Читать книгу A Defender's Heart - Tara Taylor Quinn - Страница 17
ОглавлениеCHARLES SAT ON his usual side of the padded wicker love seat they normally shared. He lifted one leg and rested his ankle on the opposite knee. He seemed ready to sit for hours.
She wasn’t sitting.
“Out with it...” His words were soft. Infused with the caring that had touched her from the moment he’d said hello the summer before.
“What?”
“I’m just wondering when you’re going to tell me whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
Her genuine surprise bothered her. She really hadn’t expected Charles to notice. Shouldn’t she have? Considering that he was the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with?
Current necessary conversation aside, if Charles would wait for her, she’d marry him.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” she admitted, turning to face him, but not joining him on the love seat.
He couldn’t avoid seeing the difference. She always sat next to him.
“Seems like now’s the time.” He was holding his wine in one hand, letting it rest against the arm of the love seat.
She took a sip of hers, and then set it on the railing beside her. Her situation was clear to her—how to express it in a way that would hurt him least was not.
“I’m struggling,” she started. And stopped.
“Obviously.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Nor did he seem angry. “I’m here to help.”
Oh, God. She wanted his help. So badly.
And yet...she didn’t. Something about leaning on Charles just then seemed wrong.
“I want you to know that my feelings for you haven’t changed.”
His nod was reassuring. “Good,” he said. “That’s one hurdle passed.”
“I still very much want to marry you.”
He took a sip of wine. “I have to admit, I’m relieved to hear that.”
“But I can’t be engaged to you right now.”
He looked out at the ocean, and then back at her. He studied her. She studied him, too, willing him to see inside her. To know how sincerely she wanted to marry him.
“I’m feeling all kinds of negative things, Charles. I’m doubting myself. Not my feelings for you, or my desire to marry you, but things that go...deeper than that.”
“You still have feelings for Cedar.” He sounded as though he’d been expecting as much.
“No!” Why did everyone keep accusing her of that? “At least, not in the way you mean. I shudder—with fear—at the very idea of being with him again.” She took a deep breath, stilling those shudders. “But seeing him again, it was like an episode of what I’d call a very mild and temporary case of the past coming back to haunt me. I’m not myself.”
He waited.
She had to finish.
Or begin.
“Saturday night, as I was telling Cedar goodbye, I agreed to see him.”
Charles’s chin dropped to his chest.
“Not like that!” she quickly reassured him, waiting until he looked back up. “I swear to you, it wasn’t like that at all.” She could look him straight in the eye on that one. “He said he had a business situation to discuss with me. He was certain I’d want to know about it...”
“Of course he did. He wants you back.”
No. No, he didn’t. And even if he did...just, no.
She shook her head. “I felt he was being completely straightforward.” When he’d made the request. Not earlier, in the kitchen, when he’d been about to kiss her.
And she’d been about to let him.
A reflexive response, due in part to the shock of seeing him. Since she’d already labeled him a no-show and was no longer expecting that he’d be there.
“As it turns out, he was—being straightforward, that is.”
Charles’s gaze narrowed. “You met with him, then?”
She and Charles had been together most of the day on Sunday, roaming around at an art fair, stopping at a local wine-tasting. Having dinner...
She nodded. “Today. For lunch. Or rather, during my lunch break. I didn’t actually eat lunch with him.”
That detail seemed to matter to her a lot. She’d mentioned it to Raine, too.
Although she’d eaten the salad he’d brought. Like he’d said, it was her favorite. He’d paid good money for it. And she’d needed to eat.
Sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, Charles pursed his lips and glanced toward the ocean again. His hands weren’t clasped, leaving his body language open. He wasn’t completely writing her off yet.
“I should’ve told you Saturday night when he asked, or Sunday, even.”
He looked back at her. Nodded.
She’d disappointed him. She hated that. He didn’t deserve it.
“And that’s part of the problem,” she said, standing straighter. When she’d promised to marry him, she hadn’t realized she couldn’t. And she’d allowed a party to celebrate their engagement, with no idea that she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But she’d purposely withheld information from him...and that was inexcusable.
“I was afraid of your reaction, afraid you’d think what you seem to be thinking—that I’d still have feelings for Cedar. I wanted to find out what he wanted before I told you about it...”
“And now that you know, you’re telling me.” He sat back, lifted his ankle to his knee again and drank some wine, watching her.
“Yes.” Sort of.
“I want to hear about it, of course, about whatever business he had that still interests you, but I have a more pertinent question first.”
A feeling of dread ran through her. “What?”
“How could you possibly be afraid of my reaction? Have I ever...ever...given you cause to fear me? Or reacted in such a way that made you feel unsafe coming to me?” He seemed honestly perplexed.
“No, you haven’t,” she told him, feeling stronger in her purpose by the second. This was why Raine had been so concerned. She knew Heather wasn’t acting in a healthy manner. Or reacting in one.
“It’s me, Charles. I’m not emotionally healthy enough right now for a committed relationship. I overreacted totally. My fear of telling you about Cedar was irrational. And I was over-the-top with him, too. I was far ruder to him than I should’ve been, considering that I not only opened the door that he’d kept shut between us—out of respect—by inviting him to our party. And then by agreeing to meet with him.”
“Maybe you need to consider why you did either of those things.”
“I know why I did them.” She didn’t waver, although she was getting frustrated with having to continue trying to get anyone to understand her on this. “I did them because I know I’m over him. Because I also know that if he’s still in town, we’re bound to run into each other. Our fields tend to cross. It’s kind of surprising that they haven’t already over the past year.”
“Maybe he purposely stayed out of your way.”
“Maybe.” But the past year didn’t matter right now. “The point is, I was certain I’d be able to see him and that our encounter would be...empty...at best. I was hoping for a distant friendliness between acquaintances.”
Or some such thing. She and Cedar had a ton of shared memories. He was bound to creep into her mind now and then through the years. She’d like to know he was okay.
As long as it was from a distance.
“You said you were hoping as though that’s not what happened.”
There he was again, implying she had feelings for Cedar. Anger shot up within her, and just as quickly died.
“Seeing him brought up all kinds of self-doubt,” she told him. “Before Cedar’s betrayal, I didn’t question my own mind. I trusted my thoughts and feelings—and then, when I’d realized how easily he’d duped me, I didn’t trust my own mind. I started to question what I really knew and what I only thought I saw. My mind was playing tricks on me. I doubted my ability to see things as they really were. Feared that I couldn’t discern. It was horrible at first. I went through counseling, as you know, and haven’t had a problem for months. Now, though, it’s back. Maybe worse than ever because there’s no grief to overtake everything else like there was then...”
“You had an important client this afternoon.”
“Yes.” She’d told him what she could the day before—that a child’s life was involved. Nothing else.
“Did you struggle to do your job?”
“No. It’s not affecting my work. Strangely enough, it never really did. Probably because I’m tuned outward when I’m working, and my struggle is inward. I’m acting weird around Raine and Lianna, though, being defensive around them. And you... I need some time, Charles.”
“I’d like to ask how much time, but clearly you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that.”
He was going to dump her. She could feel it coming.
And part of her was relieved. She wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him any more than she already had.
But another part of her, the part that had been happy to have her future mapped out and rosy, the part that thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with him...
“I understand your time concerns,” she told him. That had been the only true source of discord between them. The one time she’d stood up to him. She wouldn’t marry him until they’d been engaged at least a year. “I really do understand them. They’re real and important.”
He seemed to be watching something on the horizon—as though he wasn’t just staring off into the ocean, but was focused. She didn’t turn around to see what might be out there. She was too concerned about him.
Looking for a way to make things better for him.
Charles turned back to her, his gaze so serious, her stomach felt like lead.
“They aren’t as important as you are.” His words were soft. And yet solid. Blessedly solid. Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted to run to him. To hold him. To thank him.
But...she wanted to stand her ground, too. “I have to break our engagement.”
He didn’t speak.
“I need time to get myself back before I can promise myself to anyone else.”
“Do you intend to date other people?”
Cedar, he meant.
“Absolutely not.” But then...they were back where they’d started—her being pledged to him, without the formality, without the ring. “But...until I sort this out, I need to be free to feel, to not feel guilty for feeling, whatever I feel. I need to be able to know what’s real for me without feeling obligated to consider how what I feel affects someone else. I need to be single, Charles. I can’t be in a committed relationship right now.”
“But you can date...say, me?”
“Of course!” She wanted that. “As long as you understand that I’m promising nothing for now, that it’s only a date. And...” She hated this part, but knew it had to work both ways. “If you meet someone you want to, say, have dinner with, then you’re free to do so. And not tell me about it unless you want to.”
It couldn’t possibly work. A couple couldn’t go from being engaged to completely single, and then get married. Could they?
“When you determine you’re ready to commit, do you see yourself being happy with me for the rest of your life?”
She couldn’t lead him on. It wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. “At this point, I do.”
He nodded and held out an arm to her, and she couldn’t resist. She needed to feel his warmth as much as he seemed to need hers. Snuggled beneath his arm, she sipped her wine, her stomach cramped with tension.
“I hate not being able to trust my own mind,” she said. “I hate doing this to you.”
“I’d rather it happened now than after we’re married.”
As though they were still getting married. And maybe they were. A dangled carrot, but one she was glad to see hanging out there.
“I’m so paranoid all of a sudden.”
“It’s only been a couple of days.”
He was right, of course. Her melodrama was proof. Sitting up, she put her glass of wine on the table. Saw the ring on her finger, and her stomach took another nosedive. She reached to pull it off, but Charles’s hand on hers stopped her.
“Might I suggest you keep that on? At least for a little while?”
She shook her head. There was no way... He didn’t get it... She couldn’t be engaged...
“For a couple of reasons,” he said, when she met his eyes.
She listened.
“First, selfishly, I’d like a little more time to pass between our engagement party and any kind of official breakup,” he said. “Just to spare me discomfort with my friends. Since, at my insistence, we made the engagement so public.”
His request was fair. More than fair. She nodded.
“And secondly, maybe the ring will help you as you work through whatever business venture you have with Cedar. You and I know we aren’t engaged—that you’re single and free. But while you sort things out, while you figure out what parts of yourself are real, what you can trust, you’ll have that small bit of protection.”
A ring wouldn’t stop the Cedar she knew from pursuing anything with her if he wanted to. The almost-kiss on Saturday night proved that. Unless she’d imagined he’d been about to kiss her...
Still, Charles had a point. “He might draw the wrong conclusion if he knows we broke up right after his return to my life.” He might think he was the reason. That she still harbored feelings for him. He could hardly be blamed, considering that everyone who was close to her worried about the same thing. Which brought up another problem...
“My parents,” she said. She hadn’t even thought about them. About the conclusions they’d draw. They’d been so worried about her. So thrilled when she’d started seeing Charles.
“We don’t have to tell anyone, Heather. At least, not yet. Let’s find our own way on this, give it some time—and then decide about announcing a breakup.”
He was offering her the best of both worlds. And that wasn’t fair to him. Unless...
“As long as you know, in your heart, that I’m not yours. We are broken up, Charles. I can’t worry about every move I make affecting you. I need you to think single. If you meet someone else, someone who wants to get married right away and start a family with you...”
His finger over her lips stopped the completion of her sentence, but the important words had already been said.
“I understand,” he told her. “And, in truth, if I meet someone who interests me, I will most definitely ask her out. If nothing else, it’ll show me that you’re the one I want—even if it means being a father in my old age. Or...”
He could fall in love, and she’d lose him forever.
The idea, while hard, wasn’t nearly as awful as the way she’d felt meeting with Cedar behind Charles’s back.
She laid her head against his shoulder. She wanted some more wine, but knew she should leave what was left in her glass. She had to drive.
“I’d better be going,” she told him—the first mention either of them had made about the fact that she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him that night as he’d been expecting.
“It’s getting late,” he agreed, gathering both glasses and the bottle of wine as he stood. He followed her to the door, the glass stems between the fingers of one hand, the bottle in the other. He waited while she collected her purse and opened the door.
She didn’t want to kiss him good-night. But didn’t want to just walk out on him, either. Glancing over at him, she struggled for something to say. Besides the “I really do love you” that was entirely inappropriate.
“Drive carefully,” he said, raising the two glasses to her.
“I will.”
She left, tears streaming down her face as she closed his door behind her and climbed into her car.
She’d done the right thing.
And it hurt like hell.
