Page 15 of My Starry Valentine

“Not you. Just everything about this situation. Your age. Your gender. You touching me. You being in my cabin. You looking at me the way you’re looking at me now.”

“No offense, but that answer was pretty much all you, you, you…”

“I’m trying,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you with my presence.”

“It’s not that.” He shakes his head, and his eyes find mine, his face unreadable. “I don’t know that ‘upset’ is the right word, and your presence is good. I really like it. More than I care to admit, honestly. Butthisis all very unexpected.”

“For me, too,” I say with a bittersweet smile. Only I would find a gorgeous cowboy-mountain-man rescuer with wounds so deep and shields so high a hand in his hair is too much.

My mind spins the dialogue to come with Naomi, where I describe the culmination of my sad love life with an impossibly romantic rescue by a guy I could easily fall for.Ifhe could ever get over the rough hand fate dealt him…

Chapter Nine

LUNA

“We need a change of subject. Tell me about your day, Luna. I want to know everything. Well, at least everything you feel like telling me.”

“You know the basic gist of what happened. It was just a lot. Seeing Naomi in pain. Seeing how bad her injuries were. Waiting for the search and rescue guys to get there. Feeling so helpless…”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and nods. “There’s nothing worse than seeing someone you care about injured and hurting.” His voice sounds raw, haunted by the statement. I know from my grandfather’s experiences what bothers him the most about his time in Vietnam are the injured comrades he couldn’t help or save.

“Did you see that often?” I ask quietly.

He nods, taking a deep breath. “Once is more than enough. But in Afghanistan, there were a few incidents that come back to me in vivid flashbacks. You should know that I’ve still got pretty bad PTSD. It can wake me up at night screaming. I hope that won’t happen with you here, but just in case you hear anything weird, don’t worry about it.” Despite the even tone of his voice, I notice a slight tremor in his hand as he runs it through his hair again. My eyes tick towards his ruffled waves, and he sighs,resigned. “You can smooth it out if it bothers you. Looking at this pizza, it’s pretty obvious you like things a certain way.”

“Thank you.” I lean up towards him, caressing the hair along the back of his head down to his shoulders, our faces coming the closest they’ve been since the car ride. “You know, I don’t mean to be rude, but you could really use a haircut.” My fingers linger in his wild mane, assessing his unkempt locks. I hold my breath, marveling at the fact that despite my scrutiny, he doesn’t pull away this time. I imagine this is what it must feel like to pet a wild lion.

“Oh, yeah? A haircut? And let me guess. You’re the hairdresser for the job?” He arches his eyebrow, his baby blues searing into me.

“I’m really good.”

“I don’t know,” he says morosely, hanging his head, even though my fingers still linger at the back of his muscular neck.

Clearing my throat, I add, “I wasn’t going to tell you this because it doesn’t really matter. But maybe, under the circumstances, it will help. I sometimes volunteer with the VFW to provide free haircuts to wounded warriors. So, nothing about you or your scars will surprise me.”

His face tightens, and silence fills the room for a long stretch, punctuated solely by the violent sounds of the blizzard outside. “I couldn’t let you do that. I mean, you’re my guest.”

“No offense. But do you have many hairdressers lining up to tame your tresses?”

“Tame my tresses?” He chuckles, his voice softening. “Has anybody ever told you that you have a way with words?”

I stare up to the right in thought. “I’m a hairdresser by weekday and a wildlife watercolorist by weekend. So, no.”

“Well, let me be the first…along with pointing out you’re pretty much as geeky as me.”

“Maybe more so. Which qualifies me to point out that…” My fingertips run back and forth through his silky, mahogany locks for emphasis. “Even geeks need haircuts.”

“You have a point,” he says quietly, turning his beautiful eyes towards me. “I was just hoping to spare you this,” he says, motioning towards his left side. “Not drastically alter the way you feel about me. Not that I know how you feel about me, but you get what I mean…”

My right hand comes up to the hair veiling his left side. “May I?” I ask.

His jaw hardens so that I can hear the teeth grinding in his mouth. To my surprise, however, he nods.

Tentatively, I sweep the hair back from his face, staring long and hard at his wounded side. The skin is angry and red, pulled oddly in places and thick and puckered in others. While his nose and lips remain almost untouched, he’s missing his left ear save for a small mound of flesh, and his beard ends, except for patchy spots, where the scar tissue begins. The scars run in angry ridges and lumps down his neck, disappearing into his black T-shirt.

“The bathroom’s down the hallway if you think you’re going to be sick,” he says in a caustic voice. His eyes flicker towards the tears running down my cheeks. “No, Luna,” he scolds quietly. “Please don’t cry because of me.”

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