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“And is that a good thing?” she asked quietly. “Or a bad thing?”
Leave it to this new Lacy to lay it out there so bluntly. His mouth quirked. “I guess you’ll have to discover that for yourself.”
“It shouldn’t matter to you what I think,” she said.
“Yes, it should,” he argued, and briefly looked down at her fingers, caught in his. “You more than anyone. I had a lot of time to think while I was gone.”
“Yeah,” she said shortly. “Me, too.”
He nodded, acknowledging what she said even as he mentally kicked himself for putting her through so much pain. He hadn’t been able to see anything beyond his own misery two years ago. Yet now everything looked clear enough to see that he’d set this whole situation in motion. He had to dig his way out of the very mess he’d created.
“My point is, I took some long, hard looks at my life. Choices made. Decisions. I didn’t like a lot of them. Didn’t much care for where those decisions had taken me. So now I’m home and I’m going to live with whatever it was that brought me back here.”
She took a breath when he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles and he felt the soft whoosh of heat simmering into life between them. Her summer-blue eyes narrowed in caution. He understood why she was looking at him as if expecting him to turn and bolt for the door. But he was done looking for escape. He was here to stay now and she had to get used to it.
“I understand your suspicion,” he said, capturing her gaze with his and willing her to not look away. “But I’m home now, Lacy. I’m not leaving again and you’re gonna have to find a way to deal.” He leaned in closer. “I left two years ago—”
She took a breath. “You keep reminding me of that, and trust me, it’s not necessary.”
“The point is, those two years changed us both—but nothing can change what’s still between us and I’m not going to let you deny that fire.”
She licked her lips, clearly uneasy, and that slight action shot a jolt of heat right to his groin.
“Sam—”
Oh, yeah. She felt it. She was just determined to fight it. Well hell, he’d always liked a challenge. “I’m going to romance you, Lacy.”
“What? Why?” She pulled her fingers from his grasp, but he saw her rubbing her fingertips as if they were still buzzing with sensation.
“Because I want you,” he said simply. He wasn’t going to use the L word—not only because she wouldn’t want to hear it, but because he didn’t know if he could say it again. He’d had that love once before but it hadn’t held him. He wasn’t ready to try and fail again. Failure simply wasn’t an option, to quote some old movie. So he was going to keep this simple.
Looking deeply into her eyes, he added, “It’s not just what I want, Lacy. You want me, too.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but she didn’t, and Sam called that a win. At least she was admitting, if only to herself, that the burn between them was hotter than ever.
“You’re really trying to keep me off balance, aren’t you?” she asked.
He gave her a slow, wicked smile. “How’m I doing?”
“Too well.”
“Glad to hear it.” He stood up abruptly and announced, “I’m headed over to the architect’s office. I want to talk to her about designing this gift shop.”
“You’ve already got so much going on...”
“No point in wasting time, is there?” And he meant both the building and what lay between them. He was sure she understood that, too.
“I suppose not.”
“So, talk to a few of your friends,” he said, heading for the door. “See if they’d be interested in being involved.”
“I’m sure they will...”
“Good,” Sam said, interrupting her as he opened the office door. “We can have dinner later and talk about everything.”
He took one last look at her and was pleased to see she looked completely shaken. That’s how he wanted her. A little unsteady, a little unsure. If he kept her dancing on that fine edge, she’d be less likely to pull back, to cling to her anger. Sam was determined that he would find a way back into her life. To have her in his. And he knew just the way to do it.
Back in the day, he hadn’t given Lacy romance. They’d simply fallen into love and then into marriage, and it had all been so easy. Maybe, he thought as he stalked through the lobby and out the front door, that was why it had fallen apart. It was all so easy he hadn’t truly appreciated what he’d had until he’d thrown it away.
