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He lifted her chin. “Somehow I never quite manage to protect the people I love. I want to be with you, but I’m not marrying material. I’m no husband, no dad; I don’t know what a family is. I could never give you that. But I want to be with you for as long as I breathe.”
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With his heart in histhroat, Blake stared at Lindsay. He’d seen every emotion while he’d told her he loved her. He’d also seen the bleakness return when he’d tried to explain why he could never marry her. What else was there to say to make her understand?
For while it was quiet in the room before she looked at him. “So how do you think this would work? Do I stay with you? Or do you stay with me? Or do we take turns? And for how long?”
Oh, hell, he was making a mess of things. “We’ll live together wherever you want.”
“So as if we’re married, but we’re not?”
This was a trick question, he was sure of it. But for the life of him, he didn’t know how to answer it and not say the wrong thing. Because obviously, he was doing this all wrong. “Yeah, kinda.”
“So let me get this straight—you love me, you want to be with me, but you don’t want to marry me. And the reason why you feel you can’t marry anyone is because you didn’t have a ‘normal’ family growing up—whatever ‘normal’ is. Is that about it?”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times. That was about it. He nodded.
She slowly got up and looked him in the eye. “I love you too, Blake. And granted, I didn’t grow up in the system as you did, but I’ve also lost people I loved. And after Mark, I thought for a long time I could never trust my own feelings again. I really struggled with that, but I fell in love with you anyway. And it was so different, so big, I didn’t have a choice but to give my heart to you. I would love to be with you, but I can’t do that on a temporary basis.”
“It wouldn’t be temporary!” he said and tried to catch her hand, but she moved away. “I’ll never leave you. But I don’t know what it means to be a family, a husband, a dad...”
“You’re leaving an escape clause for yourself. At least be honest about it.”
He could feel his world crumbling around him but he had no idea how to stop it. “That’s not true!”
But she was already at the door. For a moment, he thought she would leave without saying anything more, but then she turned and look at him again. “The reason you don’t want to marry me is BS, and you know it. Whatever else you need to know about family and love, I can teach you, Blake. We can teach each other. But that’s obviously not what you want. Goodbye.”
And then she left, taking his heart with him.
He was still staring dumbfounded at the door when there was a knock. He got up as quickly as he could. Had Lindsay returned? But it was Jason who opened the door. “Are you two decent?” he asked, looking around as he entered with Logan and Charlie just behind him.
“Where’s Lindsay?” Charlie asked as she put a tray with coffees next to his bed.
Blake rubbed his face. “She left.”
Stunned, everyone stared at him.
“I told her I loved her, damn it! But I don’t know how to be a husband or a dad; I can’t marry anyone. But I want to be with her.”
Charlie rounded on him, her eyes mere slits. “You egotistical idiot! And you told her that? After she’d spent the last twenty hours not knowing how seriously you’ve been injured, not sleeping, not before she’s seen you? Do you have any idea what she’d been through? What exactly did you tell her?”
“I grew up in the system,” he got out. “Until Miss Betty took me in when I was twelve.”
“Oh, so she made your life miserable?” Charlie wanted to know.
“No! She gave me a real home. But then...she died.”
Charlie glared at him. “You think you’re the only one who’s lost someone close to him? Lindsay and I lost both our parents in one day!”
“She told me. But you two know what it means to be a family; I never had that. I wouldn’t know how to protect my family.”
“Ah,” Charlie snarled. “So, there it is. You’re still worried you can’t protect Lindsay?”
He opened his mouth to disagree, but realized she was right.
“In case you didn’t notice, Lindsay is quite capable of protecting herself. Come on, Logan. I have to find my sister.”
With an apologetic smile, Logan followed her. At the door, she turned around. “I don’t know your whole story and I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be moved from one foster home to another. But you’ve been focusing so much on what you didn’t have, I think you’ve missed what you actually had.”
