Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3)

She looked at him again, this time not masking any of the vulnerability she knew he could read in her eyes. There was a time when she would have died rather than allow anyone to see her so weak and . . . fragile.

His face softened and his eyes warmed with the friendship she’d come to define their relationship by. The very thing she needed most but had never embraced. Until now. And in the lines of his face, a face that could in fact be quite hard, unyielding and even dangerous, she saw his acceptance of the only thing she could ever offer him.

She knew he’d accepted it long ago, but perhaps had never truly seen until now. Or wanted to see. Because she feared his giving up and her losing the one steadfast thing she now had apart from her art.

Her shoulders sagged imperceptibly, and she realized she’d been holding her breath, harboring the fear she’d vowed to no longer live with, because she’d been afraid of his rejection and of being alone. Again. As she’d been for so very long.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, easing the painting down with his free hand until its edge rested gently against the wall. He gathered her close, offering her the warmth and strength of his hug, something she’d come to cherish rather than dread for the physical contact she’d always avoided at all cost.

“You’re ready,” he said, as if having read her thoughts and answering his own question in the process. “I’m proud of you, Anna-Grace.”

“Don’t you dare make me cry,” she warned, already feeling the betraying sting of tears.

He gave her another affectionate squeeze and then relinquished his hold on her.

“So where do we place the guest of honor?” he asked, his gaze sweeping the gallery and the other paintings of hers that were artfully displayed to their full advantage. “I think center stage, don’t you? This means something, Anna-Grace. You mean something. And it—like you—needs to be celebrated.”

Okay, so he was going to make her cry. She wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand in disgust and glared accusingly at him. He merely smiled back, and she marveled at the feeling of closeness—a connection—to another person. So what if she wasn’t ready for a romantic relationship? Maybe she never would be. A woman didn’t need a man to be whole, and she was more than happy to prove it.

But a friend? Everyone needed a friend. And she realized, not for the first time, that part of the reason her grief, her piercing and gut-wrenching sense of betrayal over what Zack had done, was so sharp, unrelenting and . . . life changing . . . was that he hadn’t just been the man she had loved, had adored beyond reason, had planned to spend the rest of her life with, and have his children. The man who had shared her hopes and dreams and every secret she’d never dared expose to another living person.

He’d been her best—and only—friend. The one she turned to for comfort. Love. Acceptance. The very best part of her very being, her heart, her soul. He’d been her confidant. The one person she trusted never to let her down, as so many had in her young life.

And yet those past betrayals paled in comparison to Zack’s.

She shook her head, furious with herself for going back. Again. And she set her lips firmly, sending Wade a determined look he couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

Zack had been her entire world, and he’d turned it completely upside down, discarding her like the trash she’d been called by the people of their town. By his own father, for that matter. How could she have thought he would be different from anyone else in a place where she simply didn’t exist or matter?

But now her world was what she made it. And she had no liking for the world she’d previously lived in, one of her making. Only she could change it. Create it. Make it better—perfect even. And it was high time she got on with doing just that.

Impulsively, she slipped her fingers through Wade’s and squeezed his hand, startling him. She could understand why. She never initiated any sort of intimacy, even in the capacity of friendship. She had a carefully constructed protective barrier that surrounded her and she allowed no one to breach it, nor did she ever venture beyond it out of self-preservation.

But as she’d already acknowledged, everyone needed a friend. And losing one friend didn’t preclude the existence of another, as stupid as it was for the time it had taken her to have that particular epiphany.

Wade was safe. She was safe with him. And she wanted him to know she . . . trusted . . . him. She inhaled sharply at merely allowing the word trust to drift through her thoughts.

Because after Zack, and until Wade, she’d trusted no one. It was a lesson learned the hard way, and one that had been repeatedly taught, but it had taken the most devastating lesson of all to finally make her realize that giving her trust was akin to taking a knife and thrusting it through her own heart.