AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And I want a brand-new camera with a fifteen-zoom lens. Looks like we’re both going to be disappointed.”
“Damn it, Lacy,” he repeated. “You can’t cut me out of this. I’m here. I’m involved in this.”
“For now.” A part of her couldn’t believe that she was lying in bed with Sam, both of them naked and having an argument about a possible pregnancy. That was the sane part, she thought reasonably. The panicked portion of her was trying not to think about any of this.
Once he left the cabin she wouldn’t be bringing up tonight with him at all. And she was going to use every part of her legendary focus to forget everything that had just happened—mainly out of self-protection. She couldn’t think about being with him and not be with him. That was a recipe for even more craziness and more late-night crying sessions, so thanks, she’d pass.
When she didn’t speak, he seemed to accept her silence as acquiescence, which worked for her—until he started talking again.
“I came over here tonight to talk to you,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said on a sigh, “that went well.”
“Okay,” he admitted, “maybe talking wasn’t the only thing on my mind.” He dropped one hand to her hip and slowly slid his palm up until he was cupping her breast, sending tingles of expectation and licks of heat sinking down into her bones.
Just not fair, she told herself sternly even as she felt that heat he engendered begin to spread. Not fair that the man who broke her heart could still have such an effect on her. Even when she knew it was a mistake to allow his hands on her, she couldn’t bring herself to make him stop. And if she kept lying there, letting him touch her, it would start over again and where would that get her? Deeper into the hole she could already feel herself falling into.
Quickly, before she could talk herself out of doing the smart thing, she rolled out from under his hand and off the bed in one fluid motion. Just getting a little distance between them cleared her mind and soothed all those buzzing nerve endings.
He stared at her as she snatched up the robe she had tossed over a chair only that morning. Slipping into the soft terry fabric she tied it at the waist and only briefly considered making a knot, just to make it harder to slip off again. Once she was covered up, Lacy felt a bit more in control. Tossing her hair back from her face, she said, “I think you should go.”
“I came to talk, remember? We haven’t done that yet.”
“And we’re not going to,” she told him. “I don’t feel like talking and you don’t live here anymore, so I want you to go.”
“As soon as we have this out.” He settled on the bed, carelessly naked, clearly in no hurry to get up and get moving. “I’ve got a few things to say to you.”
“Now you have things to say? Now you want to share?” She laughed shortly and the sound of it was as harsh as the scrape of it against her throat. Through the miasma of emotions coursing through her, rage rose up and buried everything else. “Two years ago, you left without a word of explanation. Just came home from the funeral, threw some clothes in your bag and went.”
In a blink, she was back there. In this very cabin two years ago when her world had come crashing down around her.
* * *
The funeral had been hideous. Losing Jack to a senseless accident after he’d survived cancer had cut deeper than she would have thought possible. The Wyatt family had closed ranks, of course, pulling into a tight circle where pain shared had become pain more easily borne.
All of them but Sam. Even within that circle, he had stood apart, forcing himself to be stoic. To be solitary. He hadn’t turned to Lacy once for comfort, for solace. Instead, he’d handled all of the funeral arrangements himself, taken care of details to keep his parents from having to multiply their grief by dealing with the minutia of death. He’d given the eulogy and brought everyone to tears and laughter with memories of his twin.
But after everyone had gone home, after the ceremony had faded into stillness, she’d hoped he would finally turn to her.
He hadn’t.
Instead he walked straight into their bedroom and pulled his travel bag out of the closet.
Stunned, shaken, Lacy could only watch as he grabbed shirts, rolled them up and stuffed them into the bag. Jeans were next, then underwear, socks and still she didn’t speak. But as he zipped it closed and stood staring down at the bag, she asked, “Sam, what are you doing? Are we going somewhere?”
