“I had a good reason.” She turned on a lamp beside the couch, and she could see his tousled fair hair, his naked chest beneath the open white shirt, and the coldness of those silver-gray eyes. Even in this moment she felt the impulse to do anything to rid him of any coldness toward her. Block it. It was a habit instilled by all those years with him. It was the past, not the present. “My reason was that I’ve been lying there in bed thinking since Eve told me about your being hurt.” She lifted her chin. “I was shaken but not really surprised that you didn’t come and tell me yourself. But it did serve to bring everything together for me. It defined what I’ll always be to you.” She sat down in a chair and looked at him. “And I didn’t think I could bear to let it go another hour without telling you. I’ve waited too long as it is.”
“I wasn’t really hurt,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want you getting upset. You seem to be constantly on the edge these days. I know it’s Michael, but I thought I could spare you worrying about me.”
“Yes, it’s Michael. I think about him all the time.” She paused. “And it’s you. I’m going to lose you, Jock. I could see it coming, and I was fighting so hard against it. But tonight I decided that I was losing more than you by trying to give you what you wanted from me.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said roughly. “No one is losing anybody. Nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’s changed.” She forced a smile. “Not your fault, Jock. Probably not mine either. It just kind of snuck up on me. You’re used to feeling this kind of thing, but it caught me off guard.”
“You’re not making sense. What kind of thing, dammit?”
“Sex,” she said simply. She turned her hands over and looked down at her palms. “I want to touch you all the time these days. I want you to touch me.”
“Oh, shit.”
She looked up at his face. Shock, anger, intensity, and something else she couldn’t define. “I thought that’s what you’d say. Do me a favor and don’t feel sorry for me? I’ve always known that would never be my role in your life. I still know it. You have other women for that. I was best friend, a kid to protect. This just kind of happened but I know it ruins everything.”
“No it doesn’t. Sorry for you?” His eyes were blazing in his taut face. “I’m mad as hell. Why did you even bring this up? You’re only eighteen, and you don’t know what you want. Next month it will have gone away.”
“You’d like to think so. I know better. I’ve been living with this for a while. It might go away, but I’m not going to change back to what you want me to be. Somewhere along the way, I grew up, Jock.” She had to go on, say the words. “Even though I know it’s probably going to be the end of what we were together. I’m tired of pretending that nothing has changed and that I’ll always be the young girl you met and saved all those years ago. It’s too hard, and it makes me feel like a liar. We’ve never lied to each other.”
“Haven’t we?” he asked hoarsely.
“I didn’t think so.” She had to end this quickly. She got to her feet and moved toward the door. “So I think that it would be better if we didn’t see each other for a while. I know it would be awkward for you, and it would just confuse me more than I am right now. I’m so used to wanting to please you, and I have to get over that.” Her lips twisted. “I might find myself falling back into that same pattern. I won’t do that. I’m going forward, Jock.”
“Without me.”
She flinched. “I think it has to be that way. Though Darcy would probably think I’m stupid. She thinks it’s so simple. I should just jump you and let the cards fly where they might. But nothing is that simple where we’re concerned. We’ve known each other too long. We’ve been too close.” She looked him in the eye. “And there’s no way that you’d want that to happen.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t.” He was across the room in seconds. His silver-gray eyes were glittering down at her, and a muscle was jerking in his left cheek. “Not after all I’ve done to keep it from happening.” His hands grasped her shoulders and he shook her. “Forget it. Get over it, dammit.”
“I will.” She stared at him in bewilderment. She had never seen him like this. “I told you what I thought I had to do. Why are you being so—”
“Because I thought I had it all under control. I didn’t think I’d be dealing with you, too. I thought you’d find some young guy at your school, and maybe— No, I didn’t let myself think that, but that’s what should have happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you that there’s no way I should ever be anything closer to you than what I’ve been during these last years. So get over it.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “I know you, and I know myself. You may have just stumbled on this page, but I’ve got it memorized. I’ve worked too hard to let you—”
“Shut up a minute.” She was gazing up at his face. “I’m confused, but I have to get this straight. You’re not like this with me. You’re usually not—” She was thinking back about what he’d said. There was something there, something to which she should pay attention. And then put it together with what she’d known about him through the years.
And then it did all come together. She stiffened in shock. She gazed up at him in disbelief.
“Jock?” But she had to be sure. She slowly reached up and pushed open his shirt. His body was so beautiful … every muscle defined, the lines full of grace and power.
“No.” His eyes were glaring down at her, his face tense. “No, Cara.”
“But I have to know.” She spread her fingers and put the palms of both her hands on his naked abdomen.
A long, shudder racked his body. She could feel his muscles tighten, twist beneath her fingers. She couldn’t breathe. She could feel his tension, and it was becoming her tension.
“How long?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said jerkily, his gaze dropping to her hands on his body. “Far longer than you, I’m sure. I’m a man with the usual urges, and all of a sudden you weren’t a kid anymore. It shocked the hell out of me.” He pushed her hands away from his body. “Why do you think I’ve stayed away from you for the past couple years? I knew where it could end up, and I wasn’t going to allow it. I thought I could just keep us on an even balance, and you’d gradually just drift away from me as your career took precedence.”
“You had it all planned,” she said wonderingly. Her hands were no longer on his body. Why could she still feel the vibrant, tingling smoothness of his muscles on the skin of her palms? “But then you always did think ahead.”
“And you blame me for that?” His voice was suddenly harsh. “One of us had to look ahead. You wandered into my life all full of dreams and music and faith that I could do anything. But we both know what I do best, and there was no way I was going to let you stay too long or too close to me.”
Her lips twisted. “But I pulled the rug out from under you, didn’t I?”
“Maybe. It’s not going to work out like that now. We may be left with nothing. I didn’t want to lose you entirely.” He took a step back from her. “But perhaps in time I might be able to salvage—”
“You might be able?” She was suddenly angry. All the worry, the hurt, the helplessness she’d felt was hitting home. “You didn’t hear anything I said except about the sex. Maybe you thought that was all that was important. It was for me for a while because I thought it would destroy what we had together since that wasn’t what you wanted from me. But I told you I’d grown up, Jock.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “And what you want from me isn’t going to matter any longer. I have my own choices and decisions. I’ve been going through hell trying to come to terms with the most important relationship in my life, and I didn’t even have all the facts to do it. I was feeling desperate and inadequate, and I hate feeling like that.” She turned and opened the door. “So don’t try to tell me what you’re going to do. You left me entirely out of the decision process before. That won’t happen from now on. I’m upset, and I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. But I do know this. If there’s any salvaging to be done, it will be a joint venture. Providing I decide it’s worth my while to do it.” She slammed the door behind her.
*
Jock threw open the door and stood there on the step watching Cara run down the path toward the main house.