She wasn’t sure what would help the throbbing ache in her chest.
Time, maybe. Having Jack gone, probably. But she knew in her gut it was going to hurt a whole lot worse before it ever got better.
“You know,” Chris said, coming up behind her in the barn, where she was saddling Blue, “we can wait to move the cattle for a few weeks.”
“Not really, Chris,” she said, giving in to a yawn that nearly cracked her jaw. “And you know it. If you tell me to take a nap, I think I’ll tell you to go away.”
“Okay then, I won’t mention it.”
“Great. Anything else you need to discuss?”
Chris pursed his lips. “Jack’s been a whole lot of help the last few days. That man’s not afraid of work.”
The mention of his name made her sad. So sad. There was no other way to put it. The past few days, having him around, working, had been a dream.
One that she’d just ended.
Go back to your life. Let me have mine.
Who knew how long he might have stayed if she hadn’t told him about her feelings?
Well,
she scoffed,
long enough to sell the ranch. Let’s not get too carried away here, Mia.
“He’ll be leaving soon,” she said and grabbed a set of hand tools from the tack room.
“Mia.” He sighed. “Just take a break—”
“I’ll hit the sack early tonight,” she promised Chris, whose blue eyes were worried.
“I can practically see through you, Mia.”
Her fuzzy brain didn’t have a quick comeback, so she scooted past him with a smile and mounted Blue, who shook back his mane and stomped with enthusiasm.
Five days without a ride and the boy was getting restless. Mia understood that.
“You sure you should be riding?”
“We’ll be fine, Grandma,” she said, frustrated with Chris’s well-meaning concern. She was a big girl and his boss to boot. “Go back to your knitting.”
Chris walked away, muttering under his breath. Mia knew she wasn’t being all that smart, but the truth was, she needed a ride as much as Blue did. Her head was a mess and with any luck, a good, hard ride would clear it.
The high pasture would be silent and radiant with late-day sun. And best of all, she’d be alone.
He turned, looked over his shoulder to see her riding that old dun, Blue. She was gorgeous, sitting on top of her horse, her black ponytail lifted by the wind, fanning out across the brilliant blue sky behind her.
Her eyes were shadowed by the cap she wore, and that was fine. He didn’t need to see her eyes to read her mood; it was all right there in the hard, high set of her shoulders.
The wagons had been circled, all her soft spots protected. The vulnerability that had so stunned him this morning was buried under the prickly outer shell she’d grown over the years. The shell he’d come to expect and…love?
Love, he thought, wishing he had some context. Some kind of organizational system, so he could look at each specimen and see if it was big enough or strong enough to keep him here. To keep her happy. Forever.
Because it didn’t seem to be.
He didn’t have those feelings, not for her, maybe not for anyone.
“I fixed your well,” he said. She turned to look at it, then didn’t turn back, as if it were simply easier than looking at him.
Don’t be embarrassed, he wanted to say.
But it was too late, and she’d be more embarrassed if he said something.
“You shouldn’t have any further trouble with it.”
“Thank—” She cleared her throat and the tension between them filled the whole pasture, from endless sky to rocky ground. She emitted enough discomfort to rival the Sierras. “Thank you.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow.” The words were sticky in his throat and she finally turned to face him. Her lips, oh, those lips, parted in surprise.
Suddenly the reality of what he was doing sliced through him. He was losing Mia. His friend for his entire life. And that woman on the roof of the hotel in Santa Barbara, whom he’d only just met. Both of them would be gone.
Grief rippled over him.
Mia dismounted, but didn’t come much closer. She wrapped her arms over her chest, as if keeping herself together.
“What you told me,” he began. Good Christ, where was this emotion coming from? He felt his eyes burn. “About being in love with me—”
She turned, her cheeks red, her embarrassment a tangible pain and he didn’t want that. Couldn’t leave her ashamed of what she felt, not when he was the one who was embarrassed he couldn’t return it. Not the way she deserved.
He leaped off the truck and crossed the grass between them until he was right in front of her. Still, she didn’t look at him. He watched her swallow, breathe, until he couldn’t take it anymore and he touched her chin, her cheek, slid his fingers into her hair.
She gasped, her eyelids trembling, and he turned her head to face him, feeling things crack and split inside his chest.
“Thank you,” he said into her brilliant eyes. He’d never forget those eyes. “For loving me. You’re the only one who ever has.”
Her face crumpled slightly as if bowing under the pressure of her feelings. He knew he should withdraw, take his hands away so she could get herself back together, but he didn’t.
This was his last chance to touch her and he wasn’t letting go until he had to.
“I’m going to take care of the tax problem,” he said.
“What?” she asked, blinking up at him as if she didn’t understand what she was saying. He knew his touch was distracting her; it was distracting him, too. Her cheeks, her skin, was the softest he’d ever felt. He ran his thumb over the skin near her lip.
Yep. The softest.
“It’s the least I can do, Mia, and I know you want to argue with me about this because you’re stubborn and proud, but you need this. So just take it.”
Her eyes blazed
“I don’t need it.” She pulled away from him. “Once we sell the calves, the taxes are taken care of.”
“Then use it to hire summer hands.” Her eyes were full of emotion, the bedrock of her hardheadedness, the sharp edges of her resentment, the last white-hot embers of that love she’d felt for him.
“I’m not taking your money,” she said.
“Please,” he said, feeling as if his body were being turned inside out. “Let me do this for you. For all the years—”
“Fine,” she snapped. “But only because I can’t keep working my guys like this without facing mutiny. And I’m paying you back.”
Fine. He’d take it any way he could get it.
“I’m also going to put some money aside for Dad, when he gets too sick for you to care for.”
“That could be years—”
“Whenever it is, I just want you to have what you need to care for him.”
Again, she nodded. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, Mia,” he said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said. She didn’t smile, had never been one for comfort, cold or otherwise. He remembered what she’d said in Santa Barbara—that he had always been a wuss when it came to the hard stuff. But she was the pro. Handling the hurt he’d unwittingly handed out, without ever letting on that she was in pain.
Regret burned through him again.
“I’m a big girl, Jack. I made my own decisions.”
“If I had known…” He didn’t finish the thought. Had no way of finishing it. If he’d known, would anything have been different? Truth be told, he probably wouldn’t have married her.
“I would have died if you’d known,” she said. “I didn’t tell you for a reason. I’ve known, Jack, all along that you don’t love me.” She took a deep breath and then put a hand on the truck as she blew it out.
“Are you okay?” he asked, wishing he could console her.
“My husband is leaving me.” She said it as a joke, even managed to smile, but he couldn’t laugh. “Oh, come on, Jack, lighten up. It was always going to be temporary. My feelings don’t change anything.”
But what about mine?
The thought erupted from no where, surprising the hell out of him. He stood there, staring into her face, wondering what was happening to him. He’d never worried about his feelings, because he so rarely had them.
But it was all changing. That jumble of emotion on the outskirts of his life was collapsing and the mess was epic.
“Thanks for fixing the well,” Mia said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
Jack catalogued everything about her, as if she were a water table chart. He took her in, one piece at a time, so he could remember the whole of her better in the years to come—her wild hair, the bright eyes, the flushed skin. Her body, all those curves in such a compact space.
“Thanks for getting me out of that bedroom,” he said. “For bringing me back to life.”
“You would have done it on your own,” she said. “In time.”
“I don’t know, Mia.” He shook his head. “I was in a bad place.”
“Then I’m glad I could help. I’m glad the ranch could help.” She tried to sound bright, and it was close, but not convincing enough. She was trembling underneath her skin. “It was good you came here,” she said. “Though you should talk to your dad before you go.”
“What’s the point?”
She gaped at him. Opened her mouth and then closed it again. Classic signs of a torn Mia, a Mia biting her tongue. “Just say whatever you want to say,” he told her, reading her cues like a well-marked map.
“You…you need to deal with what your mother did to you,” she said. “Your father, too.”
He started, angry that she was making this about his childhood. His childhood was a distant memory.
Forgotten. “What are you talking about?”
“You live in a cold world, Jack,” she said quietly.
“Maps and work and water tables. And I think your folks put you there. Science was safer than relationships. But if you ever want something lasting with someone—”
“I have you.”
She swallowed and looked at her boots. “Not any more,” she whispered.
“I have…” He trailed off. Oliver. A numbing pain buzzed over his skin, separating him from his body.
He didn’t have anyone. The minute he stepped off this ranch, he’d be alone. And for years, if he’d been asked, that would have been the way he wanted it.
Mia was right; science was safer than relation ships.
“Where will you go?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“Africa?”
“I think maybe you were right when you said I swoop in and change things without sticking around to see the results. The way we were drilling, going in every few months…I think that was doomed to failure for the same reason. Africa needs water, but they need organizations there for the long haul. And that’s not me.”
Her brows furrowed. “So what does that mean? For you?”
“I don’t know, Mia.”
She reached up, her cool fingers touching his cheek, and for a second he saw past the prickly exterior to the woman underneath. The woman in pain.
“You’ll land on your feet, Jack. You always do.”
Oh, it was too much. Too much. He kissed her. No warning; he didn’t ask or apologize. He just did it. Pressed his lips to the soft chapped weight of hers, and when she moaned slightly, he pressed again, sliding his tongue past her teeth to lick at the sweetness of her mouth. She was stiff in his arms, but he pulled her closer until her hands dropped and he felt her curves against chest. His body woke up with a roar.
Mine,
he thought, like some kind of barbarian.
My wife. My friend. Mine.
Her hands touched his waist, fisting the fabric of his shirt as if holding on to a runaway horse.
She kissed him back, long and deep and hot and slow. Soul kisses like he’d never had. A thousand of them, over and over again. Until it wasn’t enough. He needed more. This was goodbye, and he wanted all of her.
His hand slid down her back and around to her stomach, the taut muscles trembling under his hand. Taking a breath, waiting for her to push him away, he cupped the underside of her breast, but the sensation was muted beneath her jacket and shirt and bra.
So he tried again, finding the heat of her flesh beneath her clothes, pushing his hand up under her shirt and the elastic at the bottom of her sports bra until he held the sweet weight of her breast in his hand.
The nipple was hard under his fingers and he brushed his thumb over it, rolling it into his hand. She shook against him, her mouth opening on a low cry that tore away the last of his control.
The barbarian was loose and he lifted her up, sliding her onto the open bed of the truck, tipping her back so her open thighs cradled his hips. He could feel her heat through their denim and he rocked against her, desperate to hear her gasp, to feel her arch against him, to know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. To know that when he left, she would grieve for him in all the ways he would grieve for her. He didn’t stop, didn’t let up until her body beat back against his. Grinding herself against him, his entire body was electrified.
“Mia,” he groaned against her lips, “My Mia, if this is goodbye—”
She went still. And it took him a second to catch on but he stopped, too, his erection pushing hard and tight against the crease of her jeans. One hand remained up the back of her shirt, curved over her shoulder, keeping her locked against him.
Please don’t tell me to stop,
he prayed, his mouth against her neck, waiting for her to speak.
“Let me go,” she whispered. He could have cursed, but he did as she asked. Slipping his hands free, patting down her clothes, and then, feeling as if he were tearing off his skin, he stepped away. The cold air had no effect on the inferno raging through his body.
As soon as they weren’t touching, Mia shot away from him, jumping off the back of the truck.
She stood so still, her back to him, and he couldn’t bear it. “Mia,” he breathed, putting his hand on her shoulder.
She jerked away. “Don’t…just…give me a second.”
A second?
he thought, feeling mean and aroused and sad.
I’m leaving tomorrow. How many more seconds do you need?
Her cap had been knocked off at some point and she took her time settling it back on her head. When she looked at him her eyes were deep wounds.
“I said goodbye to you once like that,” she said. “I can’t do it again.”
The slump of her shoulders said more to him about how difficult this was than her words, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was cause her more pain.
“What if I stayed?” he blurted out and she gaped at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I…” God, what was he talking about? All he knew was that it hurt to leave her. He didn’t
want
to leave her. “I’m saying, what if I stayed?”
“Here?”
“It’s where you live. It’s your home.”
“You hate it here.”
“It’s growing on me.”
“Please. You’ve just come out of your room and you haven’t said two words to your dad.”
“I’m working on it, Mia,” he said through gritted teeth. It wasn’t the truth, but it wasn’t totally a lie, either. “It’s not easy for me.”
“So, you stay and what? We…?”
“Try.” He swallowed. “Being married.”
Her eyes went wide, and he talked to fill the silence. “You love me, Mia. You said it yourself.”