The Edge of Misery: The Mitchel Brothers Series Book Two

21

Concerned the time he'd already spent standing would delay his recovery, Wren helped Declan back to bed, setting his slippers on the floor by his nightstand before she climbed in beside him. "Why didn't you want to touch me?"

He gave her a sorrowful look, his lips tilting in the ghost of a lopsided grin, and for a minute, Wren worried she should have eased into their conversation rather than pouncing with the question that had preyed on her mind the past two months.

But as though sensing her worry, Declan took her left hand in his right, interlinked their fingers, and muttered, "It was never a matter of not wanting, Wren. It was that I wanted to touch you too damn much."

She frowned, "So why do it at all?"

"I thought it would make things easier."

"Easier on who?"

"Me," he huskily whispered.

Wren studied him, unsure if he refrained from giving more detailed answers to her questions because it was such a tender subject or if he was protecting her feelings from a truth he thought she might not want to hear. "How?"

He shook his head and clamped his mouth shut.

"What about what I wanted?" She quietly asked, squeezing his hand.

"You weren't supposed to notice I was doing it."

Wren snorted a quiet, rueful laugh, then stared at the ceiling. "I didn't at first."

Declan hesitated, then asked, "What gave me away?"

She looked at him, tempted to ignore the question and all the hurtful emotions it dredged up with the memory, then decided if they had any chance of healing and moving beyond it, she might as well speak plainly. "The first night you called me pretty bird, and we kissed in the tack room... I was clingin' to you like a leach, and you were latched onto the doorframe instead."

Declan winced. "I never meant to hurt you—and you had every right to be upset with me."

"Am I correct in thinkin' you were doin' it from the very beginnin'?"

He nodded.

Wren sighed and went back to staring at the ceiling.

Several minutes passed, each lost in their own thoughts, listening to the other breathing, allowing time to mull everything over before Wren turned and leaned on her elbow, propping her head on her right hand, and softly asked, "Does it have somethin' to do with what you said earlier... about not wantin' to suffer heartbreak like your mama did?"

Declan nodded as his throat convulsed on a swallow, and his eyes darkened with heady, vulnerable emotions that pulled at Wren's heart. "I genuinely thought it would lessen the eventual agony."

She scooted closer, pleased when he settled his left arm low around her waist as she cradled his face in her hand, brushing her thumb against his whiskered jaw, and whispered, "Of what?"

"Of your passing," Declan answered, his voice barely loud enough for her to hear, but the words still managed to pierce her to her soul.

With her heart in her throat and tears blurring her vision, she asked, "Am I sick and dyin' soon and don't know it?"

He tucked an errant lock of hair behind her left ear and shook his head. "Wooly asked me that same question."

"You talked to him about this?"

"He's the only one I've ever been able to explain everything to... said he could tell something wasn't right between us these past couple of months."

"What'd he say?" She whispered.