He worked hard to shore up his defenses in the seconds before she reached him. But for the first time in his life, Buzz couldn’t quite manage. He felt unbearably vulnerable. Stripped bare. As if all his protective outer layers had been peeled away and his heart lay in plain view, beating and bleeding and hurting a lot more than he wanted anyone to see.
She stepped into the doorway a moment later. Buzz took a deep breath, felt her scent fill his lungs, and wished for the thousandth time things could have worked out differently. In the back of his mind he wondered if Mr. Pencil-Neck was outside, waiting, smirking because in five minutes she would walk away from the father of her child and the door would open for him to step in and take over.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” Brilliant response, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything else. What could a man say when the woman he loved was about to walk out of his life forever?
“I tried to call you.” Nervously, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Kept getting your answering machine.”
Buzz tried not to notice the way the gesture made the fabric of her shirt stretch across her breasts. Everything they’d shared up on the mountain flashed in his mind. The ensuing emotion moved him, shook him, and the regret tasted bitter at the back of his throat.
“I’ve been busy,” he said after a moment.
She nodded. “How’s the shoulder?”
He looked down at the sling. “Should be good as new in about four weeks.”
“Hurt?”
“Not much.” Not nearly as much as this is going to hurt, he thought.
Moving slightly, he looked over her shoulder. Colorosa and Maitland had Eddie in the pilot’s seat and were showing him the safety harness. On the other side of the hangar, Jake was in the process of marking the park ranger stations and RMSAR headquarters on the topographical map.
Confident he had some relative privacy, Buzz looked at Kelly. “I want to be part of Eddie’s life,” he blurted out.
She blinked. “Buzz…”
“I mean it, Kel,” he said, more firmly. “I can handle your having a relationship with Quelhort.”
“Quelhorst. And for the tenth time, I’m not—”
“I don’t care about that.” God, that was a pathetic lie. “I don’t. I just…want to see Eddie. I can fly out to Tahoe. I can drive once or twice a year. He can come here to see me in the summer. Maybe on spring break if you can spare him.”
“Buzz…”
“I have a right to see my son, Kel. I know I told you I never wanted children.” His voice broke and a sharp pang of humiliation washed over him. Jesus! He was losing it. Buzz Malone, hard as steel and cold as stone, losing his cool. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe his emotions were going to betray him and humiliate him in front of the woman whose opinion had suddenly become of vast importance to him.
“Damn it.” He turned away from her and paced over to a dented steel file cabinet. He didn’t need anything in the freaking cabinet, but he yanked the drawer open anyway. He stared blindly into the drawer because he desperately needed a few moments to pull himself together.
“I’m not going to Tahoe,” Kelly said.
It took a moment for the words to register in his brain. When they did, he turned to her, not understanding, and waited, not daring to hope the explanation had anything to do with him, with those precious hours they’d spent together on the mountain. Hours when he’d finally realized what it could mean for a man and a woman and a child to be together as a single strong unit, a family, one powerful force bound together by love.
Her brown eyes were luminous in the glare of the fluorescent lights of the office. He stared at her, felt his emotions burgeon, his throat lock up, his chest compress his heart until he thought it would explode.
He never would have believed he could break like this. For the first time in his life, he felt…fragile. As fragile as glass, and he wondered if this woman would shatter him.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you something I didn’t tell you before,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”
He looked at her, felt the pull to her, worked hard to hold his ground. He wanted to speak, just to let her know he could, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I came here to tell you I love you,” she said simply.
The words shattered him. Buzz felt himself coming apart, like glass thrown to the floor. He felt the pieces scatter and cut and he knew they would never go back the same way they were before.
He stared at her, not sure what to do next, terrified to let himself feel because he knew once he did there was no turning back.
She stared back at him with eyes that weren’t merely luminous, but filled with tears. Crystal tears that pooled and sparkled. Tears of hope for a future and the hurt of the past and terrible fear that things had already moved beyond the point of no return.
Suddenly, he knew he needed to let her know that it wasn’t too late. That it was never too late.
Clamping his jaws together to hold his own emotions at bay, he crossed to her. “Come here,” he growled.