Adam glanced up then. He looked surprised all over again. And right then Amanda set herself a task she’d never expected to undertake; apologizing wasn’t enough, she wanted to convince Adam Kirk not to believe what she had believed for years.

Chapter 24

Why was she being so nice?

Adam watched her pour another mug of morning coffee and wondered it for the... He’d lost track of how many times in the two days he’d been under her roof. And it didn’t really matter, because the only answer that made sense to him was the same one it had been since he’d learned she hadn’t known how badly he was hurt. She felt sorry for him. And that grated more than he would ever have thought possible.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t encountered the feeling before. Often, even back home, he had caught that look in more than one person’s eyes. Thankfully, most of them seemed to have forgotten about it as he doggedly kept doing everything that needed doing. Even if he did have to change his approach as he tried to rebuild a life in the home he’d never stopped loving but had thought he’d left behind.

It was one of the reasons he loved his little sister more now than ever. She’d never gotten that look in her eyes, that pitying expression that his brain insisted on narrating with the words poor guy. No, Nat had refused to cut him any slack at all, in fact had pushed and prodded and poked at him from the moment he got out of the hospital, saying his job now wasn’t to figure out what he could still do, it was to figure out how to do everything he used to.

“That’s a nice smile.”

Amanda’s soft voice jolted him out of his thoughts as if she’d shouted. He was feeling better after two nights of decent sleep—thankfully uninterrupted by a return of Amanda’s attackers—but he hadn’t quite realized how unnerving staying here in her house would be. He thought again that it would be easier to deal with her anger. That at least, he understood. Now, he had no idea what she was thinking, only that he was sure it arose out of an emotion he had never, ever wanted from anyone, but most especially her.

“Just...thinking. About my sister.”

She smiled at him. “Natalie? How is she?”

“All grown up,” he said, rather wistfully.

“You don’t sound...entirely happy about that.”

He wasn’t sure he sounded entirely happy about anything anymore. But he said only, “I miss the little girl. But I wouldn’t trade the amazing woman she is now for anything.”