“Nathan…”
“Forget it, Keira. I’m not interested in being analyzed.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were. Well, don’t bother. I’m not ‘punishing’ myself,” he said, his voice as grim as the bleak shine in his eyes. “I’m just living.”
“Are you?” she asked. “Really?”
He laughed sourly and shook his head. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there, Keira. Quit fooling yourself. I’m not the man you think I am,” he said. “I’m not looking to be saved. I’m not looking for roots. My life is just the way I want it. I’m happy going from Monte Carlo to Venice to London. I have friends, I go to parties, I come and go as I please and I live exactly the way I want to live. Not all of us want to be buried alive in a small town on top of a mountain.”
Her heart twisted in her chest as she looked up at him and watched him emotionally pull further away from her than he’d ever been. “Nathan…”
He took a long step backward. “Just leave it alone, okay? Today you go back to your life. I go back to mine. And it’s probably best if we just don’t see each other again while I’m here.”
There it was—the pain she’d been waiting for since the moment she realized she was in love with him. God. She hadn’t expected it to be so sharp. So devastating. When Max had betrayed her, she’d thought herself wounded. But now, knowing that she was losing Nathan, Keira finally understood what real misery was. What real heartbreak was.
Instantly, her imagination played out in her mind, showing her the coming years. The long, lonely years when she would be wondering if he ever thought of her. If he missed her. If he ever wished he had stayed in Hunter’s Landing.
And in the next moment, Keira had to ask herself if she would come to regret never telling him that she loved him. If she didn’t, she’d never know if there might have been a chance for them. Besides, if she kept quiet about her feelings, hiding behind her fear, wouldn’t that make her as big a coward as Nathan—hiding from possible pain?
That thought was enough to spur her into action. She would take a chance because that’s who she was. Who she had always been. And if he didn’t want her, then she would know. If he didn’t love her, she’d never have to wonder. She would only have to mourn what might have been.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said after taking a moment to steady herself. “Maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore. But before I leave, I want you to know something.”
His jaw clenched and his pale blue eyes shone with wariness. “I really think we’ve said enough already.”
“I don’t,” she countered quickly, before she could talk herself out of this. “You may not want to hear this, but I’m going to say it because if I don’t, I know I’ll regret it and, damn it, there are enough regrets in the world already.”
“Keira…”
“I love you,” she said, the words dropping into a sudden silence like stones into a well. When he didn’t say anything, Keira pushed on, knowing that if she didn’t get it all said now, she might never have another chance. “I didn’t expect to, but I do. I really love you, Nathan.”
Suspicion glittered in his eyes now, and she knew she was fighting in a battle already lost. He’d closed himself off so tightly, she could barely see a shadow of the man she’d spent the last four days with. But still, she’d come this far; she would say the rest, too.
“I’m not expecting you to say anything, and hey,” she forced a short laugh she didn’t feel “good thing. And I don’t want anything from you, either. I just…wanted you to know that somebody loves you. That I love you.”
She couldn’t reach him. She could see it as plain as anything. He had withdrawn so far from her, it was as if she was alone in the room.
The silence screamed at her. The snap and hiss of the fire sounded as loud as gunshots. While she watched him, Keira remembered everything they’d shared here during the storm. The wild, passionate lovemaking, the snowball fight, the arguments and the laughter.
She recalled turning to him in the middle of the night and feeling his arms slide around her middle, pinning her to him as they slept, and she wondered how she would ever sleep through the night again without him. How was she going to face every day, knowing she wouldn’t see him? Would never talk to him again?
A soul-deep ache washed over her and Keira wanted to moan at the swell of looming emptiness inside. But she didn’t. If this was the last time she was going to see him, then she wanted him to remember her smiling. And maybe someday, when it was much too late for either of them, he would think back to this moment and wish he’d had the courage to accept the love she had offered him.
“Well,” she said briskly, giving him her brightest smile and hoping it was enough to ease the shadows she knew were in her eyes, “I guess that’s it. The road should be clear in a couple of hours, so I’ll just stay out of your hair until then.”
He nodded so stiffly, it was a wonder his neck didn’t snap.
Keira walked up to him, went up on her toes and planted a quick, fierce kiss on his unyielding mouth. Then she stepped back, looked into his eyes and whispered, “Goodbye, Nathan Barrister.”
Then she left him, and the only sounds in the room were the fire and her quick steps as she ran up the staircase to get her things.
Several hours later, Keira was gone and the big house on the lake echoed with emptiness. Nathan wandered from room to room, too restless to sit still, too wired to work. Instead, his mind continued to taunt him by replaying those last few moments with Keira.
She loved him.
He should have said something, but damned if he knew what. She’d caught him completely off balance and that wasn’t something that happened to Nathan Barrister. He was a man who always knew where he stood. What to do. What to expect. He’d made a habit of being prepared for any eventuality.
She loved him.
He took the stairs two steps at a time, listening to the sound of his own footsteps thump like a jittering heartbeat in the big house. When he hit the upper landing, he headed for the bedroom. But, instead of averting his gaze from the old photos on the wall, he stopped to look at them all for the first time.
Echoes of the past reached out for him as his gaze moved from one familiar face to the next. There was Hunter, of course, laughing into the camera without a care in the world. And Nathan smiled at the photo of Luke and Matt Barton, back in the days when they were still speaking, holding Ryan Sperling in a friendly headlock, while Devlin Campbell and Jack Howington poured bottles of beer over them all.