She stared at him, wounded by his cavalier tone, the way he made a joke of what had happened to her, and then, as if he realized what he’d said, he sobered. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean...it was just a joke. A bad joke.”
“So, can we do it, Uncle J?” Aaron demanded.
Jeremiah, probably motivated more by guilt than anything else, nodded and Aaron whooped.
“Why don’t we go inside and you can give me the details.” She stood.
“Thanks, Lucy,” Aaron said, all but falling over his too-big feet in an effort to open the screen door for her. “That’s so awesome.”
“Lucy?”
She turned back to Jeremiah.
“We’re not done.”
They weren’t. Not by a long shot.
She grinned and winked—fake it till you make it. “I know.”
There was a goddamned party going on at his house. Walter could hear the voices of kids outside his window in the back garden. He was still deciding if he liked that sound. Normally, no. But this afternoon he’d woken up after twelve straight hours of sleep and he felt...different. Not necessarily better in every way, but in his head...he was better.
Walter limped down the hallway, his stomach queasy, his muscles weak. He’d lost some weight in the gruelling torture of the last few days. And he hoped to God he was through the worst of it, that it had been the last of the poison exiting his system last night, created from the demons in his head, that vision of his ex-wife.
Now, of course, standing in the shadows just outside the kitchen, he had a terrible fear that it hadn’t been his ex-wife at all. The scent of roses and cumin clung to only one woman he knew.
It had been Sandra in his room, and he’d sworn at her and who knew what else.
Had she told him he’d never be half the man A.J. was? It wasn’t as if it would be news to him, but the words had extra punch from her mouth.
He was embarrassed and angry that she would have seen him like that. God, he’d been in his underwear. Naked in his dream, but he woke up in boxer shorts, so he prayed that had been the case while she’d been there.
But the real issue was that she would have ignored what he’d demanded of her—to leave him alone—and forced herself into his hell.
The rubber tip on the end of his cane made a nice thud on the floor as he stepped into the dining room. At the sound, Sandra poked her head up over the counter that split the dining area from the kitchen. Her cagey eyes were unreadable.
“Sandra.”
She stood all the way up, her hair slightly skewed, thin flyaway silver strands wreathing her skull like a halo.
“You look better.” Her eyes traveled over him, missing nothing—his overlong hair, the scruff on his neck. He was obscenely glad he’d showered. Put on clean clothes. “You look very good.”
Out of the blue he felt like smiling. He crushed the instinct.
“Were you in my room last night?” he asked, demanded really, his tone totally unchecked.
“I was.” Again, he felt like smiling at that stubborn set of her jaw. No apologies from her. Oh, Sandra, he thought, if we were only different people.
“I asked you to stay away.”
“I know, Walter, but you were so sick. You were—” She licked her lips. “In need.”
He chewed on his tongue, the words he needed to say not coming with any grace. “I’m sorry.” His voice was rough, too quiet, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m sorry if I said something—”
“You screamed.” She rubbed her wrist, a wide silver bracelet there. “That’s all. You thought I was Vicki.”
He remembered grabbing his ex-wife in that dream, holding her wrist, pressing the thin bones together. As fast as he could, he crossed the room, leaving the cane against the counter, and he reached for her hand.
She jerked away, her eyes knowing.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
Oh, he’d hurt her. He wanted to take himself out back and peel the skin off his own back.
He just stared at her, his eyes locked on hers. Those black depths opened up and showed him her heart. Her too-big heart. She shouldn’t be here, caring for him. But her heart would not allow her to be anywhere else. Foolish, he thought, to be so kind. It would only get her hurt.
“Please,” he breathed, and slowly she lowered her arm. Carefully, with shaking fingers, he shifted the wildly beautiful bracelet that could only be one of Lucy’s creations. Touching only the metal and never her skin, he twisted the jewelry over her wrist until the inch between the wide ends of the cuff revealed purple bruises.
A moan broke in his throat.
Before he knew what he was going to do, he lifted her wrist and pressed his dry, cracked lips to that soft skin.