When I See Your Face

“Yeah, it’s tough. But so is he. And you.”

She smoothed the hair over her temple and managed a smile. “I’m not so sure—”

“I am.”

“Listen, about tomorrow.” She paused, trying to figure out how to say what she was thinking. “You don’t have to…to keep an eye on me. I mean, you’re under no obligation to watch after me—”

“I never thought I was.”

“What I’m trying to say is that…well, I know you found me and saved my life and all, but you don’t have to feel responsible for me. You don’t have to check on me. After all, I’m not your patient,” she ended stoically.

He snorted, made a strangling sound, then burst into unabashed laughter.

She realized how stupid she’d sounded. “Okay, so I made a donkey of myself. You know what I meant.”

He stifled the chortles. “Yes, I know. I don’t feel I have to look after you.”

She heard him move, then felt his touch on her cheek. She held very still while her heart set up a heavy, alarmed pounding. Fear, unlike that experienced during the past ten days, fluttered through her chest.

“But you do have the most kissable mouth of any woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured in an oddly quiet tone, almost as if he spoke to himself.

Her breath hung in her throat, then she laughed. “You suddenly noticed this? That’s a bit hard to swallow when we’ve lived in the same town all our lives.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sometimes it takes an incident to change fate, so to speak. Like seeing a person on a snowy night with Christmas lights sparkling in her eyes.”

He touched her temple next to the patch over her left eye. When she felt warmth near her mouth, she gasped, unable to believe what she thought was about to happen.

Then his mouth was there, increasing the warmth to heat, then fire.

Stunned, she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Except for one question. Why had she ever thought of him as a person of coolness? His touch was that of the sun, radiating warmth clear down to her toes.

Confusion swept over her.

Now he was one with the dark, swirling fog that had haunted her the week of the coma, with the longing that had invaded her soul as she’d searched for a way out of the hot darkness, with the awful need for another person that frightened her because it felt too dangerous.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He drew back slightly. “I can’t help it. Your lips are too tempting.”

His mouth touched hers again. His hands stroked through her hair. She hesitated, then, unable to stop, leaned into the kiss, letting it take her, needing the healing touch—

“No,” she said and jerked away.

He didn’t insist, but she could sense his gaze on her. “That was an experiment,” he said finally.

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