“Yeah, but it was a close thing. I couldn’t sleep without dreaming about it for months afterward. And I swear I still dream about the accident Noelle was in and I wasn’t even there. My mind fills in the blanks. Sometimes I feel guilty that I wasn’t in the car, that I wasn’t the one who got stuck in that wheelchair. Hell, sometimes I wish I was the one who died. I worry Noelle would have been better off with her mom.”

“That’s not true.” Her body wasn’t in line with her head. Her body had relaxed the second he’d put his arms around her, going soft and sleepy again.

Because she was safe.

“I don’t know about that,” he said with a long sigh. “I’m not good with the whole teenage-girl stuff.”

She could imagine he was made distinctly uncomfortable by certain parts of raising a daughter. “Somehow I think she’ll find her way. She seems to have a lot of friends and she’s good at utilizing her resources.”

“I’m hoping you’ll be a good resource for her. I know she was excited to have a doctor she wasn’t going to be embarrassed talking to. It’s good to have someone to talk to.”

“I dream about what happened.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but they came out as though she couldn’t keep them in anymore, as though they didn’t have a place to hide in the sweet, happy world she’d found in this bed and this man.

“Of course you do, chère.” His hand moved over her flesh, stroking her with easy affection. “You go through what you went through and it sticks to you the rest of your life. But you don’t have to go through it alone.”

She was quiet for a moment, the silence oddly comfortable. It should be awkward. They were new to the lovers thing, but it felt . . . right. Normal. Like they’d been here a hundred times and it was her right to take comfort from him. “Sometimes in the dream I look down and I’m the one dying on the floor. He wouldn’t let me help her. He shot at me when I tried to stop the bleeding.”

His arms tightened around her. “I can’t imagine how hard that was on you.”

It had been the hardest moment she’d ever faced. That one moment was beginning to define her life. If she wasn’t careful, she might be attempting to atone for a moment she couldn’t control for the rest of her life. Sometimes she closed her eyes and couldn’t see anything but Maryanne.