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It was one of his gifts to his lovers. But it was a curse once he left.
“The obvious answer isn’t reason enough?”
Sheila stared back at Casey silently for long moments as she tried to figure that one out.
There was an obvious answe
r?
She bit her lower lip, trying to figure it out. Because she knew Casey—if she asked, just out-and-out asked what that answer was, then there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to tell her.
He would turn it into a puzzle and into a game and he would make her completely insane with it. She didn’t need that. Her heart had enough weight on it already.
She cared for her father.
She helped him.
She covered for him.
She scheduled for him.
She carried information for him.
And she had given up her own dreams of love the day she had learned that she was no more than a conduit to her father.
It wasn’t Captain Rutledge’s fault. It was her own.
But now, it was backfiring on her.
“There’s an obvious answer, Casey?” She finally asked the one question she knew he wouldn’t answer.
She wondered what game he would turn it into now.
“Why yes, there is, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, then perhaps there’s nothing left for us to talk about.”
There was no anger in his tone, there was no anger in his expression or in his eyes. There was something that went beyond anger and sent her stomach clenching with dread.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked cautiously.
“When you figure out the obvious answer, Sheila, let me know,” he told her with that icy calm that had come over him. “Until then, I’m tired of trying to move the mountain and I’m sure as hell tired of chasing after a woman who doesn’t want me.” He headed for the door. “I’m sure you can see your way out.”
“I knew you would turn this into a game,” she cried out as his fingers curled around the doorknob. “I know a trick question when I hear one, Casey. Is this how you break it off with all your women once you’re tired of the pity fucks and the lessons in life?”
He stopped.
For a moment, Sheila wondered if perhaps she had gone too far. She had definitely exaggerated slightly, but it was just slightly.
Casey had a tendency to take lovers who needed to awaken, whether they wanted to or not.
“No, Sheila, I just thought this time, I’d found a woman who didn’t need to be dragged kicking and screaming into life.” He turned back and glanced at her for just a second. A very short, very disappointed second. “I guess I was wrong.”
He opened the door and walked straight out of the room. The door closed behind him, an almost silent click that for some odd reason had Sheila flinching involuntarily.
She felt her stomach drop, then clench. Tears sprang to her eyes and she didn’t understand why. She couldn’t explain the dampness or the sense of agony that tore through her.
Her father had told her once, well, really, he’d told her several times that her habit of honesty was going to end up hurting her more than she was going to be able to heal.
That might have just happened, and she couldn’t explain to herself why it had. All she wanted was the truth. She just wanted to know if there was a chance that he loved her. That he could love her.
