Calm, even when she’d been flat on her back in the sticky grey clay of East Timor and he’d been holding her guts in place with his hands. Calm when Jared had skidded in beside him and told him to get out of the way and Trig had said no, just no, but Jared had backed off, and gone and stolen transport and got them to safety while Trig kept Lena alive.
Trig, steady as you please, as the world around her had turned cold and grey.
‘Don’t you,’ he’d said, his voice hard and implacable in her ear. ‘Fight, damn you. You always do.’
She’d fought.
She was still fighting.
Her injuries. Her reliance on others.
Her feelings for Trig and the memory of his cheek against hers and the gutted murmur of his voice when he’d thought her unconscious.
‘Stay with me, Lena. Don’t you dare go where I can’t follow.’
Closest he’d ever come to saying he had feelings for her that weren’t exactly brotherly.
Once upon a time, maybe, yeah, she’d have been all over that. All over him if he’d given her enough encouragement.
But now?
No way.
Because what could she offer him now? She who could barely hold herself together from one day to the next. She whose default setting ran more towards lashing out at people than to loving them.
And then there was the matter of her not so minor physical injuries. A body as beautiful as Trig’s deserved a beautiful body beneath it, not one like hers, all scarred and barely working. No babies from this body, and Trig knew it. He’d been there when the doctor had broken that news, only it was hardly news to Lena because given the mess her body had been in at the time she’d already figured as much.
It had been news to Trig though, and she’d plucked at a thread in the loose-woven hospital blanket and watched beneath lowered lashes as he’d dropped his head to the web of his hands and kept it there for the duration of the doctor’s explanation. No comment from him at all when he’d finally lifted his head, just a stark, shattered glance in her direction before he’d swiftly looked away.
Not pity. He didn’t do pity.
It had looked a lot like grief.
A bottle of red wine stood on the counter above the little hotel-room fridge. Lena cracked it and poured herself a generous glass full. She picked through her suitcase for a change of clothes and took those and the wine with her to the bathroom.
Water would help. Water always helped her relax and think clearly.
Find Jared. That was her goal.
Keep Lena out of trouble. She was pretty sure that was Trig’s goal.
And then, once the world was set right, she and Trig could find a new way of communicating. One that didn’t involve him being overprotective and her being defensive. One that involved more honesty and less bickering. Lena sipped at her wine and stared pensively at the slowly filling tub.
One that involved a little more wholly platonic appreciation for the person he was.
Trig returned just as their dinner arrived. He gave her a nod, tipped the man for his service and started moving dishes from the room-service cart to the little table for two over by the window.
Lena poured him a wine and another one for herself. She didn’t ask him about his walk straight away. Given the tension that had followed him into the room, she figured she might hold that totally innocuous question in reserve.
‘You taken any painkillers?’ he asked, not an unreasonable question given how much of the wine she’d drunk. What could she say? It had been a long bath.
‘Not yet. Tonight I’m rocking the red wine instead.’
‘Any particular reason why?’
‘Long day.’ You. ‘New city.’ You. Never want to be on the wrong side of you.
She used to be able to read him just by looking at him. These days she’d have better luck reading Farsi.
Trig took a seat, lifted his burger and bit into it, chewing steadily.
Lena sat opposite, picked at her spicy chicken salad and drank some more wine.
‘When are you meeting with Carter?’
‘Tomorrow at two p.m. at the Nuruosmaniye Gate of the Grand Bazaar. You want to come?’
‘I’ll watch.’
‘From afar?’
‘Not that far.’
‘Play your cards right and I might even buy you a silk scarf.’
Trig smiled. ‘Not my thing.’
‘How’s the burger?’
Trig nodded and took another hefty bite.
The burger was fine.
He looked at her salad and kept on chewing, right up until he swallowed. ‘Get your own,’ he said darkly.
Mind reader. ‘I’ll have you know that this salad’s delicious. Crisp little salad leaves and cucumber. Tasty tomato. All very healthy.’ How was she to know that she’d take one look at Trig’s burger and want something drippy too.
Trig’s sigh was well practised as he broke what was left of his burger in two and held out one half to her.
She took it with a grin. ‘My brothers aren’t nearly such soft touches.’
‘I’m not one of your brothers,’ he said, and something about the way he said it shut her up completely.
Good thing she had the burger to concentrate on. And the wine. And those two little double beds that hovered in her view no matter where she looked.
‘Adrian, is there a problem? Between you and me?’ She hurried on, never mind his frown. ‘Because we’ve been friends a long time and I know I’ve relied on you far more than I should these past couple of years. You’ve been more than patient with me, and I’m grateful, because I know damn well that I don’t deserve anyone’s patience a lot of the time. It’s just...lately I get the feeling that you’ve had enough of me. And that would be perfectly understandable. Is perfectly understandable. And if that’s the case, you need to stand back and let me take care of myself. I can, you know.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Sure as I can be without actually having done it. I have this family who seem to think I’m fragile, you see. They baby me. They send you to handle me when they can’t. I don’t think that’s fair on you. You don’t have to do that. You have your own life to live.’
He thought on that, right through what was left of his burger, and then he drained his wine and turned his attention to the baklava.
‘Tell me why I’m here,’ he said finally.
That was easy. ‘You’re the family-appointed babysitter, sent to keep me out of trouble.’
‘That’s one reason. But it’s not the main one.’
‘Loyalty to Jared.’
‘Has nothing to do with it.’
‘You have a hankering for baklava?’
‘Not enough to travel halfway round the world for it.’ Trig eyed her steadily and no matter how much Lena ached to look away, she couldn’t. She couldn’t find her breath either.