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Shocked into silence, she could only look at him, blinking fiercely to hold back the tears at his words. Words designed to hurt her, to get her to call him a bastard and leave. But he’d said “wanted”. Past tense. And now it all made sense to her. Her memories drifted back ten years, when he pushed her away and said they weren’t right for each other. He’d been an alcoholic even then, though she’d been too young to recognize the signs. He’d hid it so well from her, from everyone.
All those years of hurt, of suffering alone. She wanted to scream her frustration and sorrow for all he’d lost, all he’d had to endure. Dear God, the strength it must have taken him to exist every single day after Amanda’s death, to fight his addiction, to conquer it. Didn’t he realize how much he’d changed since then?
“Get out, Kaitlyn. You have nothing to offer me. Unless you’re offering a bottle of whiskey. That I’d take. Anything else, I’m not interested.” He pushed back from the bar and took his seat on the stool, once again staring into the murky amber depths of the bottle.
Did he really think he could scare her off, that her love for him meant nothing? Did he think his shocking revelation would somehow change her feelings for him?
“You don’t know a damn thing about me, Brett McGregor,” she started, standing and walking toward him. She stopped when he turned around in his barstool to gape at her. “If you think you can make yourself look less desirable by revealing all your dark and dirty secrets, then you’ve had me pegged wrong all these years.”
He arched a brow but said nothing.
“You see, I’ve loved you since I was too young to even know what these feelings were inside me. I’ve loved your heart, your talent, the way you made me laugh and yes, even the way you infuriated me sometimes. The fact you’re an alcoholic makes no difference to me. The fact you were driving drunk the night Amanda died doesn’t matter. You screwed up and you paid the highest price possible. You lost the woman you loved.”
She stopped and let that sink in before continuing. “I was going to give you credit for learning from your mistakes, but I don’t think I’m going to. After all, you’re about to lose another woman you love. Is that what you want to do?”
His face paled. “I don’t love you.”
This time she placed her hands on either side of him. “Yes, you do. You’ve always loved me. You loved me when you thought I was too young, and for the past few weeks you’ve loved me like I never thought I could be loved. Are you willing to walk away from that kind of magic, Brett? Because I’m not.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying.”
She smiled. “Don’t I? You haven’t touched alcohol since Amanda died. Do you know how much I admire you for that?”
“Don’t,” he warned, his eyes darkening. “I’m not someone to admire.”
“You might not think so. But I do. What you’ve done requires the kind of inner strength the average man doesn’t have. Many would have climbed further into the bottle and never come out. You could have done that too. But you didn’t. You made the choice to change your life. Not only change your life, but live, sober, having to face the reality of what you’d done every single day of your life. In my book, that makes you one of the strongest men I know.”
“You have no idea how weak I really am,” he said, inclining his head toward the bottle over his shoulder. “I take that bottle out all the time and stare at it, so damned tempted to take a drink it drives me to my knees sometimes.”
His expression was so desolate, so filled with self-loathing that it nearly crumbled her. “Tell me, Kait. How could you possibly ever want to be with a man like me?”
She’d had enough. She pushed at his chest as she moved away from him, this time venting her ire without holding back. “Aren’t you tired of feeling sorry for yourself, Brett?”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re so caught up in the mistakes of your past that you refuse to live the rest of your life ahead of you. You’ve been so frozen by what happened that it’s made you stop living. Is that really what you want? Is that what Amanda would have wanted?”
His lips seamed tightly together, but she saw the glittering of moisture in his eyes.
“You loved her. She loved you. You fucked up in the worst way possible and she died. But she did love you, with all your faults. And so do I. And guess what? I have faults too. I make mistakes too.”
“Not like mine.”
“Oh, so is this a game now? I couldn’t possibly be as bad as you so you can’t possibly be with me? Come on, Brett. Grow up, get over yourself and start living again.” She went to him, wrapping her palms around his stubbled cheeks. This time, she didn’t try to hold back her tears. She let them out, along with the magic that swirled around them in a vortex of flowery-scented wind.
“I don’t care that you’re an alcoholic. It’s part of who you are but it doesn’t define who you are. Only you can do that, by your actions. You are worthy of love. You deserve a second chance. Please let me be the one you take that chance with. I love you. I always have.”
She inhaled, struggling to say the words through the tears. But they had to be said. She had to issue the challenge this one final time. “Now what are you going to do with that knowledge?”
Brett had to fight for breath. His chest squeezed tight with unshed tears and emotions he hadn’t allowed in far too long. Maybe ever. Had he ever had this kind of connection with Amanda? He loved her, of course. But it was a different person who’d loved Amanda. He wasn’t that man any longer. He’d never been the same man with her that he’d been around Kaitlyn.
But he’d spent the past six years trying to be the kind of man Amanda would have been proud of. He’d spent a lifetime wishing he was the kind of man Kaitlyn could love.
God, he wanted to take that step with her. He needed her more than he’d ever needed anyone before. And she stood here, right now, offering him everything he’d ever wanted.
“Please don’t push me away this time, Brett. If you do, I won’t come back.”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
Her lips lifted into a half-smile. “You might. And then you might not. We’re stronger together than alone. Let me love you. Open your heart to me. I need this. I need you.”
A light mist fell over them, making Kaitlyn’s face glow as if tiny diamonds sparkled on her skin.
She was magic. Everything about her, from her powers to make it rain and to bring springtime into his life, to the way she loved him without question. Without recrimination or accusation. She loved him, with all his faults and all his demons.
How could he say no to a lifetime of loving a woman like her? How could he deny her what she wanted, even it was a broken-down alcoholic like him?
How could he deny himself the one thing he’d always wanted? For the first time in too many years, hope surged within him.
He stood and moved her back. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He hurried to the storeroom and came out with two covered canvases. He put them both on easels. She frowned as she watched him set them up.
“Come here, Kait.”
She approached him, curiosity blending the gold and green in her eyes. He grazed his hand down her cheek. This one time, he could finally give something back to her after all she’d given him.
When he pulled the canvas off the first portrait, she gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. “Oh my God, Brett!”
Kaitlyn fought to breathe through the tears streaming down her face. She stared at the painting, unable to believe what he’d captured.
There she was, naked and lying on the chaise, just as he’d posed her. But instead of a plain backdrop to the painting, he’d painted the chaise in the middle of a green meadow, colorful wildflowers popping up out of the grass. The skies were dark gray and rain poured down over her, a single cloud parting to shine a ray of light over her body.
He’d captured her magic. He’d captured her heart. She turned to him, at a loss for words, her heart
swelling with so much love she thought she might burst. “I don’t know what to say. It’s breathtaking.”
“It’s you.” He bent and kissed her softly. Her mouth trembled at the first touch of his lips against hers. But then he pulled away and said, “This is you, too.”
When he pulled the sheet off the second portrait, she blinked, then cast a frown in his direction. “What do you mean?”
It was the nude she’d spotted in the storeroom. The one that had given her the idea to ask him to paint her.
“That’s you, Kait. I painted it when I first fell in love with you, when you were first coming into your maturity as a woman. Now I have two portraits of you, Kait. The young girl I first fell in love with, and the woman I love now.”
The dark hair cascading over her body, the delicate arms and fingers posed in front of her, hiding her nudity. Her gaze searched his. “This is me?”
