Chapter 18

Tish shivered.

She took in Eli’s face—the strong jaw, the shuttered eyes. The play of REM sleep over his face was fascinating. His closed eyelids fluttered, and he winced in seeming pain, at regular intervals.

He flopped to the side, and she reached into the warm air beside his butt, pulled the cell phone out of his jeans. Her eyes snagged on the message icon but she determined she wasn't going to check. She didn't need some sweet or tawdry text from another woman reminding her of painful truths.

Angling her body away from him, she entered the password she thought she’d seen him enter previously, one he’d favored in the past, based on an obscure cartoon. Tried a few variations, and suddenly, it hit. Success. She was in.

She quickly googled concussions—keep them awake?

The browser took time to load the answers but relief spun through her as the words appeared. The gist was let them rest, but wake them every two hours.

That she could do. It seemed so much better than fighting to keep him awake when he was exhausted, and every instinct told her to let him sleep, regain some semblance of strength.

She closed the browser, and her gaze strayed again to the message icon. No incoming messages. Her lips in a tight line, she clicked the phone off. Shoved it in her coat pocket, deep, where it was safe.

She needed a moment.

Then Eli stirred.

She stared as his hand moved, then his fingers felt her skin, curled around her forearm. Pulled her toward him. Her gaze jumped to his face.

His eyes were still closed, but something in him settled, and his hand relaxed into a half hold of her. "T-Bear.” His breathing evened. A little, tiny snore escaped his lips.

After three years apart. And the tears started to spill.

She pulled her forearm from his hand, saw it drop the slight distance to settle on the floor.

Choking back the sobs, she fled from the room. Out in the hallway she hugged herself and let the tears fly.

Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit.

She'd been so determined to stay aloof, to not get sucked in. Not let her dormant—she'd thought, dead—feelings for him be invoked again.

But it was too late now. The tears flowed, and the feelings were alive again. Growing. Taking space in her body, as much as they'd ever had. Maybe more now, as they were making up for lost time.

That simple gesture of his—his fingers curling around her forearm, pulling her toward him. She'd always loved the inherent need and trust in that gesture. It had become something he'd done when he was very peaceful or very agitated.

In either state, he turned to her. She was his home. At least, she had been, once upon a time.

And something had stirred that up in him again.

Or had it just been an unconscious gesture? She couldn't be sure, but...it was unnerving. And a strong, unforgettable, undeniable reminder of the reality that had existed between them once before. Rock solid.

They'd stood for each other, and no one had been able to wrest them apart.

And then something else, long tucked away, came to her mind. That night, three years ago.

She saw Eli, back then, that night, in this very hallway, just outside the bedroom. She'd been snippy about something, a little cold to him. Pissed about something he'd said or done earlier.

She'd had her head down, avoided his gaze. And he'd just stood there, leaning against the wall, not going anywhere. He'd put his full attention on her, quiet. Waiting.

She'd looked up, and his eyes had been questioning. Querying, warm. On her. "Everything okay?" he'd said.

And hell. Remembering that, right now, she saw the spot where her man had stood three years ago, and there was nothing there now. Just dead air.

But in her mind's eye, he stood there.

Hell.

And if she couldn't reach the real man, where he was, back in that room—maybe she could jog the ghost-him to not leave. Or to come back. To fix what needed fixing with her here, now.

The tears fell harder, down her face, onto her coat, but all she felt was the desperate need to communicate with him.

It's madness, Eli!

“You were just there," she sobbed. "You stood right there, with your shoulder against that bit of wall. You were right there."

She pointed at the spot, and he materialized again. "What the hell happened? Can you please tell me?"

She knew he wasn't really there, but god, she'd never had a chance to ask him, so she'd damn well play it out, ask his ghost, right here, right now. The ache, welling up, was threatening to rip her into shreds.

She’d been gutted.

She stood there bawling, giving in to it. And asked him over and over again if he wouldn't consider working things out. Be a team again.

Like they once were.