Page 86 of Long Lost Winter

“I get it,” she choked out.“It’s…” She couldn’t manage to get the wordfineout.“You get to have needs.”

*

Nate stared ather.

You get to have needs.

A hell of a thing to say.Did sheknowshe cut him off at the knees, or was it all by accident?He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He just wanted space.Some alone time to rein in his temper and not take it out on her.Because damn if he didn’t want to take it out on someone, and he was getting too close to it when it came to this Bo conversation.

The kid was a coward.The end.Nate had seen it all over him this whole time.Maybe he’d hoped Bo would find some sense of strength within himself.Maybe he’d thought it was worth a shot that Bo might care about his biological parents.

But mostly he’d suggested it knowing there was a very real possibility Bo would fail.

What did that make him?

Sam was still standing so still he couldn’t even tell she was breathing.His hand was still gripping her chin.

Because he didn’twantto let go of her.

You get to have needs.

He didn’t remember ever thinking that was true.Ever even considering if he got to have needs.There’d always been someone’s needs that had been more important.Even when he’d been a kid, as great as Mom had been, as much as he’d loved her and hadn’t fully realized the nightmare going on in that house, Dad’s needs had been paramount.Everything had revolved around his moods.That wasn’t Mom’s fault, but she’d ensured it.To try to stem the tide of abuse, no doubt.

Then he’d been a homeless teenager.There’d been only the most basic needs, and those hadn’t always been met.In the army, he’d been trained that he had no needs.His only service was to the army.

Even lately, so much of being back in Marietta was about Dad, about solving the case, proving the case, this trial.

Everything except Sam was about something else.And she was standing there, hurting and terrified he was leaving her, telling him he got to have needs.

“I love you,” he said, not sure when he’d fully come to grips with that.

Probably when he’d let her see his leg.But he hadn’t said it.He’d only let that feeling sit there.

Afraid of his own needs.

She looked at him like a fully formed second head had just erupted from his neck.And that he’d spoken in a foreign language while that happened.

“I… I don’t understand,” she said.

He laughed, oh it wasn’tjoyful, but it was a laugh.“Fuck, Sam.What the hell is there to understand?”

“You just… I can’t…” She was shaking her head, those tears still shining in her eyes even if they didn’t fall over.“I thought…”

He waited for her to cycle through a few moreI’s, none of themI love you too.

“You don’t think I get your issues?Why they’re there?”he demanded when she couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought.“You’re looking at me like I shot you.I’m not bailing, Sam.I just need some space.It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or don’t want to.How many ways do I have to prove it to you?”

“You don’t,” she whispered.

“Then why do we keep winding up right here?You ready for me to walk out that door and not come back?”

“Sorry, you being great hasn’t cured me of my legion of issues quite yet.”

He laughed.He had no idea why, or how, but it just… erupted out of him.What a fuckingmessthis all was, and somehow, she was the one perfect thing in the middle of it.

“Why are you laughing?”she demanded.