Page 25 of Colton in the Wild
“Oh. Her.”
Hetty couldn’t deny the fact that his apparent inability to remember the woman’s name had made her feel oddly better.
“She’d be crushed,” she said, trying to make her tone light and teasing. “She thought you were entranced with her.”
She was able to see him shrug then. “It’s an act. It’s always an act.”
He’d never actually admitted that before and she felt further mollified by his admission. And before she thought—she seemed to be having trouble with that at the moment—she asked, “Why?”
“Protection.”
She heard him suck in a sharp breath, and thought she heard a muttered oath, low and harsh. As if he hadn’t meant to let that out and regretted that he had.
“From what?” she asked.
“Never mind.”
“Sorry, you don’t get to call that back.”
The idea that Spence Colton thought he needed protection from anything was rather unsettling, and went entirely against the mask he usually presented. The flirting, the lightheartedness, the certainty verging on the edge of cockiness but with none of the obnoxious aspects. Which left her with one big question.
What could the brilliant, handsome Spence Colton need protection from?
His response to the question turned out to be total silence. He went back to the cave entrance periodically, she supposed to look and listen. Each time he returned and she asked, he shook his head to indicate there had been nothing to see or hear. But he still didn’t speak.
She was starting to feel a little fuzzy-headed. She supposed a combination of it being well after midnight now and the chill starting to take effect. Plus that little fact that she’d been shot.
“You cold?”
Later, Hetty thought, she’d appreciate that it was concern for her that had made him break his self-imposed silence. But right now she was too busy realizing he was right.
“Yes,” she said, barely suppressing a shiver.
He reached for the emergency blanket. The next thing she knew, he was lying next to her, arranging the blanket over them both. Loaning her his body heat. Her slightly dizzy mind wanted to romp off in ridiculous directions at that idea, so she bit her lip to remind herself to keep her thoughts to herself and her mouth shut.
She savored his warmth, only then realizing how cold she’d actually become.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
“Mmm.”
Nice, noncommittal response. They lapsed back into silence.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when Spence finally spoke. Quietly, softly, soft enough that she could probably have slept through it, had she been asleep. But the sleep she’d assumed would be easy to come by seemed to have vanished the moment he had laid down and wrapped the blanket—and himself—around her.
“Do you remember,” he whispered, “what I was like when you first started to tutor me?”
As if she could forget, even if it had been over a decade ago. “You haven’t changed all that much,” she said.
“I know. Always a smart-ass.”
“I didn’t mean that. I mean you still work hard, and when you find something that works for you, you run with it. You’re brilliant. You just had to find a way to express that in terms the rest of the world could understand, and find a way to understand how they express things.”
He’d gone very still. She didn’t even think he was breathing for a moment. Finally, he said, in an almost awed tone, “You thought that? Back then?”
“I knew it,” she said with a shrug she knew he’d feel even though he couldn’t see it.
“You never made me feel stupid, like others did.”
