Free Shadows at Midnight by Elizabeth Jennings

go of her. He kept his hands loose, ready to catch her if she fell. She looked as if a strong wind would blow her away.
    Claire watched his eyes carefully, as if there might be something very important in them. “You know me,” she whispered. “You remember me. Oh God, it’s not all in my head.”
    She swayed and Dan gripped her elbows. He wasn’t going to force her to have this conversation on her feet. She looked close to collapse.
    “Yes, I know you.” Dan kept his voice gentle. “But I thought you were dead. I thought you died in the blast. Listen, why don’t we go into my office and . . .” Stay with me. I’ll never let you go again. “And we can catch up.”
    “Oh yes,” she breathed, sounding relieved. She turned and with shaking hands gathered her purse and umbrella. Dan ushered her into his office then stuck his head back out. “Roxanne, how about—”
    “Coffee,” Roxanne said promptly. “Lots of it, black and strong. Milk and sugar. Croissants from the French pastry shop across the street.”
    Bless her. At that moment, Dan loved her. “You be sure to tell that husband of yours he’s a lucky man.”
    “I do, constantly.” Their eyes met and Dan could read infinite kindness there. “Go on in, I’ll bring the coffee soon.”
    He nodded and placed a hand at Claire’s back. Because it was the gentlemanly thing to do, but also because she looked like she needed it.
    Once inside his office, he took her coat and showed her to the most comfortable armchair, the one he sometimes took a short snooze in. He didn’t sit behind his desk. He sat on the couch, at right angles to her.
    She sat down gingerly, at the edge of the seat, and folded her hands in her lap. Her hands were trembling. Dan looked at them, wanting to hold them so badly he hurt with it.
    What the hell.
    He reached over and encased her hands in his. They were ice-cold. He didn’t say anything, just sat there until her hands warmed up a little and stopped trembling.
    She watched his eyes carefully, unmoving.
    She opened her mouth, then closed it.
    “What?” Dan kept his voice low and gentle.
    “I—you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
    He tightened his grip on her hands. “I’m pretty tolerant. Why don’t you try me?”
    She drew in a deep breath, like someone about to dive, then stopped.
    He simply waited, hands over hers.
    “Were we—were we lovers?” she finally whispered, then gasped at her own words.
    SHE really was crazy. Completely blitzed, off her rocker.
    Claire waited, trembling.
    Of all the things she could have asked— Do you remember me? You were there the day of the bombing. What happened? —that was the one that burst forth out of her mouth. It was a massively embarrassing question. Insane, actually. But it had welled up out of her with an unstoppable force, the words out before she even knew she was going to say them.
    The thing was, there’d been some . . . image, some aura of her having been intimate with him.
    It wouldn’t have been such an awful question if he’d been a less attractive man. But the fact of the matter was that he was almost insanely attractive, in a very rough way.
    When she’d had her meltdown out in the reception area, her arms had been unable to encompass his immensely broad back. His muscles had been like steel and she’d clung to him the way you’d cling to a girder in a storm. Hard, unyielding, safe.
    She didn’t date much, but the men she did date—had dated, when she still had a life—were metrosexuals. Soft and funny and even a little flighty. Daniel Weston was the exact opposite of her usual date. He was hard and serious and right now she wanted to cling to him and never let him go.
    And he was letting her cling to his hands, letting the crazy lady work out whatever nuttiness was in her head. Which was obviously filled with fluff because the first thing she’d talked about was . . . being his lover.
    Where had that come from?
    Obviously it had come from her deep