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Jill exhaled and pulled in another breath, her determination still strong. “You can’t go, because I love you.” Her chest tightened when he still didn’t look up at her. “If you go, you have to come back, Slate, because I’m inlove with you.”
A new idea occurred to her. “When are you leaving? I’ll come with you.”
That got him to meet her gaze. “You can’t come with me.”
“Why not?” He couldn’t leave her here. She would wither and die without him.
“You love this ranch. This is where you belong. Your family is close, and…” He shook his head and looked at something over her shoulder.
She hated it when he did that, and she clung to that anger still swirling within her. “You’re just going to run away.”
“Yes,” he said.
“When does that stop?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Your family is close too,” she said, seizing onto anything she could. “You can’t just abandon your grandparents.”
His jaw jumped as he pressed his teeth together, and he shook his head.
“Look at me,” she said. “Look at me and tell me you don’t love me.”
It seemed to take an extraordinary amount of time for him to switch his gaze to meet hers. Storms rolled through his eyes, and all the muscles in his face twitched.
“You can’t say it,” Jill said, letting the tears spill down her face. “Please don’t go. At least wait to think about it. Or let me come with you. I can be ready in thirty minutes.”
Slate shook his head. “How I feel about you or how you feel about me is irrelevant.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said, desperation clawing up her throat. She took a step toward him, but the look on his face stopped her.
“I’m no good for you,” he said. “That’s the honest truth.” He turned around and slowly put another pair of jeans in his suitcase.
“Slate,” she said, his name choking her.
“I’m no good for you, Jill,” he said, louder now. “I’m sorry, but I’m not. You deserve someone a thousand times better than some loser ex-con who got addicted to pain pills in college and couldn’t stop as an adult.” He was yelling by the end, and Jill fell back a couple of steps, exiting his bedroom.
He turned to face her, his anger and disgust plain to see. “Please, just go back to your beautiful life. I will never fit into it.”
A door opened somewhere, and Luke came between her and Slate. He wore pure agony on his face as he came toward her. “Come on, Jill,” he whispered. “This isn’t helping anyone.”
She let him put his arm around her and guide her down the hall. Then through the kitchen, where Nick and Spencer gaped at her now.
Outside, under the wide, black expanse of the universe, she shrugged off Luke’s arm. “Tell me you didn’t ask him to come with you.”
“I didn’t,” he said, frowning. “I swear, I didn’t.”
Jill believed him, but it would be so much easier to direct her anger and hatred at him than Slate—or herself.
“Let me talk to him,” Luke said. “He just needs some time and distance.”
Jill sobbed as she walked away. What was she supposed to do? Slate had obviously made his choice.
“Jill, wait,” Luke said, following her. He caught her arm just as she reached the bottom of the steps. She spun back to him, and with him still on the stairs, he was much taller than her.
“What?” she demanded. “You’ve always wanted to leave the ranch, so just go already.”
“You don’t know what prison is like,” he said, his voice quiet but strong. Deadly. “I understand that youcan’tknow what it’s like. You don’t know what it does to a man like Slate Sanders. I’ve known him for a very long time, and I know that makes you angry. But I think it should make you trust me when I say he just needs some time and distance. He will come back to you.”
