Silence settled over them.
“Were you coming back home?” he asked, his gaze directed toward Mount Hood.
“Eventually. I had to watch the dark blue of the sky emerge around the mountain. I love that color. It’s so deep and rich, I couldn’t walk away.”
“It’ll be back tomorrow. I’d say it’s something you can always rely on to be there.”
He turned to study her in the dim light, knowing he could stare at her for hours, watching the animation in her face as she thought and talked. The distance that’d settled between them since her injury had grown bigger each day. He’d taken two weeks off work, practically living in the hospital as she battled the deadly sepsis. But when her health returned, her inner self had stayed hidden under layers of self-protection. Layers that had started building up since Jayne’s suicide attempt, and he didn’t have the nerve to try to break through them, worried it would set Ava back further. He functioned each day the best he knew how. He was attentive, loving, and understanding, but he wanted his Ava back. This shell of a woman seemed to be growing more distant day after day.
He despised himself for standing by and watching it happen.
“You didn’t tell me about your call with your boss,” Mason said.
Ava shifted against him. “He wanted to know when I was coming back to work.”
“And?”
“I told him I didn’t know.”
The pain in her voice ripped at his heart. “What’s keeping you back?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I know I’m recovered. The surgeon said I’m okay to return to work, but I can’t make a decision. I feel like I’m floating around while my anchor searches for something to snag.”
“You can’t sit around and wait. You have to make it happen.”
“It hurts that I see you waiting for me,” she said slowly, turning to look at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
He met her gaze and saw the fear in her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. It nearly killed me to watch you waste away with that infection. All I could think about was that I might have to go home to an empty house—our empty house—and I couldn’t face it. Now I have you there, but part of you hasn’t returned.”
Understanding crossed her gaze. “I know. I can’t find that piece of me, either. And I feel like the hole is getting bigger every day.”
“Is it Jayne?” he forced out. “The disconnection between you two? Is that what’s creating the hole?”
She was silent. “I’ve thought about that for days. I don’t know the answer. Her suicide attempt ripped something out of me.”
“And I’m powerless to fix it.” Mason wanted to hit something. The problem stared him right in the eyes, and he was incapable of finding the answer.
It wasn’t like Travis Meijer. The problem of the shooter had been solved with several rounds from the SWAT team through his chest and head as he tried to shoot Ava. Mason had stepped into her aisle and seen her weapon buried in Travis Meijer’s shoulder, a look of utter desperation and anger on her face as she spun out of the way while Meijer continuously fired his gun. She’d dropped to the floor as the team shouted and then they’d opened fire.
Meijer had died instantly.
Problem solved, Mason had thought.
He’d been wrong.
Instead Ava’s health had been compromised and her emotions severely damaged.
“I don’t expect you to fix me.” She swallowed hard. “That’s up to me.”
The frustrated look on Mason’s face broke her heart—what heart she had left. Small chunks had slowly broken away from her heart in a steady pace since the day she heard about Jayne’s suicide attempt. She lightly touched the healing wound on her left side where Meijer’s bullet had taken a large bite. She’d always carry the scar and reminder of her brief encounters with Travis Meijer. For a man she’d met twice, for less than a minute each time, he’d had a profound impact on her psyche. The police had explained his obsession with women in law enforcement and she’d wondered what she’d done to draw his focus. Had he targeted her simply because she’d seen his face as she sat beside Misty at the Rivertown Mall? How’d he find out she was an agent?
She’d never know.
It shouldn’t matter; she’d survived. But the questions still haunted her. She deserved to know what she’d done. Someday she’d stop jumping at loud noises and relax while shopping.
Someday.
A sharp pain shot from the wound to her left armpit, making her catch her breath, and then vanished just as abruptly. The nerves healing, her doctor had said.
Jayne gashed her own abdomen on the left side.
Something always cropped up and created parallels between their lives. Was that what she was waiting for? The arm of the universe to reach down and strike her the way it’d struck Jayne?
Get busy living or get busy dying.
The old movie line echoed in her brain, and she acknowledged that she’d spent too much time waiting for the universe to deal her Jayne’s hand. Instead it’d blocked her eyes from seeing the wonderful things she’d received. Like the very patient man sitting next to her. She slid her hand in the pocket of her light coat, and wondered if she’d waited too long. Had she put him through hell to see if he’d stay? To see what he could handle?
Idiot.
She’d known from day one he was the strongest man she’d ever met. He’d told her over and over he loved her despite what her twin managed to do to her emotions. He’d lasted through it all. And wasn’t showing any signs of running. What was she waiting for? To test him more? See how much he could take? He’d nursed her through two injuries and several emotional hellholes. How many other men would still be sitting beside her?