Horrified, Justice stared down at her. In a tortured rasp, he asked, "Burned?"
She pushed back from him, one step and then two. Making herself look him in the eyes, she nodded. "My shoulder and part of my chest."
Breathing harshly, he listened, his gaze never leaving hers.
"In the car...when you touched me..." There was so much emotion in his face, but she didn't know how to read it. "I didn't want to take you by surprise."
Very slowly, he inhaled, then reached out a hand to her.
Uncertain, wary, she accepted, twining her fingers with his.
He tugged her in close, pressed his mouth to her forehead, her bruised cheek, then briefly to her mouth. "Will you show me?"
HER HAND, SO SMALL in his, trembled just a little. The look on her face...so much devastation broke Justice's heart. He wished for a way to change the past, to make it easier for her, but she'd so obviously suffered, not only the physical pain but the emotional torture she'd put herself through since then.
His heart beat heavily as he led Fallon into his house. He didn't take her far, stopping just inside the closed front door. He'd given her a tour earlier, not that there was that much to see. But having her near his bedroom, even for those few minutes, had truly tested his resolve.
He sang a litany in his head: she wants to talk, she wants to talk.
If he'd known what she had to say, he'd have been better prepared. But he never would have guessed...
"Will the rest of the flowers be okay?" She shifted, crossed her arms and uncrossed them. "We should probably get them into the ground. Or at least set them in the shade. If you want, I could-"
By cupping her face and kissing her, Justice ended her nervous questions. It wasn't a hungry kiss, but one that, maybe, showed her how much he cared.
Against her lips, he rasped, "It's killing me, honey."
She tentatively flattened her hands to his bare chest. "What?"
"Thinking about you hurt." Closing his arms around her again, he pressed her head to his shoulder.
"Mother was hurt more." Her fingers, cool against his feverish skin, idly stroked him. "She had to make funeral preparations from the hospital."
When her voice broke, Justice damn near broke, too. He tangled a hand in her hair, squeezing her a bit more, needing the contact, wanting to get her as close to his heart as he could.
"She never left me. Every time I opened my eyes she was there. If she didn't know I'd awakened, I'd catch her crying very, very quietly. But...but as soon as she'd see me, she'd smile and touch me and tell me she...loved me."
Tears stung Justice's eyes and he fucking couldn't bear it. God, what her mother must have gone through. No one should ever have to be that strong. And her dad... Mr. Wade was so controlled, so dignified, but Justice knew the guy had to have broken down. How could he not?
As if she'd read his thoughts, Fallon whispered, "Dad was there a lot, too. He always looked so grim, so heartsick. But he, too, would smile at me-like somehow everything would be okay."
Her voice had faded until Justice could barely hear her. "I respect your parents a lot."
"They're amazing." She hesitated, drew a breath. "I was in the hospital for three weeks, so I missed the funeral. It was the only time I was there alone."
And it was probably the worst time to be alone. Not that it could have been helped. His heart ached for her and for her parents.
Justice didn't think about it. He just scooped her up and headed to the couch, then sat down with her in his lap.
Fallon didn't complain. She settled against him with a sigh. "I haven't talked about it much. Mom and Dad...it hurts them still. And not many other people know about it."
"When Leese and I did research, we didn't see anything about you being hurt."
She lifted her head to look at him. "Leese?"
"Yeah, remember we bodyguards do some background checking before taking a case." And going forward, Justice would remember how thorough that important step should be. "Leese is better at it than I am, but he didn't see anything about you being hurt. If he had, he would have told me."
"Money can buy a lot of privacy," Fallon said. "Hired guards stood watch outside my room while I was in the hospital so no one could come up to ask me questions without Dad knowing. There was already too much about Cindy...dying."
She had a hard time saying it, Justice noticed, as if the pain from the loss was still fresh.
"People speculated on how Mom and Dad might feel, and reporters constantly tried to get the inside scoop. Because of who he is and his financial influence, Dad had to make a statement, but he didn't mention me. He didn't want me put under the spotlight, too."
"It was a very personal matter," Justice agreed. "No one else had the right to prod any of you."
She nodded, waiting a moment or two, then whispered, "I wanted out of that hospital so badly, but they couldn't do the skin graft for seven days. Burns like mine require wound care first. Because of the damage...from the fire..."
Justice stroked her hair.
"The wounds can worsen for the first few days."
So even after she was safe in a hospital, her injuries didn't improve? As she talked, she seemed calmer about it and he wondered if she'd gotten to share with anyone. Getting things out in the open, his mom always said, was the best way to deal with them.
But if her involvement in the fire was kept secret, and her parents were so obviously grieving, had Fallon been given the chance to talk to anyone?
Somehow he didn't think so. "Will you tell me about it?"
"Why?"
"Because it happened to you, and I care."
She watched him, maybe gauging his sincerity, then nodded. "When they took the skin from the donor site, in a lot of ways that was more painful."
"Worse than the burns?"
She nodded. "They take that whole top layer of skin, down to the nerves. The nerves are alive and exposed-"
Jesus. He hugged her again.
Suddenly she skipped ahead, maybe sparing him some of the uglier details. "When I was finally able to go home, I still had a month of care, and I had to wear a compression vest and sleeve for what felt like forever."
"How long?"
She wrinkled her nose and admitted, "More than a year."
He whistled low.
Fallon surprised him with a half smile. "They weren't very comfortable, but they supposedly helped with scarring."
It wasn't the physical scarring that concerned him. "You're okay now?"
Her brows twitched, like maybe she thought he didn't understand. "Yes, I'm fine." Then she stressed, "But I'm scarred."
Though Justice didn't give a shit about any stupid scars, clearly Fallon did. "Where?"
She touched her shoulder and partially down her chest toward her breast. "Those are the worst ones." Glancing at him, she smoothed a hand over her thigh, too. "I've got another one here, but not from being burned. It's the donor site, where they took skin from my thigh to graft onto the burns."
His big hand settled over her thigh. "I hate that you had so much pain." Then, before she could say anything, he asked, "Will you show me?" To him, the best way to prove to her that it didn't matter was to get it out in the open. After that, they could move on.
Her gaze clashed with his. She looked horrified by the idea of baring herself to him. Horrified, but also resigned.
Eventually she nodded. "If you really want to see."
Oh, he wanted to see every single inch of her. And since the burn marks were such a problem for her, they'd start there. "I do."
She warned, "I won't drop my pants."
"Spoilsport," he teased, trying to lighten her fatalistic mood.
Her mouth opened, she paused, then closed it. It took her another second to say, "I can open my shirt."
Justice nodded. "Yeah." He had to be a heartless perv because even now, with such a sensitive concern for her, he felt himself stirring. Hell, he couldn't joke with her about dropping pants and opening blouses without getting a little turned on. He wouldn't do a damned thing about it, but it was happening all the same.
She sat up on his lap, half facing him, and her fingers went to the buttons on her shirt.
He held his breath.
Timidly, she opened one button, peeked at him, then opened another. He could see her upper chest now and just a hint of cleavage.
Keeping his hands to himself wasn't easy. He really wanted to help her hurry along. Being passive while a woman on his lap undressed was a new thing for him.
But then, a woman like Fallon was new, too, and he'd never dealt with an issue like hers.
Attempting to relax, he hooked one hand around her waist, leaving the other to rest on her thigh.
Sounding hoarse, he said, "You don't have to be shy with me."
"It's not that," she promised. "It's just..."
Heightened awareness had a stranglehold on him. "What?"
"They're ugly."
"They're just scars," he chided.
"Marcus thought that, too, until he saw them, then-"
"Fallon."
At his gentle rebuke, she lifted her brows.
"Don't compare me to that dick, okay?"