Storm Surge by Celia Ashley Page B

loud. Unless pathological, a decision to lie was usually based on the dynamics of an intimate, long-term interaction between two people. “You’re leaving something out. What?”
    He lowered his head against his hands until his palms ground into the hollows of his eye sockets. “I…I don’t want to.”
    “Please.”
    “It’s not a day I care to relive. Perhaps it would have been easier to tell you right away, when I still didn’t know you, rather than now.”
    Paige slipped from the bed and onto her knees. She circled his wrist with her fingers. He raised his head.
    “I lost two of my crew that day, and your father’s crippled ship went down beneath the waves with his own crew still inside. There was no saving them. And the fire—”
    “Fire?”
    He nodded, closing his eyes. The pain in his voice tore at her. She turned his hand until his fingers lay in hers.
    “Yes. The ship burst into flame before it went down. But the worst…the worst hadn’t happened yet. When I got home I found out I’d lost them. No one had radioed me. I guess I should be grateful for that, but somehow I’m not.”
    “Lost who?” He didn’t mean his crew, surely. He already would have known.
    “My wife. Our unborn daughter.” The cartilage in his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Placental abruption, it’s called. I should have been there with her. I couldn’t have stopped it, I know, but I should have been there. She must have been so damned scared.”
    Tears stood out along his lashes, dripping onto her hand as he bowed his head. Shock stilled her tongue. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to reveal this to her. Anything about that day had to have been terrible to recall. His hope she would discover her facts elsewhere and not force him to dredge up the past was a motivation she understood. Straightening, she took his hand, tugging him toward the bed.
    He pulled back. “Paige, I can’t.”
    “I’m not asking you to. What do you think I am? You shouldn’t be alone right now, so kick off those wet pants and get beneath the covers. I’ve slept well. It’ll soon be dawn. There are other things I can do beside crawl into that bed next to you, okay?”
    His lips twisted into a crooked smile. Disengaging his fingers from hers, he yanked his pants down past his ankles and handled them off to her. “Thank you,” he said, and shimmied beneath the covers. Trying not to gawk at the tight curve of his buttocks in damp boxers or the burn scars covering his long legs, Paige carried his jeans into the bathroom and positioned them over the shower curtain rod to dry.
    Taking a few minutes to gargle, put on deodorant, and otherwise ready herself for a very early start to her day, Paige thought about what he had told her. She’d had a right to her anger, but he possessed more rights to his secrets. Liam had risked his own life to save a man he did not know and then suffered the most horrific, unexpected loss. Paige hadn’t had a relationship with her father for many years prior to his demise, and her mother’s illness had been long, yet even so, she didn’t often barrel into conversations about the particulars with people she’d just met. She couldn’t blame Liam for his hesitation, either. He’d hoped she would find out what she needed to know elsewhere, keeping him from having to revisit that tragic time in his life. She would have to accept that.
    By the time she exited the bathroom, rosy light traced across the walls, shining through the windows. She clicked off the fixture above the stove and went back to the bed to peer down at Liam. Hair tousled in dark strands across her pillow, he’d already fallen asleep. She bent, careful not to bump the mattress, and pressed her mouth in a light kiss on his brow before grabbing her book from the nightstand. She then opened the door and sat on the threshold.
    Storm clouds had blown inland, leaving the sky above the ocean streaked with thin, high swirls of pink and gold and