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The sight of his raw emotion was almost worse than feeling her own. Taking a deep breath, she willed herself to be strong and her voice not to shake.
“So, given our long and painful history together, Beau, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t want any part of your little self-improvement project.”
Noises startled her and for the first time in a while, she became aware that they were not the only two people in the universe. From outside in the hall came the sound of the movers returning with a mattress and trying to negotiate it up the staircase.
The poor dog hadn’t managed to sleep through her shouting. He was up again, snuffling around the room and systematically eating the muffins with appreciative smacks.
All this activity went on around her and still Beau was the center of her existence. He’d always been the sun to her orbiting earth, since the day they met in law school all those years ago, no matter how she wished otherwise.
He crept closer.
Stubborn pride forced her to stand firm and keep her chin up when the smarter thing would’ve been to leave now, call her real estate agent and list the B & B for sale by supper. But she was still a weak fool, even now, because she held his gaze, knowing that he could play her heartstrings the way Eric Clapton played guitar.
“Do you know what I thought about when I saw that truck coming, Jill?”
“God.” Pressing a hand to her chest, she tried unsuccessfully to choke back a hysterical laugh. “Are you going to use your near-death experience against me? Really, Beau?”
“I thought about you.” He shrugged helplessly, as though thoughts of her at the moment of his anticipated death were inevitable and he accepted them as such. “I saw your face.”
If only those words were meaningless. If only she could let them roll off her back, pity him for living in the past and move on with her life with no thoughts of him to torment her in the dark hours of the night. None of that was possible, though, and bluster was her only flimsy defense against him.
“Too bad for you.” She tried to look bored. “I’ve moved on.”
“You have in some ways,” he said evenly. “But we’re still in love with each other. We’re not finished. We’ll never be finished.”
Jillian went still, too shaken even to blink. The words were such a stinging blow that he might have backhanded her across the face.
For no reason at all, she thought of Adam, her numbness when he’d kissed her earlier, and the way she’d been sleepwalking through life for years. She thought of the yawning emptiness she’d felt, and how she’d wondered if and when she’d ever feel anything deeply ever again.
And now, after ten minutes with her ex-husband, she was that same sickening knot of seething emotions—anger, pain, hurt and confusion—that she’d been when she left him.
Oh, the irony.
She gave him the kind of pitying look she knew he hated, and focused on getting out of there as soon as possible, while she was still in one piece.
“You’re in denial. You should ask your therapist to work on it with you.”
This seemed like a pretty good exit line and she turned to go. But Beau’s face contorted with fury and he lashed out, catching her wrist.
Crying out, she wrenched away from him.
This threw him off balance, to her sinking horror.
Oh, no. She hadn’t meant—
He flailed his free arm but couldn’t right himself. She saw his eyes widen with dismay and all her anger evaporated in the time it took her to lunge and catch him around the waist.
Desperate not to let him fall and damage that leg any further, she locked her knees and they staggered a couple of steps together.
Then Beau shoved her away. “I can do it.”
The scar puckered and reddened with his furious pride as he snarled at her. Grunting with the effort to remain upright, he wobbled again and took another five years off her life.
“Fine.” Stung by his rejection and sick with worry, she watched him plant the cane with painstaking care and get both his feet under him. Panting now and looking pale—God, she hoped he wasn’t still in pain—he leaned on the cane, closed his eyes and took a ragged breath. “Fall on your ass, then. See if I care.”
The flash of a crooked smile was her only warning before those hazel eyes flew open and locked onto her face with a hard gleam. Then he sprang into action, caught her around the waist with a free hand that was still as powerful as it had ever been, swung her around and backed her into the wall.
“Don’t.”
Too late. He’d already settled against her and shifted so that her hips cradled his and there was no question about which parts of his body were still in fine working order.
Just like that, her mind emptied out and there was only the pleasure and sweet remembrance of they way they felt together, the way his hands made her body hum with energy.
Push him away, Jill. Do it.
The intent was there, but her flesh was starved and weak and he felt as unspeakably good as ever. She struggled but only wound up gripping his muscular arms, pulling him closer when she should have been yanking herself free.
This small acquiescence pushed him over an edge.
With a sound that was half groan, half growl, he dropped the cane with a clatter. Then he held her head between his hands, and forced her to look into the fractured shards of green and brown light that were his brilliant eyes.
Beau. God, Beau.
His fingers worked through her hair until they massaged her scalp and melted her like a caramel chew left in the sun. She nearly died with the rightness of being back with him like this, seeing him like this, feeling him like this.
All the old chemistry was still there, all the passion and the need. There was no pretending it wasn’t, not with him this close.
“Here’s the thing,” he murmured. “You do care. I know you do. I remember what you told me in the hospital.” Oh, no. He couldn’t have heard—
“You were out of your mind with pain and the meds,” she tried. “You have no idea what—”
“Bullshit.” His lips thinned with stubborn anger. “I heard what you said.”
This was too much. Apparently there was no weapon he wouldn’t use against her; she should have known. Distraught, she abandoned her pride and fought for survival by appealing to his conscience. She knew he had one buried deep somewhere.
“Why don’t you just stab me with a knife and be done with it?” She kept her voice quiet, knowing that would affect him more than yelling. “Wouldn’t that be easier than the way you keep tearing me apart every time I get my life back together?”
That did it. His face contorted with what she hoped was shame and his head dropped.
She sagged with relief.
But instead of moving away and freeing her, he rubbed his face against her cheek—his nose against her hair—and inhaled her the way a drowning man would inhale that first breath of air when he was rescued.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve always loved you, and I died loving you—”
“Don’t.”
“—and I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t think you still loved me. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I was ready to be the kind of husband you need. We’ve got to face down our demons, Jill. We’ve got to do it together.”