“Nan.” My body deflates. I can’t leave, no matter what the emergency. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened and I wasn’t here. Plus, Ted is keeping watch. There’s only so many tongue-lashings he’ll put up with as a result of my Houdini-like behavior before he realizes I’m not worth the bother and quits.
Releasing my coat, I collapse onto the bottom step of the stairs and drop my head in my hands. Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more hopeless, I have something else to add to my never-ending list of shitty things to deal with. I don’t want to deal with any of them. I want to curl into a ball and have Miller surround me in his thing, protect me from this godforsaken world. His beautiful, comforting face pops into my mind’s eye, sending me somewhere near to that safe place. Then it drifts into the anger that was all too evident before he stormed out.
He’s not speaking to me, and if he is, then I’m sure I won’t want to hear what he has to say. I groan and rub my palms into my face, trying to scrub away… everything. I’m an idiot. A first-class, A-rated, top-notch fool. A deluded fool who should face up to everything going on around her and find that renowned Taylor-girl sass to deal with it. Where has that easy, peaceful life gone? Miller’s right. I don’t have the ability to cope.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My dreams are dreams. I know this because everything is perfect—me, Miller, Nan… life. Content to remain immersed in my illusory world, I snuggle down farther, moaning my comfort and hugging my pillow. Everything is bright. It’s all so very light and colorful, and though I’m aware that I’m being held in a false sense of security, I don’t wake myself. I’m hovering on the edge of sleep and consciousness, pushing myself to fall further into my dreams—anything to delay facing my reality. I’m smiling. Everything is perfect.
Gracie Taylor.
She joins me in my dreams, leaving her mark, making it impossible to shake out once I wake.
Everything is suddenly dark.
Everything is dull.
“No!” I shout, angry that she’s encroached on the only tranquility to be found in my troubled world. “Get out!”
“Olivia!”
I shoot up, gasping, and whip my head around, searching for him. Miller’s sitting next to me in his boxer shorts, his hair wild, his eyes worried. My shoulders sag, a mixture of relief and annoyance—the relief that he’s here, the annoyance that I’m awake and alert. I’m back in the real world. I sigh, reaching up to brush my hair from my face.
“Bad dream?” He moves in and crowds me, gathering my body into his arms and cradling me in his lap.
“I can’t tell the difference,” I whisper into his chest, making his movements falter slightly. I’m totally honest with him. I can’t define between my nightmares and reality, and he needs to know, although it’s a given that he’s fully aware of my current turmoil, because he’s sharing it with me. Or most of it. I’m very quickly even more awake and alert as I recap on last night after he left. I claim up as it hits me again. Oh God, I could be pregnant. But something else more important blocks my worry. “Nan.” I go to move from his hold, panicked.
“She’s fine,” he soothes, tightening his hold of me. “I’ve helped her downstairs to the couch and given her breakfast and her medication.”
“You have? In your underwear?” Images of Miller waiting on Nan in his boxers are suddenly all I can see. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that. I bet she milked him dry of patience while staring at his buns.
“Yes.” He drops a light kiss on the back of my head and inhales deeply, taking in a soothing hit of my hair’s scent. “You need rest, too, sweet girl. I came back and found you asleep on the stairs.”
I begin prying myself from his arms but soon give up when his arms lock tighter. “Miller, I need to see Nan.”
“I told you. She’s fine.” He wrestles with me until he has me where he wants, straddling his kneeling lap. I take immense comfort in him fussing with my hair, and even more when I spot his wayward curl misbehaving, calling for me to give it some attention. I sigh and push it away from his forehead, cocking my head in wonder as I refresh my memory of all of Miller Hart’s beautiful traits. I go over them all—the ones I can see and the ones I can’t. “I need you more right now,” he whispers, making my tracing fingers falter on his naked chest. “Thing,” he demands quietly. “Please.”
I seize him in my arms, cocooning him in all of me, my face seeking out the comfort of his neck as he locks his palm on my nape, holding me in place. “I’m sorry,” I mumble pathetically. “I’m sorry for being so hateful.”