Page 86 of Caught from Behind

“This requires more payment than that.”

“I know,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “It’s why I got the ambulance too.”

I want to laugh.

But I’m too sad, too guilty, too panicked?—

“Ells.”

My eyes go back to his.

“Dad doesn’t fucking know what he’s missing out on with you.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know what I did?—”

“No,” he agrees, “but I know you.”

My heart squeezes.

“And you’re beautiful.” He touches my chest. “In here, kiddo.”

“I messed up.”

A kiss to my forehead. “And you’ll fix it.” Then he’s extracting himself from around me, pushing up to his feet, and clapping…

Riggs on the shoulder.

“Be gentle on her,” my brother murmurs.

I wince.

Because Riggs’s face…

It’s impenetrable and cold.

Already leaving me.

Maybe already gone.

He nods at Knox and my brother walks away and…

Then it’s just Riggs and me.

“I’m sorry,” I say before he can speak, goddamned eyes leaking all over the place again. “I’m so, so sorry. I—I?—”

He drops down behind me, gathers me close, tucking the blanket around the front of me, warming my back with his chest. “Breathe, chérie. Just lean against me and breathe.”

I should pull away. I’m a horrible jerk who doesn’t deserve him being nice to me.

But I can’t break out of his hold, can’t make myself move away from the warm chest and the strong arms and the gentle words.

And Riggs doesn’t make me.

He just holds me close, keeps me warm, and we sit like that, in a quiet embrace, as the sky turns into a beautiful mosaic of blues and oranges and pinks, as it begins to darken, as clouds from the west, from the Pacific, crawl their way up the Sierra Nevada to cling to our basin.

A dusting of snow is ahead.

But right now we’re safe in the cool kiss of winter.

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