She had to go make sure. The only problem was, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to walk into his room.
“Would you look in on Nick and make sure he’s resting?”
Aaron frowned at her. “Why? Aren’t you two speaking?”
“We’re fine. The man saved me from a rattlesnake. He gets a free pass for at least a month. I just don’t want to hover too much.”
“Okay.”
Aaron poked his head in the room, then backed out. “He’s either asleep or faking being asleep,” he said in a low voice.
“Good. He’s lying down, which is important.”
They walked to the living room.
“Tell me what happened during the rest of the weekend,” Izzy said. “The guys were gone when we brought Nick home.”
“I kicked them out Sunday morning. They didn’t seem all that upset to go.”
“I’m sure they’re sorry they ever signed up for the retreat in the first place,” she said. “They were all morons. I just hope they aren’t working on something important, like third-world financing.”
“I’m with you on that,” Aaron told her. “I don’t know that Nick is going to go forward with wanting to press charges.”
She looked at him. “He has to. He could have died.”
“I think he’s more concerned that you could have died and doesn’t want to put you through that.”
His words made her feel funny. All hot and squishy on the inside. And a little sick to her stomach. “We can talk about it later.”
“Are you all right?” Aaron asked. “You’re acting very strange.”
“I’m fine. Just dealing with the stress of what happened.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Did something happen that I don’t know about? You know I hate being the last to know anything.”
“I’m not keeping secrets,” she promised, knowing it was true. She couldn’t keep a secret about something she wasn’t willing to admit even to herself.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“Take care of the horses.”
“Not look after Nick?”
“I’ll check in on him later. He’s a big boy. He can survive a few hours by himself.”
“A few minutes ago you said you were worried about hovering too much.”
“Right. Well, I can’t hover in the stable. I need to go or Rita will be screaming.”
“Rita never screams. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
She made her escape and ducked outside. But once there, she didn’t feel any more comfortable. The need to run, to hide, to move, to do something was as powerful as it was unexplained. She felt like jumping out of her skin.
It was the whole incident with the snake, she told herself as she walked toward the barn. It had been terrifying. Her delayed reaction made perfect sense. She’d never seen anything like that in her life. Nick could have died. She could have died. She would be better in a few days.
As she went into the barn and walked toward Jackson’s stall, she felt both hot and cold, as if she were coming down with the flu. But it was also different. Uncomfortable and scary and…
She stopped in the middle of the stable and stared into Jackson’s big, brown eyes. Possibilities flashed through her mind, each more frightening than the one before. Would she? Had she?
She’d been terrified about Nick’s snake bite. The drive to the hospital had seemed endless and she’d been unable to stop crying, no matter how many times Nick calmly promised he would be fine. It was only after the doctor had sworn he was out of danger that she’d allowed herself to hope.
Nick was a friend, she told herself. Of course she would worry about him. Only she knew it was more than that. Much more. Losing Nick would have crushed her in ways she’d never experienced. The reason she was confused, the reason she didn’t know how to act or what to say was that everything was suddenly different. At least from her end.
Love.
Sometime, when she wasn’t paying attention, she’d fallen in love with him. She, who had never loved anyone. Who never got involved. She’d fallen for a man who had vowed to never let himself be happy or connect with anyone else. Which was pretty much just her luck.
NICK WATCHED Izzy carry in his tray for dinner. She brought it over to the bed and set it on the low table Aaron had already settled across his lap.
“Thanks,” he said, more interested in looking at her than the food. “I haven’t seen you all day.”“I’ve been around,” she said, not quite looking at him. “You know, busy. There’s so much to do. Things to get caught up on. Despite appearances, you are more than a pretty face. I’m trying to pick up the slack.”