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He was shaking his head before she even finished talking. “I want more.”
“There is no more. I mean. . .what. . .what about love?”
He sent her sharp look. “What about it?”
“We don’t love each other,” she blurted out desperately. “How can you expect a marriage to last if the people getting hitched don’t even love each other? Jesus, it’s hard enough when they do.”
“Love isn’t any kind of guarantee. I loved Amy and we didn’t last, now did we?”
“But. . .she died.”
“What’s your point? Death, divorce, it doesn’t matter. I’m not with her anymore. Love doesn’t mean forever.”
B.J. didn’t have a comeback. She merely stared at him mutinously. She wasn’t going to give in, though, and realizing it, Grady sighed in irritation.
“To tell you the truth,” he said quietly, “I’d just as soon not be in love the next go-round.”
“Gee, thanks,” the words blurted out of her before she could stop them. But really. Ouch. No matter how tough she acted, hearing him say he didn’t want to ever love her stung like a son of a bitch, and there was no way she could’ve hidden her knee-jerk reaction of wincing.
His lips parted with the realization he’d actually hurt her feelings, and the apology in his eyes made her humiliation complete. She looked away.
“I didn’t mean—” he started, but she lifted her hand to stop him.
“I know what you meant. Don’t sweat it.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t know. You don’t know at all. That’s just it. I can’t. . .I won’t ever let any woman. . .I mean, if I did, it could be Amy all over again. Don’t you see? If I left myself open, someone else could leave me, or die, or whatever, and there’d be one more huge, gaping hole split open right through the middle of me. So I’m just going to pass on the whole love thing from now on, because I could certainly do without that kind of heartbreak for the rest of my life.”
“Damn it,” B.J. muttered, scowling at him to hide the guilt of letting her own emotions take over when this was really about him and his misery. “Don’t go saying sad crap like that when I’m trying to disagree with you. I’m not going to back down, Slim. You’re wrong about this, and you’re just making me feel like I kicked a sick dog. So cut it out.”
“I’m not wrong,” he insisted.
“We’re not getting married, end of story. Will you wake up and face the new millennium?”
“I don’t care if it’s old fashioned. A child needs a sturdy foundation. There’s too many mixed families out there with too many messed up kids.”
She snorted. “Well, it’s going to have me for a mom, so I’d say it’s already screwed there. Sorry, bud.”
Grady blinked, looking surprised she could say such a thing. “I think you just might surprise yourself on that count.”
Her mouth fell open. “What? Are you on drugs? What the hell makes you think I’m in any way motherly?”
Grady stepped suddenly closer to her. When he lifted his hand to set it on the side of her neck, she knew he had to feel her pulse leap under his fingers. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, letting out a surprised puff of air.
“I want to marry you, B.J.,” he murmured, his face drawing closer to hers. “Why don’t you want to marry me?”
Though his achingly sweet tone melted everything inside her like butter over hot pancakes, B.J. balled her hands into fists. She wished she could sneer something scathing like, Gee, maybe because this whole marriage idea has nothing to do with me and everything to do with your own sense of morality. But she couldn’t utter the words.
Strange. She kept finding more and more she was unable to say aloud lately, which was very unlike her. But the truth was, if he really cared about her or the baby, he’d—
Grady’s fingers curled, and he ran his knuckles over her jaw, watching his own hand caress her as if it was the most intriguing sight in the world.
B.J. stopped breathing even as she warned, “Don’t crowd me, Slim,” and grabbed his hand, pulling it from her cheek. But, oh wow, that felt good. She didn’t remember to let go of him, and her fingers cradled his warm, thick wrist, wanting to pull it back to her and press his palm against her aching breasts. “You can’t sweet talk me into this.”
He had the gall to look amused. “I assure you, it never once crossed my mind I could sweet talk the ultimate hard-ass, B.J. Gilmore, into doing anything.”
When he tilted his head as if he was going to kiss her, she swallowed and tightened her grip on his wrist like that would stop the procession of his lips.
Meeting his gaze with a stony expression, she said, “You can’t seduce me into it either.”
