Snowbound - Harlequin.com

220 SNOWBOUND
Knowing she should remember, Fiona still had to
ask, “What’s her name?”
“Liz. Short for Elizabeth. My parents believed in the
basics where names were concerned. The old ones were
still the good ones.”
Fiona laughed. “You sound fondest of Liz.”
“We’re the closest in age—only eighteen months
between us. And maybe the most alike.”
He talked comfortably about her in particular, telling
stories about growing up in a working-class neighborhood
in Portland.
“Since you got back?” she asked.
Again, he was quiet for a minute before asking. “They
were shocked. They try to be supportive. But, except for
Liz, they don’t understand damage they can’t see.”
Fiona was lying on his “good” side, so she couldn’t
see the scar on his face from here. He always rolled in
such a way that she ended up on this side, and she
assumed that was because of the pain in his hip. The
surgical scar there was horrific, the mass of far-less tidy
scar tissue on his thigh even more so. She thought it was
astonishing that he could walk, let alone do the hard
physical labor he often did.
“They think you should be able to put it behind
you?” she said softly.
“They and everyone else.” For a moment his voice was
harsh with repressed anger, or even violence. As quickly,
he buried it deep, tugging her higher. “Hey. Kiss me.”
So she did, and ended up learning nothing more.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. What she learned was
that he was very, very good at not telling her anything