Pregnant by Morning(35)

The sheer pressure of life without Amber had nearly suffocated him. But it was more than missing her. They’d been like cogs in a complex machine, complementing each other. He didn’t know how to be successful without her.

“I admire you,” she said quietly.

He snorted. “For what, disappointing everyone?”

That was at least half his onus—how did he face everyone again, knowing he’d abandoned them? Knowing they were eyeing him with apprehension, waiting for him to freak out again?

“For recognizing that you needed time away to get your head on straight. It was brave.”

“Cowardly, you mean,” he corrected. “People deal with pressure gracefully all the time. I cracked. It wasn’t pretty.”

“But you changed things. You left your comfort zone and struck out to fix it, without any idea how or where that would occur. That’s sheer courage in my book.”

He started to tell her she should reread that book but closed his mouth. She saw him differently. But that didn’t mean she needed glasses. Perhaps he did.

“Thanks. That’s nice to hear.”

“You had a choice and made it.” The unspoken I didn’t wrenched his heart.

“Have you ever noticed the stuff people say when you’re grieving makes no sense?” That was another gripe he’d been carrying around since the funeral.

“What like, ‘Sorry for your loss’?”

“Yeah. My favorite is, ‘But think of all you do have.’” He struggled to voice the anxiety whipping through him. Struggled to phrase it in a way that didn’t sound self-centered. And gave up. This was Evangeline. He didn’t have to pull punches. “It’s meaningless. Thanks for pointing out I still have a mom and a dad. That makes it all better. And oh, yeah, I have my health. The fact that I’m still breathing is supposed to get me through the valley?”

“I got an, ‘At least you still have all the money’. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful I can afford to eat. A lot of people can’t after losing their job. But money doesn’t make up for losing who you were.”

“Exactly.” It was like she peered down his throat and read the words in his heart, expressing for him what he couldn’t formulate. “Singing was your purpose. So what do you do now that it’s gone, right?”

She laughed without humor. “Isn’t that the million-dollar question?”

He’d meant it rhetorically, but something in her tone tugged at him. “Is it?”

She didn’t answer, and he lightly bumped her head with his chest. “Middle-of-the-night. Nothing is sacred.”

Don’t call armadillo. His senses tingled. This was critically important, he could tell.

Her soft sigh drifted across his skin. “I don’t know what to do now. That’s my demon.”

“The one I’m here to beat back for you?” The phantoms in her eyes weren’t just from losing her voice. How could he have missed that? Because he’d been wallowing around in his own problems instead of tending to hers.

“Singing is all I’m good at. My only talent.”

“Not hardly.”

“Being good in bed isn’t a talent.” The eye-roll came through loud and clear.

He bit back a chuckle and the accompanying comment—it is the way you do it.

“You’re good at making me cheerful. That’s something no one else could accomplish, so don’t knock it. But I was going to say the music industry can’t be easy to crack or everyone would do it. Persistence is a talent. You worked hard to achieve success.”

“Yeah. Hard work.” Her voice fractured. “There was a lot of that.”

There was more, something else she wasn’t saying, and she was hurting. The inability to fix it crawled around in his chest. But this middle-of-the-night was exactly what he’d asked for—the exploration of what two damaged souls could become to each other.

Dang it if he’d fail at being what she needed.

“Hey.” He brought her hand to his cheek and held it there, reminding them both he wasn’t going anywhere. “This demon of yours, what does he look like? Big and scary? Small and quick with a sharp stick? I’ll do a much better job of keeping him away if I have an idea what I’m looking for.”

She laughed, low and easy, drawing a smile from him. “Big. With claws. And he doesn’t shut up. Ever.”

“What does he sound like? James Earl Jones or more Al Pacino?”

“Dan Rather.”

Ah. “So your demon moonlights as a reporter who asks you questions you don’t like.” And he’d bet the demon answered to the name armadillo.