at me the way Shea had. Knowing I had absolutely nothing to give her and still she wanted it all the same. Me.
Knowing we were nothing and everything, captives to that connection she had blistering through me every time we were in the same room.
And it was there.
Still just as strong this morning as she caught me standing there like a voyeur with the door pushed open a mere inch.
A welcoming smile edged one corner of her mouth and she tipped her head to the side.
Inviting me inside.
Inhaling deeply, I wedged myself through the door, thinking if I didn’t open it too wide maybe it wouldn’t draw so much attention. Then I could get in, tell Shea goodbye, and get out.