‘Talk to them. Try to explain.’ She lifted her shoulders slightly. ‘But sometimes the best thing you can do is just find a hospital room where they can be at opposite ends but see each other. And where there are plenty of windows in between.’
‘It’s a fine balance.’ He smiled gently, and it tugged at her. Hard.
Again she floundered for some kind of response.
‘It is,’ she managed, before fading out awkwardly.
This time, she knew, the conversation had reached its natural conclusion.
Bridget braced herself, mentally preparing for him to turn away and strike up a conversation with someone less...serious. More alluring.
‘So you’re Bridget,’ he continued smoothly, not moving away even a fraction, she noted. ‘But you prefer Bea?’
‘Actually, I don’t really,’ she heard herself admit out of nowhere.
Hayden frowned.
‘I thought that’s what my sister calls you?’
‘It is.’ Bridget pulled a wry face, not really understanding what had come over her. ‘I’ve never really liked being called Bea, but... I never told her.’
‘I see,’ he noted, and she wondered what it was that he was filing away for later. ‘What about Birdie?’
It walloped her out of the blue. For a moment she wasn’t sure her lungs would even kick back into gear.
‘Birdie,’ she whispered, too softly for him to hear over the music.
‘No? Just Bridget, then?’
It was odd, this wistful sensation that suddenly wound around her.
‘Birdie’s what I used to be called as a kid.’
By her father before...everything. She’d loved that name, but then he’d tainted it somehow.
‘Right.’
She was dimly aware that Hayden was watching her, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to focus.
‘You used to like it? Or dislike it?’
‘I loved it,’ she admitted, ignoring the fact that no one had called her that since the day her father had taken his own life.
And the fact that she’d never wanted them to.
‘Birdie it is, then.’ Hayden’s voice unfurled through her, low, edgy and hot.
And then he flashed her a smile that was surely so maddeningly dazzling that it could have caused a major power outage in any city. Every caution in her head evaporated in a puff of smoke.
Birdie—she liked the way it rolled off Hayden’s tongue.
Snapping her eyes to his, she tilted her chin up, feeling a long-lost surge of confidence. It reminded her of the way she’d used to be—once, long ago. Spirited and happy, bold and fun-loving. The way she only ever felt these days when she was thousands of miles away from the place she called home. Yet this relative stranger—the playboy brother of her friend and mentor—was making her feel that same boldness right now.
More than that, he was making her feel alive in a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. Making her body feel as though it was waking up from a slumber she hadn’t known she was in.
How was that even possible?
If she didn’t get a handle on these unchecked, uncharacteristic emotions, she was going to make a fool of herself with this man before she’d even got out to Jukrem camp. And then how would they be able to work well together?