Heart pounding, I forced myself back into my seat, watching him as I tucked my hair behind an ear. I wasn’t sure I cared if he had his caps on or not. “Sorry,” I said breathlessly, blood still pounding through me. “I didn’t mean to go that far.” But you just sort of pull it out of me.

“Don’t be sorry. You’re not the one who’s been neglecting—things.” Blowing his breath out, Kisten tried to hide his heady look of want. Under the rougher emotions was a soft look of grateful understanding and relief. I had accepted his ugly past, knowing his future might not be any better.

Saying nothing, he put the car in first and accelerated. I held the door until we slid back onto the road, glad nothing had changed though everything was different.

“Why are you so good to me?” he said softly as we picked up speed and passed a car.

Because I think I could love you? I thought, but I couldn’t say it yet.

Thirty

My head came up at the faint sound of knocking. Giving me a warning look, Ivy stood, stretching for the kitchen’s ceiling. “I’ll get it,” she said. “It’s probably more flowers.”

I took a bite of cinnamon toast and muttered around my full mouth, “If it’s food, bring it back, will you?”

Sighing, Ivy walked out, both sexy and casual in her black exercise tights and a thigh-length baggy sweater. The radio was on in the living room, and I had mixed feelings about the announcer talking about the tragedy of the boat explosion early last night. They even had a clip of Trent telling everyone I had died saving his life.

This was really odd, I thought as I wiped butter from my fingers. Things had been showing up on our doorstep. It was nice to know I would be missed, and I hadn’t known I had touched so many lives. It wasn’t going to be pretty when I came out of the closet as being alive, though—kind of like standing someone up at the altar and having to give all the presents back. ’Course, if I died tonight, I’d go to my grave knowing just who my friends were. I kinda felt like Huck Finn.

“Yeah?” Ivy’s wary voice came back through the church.

“I’m David. David Hue,” came a familiar voice, and swallowing the last bite of toast, I ambled up to the front of the church. I was starving, and I wondered if Ivy was slipping Brimstone into my coffee to try to build my body’s reserves after that dunk in the river.

“Who is she?” Ivy asked belligerently as I entered the sanctuary and found them on the landing, the lowering sun coming in past their feet.

“I’m his secretary,” a tidy woman at David’s side said, smiling. “Can we come in?”