Page 52 of Montana Rain

Cole hadn’t stopped taking care of me. Food, blankets, sex. I woke up in the middle of the night with his head between my legs, halfway to orgasm, and he didn’t stop until I’d found pleasure twice on his tongue.

Now, the way he touched me, it was hard to keep my eyes open. With not much to do but sleep, eat, and have sex, I felt like I was catching up on all the rest I’d skipped in the last few years.

“You asleep, princess?”

“No.” I wasn’t, and I was glad I faced away from him. His calling me princess made me feel things I couldn’t explain. I knew the psychology behind it, and I didn’t care. Here and now, I wasn’t going to question it.

“Will you talk to me?” Cole brushed his lips across the top of my ear, making goose bumps bloom over my skin.

Slowly, I rolled onto my back so I could see him. “What about?”

“I’m still curious about what you said. About the bad things that happen to the people you love.”

My stomach plummeted. I didn’t want to think about it, but at the same time, I couldn’t exactly argue he hadn’t earned the right to know.

“Curious is the wrong word. I’m not curious about something that causes you pain. But I would like to know, if you’ll tell me.”

I looked at him, tracing his face with my eyes. The glow of the fire painted him in oranges and golds. A couple of days’ worth of stubble grew on his face, lending him a rugged vibe.

“They’re not fun stories.”

“No.” His eyes crinkled with a smile, but it was a sad one. “I wouldn’t imagine so.”

Swallowing, I turned toward him. I pressed my face to his chest, unable to look at him while I spoke about it.

“My sister,” I said quietly.

Cole brushed his hand up and down my spine with intention. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I do. Younger. When she was little, we were at the park. The suburbs of Chicago. It was a beautiful place to live. She’s seven years younger than me.”

“What’s her name?”

“Ava.”

“That’s pretty,” he said softly.

Slipping my hand around his back, I held myself closer to him, and he held me right back. “I was supposed to be watching her. But I had some friends there, and so did she. I wasn’t paying attention. So it was my fault.”

Cole’s fingers traced patterns on my skin. No hesitation or slowing down, just waiting for me to speak.

“She climbed a tree. Way too high. Even though she was small, the branches up there wouldn’t take her weight. And she fell.”

I took one deep breath in and let one deep breath out, remembering it so vividly. “I’ll never forget her screams,” I said. “On the way down and once she was on the ground.”

For a minute, I couldn’t speak, the horror and the grief clogging up my throat the way they always did when I went there with the memories. Like I told my clients, recovery wasn’t a straight line, and neither was grief. You could feel good for years. Decades, even, and it could come out of nowhere and slam you into the floor.

Grief and guilt changed you on a cellular level, and there was no shame in knowing it and accepting it. It would always hurt. It was how you handled the hurt that was the true test.

“She landed on her tailbone at exactly the wrong angle. Shattered her spine in a way that couldn’t be fixed. She’s in a wheelchair now, and always will be. And if I just…hadn’t been so absorbed in what I was doing, then maybe she wouldn’t be disabled for the rest of her life.”

Before he could speak, I kept going. “And believe me, I know. I’ve gone through everything. I know it technically wasn’t my fault, and I know holding on to the kind of grief and guilt I feel won’t change it. I’ve approached it from every angle imaginable. Hell, it’s the reason I do what I do. But we can’t always change how we feel about something, no matter how much we want to.”

Cole lifted his hand from my back, tangling his fingers in my hair, and holding me to his chest. “Rayne.”

“My father too,” I said. “A couple of years later, right around Christmas, I wanted a special kind of candy. This little shop had made them in our neighborhood, and then they moved to a new location that was much farther away. I threw a fit, because it was a tradition, and I loved traditions. Finally, Dad agreed to go get some. He wanted me to be happy, and I was being a little shit.” My voice cracked. “It was snowing. Not as hard as this, but hard enough. And…he didn’t come back.”

“Oh, Rayne.”

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