“No.” Cole pushed himself away from the bureau. Where did he begin? “You’re getting stronger. You’re healing, and the brilliant intuition that’s made you a successful researcher and businesswoman is showing you the truth beneath all the lies closing in on you. I’d say you’re right on target. Don’t stop following your instincts, Shaw. No matter what you learn next. We’re not going to let this nutjob get away with what he’s doing. Are we?”
When she didn’t answer, Cole walked to the door. He shut and locked it again, preparing himself to damage her faith in him even more. Shaw’s gasp spun him around. Horror, shock, filled her expression. Her hand was covering her mouth. He pulled his weapon, senses on alert to whatever new threat had presented itself.
“What is it?” He took a step toward her, checking between himself and the door, then looking back at Shaw.
“You…your back.” She reached for him, tears in her eyes. “Cole…my God. The scars. How badly were you burned?”
His shoulders relaxed. He hooked his service piece into its holster and crouched beside the bed until they were eye-to-eye. The only surprise here was that it had taken her this long to notice.
“They don’t hurt anymore,” he lied.
Sometimes, when his own nightmares grew too real for his sleeping mind to push away, he also relived that night. Then he woke, his entire back throbbing, to the feel of fire searing his skin. It could take days for the psychosomatic pain to fade.
She was on the verge of crying again, her chin trembling the way it had even as a kid when she was being her bravest and no one was allowed to see her hurting.
“Are they really that ugly?” he asked, damning the lingering self-consciousness his question revealed.
She shook her head, her hand reaching tentatively for his shoulder, as if she wanted to soothe his injuries the way he had each of hers. He captured her fingers there, trapping them against his skin.
“It must have been horrible,” she rasped out.
It had been, and what had made it worse was that he’d waited in that awful hospital for her every day, every night, and she’d never come.
“Cole?” she asked, her gaze growing distant again, her mind remembering more. “Tell me again. Everything this time. Tell me exactly how you were burned.”
“You know what happened. You can remember it on your own now. You already have. Most of it.” Her doctors had said that her confidence in her recall would grow, the more of her past she reclaimed herself. She needed that kind of self-assurance now more than ever. “Think about the barn again. Think about us, honey, and why you were so upset in your dream at the thought that I wouldn’t do everything I could to save you this time.”
She laid her hand over his heart, once again the Shaw from their past who’d promised to love him, just like this, forever.
“Fire was everywhere in the nightmare,” she said. “Like in the barn when we were teenagers…when you wouldn’t let me give up. You made me face the fire. You dragged me through it. You carried me out, then you stumbled… Oh my God, Cole. I can see it now. Why didn’t you tell me how badly you were burned because of me?”
Chapter Fourteen
The room shimmered around Shaw.
The past pulsed closer, the speed of its return setting off bells in her mind, in her ears. She closed her eyes, reaching out instead of pulling away. She waited, welcoming the memories of her and Cole that she’d longed for so desperately. She inhaled, held her breath, then let it out. A spark ignited as she did, piercing the void.
Images coalesced in rapid succession, familiar and real. Dizzy, holding onto the man kneeling solid and patient at her feet, she let a wave of who she’d been return. Just one more piece, but maybe the most important piece of all.
She gasped.
All Cole had been to her was there now. What he’d done for her was back, every bit of it, including her role in his exile from High Lake and her devastation after losing him.
“Your back was badly burned in the fire because you wouldn’t leave without me. You and Sebastian…you were fighting. Somehow, the fire started, and I was too afraid to move. You forced me to face the flames, but I balked. So you carried me through them. You got me out. You took me to my father, and he ran you off even though you were terribly hurt. He didn’t even call an ambulance for you.”
“No, my old man actually roused himself enough to take care of that.”
Cole’s lips twisted in a wry grin that might have been fondness on someone else. But he was laughing at himself, Shaw realized. Because he’d always done that to shield his true emotions. So many people had let him down, everyone who was supposed to have loved the little boy he’d been. And instead of hating them all, he’d learned to laugh and shrug off pain as if it couldn’t touch him.