The thought helped him keep the frustration out of his voice. He hoped. “I’m going, but first, how about you take your robe off the hook on the closet there, put it on? You’re cold, and I don’t want you to be cold.”

  After a long second, she rose stiffly. She had her back to him when she let the bra slide off her shoulders and plucked the pink plush robe off the hook. It had hearts embroidered on it. Marcus and Thomas had given it to her for Valentine’s Day.

  When she wrapped herself in it, she sank back down on the bed. Back still to him, her arms wrapped over herself. She was rocking.

  He clutched his push rims in tense fists. “You can call me if you need me, okay? Tell me you’re hearing me, Daralyn.”

  He didn’t know if it was for her benefit or his, which only increased his frustration, but she did respond.

  “Yes. I hear you.” Her voice was strained, like she was trying to be heard over a storm wind. She repeated herself. “I’ll see you at the store tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Uncertain, he took his time making his way to the front door. Closing it behind him was like slamming his heart in a car door. Her bedroom only had one window, and it faced the back field. Not great terrain for him to get his chair back there. Otherwise, he would have camped out, made sure she was all right, even if that made him a peeping Tom.

  Everything told him he needed to be in there with her, even as he knew he also had to send her the message that things could go bad between them and still be okay. She had the room to make choices.

  But what the hell had happened?

  Elaine had already gone to bed, which was good. Rory wasn’t in the mood to talk. He stared blankly at the TV screen for a while, then prepared for bed. When he was still studying the walls at 2 am, he pulled himself into his chair, and went into the kitchen.

  Mom had left apple pie out, draped with cellophane. He cut himself a small piece of the dessert and heated it. While he had to be careful about his fats and things that could mess up his digestive system, the day he had to pass up his mom’s pie for good, life might not be worth living anymore.

  Before his accident, like anyone else, he’d only seen the mobility issue when it came to people in wheelchairs. Being in the chair required a much more aware and intimate relationship with his health, his bodily functions, his diet. Circulation, heart issues, skin checks, bowel programs, catheters…things that didn’t come up too often in movies about people in wheelchairs.

  Even the mobility stuff only hit the surface. He’d had to learn to do so many things differently in a world structured around people being able to stand and walk. Doors, stairs, countertops. Dropping your keys on the floor, getting up and down, in and out. Traveling, driving. Opening the door for a woman.

  Most people didn’t think twice about attending their sister’s high school graduation dinner on the twentieth floor of a building with a fancy rooftop restaurant. They didn’t think about how, if there was a fire alarm and the elevators were shut down, someone would have to help them get down all those stairs, likely risking their own lives with the delay.

  Before his accident, he’d have seen himself as the guy who helped that hapless loser get out. Disabled people were called heroes when they participated in a marathon. Jumped out of an airplane. As if striving to be what you wished you could be–the norm, physically–for just a moment more, was heroic. Inspiration porn.

  We don’t see ourselves like that. We’re just people like anyone else.

  But they didn’t get to be the people who ran into a fire and pulled out the unconscious kid. Or picked up a gun to fight for their country.

  Fuck, who was he kidding with this rambling? He was circling around what he was really thinking about. He kept seeing how defeated she’d looked when he left her. He wouldn’t have left an animal in the woods in that kind of shape.

  He’d read some of the books Marcus had given him. A bunch of stuff in it had turned him on, but it had seesawed with a sinking feeling of doubt. How could a sub feel safe and protected, trust that he had her, when he couldn’t even pick her up, carry her into a bedroom, lay her down, him on top of her…

  Stupid, yeah, but that was something he’d dreamed about doing with Daralyn. Stretching out upon her, making love to her that way. He just knew it would make her feel safe and loved, being surrounded that way. He ached when he thought of it.

  What had happened in her kitchen had felt like such a natural step in their relationship, so sweet and good. But in a heartbeat, he’d stepped hip deep into a swamp he hadn’t seen coming, when he should have, right? He’d checked in on her mood, her body language, all the way there. And yet it had been good…until it had gone bad.

  There was so much shit he didn’t know when it came to her. How in the hell was he going to figure it out, avoid hurting her like this?

  He hadn’t been big on therapy for himself, until he’d discovered that not only had his body needed re-training, his mind had as well, to cope with the huge change his damaged spinal cord had brought to his life.

  Daralyn had been under the care of a psychiatrist for five years, and he wondered if this would be the upcoming topic. Or did she talk about any of it? His own counselor had told him, “We’re not mind readers, Rory. We can deduce a lot from our studies of people in similar situations, but there will be things unique to who you are, how you’re experiencing your loss of mobility. In order for me to help you with that, you have to talk to me.”

  Daralyn had gone on a mile a minute with him about the Magna Carta tonight, but when it became about something difficult, she went mute. He’d graduated a C-student, and he hadn’t attended college. He was good at math, anything with numbers, but he’d read books only when required for school. Even then, his dad had to threaten his younger son’s life to keep him from taking advantage of the Cliff notes his friends snuck around and bought. Sports, fishing, hunting, tinkering with engines or hanging out with his friends; all of those things had rated higher in Rory’s priorities than books.

  Yet, as his interest in Daralyn had evolved into a man’s desire, he turned to book learning. Psychology stuff. While his intent had been to learn more about trauma victims, he’d been surprised to discover things about himself, his family, the way they related to one another, healthy versus unhealthy behaviors. Apparently, what was just day-to-day for the rest of them was a complete science.

  It was fascinating, though he could see how people could get too carried away with it and not rely on their most important tool for figuring things out about one another. The way he’d learned most things.

  Common sense. Paying attention.

  While he was eaten up with guilt about what had happened in her bedroom, something penetrated his self-flagellation and told him to look closer.

  On the surface, it seemed like she’d been afraid of him touching her too sexually, between her legs specifically. Anyone with a brain would expect that reaction from a woman with a history of childhood trauma and abuse. But he kept going over it in his head, and something was off about it.

  His fists closed on the table on either side of the untouched pie. “Damn it,” he muttered.

  He swung away from the kitchen table and went out to the porch. His intent had been to give himself another view, some fresh air, but across the darkened fields, he saw a light on in Marcus and Thomas’s barn loft. Thomas was having one of his middle of the night creative inspirations. Which meant Marcus would be in his downstairs office, even if he was just asleep on the couch. The two of them didn’t spend much time apart if they didn’t have to do so.

  Returning to the kitchen, Rory drew his phone out of his T-shirt pocket. Spun it on the table a couple times, then he typed in a text.

  You up?

  A minute later, the phone buzzed a short note.

  Need something?

  He thought about it. Yeah, he did. But to honor the guy code, he responded a different way first.

  Just confirming your vampire hours. If you’re done sucking blood out of your latest vic, do you have a few minutes?

  It wasn’t blood that got sucked, but yeah, I have time.

  He was off his game. He’d walked right into that one.

  Now traumatized. Thanks, asshat. Can I call?

  The phone started vibrating, and Rory picked up.

  “What’s up?” Marcus asked without any preliminaries. His voice sounded a little thick, confirming he’d been asleep. Guilt stabbed Rory, but remembering the anguish in Daralyn’s face, he pressed on. He’d be with her at the store in a few hours. He had to figure this out.

  “Did you, uh, see her any tonight?”

  “Not really. We were on the porch around her usual bedtime. She pulled some laundry off the line behind her house and waved at us. Then she scurried back into her cottage like a mouse expecting a cat to pounce on her.” Marcus paused. “Is she okay? Do I need to go check on her?”

  “Is her light off?” He couldn’t see the guest cottage clearly from the porch.

  “It went off around eleven. Something happen after you two got back?”

  “Yeah. Something went kind of wrong, and I’m trying to wrap my head around it.” It welled up, the frustration, the anger. “Damn it, Marcus, she’s got so much shit going on. Instead of having ten panic attacks a day, she has one or two a week now. That’s how we measure her progress.”

  “That is progress,” Marcus said. “And it’s way more than that. She barely talked those first couple of years. Now she’s pretty comfortable talking to family. She handles store customers on her own. In a reserved way, but still friendly.”

  “I know,” he snapped. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  Marcus had every right to get impatient with him, because he wasn’t making any sense. Rory braced himself for a deserved dose of New York sarcasm.

  “Rory,” Marcus said quietly. “What’s the issue?”

  “I’m the first relationship she’s had. That should be enough. Why am I trying to pile the Dom thing on top of it?”

  “Because you are a Dom. And she’s undeniably a sub. Maybe your gut knows she’ll handle a Dom/sub relationship better than a vanilla one. That’s why you keep gravitating that way.”

  “Or maybe it will set her back five years because the dickhead who wants her doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.” He took a breath. “It may be too soon. I think I should back off. Just be her friend. Leave the rest out of it.”

  Less chance of fucking up that way. Fucking her up worse. It scraped him raw inside, thinking of not kissing her sweet mouth again. Closing his hands over her soft flesh. Seeing his touch make her eyes get confused with arousal. Instead of a single knife in the heart, all those thoughts together were like being thrown up against a wall of blades.

  “I can help her go to school, get stronger.” He closed his eyes, his fist on the table back in a clench, but he forced out the words, no matter that his voice was as harsh as a winter wind. “She might be better with someone else.”

  A long pause. “Yeah,” Marcus said. “You may be right. There are plenty of guys at the community college. Smart, getting degrees. They’ll be able to relate to her better. And they can take her dancing.”

  “I can take her dancing.” Rory stared into space. “Prick.”

  “Chickenshit.” But Marcus said it without any heat. “You remember when your mom decided Thomas and Daralyn would be the perfect match?”

  “Yeah. Mom thought she was saving Thomas’s soul from the devil. Who, coincidentally, looked a lot like you.”

  “I think she’s come around on that.”

  “She’s accepted Thomas is gay. Not so sure she’s changed her mind about you being the devil.”

  Snark aside, Rory remembered when his mother had pushed Thomas and Daralyn together. Thomas had been the first man Daralyn had felt comfortable around, though that hadn’t been a surprise to anyone. Thomas had a calm core to him that could settle the most aggressive of beasts. Like Marcus. Or win the trust of the most shy. Like Daralyn.

  In no time, his mother had practically had Thomas and Daralyn engaged, at least in her mind. She’d wanted to deny Thomas was gay, head it off before it reached the point of no return. She’d come a long way since then, seeing past the religious doctrine she’d followed all her life to what God really was. That was the way she’d put it.

  Marcus had decided to ignore his devil comment. “Thomas wasn’t your mother’s only issue,” he continued. “Daralyn didn’t see Thomas as a threat.”

  “And I am?”

  “You know that's not what I mean. There are two types of male threat to a woman. One is the bad kind. The other is the kind that gets her flustered, aroused. I suspect your mother worried Daralyn would never be able to handle a relationship with normal sexual expectations. But Thomas told me that every time Elaine pushed him and Daralyn together around you, you acted like an asshole. More than usual. Why was that?”

  Truth? She’d made an impression on him from the first time she’d stayed with them. When she was sent away for the short period before the courts got a clue and awarded permanent guardianship to his parents, he’d felt her absence. A lot. Which should have told him something, because he and Emily had been a hot item back then.

  He wouldn’t brush Marcus off with more bullshit when he was trying to help. “One night, she and Les were watching this movie in Les’s room. Chick flick, one of those Nicholas Sparks things. The one with Scott Eastwood.”

  “Great ass. He’s a looker, just like his dad was at that age.”

  “Gross. Anyhow,” Rory said with emphasis, over Marcus’s chuckle, “My room was at an angle from theirs, and I could see Daralyn. During those gushy love scenes, she’d touch her lips, and get this look on her face. It said to me she wanted something like that, no matter what her fucked-up family had done to her. And I thought, damn it all, why should Mom or anyone else think it’s okay to make her settle for something less? And now…”

  He shook his head. “I feel it even stronger. She should be loved the way a woman wants to be loved. Not have to run from it all her life. The fuckers who did this to her shouldn’t get to take that from her.”

  Marcus was quiet a moment. "Rory, you’ve just defined what true love is. When you love someone, you won't let them settle for less than what they truly want. You encourage them to embrace who they are, no matter how scary that can be. The most important thing to you is her, what she feels and what she wants. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That kind of love allows room for mistakes.” Humor entered his voice. “A man making mistakes around a woman is inevitable. You know that, because common sense isn’t your problem. Patience is. Your temper is. Believing in yourself.”

  Rory tapped his wheel, thinking. “No offense, but you love her, too. How do I know your advice isn’t based on the same wishful thinking as my attempts to make this work with her?”

  In the ensuing silence, Rory could hear a faint drone. Probably a space heater running, warding off the autumn chill in the barn office.

  “There came a time I had a crisis of faith,” Marcus said. “I thought I might not be what Thomas needed. I told myself I should give up, let him have his life down here, with all of you. Me not be a part of it. Later I realized the biggest part of that didn’t have a damn thing to do with what Thomas did or didn’t need. It had to do with my belief in myself. Whether I could hold up my end of the relationship, be what he needed. It was about my fear of failing him. Not loving him the way he deserved.”

  Another pause. “So don’t fucking make this about protecting her when it’s not.”

  Marcus had never spoken so frankly to him, or with such rough emotion in his voice it lingered like a full-on kick in the balls. Remembering the time Marcus meant only increased the impact.

  Rory’s father had died, and his tractor accident had happened soon after. Both events were the double whammy that brought Thomas home. For a time he’d settled into running the store, pretending his time in New York as a struggling artist had never existed. While the specter of Marcus had been a dark blip on his mother’s Catholic radar, Rory had had his head up his own ass, wrestling with anger and self-pity, adding weight to the Thomas guilt-train.

  Only Les had seen what was so obvious, that everything that fueled their brother’s soul was dying right in front of their eyes. Yet it had all been such a clusterfuck, Rory could see how Marcus might have doubted himself, whether he was the best thing for Thomas.

  Now Thomas was finally living the life he’d wanted to live. One that included his family and his art, with his love for Marcus at the center of it. He was healthy and strong, just all around better for having Marcus in his life.

  He should say that straight out, but he and Marcus had rules in their mutual give-each-other-shit society. Marcus had just bent them all out of shape to give Rory what he needed tonight. Better not to take it any further, or they’d end up on some touchy-feely talk show.

  Fortunately, Marcus had resumed in his normal clipped, no-bullshit tone. “If you back off, then you’re doing what your mom was doing, denying Daralyn all the choices she could have.”

  Rory could see that. He still had to voice his deepest concern. “I get all that. But what if I’m in the way, blocking her view to those other choices?”

  “You’re in a wheelchair. She’s standing. You’re not blocking the view to anything.”

  “Man, you are such a dick.”

  “Thank you. I put serious effort into it.” Marcus chuckled, then sobered. “Rory, you’re right. I may not know shit, either, but I’ll tell you what my gut says, and I’m betting yours does, too. A Dom usually has a certain amount of arrogance in his arsenal. Same thing that drives a surgeon, a pilot, or anyone who has someone else’s well-being resting in their hands during a key moment. You have every right to take your shot with her. You have every right to be at the front of the line.”

  He liked hearing that, but… “This isn’t just about me.”

  “No, but instead of thinking of you and her in separate boxes, on separate paths, think about both of you, together. When you’re around one another, there’s a thread there. One that’s grown into a damn rope. We all see it, including you. When you came over here and I asked if you loved her, you gave me a pretty over the top answer, but I didn’t doubt you meant it as you said it.”