Things have been weird.

Connor has been different.

He hasn’t been asking me questions, for one. This worries me. Did he search for me online? Did he find Elizabeth Montgomery? It has been months since I typed my name into a search engine. I learned my lesson the hard way. Never look for something you can’t handle finding.

If he knows, wouldn’t he have said something by now? Maybe not. Maybe the sight of me sickens him. Maybe he can’t believe he has been spending his days with someone whose face appears next to cringe-worthy headlines.

Baby Killer!

In Our Hearts, She’s Guilty.

Could She Have Stopped?

I’m sickened by the thought of Connor reading these things about me. Today is day four of Connor being quiet. What will it bring? I’m so sick to my stomach I nearly text him and tell him not to pick me up this morning. If it weren’t for the money, my intense desire to get the hell away from society and hole up somewhere, I’d do it. But, no. I have to stand even when I want to fall. My future peace depends on me.

Connor picks me up with his usual greeting. “Hey, Brynn.”

“Hello,” I say, stiff.

Last week he peppered me with questions the second I had my ass in his passenger seat. How was your night? What did you do? Today, like the past three days, he says nothing. Not even about my shirt, which I chose because I thought it might make him laugh.

He must know.

We get to the first house on his list. We’re cleaning gutters, which really sucks. Connor takes two ladders from the truck, one by one, and sets them side-by-side along the front of the house. He climbs up the first, I go up the second one, and he tells me to pick out the biggest debris. We work for forty-five minutes, switching ladders when one of us is done with our section, and it’s silent. Horribly, terribly silent.

When I’m finished with my section, I climb down, but you know what happens when you’re upset? You get sloppy. On the last rung, I’m sloppy. Instead of stepping down, my foot catches on the side of the ladder. I fall, luckily not far, right onto my ass. At least it was onto soft grass and not the pavers three inches away.

Mortification consumes me. For almost an hour I’ve been picking large twigs from a gutter while vomit-inducing headlines float through my brain, and now I’m on the ground. I’d love to stand up, laugh at myself and keep going, but I can’t. It’s too much, all of it. My heart is heavy and it hurts, and the horror floating through my mind has weakened me.

I squeeze my eyes closed and will the burning heat in them to go away.

“Brynn?”

More heat. A warm hand rests on my shoulder.

I look up to see Connor, his knees bent, level with me. His eyes hold concern, but more than that, they hold emotions I didn’t expect to see from him. Dismay and anguish, care and uncertainty.

It fucking wrecks me.

I hate the tears, the way they are big and fat and roll down my cheeks, the next one coming right after the last. Everything inside me needs this cry, but every ounce of self-preservation screams at me to stop.

Connor wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in. His hand brushes the top of my head, running through my hair and tucking it behind my ear.

The front of his shirt smells like body wash and salty sweat, and I have to stop myself from clinging to it. I want his warmth, his touch, his voice. I want someone to love me despite the tragedy that now defines me. These are all things I can’t afford to have, much less want, but in this moment that doesn’t matter.

“Connor,” I say through my tears.

“Shh, Brynn.” His thick, deep voice floats down to me. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I don’t need to know anything.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

When I’m down to only sniffles, Connor stands and helps me up. I’m embarrassed, and I don’t want to look him in the eyes, but after all that, I feel like I should. I force my gaze to his and find him smiling.

“What?” I ask tentatively.

“Surely not everybody was kung fu fighting.”

Laughter bubbles up. I glance down. Using two fingers, I pull the T-shirt away from my body and read it upside down. “I thought you might find this one funny.” The admittance makes me feel bashful.

“You wore that for me?”

Shit. “I… No. I mean…” Where are my words? Why can’t I talk? Why can’t I turn on my ice queen defense and leave this conversation frozen in a glacier?

Connor takes a step backward and turns, climbing two feet up his ladder. He stops and looks back at me. “Remind me to tell Anthony he was right.”

I cover my eyes from the sun and look up at him. My eyes still hurt from crying. “Right about what?”

“Things people say when they aren’t talking.”

I’m not sure what he means, but I know I need to discourage him. One day I’ll leave. End of story.

“I didn’t wear this shirt for you, you know. Not really, anyway.” Even to my own ears, my rebuttal sounds weak.

“Come on up here,” Connor calls. He’s nearly to the top of the ladder by now. “There’s somewhere I want to take you. Help me finish this so we can go.”

So I do. We flush the gutter opposite the downspout. Connor double-checks it has proper flow, and I bag the debris and tie off the opening. Thank goodness for thick gloves.

When we’re finished, Connor tosses the bag into his truck bed, along with our gloves.

“Do we need to stop for lunch?” I ask when were settled in his truck.

Connor leans over, reaching into the backseat. He stretches out, his chest brushing my upper arm. The hair on my neck stands straight up. A spot near my heart twists. I want to touch Connor, run my fingers through his light-brown hair, sweep my lips across the small, flesh-colored scar on his neck.

My desire, my want, my need is strong, and with Herculean strength, I abstain. Tucking balled fists in between my knees is the only way I can stop myself.

Connor rights his body, pulling a little ice chest from the backseat. He plunks it down between us.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His eyes glint like he’s happy or amused. “Your cheeks are pink.”

“I’m fine,” I snap, instantly feeling bad. “What’s that?” I ask, my voice much nicer. I point to the cooler.

“This”—Connor says, opening the lid and peering inside—“is lunch, courtesy of my mother.”

The smell of bacon wafts up. “Are you saying you’re sharing?”

“Maybe, but you better be careful. If you’re not nice, I’ll share with someone else.”

“Who?” I ask. I didn’t even think about there being someone else in Connor’s life. How stupid of me. He’s… Well, he’s everything. One day, someone will be very happy with him.

Heat rips through me at just the mere thought of this person, whoever she is. It’s not fair or right, but when is anything? I can’t have Connor, so instead I’ll hold onto the envy I feel. In ten years I’ll think of him, and I know in ten years I’m going to be as jealous as I am today.

“I’m teasing, Brynn. Of course this is for you and me. Unless you want me to share it with Walt.”

“The way to Walt’s heart is definitely through his stomach.” I laugh. “He calls me Bryan sometimes, and he hates my shirts. He also told me my spaghetti tastes terrible, and he was only being nice when I took it over to him and he said it wasn’t awful. He was kidding though.”

Connor replaces the lid on top of the cooler and buckles his seat belt. “He sounds like a real treat,” he mutters, looking in his mirror before pulling out onto the road.

I grab the cooler and place it on the floor next to my feet. “He’s like one of those sour candies. Once the first layer wears off, what’s below is actually sweet.”

Connor looks at me. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

“I’m sour all the way through,” I joke.

“I bet you taste pretty sweet on the inside,” Connor says, then loses all his cool. He blushes and stammers. “I didn’t mean it like that. Not that you’re not sweet or anything, because I actually think you are, but the way it sounded, it was just, um, not how I meant to say it and—”

I laugh. Embarrassment is adorable on Connor.

“Chill.” I touch his shoulder. “It’s fine. I know how you meant it.”

I take back my hand and set it right where it should be. On my lap. My lap is a safe place.

Maddeningly, Connor falls silent. Like my fall and subsequent tears never happened, like he isn’t taking me someplace and sharing lunch with me, like embarrassing words didn’t just fall from his mouth like rocks in a landslide.

I slump into my seat and try not to think about Connor, which is impossible because we’re sharing the same oxygen at the moment.

Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the window, watching the trees go by.

“What do you think?” Connor asks, lifting two sandwiches from the cooler. He hands me one.

We’re sitting on a brown wooden bench, the food between us. In the distance are rolling hills, and though they look small from here, I know how massive they really are. In between the hills and us are trees that fade into scrubby brush, and beyond that lies desert. To the southwest of us are the red rocks of Sedona.

“It looks like a new box of crayons, but the crayons in the middle are red and orange and pink, and the ones surrounding it are shades of brown and green.”

Connor stares at me.

“What?” I ask, conscientiously wiping my mouth, even though I haven’t taken a bite of food yet.

“Would you mind if I painted that? The crayon box like you described?” He bites into his sandwich.

I do too, and then I moan, in this utterly embarrassing way, but Connor only laughs. I take another bite and raise my eyes to the sky.

“She uses jalapeño bacon and avocado.” He eats a quarter of the sandwich in one bite.

“Holy crap,” I say, swallowing. “Please tell your mom how amazing this is.”

“You can tell her yourself.” He reaches into the cooler and pulls out two small bags of chips. “I told her you’d come over tomorrow after we finish. My parents would like to meet you.”

“Okay, yeah. Sure, that makes sense.” And it does. It makes perfect sense to a sensible person, but I’m me, and in me there is now sheer terror. It’s mixing with the jalapeño bacon to create something that feels foul in my stomach.

“My mom will be happy. She has been on my case since the day I told her I hired you.”

Let’s just hope she doesn’t watch the news and have a great memory. She can have one of those things, but both is bad news for me.

I reach into my bag and grab a handful of chips. Opening my sandwich, I toss them inside and close it up. I take a big, amazing, crunchy bite, and notice Connor staring at me.

“What?” I ask, around my mouthful.

“Did you just put chips in your sandwich?”

I finish chewing and swallow. “Have you never seen anybody do that?”

“No. Does it taste good?”

I roll my eyes. “Tastes like ass. That’s why I do it.”

Connor smirks. “Because you love the taste of ass?”

I laugh and reach over the cooler to shove him. “You’re crude.”

He grins. “You’re rude.”

I nod. “Very true.”

“The sky is blue.”

“Nope. No way.” I shake my head. “I’m not playing a rhyming game with you.”

“Come on,” Connor says, standing. He slides the cooler over on the bench to where he was sitting and settles down in its place. He faces me. I sigh, lifting my left foot and setting it on the bench. I turn to him and hug my knee into my chest. The toe of my right foot dangles in the dirt below us.

“Finish your bite,” he says pointing at the small square I have left.

“I’ll try with all my might.” I smirk and pop it into my mouth.

“Quit putting up a fight.”

I swallow. “You better shut your mouth, unless you want a smite.”

Connor slaps his knee and laughs silently. “Sometimes you’re so cold, I think I’ll get frostbite.”

My mouth drops open, and my shoulders shake with laughter. I lean in, playfully shaking my head. “I think you have a hero complex, the way you play white knight.”

He grins, leaning in too, and he’s closer than he has ever been to me. My heart hammers, my breath is shallow yet somehow still deep enough to burn my throat.

“I bet right now you wish you could take flight,” he says, in a quiet, ragged voice.

I can only manage a whispered response. “All I wish for now is that this fire won’t ignite.”

I think it’s my admittance of the fire’s existence that brings Connor in closer. He rubs the tip of his nose against mine, and my chest splinters.

“Red light?” he murmurs, his question softly hitting my lips.

My whole body feels like it’s rising on tiptoe, wanting his touch so badly it hurts. I just want, for one fucking second, to feel good.

“Green light,” I say, and I move my mouth to his.

He kisses me back, in a way I’ve never been kissed. He takes his time, runs his hand over my cheek, pushes my hair behind my ear and trails his fingers back down along my jaw. He tastes like I know I do, spice and salt, mixed with the wetness of tongues and skin.

I’m overwhelmed by him, by his touch, by how much I missed being wanted by someone.

We both pull back, sucking in air. Our eyes stay locked, my chest heaves in time with his.

“Brynn—”

“Stop.” I put out a hand. “Don’t say anything. Please just do that again, and again, and again, and again.” I lower my knee so it’s no longer between us and clutch my hands to my chest as I say it.

Connor doesn’t say another word. He pulls me in, and this time I’m flush with his chest. He kisses me like I asked, and then his lips move to my jaw, my neck, and back up to my lips.

When his lips are on me, everything that hurts floats away.

I am Elizabeth Brynn Montgomery. I’m not a baby-killer, and I’m not running away. I’m a twenty-four-year-old woman who’s letting a man use his hands and lips to make her feel good.

I’m normal again.