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“Just you.”
She paused. “Sorry, but the discussion about my parents has killed any possibility of that for some time.”
“Not what I meant.”
She stared down at him. “Then what did you mean?”
Good question. What had he meant?
That he needed her?
Physically? They were powerful in bed together. But it was more than sex. Mentally, she challenged him with her quick intelligence and wit. Emotionally...emotionally she had him a tangled-up mess. A tangled-up mess he had no right to be feeling.
He’d asked her to give him two months. That’s all she planned to give him, that’s all he’d thought he’d wanted from McKenzie.
Usually he had long-lasting relationships even though he knew they were never going anywhere. He’d always been up-front with whomever he’d been dating on that point. When things came to an end, he’d always been okay with it, his heart not really involved.
With McKenzie he’d wanted that time limit as much as she had, because everything had felt different right from the start.
She made him question everything.
The past. The present. The future. What had always seemed so clear was now a blurred unknown.
That they had planned a definite ending was a good thing, the best thing. He had a vow to keep. Guilt mingled in with whatever else was going on. Horrible, horrible guilt that would lie heavily on his shoulders for the rest of his life.
“I’ll take that glass of water after all,” he said in way of an answer to her question. Not that it was an answer, but it was all he knew to say.
“Yeah, this conversation has left a bad taste in both our mouths.”
Something like that.
* * *
“Edith came in to see me this morning.”
Lance glanced up from his desk. “How is she doing?”
McKenzie sank down in the chair across from his desk. “Quite well, really. She had a long list of complaints, of course. But overall she looked good and the latest imaging of her chest shows that her pulmonary embolism has resolved.”
“That’s fantastic. She’s a feisty thing.”
“That she is.”
He studied her a moment then set down the pen he held, walked around his desk, shut his office door, then wrapped his arms around her.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh...” he told her. “Don’t say anything.”
Not that his arms didn’t feel amazing, but she frowned up at him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
He chuckled. “You’re such a stubborn woman.”
“You’re just now figuring that out, Mr. Persistence?”
“No, I knew that going in.”
“And?”
