“Am I interrupting?”
Phelan stiffened, jerking back from Jacqueline even as his head swiveled toward the voice. Sif stood in the doorway, looking tired and drawn, her face pale in the lamplight. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, looking far more like an off-duty model than the deadly warrior Phelan knew she was. He managed to smile and shook his head, giving voice to the lie.
“No, it’s all right. I thought you were sleeping.”
“It’s hard,” she said, slipping past he and Jacqueline to slump into the chair Jac had abandoned. “I just keep seeing him every time I close my eyes and I feel guilty that I’m not right here.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes and stared bleakly at her onetime lover, looking more lost and afraid than Phelan had ever seen her before. “I know where I need to be, Phelan, and it’s with my ass in this chair.”
Jacqueline sighed, leaning against Phelan. “Sif, it’s not going to do either of you any good.”
“How do you know that?” Her gaze flicked up to regard Jacqueline warily. “How do you know how much good it’s going to do either of us? I’d rather sleep in this chair. I need him to forgive me. Don’t you understand that? I need him to forgive me and tell me that everything’s going to be all right. I don’t care what happened in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Sif looked away, looked back to Thordin, asleep in the bed, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “I just need him to forgive me for what I did and then maybe we can start over.”
Phelan touched her shoulder. She flinched, then reached up and covered her hand with his.
“You still love him,” Phelan observed.
“How could I stop?” Sif asked. “It wasn’t in me, Phelan. His brother and I…that was only to save his son. I never would have betrayed him otherwise. Never.”
She shut her eyes against the tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes. “I can’t lose him. Not again. I just can’t.”
Love? pfffft. LOL good addition! Thanks!!