Light the Lamp (16 page)

There was more he was holding back, something he wasn’t saying. I could see it in the tension in his shoulders.

The trail we’d been following was coming to an end, and the section of the park for older kids was up ahead of us—swings and slides and the like, all built for bigger bodies.

“
Want to swing?” he asked, sounding more lighthearted than he had only moments before. “I’ll push you.”

“
Okay.” I hadn’t gotten on a swing in years, probably not since I was twelve or thirteen years old. There was a part of me that didn’t want to do anything but what we had been doing because I knew he wasn’t done talking. He wasn’t done getting out all the guilt he’d been carrying around over Liv’s death, even though he wasn’t at fault.

But he led me to the swing set and got me situated, and after he’d pushed me from behind a few times, he started talking again.

“
I send money to her mom every month,” he said. “To help with her dad. Since I took Liv away from them.” Everything he said was choppier now because he waited until I came back close to him to speak.

It touched me that he was helping to take care of her parents, but it didn’t surprise me. That seemed like the kind of man he was—giving of himself, whether he was responsible for a person or situation or not. That was how he communicated his feelings for someone, it seemed—giving to them. Doing for them. Taking care of them. The thing he didn’t seem to see was that he hadn’t taken Liv away from them. She’d made a decision, and her decision had led to her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he’d wanted her to come live with him during his hockey seasons, but he hadn’t forced anything on her.

“
How long were you married?” I asked, and I immediately wished I hadn’t. He’d been telling me things without my interruptions perfectly fine. I should have let him continue at his own pace.

“
Seven years,” he said. “We’d been together since we were teenagers, though. It took a long time to convince her to marry me. Just like it took a long time to convince her to leave Sweden. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved until—”

I was glad that he stopped himself again, even though my pulse was frantic as my blood charged through my veins.

For several minutes, he pushed me in silence, allowing me to ruminate a little too long. He kept getting closer and closer to telling me something I wanted to hear, and yet something I didn’t think he was ready to mean. The idea of me staying for the whole four weeks, or staying at all longer than the initial week I’d agreed to, was enough to make me feel slightly sick to my stomach. No matter how much I wanted to stay beyond that, I wouldn’t be doing either one of us any good if I did.

“
Are you hungry?” he asked, breaking our silence. “I’m starving.”

“
Yeah, we should go do something about that.” I turned my head around to smile at him, and he stopped pushing the swing so I could get down.

When we left, he took me to Amani’s for lunch, and we talked about any number of things that had nothing to do with my childhood or his previous marriage. It was an easy conversation—not the sort of fluff that always drove me insane but also not the heavier things that tended to bring him down.

By the time we finished with all of that, it was only two in the afternoon.

“
Babs and the boys are still going to be at the apartment playing video games,” Liam said. “Probably until after dinner. We need to find something to fill at least several more hours.”

“
I don’t mind being around the guys,” I said. “I have brothers, you know.” He’d given up enough of his day to entertain me. I didn’t want to take up his whole day off, because the guys on the team didn’t get many. “We can just go back to the apartment, and I can find something to do.”

“
You might not mind, but I mind them being around you.” He didn’t elaborate on that. He didn’t need to because his eyes told me far more than his words did. I shivered under the heat of his gaze.

Yeah, it would be a heck of a lot easier to leave him in a few days if he would stop looking at me like that. Like he wanted me.

Because I was starting to want an awful lot more from him than he was ready to give.

 

I didn’t take
Noelle home until after eight that evening, and even then the only reason was because it started to rain on us. We’d spent almost the entire day outside—going to the Japanese Garden and the Columbia River Gorge, and we’d even found a quiet hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we could sit out on the patio to eat.

She seemed to be so at peace in nature, as if it was where she belonged. She didn’t even mind when it started raining and she got wet. She just laughed, twirling as the rain pelted her, drenching her clothes until they were plastered to her body.

I would have happily stayed out there with her, watching her play in the rain, if not for the fact that she started shivering almost immediately. She’d put on a little bit of weight since she’d been with me, but not enough. Nowhere near enough. I didn’t want her to get sick, so I’d insisted that we leave. I ran the heat in the car the whole way back to the apartment, but as wet as we’d gotten, it didn’t really do much.

Most of the guys were gone when we got back to the condo—all but Razor. He and Babs were on the couch and had turned on a movie. I didn’t recognize it, but there were lots of gunshots and explosions happening. I doubted that was the kind of movie Noelle would like. Violence didn’t fit with any part of her.

“
Hey,” Babs said when we came through the door. He turned the volume down on the TV. “Did you two have a good day?” His eyes got big when he saw us, and I knew it was because of how Noelle’s clothes were still clinging to every curve.

Razor turned his head, and he took her in, too, and I felt a sudden urge to punch him in the throat. Mainly because he was looking at her a little too appreciatively. I didn’t want anyone looking at her like that. No one but me.

“
We did,” she said. She was still shaking so hard that I didn’t want her to hang out here too long. I wanted her warmed up and in dry clothes and wrapped in a blanket, or maybe in my arms.

“
Until the rain started,” I said, putting myself between her and the two guys and nudging her toward her bedroom. “Speaking of which, why don’t you go take a bath or a shower and warm up?”

“
Okay.” Noelle smiled at me, and before I could guess what she would do next, she threw her arms around me and pulled me close for a hug. “Today was wonderful.”

It had been wonderful, but nothing that had happened all day long could come close to the sensation of having her body pressed against mine, every curve of hers settling in place next to my angles in a way that felt right. I could feel every bit of her through our clothes, from the hard nubs of her nipples practically cutting into my chest to the still-too-prominent ribs beneath my fingers as I held her. In no time, I was so hard it was painful.

She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed my chin like she’d done twice before, and it took all my self-restraint to keep from pushing her into her bedroom and shutting the door behind us, and then doing all sorts of things to warm her up myself.

Just as quickly as she came into my arms, she left them again, scurrying into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

“
She’s fucking hot,” Razor said.

I turned a glare on him, but before I could tell him to watch his fucking mouth and keep his eyes to himself, Babs punched him in the arm. “Shut up. And stop looking at her like that.”

“
What? She is hot.”

“
You can be a real ass, you know that?”

“
Whatever, Babs.”

I decided it wasn’t worth the energy trying to deal with Razor right now, especially not since Babs was already doing a much better job of it than I probably would have. Instead, I headed down the opposite hall and grabbed some dry clothes before going to take a shower myself. I wasn’t as cold as Noelle had been—especially not after having her body next to mine for those all-too-brief moments—but I would be before long if I didn’t do something about it now.

By the time I returned to the living room, Razor was gone, Babs had turned the TV off, and Noelle was sitting on the couch talking to him. She had on some pajamas I hadn’t seen her in before, a matching tank and shorts set that looked like it was made of some soft material, something that was far too sheer to hide anything from my imagination. Not that I needed much imagination after having held her so close to me.

Babs was studiously avoiding looking at her. That was just one of many reasons I liked him—and one of many reasons his friendship with Razor made no sense to me. They were complete opposites as far as I could tell. But then again, they had been road roommates for pretty much two full seasons now. Spending that much time together tended to turn you into either good friends or mortal enemies, and Babs didn’t seem like the type to ever make an enemy.

Noelle looked up at me when I came into the living room. She grinned and tucked her feet up beside her, crossing her arms over her chest. A shiver stole over her.

“
Cold?” I asked. I picked up a throw blanket that was folded over the back of the recliner and carried it to her before she could answer. She let me cover her with it. I took special care in tucking it in around her feet.

“
Thank you.”

I wanted to sit down next to her, but there wasn’t a lot of room for that with the way Babs was spread out. Then I thought briefly about picking her up and pulling her onto my lap—that would definitely help with warming her—but I’d just painstakingly covered her with that throw, and it would undo everything I’d just done if I picked her up. That would just be weird, anyway. Not to mention presumptuous. I’d held her when she’d cried, but that had been different.

I settled for taking the recliner.

“
Did Razor go home?” I asked Babs.

“
Yeah. Game tomorrow.” He stretched his arms up over his head. “He figured he should get out of here before we started up another game or movie or something.”

“
He didn’t leave because of me, did he?” Noelle asked.

“
No.” Babs gave me an odd look, though, and let his gaze flicker over to Noelle and then back to me. “He just left because of the game tomorrow. Doesn’t want to be out too late.”

Not only was Babs horrible in the kitchen, but he was quite possibly the world’s worst liar. I didn’t know what Razor had done or said about Noelle after I’d gone to take my shower, but apparently Babs hadn’t liked it and had told Razor to leave.

That was good. I really wouldn’t have handled it well if Razor had still been here, leering at Noelle in her pajamas. I probably would have done something I might have regretted later.

I just hoped Babs didn’t regret it, whatever he’d done. Those two were still good friends, after all.

“
Well,” Noelle said, turning herself so she was facing Babs on the sofa, “there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, anyway.”

“
There is?” He blushed and glanced at her for just a second before turning his eyes away again. “What do you need to talk to me about?”

“
Katie. Well, you and Katie. You took her to her prom?”

“
Yeah.” His voice cracked, and it was easy to see he was embarrassed as hell. I kind of felt sorry for him, but not really. Babs was as much of a goner where Katie Weber was concerned as I had been when it came to Liv when I’d been his age.

“
Because she lost her hair?”

“
No.”

Babs shot a look in my direction, like he was desperate for help. There wasn’t any help I could give him, though. He just needed to come out with it—and my money was on Noelle being able to pull anything out of him that she wanted to. She’d almost gotten me to talk about the baby, and I didn’t even think she’d been trying. But with Babs, she was definitely trying. He didn’t stand a chance.

“
Then why did you take her to her prom?”

“
Because she’s Katie.”

“
That’s what I thought.” Noelle leaned across the space between them and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek, and he turned as red as I’d ever seen him before. He was squirming as though he was trying to get away from her. “You’re a good man, Babs. Don’t ever forget that.”

“
Okay,” he said. He got up and took a few steps away. “Yeah. I’ve got to— I’ve gotta…go.” He took off down the hall before she could stop him. “Good night,” he called out just before he closed the door to his bedroom.

Noelle looked at me, one eyebrow raised in question. “I think I freaked him out. Should I apologize?”

I had to laugh—something she was always capable of making me do. “No. Not for that.”

“
Okay. If you’re sure.”

“
I’m sure.” Now that Babs had cleared off the sofa, I got up and moved so I could be next to her. “I’m sure of something else, too.”