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“I’m sorry,” she whispered, forcing herself to break their kiss and trying to push back. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.”
He didn’t let go, his arm a band around her. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Because I’m not.”
He was so close and felt so good. God help her, she wanted to start that kiss all over again and never stop. “You don’t really know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Please.” She didn’t honestly know what she was asking for. Please let me go? Please kiss me again?
All she knew was that she couldn’t bear for him to discover the truth about her. How his gaze would surely change. How the coldness would descend.
She felt dirty for ever having allowed Eric to put his hands on her. How could she let Daniel touch her after that?
“Please let me go,” she whispered. It was the right thing to do. The best thing to do.
The only thing.
But it hurt so badly when his arms finally slipped away.
“What’s wrong, Tasha? You can confide in me. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
She was the one who would hurt him, who was already doing it as she told him her first bald-faced lie. “Nothing’s wrong. I just don’t know how I’m possibly going to pay you back for everything you have done for me.”
He frowned. “There’s no price. You don’t owe me anything.”
She felt nauseated now, hating that she’d just debased their kiss by making it sound like nothing more than payment. “I don’t mean a price. I…” She was making a mess of it. An even bigger mess than she already had. “I’d better check the puppies. They’ve been alone a long time.”
“Tasha.”
But she was already running, away from everything she’d ever wanted.
And could never hope to have.
Chapter Fourteen
Tasha’s heart nearly burst with loss as she picked up Darla and stroked her soft fur. How she longed to return to Daniel, to beg him to forgive her, to kiss her again. To hold her.
“But I can’t allow this thing between us to grow,” she told the puppy, her only confidante. “No matter how much I want it to.”
Daniel wasn’t her only danger either. His friends—his foster brothers—were as well. They loved him, cared about him, and he would clearly do anything for them. She respected them, liked them for their humor, their confidence, for the loving way they talked about their families, including their foster mother and father.
His family was yet another reason why she couldn’t get any closer. She didn’t deserve to be a part of a loving, perfect family like his. And she certainly didn’t deserve Daniel.
Carefully, she put Darla back into the pen to play with her brothers. Daniel had gone up on the roof to work with his friends, and she couldn’t hang out with the puppies all day, doing nothing while the men did all the labor. There was a ton she still had to do inside. By herself, where she could think things through without being distracted by Daniel’s proximity, by his scent, by the heat of his body as they worked side by side.
As she fixed yet another hole in the flooring, Evan entered the house, obviously wanting to talk to her.
“I saw you and Daniel working on the computer earlier,” he said in a deceptively easy voice. “How are the plans coming?”
Icy fear washed through her. Fifteen minutes ago, Tasha would have launched into an excited soliloquy on the great ideas Daniel had given her, how marvelous his design app was. But now she was consumed by one question: What else had Evan noticed?
He must have seen them kissing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here, no doubt prepared to tell her to leave his friend alone.
“Fine,” she said, her voice trembling over the four letters. She stood on shaky legs, hooking her hammer into its loop on her tool belt.
Evan folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall like he didn’t plan on going anywhere soon. “I have a confession to make.”
Her stomach did a pitch and roll as though she were on a ferry in bad weather. His next words were a no-brainer, so she should have been able to steel herself against them. Yet there was no way to stop them piercing her like a knife.
