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“Sweet?” He winced.
She obviously had him mixed up with someone else.
Her hand eased away as she trailed ahead. “But I wasn’t talking about us. I meant my marrying Kent.”
Her words carried so quietly on the night air, he let them kick around in his head for a few seconds to make sure he’d heard her right.
“So Kent McRae was a mistake?” He couldn’t stop the question. He was human after all.
“Obviously, or I wouldn’t have divorced him.” She pulled ahead with long-legged strides that drew his eyes and his libido.
And then her words soaked into his brain. He stopped. “Youlefthim.” A fact that meant a lot more to him than it should. “I never knew for sure.”
She continued ahead for five tide-swishing steps. He stood unmoving, seaweed twining around his ankles as tenaciously as thoughts of this woman. Thoughts and curiosity about the man she’d chosen to marry without the coercion of a shotgun wedding.
Finally she spun to face him, all traces of regret and could-have-beens erased from her face. She was getting better at hiding her emotions. Much more practice and she’d be gone from him altogether, even if she never crossed the county line.
A bizarre thought for him, a man who kept life simple. Fact based. But he knew. She was easing her way out of his world. She’d thrown him out last time. This time she would stride away with a long-legged grace.
Her smile signaled an end to deeper discussions, another odd thought since that was usually his role.
“Anyhow, it’s wonderful how everyone turned out for you with more than just gifts. They’re here with support, for you and the boys. You’re going to be fine.” She held his gaze for one of those long, Mary Elise moments that carried peace and intensity all at once. “I’m so happy for you, Danny. You deserve to be loved.”
“So do you.” Where had that come from?
He’d never been the right man for her, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want her to be happy. He’d always wanted that for her.
Her mask slipped, not much. But enough.
He pressed his advantage. “You don’t have to go.” Daniel closed the steps between them. “I know you’ll need your own place and a job, so why not settle in Charleston? I’m not looking for you to take on my responsibilities, but it would be good for the boys to have you close by. And I could help you relocate.”
She backed up a step, tidewaters swirling between them. “I’m not staying here.”
He’d expected that, realized he’d have to push her on this. He hadn’t, however, expected the jab of disappointment. Eleven years had passed just fine without her.
Well, maybe more like the last nine of them.
Why should a handful of days together change that? “Where are you going? Back to Savannah after all?”
She shook her head. “I want to start over somewhere new, fresh.”
“Where?”
Since when was she the kind of woman who wanted to see the world? She’d been the girl who planned to settle in Savannah and fight battles with award-winning editorials that would shape the future of her hometown.
“Midwest or up north,” she answered elusively.
Enough of this evasion. He gripped her shoulders and drew her close, closer until the current made circles around their ankles. “What’s going on here, Mary ’Lise?”
He tightened his hold before she could slip away from him again like the sand under his feet; and tried like crazy to ignore the sense that if she left, that would be the end. No more second or third chances to get her out of his head. He would be stuck with her haunting his mind with regrets, clinging to his thoughts like one of those whispery strands of red hair blowing over him for the rest of his life.
They might not be able to recapture their friendship. The soft give of womanly flesh heating through his hands and sending blood straight south fast confirmed that. But he would not let this woman go until he knew she was settled, editorial pen in hand, crusades in place.
Smiling again.
He stepped closer and let the heat of his body filter through the air and his words. “Why haven’t you called your parents? Or anyone other than me? Don’t get me wrong, I want to be here for you, whatever you need, you know you can count on me. It doesn’t matter what happened eleven years ago. One call, and I’m there.”
“The call was for the boys, Danny.”
