“Why would I not want you to start something? You stayed with me all night. You brought me to your home to protect me. I want you too. Now.”
He backed away from me until he ran into the chest of drawers against the wall. “You need your rest. We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Jonah, please. I need to do this now. I need to feel the good in the world.”
He shook his head. “I’m far from the good in the world, Melanie.”
His full lips tightened, and he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. The muscles in his shoulders tensed. Even under his western shirt, I could tell. My God he was beautiful. Truly beautiful, just as he had always been. The streaks of silver at his temples and throughout his several days’ stubble drew me. I wanted to feel that stubble against my most intimate places. I wanted to feel alive. Alive with him. The man I loved.
“You are everything good in the world, Jonah.” I cupped his cheek with my one unbandaged hand.
He took my hand away from his cheek and kissed it. Then he opened it and looked at my wrist and my palm. “This is what happened because I wasn’t there for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He stared straight into my eyes and cupped both of my cheeks. “Do you have any idea how strong you are, Melanie? Most people would have just accepted their fate, let themselves go to sleep and die in peace. But not you. You figured a way out.”
Strong? I wasn’t strong.
I cleared my throat. “The survival instinct is amazing in a human being. I’ve seen it in my patients, including your brother, and that’s all that was going on with me. It had nothing to do with strength.”
“How can you say that?” He shook his head, his mass of dark hair swaying. “You’re so strong, so intelligent, and so…cunning. You figured a way out of an unwinnable situation. You’re incredible.”
“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was acting. I was surviving. And my adrenaline—”
He placed his finger over my lips. “Yes, your adrenaline probably helped. It kept you conscious when you should have been passed out. I’m damned grateful for that, but you found the way out. Your adrenaline didn’t do that. You did. You used what you found and worked the situation to your advantage.” He shook his head again. “I’m not…”
“Not what?”
He swallowed visibly. “I’m not worthy of you, Dr. Carmichael.”
I let my mouth drop open. I wanted him to repeat the words because I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. He didn’t think he was worthy of me? After I had been the one who had left him hanging, sneaking out of his house like a scared teenager? He was so wrong. So, so wrong. I opened my mouth to say so, but he stopped me with a gesture.
“Take a shower, Melanie. I’m going to make you a pot of tea or something. I don’t think I have any of that relaxing herbal stuff, but I’ll find something.” He turned away from me and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
Wow. He didn’t think he was good enough for me? The man was obviously delusional.
I had been the one who’d let him down, not vice versa.
What was going on?
I let out a sigh and then removed the bandages from my other hand. Of course my right hand had been injured worse. I was right-handed. Not that it mattered, since I was on a three-week leave of absence from work. I wouldn’t need to be writing much in the next couple weeks unless I went back to my work in progress—a book on preventing suicide in teens.
My heart wasn’t in that at the moment. This whole situation had evolved because I hadn’t been able to prevent the suicide of a troubled young woman.
I finished undressing, laid my clothes out on the bed, went to the bathroom, started the shower, and dropped a few drops of the lavender oil onto the shower floor. Soon the relaxing scent wafted around me. I inhaled.
I was lucky to be alive. Damned lucky to be alive.
I got into the shower, the water stinging the cuts on my hand. I washed my hair quickly, and then my body.
Lucky…
Gina hadn’t been so lucky.
Why did I deserve to be so lucky?
And then it hit me with the force of a thousand marching soldiers. What I had gone through. What I had escaped. The true reality of it all.