Nick woke up in a panic.
Jolting against the mattress, his fingers scrabbled at the sheets as he fought for breath. He’d dreamt that he was surrounded by water, water as black as the night sky. He’d been drowning, but instead of fighting against the burning of his lungs, struggling to get air, he’d welcomed it—a cool embrace.
Was that what his mother had felt? Relief? Even in the worst throes of his grief, he didn’t think he would have welcomed death.
Sitting up, placing his feet flat on the floor, he let the chill of the unfinished room act like a jolt of caffeine. He needed to shake it off.
He wasn’t his mother. He wasn’t going to drown.
“Nick?” Rough with sleep, her voice reminded him of bourbon. “Everything all right?”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up next to someone. Her concern was sweet, but he didn’t want anyone there worrying about him.
He was in a shitty mood, and he didn’t want anyone there to witness it.
“Fine.” He grunted as he stood. He was still naked, something that had never worried him before, but with Emma’s eyes on him he felt more than bare—he felt exposed.
She saw parts of him he’d never intended to show anyone. Parts he would prefer to think weren’t there at all.
He didn’t know how to deal with…with this. With her.
Silently he tugged a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the laundry basket of garments he never folded. Sliding on socks and his work boots, he covered his face with his hands and then finally, finally looked over at Emma.
She was sitting on his bed, his dark-green sheets a stark contrast to her milky skin. Her hair was a wild tangle, gleaming more gold than white in the effervescent early-morning light. She looked like she belonged out in the woods, a fairy or a sprite, and he again felt the urge to capture her in a lasting medium.
He’d do it, he thought. After she was gone, he’d sculpt her, and it would be a statue that he kept. A solid reminder of their time together. Necessary, because she was going to leave, wasn’t she? Once she and Mike had sorted things out, she would go back home to Georgia. She had a life there—a mother, a job. The guy in the suit.
His mood soured further still. None of it was her fault, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to reach out. Instead he busied himself by dumping out the used grounds in the coffee pot and lining it with a fresh filter.
“Bathroom’s downstairs.” He jerked his head at the rickety staircase she’d climbed the night before. “Nothing fancy, but it’ll do if you need to clean yourself up.”
“Thanks.” He could tell she wanted to say something more, but whatever it was, she chose to keep it to herself, gathering up her own fallen clothing. “If you have any eggs, I can make you breakfast.”
“I don’t.” His voice was so harsh even he was taken aback by it. Instead of apologizing, though, he focused his attention on the coffee pot as she padded down the stairs, his T-shirt falling down to her knees.
Damn it. He was being a jackass again. But he just didn’t know what to do with someone here, in his space, offering to make him eggs. Eggs.
This was who he was, though, wasn’t it? He was an asshole because he just wanted to be left alone. These days with Emma, it wasn’t his naturally warm nature coming out to play—those days were the anomaly.
If he couldn’t shake this mood, she’d see that that was who he really was. And maybe that was for the best—even if the thought of her parting ways with him, as she would do anyway when she went home, sat sourly in his gut like unripe fruit.
Damn it. She deserved better than this.
He carried two thick, ugly orange mugs of coffee downstairs by way of apology. Already dressed, she was sitting cross-legged on his table, working a comb that she’d pulled from her purse through the length of her hair.
She was wearing her own pants, but on top she’d kept his T-shirt on, knotting it at each side of her waist. His heart pulsed painfully. He liked the way she looked in his clothes. He liked it too much.
The one time he’d let someone in, she was going to leave, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Trying to keep his expression neutral, he handed her one of the mugs of coffee. “I didn’t know how you liked it, so I loaded a lot of sugar, a lot of milk. I don’t have cream.”
She took a sip, humming with pleasure. “Mmm. Perfect. Thank you.”
He grunted, and drained his own mug, setting it aside before turning his attention to his work. As he toyed with the finishing touches on a piece inspired by the view he’d taken Emma to see, he was still aware of her sitting contentedly beside him, sipping her coffee as she watched him work, asking questions about what he was doing when it interested her.
He liked it. He could picture this, mornings spent in the studio with her doing whatever she wanted, so long as she was close by.
If this was how he was feeling after a few days, how would he feel about her in a few weeks? Months? The idea was terrifying, because he knew the answer.
Letting her go was going to be hell. And after losing his mom, he just didn’t know if he had it in him.
“I really have to focus today.” The look in her eyes when he spoke flatly made him feel like he was kicking a puppy, but he just…he needed space. He could smell her, see her, wanted to taste her every second that he was around her.
“All right.” Jesus, did anything upset the woman? All she did was look at him with those big eyes, watching every move he made. He wanted to piss her off. Wanted to drive her away long enough for him to breathe, to see that he didn’t have feelings for her the way he thought he did. Once he realized that, it would hurt less when she left. “Should I stop by later?”
“I have plans.” He had nothing, actually, and the slight stiffening of her spine at his harshness made him feel like he might as well go foreclose on some orphans and widows now that he’d kicked every puppy he could find.
“Well, then. I suppose I’ll see you next time I visit Mike.” Frost coated her words as she swung her legs off the table and retrieved her coat. “I’ll call my own cab. Wouldn’t want to disturb your focus.”
Shrugging on her coat, she zipped it up and somehow made the rasp sound like an accusation. He wanted to go to her as much as he wanted to push her away, so instead he did neither, keeping his gaze on his work.
The door flew open a moment before she got there, a gust of wind and brittle shards of snow heralding Mike’s arrival. He glanced between Emma’s obvious irritation and Nick’s stiffness, and hunched inward like a turtle, making a beeline for the bathroom without saying a word to either of them.
Emma stared after him, incredulity and anger radiating off her in waves. Dragging her gaze back to Nick, she managed to convey absolute disgust with a single arch of her brow.
“Right now I wouldn’t spit on either of you if you were on fire.”
He blinked, not sure he’d understood her properly, because her twang had thickened, making her words nearly indecipherable.
She slammed the door, and he heard the crunch of her boots on the snow as she stomped her way out to the road. His muscles twitched to follow her, but he forced himself to stay in place. She wouldn’t want to see him right now.
He was just thumbing in the number for Meg’s cab to make sure she had a ride when Mike exited the bathroom. The relief on his face when he saw that Emma was gone only served to stoke the irritation Nick felt in his gut.
“She is a good person, you know.” Pushing back from his table, he squared off against Mike, arms folded across his chest.
Mike narrowed his eyes, turning away to lift a carton of railway ties onto his table.
“Hey!” Nick closed the distance between them. He might be trying to push Emma away for the good of them both, but that didn’t mean he was about to let her father break her heart. “You know, some people would do anything to spend time with family members that they’ve lost. Here you’ve got some family you never thought you’d get to know.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“I think I do.” Memories of his mother mixed with the vision of Emma’s face in his mind’s eye, and the ache in his chest was palpable. “You need to appreciate her before she’s gone.”