Page 26 of Redeem

I released a humorless laugh. “Ciprian, you’re edging dangerously close to bullshit, and when I hear bullshit, I tend to think I’m being lied to. Are you trying to lie to me?”

I looked at him through narrowed eyes, my mind racing, my suspicions raised.

He gave no reaction at all other than a shake of his head.

“Maybe it is bullshit, but I don’t intend it to be. And I’m certain you feel the way you do for very good reason,” he said.

I shook my head this time. “Don’t try to disarm me, get me off stride,” I said.

“I’m not trying to do anything,” he replied.

I shook my head yet again, this time more vehemently. I felt a great surge of relief. Before I had been confused, uncertain about what was happening, but we were getting back on the ground I could navigate. I could be suspicious, wary, and was most comfortable when I was.

For a moment there, Ciprian had put me on unfamiliar ground, ground that was risky. I was happy to be back in the familiar, even if it meant I would be there without him. “Why are you doing this?”

I looked at him, certain that if he answered as he had before, I’d tell him to get out and do my best not to think of him again.

Part of me, more than, wanted to acknowledge how much I hoped that he would. He had already thrown me into chaos. Who knew what would happen if I kept down this road? I certainly didn’t, but I also lacked the strength to stop myself. He could do it for me, though, spare me from dealing with the feelings he stirred. I might miss them for a time, but the loss might be worth it.

Ciprian was already changing so much of what I was, I feared what he would do with more time. I’d be lonely. I’d miss him. But I understood those feelings, could handle them. The way I felt when he was around though, the way he made me think… Those were things I didn’t know if I could handle.

Didn’t know if I wanted to.

The atmosphere in the truck was thick, intense, an intensity that was reflected in his expression.

“You want me to be honest with you?” he asked.

Still staring at him, I nodded, telling myself that the truth was what I wanted. It would hurt a little when he told me he was just looking for a place, maybe saw some vulnerability in me that he could exploit. I could deal with it, accept it. But the rest of it, the unnamed and unmanageable emotion, was intolerable.

“I want to help you.” He frowned slightly, then continued. “And I want to help myself. I’ve been alone for a long time. When I’m with you, I don’t feel that way.”

“And?” I asked, trying to ignore the effect his words had on me, how closely they matched my own feelings.

“And that’s the truth,” he said.

He went silent then, watched me, telling me without words that the choice was mine.

I had considered so many other possibilities, had silently secretly hoped for them. But what he’d said, something so straightforward, so simple, an unambiguous declaration of what I felt but couldn’t acknowledge left me breathless.

I looked at him again, peered at him through lowered lashes as he looked back at me.

Could it really be so simple?

My mind retraced every moment I had spent with him.

The way he had met my eyes in the parking lot that first day. The comfortable quiet moments at my house. That damn near kiss.

These moments now.

All were disconcerting, and all for the same reason.

All of them had felt great.

With him I felt peace, something like what I imagined happiness might be. I was free from the weight of my thoughts, the worry of them.

It almost felt like a betrayal, of my husband and the ease I’d never felt with him, or the life I’d worked so hard to build. The feeling wouldn’t be denied, though.

I had looked down but then looked up to meet his eyes again.

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