Burn So Good

2. Ella

Chapter Two

Ella

Waiting in the cold room, I hugged my arms around my waist, trying to will the chill away. I was tired, so very tired. I was also cold and damp. My emotions were pressing against my skin. I wanted to hold them in, but I was all out of strength. I felt ragged and raw. Of all the things to happen today, I had a stupid car accident. I was so close to home, so anxious to get there, I hadn’t been paying attention to how fast I was going. I took that corner on the highway and skidded out of control on the slick surface of the road, my car tumbling into the ditch.

And who showed up to rescue me? Caleb Fox. The one and only man I’d never forgotten. What were the chances? To say our history was messy didn’t quite capture it. Today was the second time in my life Caleb had pulled me out of a wrecked car. The last time, the car had been on fire, and I’d almost died. Yet, I’d been lucky. Caleb’s best friend had died in that same accident.

I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. Spinning around, I grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter running along the wall. This room felt so oddly familiar, probably because I’d spent three weeks in the hospital after that last accident. Hospitals had a weird, cold, sterile feeling to them. It was strangely comforting to me.

My stitches were done, and I was ready to go, but they told me to wait until the nurse returned to clear me for discharge. With the tissue balled in my hand, I let myself cry for a few minutes. I was all alone, literally and figuratively.

Leaning my hips against the table, I sobbed. I was running home, and I’d been so desperate to get here, I’d completely forgotten to consider that Caleb might be around. Sobs wracked my shoulders, and my head ached from whatever I’d banged into when my car rolled into the ditch.

Get it together, Ella. It’s no biggie. You and Caleb have a past, but that’s all it is. You can face him. After what you’ve been through lately, you can handle this.

On the heels of a shuddering breath, I wiped my tears away and tossed the tissue in the wastebasket by the door.

There was a soft knock on the door. Assuming it was the nurse coming to tell me I could finally leave, I called out, “Come in.”

Instead of the nurse, Caleb stepped through the door. The moment I laid eyes on him, my pulse lunged. Somehow, I’d forgotten how ridiculously handsome he was. He had straight brown hair that he kept cropped close to his head with chocolate brown eyes. My eyes coasted over him, absorbing the sight of his familiar face with its clean lines—a strong, square jaw, full lips, cheekbones that looked sculpted from stone, and a blade of a nose. As if his face wasn’t enough, he had a body of pure muscle. In his faded jeans and damp T-shirt, not much was hidden. The fabric caressed him the way my hands itched to do so.

“Hey, just stopped by to check on you,” he said, his voice like honeyed whiskey.

Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, but I swallowed, forcing the emotion away. I would not fall apart in front of him.

“Hey,” I croaked.

The room wasn’t very big, so when he took a few steps, he was right in front of me. Oh geez. I could smell him—that crisp scent of spruce he seemed to carry with him. I took a deep breath, by force of will keeping my eyes on him.

“How do you feel?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Tightening my arms around my waist, I shrugged. “Fine. They stitched me up and said I’d be cleared to go soon. I’m just waiting, but it’s taking forever.”

He nodded, his eyes scanning me. This was so weird. The last time Caleb came to see me in the hospital, we’d broken up.

We stood in silence for a beat. Again, I was only alerted to my tears when I felt them on my cheeks. Then, Caleb was right there, wrapping me in his arms. This time, I cried like I hadn’t cried in years. Burying my face in his chest, I threw my arms around his waist and hung on. This was about so much more than my stupid roll into a ditch. It was years of missing him and wishing I could fix everything I’d messed up before. It was all of that and the fact I finally felt safe for the first time in what felt like way too long.

He simply held me, one hand tangled in my damp hair and the other circling on my back. He murmured soothing sounds and didn’t stop to ask what was wrong or anything. Thank God because I didn’t think I could handle that. Not just yet.

After I didn’t know how long, I slowly pulled my face away from his chest and looked up. “I got your shirt wet,” I mumbled.

Caleb glanced down at me, the corner of his mouth curling up and sending my belly into a few somersaults. “Pretty sure it was already wet.”

We stared at each other, my mind a collision of thoughts and muddled emotions. I’d missed Caleb so damn much for so damn long, I ached to be close to him. Yet, I’d told myself for years I didn’t deserve him, and I could hardly contemplate the fact he was here. After a beat, his gaze sobered. “You okay?”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t seem to speak.

His eyes widened in alarm. “Let me go get the nurse.”

He started to pull away, but I tightened my arms on his waist, shaking my head again. “It’s not that. It’s just been a shitty day...”

I forced myself to stop talking. I didn’t need Caleb, of all people, to know how much I’d stumbled in life. I’d already sent his life careening sideways once before.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes searing into me. “If you need anything, you know all you have to do is ask.”

I almost burst into tears again. Because that was so Caleb—he was just a solid guy with a heart of gold and I’d f****d it all up. Everything about him and who he was felt so much bigger in this moment. I’d come running home because I was finally trying to face the mess I’d left behind. A big part of that mess was Caleb and wanting to make things right. Maybe if he could forgive me, I could forgive myself.

“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. I’m just so glad you’re here,” I said. I meant it so sincerely, it made my heart hurt.

He loosened his hand in my hair and brushed a few locks away from my forehead, checking the bandage there. The cut was right along my hairline, so I was hoping the scar wouldn’t be too bad.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, his tone so careful I almost cried all over again.

I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. It was too embarrassing.

We stared at each other again. Oh God. It felt so good to be close to him. For the first time in years, I felt like I could relax. I wanted to wrap myself in Caleb and stay there forever.

My next words startled me. “I miss you.” The moment those words escaped, I wanted to grab them and stuff them back inside. I didn’t need to blurt out all kinds of crazy, emotional stuff. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

Caleb stared at me, the hand circling on my back finally pausing. He swallowed, the sound audible in the room. My awareness of him was so heightened, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he nearly growled.

Emotion was rushing through me, mingling with desire that should’ve seemed out of place given everything that had happened, but it didn’t. Wanting Caleb came as easily as breathing to me. It always had. I’d forgotten how powerful the draw was. Raw joy rose through the scrum of tattered regret and lingering pain, striking against that desire like flint to stone.

This was me, this was Caleb. Us. There had never been anyone but him in my heart, and my body knew it. He strummed every chord of my being simply by existing in space and time near me.

With a muttered imprecation, he dipped his head, kissing one corner of my mouth and then the other. Oh geez. I was a sucker for corner kisses, at least when it came to him. Two more kisses dusted at the corners of my mouth and then I sighed. His tongue swiped along the seam of my lips, and I let go with a low moan.

I held onto him as if he was a life raft in the middle of the ocean, burrowing into him as our tongues tangled. My heart was beating so fast, I could barely breathe. A pager call came over the hospital speakers, and he drew back slowly, his forehead falling to mine.

We stood like that, our breath coming in heaves. Placing my palm on his chest, I felt his heartbeat racing madly just like mine.