Page 54 of Unnatural
Sam gave what looked like a forced smile, his hands still behind his back.
“Are you okay?” Her gaze went to the mac and cheese. Was he nervous he’d messed up dinner somehow? It was almost foolproof. The three-step directions were right on the box.
Sam brought his hands from behind his back, set down the pad of paper he’d asked for the week before, and stepped away as though it might bite him. As if it was best that he distance himself from it.
Autumn took off her gloves slowly. It appeared that he couldn’t look at her, his eyes glued to the table.
“I wanted to thank you,” he finally mumbled. His cheeks were flushed. Was heblushing?“For taking care of me. For helping. And for staying too. For not leaving me here alone.”
“You already thanked me for caring for you,” she said with a smile. “And I wouldn’t have left you alone.” She threw her gloves aside and then shrugged off her oversize sweater and tossed that onto the back of the couch. She took in his nervous expression, and tenderness took hold. What a sweetheart he could be. So uncertain. Looking so hard for acceptance. “But I appreciate a nice dinner. Thank you, Sam,” she said again, this time with more meaning as she sat down. “That was very thoughtful of you.”
“I would’ve, ah, made you something…better for dinner, except…”
Oh my gosh, the guy looks utterly lost and completely flustered.She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to hug him.
“Don’t be silly. Mac and cheese is my absolute favorite.”
He released a breath and took a seat too and then picked up the pad of paper and handed it to her. “I…did this for you. Made it. Copied it.” His blush deepened, his cheekbones tinged a deep shade of pink. “For you, to give it back. I shouldn’t have taken it. I tried to figure out a way that I could give your journal back to you. Even though it’s just…not as good.” He pushed the pad of paper across the table and then withdrew his hand quickly.
Autumn tilted her head, confused as she picked up the pad. She turned back the cover, her heart giving a small gallop. It was her name and her birth date, written in precise all-caps printing.
She brought a hand to the silver necklace at her throat that Bill had given her on the day her adoption had become legal, the one she never took off. Something clogged her throat, and she swallowed around it as she turned the first page, and then another and another, her heart beating ever more swiftly.
“You rewrote my journal,” she whispered. She raised her gaze, meeting his. His face was still flushed, eyes wide as he waited for her reaction. It looked like he was holding his breath. Scared.Oh, he cares so very, very much.Autumn stood, rounded the table, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Sam, thank you. I can’t believe you did this.” He’d had it memorized. All these years. The entire thing. And she couldn’t begin to understand how or why, but he did, and he’d rewritten every single word.
It was a moment before she realized how tense he was and that his breath had turned to small, almost-silent staggered pants. She unwrapped her arms and leaned back slowly. She’d noticed before that he seemed to tense each time she touched him, but she’d thought it was due to his injuries.
Now she realized how averse he was to being touched at all, and her heart pinched.
She brought her hands gently to his golden stubbled cheeks, cupping her hands in their shape, though only brushing his skin. Their eyes met, and there was a world of raw need in his. Autumn remembered what it was like to crave touch, something that was rare when she was younger.She’d become such a tactile person as a result, so it hurt seeing what touch did to Sam. He was an ADHM baby too, motherless just like her. Had heeverbeen held or caressed or simply cared for gently?
“Thank you, Sam,” she whispered again. She returned to her chair and sat down across from him once again. “Will you tell me why you memorized it?”
He blinked, looked away, ran a hand over his short hair. “Your words…the way they made me feel. I’d never felt that way before.” He paused and met her eyes. “Repeating them made things easier. The surgeries…the pain.”
She pulled in a shaky breath. She felt honored and overwhelmed. She gave him another smile, and he smiled back, this one appearing more natural as his broad shoulders lowered.
She kept the journal on the table but used one hand to thumb through it, catching passages, poems, word combinations she’d liked, descriptions, poorly drawn sketches—one of him. Her boy made of moonlight. A smile skittered across her face as she remembered the girl she’d been then. “These were my thoughts during that time,” she said. “This was who I was.”
He watched her so intently. “What do you mean? Who you were?”
She closed the book and picked up her fork, taking a mouthful of macaroni. “Well, we’re different during different phases of our lives, don’t you think?”
“How so?”
The question appeared to startle him, maybe trouble him slightly too. She was beginning to understand his facial expressions and body movements. He hadn’t told her nearly enough about himself, and she felt strongly he was holdingquite a bit back, but even so, she’d begun toknowhim, to understand him, even if his “tells” were subtle, his mannerisms extremely reticent, his personality almost…muted.
He was rough around the edges, introverted, often withdrawn, but there was a world of tenderness that lived inside him too. He protected it, and she understood that he had great reason to do so. Those who had “raised” him had not valued that quality, nor encouraged it. If anything, the opposite was true. So the fact that he’d managed to protect it anyway spoke to his strength of heart and his iron will.
She also knew he didn’t see it that way.
He was so deeply complicated, and some part of her wondered if she’d everreallyknow him, even if he allowed her in. Because she sensed that he didn’t fully understand himself. His own thoughts. His own feelings. What she did know was that despite his rough exterior, no one who didn’t possess a tender soul would have given her the gift he had.
She thought about his question. “Don’t you think you were different when you were in the hospital than you are right this minute?”
He took a bite, chewed, looked thoughtful. “I know more now. I’ve had different experiences.”
“Right. And those things change you. They alter your views of the world, of people. Your tastes change and expand.”
