Page 39 of Tracing Her Stolen Identity
“Probably,” he agreed, hanging his head to stare at the porch floor rather than at his friend.
“Did you make an unwelcome advance?”
“Absolutely not!” he growled as he rose to a standing position. “That’s not who I am.”
Roman tipped his beer at him. “Agreed, so what else would make her angry enough to lock herself in the bedroom?”
With a shoulder-sagging sigh, Reece sat again. “I finally found the courage to ask her why she refused to date me after graduation. She told me she decided I deserved to go out and live my life and not be saddled with someone in her situation.”
Roman lifted his brow before he took another sip of his beer. “Yeah, that tracks.”
“Excuse me?” Reece stood again, but this time, it was to pace.
“I remember the days right after Mina’s amputation. She decided that I was better off without her. I could do so much better than her and deserved someone who could keep up with me physically.”
“Those are the same words Sky used on me,” Reece admitted, pausing his steps.
“If you give women time to think in that situation, that will always be the answer they arrive at.” He shrugged as he took a drink from the bottle. “Hell, we might feel the same if the roles were reversed. Maybe not wanting to be a burden on someone is a human trait, not a gender trait.”
With a soft chuckle, Reece shook his head. “The way you saymaybetells me it’s not a maybe at all.”
Roman shrugged again, but this time, it was a confirmation shrug. “You can’t blame her for having a different view of life while sitting in a chair you weren’t sitting in. She was young, injured, scared and probably embarrassed by what had happened to her body.”
No doubt that was the truth. Reece still remembered how she had closed in on herself, refusing to talk to anyone for days while she did nothing but draw. Her parents and doctors told him that drawing was good therapy to help her deal with her injuries and a new way of life, but he hadn’t thought so. He’d always thought it gave her too much time to think and not enough time to remember she was still the same person, even if she had to use a chair to get around. It was obvious to him now that he’d been correct.
“I’d venture to say that she’s still scared and embarrassed by what has happened to her body. She’s pushing you away equally as hard now to fight the attraction she still has for you.”
That drew him from his ruminations of the past. “Come again?”
“Dude, if you can’t see that girl still has feelings for you, you shouldn’t be an investigator. Of course, if you think you’re hiding your feelings for her, you’re also wrong.”
“We’re friends, Roman, and barely that. Until four days ago, I hadn’t seen her in nearly fourteen years.”
“Yet the first person she called when she was in trouble was you.”
Before Reece could object, Roman held up his hand and started for the cabin stairs. “I have to check on Hannah and make sure she fell asleep. Before you walk back into that cabin, I suggest you have a game plan for groveling. You’re going to need one.”
“Gee, thanks,” Reece grunted as Roman laughed. He gave Reece a cheeky salute before disappearing inside and shutting the door.
Reece swiped the half-empty beer off the table and finished it in one swallow. Maybe he did need a game plan. Then again, he could always try honesty and see where that got him.
Determined to make things right, he walked inside, closed all the windows and drew a deep breath before knocking on the locked bedroom door.
Chapter Nineteen
There was a knock on the door, and Skylar forced herself not to say anything.
“Sky? Can I come in?”
Biting her tongue, she kept sketching on her pad, hoping he’d go away and leave her alone. She’d heard the front door slam shut and had hoped he would decide to work, but here he was, just fifteen minutes later, bugging her.
“I know you aren’t sleeping. I can hear your pencil on the paper.”
“How can you hear that?” His soft laughter came from the other side of the door, and she groaned. He’d been baiting her. “Go away, Reece. I’m tired.”
“I’m sure you are, but I want to apologize. I’ll do it through the door, but it would probably mean more if I didn’t have to.” She remained silent and, after thirty seconds, heard his sigh through the door. “I’ll start by saying I was an insensitive oaf for bringing it up. My timing was never great.”
Obviously, he was determined to have his say, so she closed her sketch pad and called out to him. “You can come in. I’m sure the neighbors would appreciate it.”
