"We probably shouldn't do this anymore."

"Hm?" Landon glanced past his right bicep, folded behind his head, to take in the lovely vision lying beside him. After getting pounced by Alex when he’d arrived home from work—and after spanning every inch of the kitchen they shared as he’d worked them both up into a feverish lather—they had retired without showering to his bedroom.

"Sex," she said flatly. "We probably shouldn't do it anymore."

Hearing this from her now seemed absurd. She was pressed against him, and her fingers had tangled themselves idly in his sparse chest hair. Landon caught her fingers to lay a dismissive kiss on them, but Alex pulled her hand away.

That was when he understood the full seriousness of the situation. "I'm confused," he admitted. He figured it was best just to come clean. "Aren't you having fun?"

Alex choked on what sounded to him like a mirthless laugh. She sat up to meet his eyes. "Of course I'm having fun. The thing is . . . I'm just not sure I want to get tangled up with you."

"Little late for that."

"I'm not sure I want to stay tangled up with you, knowing that you're going to head back out to the fire, and then . . . back home, I assume." She tucked a sweat-soaked strand of hair back behind her ear.

Landon blinked. She looked so young, so vulnerable. He had described her from the beginning as having angelic features, but this was the first time he had ever seen Alex struggle against something that lay below the surface. He knew she had demons. Hell, so did he. But she suddenly looked like she was losing the battle against them, and Landon wasn't sure what that meant for them.

"I know I'm blowing hot and cold here, Landon. I wish I wasn't. But—I am. I wish I could be different, but I'm not."

"I don't want you to be different." He meant every word of his assertion. "Look—Alex—if I gave the impression that I was going to push you—I won't. I don't want to force you somewhere you don't want to go. God, that's the last thing I want." He ran his fingertips along the silky lock of hair she had displaced, herself, only seconds before. "If the situation needs to be complicated until you figure things out, then that's okay by me."

His eyes searched hers for some sign that she heard him. He had the full attention of her searing blue eyes, but did she really register what he was saying? Did she know just how much she had grown to mean to him?

"I'm complicated, too," he continued after the long pause. "This fire isn't going anywhere for a while, and neither am I. We don't have to worry about the future until it arrives. But if this is your way of saying you're done with me . . ." His gut sank, even as he kept his voice level. "I understand."

He didn't. His heart clenched in revolt at the words, blackened and flaked away in pieces to think that she might end it—just like that.

But he had to risk it. He had to split himself open to her and spill the parts of him he had guarded for so long.

"It's not about being 'done' with you!" Alex shot up, and she surprised him with the answering force of her protest. "I'm not using you!"

Sounds to me like you doth protest too much. Landon winced. Clearly it was a thought that had crossed Alex's mind on more than one occasion, considering he hadn't mentioned it himself. Aloud, he said, "It's all right if you are. I just want you to know that."

"It's not all right!" Alex hung her head.

Landon stroked her temple. He was almost at a loss of anything else to do.

Almost.

He couldn't compete with a ghost if he was too afraid to bring the man up. "Look, I get it. You're not over Henry. And I want you to know, right here and now, I'm not asking you to be." He pressed her hands in his, stroked her knuckles with his thumb. "Don't hurry yourself to get there, especially not on my account. You've only just started to really come to terms with losing him. Allow yourself some time to grieve." He looked off across the room, into a corner of the past he hadn't allowed himself to delve for a long time. "When I lost my mom, it took me years to feel even remotely normal again. Even today, there are times when the world doesn't make sense to me without her."

"Thank you, Landon." Alex sat upright and shifted the sheet over one bare shoulder. "I . . . I didn't know. About your mother."

Landon nodded. How could she? He had never brought it up.

"I'm just . . . Jesus, how do I say this?" Alex shook her head as if to clear it. "I've been around so much sorrow. Not just my own, but every day at work. I'm surrounded by it. And I'm not sure our traumas are comparable. I grieve differently than you do, and you grieve differently than me. So whether or not I need time . . ."

Landon cupped her covered shoulder with his palm, and then he rose. He saw Alex's eyes widen as she tracked him in the darkness of the room. "You need space," he said. He managed to keep any hurt or confusion out of his own voice. He compartmentalized. He was determined to review it all later—when he was alone, and when Alex's fragility didn't hang in the balance.

"Landon, I didn't mean . . . I'm sorry, I . . ."

Landon shook his head and started to dress. "You need space," he repeated. "And, look, if you do just need someone for comfort, even if it's only physical, I'll be whatever I need to be." He paused in the doorway, shirt still balled in his hand. "I care about you. But I have to be myself, too."

"I know you do." Alex tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and gazed down at the sweat-soaked sheets they had rumpled together. "I don't want you to be anyone else."

Liar. Landon stared at her bowed forehead and wished the word didn't strike him like a bolt between the eyes. He knew that what he did for a living alarmed Alex; he knew that she disapproved. How could he separate who he was as a man from what his soul needed to survive? He needed to be on the frontline, to be the first one responding, the first one with his foot half in the fire and a hand held out to the person who needed rescuing.

Alex's bedroom was dark. The window was cracked, and a cool evening breeze filtered in past the curtain, bringing the stinging wildfire smell with it. If the room had been on fire, Landon reflected, he would have known how to navigate the space between them to pull Alex to safety.

But she had to help herself out of this one. She could heal him, but he couldn't heal her.

He turned and left to close himself inside his own bedroom and think on this. He had never felt more at a loss . . . and a part of him couldn't help wondering if things stood any chance of working out between them.