“I don’t have one,” he replied simply. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to give up everything you have there to move here.”
Her heart plummeted. Okay, she told herself. She had her answer. If Kyle had really fallen as hard for her as she had for him, he’d have at least made a token effort to keep her with him. He had to know she wouldn’t have come all the way here if she hadn’t wanted him to talk her into staying.
She reached for her coat again. This time, he let her pick it up and fold it over her arm. “Then I guess there’s nothing more to say.”
He let her get all the way to the door before he said, “I can give you a long list of reasons why you should go home. Why you deserve a hell of a lot more than anything I could offer you here.”
Her hand was already on the doorknob. “I’m not interested in that list, thank you. I’ve pretty well figured those things out for myself.”
“I couldn’t list them all in just two minutes, anyway,” he murmured, making no move to detain her. “There are probably a hundred reasons why you should go back to Texas. And only one reason why you should stay.”
She froze, unable to look around at him, her heart starting to pound again. “That’s the one I would like to hear,” she whispered. “Why, Kyle?”
“Because I want you to. That’s hardly a powerful enough argument to convince you.”
She looked at him then, turning her head very slowly to study his somber expression. “That depends on why you want me to stay.”
He started to speak, then sighed and shook his head. “I can’t do this. Go back to Texas, Molly.”
She sighed impatiently. “You’re deciding what’s best for me again?”
“Someone has to, damn it,” he snapped, half turning away. “Before you end up making a reckless mistake that’s going to get you hurt.”
She let her coat fall to the floor, taking a determined step toward him. “You know what? I don’t think it’s me you’re worried about getting hurt. I think this is all about you again.”
That just seemed to irritate him more. “If that were true, I wouldn’t trying to send you home when what I really want to do is keep you here.”
“Why?” she challenged him, stepping in front of him so she could see his expression. “Why do you want me to stay?”
“Because I—”
“Why, Kyle?” she asked more quietly now.
His eyes were so tortured when she looked into them that her heart suddenly twisted. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell her, she realized suddenly. It was that he couldn’t say the words. He simply didn’t know how.
“Let me help you.” She reached up to touch his cheek, her fingertips lingering lovingly on the scar that was merely a symbol of how much he had suffered and lost. “I think you want me to stay because you love me. You’re afraid to admit it because loving someone makes you vulnerable again to being hurt. And you aren’t sure you can survive being hurt again, the way you’ve been hurt so many times before.”
He reached up to catch her hand, holding her fingers so tightly that she almost winced. His eyes were dark, his jaw so taut she saw a muscle jump spasmodically beneath his scar. “What makes you think you know how I feel?”
“Because I love you,” she answered boldly. “And I think I got to know you pretty well in the days we spent together.”
“We were together less than two weeks,” he argued roughly. “That isn’t enough time to fall in love.”
“Oh.” Disappointed, she let her hand fall. “I understand if it wasn’t enough time for you. I suppose I was taking a lot for granted….”
“I think I fell in love with you when you stood out on my deck in the middle of a rainstorm and told me how beautiful it was to you,” he said, his voice so hoarse it didn’t even sound like his own. “The wind was blowing your hair, and your nose and cheeks were pink from the cold, and that same storm had stranded you up here on that mountain for the night, but you looked completely entranced—exactly the way I feel every time I look out my back door.”
Joy exploded inside her. Breaking into a smile, she reached out for him.
Kyle quickly sidestepped her, shaking his head fiercely. “It’s because I love you that I can’t let you stay. You would never be happy here, away from your family. And I couldn’t stand knowing that you would rather be there than here with me. Go back to Texas, Molly. Find someone who has more to offer you.”
“Oh, put a sock in it, Kyle,” she said, her smile fading into a scowl.
His expression might have amused her had she not been so annoyed with him. “What?”
“It’s something Jewel told me to say whenever some smug, self-righteous, impossibly arrogant male starts making decisions for my sake because he doesn’t think I’m mature enough to know my own mind,” she informed him loftily. “If you want me to go, that’s one thing. Have the courage to say so. But if you want me to stay, and you’re sending me away out of some noble, self-sacrificing gesture for my own good, then you’re going to find yourself with a fight on your hands.”
He looked almost stunned, then—and she wasn’t sure if it was due to the fact that she’d stood up to him, or if there was more to it. She suspected the latter when he muttered rather dazedly, “That sounds exactly like something Tommy would say.”