“Ginger, I . . .”
“Cain,” she sighed, the words coming quickly and easily, and feeling as right as sunshine on a summer morning, “I’m yours.”
But the words, which felt so right to her, weren’t the right words at all.
He froze instantly, his hands lifting from her back as he took a sudden step away. Her body was jelly, and without the strength of his chest holding her up, she swayed. He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders to steady her as she opened her eyes, looking up at him in confusion.
“Ginger . . .” His face was stricken, torn, and confused. He searched her eyes, begging her to understand. Understand what? she wanted to ask, but he spoke again before her lips could form the words. “I just want us to be friends, Gin. Just friends, if that’s okay.”
Friends? After the warmth—the heat—of his words, Ifuckinmissedyou, this terrible, unexpected word, friends, bore a chill that smacked her face like a January wind. She didn’t feel friendship for Cain. She hadn’t felt friendship for Cain since she was twelve years old.
“Friends,” she repeated dumbly, staring up at him in confusion, her mind trying to figure out what the heck had just happened.
Friends? Wait. No. No! Nothing about the way they’d just embraced felt friendly. His words, I’ve missed you, I dreamed of you, didn’t feel friendly. The way he’d passionately kissed her hair and held her. None of it felt friendly. What the hell was going on?
He nodded, pulling his hands away from her. “Yeah. Friends. We . . . we grew up together, Gin. We should be friends, not enemies, don’t you think?”
She looked up at his face. His jaw was tense, his eyes still dilated and dark, his cheeks flushed. His voice was offering her friendship, but it clearly wasn’t what his body wanted.
“Cain, I—”
“I missed home,” he said quickly, cutting her off and stepping away again. He looked away from her, as if meeting her eyes was painful. You’re lying, she thought, letting her arms fall listlessly by her side as he continued trying to convince her that his impassioned words had somehow been impersonal. “Of course I missed you, but I also missed my pop and Apple Valley and even McHuid’s. I missed home. I dreamed of it all the time.”
She stared at him, unsure of what to say. She was positive she hadn’t misinterpreted the way he’d touched her, the way he’d spoken to her, but it was also clear he wanted her to buy this song and dance about missing home.
I’m yours.
She’d said the words and meant them, but they’d made Cain push her away. Why? Was he frightened of being with her? Of belonging to someone? Of loving someone? His body had reacted to her nearness—his heart thundering under her hand, his breathing ragged and fast. But suddenly he’d frozen, and now he was building a little wall called friends to keep them at a distance from each other. Why? Why wouldn’t he give the chemistry between them a chance?
His eyes searched hers, and as though he knew the questions she was about to ask, he shook his head, warning her not to.
“Friends,” he said firmly. “That’s all.”
It hurt to hear him say it with such finality, but in the strangest way, there was solace in the fact that he was lying to her. She was positive he wanted her, even though he was denying them both. He wanted her, and she knew it, and she clung to it. It didn’t matter if he called her his friend. His feelings for her ran deeper than friendship. She was certain of it.
He crossed the kitchen and stopped at the sink, bracing his hands on the basin. “Let me take a look at this, okay?”
“Okay, Cain,” she said softly.
She didn’t know why he wouldn’t surrender to his feelings for her, but maybe it was because of their age difference, or because he was returning to the service, or because Woodman had always had a crush on her. Or maybe, as she suspected before, it was because Cain wasn’t sure of how to love someone, how to belong to someone. And suddenly she realized that it didn’t really matter why he needed space between them. He could call them friends all he wanted. He was home for two more weeks, and she planned to figure out why he wouldn’t let her closer, why he was so determined to keep her at arm’s length. And once she did, she’d untangle the riddle of how to love him the way he needed her to, and how to get him to admit he loved her back.
He looked so sorry, so frustrated and filled with yearning, she smiled at him. And into that smile, small though it was, she poured all her love, her desire, her profound hope that words were just semantics and the feelings they shared for each other were so strong, they wouldn’t be denied.
He stared back at her, seemingly overcome.
“It’s okay,” she said gently.
He exhaled a breath on a low hiss.
“I’m glad,” he said.