“Devin, I don’t understand this.” If he’d stop kissing her, just for a minute, she might be able to understand.
But he couldn’t seem to stop, any of it. “I loved you so much I thought I’d die from it. Just keel right over and die.”
Panic and denial had her struggling away. “You couldn’t have.”
He’d said too much, but the regrets would have to come later. Now, he’d finish it. “I’ve loved you for over twelve years, Cassandra. I loved you when you were married to another man, when you had his children. I loved you when I couldn’t do anything to help you out of that hell you were living in. I love you now.”
She got up and, in an old defensive habit, wrapped her arms tight around her body. “That’s not possible.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel.” She jolted back a full step at the anger in his tone, making him clench his teeth as he rose. “And don’t you cringe away from me when I raise my voice. I can’t be what I’m not, not even for you. But I’m not Joe Dolin. I’ll never hit you.”
“I know that.” She let her arms drop. “I know that, Devin.” Even as she said it, she watched him struggle to push back the worst of his temper. “I don’t want you to be angry with me, Devin, but I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Seems like I’ve already said more than enough.” He began to pace, his hands jammed in his pockets. “I’m good at taking things slow, thinking them through. But not this time. I’ve said what I’ve said, Cass, and I can’t—won’t—take it back. You’re going to have to decide what you want to do about it.”
“Do about what?” Baffled, she lifted her hands, then let them fall. “You want me to believe that a man like you had feelings for me all these years and didn’t do anything about it?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he tossed back. “You were married. You’d made your choice, and it wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t know there was a choice.”
“My mistake,” he said, bitterly. “Now I’ve made another one, because you’re not ready, or you don’t want to be ready. Or maybe you just don’t want me.”
“I don’t—” She lifted her hands to her cheeks. She honestly didn’t know which, if any, of those alternatives was true. “I can’t think. You’ve been my friend. You’ve been, well, the sheriff, and I’ve been so grateful—”
“Don’t you dare say that to me.” Devin shouted the words, and was too twisted with pain and fury to notice that she went white as death. “Damn it, I don’t want you to be grateful. I’m not playing public servant with you. I don’t deserve that.”
“I didn’t mean… Devin, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“The hell with being sorry,” he raged. “The hell with gratitude. You want to be grateful I locked the son of a bitch up who was pounding on you, then be grateful to the badge, not to me. Because I wanted to break him in half. You want to be grateful I’ve been coming around here being the nice guy, like some love-whipped mongrel dog, don’t. Because what I’ve wanted to do is—”
He bit that back, his eyes cutting through her like hot knives. “You don’t want to know. No, what you want is for me to keep my voice down, my feelings inside and my hands to myself.”
“No, that’s not—”
“You don’t mind if I kiss you, but then, you’re so damn grateful it’s the least you can do.”
Her stumbling protest fell apart. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m tired of being fair. I’m tired of waiting for you. I’m tired of being torn up in love with you. The hell with it.”
He strode by her, and was halfway down the stairs before her legs unfroze. She raced after him. “Devin. Devin, please don’t go this way. Let me—”
He jerked away from her light touch on his shoulder, whirled on her. “Leave me alone now, Cass. You want to leave me be now.”
She knew that look, though she had never expected to see it aimed from his eyes into hers. It was a man’s bitter fury. She had reason to fear it. Her stomach clenched painfully, but she made herself stand her ground. He would never know how much it cost her.
“You never told me,” she said, fighting to keep her voice slow and even. “You never let me see. Now you have, and you won’t give me time to think, to know what to do. You don’t want to hear that I’m sorry, that I’m grateful, that I’m afraid. But I’m all of those things, and I can’t help it. I can’t make myself into what anyone else expects me to be ever again. I’ll lose everything this time. If I could do it for anyone, I’d do it for you. But I can’t.”
“That’s clear enough.” He knew he was wrong—not completely wrong, but wrong enough. It just didn’t seem to matter, compared with this ragged, tearing hurt inside of him. “The thing you’ve got twisted around, Cass, is that I don’t want you to be anything but what you are. Once you figure that out, you know where to find me.”
She opened her mouth again, then closed it when he strode away. There was nothing else she could say to him now, nothing else she could do. She felt raw inside, and her throat hurt.
And it was hurt that had been in his eyes, she thought, closing her own. Hurt that she had caused, without ever meaning to.
Devin MacKade loved her. The idea left her weak with terror and confusion. But bigger even than that was the idea that he had loved her all this time. Devin MacKade, the kindest, most admirable man she knew, loved her, had loved her for years, and all she had to give in return was gratitude.
Now she had lost him, the friendship she’d come to cherish, the companionship she had grown to depend on. She’d lost it because he wanted a woman, and she was empty inside.