“I shouldn’t have started this . . . thing with you, and it’s moved too fast, gotten too complicated.”
Anger, and something he couldn’t quite pin down, spiked into her voice.
“I’m tired of feeling surrounded and boxed in. And it just needs to stop. Just stop. You, the house, the yard. God, the dog. It’s all too much. It’s all a mistake, and it needs to stop.”
He wanted to push back, and hard, because, Jesus, she’d hurt him. He hadn’t expected the punch or just how completely it flattened him.
Complicated? She had that right. Complications twisted up inside him he hadn’t known existed.
But she was shaking, and her breath came just a little too fast. She was working herself up to another panic attack, and he’d damn well know why.
“You want me gone, I’ll go. I’ll take the damn dog if that’s how you want it. I don’t force myself on anyone. But give me the truth.”
“I just did! This is a mistake. All of this, and I need to correct it.”
“By dumping me, the dog, this house, what you’ve started making here? That’s not what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want.” She hurled the words at him, along with a fear-tinted rage. “You don’t know me.”
“I damn well do.”
“You don’t! That’s the bullshit. You don’t know me, who I am, or what I am. You know weeks, the weeks I’ve been here. You don’t know anything from before. You don’t know me.”
It struck him then, clear as glass. That unidentified something under it all, the base of the anger and fear. It was grief.
“Yes, I do.” He set the beer aside, rose. “I know who you are, where you came from, what you went through, and what you’re trying to make now, away from it.”
She shook her head, took a step in retreat. “You can’t.” He saw her lips tremble before she pressed them together, saw tears glitter before she forced them back.
“Chief Winston told you.”
Now he had the match on the fuse. “No, I haven’t talked to him, haven’t seen him since the cemetery. But you have. He didn’t tell me anything. You did.”
She crossed her arm over her body, gripped her own shoulder with her hand as if shielding herself.
Not from him, he thought. Goddamn it, not from him.
“I never told you anything about this.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He pushed down his own anger. He’d let it fly later, but for now, for right now, he spoke matter-of-factly.
“The day up in my place, that first time. You saw the book on my shelf. The Simon Vance book. You looked like someone kicked you in the gut. It didn’t take much to figure it out from there. There are photos in the book. You were about eleven or twelve, I guess. Just a kid. You’ve changed your hair, grown up. But you have the same eyes, the same look about you. And Naomi, it’s not an everyday name.”
“You knew.” The knuckles of her hand went white as bone.
“I can wish the book hadn’t been there to put that look on your face. But it was.”
“You . . . you’ve told Kevin.”
“No.” The doubt in her eyes came so clear he waited a beat, kept his gaze level on hers. “No,” he said again. “Womb to tomb doesn’t mean I tell him what you don’t want told.”
“You haven’t told him,” she repeated, and her fingers loosened on her shoulder, her hand slid down. “You’ve known all this time, known since before we . . . Why haven’t you said anything to me, asked me?”
“I didn’t know, so the book was there. But once I knew? I wasn’t going to put that look on your face again. And okay, I hoped you’d tell me before I had to shove it in your face like this, but you pushed the buttons.”
“You didn’t.” Rubbing the heel of her hand between her brows, she turned away. “You didn’t shove it in my face. Others have, so I know exactly what it feels like. I don’t know what this feels like.”
She set the wine on the rail, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I need a minute.”
“If you need to yell, I can handle it. If you need to cry, I can handle it. Yelling’s preferred.”
“I’m not going to yell, or cry.”
“I think most people would do some of both. You’re not most people.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Shut up.”
The ripe temper shocked her enough to make her turn back.
“Just shut the hell up.” Now he let some of that anger fly. “Are you fucking stupid? Maybe I don’t know you, because I pegged you as smart. Really smart. But maybe you’re stupid enough to believe because you share DNA with a psychotic bastard, you’re made wrong.”