Page 46 of Love Me Again

“I did,” she said, but her eyes were flashing with anger. “A great time, actually. And as I’m having that great time, enjoying how awesome your family is, I’m wondering what was so awful about me that you never introduced us or even told them about me.”

Another dagger. Another direct hit. Which was a strange novelty. Josie had never sharpened her daggers. She’d always softened them. He certainly deserved it, so he didn’t get defensive.

He tried to take his mother’s advice. He tried to be honest. “I thought if you met them, compared me to them, you’d realize you’d made the wrong pick.”

Nothing in her softened. “Is that how little you thought of me?”

He thought about letting that slide, but if he was being honest, she needed to be too. He moved closer, and she held her ground, so they got to be about toe to toe with the container between them.

“No, you don’t get to pretend you don’t understand on that score.” He tossed the Tupperware onto the couch next to them without looking away from her. “You know that was me. What I thought of me. Not you.”

She glared up at him, but she didn’t have any quick comebacks for that.

This was as close as they’d been face-to-face in years, if he didn’t count the backseat of Shane’s truck, which he didn’t, because he hadn’t been able to look down into her brown eyes, trace the outline of her pouty mouth with his gaze.

He hadn’t had a moment of humming silence that allowed heat to simmer low in his gut. Damn, it had been a long time since he’d felt that. Because no one did it for him like Josie. Not since he’d first laid eyes on her.

He’d seen her. She was it. He couldn’t lose her. And the fact he was only now realizing how close he’d come to just that terrified him.

He didn’t reach out to touch her, if only because he thought she’d bolt, but he did angle his head down. Closer. Close enough he could feel the flutter of her breath against his chin.

Her tongue darted out, slid across her bottom lip. But before he could do anything about it, or the surge of desire that coiled tight and painful, Josie spoke in a quiet, fervent whisper.

“If you kiss me, I’m leaving. I am gone. Right this second. I will pack everything up and march up to my truck and leave.”

She didn’t move, didn’t push him out of the way, just used her words carefully enough to land like blows. And all that pain in her dark eyes drove the points home.

He ached in so many ways he couldn’t count them all. But he stopped himself, he didn’t press his mouth to hers no matter how much he needed to. He carefully, slowly, gently, put his hands on her shoulders. He lowered his forehead to hers. Kept his eyes closed, because looking at her might actually kill him. His hands smoothed down over her back, then drew her flush against him. She hadn’t said anything about this. Just about kissing.

So he held her against him, felt her jagged breathing and unsteady heartbeat that matched his own. She didn’t push him, didn’t relax into him. She just stood there, stiff.

It just killed him.

“I know you have every right to leave, Jo, but I’m begging you not to.”

He felt her swallow. “I didn’t come here to give you false hope. There’s no hope here. You killed us, Boone. It’s dead and over and I should leave.”

She wasn’t leaving though. She was letting him hug her, her cheek pressed to his chest. She’d come to the main house for meals, gone to the Christmas Tree farm today. Maybe she thought she should leave, but she hadn’t yet, which had to mean there was a chance here to make it right, little as he deserved it.

After a few moments, she pushed at him so that he released her. There were tears in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She was fighting valiantly. Fighting so many damn things.

He knew that feeling well, and the way it felt like the only thing to do was fight.

He studied her. Maybe she was right. Sounded like something he would do. Kill and break and ruin everything in his wake.

But he was old enough or mature enough now to realize you couldn’t fix hurts, couldn’t make them disappear. But they could heal, if a person let them.

He’d walked away from her once, and he’d meant to save her. He couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t in some ways, but he’d also failed her in others. Failure didn’t have to be forever. It didn’t have to be fatal. It didn’t have to mean he’d killed everything.

If he fought for once, it didn’t have to mean all that.

So he looked her right in the eye, gripped her shoulders firm and tight so she couldn’t go anywhere. “If you leave, I’m going to follow you,” he told her with all the certainty he had in him.

“That’s stalking, Boone.” She tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held her firm while he delivered his parting shot.

“No, it’s a promise. One I’m going to keep this time.” He released her then, stepped away. To the door, but he stopped short. And gave one last parting shot. “And don’t go thinking I don’t know that the only reason you don’t want me to kiss you is because you’re afraid it’ll change your mind.”

Her cheeks were pink with fury, but it wasn’t only fury. She still wanted him. She might not want to, but she did.