She looked relaxed while she sipped her coffee, but that was a loaded question. Connor treaded carefully. “That’s out of the blue.”

“Is it?” She tapped her sneakered feet against the step and cradled her mug. “You’re supposed to be here on vacation, which usually would mean relaxing. I haven’t seen you sit still since you got here.”

Her gaze wandered over him. He felt every move and every frown. Looking down, he didn’t see anything odd. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. Too light for the weather, but he’d been chopping wood for a half hour. Not exactly the desk work he was used to.

“A lot has happened.” That struck him as the truth. He’d been here about a week and it felt more like months.

“Including the part where you got roped into helping me.”

He leaned the ax against a stump and walked over to her. The conversation walloped him. He hadn’t seen it coming and struggled to answer. “Let’s be clear about one thing. If I didn’t want to be with you, I would leave.”

She looked down into her mug. “Right. Okay.”

“You don’t believe me.” What the hell was that about? They’d been all over each other the night before. There wasn’t an inch of her that he hadn’t touched and kissed. Seemed to him the time for an interrogation was before they climbed into bed.

“You’re a rescuer. I landed on your doorstep and . . .”

“What?” Every word she uttered ticked him off. The reaction was overblown and irrational but his temper ran away and he had trouble dragging it back under control.

“Sometimes you look at me like a bird with a broken wing.”

“That’s not true.” He didn’t see her like that at all. Mysterious and sometimes careless. Not as worried about her safety as she should be, but a survivor. The person who would rush into danger to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Not a bystander. Definitely not broken.

Her eyes narrowed as her head tipped slightly to one side. “Be honest. Is there a part of you that looks at me and sees your sister?”

Sweet hell. “You’re asking that after last night?”

“Don’t be weird. Not the sex. I mean . . .” She stared into the trees as if she were searching for the right words. “Is this really about a driving need to make sure I survive when she didn’t?”

The words sliced through him. “Wow.”

“Are you stalling while you think of an answer?”

“No.” He was trying to figure out what kind of asshole she thought he was. Pathetic, stumbling around. Not knowing what he really wanted.

What the fuck?

The more frustrated he became, the calmer she looked. She set her mug and tablet on the step beside her and folded her arms on her knees. “Have you let yourself grieve at all?”