Page 100 of My Damaged Protector

I look at her in curiosity while internally trying to decide if this is a conversation I want to have with her, especially with Sarah in the next room.

She may hear us.

My eyes go to the door I'm now sure is Sarah's and come back to Sheila’s.

“She can't hear us,” Sheila assures me.

“The walls are not that thick,” I say in rebuttal.

“No, they are not. But I imagine she's deep asleep after the kind of engagement she had in the last hour.”

I didn't know it was possible for me to become a full-blast shade of red in front of a woman until those words left her.

She heard us.

Damn.

I don't know whether to feel ashamed or remorseful. I didn't even care whose house we were in or that we could be disturbing her at that moment. That's how much hold Sarah has on me. Yet, she has no single idea.

I can't blame her, though. I've not exactly been forthcoming with my feelings, and maybe I should do that more.

Do I love her?

I'm still not certain that I do yet. The thought of not having her again makes me feel like I'm going to die. So, maybe that's love and I just can't put a name on it because it's a feeling I've never experienced before?

“I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to be so careless.” I apologize with my best remorseful voice and expression.

“Nonsense. Vain as I may sound, I only care that you make my niece happy. That you always make her happy,” she finishes with a meaningful look on her face.

I sigh.

How can I do that when she won't even trust me with her secret?

I want to let it go, believe it's not important and I can do without knowing it. And honestly, I can. Live without knowing it, I mean. But something tells me the secret she's keeping is serious, even related to the whole issue with her father.

How do I protect her if I don't know what she's protecting?

“It's not that simple, Sheila.”

“It isn't, Mr. Peele. But sometimes, things are simpler than we like to admit. We humans just tend to make things more complicated than they need to be.”

Smart words.

“Are you saying she's not hiding something from me?”

Her face changes at my words, the small guard she's let down going up again.

Exactly.

They are more similar in character now than I've noticed in the past.

I expect her to lie and then send me away.

“She'll tell you when the time is right,” she explains with a pitiful smile.

She's not in support of her keeping the secret, is she? I think I pretty much gathered that from our earlier interaction.

“So, she is keeping something from me,” I say bitterly.

---