He pulled away barely an inch before he said quietly, “Duchess, you’re the only person I know who could be in a goddamned cabin in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere all of eight hours and be on a first name basis, sharin’ meals and makin’ breakfast dates with your neighbors.”

I was not hearing his words, I still felt his lips against mine and it was occurring to me, belatedly, that he was acting like what happened between us that morning hadn’t happened at all.

“Are you still mad at me?” I blurted on a whisper and I felt my eyes go wide in fear that the question came out rather than me just asking it in my head where it should have stayed even if that meant it would go unanswered.

I pulled away but his hand only tightened on my neck.

“We’ll talk about that later.”

That meant yes. And he’d already been mad enough at me that morning to last a lifetime, rightfully so, but I couldn’t go through it again. Not then, not ever.

I shook my head and pulled at my neck but his hand only got tighter.

“I…” I swallowed then went on, “Max, you don’t have to take care of me anymore.”

“Shut it, Duchess.”

“No, Max, you don’t –”

His head dipped again and his mouth on mine stopped mine from forming words.

Not taking his lips from mine, when the kiss was over, he repeated, “Honey, like I said, we’ll talk about it later. Yeah?”

“Okay,” I whispered, because, really, what else could I do?

He lifted his mouth but only to kiss my forehead then say there, “Let’s go.”

It was good he took my hand because from the minute his lips touched my forehead I closed my eyes therefore, blind and still feeling his sweet kiss, thus not processing anything else, I needed him to guide me out the door.

***

When Max brought me back to the cabin after our visit to the small, local hospital, he had no trouble finding the lock to open the door for he’d cleverly flipped on the porch light before we left.

Once he used his hand in mine to guide me through the front door, he hit the light switch and a lamp came on by the couch in the small living room. He closed and locked the door, still keeping hold of my hand then his mobile rang.

He pulled it out of his back pocket and looked at the display.

Then he squeezed my hand and murmured, “You get ready for bed, darlin’, I’ll be there in a minute.”

I stared at him. What did he mean, he’d be there in a minute?

He let my hand go, flipped open his phone and put it to his ear before I could ask my question (which I probably wasn’t going to do anyway) and said, “Yeah?”

Beyond exhausted from fear, adrenalin, heartbreak and a bout of crying unlike any I’d ever experienced in my history of bouts of crying, and I’d had a long history of bouts of crying, I realized I didn’t have it in me to argue or even discuss what was going on. In fact, I barely had energy even to stand there. So I wandered to the bedroom, flicking on the overhead lights, heading to my bag, zipping it open and I dug out my pajamas.

I’d kind of thought he was just bringing me back in order that I could make breakfast for Norm and Gladys and then he would be leaving. After what happened that morning, even if he had told me he’d shown up in the middle of the night to take me “home”, I didn’t exactly understand what that meant. Though my guess was that he was on an errand for my mother who had his number and, Max being Max, regardless of what happened between him and me, he would run that errand for my mother because he liked her and that’s just the kind of thing he did.

He’d kissed me, of course, three times in two places, and I really had no understanding of that

Further, on the way to the hospital, as he said he’d do, he’d called the Gnaw Bone Police Station and told them what Damon did, saying I’d be in the next day to press charges. After he did that, he took my hand but didn’t pull it to his thigh. Instead, he rested his hand on my thigh and released mine to shift then came right back to it, every time. Other than that he didn’t say much, he was acting gentle to the point of being tender but he was also obviously lost in thought.

And, I figured, after that morning, not to mention him finding me having been beaten up by Damon, they couldn’t be pleasant thoughts.

The good thing about visiting a small, local hospital in the dead of night was that there was no waiting. We found out very quickly that my ribs weren’t broken just bruised, same with my nose. Even though the swelling was contained by the ice, the bruising was already coming up, including at my side where there was an angry, curved mark the shape of the toe of a boot. To my horror, and at Max’s demand, they took photos of my midriff and my face and, when we left, they promised Max and me they would send the photos and medical reports to the Gnaw Bone police department.

Max had been silent on the way back to the cabin as had I, but he still held my hand.

I listened to the murmur of his conversation in the other room as I stripped off my clothes and put on my pajamas. Then I looked around the room, taking it in for the first time.

The owners lived in a house about a quarter mile up the lane that led to the cabin complex. It was definitely a family run business, they didn’t even have an office, just a locked key cabinet behind the front door and a guest register book on a spindly-legged table under the cabinet.

Now I saw that they took pride in their cabins. The room was clean, the wood planked floor looked recently redone and the warm, sage green walls also had been recently repainted. And there were touches here and there that showed they made more than a small effort. Thick, blue, mushroom and green braided rugs; prints on the walls that were chosen with personal taste, rather than just a generic attempt at décor; the bed had a duvet, not a comforter and the duvet was soft and downy, its cover a tasteful design of the green of the walls and the blue and mushroom of the rugs as well as some browns and grays; there were four fluffy pillows on the queen-sized bed, not two thin, unappealing ones, there were even a gaggle of toss pillows that kept up the color scheme; and there were attractive reading lamps on either nightstand with muted shades but, at the top, there was an apparatus for the lamp to swing inward so it could throw light where you needed it.

I was surprised, considering all of this and the fact that each cabin had a goodly amount of space around it with trees and shrubs providing more privacy, more quiet, that the cabins weren’t booked solid. Then again, this all looked pretty fresh so maybe the owners were new or they’d just done renovations and hadn’t had time to get the word out.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” Max said into his phone as he walked into the bedroom and I realized that I’d been standing there in my pajamas staring stupidly at the room, examining the interior decoration.

I pulled myself together and walked to the bed, turning on the lamp at his side as I heard him flip the phone closed. He turned out the overhead light as I used the last of my energy to scurry around the bed, throw the covers back and I got in, listening to his phone hit the nightstand.

I settled on my good side, facing the room and I saw he’d moved. He was now standing by my suitcase which was resting on a chair across the room. He’d thrown his leather jacket over the top and he was unbuttoning his flannel. I watched silently as he shrugged it off, dropped it on his jacket and both his hands came up to the back of his neck where he pulled the long sleeved t-shirt over his head. Then he turned back to the bed and his eyes hit me as he walked to it.

My breath caught, not just per usual at the sight of his chest, but because it struck me suddenly he was there, I was there and all day I’d been attempting to come to terms with the dreadful reality that I was never going to see him again.

I rolled to my back and closed my eyes, feeling it as he sat on the bed. I heard both his boots drop then I felt it as he got up again then I heard the buckle on his jeans crack against the floor along with the swish of the fabric.

Then the covers moved and the bed rocked as he got in. The covers moved again, sliding down to my waist, my eyes opened and my head turned to him as his big splayed hand glided gently up to my ribcage.

It rested where Damon’s boot print was and Max rested on his side, close to me but not touching me except with his hand. His elbow was in the bed, his head was in his hand, his eyes were on me.

Then his hand slid down to come to rest on my belly and I realized I was holding my breath so I let it out and when I did, Max spoke.

“All right, baby, let’s start this with you tellin’ me what Harry said to you last night.”

I held my breath again.

I wanted to ask him to turn out the light. I also wanted to ask him if I could go to sleep and we could talk about this in the morning (or never). Mostly, I wanted to ask him, before I’d so stupidly messed up and acted unforgivably selfishly, if he’d really been falling in love with me.

What I didn’t want to do was tell him what Harry said to me, not only because of what Harry said, but because it was mostly about Anna.

But I knew I couldn’t hide behind my neurotic behavior, not then. Max deserved better.

So I let out my breath and said softly, “He told me about Anna.”

Max showed no reaction to this, his face didn’t darken, his eyes didn’t narrow, he just asked, “What’d he say?”

I pulled in air through my nose then let it out and answered, “He said you loved her.”

“I did,” Max agreed readily.