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“For what?”
Drawing back, he scanned her face as if searching for an answer she couldn’t give him. “For making an effort, for being here, but most of all for being you.”
Her breath caught at the adoration in his gaze, and at that moment, with the squeals of excited children, the low rumble of desultory conversation on a warm Sunday afternoon, and the distance cackle of a kookaburra in outer suburbia in the background, she knew.
Setting him free would be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
She loved this man, heart and soul. Always had, always would.
Staring into his handsome face with its bronzed skin, crinkly lines around the eyes, and perpetual smile, she knewhewas her future, her destiny.
And she had to walk away from him.
Trying to ignore the dull ache spreading through her chest, squeezing her heart until she thought it would burst and robbing her lungs of air, she closed her eyes, unable to bear looking into his beautiful eyes one second longer.
“Hey, that was a compliment,” he said, brushing her hair off her face, the slight rasp of his calloused fingertips sending a shiver down her spine.
“I know.” She had no option but to open her eyes, to let him glimpse the devastation ripping her apart.
“Hell, you’re crying. Are you okay?” He cursed. “I knew I should’ve eased you into meeting them one family at a time rather than something this big.”
She shook her head, blinking rapidly, and laid a stilling hand on his arm as he pulled away. “No, your family is great. It’s the exhaustion catching up with me.”
Lame, but what could she say?I love you more than life itself but I have to let you go?
Concern slashed a vertical indentation between his brows. “You know I’m not buying that excuse, but I’m not going to push it, not here.”
Grabbing her hand, he pointed to the front of the house. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But what about saying goodbye?”
“Think you’re up to it?”
He brushed away her tears with his thumb, the depth of his caring doing little to stem the flood she barely managed to hold back.
“Give me a few minutes inside, then I’ll pop out, thank your family, and then we can leave?”
“You sure?”
She wasn’t sure about anything: about the sanity of what she was contemplating, about how she could walk away from him, and most of all, how long it would take her to pick up the pieces of her life without him in it.
“Uh-huh. Give me five minutes and I’ll be ready to say goodbye.”
“Okay.”
He dropped his arms and she instantly had the urge to burrow back into them, craving the warmth and security of his embrace.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head and squared her shoulders. It wouldn’t do her any good to crave his comforting anymore. Blane wouldn’t be around much longer and the thought fragmented her heart into painful little shards all over again.
“Cam?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you so much,” he said, his tender smile radiating a depth of emotion she’d waited a lifetime for.
His declaration should’ve made her feel like the luckiest woman in the world. Instead, with a sinking heart, she managed a weak smile and headed for the house to marshal her defences.
For what she had to face when she set him free, she would need them.
