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“Yeah, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” Adam shifted restlessly in his seat. “I’m not sure why I just laid that on you.”
“It’s okay. Family can be complicated sometimes.”
Lizzie took a cookie just to have something to do with her hands. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned their evening together, but she was loath to shut him up when he obviously needed to get stuff off his chest.
“Is she going to stay at the ranch?” Lizzie finally asked as he remained silent.
“No, Daisy wasn’t keen on the idea. She’s going to stay at the Hayes.” Adam took a cookie and dunked the whole thing in his coffee before eating it in one bite.
Lizzie waited, but he seemed to have clammed up again. Maybe saying that many words to her in one go had exhausted him.
“Is that why you decided to come and talk to me?” She tried to coax him along.
He raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Did you want ‘closure’ with me, too? Because I’m quite happy to finally have a discussion about what happened between us.”
“You mentioned something about Rio and Yvonne visiting the Cortez ranch,” Adam said abruptly.
“Yes, I did.” She was all at sea again. “What about it?”
“Did Yvonne say anything to you about the place?” Adam asked. “Do you think she and Rio might buy it?”
Lizzie set her mug down on the table with deliberate precision. “You came here to ask me about a private conversation that I might have had with my boss, which has absolutely nothing to do with you?”
“It does have something to do with me. Ines and Carlos are my in-laws,” Adam protested. “I’m just trying to look out for their interests.”
Lizzie stood and just remembered to keep her voice low so that she wouldn’t wake Roman. “Then talk to them or talk to Yvonne. Don’t expect me to be your snitch!”
“I’m just asking . . .”
She shook her head. “You haven’t bothered to talk to me for years, and now the moment you think I can be of use to you, here you are, without a word of apology or anything!”
Picking up his hat, she threw it at him. “Go away, Adam.”
He caught his Stetson and jammed it on his head. “Lizzie . . .”
“Don’t you dare Lizzie me.” She walked across to the door and held it open. “Go. Away.”
She marched down the stairs and unlatched the lower door, enjoying the breeze that hit her flushed face.
He finally reached her, but he didn’t go past. In the narrow hallway, he was much too close.
“What do you want me to say about what happened back then? That I’m still disgusted with myself? That I know what I did was unforgivable?”
She looked up into his anguished eyes and spoke as clearly and calmly as she could. “What you did? What we did together was a perfectly natural reaction to losing someone we both loved.”
“It was a betrayal and you damn well know it.”
“A betrayal of what, Adam?” Lizzie asked. “Louisa was dead. You weren’t cheating on her. We weren’t hurting her. We were just grieving her loss.”
“By jumping into bed together?”
“There wasn’t even a bed.” She cupped his rigid jaw. “There was just you, hurting so badly that we were all afraid for you, and a moment of me giving you the comfort you needed.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“You were grieving.” She made him look her in the eye. “You needed—”
“I needed Louisa, not you.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Lizzie said softly. “We comforted each other in the most natural way possible. That’s not a sin. Louisa—”
He jerked his head away from her touch. “Louisa told me that you always had a thing for me.”
“Ex-Excuse me?” Lizzie stammered. “Are you trying to say that I came onto you just after my best friend in the world had died?” She stepped back, her hand coming up of its own accord, swinging to slap his face. “You complete bastard!”
She ran back up the stairs, locking the door behind her. She went into her bedroom where she buried her face in her pillow and cried her heart out. That’s why he hadn’t spoken to her for so many years? He thought she’d been trying to become the second Mrs. Adam Miller rather than just reacting to his raw pain, and trying to make it better for both of them?
