Change of Heart (10 page)

Leah’s heart was racing, her breath coming in shallow pants, as if she had just run miles. Meeting Gage’s gaze, she could see his quiet composure, even in the face of her panic. She tried to do as he instructed.

“Good, now another.”

He inhaled slowly, deeply, but never moved any closer toward her. His voice was soothing, easing the tension building in her chest, suffocating her. He took several breaths with her, and she was relieved when her heart rate slowed and the fear began to subside.

“Better?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Emotion choked her. It had been years since she’d suffered from an anxiety attack, years since she’d felt the trauma of her childhood overtake her.

“Go, sit down. I’ll finish these.”

Leah wanted to argue, wanted to remind him it was her house and he couldn’t order her around, but she had no fight left. The panic attack had left her feeling weak and vulnerable. Her best option was to hide, unless she wanted to answer the questions she could see behind the empathy in his eyes.

G
AGE LOADED THE
dishwasher mechanically, listening for any sounds in the living room where he really wanted to be. Nothing but silence echoed through the house, and that worried him more than her fear. But as much as he knew she needed her privacy, it had taken every bit of his self-control not to try to reach for Leah when he’d seen the terror in her eyes. She hadn’t even seen him.

He knew that look. He’d seen it often enough in his brother’s eyes after returning from Afghanistan, when his PTSD had still controlled every facet his life. Leah had been in the middle of a flashback, and he’d done the only thing he could, the same thing that had helped his brother come out of his. He’d tried to talk her out of it, to make her focus on the present. But, Dylan hadn’t ever been afraid of him the way Leah had.

Even when her focus had returned, even when she remembered where she was and the reality of her current situation, her gaze still held a guarded wariness.

He wiped at the table one last time before tossing the towel onto the counter. He gripped the counter’s edge, fighting the urge to go into the living room to try to get her to open up to him, to convince her to tell him what had happened in her past. But he knew he couldn’t push her. He’d learned that from Dylan as well. When she was ready, if she was ever ready, she’d tell her story, but until then he had to give her security, a person she could be with who didn’t pressure her. She needed to know that, regardless of her past, she could trust him not to hurt her.

Dylan walked into the living room to find Leah on the couch with both kittens curled in her lap. Her eyes were closed as her hands moved slowly over Puma, stroking his fluffy body rhythmically, and he took the moment to watch her. She’d pulled her hair free from its usual low ponytail, and it hung in soft, caramel waves down the back of the couch. She inhaled slowly, deeply, trying to relax the tension he could still see etched in her brow.

As if sensing his presence, she frowned and turned in his direction. She stiffened and retreated further into the corner of the couch. Settling Puma on the arm of the sofa, she pulled her knees to her chest.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Gage could see the embarrassment etched on her brow. With anyone else, he would have moved closer to her, reached out and held her in an effort to let her know he understood, but her body language was warning him to keep his distance.

“Like what?” He took a step toward the couch and paused, waiting for her reaction.

“Like I’m some sort of freak who has no business being a therapist for anyone else when I can’t even keep my own shit together.”

“That’s not even remotely close to what I’m thinking,” he said softly. “Mind if I sit?”

“Why? I had an anxiety attack because I’m tired. It’s no big deal. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Gage wasn’t going to argue with her, but they both knew was a big deal. It was obvious to him that she’d responded to something he’d done, and he was afraid he was going to cause another one. “We won’t talk about it.”

She didn’t look convinced as he moved around the other end of the couch and sank into one of the leather cushions. It was the seat farthest from her, but he saw the trepidation flicker in her eyes again and wondered if this might even be too close for her comfort.

She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “You don’t have it in you to give up that easily, so what’s your plan?” she asked.

Gage stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. “I don’t usually, but I will if you want me to. No plan, Leah. I promise that I won’t bring it up again.”

Leah cocked her head to one side, her skepticism clear. “Why not?”

“You don’t want me to, so I won’t.” Gage rubbed his palms against his thighs. Seeing the haunted look in Leah’s eyes, the way she was still trying to hide in the corner of the couch, he prayed he wasn’t making a mistake. “I’m not heartless, Leah.”

“I didn’t think you were.” She looked down at the kitten bumping her hand with his head, searching for attention. “For the record, it wasn’t you.”

“No?” Lynx jumped down from the couch cushion beside Leah and began climbing Gage’s leg. “Son of a bitch this hurts. Did you teach them this?”

Leah responded the way he’d hoped she would, with a slight smile, and she uncurled herself slightly from the corner, dropping her knees to one side.

“No, but I’m thinking kittens can’t be too different from kids. If you don’t want her to do it, don’t pick her up and reward her actions by petting her.”

Gage plucked Lynx from his knee and lifted her in front of his face. “You hear that, little girl? Your mom says I’m spoiling you.” He tucked the kitten under his chin, against his chest and she began to purr loudly.

“You’re a nice man, Gage.”

His head snapped up. The compliment had come out of the blue. Until today she’d never said anything remotely benevolent, and he wondered what had prompted the sudden change. He knew he couldn’t ask her outright, but he didn’t want to ignore the praise either.

He shot her a playful grin. “I’ve been trying to tell you that, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

Her smile faded, and she quickly looked down at the sleeping kitten again, avoiding his gaze.

“Leah?”

She took a deep breath. “It hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“You have PTSD.”

She nodded slowly, keeping her focus on anything but his eyes. “How’d you know?”

“My brother.” Gage prayed Dylan wouldn’t fault him for telling her. “When he was in Afghanistan his entire unit was killed. He was the only one to survive. It messed him up pretty bad.”

“Roscoe’s his service dog.”

Gage nodded. “We tried for over a year to find something to help. Medication didn’t touch it. A therapy dog was his last hope.”

“He’s the reason you knew about the breathing technique.”

“I learned pretty early not to touch him when he was having a flashback, but if I could get his attention, get him to focus on my voice, I could use it to help force his mind back into the present. It didn’t always work, but it kept either of us from getting hurt.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was strained, frail, and vulnerable. When she raised her hand to pet the kitten, he could see it was unsteady.

“I didn’t mean to trigger it, Leah. If you tell me what I did, I’ll avoid doing it again.”

“It wasn’t you,” she repeated, but he could easily read the lie in her eyes.

He set Lynx onto the couch and moved to sit on the table across from her. “We’re friends, right? At least, as much as two strangers bound by kittens can be.” She gave him the faintest hint of a smile and nodded. “Friends don’t lie to one another, Leah.”

Gage curled his fingers around his knees to keep from reaching for her hand. He could see the war waging within her—to purge the poison that was festering or to continue to try to hide it. She ducked her head so that he couldn’t see her face, or read the emotion in her eyes.

“It’s not anything you
did
. It’s who you are,” she confessed.

Damn.

Her words hurt more than he thought they would. Gage knew she didn’t mean to hurt him, but it didn’t stop the way his chest constricted. Deep down he’d been hoping she’d say something else had triggered her flashback, but hearing her admit it was him made the weight of the past few weeks crowd around him again, dragging him back into the pit of guilt he was trying to crawl out of.

He’d hurt yet another person, without trying. Even on the Heart Fire Ranch, where he thought he’d hole up, away from the trouble he’d caused his partners and employees, he just found someone else’s life to ruin.

T
HROUGH HER LASHES
, Leah saw Gage flinch at her words. Her breath caught in her throat at the agony she could see in his eyes. It wasn’t fair to let him shoulder the blame that shouldn’t be his to bear. As much as she didn’t want to talk about her past, she wanted to hurt him less.

He pressed his hands against his knees and started to rise and she reached out a hand to still him. Now that she’d made the decision to tell him, she didn’t want him to go until he understood.

“Wait, don’t go.”

He stared down at her fingers around his wrist. “Leah, I don’t want to put you through this. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s just because you’re a man, Gage,” she whispered.

Leah wanted to be strong, to deny that her past could still hurt her, but she couldn’t stop the wavering in her voice, or the way her skin felt hot and raw, or the difficulty she was having just trying to remember how to breathe.

“I was eight the first time I saw her with her dealer. It was also the first time a man hit me. But I could handle that. That was something I could avoid by hiding. At least until the day it wasn’t her they came for. I was only ten the first time a man . . . hurt me. I’d already seen them with her for years, so I knew not to cry, but it didn’t stop them. Afterward, I wanted to die.”

Gage slid back down to the coffee table, as if his legs couldn’t hold him up. He didn’t say anything—not that she expected him to—and she could see the empathy in his eyes for the life she’d led. Her brain warned her to stop talking, but she didn’t really want to.

Now that she’d begun, she wanted to get it all out, to purge the poison festering in her. She was surprised at her voice. It wasn’t angry or strained or wavering any longer. Instead, it sounded disembodied, like it belonged to someone reciting a story, like it had happened to someone else.

“After that, I stayed away from the house as much as I could. But she always found me, and she needed the money . . . ”

“Leah,” Gage began. She could hear the emotion choking him, his voice thick. She realized she was no longer holding his wrist, but his hand was closed around hers, her palm gently cradled in his. “Who?”

She looked up at Gage, her gaze crashing into his. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, tears for the child she’d once been, for the nightmare she’d lived. This man who barely knew her, this stranger who had offered more of himself than anyone in her childhood, was going to cry for her lost innocence. He had no idea how much worse it got.

“My mother.”

Gage pinched his lips together and wiped the hand not holding hers over his eyes, rubbing at them roughly. “Fuck me.” He slid his hand over his jaw, covering his mouth.

Leah felt suddenly guilty for laying the burden of her past on Gage’s shoulders. She shouldn’t have told him, should’ve kept the secret hidden in the vault of her nightmares. But after the kindness he’d shown her, she’d owed him some explanation for the way she’d reacted to him. She couldn’t let him think he was to blame.

“It wasn’t you. I just . . . ” Sanity seemed to return in time for her to censor her admission. She couldn’t tell him it was her attraction to him that had triggered her anxiety attack. “I just haven’t been alone with men much since Nicole took me in as a foster kid.”

It’s not a lie. It just isn’t exactly the entire truth.

Leah took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly, waiting for Gage to say something—anything. His thumb brushed over the top of her hand, igniting a spark of affection in her that pooled in her chest, warming her. She was sure he had a million questions running through his mind, but to his credit, he didn’t ask any of them.

“I’m sorry.” Gage shook his head, still in shock at what she’d told him. “I had no idea, and I pushed you to go to town with me.” Self-recrimination settled on him, and he ran a hand over his head.

“Gage, you didn’t know. No one does.”

She reached for his other hand. It seemed oddly comforting for her to be reassuring him instead of the other way around. It helped for her to analyze the situation clinically, void of emotion, as if it happened to someone else. She also didn’t have to scrutinize how much she was still affected by her past. Or how her mother had betrayed her, the rage that fought to be released. But she’d battled all of those emotions, and more, when she’d let Nicole help her. She’d learned to keep them contained.

His gaze snapped up, his dark eyes worried.

“Gage, please, don’t tell anyone. People don’t want a therapist who has issues.”

“We all have issues, Leah.” He looked at his hand around hers then back to her eyes. She could tell he was searching for answers to the questions he was too afraid to ask. “It explains a lot.”

“You mean, why I’m a bitch?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Actually, you did. But don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. It’s not the first time I’ve ever been called a bitch, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

He studied her. “How are you just . . . okay with this?”

“I’m not
okay
with it. But it’s over, and I don’t want to rehash it.”

Leah sighed. She didn’t want to talk about the details any more than she already had. If she avoided the discussion, she could avoid reliving them. He didn’t need to know how many nights she’d gone to bed hungry or praying her mother might overdose so the nightmare could be over. He didn’t need to hear about how she’d been beaten at fourteen by a john who’d used her and refused to pay her mother afterward or about the favors she’d traded in high school just to be able to keep their electricity on. He didn’t really want to know about the foster parents who’d failed her, making her live in a closet while they collected their monthly checks until she was sent back to her mother and wished for the closet again.

No one needed to know those things. It was bad enough that she’d lived through them.

She turned her back on Gage and walked into the kitchen, the way she had turned her back on everyone who’d tried to get close. It was her protection. Keep her guard up and no one could touch her heart; then she wouldn’t get hurt. Except Nicole hadn’t allowed her to put up a wall. She’d forced her way through the barrier, and now Gage was gradually making his way through with his gentle kindness.

Leah wasn’t surprised when he didn’t follow her into the kitchen, nor was she surprised when she heard the front door close with a soft click. She couldn’t blame him. If she were someone like him, she’d run away from her, too. She was walking, talking baggage and issues.