Page 16 of The Truth Serum
Rebecca shifted her weight on the chair. She couldn’t seem to get comfortable, and she shouldn’t confess to this stranger what she had done with Nate. Guilt ate at her even as her anger simmered that she still suffered for something she had done when she was sixteen. It was a confusing mix of emotions that tied her insides into knots whenever she thought of it.
And in that silence, a male voice spoke. It was deeper than she remembered, but she knew who it was. After all, she’d spent the last ten years both hoping and fearing to speak with him again.
“It was my fault,” said Nate.
She looked up and there he was. Nate was taller than she remembered, and his face appeared leaner, as if anything childish in his body had been removed by a hard chisel. He walked slowly, his gaze never wavering from her. She matched his gaze, memorizing every curve of his face, every minute shift in his expression.
He’d grown into his height, she realized, her awareness expanding beyond his face. His shoulders had broadened, and the muscles stood out on his wiry frame. No fat, she realized. None. Had he not had a sweet in ten years? But he wasn’t hallowed out in starvation or in the wasted way of a drunkard. He seemed healthy, though his jaw was gripped tight.
Was he angry? In pain?
“Becca,” he finally said, “how are you?”
She swallowed, her insides shifting like wax under pressure. She’d forgotten how she responded to his voice. And no one else called her Becca. Two syllables that held such earnestness. As if he truly wanted to know how she fared and would wait patiently for her answer, no matter how long it took to frame the words.
When she was fourteen, it had taken her forever to say anything to him. By the time she was sixteen, he knew everything about her.
And now? She felt like she was fourteen again, her voice caught thick in her throat.
He took a step closer, and she saw him wince. His next step was more awkward than the last, and she knew he was hurt. Once, she’d thought she would know his pain from a world away. Now she could see it from across a room. See it but not feel it.
“Sit down,” she chided. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s enough that you’ve been recuperating here for the last week.”
He shrugged. “Did Fletcher tell you that?” There was no accusation in his tone, but she still bristled.
“What I know is irrelevant. What have you hurt? How is it healing?”
His brows rose, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Always so practical. I was attacked by thieves. They took my boots, broke some bones, and I had to walk across London to get home.”
He spoke as if an attack like that had been of no consequence, but she knew better. She knew that when he tucked his chin, he was making light of something very dangerous. His eyes could hold steady, his hands casual in their dismissal, but that chin of his would move tight as if he braced against a leash.
The image made no sense, but it had always been true with him.
First things first. “What are your injuries?”
“Did you become a doctor?” he asked, fondness in his gaze. “I remember your fascination with medicines.”
“I had many silly dreams,” she said and even she winced at the strident note in her voice.
“I never thought them silly,” he said.
She felt her body twist. It wasn’t a natural position. It was a reflection of her split desires. Part of her ached to reach him again. That part remembered how he never made light of her thoughts, even if he teased her for her worries. What did she care what others thought? he would ask. With him, she laughed out loud, spun circles in the fields, and let him touch parts of her body that ached to be free. With him, she’dlived.
The other part remembered that all actions had consequences. And her freedom had cost her father his life.Worse, her entire family had never been the same afterwards. Henry had locked himself away on the estate. Mama had turned even more helpless than before. And Fletcher had become so controlling that she no longer really liked her brother.
Which meant that as much as she yearned to speak with Nate again, she also despised him for his part in how her family had fallen apart. And that contradiction made her feel ill.
“Becca?”
Oh, how she loved the way he spoke her name.
“I am not a doctor,” she said firmly. Indeed, her throat nearly closed down on the word. “But I have learned a few things. Are your feet cut?” That would explain the way he limped. “Are the wounds festering?”
“You are going to tell me to slather them with honey.”
