Chapter 16
“Time to go,” Joe said from the doorway. He’d helped Mae move back into her house after the detective finally let them out of theirinterview. The sun would be coming up soon. There was a warm dry breeze blowing. Ben had the plane fueled and ready to fly out of Bob Hope Airport.
“Don’t leave on my account,” she said. She stood just out of his reach, leaning up against the door.
“Don’t stay on my account.”
“Ha. The old compromise. Your way or the highway.” Her lips quivered, giving her face a fragile look.
He shrugged, but it didn’t feel good. She was right. And wrong.
“I could say the same.”
She put up her hands, flashed him a tragic smile and said. “Stalemate then.”
He turned to go. Now it felt worse. All of it. The leaving. The thought of staying. None of it was right. Life could be hell. Or women and relationships could be hell. He was reminded why he avoided them and wondered how a smart grown man such as himself could continue to make such mistakes. Painful, avoidable mistakes.
“Joe, I…”
He stopped in his tracks in the middle of the slate walkway that led to the street and his car and felt his heart race as if he were sprinting. He ought to be. He should be running as far and fast as he could go away from her. Instead, his heart demanded that he turn around and face her. Or maybe it was his pride. He was no chicken shit. He’d started something with Mae Monday and he ought to damn well finish it the right way, with some honor.
Turning around, he walked back, drawn by the look on her face, the sad sex kitten, alluring and vulnerable. Maybe alluring because she looked so vulnerable. He had yet to figure out what his heart and soul found so compelling about her. In his head, he’d told himself she was smart and beautiful and funny and brave, but so what?
Did that make her someone he couldn’t live without? Hell, no.
But his heart and soul disagreed with painful certainty.
He went back to her and didn’t stop until he was inside the doorway, facing her. Not something for the faint of heart. He watched her breasts rise and fall as she heaved a deep breath. And he waited for her to splinter his soul.
“I want to tell you how much you mean to me without making you run out the door even faster than you already are. Not sure how to do that.” She quirked a half smile and, though her dimple showed, it didn’t stop the tears. He saw the glistening on her lashes, saw the drop fall from the corner of her eye and roll down her high, elegant cheek.
The tightening in his chest was unbearable. Without any thought, he eliminated the respectable space between them, raising a shaky hand to her cheek, wiping the tear away with his thumb, unsteady and as gentle as if she were a bomb he had to disarm. Maybe she was.
Maybe it was too late.
Maybe the explosion of emotions he felt as he pulled her against him was the end of him.
But as he lowered his mouth to whisper comfort in her hair, smelling the heady scent of her, it sure as hell didn’t feel like the end of the world. Holding her felt like heaven.
“I’ll be back, Mae. I promise.” He whispered the words as he nibbled her earlobe, trailing kisses down her jawline, bringing his mouth close to hers.
“Rash words. Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said, pain in her hoarse voice.
Holding her tight, he lifted his face from her hair and looked into her eyes.
“I never make a promise I don’t keep. I’ll be back. The only thing that will stop me is if you don’t want me.”
“Oh, I want you, Joe.” Her voice cracked. “Too much. There, I admitted it. I’m hopelessly mad about you.” She sniffed and tried looking away. His heart hammered hard and loud now. He could feel the pounding vibrate through every part of him. Taking her chin in his hand, he turned her to face him.
“I know. I’m a fool,” she said, her tears streaming now. “But I don’t care. My mother always said to own who you are, embrace your emotions. I always thought she was crazy, but here I am, finally taking her advice.”
“Maybe your mother was smarter than you think,” he said. He should say more, he wanted to make her stop hurting. He wanted to cut through the confusion in his own heart and head, but he would say nothing crazy, nothing he couldn’t back up, nothing he didn’t mean with every fiber in him.
She scoffed. “Did I tell you my mother was married three times?” She waved a hand and tried to back up from his embrace. He didn’t let her. He couldn’t let her go even as he told himself to let go.
“Mae, I’ll be back to see you. We’ll figure this out, you and me. What we have.”
“We have something?” She sounded more skeptical than hopeful.