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God knew, he was about to do that to her.
Her text message spun like a broken record in his head. And drove him nuts. How cryptic could she be? If only everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine. Not in the slightest. Far from it. He wasn’t about to let her leave Gum Tree Gully without coming clean and telling her way more than how he was madly in love with her. He wanted to know whether, in a perfect world, she could bring herself to forgive him for playing a hand in her parents’ accident, as well as accepting they would never be able to have children together, if she could leave her life behind in London and stay here, with him, so they could make the life together like they should have all those years ago.
Turning into the gates, he imagined how he was going to say it all without mucking it up. But when he pulled up out the front of the homestead, and saw her standing there, on the verandah, her arms wrapped around herself, and the sheets of rain blowing against her, whipping her hair around her face, he lost all sense of rhyme or reason. All he wanted to do in the very second was run to her, and take her into his arms, so she felt his love, so she felt him shielding her from any more heartbreak. So she knew, without a doubt, that if she gave her beautiful heart to him, that he would hold it preciously. Always and forevermore. Never in his wildest dreams could he ever intentionally upset her.
If someone had hurt her, so help him god ...
Leaping out of the driver’s seat to do what his heart willed him to do, he took hurried steps towards her. But before he’d gotten the chance to reach the front gates of the white picket fencing, she cleared the steps two at a time and ran to him, tears and rain streaming down her face. Meeting, he took her with open arms, and held her against him. And she continued to weep, hard, her sobs wracking against his chest with her fingers gripping the back of his shirt. Hating seeing her so distraught, he held his own emotions at bay as he stroked her wet hair, while telling her over and over that he was here for her, that he had her, that she was safe with him. It was only when her sobs subsided to a whimper that he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, to ask if she was okay.
She nodded and said ‘Mm-hmm’, but her hushed reply clashed with the tortured look in her red-rimmed, puffy eyes.
‘Everything doesn’t seem fine.’ Worry tearing at his heart, he tucked locks of hair from her cheeks. ‘Sammie, please tell me what’s happened?’
She sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘I went to their graves, Connor.’
She was shivering – he wanted to get her out of the rain. ‘You did?’ Wrapping an arm around her waist, he led her towards the steps and up to the swing chair.
‘Yes, and it helped me to see things clearer.’ She sat with his aid, and after wrapping the blanket slung over the back of the chair around her shoulders, he settled down beside her.
‘What’s become clearer, exactly?’
‘Their deaths, being here.’ She smiled through her tears. ‘Everything, really.’
‘Has it helped you, in moving forwards?’ Oh god, how he wanted her to tell him she wanted to share the rest of her life with him.
‘I believe it has.’ She looked to where she was twisting her rain-damp shirt in her fingers.
‘And?’
‘And, I …’ She sucked in a breath, and then looked to the rain, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth.
Anxiety settled in the pit of his stomach as he waited for her hesitating response.
She cleared her throat, and turned to him. ‘I care for you, Connor, so very much, and I …’ She paused again, sucked in another shuddering breath. ‘But, I …’ She paused again.
Connor was suddenly desperate to fill the silence, because if he didn’t spill the workings of his heart to her now, right this very second, she might say something to stop him, and then he might live to regret it forever.
‘Samantha.’ Her name rolled from his lips, lips that were aching to meet with hers.
The fairy lights dangling from the balustrades reflected in her eyes, making the green even more dazzling. ‘You called me Samantha, now that’s a first.’
‘Yeah, I did.’ Even though the intensity of the moment was pressing down upon him, he managed a little chuckle. ‘There’s always a first for everything.’
‘Yes, there sure is.’ Placing a hand on his bouncing knee, she searched his gaze and drew in an almighty breath. ‘Mind body and soul, I’m in love with you, Connor Gunn.’
And just like that, she rid him of the ability to speak, so he did all he could, and went to show her just how much her loved her, too, with actions rather than words, because as they say, actions are always way louder.
***
The marvel in Connor’s eyes, as she declared her love for him, was like fireworks exploding. And then he was inching towards her, and she felt the same old rising panic in her chest, but she could also feel her heart reaching for his, as if trying to find its way home. And then he was so close she could feel his breath against her cheek. Time didn’t exist as she tumbled into the calming abyss of his piercing blue eyes. Together, united, as they always had been, they were teetering from one heartbeat to the next. It was as if he was waiting for her to meet him, to give him the invitation to revive the flames that were smouldering in their hearts. If she even tried to resist him, would she be able to? And why did she even want to? The great divide she’d worked so hard to create no longer needed to be there.
Should I kiss him?
Her head and heart were having a battle of wills. He made her feel so beautiful, inside and out, and always had. She was never going to find the strength to go back to London and just get on with her life, as though nothing else mattered. Because what mattered was being here with him, and all those that cared about her.
Kiss him, Samantha …
With a soft, quivering sigh, she let go, and tumbled off the cliff she’d been so desperately trying to balance upon. And he caught her, in the most evocative of ways, as his arms slipped around her waist and he bent his head, making his intentions unmistakable. But he didn’t push any further past the boundary that had been between them since she’d arrived home.
