Heartsight by Kay Springsteen

Author:Kay Springsteen [Springsteen, Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astraea Press

*****

Awareness returned slowly. He wasn’t in his house. The sounds and smells were different. He wasn’t in a bed, either. He was on a sofa with a soft woman spooned against him. Trish. She must have migrated from the other end of the sofa during the night.

He remembered she had drifted to sleep as they talked late into the night, asking mundane and absurd questions. The game he'd made up.

As he'd lain there listening to her deep, even breathing, he'd remembered her original arrival to Lookout Island. He thought about her parents' death and now he recalled Mrs. Montgomery having a young girl move in. But it hadn’t been until late spring.

When she'd arrived, she'd had a cast on her leg. He remembered thinking she'd looked like a broken doll someone had glued together. She'd had an ugly red scar along the line of her left jaw, another along her forehead. Her hair had been the color of honey, cut short and uneven, and she'd had more scars beneath wispy new hair growth on one side of her head. One of his friends had called her Frankenstein's daughter.

Shame sent a rush of heat to Dan's face. He'd laughed along with the rest of his friends at the joke. That had been his last summer before military school. And it explained why they'd never met. He was about ten years older than Trish.

And he had feelings for her. Undeniable, strong, in-his-face feelings. Man, Conway. You fell right into it, didn’t you? Now, what was he going to do?

He eased an arm from under the light blanket covering them and touched her on the face, found her jaw, traced the fine raised line. The scar was hard to feel and probably not very visible. She'd been in the accident that had taken her parents from her.

Dan pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head, where she was nestled against his shoulder. He inhaled deeply, drugging himself with her scent. Holding Trish like this was exquisite torture.

She stirred, stretched, the movement pushing her closer against him.

"Good morning," he whispered.

Trish turned her head and sighed. "Mmmm. What’s up, Doc?"

Impossibly, his heart bumped him further toward the precipice of love with her teasing. He dug his figurative heels in, all the while wondering if it wasn’t too little too late.

"I need to get home," he murmured. "Jack needs to be fed."

Trish stretched again and sat up. "Thank you. For spending the night here. I didn’t realize how much I needed you, but you were here for me."

His gut clenched. Oh, sweetheart, you don't need me. I'm unreliable, used up. "You're a tough lady. You'd have been fine."

"I'm not so sure about that. You saved me last night, Doc." She nuzzled his chest before she stood up.

Acute awareness jolted through him. When he got to his feet, he wasn’t at all sure of his footing.

"There are some boxes to get around here," she murmured as she took his hand.

He hated those boxes. They represented her impending departure with Bella.

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