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“Noah.” There was a catch in her voice. “Noah, I’m so sorry.”
He had no idea who moved first, but they were in each other’s arms. She was warm and familiar, but beneath her willowy frame he sensed the resilience that had held her together through her great loss and into her new life. He breathed in her scent, he breathed in her strength, and it steadied him. His pain lessened as he felt his muscles relax for the first time since hearing the news.
Tim, he thought, closing his eyes to revel in this brief respite in her embrace, I hope you’re finding such peace wherever you’re resting now. He managed his first deep breath in hours. Then a second.
All right, he told himself, figuring he should let her go now. All right. He tried moving away but that toughness of hers came into play and her arms refused to release him.
“Wait a minute,” she said, her gaze narrowed on his face. “Did I hear right? Did you just say you’re in love with me?”
Shit. “You caught that, huh?” He kept his hands loose and relaxed at his sides. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
He saw her swallow and in the glow of the streetlight he detected the flush rising on her cheeks. “Why not?”
Why not? No matter how closely they were pressed together, the reason why not stood between them, as big as if he was really the size of the cardboard cutout Gabe had made of his photo. Why not was America’s high-class hero, General Wayne Weston. In comparison to her husband, Noah Smith, convict’s son and soldier-from-the-sticks, had nothing to offer this woman. He’d known it from the start but for a few weeks had allowed himself to forget that fact.
“Because…because it made me really glad to hear it, Noah,” she said.
What? Startled, he watched her swallow again.
“When I saw you just now, I knew… I knew…” She hesitated, then plunged on, “Well, I’m done with hiding away and hiding how I feel. I want you. I want you back in my life.”
Despite his best intentions, his hands lifted, one to her hair, the other cupped that sweet indentation at her waist. “I can’t… I don’t…” Christ, what to say? She was dangling half a dream in front of him. He wanted everything with her, he wanted it all, but another, better man already filled her heart.
He dropped his arms and broke her hold, putting breathing room between them. “I can’t come back into your world and start washing your windows again, Juliet.” Christ, and it made his blood boil thinking about it, because he was afraid if she insisted he’d settle for just that.
She stiffened. “That’s not what I meant.”
“And I also can’t be the ‘any warm body’ in your bed when you feel like you want one of those.”
“That’s not what I meant either!” Hot color shot across her face. “You know I’m not asking for a servant. Or a gigolo. You know me better than that.”
“Juliet…”
The three syllables seemed to incense her. Her body went rigid. “ ‘Juliet’ what? You make me so mad! You’re leading me on again, damn it, playing Mr. Hot-Then-Cold. ‘I love you, I’m in love with you, I need you,’ you said that, and then you back away.” She crossed to her front tire and gave it a swift kick.
Noah winced, even as she took aim again. He grabbed her elbow and yanked her out of range before she could hurt herself. It only served to turn her ire back on him.
“Because that’s what I want,” she said hotly, wrenching her arm out of his hold. “A man who will love and need me in the same equal measure that I love and need him. I thought for a minute that was you.”
Her eyes were bright with anger—or something else.
“But if you can’t or won’t be that man,” she continued, “then eff…eff… No, let’s make this simple and clear, Noah. If you won’t be that man, then fuck you.”
It was the F-bomb that finally got through to him. His head cleared for the first time since hearing about Tim, and Noah looked at her, really looked at her. Her face was red, her hair a little mussed, her fingers curled into tight fists. The Juliet who had been the general’s wife was a lady, always controlled and composed. But this Juliet, his Juliet, was a woman with temper and passion.
Hah. He got it now. Really got it. This was what he had to offer her—himself, a man who brought out this woman, this real Juliet. And he would take pleasure in her every mood and every flame forever.
Except looking at her angry expression, he wasn’t sure she’d let him.
“Okay,” he told her, taking hold of her again. She tried jerking free, but he was firm. “You win. We win.”
