Читать книгу Fifty Ways To Say I'm Pregnant - Christine Rimmer - Страница 10

For a while, they just sat there, side by side, staring off toward the stream and the open pasture that rolled away from them beyond the trees on the other side. Eventually, she picked up her tea, drained the last of it and tossed the remaining melted slivers of ice out into the water.

He put on his hat and got up, holding down a hand. She took it, tugging on it lightly as she rose. He felt a much stronger tug, down inside him—an ache for what might have been, if only he were someone that he would never be. Once she was on her feet, he made himself let go.

They hesitated, facing each other there on the bank, both knowing they should turn for the house, but neither making a move.

“Back then, all those years ago,” she said softly, “I’d never felt…oh, I don’t know. Accepted, I guess. I’d never felt accepted, or at home, with anyone. Not until I met you. For that short time we had, I felt I could tell you anything and you would understand. That you wouldn’t judge me, that you knew who I really was, deep down. And that you liked that person.”

“I did like that person.” The words came out before he even realized he would say them. “I liked that person a whole hell of a lot. I still do.”

Her smile was so shy. It trembled at the edges. “I’m glad to hear that. And you know, today, after so much time has gone by…I feel just the same. That I could sit right back down in the grass again with you and we could talk forever. That I could tell you everything that’s in my most secret heart and know I was telling it all to someone I can trust. I don’t think I want to give that up right now, Beau. Not when I’ve just found it again.” She bit her still-quivering lip to make it be still. “I guess what I’m getting at is…do you think that we might…?” Her words trailed off, but he knew where she was headed.

And it was impossible. “Starr—”

“Oh, wait,” she cried. “Can’t I finish?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them from doing something they shouldn’t. “Go ahead.”

“Well, it’s just…” She looked down into her empty glass, then up at him again. “I do know we’re going in different directions now. And I haven’t forgotten the things you said once. That all you wanted in life was a real home and a chance to work hard every day building something that was your own. Against all the odds, you’ve got what you wanted. And I’m off to New York in the fall, to start a new job. In a few months, I’m gone. Off to live the life I’ve been studying and planning for. I’m not saying either of us should change, or start thinking about giving up the lives we’ve worked hard to make. I’m not really talking about anything permanent. I’m just saying that, well, there’s a whole summer stretching out ahead of us. Why couldn’t we spend a little time together, now and then, before I go?”

“Be…friends, you mean?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Friends. That’s what I mean.”

How could she ask for that? She had to know it would never work. He couldn’t even stand next to her on Daniel’s porch without wondering if she still had that navel ring, without wanting to grab her and kiss her—and to maybe get his chance to see that secret tattoo.

But she was so sweetly, adorably hopeful, so damned impossibly beautiful as she stood there in front of him, asking him why they couldn’t just be summertime friends. He didn’t have the heart—let alone the will—to say no.

And why the hell should he say no, a darker voice down inside him was whispering? Why shouldn’t he see her if she wanted to see him? He was a straight-ahead guy now, an upstanding citizen who put in an honest day’s work for his pay.

He might not be the right guy for her in the long run, but she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was all grown up, old enough to make a woman’s decisions. Who said he had to deny himself her company, if she wanted to share it with him?

Because it’ll break your damn heart to see her go, fool, whispered another voice, a wiser one, in the back of his mind. It’ll break your damn heart—and just possibly hers, as well.

He found he was having a hell of a time trying to listen to that wiser voice. How could he do it? How could he say no when she stood right there, close enough to touch, gleaming black hair stirring in the wind, asking him so sweetly and sincerely to be allowed to see him now and then?

“Tell you what.”

She laughed. “You look so serious.”

This is serious, damn it, he thought. What’ll we get but heartbreak, if we start this thing between us all over again? He said, “Think it over.”

Those silky brows drew together. “But it’s not a big deal. It’s only—”

He shook his head to silence her. It was a big deal, whether she was willing to admit it or not. “Think it over. Be real sure you want to get something started with me again—even just for the summer.”

“But Beau, I already told you. I do want to see you again. Now, whether I’d call that ‘getting something started—”’

“Call it whatever you damn well please.” She flinched and he realized he’d spoken too harshly. He gentled his tone. “I just want you to give it some thought before we start up with anything.”

“But…” She looked enchantingly bewildered. “Do you want to spend more time with me?”

Do bears like honey? He confessed, “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. I’d like it a lot.”

“Well, then…” A few strands of hair had got caught across her mouth. He kept his hands shoved hard in his pockets to keep from reaching out and smoothing those strands back over her soft cheek, behind the graceful curve of her ear. After a few seconds that seemed like a year, she brushed them away herself.

“Think about it,” he said, his heart pounding deep and hard, every beat seeming to call out her name. “Give it week. By next Friday, if you still think you want to go out with me, you give me a call.”

Those lashes swept down. “I know my own mind, Beau.”

“We’ll see.”

She looked straight at him then, violet eyes flashing with irritation. “I’m not asking for a lifetime. Just the summer. Just a chance to be together, now and then, for a little while…”

“And all I’m asking is that you give it some thought first.”

Her eyes went wide and she fell back a step. “Do you remember? You said almost the exact same words before you kissed me the first time?”

He did remember. They were in the tack room, off the barn at the Rising Sun. They’d been talking—about the wild stuff she’d done down in San Diego, about how he’d never been much farther than Cheyenne himself, except for that one trip to Arkansas with his mom all those years and years ago. He was leaning on a saddle horn. She slid right up close to him and lifted her mouth.

“Give it some thought,” he’d said. “Before you go offering up those sweet lips of yours…”

Yeah, he remembered. He remembered all of it—every magical, forbidden moment with her.